If you watched the images at the recent G20 summit in Hangzhou, with Chinese President Xi Jinping playing the role of the impeccable host amid the gaffes committed by Chinese security officials against US President Barack Obama’s delegation, you may have wondered about the strange chemistry between the leaders of the world’s oldest democracy and the world’s largest communist country which has embraced capitalism without creating democratic institutions.
Let’s also bring in a third character to complete our triangle — India. The world’s largest democracy, as India likes to call itself, is ostensibly turning its back on the Non-Aligned Movement, once the bedrock of its foreign policy, and has become a key player in a strong partnership, short of an alliance, with the United States. India is also, along with China, a member of the Brics group.
The India-US embrace is unnerving China and also Pakistan.
Two recent incidents have hardened India’s attitude towards China: China blocked India’s bid to get Pakistan-based Mohammad Azhar on the UN’s terrorist list and, secondly, China objected, prodded by Pakistan, to India’s membership in the Nuclear Suppliers’ Group.
However, another thorny issue between India and China is the latter’s ambitious $46 billion (Dh168.8 billion) China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which passes through Pakistan-administered Kashmir. The Indian government has criticised this project and asked China to cease such activities.
Washington has its own reasons to stop China’s big-power ambitions, manifested in the East and South China Sea where China is staking claims to islands by creating a fait accompli situation based on its “historical claims”.
US Defence Secretary Ashton Carter is considered to be one of the chief architects of the growing Indo-US defence relationship – “the defining relationship of the 21st century”, in his words — culminating in the Logistics Service Agreement (LSA) signed in Washington DC during Indian Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar’s recent visit. The LSA, US sources maintain, allows both militaries to use each other’s land, air and naval bases for replenishment, repair and the rest.
China fears that this will give the US the right to deploy full-spectrum rotational forces anywhere in India on a pre-planned case-by-case basis in order to contain China.
There has been a robust exchange of high-profile visits between India and the US. Before Parrikar arrived in Washington, Secretary of the US Air Force Deborah Kelly James visited Delhi in late August and held talks with India’s senior civilian and military leaders.
James told me in an interview in New York that she would examine the building of “interoperable capabilities and efficiently managed coalitions”.
Technology acquisition
She confirmed that the US and India are continuing their talks on the joint production of jet fighters and jet engines, and on assembling Lockheed Martin’s F-16 aircraft and producing the Fairchild Republic Warthog-10s in India, conforming to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “Make-in-India” campaign.
Judging by the critical comments in the controlled Chinese media outlets, which toe the official line, China is worried about the US technology acquisition by India which is now producing sophisticated weapons.
The US wants India to play a greater role in the vast Indo-Pacific geographic expanse. India, which has close defence ties with Vietnam, one of China’s toughest adversaries in the South China Sea, can supply weapons and military equipment to Vietnam to resist China, which is forcing the smaller nations to unify and put up a common stand against China. James emphasised that the US believed in the right to free navigation in international waters, and praised the recent Hague tribunal’s ruling supporting the Philippine position and rejecting China’s “historical claims” to the islands. China has categorically rejected the ruling which is clearly a setback to its ambitions in the region. But China is offering economic sops to some nations in the region in return for foregoing further moves that could hurt China’s claims to the islands.
Maritime trade is the lifeline of China’s growing economy and its global One-Belt-One-Road commercial network. The US, on its part, has been encouraging the Indian navy which as a trans-regional operating force between the Indian Ocean region and the East and South China Sea could become a problem for China in the years ahead.
India is also strengthening its multilateral cooperation with Southeast Asian countries aimed at ensuring freedom of navigation.
Economic leverage
If China is not happy with the intensifying Indo-US defence cooperation, it needs to reflect on the reasons behind the growing bonhomie between India and the US. China has needled India and pushed the latter into the US’ embrace.
In Southeast Asia, anti-China sentiments are widely prevalent but China’s economic leverage is the reason why China’s neighbours are presently reticent about escalating tensions.
However, China’s economic clout may not always calm the current situation in the region.
Chinese posturing might push together all the affected countries to form a united strategic front against it; China’s image has been already dented as it continues to build artificial islands to create military facilities in the South China Sea in violation of the international law of the sea.
China should take a consensus-based approach with the smaller nations instead of taking an “everything-or-nothing” stand.
Manik Mehta is a commentator on Asian affairs.
