Historically, India has preferred to stay away from aggressive power politics, formal security alliances and an us-vs.-them foreign policy. Maintaining businesslike relationships with all of the world’s great powers was, and some ways still remains, a paramount objective.
Successive Indian governments are notoriously protective of their nation’s sovereignty, integrity and independence. When Biden administration officials sought to convince New Delhi to wean itself off Russian oil to cut into Vladimir Putin’s revenue streams, India responded by doubling down on its purchases and defending its right to satisfy its energy needs at the most affordable price.
Yet, much like China’s rise in Asia is spurring Japan to rethink its traditional foreign policy doctrine, Beijing’s conduct is incentivizing India to slowly move away from nonalignment. A grand strategy that worked so well for India during the Cold War — forging positive relations with the superpowers and at times serving as an intermediary between them — is no longer effective in a world where bipolarity is becoming a thing of the past. India now has to contend with a neighbor, China, in its immediate region whose economic and military potential vastly exceeds its own.
As Yogesh Joshi, a research fellow at the National University of Singapore, wrote in the latest issue of the Washington Quarterly, “China’s rise as Asia’s potential hegemon has fundamentally altered India’s balancing objectives.”
It’s not just China’s ever-growing defense investments and exponential economic growth that is on India’s mind, but the fact that Beijing is increasingly willing to use its military power to press territorial claims that have persisted for decades.
A state translating its latent power into military capacity and global influence is of course not a new phenomenon in international relations — the United States went through a similar trajectory immediately after World War II, when it emerged as one of the only major powers whose economy and political system weren’t gutted by conflict.
The U.S. however, never had to worry about a hostile Canada or Mexico crossing the border and creating an international crisis. The U.S. is in an extremely advantageous position geographically, surrounded by deep, blue oceans and two friendly, mid-tier neighbors. India isn’t so lucky.
At more than $17 trillion, China’s economy is more than five-times larger than India’s. China remains Asia’s (and indeed, much of the world’s) top trading partner. Since 2010, the People’s Liberation Army (as the Chinese military is formally known) has more than doubled its budget, while India has had to contend with balancing military modernization with domestic needs such as poverty reduction, a core promise of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s tenure.
China is also putting its military to use. The more than 2,000-mile Indian-Chinese border is fast becoming one of Asia’s hottest flashpoints, next to Taiwan and the South China Sea. Last week, Indian and People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops engaged in another scuffle along one of the many disputed points on their shared border, much of which is unofficially demarcated. Fortunately, nobody was killed, a far better outcome than 2 ½ years ago, when a large brawl between Indian and Chinese forces resulted in a total of 24 deaths.
That altercation in June 2020 shook the Indian political establishment to its core, forcing New Delhi to do away with its previous assumption that India could manage its ties with China without the strong military deterrent to back them up. Former Indian diplomat Shivshankar Menon was right when he observed in Foreign Affairs that “Beijing’s actions on the border have alienated Indian public opinion, and New Delhi has been driven into self-strengthening and counterbalancing actions against China.”
The Indian military has redeployed troops and material from its Western border with Pakistan to its mountainous, northern regions to compensate for the PLA’s own infrastructure and troop buildup. Prime Minister Modi’s government is cracking down on Chinese apps (TikTok is banned in India) and enhancing intelligence and defense relationships with foreign powers like the U.S., Japan and Australia.
In June 2020, India signed a defense cooperation deal with Canberra that opens up Indian and Australian bases to one another’s forces, a prelude to more military exercises between them. Washington and New Delhi struck an agreement that same year allowing the U.S. to share highly sensitive geospatial intelligence with the Indians. The U.S. and India are also collaborating more closely in the realms of space and cyberspace. Just last month, the U.S. and Indian militaries conducted a joint drill only 60 miles south of the disputed Indian-Chinese border, something New Delhi would have likely shied away from in the past.
None of this is to suggest India, in its quest to maintain balance with China, is willing to ditch its aversion to alliances or give up entirely on relations with Beijing. After all, Modi did meet with Chinese leader Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Bali, Indonesia, last month. India and China remain big trading partners, with bilateral trade increasing to $115 billion in the March 2021-March 2022 time period.
India can’t afford to have an exclusively adversarial relationship with a neighboring state that is wealthier and more powerful than itself. Short of a Chinese invasion of Indian territory, U.S. attempts to cajole New Delhi into joining an anti-China bloc are destined to fail and probably shouldn’t be tried. The Observer Research Foundation, a think tank based in New Delhi, found that 49% of Indians would prefer to stay neutral in the event of a conflict between the U.S. and China.
Yet, India also can’t afford to be nonchalant about its own regional environment. As its surroundings change, so should India’s security policy.
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ABOUT THE WRITER
Daniel DePetris is a fellow at Defense Priorities and a foreign affairs columnist for the Chicago Tribune.
