India must remain within the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a group of 16 nations negotiating a trade agreement. Indian industry is wary of the potentially adverse impact of preferential Chinese imports. But this is the only chance of securing a rules-based framework with China. The multilateral trading system—most conducive to the interests of a developing country—is likely to remain comatose. This is compelling trading nations to resort to regional trade agreements to expand their markets. The ongoing trade war has already created turbulence and uncertainty in global markets. This is bound to affect the nature and direction of global trade flows. Modern production networks stretch across manufacturing economies and trade agreements are important institutional mechanisms to facilitate countries’ access to such value chains. India must look for opportunities to hook into them. The India-China economic relationship should be seasoned with realism in these turbulent times, when geopolitics is transitioning. India’s reform agenda pervades all spheres of the economy. Positive developments have been reported in trade facilitation, ease of doing business, helped along by systemic reforms such as the goods and services tax, strengthening and expansion of infrastructure and greater focus on technology facilitation.