As climate stress intensifies across Asia’s river basins, water security is emerging as an area where strategic rivals such as India and China could still find space for joint cooperation. Globally we have entered an era of global water bankruptcy, as described by a January 2026 UN report, indicating that the world is now using more freshwater than natural replenishment. Indicating a structural long term crisis, rather than a temporal disruption, there is a need for two of the most populated fast growing economies that also hold some of the largest freshwater bodies in the world to work together. As the world moves towards a third UN Water Conference, slated for 2026 December, India and China lead consecutive BRICS presidencies. If aligned, Indian and Chinese experience in the areas of water security could shape the direction of global water diplomacy.At recent BRICS summits, both India and China have leaned heavily on three overlapping pillars: development finance, climate resilience, and a renewed push for Global South-led multilateralism. Beijing has signalled continuity in its governing philosophy of “ecological civilisation” through its new 15th Five-Year Plan, with targets for pollution reduction, water-use efficiency, and ecosystem restoration. New Delhi for its part places water at the heart of climate adaptation, disaster-risk reduction, and resilient infrastructure within its growth narrative, as seen in recent budget allocations. In both countries, water sits firmly within this strategic frame tied to economic stability, public safety, and wider geopolitics of a warming region.This shared framing arrives at a moment when global water diplomacy is being reset. For two Asian powers whose relationship has long been defined by strategic caution and contentious borders, shared resources and shared climate challenges could prove to be a potential domain for cooperation that also signals responsible global leadership. The preparatory process for the 2026 UN Water Conference, being coordinated through UN Water, is pushing governments toward grounded commitments on workable avenues of cooperation including flood management, drought preparedness, pollution control and adaptation finance. India’s BRICS presidency this year will be followed by China’s presidency in 2027, with the third UN Water Conference scheduled for December 2026 in between. The sequencing offers a rolling window for continuity with a chance to anchor cooperation on climate resilience and water security across successive multilateral platforms rather than through sporadic bilateral gestures. In a region where warming temperatures and erratic weather patterns are destabilising river basins and coastlines, such continuity could drive the conversation on water security. A history of cooperation that never fully disappearedEven as border tensions and geopolitical rivalry has weighed down the bilateral, often spilling into the region, cooperation on water has persisted, though often fragmented, as one of the few areas of continued engagement. Since the early 2000s, the Indian government has entered Memorandums of Understanding (MoU) with China for five years for the provision of Hydrological information on Yarlung Tsangpo /Brahmaputra River and Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed in April 2005 for China to provide hydrological information of the River Sutlej/Langqen Tsangbo during flood season to India. In accordance, China has been providing hydrological information (Water Level, Discharge and Rainfall) to Indian authorities on a regular basis during monsoon season (May 15 to October 15 every year). In 2006, India and China agreed to set up a Joint Expert Level Mechanism through a Joint Declaration by both the countries for cooperation on flood season hydrological data, emergency management and other issues regarding trans-border Rivers as agreed between them.The Brahmaputra MoU was further renewed in 2008, 2013 and 2018. The MoU on Sutlej was renewed in 2010 and is now under process of further renewal. These mechanisms of cooperation have been limited in duration, scope, and transparency yet they have endured, though with some disruption during periods of heightened conflict. While formal renewals are pending, China has shared the hydrological data for Sutlej for the flood season of 2021 and Brahmaputra since 2019. The disruptions, while politically induced, create real costs felt by communities dependent on the river and data, weakening preparedness and exacerbating risk. The lesson from two decades of limited engagement is that when hydrological exchanges are regular, predictable, and institutionalised, they can create a modest but essential layer of stability, ensuring that multiple dialogue options remain open. Also read: Rocky India-China Relations Affecting River Data Sharing Role of India-China within multilateral forumsOver the past decade, BRICS has steadily expanded its environmental cooperation agenda through its 2018 framework agreement and BRICS Environment Declaration highlighting rivers, pollution control, and climate resilience as common priorities for the forum partners. Further, ministerial tracks on climate change, disaster risk reduction, and sustainability have been set up to share environmentally sound technologies and financing for green infrastructure through better coordination and integrated platforms. Recent summits have repeatedly flagged river pollution, water efficiency, climate adaptation, and resilient cities as Global South priorities, areas where both India and China have domestic experience to draw from. As the grouping widens and its financial arms develop, water can be an emerging natural focus for joint action, especially given that all initial BRICS countries, as well as more recent partners are all water stressed in myriad ways. All countries also have some of the fastest growing urban centres in the world, prompting the need for potential better coordination on wastewater reuse in cities, flood-control systems, drought preparedness in semi-arid regions, and climate resilience amongst other areas. At the UN Water, both governments have engaged through case studies on data sharing, flood preparedness and river rejuvenation rather than declaratory geopolitics. In its official inputs to preparations for the 2026 UN Water Conference, China pointed to the “reciprocal exchange of hydrological data” on the Yarlung Tsangpo–Brahmaputra with India and Bangladesh during the flood season, linking this to basin-wide early-warning systems, an important signal from a country that shares over 100 rivers and lakes with almost all of its 14 land neighbours. India has showcased domestic models at the UN Water Conference such as the Namami Gange programme, emphasising integrated river restoration, sustained public investment and community participation, while keeping water prominent in its broader multilateral priorities.As India and China lead multilateral processes, they bring to the table not only modern tools such as satellite monitoring, flood forecasting and early-warning systems but also long civilisational traditions of managing water in fragile landscapes. India’s tanks, stepwells and floodplain farming systems, and China’s gravity-fed irrigation works, terraced catchments and recent river-restoration efforts rooted in the idea of ecological flows, reflect the civilisational idea of working with rivers rather than overpowering them. If reframed as nature-led solutions and supported by contemporary science and finance, these practices could form the backbone of a distinctly Asian contribution to global climate adaptation.A realistic approach to India-China water cooperation would build on renewing and strengthening existing memoranda with clear guardrails on transparency in environmental assessments, routine scientific exchanges, and space for academic and civil-society scrutiny. The focus could remain squarely on practical deliverables such as restoring and modernising flood-season hydrological data-sharing with predictable renewal cycles and higher-frequency transmission, building joint early-warning protocols for extreme events as part of disaster-risk reduction, and developing shared urban-resilience toolkits on stormwater capture, wastewater reuse and leakage reduction. The opportunity is strategic as much as environmental. Through coordinated inputs at the upcoming UN Water channels in the lead up to the December Conference, they offer not only an opportunity for the two countries and region but also greater momentum for other countries with similar challenges. India and China might likely always remain in a state of cold peace, but as Himalayan hydrology becomes increasingly volatile, water offers one of the few domains where cooperation can reduce risk rather than deepen it. As other aspects of global governance falter, smarter cooperation between the two Asian giants offers new leadership in a rapidly warming world. Ambika Vishwanath is the Director of Kubernein Initiative, and a water security and diplomacy expert.