The Western debate on India’s “unreliability” is sporadic and episodic. For example, even though India is the only member to have confronted China, retaliated, and stopped its territorial expansion program, and even though Quad 1.0 was canceled because of Australia’s treachery, the claim is as ancient as the Quad itself.
However, when it comes to India’s China policy, the entire West appears to be plagued by a persistent and innate sense of uneasiness. It’s intriguing to see this discussion resurfacing when China and India declared, shortly before the BRICS Summit, that they have reached an agreement to disengage from the two remaining places of contention in Eastern Ladakh and restore patrolling rights. For the first time in five years, Chinese President Xi Jinping and Prime Minister Narendra Modi met in a formal bilateral setting during the Kazan, Russia, summit, which marked a thawing of tensions between the two countries.
After a few days of radio silence, the United States, whose Indo-Pacific strategy depends on using India as a democratic counterweight to China and a bulwark, responded with the cliched statement that it “welcomes any reduction of tensions along the border.” In contrast, western media has been more forthright, accusing India of “betrayal,” questioning America’s Indo-Pacific strategy, and accusing Xi of “undercutting” the West by “negotiating a truce with India.
Washington “has sought to recruit India to help it contain China’s growing regional aggression alongside other members of the Quad,” according to Business Insider, an American publication based in New York City. Analysts say that “this is a setback for the US Indo-Pacific outlook” and that Washington’s efforts to “include India in a deeper security alliance” have been unsuccessful. According to some experts, India’s participation in both the Quad and the non-Western platform BRICS is “contradictory,” with the goal of “balancing its interests.”
For example, a professor at Bucknell University is quoted by Voice of America as stating that “the thaw in India-China relations is a boon to both countries.” India may now be less willing to challenge Beijing as a member of the Quad, which is very important for China.
“China wants to use the grouping to weaken the dominance of the United States and burnish its credentials as a leader of the so-called Global South,” the New York Times fears.
The Biden administration’s dissatisfaction with the “détente” between China and India may even be reflected in the trite statement released by the US Department of State. According to some commentators, the United States must be quietly voicing its dissatisfaction if not publicly.
All of this makes us wonder about the nature of the argument and its driving forces. In order to move forward with the serious business of fulfilling the hopes and aspirations of a billion Indian citizens, a country that shares a 4000 km border with China and is ruled by a dictatorial leader of a one-party authoritarian system that believes in territorial expansion to get over its “century of humiliation” cannot realistically expect to not try to achieve stability, peace, and tranquility at the border.
The unexpected response in western media, which The Economist refers to as “resolving the border row” when it is obviously not, verges on panic. As if India’s kiss and reconciliation with China will bring down the entire US-led West’s containment campaign against China. These presumptions must be contested since they are incorrect.
The West’s nervousness is evident in the seeming hysteria that has erupted over just one formal encounter between Modi and Xi in five years, as Canada’s state-affiliated media released the evocative title, “India makes it clear it’s not interested in a Western alliance.”
This uneasiness serves as a reminder that the West is unable to see beyond camp politics and that a state’s decision to stay non-aligned is outside the purview of its theoretical and conceptual framework.
The United States and its transatlantic allies continue to view India’s strategic autonomy as the result of coercion rather than choice, notwithstanding their rhetorical commitment to the relationship and their varied and diverse engagement with India.
According to this interpretation, India pursues an independent, unaligned (or multi-aligned) foreign policy, but this independence is only a ruse to avoid accountability and commitment in a relationship while pursuing all the advantages.
This could be the reason why India is frequently described as a “swing state” that aims to make money off of promiscuity in the media and in policy jargon. India’s function of choice is essentially misdiagnosed by this very Catholic framing, which holds that it chooses strategic autonomy in order to maintain its independence, preserve its policy space, and avoid being forced into a political camp.
Because of this, the West has quickly viewed India’s attempt to restore relations with China as a betrayal, misinterpreting New Delhi’s role in the Indo-Pacific strategy in addition to failing to comprehend the fundamentals of India’s foreign policy. India will not be a willing pawn in the struggle of big powers, but it has and will defend its interests and territory against China.
According to CBC’s story, Prime Minister Modi visited Moscow in July and met with the Russian president at his home as a warning to the US not to put too much pressure on India over the Gurpatwant Pannun issue. Because it essentially misunderstands the origins and dynamics of India-Russian relations, such an intellectual leap is unsuccessful.
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“India is in the midst of a partial rapprochement with China, but anyone who thinks New Delhi can afford to alienate the West is delusional,” writes Sadanand Dhume in the Wall Street Journal. In actuality, India has no intention of alienating the West. The West is attempting to exert pressure on India by using the smoldering Khalistan issue as leverage (recalled envoy to Canada Sanjay Verma claims that certain Khalistani militants are deep assets of CSIS).
Without even acknowledging India’s fundamental issues, the West is trying to change India’s behavior because it feels it has the upper hand in the relationship.
Western reluctance toward the development suggests that the West’s relationship has conditions, even though India’s withdrawal from China may not be strategic.
