More than the border skirmishes, China and India have a trade relationship that is predatory. It can even be considered colonial, with India being disadvantaged. India basically imports goods valued over 100 Billion USD from China and in return gets 0 opportunity to participate in the Chinese economy. The nature of the trade is intentional from the Chinese side. They cannot tolerate India as a major player in Asia and would rather deal with a loose entity like the ASEAN. The only thing India has going for it is that they are not indebted to the Chinese.
India is aware of this and is desperately trying to decouple from the Chinese economy. On the other hand India has deep ties to all the major Western economies with healthy trade balances that are not skewed either way.
People claiming India is looking to ditch the Western alliance and hook up with the Chinese are hilariously ill informed and unintelligent and lazy. India sees China as its top existential threat. Top Indian public officials have gone on to the extent to openly state that India's nukes are only meant for China. India's main foreign policy imperative since the days of the cold war has been to prevent a Russia-China alliance. This objective has now seemingly failed.
But a Russia-China alliance that will take shots against India is such a crazy nightmare for India that even now they are trying everything possible to maintain good relations with Russia, in spite of the Russians being pushed into a Chinese embrace. Ukraine's total destruction (or not) in the grand scheme of things is not of equal concern to India, compared to a hostile China that is joined by an equally hostile Russia.
Edit: In addition, it has to be mentioned, that India has always been skeptical of western support. Recent US withdrawal from Afghanistan is seen as proof that the West can never be relied upon and will ditch their friends for minor political gains. The unreliable nature of the west and the potential existential danger of an anti-India Russia-China alliance will keep India away from endorsing the Ukrainian side in the current war or even taking hostile steps against any Russian behaviour in the future. Neutrality in the current Ukraine conflict is the best any informed western analyst can even hope for.
> More than the border skirmishes, China and India have a trade relationship that is predatory. It can even be considered colonial,
Sounds pretty far fetched really. Just using emotive meaningless words -- China has no colony in India.
> with India being disadvantaged
With India being overall advantaged though, otherwise they would not enter into the relationship in the first place. Just possibly somewhat less advantaged than China.
This isn't some tiny nation being bullied and coerced, it's the country with the largest population in the world! And while they might share some border, China controls virtually none of India's important trade or transport routes.
