India and Republic of China (ROC) had formal diplomatic relations from 1942 to 1949. After severing diplomatic relations in favor of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in 1949, bilateral relations have improved since the 1990s, despite both countries not maintaining official diplomatic relations. India does not officially recognize Taiwan, but its economic and commercial links as well as people-to-people contacts with Taiwan have expanded in recent years.India's changing attitude toward Taiwan Taiwan Today
In May 2020, two members of the Indian Parliament virtually attended the newly elected President Tsai Ing-wen's swearing in ceremony and praised Taiwanese democracy, thereby sending what some have termed a warning message to China and signaling a strengthening of relations between the Tsai and Narendra Modi administrations.BJP MPs praise Taiwan as 'democratic country' as President Tsai Ing-wen begins new term In July 2020, the Indian government appointed a top career diplomat, Joint Secretary Gourangalal Das, the former head of the U.S. division in India's Ministry of External Affairs, as its new envoy to Taiwan. In August 2023, former Chief of Army Staff, Manoj Mukund Naravane, former Navy Chief Karambir Singh, and former Air Chief Marshal R. K. S. Bhadauria visited Taipei.
Background In April 1942, the Commission of the Republic of China in India was established in New Delhi. In May, the Indian Commission in ROC was also established in Chungking (Chongqing), the temporary capital. On October 21, 1946, the envoys of the Republic of China and India were promoted to ambassadors and embassies were established in each other's countries. On August 15, 1947, the Dominion of India was established in accordance with the Mountbatten Plan, and diplomatic relations continued. The Dominion of India recognized the ROC from 1947 to 1950, while Pakistan recognized the ROC until 1951. During the negotiations with the PRC for opening diplomatic relations, India agreed not to have official relations with the ROC or support Taiwan's membership in the UN as the representative of China. Over time, Nehru and other Indian government officials also grew increasingly disillusioned by American-allied leaders Chiang and Syngman Rhee's "strong-arm tactics" under their largely authoritarian but pro-Western governments; Nehru especially found it difficult to understand why and how America justified supporting some of their controversial policies whilst simultaneously advocating world democracy.
India officially recognised the PRC on 1 April 1950, and was supportive of its stand that it was the only state that could be recognised as "China", thus voting in favour of the PRC's bid to join the United Nations and replacing the ROC as the sole legitimate government of China in the UN Security Council. There was no mention, however, of the One China policy by either party in the formal communications exchanged between Nehru and Zhou Enlai at the time of India's recognition of the PRC. After the 1962 Sino-Indian war, India's policy remained unchanged. In fact India has always followed the "One China policy" of the People's Republic of China, but it was not until 1996 that the official statement between the two countries mentioned "One China". The last time India affirmed the "One-China" policy was in 2008. Since then, Delhi simply referred to its ‘well-known’ position rather than state it explicitly.
Cold War era
Historical border dispute Like the People's Republic of China, the Kuomintang-led Republic of China in Dang Guo era claims Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh, which is the fully fledged state of the Republic of India, as part of its sovereign territory. While the PRC and Pakistan managed to largely resolve their former territorial dispute in 1963 through the Sino-Pakistan Agreement, neither India nor the ROC officially recognizes this treaty, and as such, India claims PRC-occupied parts of Kashmir and the ROC claimed parts of Pakistan-administered Kashmir in addition to the disputed territories with India. However, after Taiwan's democratization in the 1990s, relevant laws have excluded territory governed by India from the scope of Mainland China, as does the official map of Taiwan's foreign ministry.
Throughout the Cold War, the government of ROC (Taiwan) generally had the same basic understanding on the China-India border dispute as the People's Republic of China (PRC), and in 1962, around the time of the Sino-Indian War, Taiwan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs stated that they did not recognise the legality of McMahon Line. The same year Western countries increased pressure on the then ROC President, Chiang Kai-shek, to recognise the legality of McMahon Line in order to isolate Beijing. However, Chiang dismissed McMahon Line as 'imperialist imposition on China'.
At the same time, as India began to gradually lose ground against the PRC during the course of the border conflict, Nehru began reaching out to various other anti-Communist powers, including the Taiwan-based ROC government led by Chiang, with whom he had maintained close contacts with since their initial meeting during the Second World War, seeking aid and assistance. Some U.S. officials, such as Navy Admiral Harry D. Felt, the Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet from 1958 to 1964, also encouraged Chiang to use the opportunity to strike mainland China from the east while part of its military was occupied by the border war.
