The Tianjin Summit, which was held on August 31 to September 1, 2025, represents a critical juncture from the perspective of India’s geopolitics. At these meetings, a multipolar unity image was shown with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in concert with President of China Xi Jinping and the President of Russia, sending the message that alternative centers of power are now in the making in the West-dominated world.
This picture stands at odds with the present state of economic and diplomatic friction the US has been engaged with India, including punitive tariffs hitherto unknown and unending trade negotiations. This report classifies how India is evolving within the world order and ponders whether the claimed “multi-alignment” doctrine of India is indeed the path it may follow or is the tightrope it must walk on in divisions that only seem to be escalating with respect to global rivalry.
The main question flows from India’s conception of a multipolar world, a concept founded on the principle of strategic autonomy. “Where do we go now?” is an inquiry into whether India can sail through a choppy landscape, one defined by will-they-won’t-they tensions with its main strategic partner, the US, and thickening yet strained ties with the China-Russia axis. The presentation will go over the pressures from all sides-to tariffs linked to energy security to the widening trade deficit-and their deep reverberations for India’s place in the emergent global order.
I. The Strategic Doctrine: From Non-Alignment to Multi-Alignment
A New Geopolitical Calculus: The ‘Jaishankar-Modi Doctrine’
India’s foreign policy has undergone a significant conceptual transformation, pivoting from its traditional non-aligned stance to a more proactive “multi-alignment” approach, often referred to as the “Jaishankar-Modi Doctrine”. This doctrine signifies a pivot from an essentially passive approach during the Cold War that involved efforts to minimize external impact and emphasize internal development toward a multi-vector one that seeks in engaging with multiple global relationships. The bigger picture is to actively promote and maximize national interest with the pragmatic use of values that position India as a proactive world player rather than a passive onlooker. Endorsing this theory are competitions between coalitions like the G20, the Quad, BRICS, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).
The “Jaishankar-Modi Doctrine” marks an opportunity for India due to its growing stature and importance globally. The Russia-Ukraine issue serves as a classic example of how the approach has played out. While maintaining an anti-war position, India has continued to purchase discounted Russian crude oil and acquire advanced US defense equipment.
Similarly, it has navigated relations with Israel and Iran- supporting Israel’s right to respond to attacks while discussing an Indian port in Iran. This pragmatic flexibility is accepted by other nations as a natural consequence of India’s current geopolitical situation.
The Reality of Multi-Alignment: Beyond the Rhetoric
While the powerful doctrine of “multi-alignment” rhetorically emphasizes sovereignty, its application thereby remains cold-blooded and compartmentalized, away from a neat foreign policy textbook definition. The key analytical counterpoint argues India’s strategic partnership with the United States, Australia, and Japan has “broadened, deepened and become more complex” while its relations with Russia and China have “continuously regressed”.
This apparent contradiction points to a more nuanced reality: India is growing to call on the West for military and security cooperation while deepening economic and energy ties along the China-Russia axis. This strategic compartmentalization allows India to draw on different partners for different strategic requirements. The eternal question is whether this division of labor can be sustained when geopolitical tensions, such as US tariffs directly linked to Russian oil purchases, emphatically breach these putative boundaries.
II. The Strained Pillar: The Evolving US-India Relationship
The Strategic Bedrock: Enduring Defense Cooperation
Despite recent economic turbulence, the strategic military partnership between India and the U.S. remains the major load-bearing pillar of their bilateral relationship. This cooperation stems from a shared commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific and draws strength from a growing history of collaboration. The two nations underscored this connection through major initiatives, including the 10-year defense framework signed in 2025 to bolster strategic ties and the U.S.-India COMPACT (Catalyzing Opportunities for Military Partnership, Accelerated Commerce & Technology). Large-scale joint exercises YUDH ABHYAS-2024 currently form a staple feature in focusing on interoperability and maritime security.
This strategic channel’s resilience again confirmed the timely delivery of the GE 404 engines for the Tejas Mark-IA fighter aircraft of India and the induction of two Apache attack helicopters into the Indian Army, despite the ongoing trade tensions. This strategic cooperation has also extended into the space sector with a new partnership for innovation and an MoU for data sharing to protect satellites from threats.
Economic Friction and Punitive Tariffs
Despite the robust defense ties, the economic relationship has deteriorated significantly. Citing a “large and persistent annual U.S. goods trade deficit”, the Trump administration has taken punitive tariff actions against India. This began with an initial 25% India-specific tariff and was followed by an additional 25% penalty on August 27 for India’s continued purchase of Russian oil. This brought the total tariff burden to a staggering 50% and was deemed “unfair, unjustified, and unreasonable” by India. These measures followed months of stalled efforts to reach a bilateral trade deal, with India refusing to provide concessions on agriculture and dairy, sectors it regards as “very big red lines”.
