The year 2020 will be remembered as a discontinuity in world history. Alongside the COVID-19 pandemic, it was a turning point for the Pax Americana system of global governance, and saw the rise of the challenger to this system, China.

The challenger indicated its discontent with the status quo through wide-ranging actions and doctrinal announcements, showing the contours of a competing vision for global governance. Its unilateral military ingress on India’s borders in 2020, jettisoning a decades-old mutual understanding on border peace and tranquillity, was one element of this assertion. While we in India tend to grapple with this problem within the confines of the India–China relationship, it is important to place our problem within the global context; many countries have a similar China problem.