Modi-Jinping Bhai Bhai? - Trade, Tariffs and the Ghosts of 1962

How India and China’s tangled past informs their economic manoeuvring in the age of Trump’s trade wars.

Donald Trump did not invent trade wars, but his ongoing onslaught of tariffs and geopolitical brinkmanship has forced nations – friends as well as foes - across the world to rethink their strategic footing. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the uneasy tango between India and China - two Asian giants with shared histories, deep suspicions and economic ambitions. Let us rewind to the winter of 1949, when Mao Zedong stood atop Tiananmen Gate and declared the birth of the People’s Republic of China.

Mao’s rise was a triumph of Marxist-Leninist ideology, but it came at an enormous human cost. His Great Leap Forward (1958–1962), an attempt at rapid industrialization and collectivization, resulted in one of the deadliest famines in recorded history. His Cultural Revolution (1966–1976) upended China’s intellectual and political class, sending thousands of ‘bourgeois elements’ to labour camps, leaving an indelible scar on the nation’s psyche. Yet, despite economic deprivation, Mao’s China was ideologically unified, exporting its brand of communist insurgency beyond its borders.

India was not immune to the ideological ripples emanating from Beijing. In the late 1960s, inspired by Mao’s vision of peasant uprisings, Naxalite rebels in India’s eastern states launched a violent insurgency that still simmers in remote pockets of the country today. But China’s involvement with India was not merely ideological; it was also territorial. When Mao’s forces annexed Tibet in 1950, it was the first tremor in a geopolitical fault line that would culminate in outright war.

By the early 1960s, India had embraced the idealism of Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, whose faith in diplomacy led to the now-infamous “Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai” (Indians and Chinese are brothers) slogan. This faith, however, was shattered in 1962 when China launched a swift and brutal invasion into Indian territory, occupying 40,000 square kilometers in Aksai Chin, a region that remains under Chinese control today.

In Himalayan Blunder (1968), arguably the most famous memoir to come out of this humiliating defeat, Brigadier John Parashuram Dalvi, who became a prisoner-of-war in the early stages of the conflict, revealed how India’s failure to utilize its superior air force - a decision made at the highest levels of government – was one of the main causes of the Chinese victory.

When questioned in Parliament about the loss of territory, Nehru merely quipped, “Not a fig leaf grows there.” The indifference of Oxford-educated Nehru to the ground realities of war left a wound on India’s national psyche, one that would fester for decades.

Fast forward to the present when the world’s economic order is shifting under the weight of American protectionism, and Trump’s trade war with China and other countries has set off a scramble among global manufacturers. Beijing is keenly aware of the potential repercussions.

In this scenario, India is walking a tightrope. While Prime Minister Narendra Modi has projected himself as a strongman capable of standing up to China, his government is also aware of the economic imperative to maintain a functional relationship. The recent thawing of rhetoric between New Delhi and Beijing is not an act of ideological convergence but of necessity. India, coping with its own Trump-imposed tariffs, has been hedging its bets - deepening defence deals with Washington while simultaneously exploring free trade agreements with the European Union. China, in turn, has responded with uncharacteristic warmth, lauding Modi’s diplomatic pragmatism.

At a psychological level, this courtship evokes uncomfortable historical echoes. In the months preceding the 1962 war, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai made a high-profile visit to India, and the ‘Hindi Chini Bhai Bhai’ slogan had reached fever pitch.

The betrayal that followed in form China’s invasion was a moment of national humiliation that we still have not quite come to grips with. The scars of 1962 run deep, and they resurface every time India faces off against China - whether in the high-altitude standoff at Doklam in 2017 or the deadly skirmishes in the Galwan Valley in 2020.

However, India in 2025 is not the India of 1962. Its military is better equipped, its leadership less naïve and its economic aspirations more pronounced. The global stage, too, is vastly different. Trump’s America has jettisoned its post-Cold War role as a stabilizing force, leaving nations to fend for themselves in an increasingly volatile economic landscape. Washington’s preoccupation with China’s rise has made India a convenient counterweight, but New Delhi knows better than to be a pawn in someone else’s game. Modi’s strategy appears to be one of cautious engagement - leveraging the U.S.-China rivalry to extract concessions from both sides while avoiding direct entanglement.

In the long run, the question remains: Can India and China put aside their historical baggage for sheer economic pragmatism? The potential is undeniable for together, they account for nearly 40 percent of the world’s population and wield enormous economic clout.

It is tantalizing to think if the Indo-China relationship transforms from that of uneasy coexistence to genuine partnership, can overtures of friendship be met with the cautious refrain of Modi-Jinping Bhai Bhai?

Until then, the world must contend with an awkward reality: Modi and Xi Jinping may exchange diplomatic pleasantries, but the specter of Mao and Nehru still looms large. And in the shadow of that history, every overture of friendship is met with the cautious refrain—Modi-Jinping Bhai Bhai?