As India eyes US military deal, neutrality on China takes back seat
From India's surprise announcement on Monday, expanding its trilateral naval exercises with the United States and Japan to include Australia, to its coming high-level defence and diplomatic dialogue with the US, the winds of policy change might be blowing in New Delhi.
And China might be at the heart of much of that change.
Even as thousands of its troops have been locked in a tense stand-off with Chinese troops in the icy Himalayan region of Ladakh for over five months, India has been taking slow but sure-footed strategic decisions that it had been putting off for fear of inviting Beijing's wrath.
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After finally agreeing to expand the naval exercises to include all the member countries of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad - a decision that it had been dithering on for a while - New Delhi is getting set to sign a separate military agreement with the US next week, the last of the four foundational military agreements that will allow for the greater sharing of geospatial intelligence.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defence Mark Esper are expected to travel to New Delhi for talks with their respective Indian counterparts, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and Rajnath Singh, next Monday and Tuesday. The two sides have already signed three other military agreements, and the fourth, the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geospatial Intelligence (BECA), is pending approval from the Indian side.
The agreement will enable the US to share high-quality topographical, nautical and aeronautical data that will help India in navigation and missile targeting. A recent piece in the Global Times, the Chinese state-owned nationalist tabloid, said the signing of the agreement was a move "aimed at China".
"For a long time, India was appeasing China and being extra sensitive and cautious. That [approach] is being reviewed and the Quad is a good example," said retired Indian Navy Commodore C. Uday Bhaskar, director of the Society for Policy Studies, a New Delhi think tank.
As Bhaskar points out, how India positioned itself within the Quad has been a marker of its reticence to change. In 2007, the four countries along with Singapore conducted the Malabar naval exercises. But after an irate Beijing sent demarches to New Delhi asking for an explanation behind the setting up of the grouping, India was forced to assure China that "there was no ganging up".
On October 6, Jaishankar flew to Tokyo to join the other foreign ministers of the Quad nations, only the second time a meeting of the grouping has been held.
According to Harsh Pant, a professor of international relations at London's Kings College, the change in India's approach towards strategic decisions concerning China is evidence that New Delhi's foreign policy will be "less encumbered" by Beijing.
Much of this, Pant said, was due to the growing frustration in India about China's actions in the stand-off along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the de facto border separating Ladakh from Chinese-administered Aksai Chin. Recent fighting along the LAC has killed at least 20 Indian soldiers and an unspecified number of Chinese soldiers.
India has blamed China for the stand-off, alleging that it transgressed into Indian territory and has insisted on both sides going back to their positions as of April this year. However, despite 18 rounds of talks, no agreement on the issue has been reached.
All this is weighing on India's mind when it comes to reaching out for partnerships, analysts say.
"Hence, India needs to send out a message to China that it is looking for alternatives and that it has other friends and partners," said Pant, who is also the head of the Strategic Studies Programme at the New Delhi think tank Observer Research Foundation.
According to Pant, India's push towards activating the Quad, by agreeing to participate in the meeting and expanding the military exercises, is aimed at Chinese sensitivities.
"Each time the Quad is even mentioned, China goes ballistic," Pant said. Amid rising Chinese assertiveness, such a reaction might be egging India on, he added. "If it rattles China's cage, why not rattle it well? That is what India is trying," he said.
According to a retired former Indian diplomat in New Delhi, such an approach is a stark departure from India's long-time China policy.
"There has been a dominant mindset in New Delhi that has believed, for decades now, that the way to ensure ties with China remain stable is by professing India's neutrality and avoiding actions seen to be inimical by China," said the diplomat, who requested anonymity when speaking on a sensitive subject.
For instance, India's refusal to push any infrastructure projects along the LAC for the past few decades has been to ensure that its relations were China were not upstaged. In early October, while inaugurating the opening of the Atal tunnel, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi pointed how an airstrip at the Daulat Beg Oldi, a crucial point at the base of the Karakoram Pass, had been kept shut between 1965 and 2008 as a way to ensure that China was not provoked.
An indicator of India's changed approach is its alignment with the US on strategic goals. US President Donald Trump and Modi have met at least eight times since 2017, defence trade between the two has ballooned, while two-way commerce has also been on the rise - the goods and services trade increased from US$11.2 billion in 1995 to over US$142.6 billion in 2018.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been pumping the US-India relationship. Photo: AP alt=US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has been pumping the US-India relationship. Photo: AP
Yun Sun, a senior fellow and director of the Washington-based Stimson Center's China programme, said in an October 2 webinar organised by the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies that Beijing was not convinced by Indian claims of neutrality.
"According to China, India's neutrality between the US and China is ephemeral and can be easily reversed" by the US, he said, adding that Beijing believes that India's "emboldenment by the US' Indo-Pacific strategy" is behind the current border stand-off and India's "assertiveness".
In New Delhi, though, not many agree that there has been a sudden turn toward the US. According to Pant, India's China policy "will never be contingent on the US".
"Beijing has always had a perception that India is becoming an American pawn, but it forgets that the anti-Chinese sentiment in India goes back to the 1960s, when the US and China were close partners."
At the very least, though, Beijing might harbour heightened suspicions about New Delhi's intentions, even as thousands of soldiers continue to be locked in the seemingly unending stand-off in Ladakh.
According to Bhaskar, the Society for Policy Studies director, the conditions are a recipe for a bigger eruption. "The India-China relationship is now sullen and prickly and the possibility of a flare-up cannot be ruled out. There is no trust and anything can happen."
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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