NEW DELHI — As Indians savored Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s effusive welcome in the White House Rose Garden this week, another, less friendly image kept stubbornly interfering.

High in the hills of the Himalayas, Indian troops had halted a Chinese road-building project in a disputed border area, and Beijing was angry. News channels kept cutting to old video of troops bumping torsos, trying to force one another backward without escalating to slaps or punches, a tactic often described here as “jostling.”

Beijing released a complaint against India on Monday, just as Mr. Modi walked into a meeting in Washington with Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. On Tuesday, Global Times, a state-run nationalist tabloid, warned India to back down in a harshly worded editorial, saying that its “capacity is nowhere near China’s, and the so-called strategic support from the United States is empty, too, so it won’t be of any help when it is needed.”

The interruption of diplomatic ceremonies by border flare-ups is a regular feature of the Indian-Chinese relationship. To Indian analysts, the outburst conveyed Beijing’s dissatisfaction with President Trump’s plans to carry forward the United States-India strategic maritime partnership begun under President Barack Obama.