Commentary | India Faces Strategic Isolation

Pravin Sawhney

The overarching belief in India is that under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India has emerged as the global balancer amidst the “great changes unseen in a century” as Chinese President Xi Jinping calls the reshaping of the twin global geopolitical and economic orders. The reality, however, is that India is headed towards strategic isolation and irrelevance in its own neighbourhood by 2030.

                                                         Prime Minister Narendra Modi addresses the Indian Diaspora in Sydney. He arrived in Australia after the                                                            G-7 Summit in Hiroshima

This is because of two critical decisions taken at the recent Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) leaders’ (US, India, Japan and Australia) summit held on the margins of G-7 summit in Japan. One, to collaborate in telecommunications including 5G and 6G, and in developing ‘standards’ for critical and emerging technologies, especially in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and cybersecurity. ‘Standards’ in technology relate to commonality in hardware, software and platforms for interoperability to work together. Different tech standards will disrupt global supply chain and force global companies to develop two sets of technologies, one with the US and developed nations standards for the global north, and another with Chinese standards supported by Russia for developing and underdeveloped nations (global south) and those which have joined the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa (BRICS). Ironically, India as part of the Quad and BRICS will be caught riding two horses.

Consequently, development of technology will become extremely expensive and consumer nations including the US and European Union (EU) will face problems of compatibility. It will become increasingly difficult for the US and EU to continue with its present policy of ‘de-risk’ instead of ‘de-couple’ with China. ‘De-risk’ refers to exclusion of China from select technologies like advanced chips while ‘de-couple’ means end of trade and commerce. Moreover, as China is the primary trading partner with 138 nations, digital logistics systems build on Chinese tech will make traditional trade and commerce with nations following US digital trade standards difficult.

And two, as part of the “partnership for cable connectivity and resilience” the Quad will leverage its expertise in design, manufacturing, laying and maintenance of subsea cables to secure and diversify critical networks. This will result in splinternet: separation of the global internet into two sets of subsea cables developed and maintained by the US and China techs. Together the two Quad decisions (tacitly endorsed by G-7 nations) will fragment globalisation by 2030 with no free flow of data, trade, capital and human resources. This will impact adversely on third and fourth industrial revolutions concerned with mobile internet economy (hardware digital connectivity in cyberspace) and industrial internet economy (software digital connectivity in cyberspace).

At the core of the Quad decisions is cross-border cyberspace governance debate on two issues: cybersecurity and cyberspace governance: rules regarding who will control data, which properly handled, will enhance a nation’s innovation power.

Meanwhile, China’s Digital Silk Road (DSR), which was announced by Xi in 2017, is the second phase of the BRI which