As India and China commemorate 75 years of diplomatic engagement this year, strong signs of a diplomatic thaw have emerged. The meeting between Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and his Chinese counterpart, Admiral Dong Jun, on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Defence Ministers’ meeting in January; resumption of the Kailash Manasarovar Yatra in June; and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s two-day visit to India this week all offer glimpses of warmth.

A meeting point for two worlds

Long before modern diplomacy took shape, and borders were established and redrawn, the relationship between India and China was nurtured by something more enduring: the shared pursuit of knowledge. As early as the first millennium CE, Chinese monks such as Faxian, Xuanzang, and Yijing journeyed across treacherous landscapes to reach Indian centres of learning. At the heart of this exchange stood Nalanda, where ideas flowed more freely than goods, and religious belief and secular inquiry coexisted in harmony. Nalanda was a meeting point of the two worlds, where cultural and intellectual connections flourished far beyond the concerns of modern statehood. In the quest to revive Nalanda today, there is more than nostalgia; there is hope to rebuild the kind of meaningful, respectful engagement that once defined our ties.

Nalanda, both as an institution and as a philosophy, has long embodied a commitment to peace, dialogue, and intellectual diplomacy. It’s enduring spirit lives on in its motto — “Aa no bhadra kratavo yantu viśvata (let noble thoughts come to us from all directions).” This same spirit lives on in the idea of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam (the world as one family). This way of thinking has, for centuries, held together the threads of exchange between India and China.

Since the time of Xuanzang, scholars, teachers, and students from both nations have engaged in meaningful interaction, unimpeded by the boundaries that define the modern state. Today, the space for such academic and cultural exchange seems to be narrowed. Should contemporary political complexities necessarily limit the flow of ideas between two ancient civilisations? Stalling of trade, recurring military confrontations, and hundreds of academic or people-to-people connections awaiting bureaucratic clearance have created a kind of stillness, one that feels far removed from the natural flow of exchange that once defined our ties. Why must scholars on either side require permission to engage in dialogue, or students hesitate before considering an academic exchange with institutions of global standing across the border?

There is immense potential for mutual learning. India can look to China’s initiatives in areas such as food security, local infrastructure development, or grassroots entrepreneurship. And China’s academic and policy community may find value in studying India’s democratic decentralisation, open civil society engagement, or digital public goods framework. These are not points of comparison, but possible pathways of collaborative learning.

In this light, one wonders: why does India’s engagement with China remain so carefully limited? Why does strategic ambiguity continue to define a relationship rooted in shared intellectual history? How can we move from reactive diplomacy towards a more confident, future-facing framework that honours the depth of our civilisational ties, while meeting the complexities of the present? How do we deal with the emergence of ‘the gatekeeper states,’ limiting the range of possibilities?

The Nalanda way

Just as Nalanda once created space for dialogue and learning between civilisations, perhaps today too, we can draw from that spirit to shape how we engage with China. There will always be areas where our paths differ: on the border, in trade, or in the way we see the region around us. But Nalanda reminds us that disagreement does not have to mean disengagement. It is possible to hold firm where we must, and still stay open to conversations where they matter.

This approach also calls for some reflection on how we prepare ourselves. We don’t need to change our principles, but we may need to adapt how we practice them. Investing in stronger academic and policy research on China, allowing smoother academic exchanges in areas such as environment, health, and culture, and building long-term people-to-people connections are quiet but important steps. Nalanda drew its strength from more than just being a beacon of knowledge.

At the heart of Nalanda’s tradition were values that still feel close to us: curiosity, compassion, and the transformative power of knowledge. Scholars such as Śīlabhadra, who taught the Chinese monk Xuanzang, showed that learning could also be a form of diplomacy. Nalanda wasn’t just India’s; it was also a place of deep importance to generations of Chinese scholars who carried its teachings home and helped shape the intellectual and spiritual fabric of East Asia. Today, perhaps these principles matter even more. If India and China can draw from this shared legacy with genuine intention, they may find a way to engage with each other more thoughtfully. Curiosity without fear, dialogue without suspicion, and clarity without aggression could be the beginning of a steadier path built on understanding and mutual respect. We need to break down our Chinese wall to move beyond the paranoia that sustains our China policy.

Rajeev Ranjan Chaturvedy, Associate Professor heading the School of International Relations and Peace Studies, and founding coordinator of the Centre for Bay of Bengal Studies; Anushka Padmanabh Antrolikar, Postgraduate scholar at Nalanda University, Rajgir

Published – August 20, 2025 01:33 am IST

China has approved the construction of the world’s largest dam, stated to be the planet’s biggest infra project costing $137 billion, on the Brahmaputra River in Tibet close to the Indian border, raising concerns in riparian states — India and Bangladesh.

