A volatile political climate in Washington has triggered a wave of strategic anxiety in New Delhi. Buffeted by the transactional, often erratic policy shifts of the Donald Trump administration — which hit India last year with punitive tariffs on steel and aluminium, stripped its preferential trade status, and aggressively renewed ties with Islamabad while imposing irritants such as tightening H-1B visa rules — a growing chorus of domestic voices is calling for a fundamental reset of India’s China policy.

The argument, championed largely by an influential business lobby, suggests that India’s confrontational approach toward Beijing was overly synchronised with Washington’s strategic agenda of “containment” rather than India’s national interests. The lobby contends that because India remains deeply reliant on Chinese technology, supply chains, industrial inputs, and capital, a dogmatic anti-China stance ultimately stymies domestic economic growth while barely denting Beijing’s economy. The core risk, critics warn, is Washington’s historical pattern of tactical flip-flops — escalating tensions one day and striking bilateral deals the next — which risks leaving an overextended India strategically vulnerable to Chinese retaliation.