It is not at all clear whether China and India will rise equally. Indeed, it is somewhat more likely than not that China will continue to draw away from India economically and militarily. Should this occur, India could seek implicitly (or even explicitly) to balance China’s rise, either through an intensifying relationship with the United States or, less likely, with Russia. India is, however, unlikely to enter into any formal alliances during this process; and the ultimate nature and extent of this power-balancing arrangement will depend more on Sino–US, Sino–Russian and Russia–US relations than it will on the relationship between those three countries and India.

While the best outcome would be something akin to Coral Bell’s (2005) ‘concert of powers’, such an outcome is not at all certain. Indeed, it is a ‘slippery slope’ around the edges of a concert of powers arrangement that leads quickly to classic power balancing. A concert of powers implies, among other things, that India and China will be able to control and channel their emerging competition in productive ways. While this too is a distinct possibility, I have tried to show in this chapter that it is by no means a certainty. Indeed, there are some deep-seated concerns in India about a rising China and what this means for India’s position in its sub-Himalayan backyard.