India, US and China
China and India are the world’s fastest-growing
major economies, the largest and third-largest by purchasing power. Together
they account for one-third of humanity. The two seem destined to compete in the
21st century – even as the United States and India are increasingly partners,
if not allies, in shaping a balance of power that tilts in the direction of the
democracies rather than being controlled by Beijing.
India fought a war with China in 1962 over their
contested border. There is also a growing strategic competition between
Washington and Beijing.
In 1998, India tested nuclear weapons, and
then-Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee justified this new posture in secret
correspondence to President Bill Clinton as a response to China’s military
buildup and Beijing’s arming of India’s enemy Pakistan. In a striking
turnaround, Vajpayee called India and the United States “natural allies” with
shared interests in managing Chinese power and defeating terrorism. This led to
the forging of a U.S.-India strategic partnership in the 2000s centered on
military cooperation and acceptance of India’s status as a nuclear-weapons
state through U.S. support for normalizing civilian nuclear trade with India in
the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Nuclear Suppliers Group.
Under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, India is
again reaching out to the United States to help balance against China,
including by strengthening the Indian armed forces and promoting India’s
economic development.
If any country has the prospect of closing the
gap with China, it is India and a strong and committed government will be able
to pursue this goal.
India’s strategic objective, then, is righting
the imbalance of power between it and China, not permanently accommodating
itself to overweening Chinese strength.
On the eve of Xi’s arrival, China launched a
military skirmish along the two countries’ contested border. Chinese troops
were pushing into Indian-claimed territory even as he welcomed Xi with
red-carpet treatment. Modi has learnt
by experience that China is unlikely to be the kind of partner India could
trust. Modi’s May 2015 visit to China focused
on closer economic cooperation, but candid disagreements between the two
countries on security issues.
In contrast, Modi’s September 2014 Washington
summit with President Obama produced an unusually detailed joint declaration
that laid out a range of areas in which to deepen cooperation. This included
the South China Sea, where they announced a joint interest in freedom of
navigation and overflight, and against any use of force to change the status
quo. Modi then offered to host Obama for India’s Republic Day parade—a first
for a country whose traditional non-alignment led it to welcome leaders from
Asia, Russia, and the developing world rather than the West at this annual
ceremony.
On January 25th, 2015, Modi met Obama on the
Delhi airport tarmac with a bear hug that The New York Times called the signal
of a new “Great Game” in Asia—between India and the United States on the one
hand and China on the other. Once they got down to business, common anxiety
about China, and a common interest in concerting to manage it, drove the
conversation between the leaders of the world’s biggest democracies.
When Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi of
India sat down to talk, the first 45 minutes were dominated by just one: China.
Mr. Obama and his aides discovered to their surprise that Modi’s assessment of
China’s rise and its impact on the greater strategic situation in East Asia was
closely aligned with their own. Just as they did, Modi seemed increasingly
uneasy about China’s efforts to extend its influence around the region and
interested in a united approach to counter them. Given this common concern,
Modi and Obama discussed a variety of ways to strengthen defense and security
cooperation.
Modi’s embrace of Obama marks the demise of
India’s tradition of nonalignment, which may have suited the country when it
was weak and poor. Rising and strong, India needs a new foreign policy, which
Modi and his advisors appear to understand.
From an American perspective, managing the Asian
balance of power becomes much easier to the extent that there is a strong,
friendly state of similar weight to China next door, which is why Washington
must continue to support the Indian government’s efforts to fuel the kind of
sustained economic growth India enjoyed in the 2000s. The United States
also has a compelling interest in promoting India as a successful democracy, to
demonstrate to other emerging powers that they need not mimic China’s
authoritarian development model in order to modernize. A vibrant Indo-American
partnership is likely to create a
very different strategic future for Asia and the world than the Sino-centric
one championed in Beijing but opposed by nearly every other power.
No comments:
Post a Comment