Jean-Raphaël Peytregnet:  You have just published a reflective work bringing China and India into relation or into parallel, in the relations they maintain with each other, sometimes agreeing and sometimes opposing one another, these two great powers in Asia. First of all, why this subtitle “The War of the Worlds”?

Did you draw inspiration from the famous science-fiction novel written by H. G. Wells describing a world subjected to the attack of technologically superior powers, embodying a new imperialism (I am thinking in particular of China), a possible source of concern for the West? This subtitle also evokes a conflict between civilizations, between cultures and deep identities (here Chinese vs. Indian), to take up the thesis of the American professor Samuel P. Huntington (1927–2008).

Emmanuel Lincot: It was my publisher Jean-François Colosimo who chose this title. It is a fitting one, I believe, and if it indeed evokes Wells or Huntington, it is because it resonates with very current concerns. The authoritarian drift of the Indian government is one of them. That of China is more widely known. However, the idea of a war between two civilizations is not the intention of the book. Because in reality, were it not for Buddhism, which partly structured exchanges between India and China, the elites of both countries were rather indifferent to their respective trajectories. Only Liang Shuming [1] or Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) showed a sincere interest, the former in Buddhism and its origins as a religion of salvation for China, the latter from Calcutta where, after receiving the Nobel Prize in 1913, he became one of the great figures of Pan-Asianism.

On the political and then strategic level, it was only much later that the two countries were brought to know each other better. On the one hand because the Chinese invasion of Tibet made it a neighbor of India, against which it went to war in 1962, seizing the territory of Aksai Chin that New Delhi still claims today. On the other hand because of the ideological convictions shared by the two states [2], whether regarding the Third World, whose leadership they contest, or their shared fascination for Russia.

It remains the foundational reference for both of these powers in the field of their partnership linked to armaments. One of the theses of this book is to say that the gap, demographic in particular, will widen between the two countries and that their rivalries will grow.

Geographical determinism obliges: they do not share the same vision of the world.

Despite this gap, many sites of memory refer them back to a shared history. And it is this history that I have recounted, knowing that, as curious as it may seem, there was no book linking both the geopolitical and cultural aspects of relations between the two countries.

This is now done, and we can say that this work forms a trilogy with successively China and the Lands of Islam: A Millennium of Geopolitics, and The Very Great Game: Beijing Facing Central Asia [3]. These geographical realities, their comparison and their stakes, are most often ignored in Europe. Yet they engage our future.

In the first chapter of your book, Political mythologies, cultural and heritage issues, it emerges very clearly, as I had myself observed, that India—particularly through Buddhism—strongly influenced China on the level of ideas, whereas conversely this does not seem to be the case, except materially via the Silk Roads, although the Indian kingdoms of the time already knew how to produce plant-based silk. Did you yourself reach this conclusion? And if so, how do you explain it?

There is clearly an asymmetry in Sino-Indian perceptions. India’s spiritual heritage had a much greater influence on China than the reverse. And this since the Han period (206 BC – AD), which is also that of the great thinker Nāgārjuna (around 2nd–3rd century) on the emptiness of things, until the end of the Tang dynasty (618–907).

This long period forms an episteme where the Indian reference for China becomes both a source of inspiration and of rejection. The Confucian reaction under the Song dynasty (10th century), followed by the Turco-Muslim invasions from Central Asia, marginalizes Buddhism both in India and in China. Nevertheless, the memory of the great figures who contributed to its spread (e.g. Bodhidharma / Damo, Xuanzang) remains.

Buddhism would finally experience a new revival through contact with Tibet and through the intermediary of the Mongol and then Manchu empires, which would see it as a unifying element in consolidating their imperial hold.

In return, a prestige is attributed to Indian civilization, even a precedence recognized by Chinese historiography until the beginning of the 20th century. It must be said that the latter is largely inspired by the European orientalist assumptions of the time. They confer on India a more eminent status than that then attributed to China. The discovery of the site of Anyang [4] about a century ago in Henan province, with its earliest writings, allowed China to raise its own prestige and gain chronological depth. As shown in her lectures at the Collège de France by Anne Cheng, this race for the most ancient civilizational chronology is an obsession of China and its regime.

