Modi shores up ties with China, Russia in defiance of Trump

Bloomberg News on Aug 31, 2025

By clicking submit, I authorize Arcamax and its affiliates to: (1) use, sell, and share my information for marketing purposes, including cross-context behavioral advertising, as described in our Privacy Policy , (2) add to information that I provide with other information like interests inferred from web page views, or data lawfully obtained from data brokers, such as past purchase or location data, or publicly available data, (3) contact me or enable others to contact me by email or other means with offers for different types of goods and services, and (4) retain my information while I am engaging with marketing messages that I receive and for a reasonable amount of time thereafter. I understand I can opt out at any time through an email that I receive, or by clicking here

Prime Minister Narendra Modi used his first trip to China in seven years to reset relations with India’s powerful neighbor while also seeking to strengthen ties with Russia as President Donald Trump ratchets up tensions with New Delhi.

Modi met Chinese President Xi Jinping in Tianjin on Sunday at a regional security and economic summit, with both sides pledging to be partners, not rivals. They discussed border issues, resuming direct flights and increasing trade, according to official readouts from both sides.

On Monday, Modi will meet President Vladimir Putin at the Tianjin summit, as ties between the two countries come under scrutiny. Trump has publicly lambasted India for buying oil from Russia, accusing New Delhi of funding Putin’s war in Ukraine. The Trump administration last week imposed 50% tariffs on Indian goods bound for the U.S., the highest in Asia, to penalize it for those energy purchases.

Trump’s actions have shown New Delhi it can’t depend on its relations with the U.S., said Anil Trigunayat, a former Indian ambassador to Jordan, Libya and Malta.

“It’s important for countries like India, to find its own path and own partners,” Trigunayat told Times Now on Sunday.

Modi spoke with Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy ahead of his trip to China, reiterating his call for peace. Zelenskiy said India was ready to “deliver the appropriate signal to Russia and other leaders” during Modi’s meetings in Tianjin. Modi last spoke with Putin after the Russian leader’s summit with Trump in Alaska to seek a peace deal. Putin is expected to visit India later this year.

Trump’s aides like Peter Navarro say India is profiteering off the war, by buying oil at a discount from Russia — refining it and selling it to buyers in Europe and elsewhere. Modi’s top officials have defended India’s longstanding ties with Russia and argued that the U.S. had previously encouraged the oil purchases to prevent a slump in global oil prices.

Navarro reiterated his criticisms Sunday, saying in an interview with Fox News that India didn’t buy much oil from Russia before its full-scale assault on Ukraine, but that it was now fueling “the Russian war machine.” He added that “India is nothing but a laundromat for the Kremlin.”

“Modi’s a great leader,” Navarro said. “I don’t understand why he’s getting to bed with Putin and Xi Jinping, when he’s the biggest democracy in the world.”

Trump’s trade war with China and India has accelerated efforts by both countries to rebuild ties after they took initial steps last year to ease tensions along their 3,488 kilometer (2,167 miles) unmarked border.

“The international situation is both fluid and chaotic,” Xi said at the meeting with Modi. It is right for China and India “to be friends who have good neighborly and amicable ties, partners who enable each other’s success, and to have the dragon and the elephant dance together,” he said.

Modi is seeking to bolster India’s economy in the face of Trump’s tariffs, cutting taxes to boost domestic spending while seeking new markets for its goods. The U.S. is India’s biggest export market, and economists like Citigroup Inc. estimate the tariffs will cut the annual growth rate by as much as 0.8 percentage points.

Before the China trip, Modi visited Japan for two days, where he secured investment pledges of up to $68 billion from Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba. The investment is part of a broader economic security pact that covers cooperation on semiconductors, critical minerals, and artificial intelligence. The two sides also launched new initiatives to support startups, as well as to partner on clean energy and space.