‘Ties with China not normal’; Modi pushes for Asian pivot in US visit
By Manish Anand
New Delhi, June 20: The U.S. watched with disdain the failed outreach to China as Secretary of State Antony Blinken was forced into the Chinese script laced with warning against American push for decoupling. Prime Minister Narendra Modi sent out the message to the American audience before boarding the plane that India’s ties with China are not normal.
The Chinese economy is slowing down in clear terms, and the artificially pumped real-estate sector is imploding. China is the only large economy in the world which has been forced to cut the interest rate to bring life in the floundering economy.
The Indian economy is fast inching towards seven per cent growth mark, with inflation now reasonably in the comfort zone of the Central Bank. The appetite for infrastructure development, largely funded by the government, by all accounts has legs to run for decades.
The backdrop to Modi’s first state visit to the U.S. is thus set on favourable terms for New Delhi, and the grip on the Asian pivot is only going to gain firmness. Besides being a regular invitee to G7, India has gained position of eminence in Asean, while being at the fulcrum of the Indo Pacific. The accelerated push to raise the naval stocks along with a flurry of exercise with countries such as Australia and France in the Bay of Bengal, Indian Ocean, and elsewhere point to New Delhi slowly and steadily aiming for the Asian pivot.
China is beset with paranoia that the U.S. will no more be a partner in its growth. Decades of export-oriented growth of China is now gasping for fresh oxygen. Worse, China is now on the side of Russia for the western nations, and Moscow is a pariah for American and European powers.
This gives India a unique opportunity to push for better sensitization of the national interests, and Jeff M. Smith, a strategic affairs thinker, noted in a curtain raiser piece that the time is opportune for the U.S. to fully acknowledge that Arunachal Pradesh is an integral part of India. China, as part of its shifting goal posts on border negotiations, claims a large part of the North-eastern part as its territory, as has been the wont of Beijing with most of the neighbours in all the directions.
“New Delhi may still have close ties with Moscow, but the uncertain quality and reliability of Russian arms mean that India is more open than ever to buying weapons from the West instead,” noted Daniel Markey, another strategic affairs commentator, in an opinion piece on the Modi visit to the U.S. While India has a long rope to gain strategic balance in the military hardware, Modi also is being stated to have a unique opportunity to lay his hands on future weapons, which may bring a deterrence value against Chinese domineering across the line of actual control.
India and China border remains under simmering tension since 2020 when after year the army personnel of the two countries had violent clash, and there are no signs of normalcy returning back anytime soon. This may, according the commentators, give the speed to New Delhi to grab the Asian pivot in the near future to become a force of confidence for the rules-based maritime order, as well as for the small nations facing glare of Beijing in South China Sea.
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