However, and you are right, the cultural influence of China in India seems to have stopped at the Himalayan barrier. On the other hand, interactions between China and its periphery are evident in regions that geographers call “Outer India,” that is, the Indochinese peninsula, with which maritime exchanges were numerous.

The tributary relations between Indochinese kingdoms and the Chinese empire also explain the persistence of these relations over the long term.

You explain very well and in great detail, both culturally, historically, and geopolitically, in China–India: The War of the Worlds, this rivalry between these two continents each populated by more than a billion inhabitants. This mutual mistrust is notably fueled by the Sino-Indian war of 1962, unresolved territorial disputes (Aksai Chin, Arunachal Pradesh), and a border that is still not clearly defined (the Line of Actual Control). Do you think, in your reflection that led you to write this book, that Beijing and New Delhi will one day manage to overcome this foundational conflict with multiple causes still unresolved? Are you rather optimistic or pessimistic on this subject?

Weapons can speak. They have already spoken in relatively limited clashes. At Doklam, in Ladakh… But there is a legacy that foreshadows the worst for the future, and which you rightly recall: the border dispute on the one hand, China’s claim over Arunachal Pradesh on the other, disputes related to control of rivers—particularly the Brahmaputra, which Chinese authorities wish to divert—, the far from anecdotal issue of the succession of the current Dalai Lama, in exile in India since 1959, and finally competing transcontinental connectivity projects (Belt and Road Initiative, BRI, on one side, India Middle East European Corridor on the other), which are accompanied by fundamentally antagonistic strategic relationships.

One thinks of the Indo-Pacific or of India’s order of around one hundred French Rafale fighter jets, not to mention the historical rivalry opposing it to one of China’s closest regional partners, Pakistan. So, to summarize, economic relations will develop (if only because the Indian market cannot leave Chinese entrepreneurs indifferent), each of these powers will try to reaffirm its ideological opposition to the West, through BRICS or the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, but their rivalries are systemic and struggles for influence are beginning to take place in Central Asia or Kashmir through proxy actors, with a clear advantage for India compared to China.

It is a power opened up by its access to the ocean, and which Europeans hope to use as a counterweight to China. The context is therefore favorable to it. Its time has come, and this is probably not good news for Beijing.

As you mention, China and India are both members of BRICS, cooperate on certain issues (trade, climate, for example), but are also competing in terms of their respective influence in Asia and leadership of the “Global South.” Can the rise of these two Asian giants be peaceful, in your view, or will it inevitably lead them, due to lack of space and opposing interests in this geostrategic space vital both for themselves and for the West, to confront each other in a deadly conflict?

In continuity with what has just been said, the intensification of economic exchanges and membership in the same multilateral frameworks cannot suffice to ease tensions. Paradoxically, the proximity each maintains with Moscow should make us think that in this trilateral relationship, Russia has a balancing role between Beijing and New Delhi that is far more credible and longstanding than that of Brussels or Washington. Does Moscow still have the means to do so?

Less and less, it is true. To avoid the worst, a third party must be able to exert influence. We do not yet see it emerging today. What is certain, however, is that the nodal region of the current and future Sino-Indian confrontation is Tibet and more broadly the Himalayas, a true “new Central Asia,” as I describe it in the book.

One can also already see an indirect geostrategic confrontation, with China developing new Silk Roads that India may perceive as a form of strategic encirclement (the “string of pearls” strategy), but also a visible rivalry on both sides in the Indian Ocean and in South Asia. From this point of view, can we speak of an “Asian Cold War” currently being waged by Beijing and New Delhi?

It is clear that from the Indian point of view, China is a structural threat. 1962 and India’s defeat against China remain in memory. In a more tangible way, the Chinese threat is perceived as such in the north (Tibet), in the west (Pakistan), in the east (Myanmar, Bangladesh), in the south (Sri Lanka)… all relay points of Chinese power that reinforce New Delhi’s feeling of encirclement.

For now, India cultivates this multi-alignment, which it values greatly to distinguish itself from Western powers and thus not alienate the Global South. But for how much longer? India will be faced with difficult choices. Can it play both the Russian and European cards at the same time without encountering contradictions?

Do two incompatible visions of the world oppose these two great Asian powers, if we take into account their political models—centralized authoritarian for China, democratic pluralist for India? In other words, do their cultural and especially political differences make a clash inevitable?

