ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that India has consistently balanced against China since 1950, although the intensity of balancing has varied. Through the 1950s, India pursued instrumental cooperation and, in the process, underbalanced both because the Chinese threat was perceived as limited to subversion in border regions and because Asian solidarity was seen as possible and necessary. When threat perceptions heightened as a result of the 1962 war, China–Pakistan entente, and Sino–US rapprochement, India resorted to pure internal and external balancing. Loss of the Soviet ally and the unipolar moment led India to pursue a mix of instrumental cooperation and limited internal balancing. The power asymmetry generated by China’s rise and Chinese inroads into the subcontinent and Indian Ocean are now causing India to contemplate external balancing. However, for now, and so long as the intensity of threat remains moderate, India is hedging, combining moderate balancing with cooperation.
