India must engage with China, US on equal terms: GTRI
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New Delhi: India should engage with both China and the US on equal terms, guided by its strategic autonomy, economic interests, and global trade principles, without yielding to external pressures, the Global Trade Research Initiative (GTRI) said on Monday.
These remarks come in the wake of China’s warning that it would take "resolute and reciprocal" countermeasures against nations making trade deals with the US at the expense of Chinese interests. GTRI emphasized that China's threat of retaliation against countries aligning with the US efforts to isolate Beijing should be understood in the context of global supply chain realities.
The think tank noted that leading economies, including the US, EU, Japan, South Korea, and India, remain heavily reliant on China for the supply of industrial and consumer goods. China is deeply integrated into every level of the global production hierarchy, from finished goods to intermediate products, parts, and components. Completely replacing China would require building manufacturing capabilities from raw materials upward—a task no country has managed to achieve on a large scale.
GTRI advised that India must chart an independent path, focusing on strengthening its domestic manufacturing base and reducing critical import dependencies by investing in deep manufacturing sectors. At the same time, India should maintain a strong commitment to multilateral trade norms under the World Trade Organization (WTO) and avoid actions that may violate global trade rules.
Ajay Srivastava, founder of GTRI, stressed that India should not be drawn into binary geopolitical rivalries, but instead should engage with both China and the US based on its strategic autonomy, economic interests, and global trade principles.
According to government data, the US remained India’s largest trading partner for the fourth consecutive year in 2024-25, with bilateral trade valued at USD 131.84 billion. Meanwhile, India’s trade deficit with China widened to USD 99.2 billion during the same period. India’s exports to China contracted by 14.5% to USD 14.25 billion, while imports from China rose by 11.52% to USD 113.45 billion.
Despite this, China remains India’s second-largest trading partner, with two-way trade amounting to USD 127.7 billion in 2024-25, up from USD 118.4 billion in the previous year. India is also negotiating a bilateral trade agreement with the US with the goal of boosting trade to USD 500 billion by 2030.
With PTI inputs
