Strong supporters of India in the United States are now questioning if America made a mistake by choosing New Delhi as a close Washington ally, since it has been very reluctant to join any US-led military coalition against China.
“New Delhi will never involve itself in any US confrontation with Beijing that does not directly threaten its own security,” Ashley J. Tellis, a leading American commentator, wrote in the Foreign Affairs journal.
He added, “India values cooperation with Washington for the tangible benefits it brings but does not believe that it must, in turn, materially support the United States in any crisis — even one involving a common threat such as China.”
Tellis added that “Washington’s current expectations of India are misplaced.”
A leading American expert on India, Tellis has been a prominent votary in the Washington establishment of a strong US-India relationship. He is the Tata Chair for Strategic Affairs and a Senior Fellow at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for Peace.
Tellis was born in Mumbai and is of Indian origin. Earlier, he had worked as an advisor to the US State Department and was “intimately involved in negotiating the civil nuclear agreement with India”, according to the Carnegie Endowment website.
Disappointed by India’s stance
Though the reason for Tellis’ criticism of India is not known, it comes at a time when the pro-American lobby in the country has been trying to convince the Modi government to play a proactive role in the American effort to corner China on the Taiwan issue.
Tellis’s views reflect the growing disappointment with India on the China issue among many American commentators. He noted that for the past two decades, Washington has treated India as a key partner and had hoped this would help the US in its geopolitical rivalry with China.
From George W. Bush onward, successive US presidents have bolstered India’s capabilities on the assumption that doing so automatically strengthens the forces that favour freedom in Asia, he added.
According to Tellis, the Administration of Joe Biden has taken it a step further by expanding India’s access to cutting-edge technology, deepening defence cooperation, and made the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or Quad a pillar of its regional strategy.
Nudge from within
Since the Taiwan issue gained prominence, many Indian commentators have become active in asking India to join the US military effort.
“India has to understand that Taiwan is the real focus of the American Indo-Pacific strategy,” said Manoj Joshi, a distinguished fellow at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF).
He added, “The South China Sea issue pales into insignificance compared to the complexity and consequences of the Taiwan issue.”
Joshi felt India does have a large supporting role in the broader issue of constraining China.
Other commentaries also lobbied hard for India’s involvement in Taiwan.
Indian defence minister Rajnath Singh told his Chinese counterpart Li Shanfu at their meeting in Delhi recently that there can be no improvement in Sino-Indian relations unless the situation at the border of the two countries returns to normal.
A military stand-off between Indian and Chinese soldiers has been on since May 2020 after China unilaterally tried to break the status quo at the LAC — their informal boundary.
Harsh V. Pant and Suyesh Desai argue that “India cannot stay completely out of any military fray over Taiwan, even if it means escalation by the Chinese along the Line of Actual Control (LAC).”
Weighing in on the issue, former Indian National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon said, “It has been several years since the Indian government reiterated its commitment to a “One China” policy, a phrase that seems to mean different things to different people.” He added, “It might therefore bear watching how Indian thinking on Taiwan evolves in the future.”
A long rope
But Tellis said the US Administration had overlooked India’s “democratic erosion and its unhelpful foreign policy choices”, such as its refusal to condemn Moscow’s ongoing aggression in Ukraine.
He claimed the US had done so on the presumption that New Delhi would respond favourably when Washington calls in a favour during a regional crisis involving China.
But India fears jeopardising its autonomy or signalling a shift toward a tight political alignment with Washington, he added.
Since January, the US President has been hosting a number of close Asian allies in Washington, including the leaders of Japan, South Korea and the Philippines — all countries that are of critical importance for Taiwan.
However, Tellis said, “As the Biden Administration proceeds to expand its investment in India, it should base its policies on a realistic assessment of Indian strategy and not on any delusion of New Delhi becoming a comrade-in-arms during some future crisis with Beijing.”
According to him, under the Initiative on Critical and emerging Technology, the endeavour encompasses a wide variety of fields, including semiconductors, space, artificial intelligence, next-generation communications, high-performance computing and quantum technologies.
But Tellis pointed out that none of these initiatives guarantee any specific outcomes as the US government can “make or break” the initiative by not releasing the licences that many joint ventures will require.
“The bigger question, however, is whether Washington’s generosity towards India will help accomplish its strategic aims,” Tellis said in his essay.
Chinese foreign minister Qin Gang will be visiting India to attend the two-day meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO)’s foreign ministers in Goa.
He had a meeting with his Indian counterpart S. Jaishankar in April. There could be another meeting between them in Goa.
It remains to be seen how India handles the charges made against it by the leading American analyst, without jeopardising its crucial partnership with the United States.
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