You are right to emphasize the difference between the nature of their political systems. What is generally called the question of values, and what I would call the representation of each of their cultures. Diversity is at the heart of Indian representations. Moreover, Europeans were not mistaken: they long spoke of “the Indies,” while they definitively use “China” in the singular.

However, both of these countries share an imperial culture. It explains many things in the irredentist claims of their leaders. Each of these civilizations also aspires to become a nation-state, either through the sinicization of its margins for one, or through the construction of an ethnic and religious democracy, as defined by the political scientist and Indianist Christophe Jaffrelot, for the other.

We observe, as you yourself point out, attempts at diversification by India (as in the case of other countries) in response to dependence on China, particularly toward the United States and the European Union. Trade between Beijing and New Delhi is significant but unbalanced, with an Indian trade deficit exceeding 100 billion dollars. There is also growing technological mistrust between them. Would you say that globalization brings these two global powers closer together or sets them against each other? Can you illustrate your answer with concrete examples?

India’s diversification of partners accelerated from 1991 and the fall of the USSR. In this context, it adopted the Look East policy toward ASEAN countries, then in 2014 under Narendra Modi, its counterpart, the Look West policy. It was then brought to encounter its Chinese competitor. The case of Iran is particularly significant in this regard. Coveted by both China and India for its oil resources, Iran is a major key piece for China in its Belt and Road Initiative, just as it is for India in the survival of its North-South International Corridor linking India to Russia via Iran. Let us also note that India is one of the few states in the world not to have joined the Belt and Road Initiative, taking major measures such as banning TikTok on its territory.

This mistrust toward China goes hand in hand for India with fierce competition in the aerospace sector. India and the European Union have also signed a free trade agreement and confirm their desire for rapprochement.

With the United States, rapprochement is far less obvious. Among Indian military and diplomats, there is a clear mistrust toward Washington, which is not seen as a reliable partner. Let us recall that during the Cold War, the United States favored Pakistan over India, which was aligned with the former Soviet Union. The recent admonitions of Donald Trump threatening 50% tariffs on Indian imports have reinforced this mistrust. As Heraclitus wrote, “the opposite cooperates.” In other words, these power relations constitute an opportunity for Europeans.

Finally, one last question which seems central to me: in your view, will China and India be led to cooperate as two pillars of the multipolar world, or to confront each other durably in a race for dominance of the Asian space?

We are not heading toward cooperation. A revealing example is the fight against global warming and the melting of glaciers in the Himalayas. Millions of people will be affected by these upheavals. Yet neither New Delhi nor Beijing shows signs of a willingness to cooperate. While China is truly giving itself the means to achieve real eco-sustainability, India is not concerned with environmental issues or pollution.

From a theoretical point of view, both of these powers consider that the current international system is no longer representative of the emergence of countries which in 1945 had little weight, simply because they were still governed by colonial powers. Beijing and New Delhi are also sensitive to the de-dollarization of the global economic system.

Thus, India buys Russian hydrocarbons in rupees, while China buys Iranian oil or Brazilian soybeans in yuan. What does this mean? Each of these powers continually reaffirms its sovereignty. Globalization will continue to exist but in silos and in a more fragmented way. In short, in Asia, and between these two powers, there will be only one bed for two dreams…

[1] Liang Shuming (1893-1968) was a 20th-century Chinese Neo-Confucian philosopher (who incorporated Buddhist thought), educator, and social reformer. A leading figure in the Confucian revival, he sought to demonstrate the relevance of Chinese tradition in the face of the political and cultural upheavals of modern China.

[2] PUF, 2021, 348 pages.

[3] Éditions du Cerf, 2025, 275 pages.

[4] Site of one of the last capitals of the pre-imperial Shang dynasty (c. 1300–1046 BCE).

Emmanuel Lincot is a professor at the Institut Catholique de Paris and a sinologist. He is also a research director at IRIS. He advises the highest levels of the French state and organizes study trips of a geopolitical and cultural nature in these regions.

This publication reflects the views and opinions of the individual authors. As a platform dedicated to the sharing of information and ideas, our objective is to highlight a diversity of perspectives. Accordingly, the opinions expressed herein should not be interpreted as those of the Fondation France-Asie or its affiliates.