The New World Order

Stuck in the past, India is slow in recognising it

Pravin Sawhney

During my recent visit to Moscow, I had an opportunity to interact with senior Russian foreign policy analysts. These conversations convinced me that India presently is at that sweet spot in history where it could have its cake and eat it too. Since the Ukraine war, today, an option exists for India to play an important role in shaping the new world order without being rushed into normalizing ties with China. Moreover, the possibility of an escalation of the border dispute with China would diminish, and perhaps with Pakistan too since Pakistan consults China on India. What is more, instead of India being the vassal state of the US, the latter would likely pursue Delhi for a partnership.

Unfortunately, India does not want to consider this option. It wants to continue wooing the US, never mind the innumerable public insults that President Trump has heaped on the Indian leadership in his second term in office. Trump’s foreign policy has been so unpredictable that some of US’ closet allies like Canada and UK, harassed by US’ unreasonable demands and high tariffs, have decided to trade with China.

Let’s understand this. It is ironic that under the present Trump administration, India lost the strategic role given to it by the first Trump administration in May 2018 when the US renamed its US Pacific Command as US-Indo Pacific Command to give centrality to India in its Indo-Pacific strategy against China. This had formally anointed India as the US military bulwark against China by becoming the net security provider (including for combat) in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) through which some USD three trillion worth of Chinese trade passes annually.

By supporting the US’ global role in the Indo Pacific, India projected itself as China’s regional competitor to safeguard its traditional role bequeathed by British India as the hegemon in South Asia and IOR. China, through its Belt and Road which except for Bhutan has been adopted by all South Asian nations and with its military base in Djibouti (Horn of Africa) has threatened India’s regional stature. It is commonsense that if India has to project itself as competing with China, it cannot normalise ties with it. This, and not the border dispute, is the real reason why the Modi government will not normalise ties with China even as (a) Beijing has emerged as India’s primary trading partner ahead of the US, and (b) t