An employee works on an engine block on the assembly line at a manufacturing plant in Chennai, India. Filephoto: VCG

An Indian opposition leader has called for "ground-level change" to boost the country's manufacturing strength, noting that India is merely assembling products rather than truly manufacturing them. 

India's Leader of the Opposition Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said in a post on X that 80 percent of components of most TVs made in India come from China, according to a report from the Times of India on Saturday. "From iPhones to TVs - the parts come from abroad; we just put them together," Gandhi wrote. 

Gandhi said India's small manufacturing entrepreneurs are hindered by a lack of policy support, while heavy taxes and monopolies by a few firms are stifling the industry. Without self-sufficiency in production, India's talk of jobs and "Make in India" will remain empty slogans, according to his post, and "Ground-level change is needed for India to move beyond assembly and become a true manufacturing power capable of competing with China."

Qian Feng, director of the research department at the National Strategy Institute in Tsinghua University, pointed out that India's push to strengthen its manufacturing sector is not new. "Since Indian Prime Minister Modi took office, the 'Make in India' campaign has been elevated to a national strategy, with policies like the Production Linked Incentive scheme," said Qian, but he said the overall progress remains limited so far.

In an earlier speech in February, Rahul Gandhi said India's manufacturing fell from 15.3 percent of GDP in 2014 to 12.6 percent of GDP today, which is the lowest share of manufacturing in 60 years, citing official data.

The current situation is well below the original goal of making manufacturing to reach 25 percent of India's GDP by 2025, said Qian. "India's dependence on China for intermediate goods, components, and high-end equipment has not decreased while some key indicators show continued growth." 

Data from China's General Administration of Customs showed that goods trade between China and India reached 533.76 billion yuan in the first half of 2025, up 11.5 percent year-on-year. India imported a total of 469.16 billion yuan of goods from China during the period, increasing 15.4 percent year-on-year.

Qian stated that China's manufacturing strength is built on decades of consistent policy, while India lacks policy stability, and gaps in workforce skills and infrastructure also hinder India's manufacturing growth. 

Indian External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar visited China earlier in July and said during his meeting with Chinese officials that Indian side stands ready to take the consensus reached by the leaders as guidance to maintain the momentum of bilateral ties, advance mutually beneficial cooperation, and enhance communication and coordination within multilateral mechanisms, according to Xinhua. 

At a press conference held on March 17, 2025, in response to a media question on China-India relationship, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mao Ning said that as two largest developing countries, China and India have a shared task to achieve respective development and revitalization, and should understand and support each other, and help each other succeed.

This serves the fundamental interests of over 2.8 billion people in the two countries, meets the common aspiration of regional countries, follows the historical trend of the Global South growing stronger, and is conducive to world peace, stability, development and prosperity. The two countries should be partners that contribute to each other's success. A cooperative pas de deux of the dragon and the elephant is the only right choice for both sides, said the spokesperson.