SOURCE: TNN
Tanvi Madan, director of the India Project at Brookings Institution, US, whose book ‘Fateful Triangle: How China Shaped US-India Relations During The Cold War’ was published recently, explains the relationship between India, China and the US to Avijit Ghosh:
US secretary of state Mike Pompeo recently said, “The Chinese took incredibly aggressive action. The Indians have done their best to respond to that.” What does this statement mean in the larger context of US-India-China relationship?
There’s a perception in the administration and among a number of members of the US Congress from both parties of a pattern of Chinese assertiveness recently, not just against India, but also in Hong Kong, against Australia, Canada, Japan and Taiwan, and in the South China Sea. This is adding to the more competitive view of China that now prevails in Washington. Former Under Secretary of Defense Michele Flournoy recently wrote that China’s actions against India should serve as a “wake-up call” and spur deeper cooperation between “like-minded states” to maintain a rules-based order and to deter Beijing from behaving badly.
Shared American and Indian concerns about a rising China’s behavior have been a significant driver of the US-India partnership over the last two decades. US administrations have seen India as a geopolitical counterbalance or democratic contrast to China. So, the US is watching India’s response closely—it will contribute to perceptions of India’s willingness and ability to tackle the China challenge. Washington has sought to be helpful where possible—while letting Delhi take the lead in requesting that support.
Last month, Pompeo had said China’s “threats to India” and Southeast Asia are among the reasons for the US’s move to reduce its troops in Europe. Do you think the move played any kind of role in the ongoing disengagement process?
The Trump administration’s announcement of a force reduction in Germany is due to reasons specific to that relationship and President Trump’s skeptical and transactional view of alliances. On the disengagement process, let’s see how it proceeds. It is difficult to draw any definitive conclusions about why Beijing might have come to the negotiating table. Some possible motivations: China believes it can still keep some gains; now that it has lost first-mover advantage and India is resisting, further gains are unlikely without major escalation; the June 15 clash has demonstrated that the situation can evolve in unpredictable or unintended ways; Beijing realizes that the boundary crisis can harm the broader China-India relationship; or, having opened a number of fronts, Beijing wants to extract itself from some and prevent further balancing against it.
You said in a talk sometime back, “Without understanding the role of China, you cannot get a comprehensive understanding of Indo-US relationship.” Please explain.
If you look back at the history of India-US relations, most analysts have pointed to the impact of Pakistan or the Soviet Union/Russia or personalities. My book argues that China, too, played a significant role in shaping India-US relations in the past—and this impact is neither recent nor episodic. Since the late 1940s, Washington’s China policy has affected its India policy, and Delhi’s perception of China has affected how it has dealt with the US. When there was divergence on China, it was a source of tension in the relationship. However, when there is convergence on China, it explains, in large part, why the two countries have engaged with each other despite other irritants in the relationship.
Referring to your book, Fateful Triangle, you also said, “US-India partnership versus China is neither inevitable nor impossible. Please elaborate.
My book argues that a US-India partnership to tackle a China challenge is neither inevitable nor impossible. India has partnered and even aligned with countries against China—for instance, with the US from 1962-63 and the Soviet Union from 1971. On the other hand, at other times, even when American and Indian policymakers have believed China to be a major threat, the countries’ alignment was not sustainable. The US and India have—and can—come together against China, but only when certain conditions are in place i.e. when they have agreed not just on the nature and urgency of the threat, but also on the approach to take (how to deal with it).
While doing research for your book, you came across the fact that the Lyndon Johnson administration was looking at rainfall figures in India. Can you expand on this interesting point?
There were two sets of documents that I found particularly intriguing in the Lyndon B. Johnson papers—the US military’s contingency plans in case China intervened in the 1965 India-Pakistan war, and detailed rainfall figures. White House officials—and even the president—were closely tracking the impact of the latter on agriculture and the economy. Why? Because they believed that if democratic India failed, while communist China succeeded, this would adversely affect not just American interests, but also President Johnson’s political standing.
The 1971 war has left an enduring impression of the US in India, one that has led to a forgetting of this prior history of American interest in helping India win the “race” with China in the mid-to-late 1950s and 1960s.
The recent H-1B visa curbs hurts Indian students and professionals in the USA. Do you think it is just an election issue or there is something more to it?
The recent decisions that affect Indian students and professionals are not because of India per se, but a result of domestic politics, and the demands of certain constituencies that are supportive of President Trump. They are already being debated; the outcome will be shaped by the election, as well as the Covid-19 situation.
