Opinion Arun Prakash writes: How China is forcing India and the US together

An alarmed US President, Franklin Roosevelt, fearful of losing India’s massive contribution to the Allied war effort made earnest but futile appeals to Churchill to accord dominion status to India. He also extended to India the “lend-lease” programme, under which it received munitions for the army and industrial materials for its ordnance factories, railways and ports. As payment, India provided $280 million worth of rations, goods, services and real estate to American and Kuomintang Chinese forces camping in Bihar.

Eight decades later, as we see another rising Asian hegemon, China, seeking to expand its sphere of influence across the Indo-Pacific and beyond, will the US and India join hands in the spirit of “lend-lease” and agree to mutual use of logistics, repair and maintenance facilities, thus re-writing a “historic rhyme”?

China is using the Belt and Road Initiative and the Maritime Silk Road not only to inveigle developing nations via “debt diplomacy”, but also to camouflage its actual aim, which is regional domination. China’s intent is manifest in its claims of sovereignty over part of the South China Sea (SCS), via the mythical “9 dash line,” its dispute with Japan over East China Sea islands, and its illegal creation/militarisation of artificial islands in the SCS. The most volatile and persistent threat to regional peace lies in Beijing’s ambition of “reunifying” Taiwan with mainland China, by force.

As far as India is concerned, the roots of Sino-Indian discord go back to China’s annexation of Tibet and the grant of asylum to the Dalai Lama in 1959. The 1962 India-China war resolved nothing and created the anomalous “line of actual control” (LAC). The past few years have seen growing Chinese belligerency along the LAC, accompanied by persistent territorial claims over Arunachal Pradesh, as “Southern Tibet.”

Given its growing asymmetry vis-à-vis China in the economic, military and technological domains, and the existence of a menacing Sino-Pakistan military axis, India finds itself in a difficult situation. But despite the balance of power heavily tilted in China’s favour, it is incumbent upon India, as a nuclear weapon state, a significant economic, military and demographic entity, and, above all, a democracy, to stand up to its hegemonic neighbour.

In 1971, in a major deviation from its policy of non-alignment, India signed a Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation with the USSR. While this alliance did deter both Beijing and Washington from meddling in the ensuing Bangladesh War, it also ensured that India became a weapon-client of USSR/Russia. This arms dependency, once a minor handicap, has now become an albatross around India’s neck since not only has Russia allied itself with China, its military-industrial complex is no longer capable of supporting India’s armed forces due to the Ukraine war and US sanctions.

Under these circumstances, the timing of PM Modi’s state visit to the US could not have been better, nor his fulsome reception more welcome. The decade-long Indo-US courtship, embellished with an alphabet-soup of agreements and initiatives, was supposed to have climaxed in the pathbreaking 2008 Indo-US civil nuclear agreement, which, unfortunately, remained unconsummated. Signing of the fourth and last of the Indo-US “foundational agreements” in 2020 had again raised hopes, but stasis continued to prevail.

With Russia’s steady decline, New Delhi has kept alive the hope that the US will, one day, become a source of high-technology that would help it close the yawning gap with China. The US, on its part, has viewed India as the world’s most populous nation and a huge Asian power that dominates critical Indian Ocean sea lanes. Apart from being the world’s fifth-largest economy, and a huge market, India produces cohorts of gifted young professionals, many of whom enrich the US talent-pool. The clinching factor is their common concern regarding a pugnacious China’s challenge to the existing economic and geopolitical world order.

Consequently, casting aside reservations about the erosion of India’s democratic and liberal values, as well as its disinclination to join formal alliances, President Biden has decided that it was worth having India “inside the tent” rather than sitting on the fence. As experts evaluate the outcomes of Modi’s US visit, there is need, on the one hand, to shun euphoria and hyperbole, and on the other, to remind ourselves of a tenet of realism, enunciated by a British PM, in 1848: “There are no eternal allies, and no perpetual enemies. National interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow.”

Therefore, not only should we expect the US to adopt a “transactional” approach and strike deals that buttress its interests, but we must reciprocate by seeking to advance our own national interests at every step. Whether it is the HAL-General Electric deal for F-414 turbojet co-production, the supply of armed MQ-9B drones, cooperation in semiconductor manufacturing, or joint space-exploration, Indian experts must closely scrutinise the fine-print of every contract and agreement, and modify it if required.

We must never forget that having licence-produced thousands of aircraft, aero engines, ships, tanks, diesel-engines and electronic/avionic devices, of Russian, British and French design at home, we failed to ensure that our technical fraternity acquired the skills to design, develop or innovate on their own. This time around, we must incorporate clear guarantees to ensure that “value addition” takes place in terms of key technological skills and knowledge being imparted to technical personnel.

Finally, the “foundational agreements” provide for much give and take between the militaries in many spheres and we must take as much as we give.

The writer is a retired chief of naval staff