In September 2014, India’s new prime minister Narendra Modi welcomed his first important foreign guest, China’s president Xi Jinping, with an eye to resetting the two country’s historically fraught relations.
Eager for Beijing’s support for his drive to modernise India, Mr Modi received Mr Xi in his home town, Ahmedabad, where the two leaders sat on a traditional Indian swing on the bank of the Sabarmati river. Later, deals envisioning Chinese investment of up to $20bn in India were signed.
But Mr Xi left little sense of bonhomie behind. The heady talk of mutually beneficial economic co-operation was overshadowed by a tense stand-off between Chinese and Indian troops along the disputed Himalayan border, which hundreds of Chinese soldiers had crossed during the presidential visit.