(via OneIndia)
A Calculated Resumption of Trade Talks
After months of diplomatic tension and tariff battles, India and the United States revived stalled bilateral trade negotiations, creating a newfound sense of optimism. The arrival of the Assistant US Trade Representative in India signaled this shift, with both Prime Minister Modi and President Trump adopting a softer, more conciliatory stance. Articulating in its own way, the US has seemingly undergone a subtle yet marked softening of tone in agricultural access, now somewhat focusing on niche, premium cheeses and away from general access to India’s mass-market dairy sector. With the inclusion of new discussions- permission to use genetically modified corn for ethanol and for animal fodder- this amends the initial trade strategy in one way or another.
The US decision to relax its demands might eventually show that those punitive tariffs threatened to undermine the broader strategic and defense relationship. The US needs India as a key partner for its Indo-Pacific balancing against China. Yet, pressing India with economic offensives risks pushing New Delhi toward the very anti-Western alignment that President Trump has openly denounced. To preserve the geopolitical partnership, Washington signaled its willingness to compromise by conceding on a less critical point—niche dairy access.
This rather paradoxical nature of the American-Indian relationship saw a chain of nearly simultaneous developments in 2024 and 2025, with ever-increasing cooperation on defense and trade frictions holding the stage. YUDH ABHYAS-2024, its 20th edition, commenced in September 2024, signifying increased defense ties. This impetus helped carry issues into 2025. January saw President Trump impose stiffer tariffs on India and other trade partners. Just a month afterward, in February, Modi and Trump together announced a new 10-year defense framework and launched an expanded partnership in space innovation.
As the year proceeded, the divergence only grew sharper. In April 2025, the U.S. unexpectedly withdrew the planned trade visit for August 25. Yet on the rising tension front, defense ties became stronger. In July 2025, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth proclaimed that defense cooperation acted as the “load-bearing pillar” of the bilateral partnership. August reinforced this duality. The timely delivery of GE 404 engines and Apache helicopters demonstrated strong defense collaboration. Meanwhile, on August 7, the United States imposed a 25% India-specific tariff and then another 25% tariff in late August because of India’s purchase of Russian oil.
By September 2025, the oppugnant cycle had gone full tilt: trade negotiations, which had been stalled, were now cautiously resumed by the two sides despite the continuing strong defense cooperation. This was testimony to the fact that certain disagreements over economic matters persist despite strategic convergence.
III. The Eurasian Axis: India’s Enduring Ties with Russia and its Consequences
A “Specially Privileged Strategic Partnership”
India-Russia relations have been a constant pillar of Indian foreign policy. Moscow considers the relation a “reliable and steadily progressing” one. Moscow has also expressly “welcomed” New Delhi’s resolve to continue with and develop “multifaceted cooperation…despite pressure and threats,” affirming that it is in New Delhi’s “strategic autonomy in international affairs” to do so. This relationship is based on mutual respect, equality, and regard for the other’s interests and aims at world promotion of a “unifying, non-confrontational agenda”. Russia’s standing with India in its involvement in the Zapad 2025 military drills in Belarus-the rebuffing of Western mannerisms in seeking to “dictate terms” to a sovereign state is a testimony of this support.
The Energy Pivot: A Strategic Asset
Up from just about $2.5 billion in the 2021-22 fiscal year into a market north of 50 billion for construction in the 2024-25 fiscal year puts India as the largest crude oil importer from Russia, thereby somewhat lessening its dependence on the Middle East for crude oil. This is far from an abstract economic transaction; rather it is a strategic move, taking manipulation of the fluid global energy market for India’s own benefit. India uses an installation capacity, which is ranked fourth in the world, to process this oil and then export a good chunk of the refined products to Europe and the US, the sanctioning jurisdictions against Moscow. Therefore, it is also an example of how India makes geopolitical tension work for its economy while the disjointed sanctions regime works its own irrelevancy.
Russia’s Shifting Orbit and the China Conundrum
While the strong India-Russia partnership remains intact, a long structural shift portends the long-term risk. Russia, increasingly drifting into China’s orbit, is becoming a “key client” of Chinese energy exports while it supposedly also provides almost 80 percent of dual-use items under sanctions that Moscow requires for the conduct of its war effort. Growing economic and strategic dependence means Russia may no longer be a truly independent counterweight to China. In the event of a future crisis between New Delhi and Beijing, Moscow’s ability to remain neutral or keep supplying critical military hardware to India can be compromised by Chinese pressure. This structural reality forces New Delhi into rethinking strategic options in the long run, which could also, in turn, speed up efforts to diversify defense sourcing away from Russia and toward partners such as the US, as alluded to in the U.S.-India COMPACT initiative.
