Ian Hall in India’s China Strategy After Galwan: Minilateral and Multilateral Soft Balancing in the Indo-Pacific (International Affairs, Volume 101, Issue 5, Sept 2025), examines India’s China strategy in the aftermath of the Galwan Valley clash in 2020. Hall argues that New Delhi resorted to soft balancing against China through multilateral and minilateral institutions amongst a series of other measures. In doing so, this article not only demonstrates how such groupings have uses beyond cooperation but also why states use “nonmilitary tools” in order to undermine another state, reduce vulnerabilities, enhance their own capabilities, and build leverage, as with any form of balancing.
The author explores India’s use of denial in the RIC, delay in the BRICS, trivialisation in the SCO, and exclusion by reviving the IBSA grouping on the sidelines of G20. He analyses what can be discerned from official statements, media briefings, as well as public comments about New Delhi’s soft balancing in these four groupings. For this purpose, Hall refers to literature on soft balancing and draws upon the conceptualisations of Robert Paper and T.V. Paul to define the concept, review why states use it, what they aim to achieve by it, and how this behaviour differs from routine negotiations and diplomacy in international relations. In applying these formulations to avenues where India engaged in soft balancing, he highlighted how India’s soft balancing was deliberate, also “calibrated in different contexts to maximise its effects on its target and to minimise damage to other relationships that India values.”
In the RIC trilateral, India employed denial as a soft balancing measure by refusing to hold meetings or issue joint statements after the Galwan clash. It did so deliberately to signal dissatisfaction with China and to avoid any sort of a meeting being perceived as a “thaw in relations.” This aligned with India’s stance, voiced by an external affairs ministry spokesperson, reiterating that normalisation at the border was a prerequisite for renewed engagement. With regard to BRICS, India engaged selectively. By slowing progress on China’s proposal to expand the grouping, as well as resisting Beijing’s attempt to transform the grouping into an anti-Western bloc. This calculated postponement prevented China from achieving a diplomatic victory while maintaining India’s engagement with other member states. In the SCO, India diverted the forum’s agenda away from China’s priorities with regard to geopolitics and security concerns and instead promoted discussions on peripheral issues like the environment, business, and sustainability, thereby diluting Beijing’s influence while maintaining a cooperative appearance within the organisation. Lastly, on the sidelines of G20, India adopted exclusion as a soft balancing strategy by revitalising the trilateral with Brazil and South Africa. Through this move, New Delhi sought to construct alternative coalitions, strengthen South-South cooperation, and promote a rules-based development agenda, and criticise China’s BRI.
Soft balancing China in minilateral and multilateral groupings shows how these forums have uses beyond cooperation, and how, in combination with other measures, they worked to diminish China’s relative power. Soft balancing is a relatively low-cost and low-risk way to seek a better position for one’s own state to negotiate, leverage, and limit an adversary. However, Ian Hall explains how it is not wholly without potential costs. And thus, requires selection of different tactics in different contexts. Hall concludes that this pattern of soft balancing marks a departure from India’s earlier “evasive balancing,” complimenting internal and external hard balancing with institutional and normative tools. Soft balancing, thus, serves as an integral part of India’s broader Indo-Pacific strategy. It underscores India’s capacity to leverage international institutions as areas of competition and constraint, and turning diplomatic participation into a strategic advantage in managing its relations with China.