The ROC Ministry of Foreign Affairs's reaction was somewhat mixed, and based upon pragmatism and its fundamental priority of containing Communism at the same time, with the PLA deemed a constant existential threat to its government in the 1960s. It declared that the war was a conflict between "Indian nationalism and international communism, not a war between the Indian people and the Chinese people", and though it clearly repeated its refusal to recognize the McMahon Line, it also claimed that the PRC's war was not necessarily about territory alone, but rather used within the broader context of an alleged Communist agenda to expand its ideology throughout most of Asia, implying that even if there were no dispute over land, conflict would still have occurred eventually. The statement also noted that the ROC believed "a fair and reasonable solution" should be found were the mainland to be reclaimed, "that there was absolutely no need to use force", and insisted that the attack against India allegedly "violated the traditional peace-loving spirit of the Chinese people". The Vice President of the ROC, Chen Cheng, also condemned the PRC as the "initiator and the aggressor" in the war in a November 1962 statement, again citing ideological differences rather than territorial ones as largely being responsible for the outbreak in hostilities.Chiang Kai-shek's Reaction to the Sino-Indian War in Chinese
The ROC Foreign Ministry declared during the conflict: "The Communist bandit-Indian border conflict has become more and more serious. The communist bandits are warlike, and have infiltrated subversion and threatened neighbors by force as their strategy. There are many internal difficulties. They used foreign military ventures to divert the attention of the mainland people and strengthen the suppression of the bandit-controlled areas. As for the so-called McMahon Line that the United Kingdom has unilaterally advocated for the border between China and India when it ruled India, our government has never accepted it and is firmly opposed to it." The Ministry also sent a telegram overseas to all its overseas embassies, instructing them to avoid criticizing Nehru while remaining resolute in its stance regarding the disputed territories, and remaining open to the hopes of re-establishing relations between the two governments given the collapse of PRC-India relations following the war.Declassification of Taiwan and India Diplomatic Archives: Taiwan-India Interactive Relations after the Sino-Indian War in 1962 The Reporter, 6 July 2020
However, despite this, Nehru was surprised when the ROC representatives sent to New Delhi, despite expressing support for India against the so-called "Communist bandits", also emphasized that "Southern Tibet" belonged to China from their point of view, causing bilateral talks for concrete support to break down. Chiang had also rejected America's official recognition of the McMahon Line, and further rebuffed Admiral Felt's call for Taiwan's counterattacking the mainland (even with an assurance from John F. Kennedy that the U.S. would support the ROC with all its strength), saying that were he to do so, he would be scolded by all the generations of Yanhuang, or the descendants of the ancient Chinese people. Despite Nehru's pleas and Felt's repeated urgings, Chiang firmly refused to change his stance; regardless of his personal feelings for Nehru or his alliance with the Americans, he considered himself a Chinese nationalist first and foremost, and therefore placed the interests of his nation as he saw them before either, and while reclaiming the mainland was indeed a major priority for him, he seemingly felt it dishonorable to attempt doing so while mainland China was actively engaged with another nation. After Chen Cheng urged him to reconsider his views, Chiang quietly pointed out that although the PRC's economic strength was not yet equal to Taiwan's, its military power had increased considerably over the years, and that the PLA had dispatched only a tenth of its forces to the Indian border; he noted that if they were to act rashly, not only would they fail to make any significant difference, they might also risk losing Taiwan itself as a result.历史：1962年中印战争，美国怂恿蒋介石进攻大陆,为何老蒋不同意
After the border conflict, Nehru returned to Santiniketan and prepared to make a passionate speech condemning "Chinese aggression", but purportedly softened after seeing in the audience his old friend of thirty years, Tan Yun-Shan, a famous scholar who had dedicated his life to building friendship between their two civilizations and who had helped organize Chiang and Nehru's earlier meetings, and instead of his official speech, insisted that the quarrel was not with the Chinese people but between their governments, and that China's people would always be India's friends.
Despite a considerable surge in anti-Communist sentiment in India following India's defeat in the 1962 war, the Indian government did not elect to renew its official diplomatic ties with the ROC. However, the PRC noted that there was a significantly increased unofficial cooperation between Nehru and Chiang's governments afterwards. According to an April 1963 article in its state-run newspaper New China News Agency, "The foregoing facts have made it clear that the Nehru government and the Chiang Kai-shek gang have increased collusion and brought their relations to a new stage of joint political and military opposition to China." The article also noted that around February 1963, despite their earlier estrangement, Nehru even sent his "personal good wishes to the Generalissimo", and had welcomed Chinese Nationalist agents skilled in countering internal Communist insurgencies and widespread espionage to India. In another article published around the same time, Taiwan's Central Daily News, the official newspaper of the KMT, noted that, "Any country, whatever its stand in the past, can become our friend, as long as it today stands firm on the side of freedom and makes practical efforts against communism and against aggression. This is our basic stand and attitude toward India."