An India seeking gains from US-China rivalry is no guru to the world
- India is now being wooed by the US as China was once cosied up to by Washington during the Cold War
- While this is a moment for New Delhi to seize, detente between China and India would better serve both countries’ strategic and economic interests
In January, Modi hosted a virtual Voice of Global South Summit for 125 developing countries, but didn’t invite China, Brazil or South Africa. Presumably, in the presence of these leading developing nations, India would have felt embarrassed to describe itself as the voice of the Global South.
India depends on Russia for weaponry and energy. But, according to Alexander Gabuev, director of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Centre, Russia’s reliance on China will outlast Vladimir Putin, in that Russia is increasingly dependent on China as a market for its commodities, as a source of critical imports, and as its most important diplomatic partner.
In the long term, the Indian-Russian relationship is on a downward trend, although it won’t break. For decades to come, India will still need Russian oil and gas, but it will reduce its dependence on Russian arms. Due to the war in Ukraine, Russia has already fallen behind schedule in delivering Talwar-class stealth frigates to India.
Washington would be only too happy to wean New Delhi off Russian dependency. It remains to be seen whether increasing US-India defence industrial cooperation can really bolster New Delhi’s defence manufacturing capabilities, or if India’s defence sector will end up a bigger hodgepodge of everything from everywhere.
New Delhi’s biggest challenge is maximising gains from its relations with a faraway Washington without irking Beijing, its stronger neighbour. India is now being wooed by the US as China was once cozied up to by the US against the Soviet Union during the Cold War. This is certainly an opportune moment for New Delhi to seize. If pretending is an art, then Modi is a guru second to none.
The fact that the soldiers from both sides were fighting with stones and clubs tells us that they knew they shouldn’t shoot at each other in any circumstances. If a lesson has truly been learned, it is entirely possible for both sides to maintain peace in the border area, at least for four more decades.
India’s foreign policy is at best pragmatic and at worst opportunistic, but trying to be all things to all people won’t make India a “Vishwaguru”. Instead, India comes across more as the bat from Aesop’s fable, which describes itself as a bird or a beast depending on its assessment of an impending war between birds and beasts. But India is not alone in this. In a world of intensifying major-power competition, there are more bats than birds or beasts.
Senior Colonel Zhou Bo (ret) is a senior fellow of the Centre for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University and a China Forum expert