evidence: While situating the ongoing border standoff within the overarching framework of Chinese foreign policy and global strategy, this paper makes two key arguments. First, the ongoing border crisis in Ladakh is likely the outcome of an intensifying conflict between China’s Major Power Diplomacy (of wooing India to hedge against the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy and making New Delhi a key partner in Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its Neighborhood Strategy (that of securing a China-centered regional order with Beijing as the sole leader or rule-maker in the region) vis-à-vis India. Second, the standoff lays bare China’s policy dilemma over India — on the one hand, Beijing wants to effectively check a rising India by asserting its strength and psychological advantage over New Delhi. But on the other hand, China is anxious about the impact of the current crisis on the realization of its various regional and global objectives in the Indian Ocean Region that necessitates cordial ties with India.