Xi’s secret letter helped ease India-China tensions during Trump’s trade war.

 In March, amid escalating US-China trade disputes, Chinese President Xi Jinping wrote to Indian President Droupadi Murmu—later forwarding the message to PM Modi—signaling interest in improving ties, according to Indian officials."

“According to Bloomberg, a confidential letter from Chinese President Xi Jinping to Indian President Droupadi Murmu in March—just as US President Donald Trump was preparing for a global trade war—helped trigger a quiet reset in India-China relations. The letter, later forwarded to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, was described by an Indian official as Xi’s way of ‘testing the waters’ on improving bilateral ties.”

“Bloomberg reported, citing Indian officials, that Xi personally reached out to President Droupadi Murmu in March, at a time when US-China trade tensions were running high.”

The carefully worded message arrived as Washington ramped up trade pressure on both China and India. By June, New Delhi had reopened dialogue with Beijing after a long pause. Bloomberg noted that backchannel talks between the two sides paved the way for broader understandings. Just last week, India and China agreed to renew efforts to address unresolved border disputes stemming from the deadly 2020 Galwan Valley clash. The move signals a potential shift in Asia’s strategic balance, coming just days before Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited China.

Building on Prime Minister Modi’s meeting with President Xi Jinping in Kazan last year, India and China appear to be restarting ties, including a return to pre-Galwan patrolling positions. During Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s visit to India earlier this year, Beijing pledged to address New Delhi’s concerns on fertilizers, rare earths, and tunnel-boring machines by reviewing export restrictions.

Both Chinese envoys, Xu Feihong and Wang Yi, have struck a conciliatory tone—criticizing the US ‘unilateral bullying’ while urging both countries to move beyond the bitterness of the Galwan clashes. To deepen people-to-people engagement, India and China agreed to reopen border trade at three points, resume direct flights, expand the Kailash Manasarovar Yatra, and ease visa norms.

This thaw comes at a sensitive moment: Washington has counted on New Delhi as a counterweight to Beijing in the Indo-Pacific. Carnegie Endowment’s Ashley Tellis described the shift as an unintended consequence of Trump’s hardline trade policies, remarking, ‘Trump is indeed the great peacemaker—he deserves all the credit.’

Still, analysts caution against reading too much into the reset. Lingering mistrust persists, rooted in China’s close ties with Pakistan and India’s warming relations with Taiwan. As Eurasia Group’s Jeremy Chan noted,