WASHINGTON — Since Narendra Modi swept to power in India, observers have intensified their search for clues to the likely shape of his foreign policy. Many have paid particular attention to his observations on China, which seem more muscular than those of his predecessor.

Asked in April to describe his vision of Sino-Indian relations, he replied: “There should not be any compromise on India’s interest. We should look at each other eye to eye, not lower our eyes.”

This past October, he warned that India’s leaders “cannot allow China to dominate India in foreign policy matters.” Most notably, he asserted in February that China must “leave behind its mindset of expansion.”

Such rhetoric contributes to the characterization of Modi as a staunch nationalist, cast in the mold of another Indian prime minister for whom he has often expressed admiration, Atal Vajpayee.

While he may indeed prove more assertive in his dealings with China, his statements to date suggests that his foreign policy will prioritize economic revival. Modi has called a robust economy “the very foundation of an effective foreign policy and successful national-security strategy.”

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To that end, he seems intent on expanding India’s bilateral trade and investment partnerships, without worrying excessively about the impact that its dealings with one country might have on those with another.

As he explained in a recent interview, “relations between India and another nation cannot be predicated with our relations with other countries. We have a right to conduct our foreign policy affairs guided by the supremacy of national interest.”

Modi says that he is eager to make India’s “relations with Russia even stronger in a wide range of fields,” and he has expressed confidence that he and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe “will take India-Japan ties to newer heights.”

An article in the prominent Indian magazine Business Today, ventures that Modi will try to jumpstart the South Asian Free Trade Area and boost India’s trade with Africa. Another likely item on his foreign-policy agenda is reviving stalled negotiations on free-trade agreements with New Zealand and European Union.

Modi’s emphasis on economics makes sense, since it is India’s economic stagnation that has diminished its stature in the world.

For much of the past decade, especially prior to the global financial crisis, many observers spoke of China and India as approximate strategic equals, often using the term “Asian century” as shorthand for a Chinese and Indian century.

In 2004, the US and India declared a “strategic partnership,” and four years later they signed a landmark civilian nuclear deal. The US was confident that a stronger relationship with India would advance its national interests in a wide range of arenas —ranging from counterterrorism to Asian-Pacific security — as well as counter the perception that technocratic authoritarianism enables national performance more than vibrant democracy.

Today, however, the gaps between China and India — economic, military, and strategic — are so significant that most observers do not address the two countries in the same breath, except to spotlight the chasm.

India is wary of growing Sino-Pakistani ties as well as China’s development of commercial ports that encircle the Indian subcontinent. Compounding its frustration,
India senses that the US views it as an adjunct of its efforts to manage China’s rise, rather than as an emerging great power.

The Washington Post’s Simon Denyer notes that “China’s economy has gone from strength to strength, while India’s has sunk back into the ranks of the also-rans.”

In 2004, India’s gross domestic product was close to two-fifths that of China; by 2013 the ratio had shrunk to a fifth. From 2008 to 2013 China averaged 9 percent growth; India, 6.4 percent. The last two years have proven especially difficult: while China grew by roughly 7.7 percent in 2012 and 2013, India grew by less than 5 percent in both.

While time will doubtless reveal more details of Modi’s approach to foreign policy, there is good reason to believe that economic renewal will anchor it. If he delivers on his promise on reversing India’s stagnation, he may convince a skeptical global audience that India is back in the great-power sweepstakes.

Ali Wyne is a contributing analyst at Wikistrat and a coauthor of Lee Kuan Yew: The Grand Master’s Insights on China, the United States, and the World (2013).