China, India Agree To Coordinate On Trade Even As US Blasts ‘Global Clearinghouse For Russian Oil’

After years of ratcheting tensions between nuclear-armed rivals China and India, which actually came to literal blows along their disputed Himalayan border over the last several years – including the deadly 2020 Galwan valley clashes among rival troops, which left dozens dead and wounded – relations between the two Asian regional powers are thawing fast.

Monday and Tuesday have seen a major breakthrough during Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s two-day visit to Delhi, where he declared that India and China should view each other as “partners” rather than “adversaries or threats”.

He further hailed a “positive trend” towards cooperation between the two economic superpowers of the region, ahead of a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday. Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar in turn confirmed that the countries are busy trying to “move ahead from a difficult period in our ties.“

Wang described, “We are happy to share that stability has now been restored at the borders” given that mutually the feeling is “the setbacks that we faced in the last few years were not in our interest.”

Several agreements on bilateral trade, investment, diplomatic coordination, religious pilgrimages, border and visa issues, and river data sharing were made among the sides. Per fresh Bloomberg reporting Tuesday, they agreed to…

• promote multilateralism and safeguard multilateral trade system to protect the interests of developing countries
• To enhance communication on major global and regional issues
• To resume direct flights between mainland China and India as soon as possible and revise civil aviation agreements
• To facilitate visas for personnel engaged in tourism, business and media activities
• A new consensus on border issues including normalization of border management, stability and peace protection, proper handling of sensitive areas, and start of boundary demarcation negotiations on certain areas

The timing of this growing rapprochement on the global stage is what is most interesting – given it comes as Washington is trying desperately to pressure and bully countries into halting purchases of Russian oil (and while seeking to put together a trilateral Putin-Trump-Zelensky meeting for peace), and imports of Russian energy and other goods generally.

For example, White House trade adviser Peter Navarro just at the start of this week decried India’s purchases of Russian crude, saying it’s funding Moscow’s war machine and that it must stop immediately.

“India acts as a global clearinghouse for Russian oil, converting embargoed crude into high-value exports while giving Moscow the dollars it needs,” Navarro wrote in a Financial Times op-ed published Monday.

🇮🇳 🇨🇳 India-China talks are going swimmingly and both countries have agreed to drop trade restrictions and keep improving diplomatic relations!

Good news for nearly 40% of the world’s population and many others by extension.

🗞️ Reuters pic.twitter.com/Go2P1hKBPo

— Dott. Orikron 🇵🇹 (@orikron) August 19, 2025

The top Trump trade official blasted India’s dependence on Russian crude as “opportunistic and deeply corrosive of the world’s efforts to isolate Putin’s war economy.” 

The irony in all of this – and especially given the top level India and China summit of warm relations this week – is that Beijing remains the biggest buyer of Russian oil, and India is the second largest.