India would confront a more entrenched China, a less dependable United States, and a regional order increasingly shaped by great-power bargaining over which it exercises limited influence, notes Amberish K Diwanji.
Key Points
- Xi Jinping invoked the Thucydides Trap theory to frame US-China rivalry within broader historical power transition dynamics.
- Graham Allison's 2017 book argued rising powers and dominant states face structural pressures that can trigger major conflict.
- India's strategic relevance to Washington increased significantly during years of intensifying US-China geopolitical and economic competition.
- China's military, technological and economic dominance has widened the asymmetry confronting India's long-term strategic calculations.
- A possible US-China accommodation could reduce India's importance within Washington's broader Indo-Pacific strategic framework and priorities.
During United States President Donald Trump's visit to China, his counterpart, Xi Jinping, posed a pointed rhetorical question: 'Can China and the United States transcend the so-called 'Thucydides Trap' and forge a new paradigm for major-power relations?'
Xi's invocation of Thucydides was deliberate. The ancient Greek historian, in History of the Peloponnesian War, famously argued that 'it was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable'.
Over time, this observation evolved into one of the foundational propositions of realist international relations theory: When a rising power threatens to displace an established hegemon, systemic instability -- and often war -- follows.
The concept re-entered contemporary strategic discourse after political scientist Graham Allison published Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides's Trap? in 2017.
Allison argued that history offers sobering precedents: In 16 cases over the past five centuries where an emerging power challenged a dominant one, 12 culminated in major conflict.
His thesis was not deterministic, but cautionary. Structural rivalry, he argued, creates immense pressures toward confrontation unless consciously managed.
By the time Allison's book appeared, the geopolitical context was already clear.
After nearly three decades of unipolarity following the Cold War, China had emerged as the only State with the economic, military, and technological capacity to seriously contest American primacy.
Beijing's rise transformed the international system from one defined by uncontested US dominance into one increasingly characterised by strategic competition.
Yet Allison's argument has often been oversimplified. The central point of Destined for War was not that conflict between Washington and Beijing was inevitable, but that it could be avoided if both powers accommodated certain strategic realities.
Implicitly, this required the United States to accept that China's rise could not indefinitely be contained.
Trump's recent engagement with Xi appeared, at least superficially, to suggest movement in precisely that direction. The symbolism of detente matters.
If Washington is gradually reconciling itself to a China that exercises legitimate great-power influence -- perhaps even regional primacy in parts of Asia -- the implications for India are profound.
The origins of the modern Indo-US strategic partnership are inseparable from American concerns about China.
In a 2000 Foreign Affairs article, Condoleezza Rice -- who would serve as secretary of state in the George W Bush cabinet -- warned that China represented a potential challenge to stability in the Asia-Pacific and argued that the United States should cultivate stronger ties with India, which she identified as a prospective great power.
The logic was unmistakable: India could serve as a democratic counterweight to an increasingly assertive China.
Successive American administrations operationalised this thinking. The George W Bush administration invested heavily in transforming India-US relations, most notably through the civil nuclear agreement.
Under Barack Obama, the 'Asia Pivot' further elevated India's strategic relevance.
Donald Trump's first administration popularised the 'Indo-Pacific' framework, linguistically and geopolitically embedding India into Washington's Asian strategy. Joe Biden largely sustained this trajectory through mechanisms such as the Quad.
India benefited considerably from this geopolitical environment. As US-China rivalry intensified, New Delhi acquired greater strategic salience.
Some Indian analysts even suggested that India could emulate Cold War-era China by leveraging competition between rival great powers to maximise its own autonomy and influence.
India's China Challenge Deepens
But this analogy was always flawed. Maoist China in the 1970s possessed far greater strategic leverage vis-a-vis both Washington and Moscow than contemporary India enjoys vis-a-vis Washington and Beijing.
Today, India is not balancing between two superpowers from a position of strength; rather, it increasingly seeks American support to manage the widening asymmetry with China.
That asymmetry is now stark. China's economic size, military modernisation, technological capabilities, and manufacturing dominance place it in an altogether different league.
Moreover, the deepening China-Pakistan strategic partnership creates a two-front challenge for India that significantly complicates New Delhi's security calculus.
In such circumstances, India's strategic dependence on the United States -- however reluctantly acknowledged -- becomes difficult to avoid.
This vulnerability is amplified if Beijing seeks a more assertive role in South Asia.
China has already demonstrated a willingness to comment on India-Pakistan disputes and expand its political footprint across India's neighbourhood through infrastructure investments, economic diplomacy and security partnerships.
Any tacit American acceptance of a larger Chinese sphere of influence in Asia would therefore generate considerable anxiety in New Delhi.
Compounding these concerns is the unpredictability of Trump's second term. Unlike the strategic convergence that characterised much of the Bush, Obama and Biden years, Trump's approach towards India has been markedly transactional and at times openly abrasive.
Following Operation Sindoor, he publicly claimed credit for facilitating a ceasefire -- an assertion New Delhi firmly rejected.
His administration has also pressured India over Russian and Iranian oil imports, criticised H-1B visa arrangements, and imposed steep tariffs on Indian exports.
The cumulative effect has been to inject friction into what was once presented as a steadily deepening partnership.
Paradoxically, therefore, sustained US-China hostility had served Indian interests in important ways.
Strategic competition between Washington and Beijing enhanced India's geopolitical utility and expanded its diplomatic room for manoeuvre.
The sharper Sino-American rivalry became, the greater India's value as a balancing power in the Indo-Pacific.
If that rivalry moderates, however -- even partially -- the consequences for India could be uncomfortable.
A US-China accommodation would not necessarily imply an alliance or even genuine trust between the two powers.
But if Washington comes to accept a larger Chinese role in Asian affairs, including in South Asia, India's strategic importance to the United States could diminish correspondingly.
New Delhi Faces Tough Geopolitical Reality
For New Delhi, this would represent a difficult geopolitical adjustment.
India would confront a more entrenched China, a less dependable United States, and a regional order increasingly shaped by great-power bargaining over which it exercises limited influence.
India, therefore, enters a period requiring exceptional strategic caution.
The challenge before New Delhi is not merely to manage China's rise, but to navigate the possibility that the United States itself may eventually reconcile with it.
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff
