China’s ties with India suffered a major blow when the two countries engaged in a brief, violent skirmish along their disputed border in the Ladakh/Tibet Autonomous Region in 2020 — triggering a surge of mutual distrust that continues to roil ties to the present day.
Leaders from both countries, Xi Jinping and Narendra Modi, have refused to sit down for talks, meeting only in passing at last year’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Uzbekistan. And even though both foreign ministers have already met twice this year, there’s no indication that any meaningful progress has been made to ease the tension.
