Why the deepening US-India bond should give China pause

The US and India have had a shared but muted strategic and security concern since the end of the Cold War in the rise of China
How much New Delhi will benefit from Washington’s embrace is unclear, but Beijing faces the prospect of a growing coalition aimed at resisting it

C. Uday Bhaskar

Published: 8:15am, 29 Jun 2023

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Though China was not explicitly referred to in the joint statement signed by US President Joe Biden and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Washington on June 22, it is the catalyst that has elevated US-India relations to a special strategic partnership.

The two democracies have lived with a shared but muted strategic and security concern since the end of the Cold War. They are both focused on the implications of the rise of China.

In recent years, this anxiety has become more acute and both Washington and New Delhi have sought to deal with a more assertive China under President Xi Jinping. The military activism of the People’s Liberation Army in relation to Taiwan, the South China Sea and Ladakh is a case in point.

However, the US and India have not entered into a formal military alliance – a template with which Washington is more familiar – where the world is divided into allies and adversaries. India does not fit into either box, though it bears remembering that for greater part of the Cold War, the bilateral relationship was described as one of “estranged democracies”.

The major bone of contention was the nuclear question. Delhi refused to be pushed into signing the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and renouncing the right to acquire nuclear weapons, a capability enjoyed by the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.

India has long been averse to joining any military bloc or aligning itself with a major geopolitical pole. During the Cold War, Delhi opted to remain non-aligned, a position that is now recast as opting for multi-alignment predicated on the abiding national interest and the issue that is being pursued.

This would qualify as unalloyed realism in the protection of core national interests. The response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is illustrative of India’s foreign policy orientation.

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In April, Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar elucidated this approach: “Whether it is the United States, Europe, Russia or Japan, we are trying to ensure that all ties, all these ties, advance without seeking exclusivity.”

He added, “China falls into a somewhat different category because of the boundary dispute and the currently abnormal nature of our ties.” This, he said, is “an outcome of a violation of agreements regarding border management by them”. Predictably, Beijing has a mirror view of India on their territorial dispute.

The US-China relationship has soured since the Trump presidency and the American stance on China has acquired greater resolve on US President Joe Biden’s watch. It is evident Washington has made a choice to invest in India to better manage the China challenge. That the earlier ambivalence in both capitals has evaporated was on display in the flurry of pre-summit activity on both sides.

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Consequently, during Modi’s state visit to the US, the two nations announced their intent to engage more robustly under a “comprehensive global and strategic partnership” with lofty objectives. These are to be “anchored in a new level of trust and mutual understanding”, which would be a departure from India’s historical wariness of the US and the West in general. The lodestar is to serve the global good by remaining committed to “respect for human rights and shared principles of democracy, freedom and the rule of law”.

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The tenor of the US-India joint statement is similar to the declaration between China and Russia announced by Xi on February 4 last year, the opening day of the Beijing Winter Olympics. Their bilateral partnership was characterised as one greater than a traditional alliance and as a friendship that had “no limits”.

However, China has also been prudent in the degree to which it has aligned itself with Russia – particularly over the Ukraine invasion. In the aftermath of the Wagner rebellion, Beijing will be aware of the many vulnerabilities that both Moscow and Russian President Vladimir Putin must now grapple with.

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Geopolitics have been churned in unexpected ways since February last year, with the war in Ukraine posing new and seemingly intractable concerns, both ongoing and potential. The US-India joint statement has many domains that have been identified for potential cooperation, ranging from jet engine technology and advanced drones to artificial intelligence and semiconductors.

The degree to which this will enhance India’s comprehensive national power is uncertain since Delhi’s ability to accommodate and appropriately benefit from the US embrace is still a work in progress. Even so, China will have to factor in a new major power rewiring scenario where it is being resisted differently by the US and its allies in Europe, as well as Japan and South Korea, and by partners such as India in a more nuanced manner.

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In summary, if current geopolitical trends acquire greater traction, China and Russia will be pitted against a larger global collective. The International Monetary Fund’s April listing of the nations with the world’s highest gross domestic product shows that while China and Russia together account for about US$21.4 trillion, the US and its allies and partners account for more than double that figure.

In October 1962, Chinese leader Mao Zedong decided to teach India a lesson in the high Himalayas, forcing Delhi to review and redress its military inadequacies. The clash in Ladakh’s Galwan river valley in June 2020, in which India and China each sustained combat casualties, served as another reality check for Delhi. It is evident that Beijing has provided the catalyst for India with Modi at the helm to overcome its reticence over entering into a more substantive strategic partnership with the US.

Can Beijing protect and nurture its core interests in a more malleable manner and reduce the potential for major power conflict? The forthcoming Group of 20 summit, which India will host in September, could be an opportune occasion to review the path less travelled.

Uday Bhaskar is director of the Society for Policy Studies (SPS), an independent think tank based in New Delhi