Even under an administration as mercurial and transactional as President Donald Trump’s, Indo-US relations have managed to gather momentum, shaped by the underlying strategic logic of the convergence between the two nations. India has managed to find a central place in the Trump administration’s strategic worldview as outlined in the National Security Strategy and National Defense Strategy.
The dramatic return as prime minister by former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, seen as leaning towards India’s strategic rival China, complicates the geopolitical environment around the periphery of India into which Beijing has been making inexorable inroads over the past few years with investments in large infrastructure projects, analysts say.
It feels like déjà vu all over again. Reports of an Indian arms deal with Russia. Concerns in the United States about said deal, with threats about punitive measures and warnings about implications for U.S.-India relations. Voices in India insisting that the government go through with the deal and not succumb to American pressure. This is not a Cold War story, but, rather, a summary of the state of play over the last few months.
If history is any indicator, India will not deprive itself of the benefits it stands to extract from the current situation. During the previous round of US sanctions on Iranian oil exports (2011-15), India maintained reduced oil imports from Iran. It greatly benefited from the situation largely due to an arrangement in which it withheld payments for a large portion of oil purchases for years.
It may well be possible to manage the China-India rivalry, but with each passing year, India’s challenges vis-a-vis China are becoming more intractable. Until recently, the rivalry centered on the territorial conflict over the un-demarcated Himalayan border….Beyond the territorial dispute, today the rivalry encompasses competition over water sharing (especially due to China’s efforts to dam the water that flows from Tibet into the Brahmaputra River), trade imbalance, membership in international institutions, and China’s foray into India’s traditional sphere of influence in the Indian Ocean as well as India’s own increasing interests in the Asia-Pacific and Africa.
As the Maldives celebrates the opening of the China-Maldives Friendship Bridge – a project Maldivians describe as the project of the century and a dream come true – there was no congratulations from its neighbour to the north. In fact, Indian officials and media, on the contrary, went out of their way to try and discredit the bridge.
As India’s economic weight has grown in international relations, its voice and partnerships are much sought after. A pluralist democracy growing rapidly at its own pace with all its inherent contradictions is a story which a world deeply in crisis wants to hear.
India Prime Minister Narendra Modi meeting with the President of China, Xi Jinping, on the sidelines of the BRICS Summit, in Johannesburg, South Africa on July 26, 2018. File Photo/PIB
In recent years, India has developed multiple strategies to deal with China’s rise and threatening postures on both its land border and in the Indian Ocean. They include limited balancing based on asymmetrical arms buildups and informal coalitions with like-minded states and regular diplomatic engagement with Beijing both bilaterally and through multilateral forums.
India and China are going head to head in the Maldives, the Indian Ocean island chain where Beijing is building roads, bridges and a bigger airport, upstaging India which has been the country’s prime provider of military and civilian aid for decades.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the President of Uganda, Yoweri K. Museveni, in Kampala, Uganda on July 24, 2018. Photo/PIB
India’s links with Africa are centuries old, bolstered by trade across the Indian Ocean and a million-strong diaspora across Africa. Shared colonial legacy and post-independence development experience has framed India’s relationship with Africa. India’s role as a champion of anti-colonialism and anti-racism after its independence in 1947 drew it closer to the African nations. India emerged as one of the most vocal critics of apartheid in South Africa.
