Sofia: India’s engagement with both the United States and China reflects a carefully calibrated “strategic neutrality” shaped by political considerations and interdependencies framed as “interconnectedness”.
This form of neutrality reflects a broader political trend across the Global South, where India, along with other nations including Indonesia, Brazil and Saudi Arabia, pursues a realist balancing strategy shaped by US–China bipolarity but not entirely defined by it, a report has stated.
“The May 26th Quad Foreign Ministers’ Meeting signified a critical cooperative signalling amidst global discourse on energy and critical minerals security. The minilateral grouping, consisting of the US, India, Japan, and Australia, was revitalised in 2017 due to concerns over China’s growing regional influence. The Quad’s post-2017 efforts to combat China’s practical power in the Indo-Pacific have been rooted in cementing regional power by boosting technological, infrastructural, health and climate development, among other similar spheres,” a report in Bulgaria-based ‘Modern Diplomacy’ detailed.
“While India, Japan and Australia have aligned themselves with the US against China in the scope of this project, it has not prevented them from engaging proactively with China in separate milieus. India propounds this strategic neutrality through its continued economic engagement with China. It demonstrates a new paradigm of political posturing in the midst of US-China bipolarity – rather than restricting alignment to one of the two powers, states are committing to a balancing act in between,” it added.
According to the report, India’s post-2014 policy of strategic autonomy is rooted in the pursuit of a favourable international political partnership without being constrained by value-based alliances.
With a growing focus on maritime security in the 21st century, a key factor driving US interest in India is its geostrategic location in the Indo-Pacific.
“The US’s foremost concerns in the Indo-Pacific relate to China’s dominance in the region. America is geographically not present in the region (apart from military bases), requiring it to diplomatically leverage the presence of cooperative countries in the region, and India has stepped up to the task. Maintaining alignment with India on different fronts, especially infrastructural and technological, enables America to strategically entangle itself with India in order to leverage its geostrategic location,” the report noted.
Although India’s engagement with the US has historically been multifaceted and interconnected, the early phase of US President Donald Trump’s “volatile decision-making” led New Delhi to step back and reassess the relationship’s viability.
“It reinforces India’s acknowledgement of the need to strike a key balance in its dealings with America – continue so as to not disrupt mutually beneficial progress, but not to the extent of overdependency,” the report noted.
Highlighting India’s engagement with China, it said, “Having kept military escalation at bay, the economic dimension of India-China relations has thrived since both countries signed a trade agreement in 1984, signifying the reopening of a trade relationship post the 1962 border war. Today, India and China remain deeply interlinked.”
(IANS)
