The Tibet Question is far from Resolved Between India and China

This article was originally published as Devendra Kumar. 2026. ‘The Tibet Question is far from Resolved Between India and China’. India’s World. 11 March.

Though India recognised Chinese sovereignty over Tibet two decades ago, the “Tibet question” refuses to disappear. The approaching succession of the 14th Dalai Lama and China’s expanding territorial and cultural assertions across the Himalayas have quietly reopened an old strategic debate in New Delhi. If Tibet still shapes the regional balance, can India afford to treat it as a settled issue?

The “Tibet card” is often used as a shorthand for the diplomatic and strategic use of China’s control in Tibet for Indian national security interests. Indian debates on the matter oscillate between lamenting India’s abandoning of the Tibet issue since the 1990s and a vague but increasing tendency to emphasise the utility of the so-called “Tibet card”. Does India still have a “Tibet card” to play vis-à-vis China? 

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