IV. Navigating the Dragon: Precarious Rapprochement with China
The Tianjin Signal: Pragmatism and the Limits of Dialogue
The westward tilt may, for once, have been the topic of a frontal debate between top leaders. Prime Minister Modi’s appearance at the SCO summit and his bilateral meeting with President Xi Jinping was largely a pragmatic exercise in diplomacy. Termed “predictably cautious,” it was a needful acknowledgement of the fact that India, while growing closer to the West, cannot wink at a neighbor with a far bigger economy and heftier regional influence. Diplomatically double speaking about “mutual respect” signals a readiness to engage without agreeing to anything concrete. New Delhi is willing to engage with Beijing but still harbours deep scepticism towards it.
Structural Economic Imbalance and Strategic Dependence
The increasing trade deficit with China, which stood at US$99.2 billion in the fiscal year 2024-2025, is not just an economic issue but a glaring strategic vulnerability for New Delhi. India remains overwhelmingly dependent on China for crucial industrial inputs, with this dependence often shooting beyond 75% in certain sectors.
This dependence grants Beijing a potent non-military leverage, which it could choose to wield in future flare-ups at the borders. These supply chains, if disrupted, would cripple Indian industries, thus restricting New Delhi’s foreign policy choices and forcing it to take the path of rapprochement.
A Rare Point of Light: Cultural Diplomacy
Amid military and economic tensions, the reopening of the Kailash Mansarovar Yatra represents one of the exceedingly rare positive developments. It had been stopped since 2020 due to the pandemic and border stand-offs, and was resumed in 2025 after much diplomatic horse-trading.
The resumption of this pilgrimage, indicative of cultural connectivity and people-centric engagement, thus, provides for the willingness of both nations to work together on low-stake yet highly symbolic issues. This gesture gives the media a positive story to focus on and kindles some hope for de-escalation in the future, as the military-economic disputes continue to remain unresolved.
V. Strategic Implications and The Path Forward
Synthesizing the Contradictions
The Tianjin Summit was never important as far as outcomes were concerned; instead, it was a watershed for India in that it signaled the very nature of the country’s standing in the world. It did affirm that there is a strategic axis whose constituency wishes to challenge Western dominion but at the same time exposed the deep contradictions that exist within that grouping. The presence of India in the summit signaled that a newer world order is not about some nice, neat, monolithic blocs but instead about a finer and more fragmented set of relationships.
India, on its part, is much in deep strategic partnership with the US while being subjected to crippling economic actions from the very same US. It is building stronger economic and energy ties with Russia and China but at the same time considers the strategic risk of Russian dependence on China and has its own economic vulnerability to Beijing. Therefore, the “multi” alignment doctrine is not a panacea or a strategy with the perfect balance; rather, it is a description of necessity to manage the seemingly irreconcilable realities.
The ‘Where do we go now?’ Scenarios
Looking forward, India’s foreign policy faces several potential trajectories:
• Scenario A: Sustained Strategic Compartmentalization. India should maintain the balance by deepening security ties with the US and with China-Russia in economic and energy matters. This pathway calls for continuous diplomatic finesse, with all parties willing to live, possibly grudgingly, with the contradictions involved in such balancing.
• Scenario B: A Forced Re-Alignment. With escalating pressure from the US, a serious border crisis with China, or Russia being completely drawn into China’s orbit, India could be forced into choosing. This could mean turning towards the West and fully decoupling from China or, on the contrary, strengthening ties with the SCO bloc in defiance of the West.
• Scenario C: Embracing the Role of a Global South Leader. India uses its vantage as a large non-aligned power to forge a new Global South coalition that offers a third way, neither beholden to the US nor consumed by China. This scenario depends on India drawing from its unique strengths, including democracy, a young population, and economic potential, which might create some common ground with other emerging powers like Brazil and South Africa.
VII. Conclusion: A Sovereign Path
The question of “Where do we go now?” for India’s foreign policy is a tough one to give an answer to. It is neither a linear nor a predictable process. The Tianjin Summit did not mark definite alignment; instead, it highlighted a complex and multifaceted reality. India will shape the future of the world order by carving out its role in the new global scenario. The nation now forges a sovereign road toward strategic autonomy in the crucible of global rivalry, economic pressures, and persistent border tensions. India will measure its success by how well it maintains independence and leverages that freedom to serve its national interests in an increasingly fragmented world.
