If India and China choose collaboration by setting aside strategic suspicion in the climate domain, they could fundamentally reshape the trajectory of the 21st century, as they have already demonstrated individually through their pursuit of clean energy over the past decade. More importantly, such a coalition could revive the COP28 fossil-fuel phase-down pledge, which stalled at COP29 in Baku and appears to be drifting further at COP30 in Belém.
Increased industrial activity in India could generate demand for raw materials, intermediate goods, and services from countries such as Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. Bangladesh’s textile industry could strengthen its links with Indian manufacturing networks, while Sri Lanka may gain from expanded opportunities in tourism, logistics, and services.
ADB’s role has evolved beyond financing into shaping India’s structural transformation into a high-growth, technology-driven, and climate-conscious economy. Compared to other multilateral institutions, it offers a more agile, implementation-focused, and regionally attuned approach. As India moves toward becoming one of the world’s largest economies, this partnership will play a defining role in shaping not only India’s growth trajectory but also the broader economic future of Asia.
New Delhi now occupies an awkward middle space: not fully trusted by the West, yet no longer fully aligned with the broader Global South consensus either. That ambiguity becomes riskier if Washington and Beijing move into even a temporary phase of strategic stabilisation.
The debate over the Indian Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2019, or CAB, has been widely reported in the Chinese media, from the time the Bill was tabled in the Lok Sabha December 9 until December 12, when it was signed into law by the President Ram Nath Kovind, after the CAB was passed through both houses of parliament
The recently-concluded elections in Sri Lanka was widely covered in the Chinese media, an indication of the strategic interest of Beijing in the island nation and the Indian Ocean Region
