Calling for a ‘Nixon-in-China moment’ in India–China relations implies a set of false analogies in the relationships between India, China and the United States today, and those between the United States, China and the Soviet Union that prevailed when Richard Nixon landed in Beijing in 1972.
The term “disruption” is in and of itself neither a compliment nor a criticism. Disruption can be desirable and even necessary if the status quo is incompatible with one’s interests and there is an alternative that is both advantageous and achievable. But disruption is anything but desirable if the status quo serves one’s interests (or would with only minor adjustments) or the available alternatives are likely to be worse.
The past several months have been a particularly volatile period in U.S.-China relations. After last month’s closures of the Chinese consulate in Houston and the American consulate in Chengdu, we asked contributions to give us their assessments of recent U.S. policy toward China and where they think relations between the two countries are going and ought to go.
The possibility of greater international coordination to rein in Beijing should be especially appealing to New Delhi. When it comes to potential partners, India enjoys a big geopolitical advantage over China—most of the West roots for a rising, democratic country. Meanwhile, China’s list of allies isn’t very long and includes problematic governments such as those of North Korea and Pakistan.
Sri Lanka’s powerful Rajapaksa brothers have secured a landslide victory in the country’s parliamentary election, according to final results. Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa’s Sri Lanka Podujana Party (SLPP) won 145 seats and can also count on the support of at least five allies in the 225-member legislature, according to the results released on Friday.
India’s actions did not arise from a vacuum. Prior to India’s decision to change Kashmir’s status, Pakistan-based terrorists regularly crossed into Kashmir and India more broadly to attack both security and government officials and ordinary civilians.
If you had believed the best minds of our times, this was not supposed to happen. But for two decades, China had been winning without fighting, while the US was fighting without winning. Something had to give and it did, in the 2016 American presidential election.
Reports of a massive twenty-five-year investment and security partnership between China and Iran have caused a stir in Washington, suggesting that Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign to isolate Tehran has failed. But the United States is not the only country concerned about the prospect of a Sino-Iranian grand alliance. India has various investments in Iran that could be threatened by the Chinese economic juggernaut.
There no longer seems any doubt that the United States and China have embarked on a period of aggressive confrontation. A brisk war of words has quickly escalated to tit-for-tat consulate closures, and now Chinese sources say a US warplane has flown close to Shanghai: these are initial skirmishes in a much more serious conflict that is likely to worsen at least until the US elections in November, and probably beyond. The question is, how will this confrontation play out in the rest of Asia?