The Chinese government has approved the construction of a hydropower project in the lower reaches of the Yarlung Zangbo River, the Tibetan name for the Brahmaputra, according to an official statement quoted by state-run Xinhua news agency on Wednesday (December 25, 2024).

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The dam is to be built at a huge gorge in the Himalayan reaches where the Brahmaputra river makes a huge U-turn to flow into Arunachal Pradesh and then to Bangladesh.

The total investment in the dam could exceed one trillion yuan ($137 billion), which would dwarf any other single infrastructure project on the planet including China’s own Three Gorges Dam, regarded as the largest in the world, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported on Thursday.

China has already Operationalised the $1.5 billion Zam Hydropower Station, the largest in Tibet in 2015.

The Brahmaputra dam was part of the 14th Five-Year Plan (2021-2025) and National Economic and Social Development and the Long-Range Objectives Through the Year 2035 adopted by Plenum, a key policy body of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) in 2020.

Concerns arose in India as the dam besides empowering China to control the water flow, the size and scale of it could also enable Beijing to release large amounts of water flooding border areas in times of hostilities.

India too is building a dam over Brahmaputra in Arunachal Pradesh.

Also Read | Why is China’s new dam a concern for India?

India and China established the Expert Level Mechanism (ELM) in 2006 to discuss various issues related to trans-border rivers under which China provides India with hydrological information on the Brahmaputra river and Sutlej river during the flood seasons.

Data sharing of trans-border rivers figured in the talks between India, China Special Representatives (SRs) for border question, NSA Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, held here on December 18.

The SRs “provided positive directions for cross-border cooperation and exchanges” including data sharing on trans-border rivers, a statement by the Ministry of External Affairs said.

The Brahmaputra Dam presents enormous engineering challenges as the project site is located along a tectonic plate boundary where earthquakes occur.

The Tibetan plateau, regarded as the roof of the world, frequently experiences earthquakes as it is located over the tectonic plates.

The official statement on Wednesday sought to allay concerns about earthquakes, saying that the hydropower project is safe and prioritises ecological protection.

Through extensive geological explorations and technical advancements, a solid foundation has been laid for the science-based, secure, and high-quality development of the project, it said.

The Brahmaputra flows across the Tibetan Plateau, carving out the deepest canyon on Earth and covering a staggering vertical difference of 25,154 feet before reaching India, the Post report said.

The dam will be built in one of the rainiest parts of mainland China bringing bountiful flows of water.

Also Read | China hydropower company plans first downstream dam on Brahmaputra

According to a 2023 report, the hydropower station is expected to generate more than 300 billion kWh of electricity each year — enough to meet the annual needs of over 300 million people.

In 2020, Yan Zhiyong, then chairman of the state-owned Power Construction Corporation of China, was quoted in the media as saying the location on the Yarlung Tsangpo was one of the most hydropower-rich areas in the world.

“The lower reaches area features a vertical drop of 2,000 metres over a 50km distance, representing nearly 70 million kilowatts of resources that could be developed — that is more than three Three Gorges Dams with an installed capacity of 22.5 million kilowatts,” the Post quoted him as saying.

To harness the hydropower potential of the river, four to six 20km-long tunnels must be drilled through the Namcha Barwa mountain to divert half of the river’s flow at about 2,000 cubic metres per second, according to the report.

Mr. Yan said that the hydropower exploitation of the Yarlung Zangbo River downstream is more than a hydropower project.

Comment | The Brahmaputra conundrum

It is also meaningful for the environment, national security, living standards, energy and international cooperation.

“It is a project for national security, including water resources and domestic security,” he said, noting that the project will also smooth cooperation with South Asia.

The hydropower station could generate income of 20 billion yuan ($3 billion) annually for the Tibet Autonomous Region, he said.

An official statement on Wednesday defended the project, saying it will play a positive role in accelerating the country’s efforts to create a new development pattern and pursue high-quality development.

It is also of great importance to advancing the country’s strategy for carbon peaking and carbon neutrality and to coping with global climate change, it said.

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The hydropower project is a green project aimed at promoting low-carbon development. By harnessing the abundant hydropower resources of the Yarlung Zangbo River, the project will also spur the development of solar and wind energy resources in surrounding areas, thus creating a clean energy base featuring a complementary mix of hydro, wind and solar power, it said.

It will directly stimulate the rapid growth of such industries as engineering, logistics and trade services, and create new jobs, it said.

Once completed, the project will further improve infrastructures of electricity, water conservancy and transportation. It will strengthen the synergy of development between Tibet and other regions, it said.