Modi in China: India at the Crossroads of a Shifting World Order

By Jaffa Levy

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has arrived in China for his first visit in seven years, a trip that underscores India’s pivotal role in the changing global order. Modi will attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Tianjin from 31 August to 1 September 2025, where he is expected to meet President Xi Jinping in a bilateral session, with the possibility of further talks on the sidelines. The visit comes against the backdrop of heightened U.S.–India trade tensions and growing debate about India’s future orientation in the global system.

Washington has recently imposed 50% tariffs on Indian exports, while simultaneously pressing New Delhi to reduce its imports of discounted Russian oil. Modi and Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar have framed India’s stance as a matter of sovereignty, refusing to accept demands that would, in their view, undermine the country’s independence or bankrupt its farmers.

Chinese officials have welcomed the visit with a symbolic cultural gesture, highlighting depictions of Lord Ganesha from the Tang Dynasty during Ganesh Chaturthi. At the same time, India has signalled military caution by conducting high-altitude drills in Arunachal Pradesh prior to Modi’s trip.

The Hudson–Wolff Perspective on India’s Position

In recent commentary, economists Michael Hudson and Richard Wolff analysed India’s position within the wider reordering of the global economy. Their remarks shed light on how U.S. trade and security policies are shaping India’s responses.

• On U.S. demands and contradictions: Hudson noted that Washington’s policy places India in a structural dilemma. The U.S. is asking India to pay more for American security guarantees and to buy U.S. weapons — yet simultaneously raising tariffs on India’s exports of cars and electronics, making it harder for New Delhi to earn the dollars to meet those costs.
• On sovereignty and resistance: Modi, they argued, has been clear that India is acting within its sovereign rights. According to Hudson, Modi has resisted U.S. demands to abandon Russian oil purchases, seeing them as essential to India’s economic stability. Reports have suggested that Trump attempted to call Modi multiple times, but Modi did not take the calls — a symbolic assertion that India would not accept diktats from Washington.
• On food and agriculture: Wolff and Hudson emphasised that the U.S. has long sought to use grain and food exports as leverage over developing economies. In India’s case, they warned, opening the market to U.S. agribusiness would undermine Indian farmers, destabilise the rural base of Modi’s government, and hand Washington economic leverage over food security. Modi has positioned this as non-negotiable.
• On global realignment: Both economists underlined that Washington’s coercive approach has had the opposite effect of what it intended. Instead of isolating Russia and China, it has encouraged India — once seen as the “weak link” in BRICS — to deepen its cooperation with them. Modi’s Beijing trip, they argued, reflects this shift.
• On technology and future blocs: They speculated that India and China together could develop a parallel technological ecosystem, with India’s IT workforce and China’s lead in artificial intelligence forming a counterweight to Silicon Valley. Such a move would accelerate the emergence of a bifurcated world economy — one centred on the United States, another on China, Russia, and India.
• On “self-containment” of the U.S.: Hudson stressed the irony that U.S. policy now resembles a reversal of its Cold War strategy. Where George Kennan’s “containment” once sought to isolate the Soviet Union, Washington’s tariffs and sanctions risk isolating the United States itself, driving much of the world into alternative arrangements.

India’s Strategic Dilemma

India today stands between two worlds. Its billionaire elites and technology sector remain closely tied to the U.S., but its political leadership and nationalist base view American tariffs, food demands, and oil sanctions as infringements on sovereignty. Modi’s Beijing trip is a recognition of that tension.

By engaging directly with Xi Jinping and other SCO leaders, Modi signals that India is prepared to shape its own path in a multipolar order — one where it is no longer confined to being a junior partner of Washington, but instead an active participant in building alternative blocs.

Conclusion

Modi’s visit to China is more than a bilateral reset after years of frozen ties. It is the clearest indication yet that India is positioning itself at the crossroads of global realignment. U.S. pressure on trade, agriculture, and oil has accelerated India’s pivot towards China and Russia, while the prospect of technological and financial alternatives to American dominance grows stronger.

As Hudson and Wolff note, Washington’s tactics may be achieving the opposite of their intended effect: not containing rivals, but containing itself, as other powers, including India, move to chart their own course.