Recently, northern and central Indian plains are reeling from a life-threatening extreme heatwave, with temperatures regularly exceeding 48 C and major urban centers such as New Delhi suffering critical water shortages. Beyond climate change, residual El Nino effects and local weather dynamics, structural governance vulnerabilities have magnified the disaster, putting India's national governance to a severe test.
The heatwave reflects an imbalance between India's geopolitical ambitions and the foundations of its people's livelihoods.
In recent years, New Delhi has embraced bold "great-power aspirations" on the global stage, evidenced by steadily rising defense spending, ongoing border infrastructure projects and active geopolitical posturing.
Such strategic pursuits have severely squeezed the foundations of people's livelihoods, leaving public infrastructure and governance unable to keep pace with domestic needs. Basic water and power supplies remain woefully inadequate across the country. Though installed power capacity doubles peak demand, systemic flaws in governance and infrastructure have rendered the power grid highly vulnerable.
More fundamentally, this is far more than just an issue of governance efficiency - it is a failure of development prioritization.
India's geopolitical maneuvering has inadvertently harmed the public's well-being. This year, the Indian government had capped air conditioners (AC) compressor imports at 30 percent of the volumes of fiscal year 2025. With India importing roughly 60-70 percent of its AC compressors from China, the move was widely seen as a deliberate attempt to target Chinese supply chains and advance the "Make in India" initiative.
This ban has directly worsened India's AC supply, with many popular models being sold out or facing delivery delays. Facing widespread backlash, the Indian government partially rolled back the quota - a textbook example of how geopolitical posturing can inflict unnecessary harm on everyday citizens.
Faced with the pressures of a large population and climate challenges, China has adhered to a prevention-first approach, building extensive practical experience spanning emergency response to long-term resilience development, which can provide India with a multidimensional reference.
The core of China's experience lies in integrating climate adaptation into national development planning, achieving a balance between "development and resilience." Rather than reacting passively to disasters, China prioritizes proactive prevention; instead of fragmented, ad hoc responses, it implements comprehensive, system-wide governance. Should India adopt these practices, it could significantly accelerate its climate adaptation process and avoid paying repeated, heavy costs.
As the world's two largest developing countries, China and India possess strong complementarities and vast potential for climate resilience collaboration.
First, green supply chain collaboration. India should abandon exclusionary trade policies and welcome Chinese enterprises to establish local assembly operations for refrigeration equipment and jointly build industrial chains, rapidly enhancing its hardware infrastructure through a "technology for market" model.
Second, clean energy technology transfer. China's leading expertise in solar power, energy storage and microgrids can assist India in building distributed energy systems to address grid overloads during periods of extreme heat. Both sides can deepen joint ventures in renewable energy projects to advance India's energy transition and grid modernization.
Finally, regional disaster mitigation mechanisms. China and India can explore establishing a regularized platform for extreme weather early warning and disaster mitigation in the Himalayan region and South Asia, sharing satellite remote sensing data and jointly conducting research on heat islands and exchanging agricultural drought-resistance technologies. They could also pursue deeper climate cooperation within multilateral frameworks including BRICS.
India's current extreme heatwave is the nature's test of humanity's governance capabilities. It reminds the world that a nation's strength should not be measured by aircraft carrier tonnage or diplomatic toughness, but by whether its people can have access to clean water and basic cooling when temperatures hit 48 C.
This crisis is as much a wake-up call as an opportunity.
If India can confront its shortcomings with an open mind and draw on beneficial experiences, it will surely chart a steady course toward resilient development, creating a safer and more sustainable future for its more than 1.4 billion people.