China’s Wars by Vijay Gokhale: Decoding Beijing’s military strategy and ‘fight and talk’ approach

5 min readAug 9, 2026 08:46 AM IST

First published on: Aug 9, 2026 at 08:46 AM IST

China’s decision-making has been a black box. It is seen to be opaque. So, it poses a unique challenge to neighbours, partners and adversaries alike, who struggle to understand the motivations, impulses and factors that shape and influence Beijing’s strategy towards the world. Vijay Gokhale, who has spent the better part of his diplomatic career dealing with China from three vantage points — Hong Kong, Taiwan and Beijing — has tried to decode Beijing’s black box. He began his career as a young diplomat learning Mandarin in Hong Kong (before the British left), and then served in Beijing during the Tiananmen protests, and went back to Beijing as India’s ambassador in 2016-17. He served as India’s Foreign Secretary till his retirement in 2020. In Delhi, he manned the China desk, as joint secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs.