On August 31, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will land in China. The question many will be asking is: what direction will India-China ties take? The headlines will focus on curated statements and enhanced optics. But there is a harder question we should be asking: Do we even know China well enough to have an answer?
This is not a new dilemma for India; scholars have long warned against our inability to build serious China expertise. In an op-ed (‘Know thy neighbour’, IE, January 20, 2021), Arunabh Ghosh and Tansen Sen described the study of Chinese history in India as being “in crisis”, noting a severe lack of language training, methodological rigour, and research capacity to engage meaningfully with Chinese sources. They argued that in the absence of such capacity, India will remain dependent on foreign scholarship and reduce its discourse on China to a mix of ignorance, uninformed fact checks, and uncritical acceptance of political narratives. Four years later, the urgency has only grown.
India’s relationships with major powers are shifting, and Delhi and Beijing’s re-engagement signals a cautious but significant turn. But diplomatic openings mean little if they are not backed by deep, independent knowledge of the other side, making this moment as risky as it is opportune. The coming years of engagement will be shaped by whether we choose to turn away from China, disengaging with anything that is Chinese, or if we recognise its importance and invest in the ability to truly understand China. Not just from the narrow vantage of military, trade, or the Communist Party, but by approaching the intricacies of a socio-political whole.
China offers India a rare comparative mirror: Two large, diverse, populous states with overlapping development challenges and ambitions. India is moving towards a $5 trillion economy; China’s is already about $18 trillion. No other country provides lessons of this scale — whether in poverty alleviation, climate adaptation, industrial policy, or technological self-reliance. Importantly, China’s missteps in environmental policy, urbanisation, and financial risk management are equally instructive, showing what happens when strategies are pushed too far, too fast. Observing them closely allows India to avoid costly detours without paying the price of learning the hard way.
However, India’s analysis of China has all too often been reduced to surface indicators like troop movements, trade numbers, or the latest political statement. We miss the historical link — the “Century of Humiliation”, the Maoist revolutionary experience, Confucian ideas of governance, the internal politics of the Communist Party, and the pressures of inequality, environmental stress, and digital nationalism that shape contemporary Chinese political actions. In the Xi Jinping era, these are tied together by a techno-nationalist vision of China’s rise. By its very nature, understanding China requires reading between the lines. Catching the silences in policy documents and recognising the historical and cultural references embedded in official narratives is critical to informed engagement.
The United States has embedded China Studies across disciplines and into most major universities, while even Australia, far less exposed to the risks of misreading China, has built a far more robust infrastructure. Despite sharing a border, India, in contrast, has only a handful of centres — five or six at most — that attempt to study China seriously. These are concentrated in Delhi and a few major cities, chronically underfunded, and overwhelmingly framed through a security lens. Without our own expertise, India will remain dependent on interpretations shaped by the priorities of other countries.
The disadvantages extend beyond foreign policy. As Sen and Ghosh argue in their op-ed, Chinese-language materials often function as significant sources for India’s own history, as they might address questions or events on which Indian records remain silent. In this sense, building the capacity to engage with Chinese sources is not only about understanding China but also about recovering and preserving dimensions of India’s history that would otherwise be lost to silence.
The deeper case for investing in studying our competitor is about confidence. It is about a secure nation that thinks ahead of its competitors and acts from its strength, not insecurity. However, that foresight is impossible without knowledge, and that requires long-term commitment including language training, comprehensive research, and the cultivation of specialists who can move between academia, public debate, and policymaking.
There must be investment to create an environment that can foster such expertise. Currently, the system disincentivises students: With almost no university jobs and only a handful of fellowships, there is little incentive for students to invest in language training or long-term research. Beyond Area Studies, the neglect is even more striking. In the disciplines of Political Science, History, Sociology, and Economics, even prestigious universities rarely offer courses focused on China.
We can change this trajectory, but only if we start now. That means well-funded China Studies centres in major universities, anchored in rigorous Mandarin training and staffed by interdisciplinary faculty. It includes fellowships that allow Indian scholars to spend years working with Chinese sources, and structured channels for policymakers to draw on academic expertise. Crucially, this knowledge must not remain confined to the English language; translating research into Indian languages will help it reach wider audiences.
India needs durable infrastructure to sustain China related expertise, which goes beyond universities — systematic translation of primary sources, digitised archives accessible to scholars and policymakers, and regular policy briefs that distill insights for the public. Exchange programmes must prioritise long-term immersion, allowing Indian researchers to work in Chinese archives and universities, gaining the linguistic and cultural fluency needed to interpret policy and history with nuance. Finally, China Studies cannot remain Delhi-centric. State-level hubs, especially in border regions and smaller states, should be funded to help build local expertise.
India’s future depends not only on military or economic strength but on the clarity with which it understands major powers, especially its most powerful neighbour, China. That clarity will not come from border disputes or trade figures alone, but from grasping its language, history, politics, and society on their own terms. Understanding China, thus, is no longer optional — it is imminent. The choice is clear: Either invest now in the capacity to decode China, or risk a future of reactive policies.
The writer is an Institute for Chinese Studies-Harvard-Yenching Institute Doctoral Fellow and a PhD scholar at the University of Delhi
