China and India are Asia’s two largest countries, and both are rising quickly to claim powerful positions in the international order. Their proximity has made them natural competitors - but their relationship’s pillars and challenges will be important to understand in the 21st Century.

The Indian Ocean, as a maritime crossroads of international trade, is a key area of competition between China and the United States.

The U.S. and India are currently in a sort of golden age of relations - both of them using the other to build up capital against China’s influence. However, India’s Cold War history with Russia leaves it on shaky terms with the U.S. amid the Ukraine crisis, and adds an unforeseen wrinkle to America’s best-laid plans for the region.

India is stepping up to seek out stronger relationships with Southeast Asian countries, showing that China is not the only nation in the Pacific region that can provide boons and benefits to friendly partners.

Some in India are advocate an American alliance to counter China. But such an alignment would be contrary to India’s founding principles of autonomy. It would also erode India’s standing in the BRICS and SCO groups and damage its relations with Russia.

Control of the seas is critical for maritime trade, and in the Indian Ocean, global currents have brought China, the U.S., and India together on a potential collision course.

China, the United States and India have different strategic goals and so their interests conflict — so much so that strategic suspicion has fostered a negative kind of competition in which the other side is labeled as a primary rival. Of course there is a way to break the impasse. But it boils down to whether the parties really want to.

The COVID-19 crisis in India has created an opening for China to flex its regional influence, while the U.S. intends to draw India into America’s orbit for good.

Existing tensions between India and Pakistan are being stoked by the U.S. and China, with all parties seeking the elimination of perceived threats for rapid economic growth and security.

In India, the United States finds a South Asian partner that shares grievances with China. However, by viewing India only on the plane of conflict with China, the U.S. lacks a long-term path toward building a productive relationship with the world’s second most populous nation.