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This article analyses India’s strategies to preserve its interests in the face of a neighbour that has not just accumulated far greater resources than it over the last three decades, but that has also started mobilising them to support an all-out drive to extent its influence overseas. The article also highlights three central elements to understand the evolution of the Sino-Indian relationship. First, the relationship to China is structurally difficult for India; the border conflict, the Pakistani factor and the regional power play are “here to stay”. Reflexes of suspicion and rivalry will continue to shape the Sino-Indian relationship. Secondly, as long as the relationship with China is marked by a strong asymmetry, India will have to maintain a subtle game and walk a fine line between seeking further cooperation with China, finding external support to face it, while avoiding provoking it by alignments too ostensibly hostile. Finally, because of its multiple stakes and constraints, it seems clear that the relationship with China is already the most determining factor of Indian foreign policy and will increasingly be so in the years to come.