The bilateral relations between India and Taiwan have improved since the 1990s, despite both nations not maintaining official diplomatic relations. India recognises only the People's Republic of China (in mainland China) and not the Republic of China's claims of being the legitimate government of Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau - a conflict that emerged after the Chinese Civil War (1945–49). However, India's economic and commercial links as well as people-to-people contacts with Taiwan have expanded in recent years.
In May 2020, two members of the Indian Parliament virtually attended the newly elected President Tsai'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 Modi administrations. 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. On August 8,2023, former Chief of Army Staff, General Naravane travelled to Taipei in Taiwan, which Beijing claims is a renegade province, together with former navy chief Karambir Singh and former air chief marshal RKS Bhadauria.
Background
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" and that the island of Taiwan was a part of Chinese territory, 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; the Republic of India recognized the ROC from 1947 to 1950, while Pakistan recognized the ROC until 1951. Despite its somewhat strained relations with the PRC after the border war of 1962, India has continued to recognise the PRC's "One China" policy.
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 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 Taiwan leader, 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 maintainted 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.