India, Sept. 12 -- Chinese President Xi Jinping's first visit to India in seven years and his bilateral with Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi is understandably going to dwarf everything else at the 18th BRICS summit in New Delhi. At a time when US President Donald Trump has upended every norm of global diplomacy, I can understand why there's a need for us to stabilise relations with Beijing. I can even see the value - limited though it may be in the long-run - of optics and visual messaging when it comes to someone as volatile as Trump. We saw the effect of this last year, when PM Modi's decision to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Tianjin and be pictured with Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin suddenly catapulted India's fraught relations with the US into western media's headlines. But I would not hold my breath in anticipation of any real breakthrough between India and China. In fact, like most Indians, I would be deeply wary of China, its intentions and its long game. First of all, with China, nothing is ever as it seems. I have just returned from Nepal where I travelled across the country to report on the devastating flash floods; I drove through mountains and over rocks, through rain - roads in the area have been wiped away - to reach the closest possible point near the Nepal-China border. The contrast in how Nepal and China responded to the calamity is staggering. Nepal has been absolutely transparent, releasing not just names and nationalities of those missing, but also graphic and gruesome images of bodies recovered that remain unidentified. Nepal has shown itself to be a country that refuses to give up. There have been miracle rescues, even 11 days after the flood, of workers in hydropower tunnels and of a woman buried under the debris of her own neighbourhood. China, by comparison, took five days to acknowledge that there were 261 foreigners missing in Tibet, who were from 23 countries. It's also tough to believe the data China puts out. Nepal places the death toll at above 1,300 with thousands still declared "missing." China initially reported just 16 fatalities; 12 days later, that number has changed to a little over 40 and more than 500 have been described as missing. The world watched the Gyirong immigration centre disappear into the ether as the waters hit. Could the toll be what China claims it is? It took more than a week before China allowed international media into the area. By contrast, we did not even need a scrap of paper or any permission to make our way to the border area of Rasuwa in Nepal. There's a sense of deja vu taking us back to China's role in the Covid years. Amid serious debate over whether authorities in Beijing were late in warning Nepal, we can all agree on one thing: China is notoriously opaque. Again, while totally agreeing that our foreign policy will be guided by self-interest and not an abstract treatise on democracy and rights, it's important to accept the absence of natural affinity between our two countries. But, if you would rather get to the meat of the matter, it is obvious: China is an adversary, not a partner. Look back no further than what the deputy chief of Army, Lieutenant General Rahul Singh said about Operation Sindoor. After the war with Pakistan had subsided, Singh went on record to reveal that the military was fighting at one border, but with "two adversaries." He called Pakistan the "front face" of a battleground that was being used like a "live lab" by China - 81% of Pakistan's military hardware was Chinese, he pointed out. "China.. killed by a borrowed knife," he said. "China would rather use the neighbour (Pakistan) to cause pain than get involved in the mud-slinging match on the northern borders," he added. China has mostly played its hand against India via Pakistan - from economic and military patronage to obstructionism at global forums like the United Nations. But direct aggression by the Chinese and their adventurism in the high Himalayas has also resulted in eastern Ladakh becoming a permanently militarised zone, much like Siachen. In India, this caution has meant the deployment of men, machines, resources, and energy in extremely inhospitable terrain and climes. And then, there is the trade deficit that poses its own set of problems in establishing equality. China supplied India with $131.6 billion dollars worth of goods in 2025-26, compared with Indian exports of $19.5 billion to China, leaving a staggering trade gap. Economic muscle is a key ingredient of China's neo-imperialist instincts as it throws money in return for influence in countries that are part of India's immediate neighbourhood. Sure, there are other important developments to track at the BRICS summit. Will India pull off a joint resolution that war-scarred countries like Iran and the UAE can agree on? Might there be some lasting resolution to the Ukraine-Russia war? India should definitely move in and make use of the early gaps exposed by the floundering Mecca pact - with Pakistan making the right noises but not getting militarily involved, so far, in response to the Houthis' attack on Saudi Arabia. By all means, India's tactical chessboard play with China also makes sense in the short term. But Trump has been seeking his own deal-making with both Xi and Putin, in pursuit of what is sometimes called his G3 vision of the world - with influence domains divided between the US, China, and Russia. While this may sound much easier on paper than it will ever be in actuality, it's a possibility that can't be entirely dismissed and a process India should be aware of and guard against. With unpredictability looming large, India may be staring at a situation that calls for short-term engagements with multiple partners. But it will also be an essentially solo journey where our biggest weapon of self-protection will be economic progress. Xi Jinping's visit is a great headline. The fine print may end up being more important....