Mainstream media reporting about Sino-Indian relations has excessively focused on contested border issues, hostile alliances, trade imbalances and strategic rivalries.

Those are all legitimate issues, partly legacies of colonial times, whose importance seems to have acquired a sense of urgency in the wake of China’s remarkable economic development over the last forty years.

Western political views were also comforted by the idea that the world’s largest democracy was opposing an unstoppable and rapidly growing strategic and systemic adversary.

Times are changing, though. The Western world must have been shocked to see and hear the statement of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the BRICS summit he hosted in New Delhi on September 12-13, 2026.

Modi invited his fellow leaders of China, Russia, South Africa, Iran and United Arab Emirates to build a new world order by acting as “rule-shapers” rather than “rule-takers.” Brazil’s President Lula da Silva did not attend the summit due to re-election campaign in early October, but he, too, is a firm advocate of Global South’s quest for a stronger role in world affairs.

A new departure

That is now the political setting where China and India are acting as committed leaders of a fully shared agenda, spelled out in a unanimously agreed New Delhi Declaration.

The world order they are looking for has the United Nations at its core, with a more representative Security Council, International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. That, they believe, would favor peace, dialogue, cooperation and maximum restraint.

The developing world of the Global South is also opposed to unilateral trade tariffs and coercive sanctions. They want unimpeded international payment systems and trade settlements in local currencies.

Their voice will be heard. The 11 members of the BRICS community represent half of the world population, and about a third of global trade and GDP. All those numbers go up significantly by adding ten partner countries, most of which are in a membership queue.

China and India are nearly two-thirds of that global constituency. That enhances their own growth potential and provides a privileged access to some of the fastest growing segments of the world economy.

Beijing and Delhi understand that a bitter rivalry and animosity of the past would stunt their development drive and destroy their leadership positions in the developing world.

The summit in August of last year that took place in Tianjin, China marked a turning point in the two countries’ relationship. Modi and China’s President Xi Jinping agreed that they were partners rather than rivals and that differences will not be allowed to become major bilateral problems.

On the most sensitive border issues, the two leaders agreed to continue to work through regular consultations by field commanders and a specially appointed group of representatives. They also discussed trade, investments, supply chains, visa facilitations and expanding air traffic connections.

Bilateral trade needs depth and balance

All that work is proceeding in a breakthrough agreement – a new departure in China-India relations framed by BRICS and SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) partnerships.

That is a very different political and institutional setup compared with failed Sino-Indian attempts to establish peaceful coexistence (“Punchsheel” agreement) and productive economic and cultural ties in 1950s, 1960s and 1988.

Trade remains a big problem. In the first eight months of this year, India’s trade deficit with China came in at $90 billion. Remarkably, China’s imports from India surged 41 percent from the same period of last year, but all those Chinese purchases were only 16 percent of what China sold to India during the same period.

Such a huge trade imbalance is a structural problem.

India’s imports from China are mainly electronics, machinery, inputs for its huge pharmaceutical industry, apparel and a broad range of general merchandize.

China is buying in India metals, chemicals, energy items, building materials and agriculture products.

It, therefore, seems that trade is structurally skewed in China’s favor. And China, apparently, has limits to significantly correct this trade imbalance.

India, however, could also make efforts to sell in China what it has on offer from its travel, tourism and hospitality industries. That would be a good source of income, and a way to strengthen the mutual knowledge and understanding of two remarkable civilizations.

The rest of the world should take note that China and India have resolved to live together in peace and active cooperation to enhance their economic development. The two countries have also built a powerful platform to reaffirm the central role of the United Nations and its agencies in the conduct of world affairs.