India Misreads US's China Policy as Being Automatically Pro-India |
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The Xi-Trump summit in Washington has brought India’s foreign-policy dilemma into unusually sharp relief. For more than two decades, the United States has seen India as an important part of the answer to the rise of China. That was never quite an alliance, and India was never prepared to become an instrument of the US against Beijing. But the logic was clear: a stronger India, strategically aligned with the US and its partners, would provide a useful counterweight to Chinese power in Asia.
But the message coming out of the Trump-Xi summit last week is that that role is no longer a viable one. Nothing in the summit’s statements or actions said so explicitly. But the atmospherics did the talking : A deferential US president shepherding around a somewhat stoic and probably wary Chinese leader through a grand, and even over-the-top, reception in Washington, sends a louder message than anything else.
Then, there were the nuts and bolts. Little or no mention was made of the recent Graham Act that has authorised the US president to place up to 100% tariffs on countries like China and India who continue to buy Russian oil. Indeed, Trump refused to respond to a question on that score shouted at him in one of the events.
An emerging understanding between Washington and Beijing
The impression, therefore, is less of a new Sino-American alliance than of an emerging understanding between Washington and Beijing that competition must be stabilised and managed. One could call it the beginnings of a G2 dynamic – not because the two countries have suddenly become partners, but because their relationship increasingly appears to constitute the axis around which major global issues are being organised.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.
On the other hand, on September 23 in New York, India’s external affairs minister S. Jaishankar was told by his US counterpart secretary of state Marco Rubio, that the US would “help” India to deal with its energy problems. The US readout noted: “The two also discussed sanctions that could be levelled against states that engage economically with Russia and Iran.
The secretary emphasised that the US remains well-positioned to help regional partners address their energy security challenges.
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