The lack of strategic consensus has made progress in the India-China bilateral relationship elusive. A strategic consensus between India and China would have enabled them to arrive at a political arrangement, where neither of them would be involved in any balance of power politics against each other, and support each other when crucial common interests are threatened. The reason for this lack, is the use of narrow geopolitical constructs on both sides to describe the bilateral relationship, which reduces the bilateral interactions, to a ‘competition versus cooperation’ dichotomy. It leads to festering mutual mistrust because of the perception that the other relies on strategic competitors (the US in India’s case and Pakistan in China’s) to reap geo-political gains. Though both countries attempt to narrow these irritants at high-level meetings of the top leaders (Wuhan and Chennai Informal Summits), the bilateral tensions continue reach new heights.