India, in Infographics: Trade & Dependence
India’s China Import Bill Went From $7 Billion To $131.6 Billion
India Bought $131.6 Billion Of Goods From China In FY2025-26 — Up From Barely $7 Billion Two Decades Ago, An 18-Fold Rise. The Bill Roughly Doubled Again In The Last Decade Alone, And The Two Most Recent Years Together ($245bn) Nearly Match The Entire First Decade ($324bn). It Is Overwhelmingly What India’s Factories Run On — Electronics, Machinery And Chemicals — Not Goods For The Shop Shelf.
Left: India’s Annual Merchandise Imports From China, FY2004-05 To FY2025-26, On A DGCI&S / Department Of Commerce Fiscal-Year Basis. Right: The FY2025-26 Bill Split Into Ten Sectors, Aggregating The 1,500 Largest Of ~4,400 HS-6 Lines (97%, $127.7bn, Of The $131.6bn Total). Source: DGCI&S; politypolicy.com/IndiasChinaDeficit.
The FY2025-26 Bill
$131.6bn
India’s Imports From China Hit A Record — The Largest From Any Country.
Since FY2004-05
18×
Up From Just $7.1bn Two Decades Ago — A Faster Climb Than Total Imports.
In One Decade
2.1×
The Bill More Than Doubled From $61.7bn In FY2015-16.
Electronics & IT
$44.4bn
The Single Largest Sector — A Third Of The Whole Bill Is Electronics And Machinery.
What The Numbers Say
A Bigger China Bill Is, In Large Part, The Arithmetic Of India Making More Things. The Value Has Climbed Almost Without Pause For Twenty Years, But What It Buys Has Changed: Over Nine-Tenths Of It Now Feeds Indian Manufacturing — The Chips, Cells, Machines And Chemicals That Go Into Phones, Solar Panels And Medicines Assembled Or Formulated In India. The Number To Watch Is Not The Headline But Whether The Genuinely Captive Core — Solar Wafers, Lithium Cells, Rare-Earth Magnets, Key Drug Ingredients — Shrinks Over The Next Five Years.
Two Decades In Three Blocs
FY05–FY14 · The Take-Off · $324bn
In The First Decade India’s China Bill Went From $7bn To $51bn As China Became The Default Supplier Of Components And Machinery For A Fast-Industrialising Economy.
FY15–FY24 · The Doubling · $755bn
The Second Decade More Than Doubled The Annual Bill — Held Flat Around $61bn To FY17, Then Surged Past $100bn As India Scaled Phone Assembly, Solar And Pharma, All Pulling In Chinese Inputs.
FY25–FY26 · The Record · $245bn
Just Two Years Added $245bn — Nearly As Much As The Whole First Decade — Ending At A Record $131.6bn, Even As New Delhi Talked Of Cutting Its China Dependence.
How This Was Built
The Series
Annual Imports From China On A DGCI&S / Department Of Commerce Fiscal-Year Basis, US$ Billion — The Same Basis As politypolicy.com/IndiasChinaDeficit. FY2016-17 To FY2025-26 Are Verified Directly Against The DGCI&S Export-Import Data Bank, To The Dollar (FY2025-26 Imports Of $131,620 Million — Which Also Equals The Sum Of All 4,416 HS-6 Lines). FY2004-05 To FY2015-16 Are Department Of Commerce Fiscal-Year Figures (FY2015-16 Per The Tool Above), Corroborated By UN Comtrade Calendar-Year Levels.
The Sectors
The FY2025-26 Split By Sector Aggregates The 1,500 Largest Of India’s ~4,400 HS-6 Import Lines From China — 97% ($127.7bn) Of The $131.6bn Bill — Into Ten End-Use Groups. The Sector Assignment Is An Editorial Classification Of The HS Lines; The Values Themselves Are Hard DGCI&S Data.
Sources: DGCI&S / Department Of Commerce; UN Comtrade (India Reporter); politypolicy.com/IndiasChinaDeficit (HS-6 Line Data, FY2025-26). Retrieved 14 September 2026.
