On 12 September 2026, President Xi Jinping arrived in New Delhi decked out for the BRICS Summit, his first visit to India in seven years. Three days earlier, at Air Force Station Jodhpur, the Indian Air Force (IAF) and Japan’s Air Self-Defence Force had begun Exercise Veer Guardian-26, in which Japanese F-2A fighters operated from an Indian air base for the first time. Three days after Xi’s arrival, at Auli in Uttarakhand, roughly 100 kilometres from the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the Indian and US armies opened the 22nd edition of Exercise Yudh Abhyas, conducted simultaneously at Mahajan in Rajasthan.
The public record does not show that these events were choreographed together, and this article does not claim that they were. Their calendars nonetheless fell within a single fortnight, and New Delhi let the overlap stand. This article argues that the exercise calendar, read alongside the diplomatic record, offers a revealing indication of where India’s China policy currently stands. Read together, Yudh Abhyas-26, Veer Guardian-26 and the BRICS Leaders’ Summit reveal a pattern that neither Beijing’s characterisation of Indian non-alignment nor Washington’s periodic concern about a wavering partner adequately captures. New Delhi has developed the capacity to run engagement and deterrence on parallel tracks, in full public view, with each track addressed to a distinct audience.
