India and Taiwan in the Indo-Pacific

This following essay appeared in a Taiwan Asia Exchange Foundation report Taiwan and India Strategizing the Relations, edited by Sana Hashmi and Alan Hao Yang.  

India and Taiwan are dynamic democratic entities in the Indo-Pacific involved in military confrontations with the People's Republic of China (PRC). Yet for a variety of political, economic, and social reasons, the two entities do not loom as significantly in each other's consciousness as might be warranted. Diplomatic legacies, competing priorities, and political and resource constraints at both ends have conspired to keep diplomatic and security cooperation between India and Taiwan limited. But developments in 2020-21 – specifically the military stand-off on the India-China boundary that resulted in fatalities in the Galwan Valley and greater saber-rattling by Beijing against Taipei threatening forceful unification – have increased the interest and appreciation in India and Taiwan of each other's predicaments. Both are also in the process of deepening their cooperation with the United States as well as with its allies such as Japan and Australia. Under these circumstances, a five-point agenda consisting of economic, technology, security, education, and think tank cooperation can serve to accelerate cooperation between New Delhi and Taipei at this critical juncture. 

From Constraints to Cooperation 

It may not be well appreciated today, but one of modern India's first diplomatic relationships was with the Republic of China (ROC) and the government of Chiang Kai-Shek. During the second World War, the British Indian government established an Agent General at Chongqing to assist with war efforts, and informal diplomatic contacts were made between the Indian National Congress (INC) and the ROC. Following the war, in early 1946, an Indian trade and goodwill mission to Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin, and Chongqing sought exports for Indian cotton and tobacco. However, after the establishment of the PRC in 1949, India was quick to recognize the government of Mao Zedong, formalize diplomatic relations, and support Beijing's entry to the United Nations. 

In the mid-1990s, India-Taiwan relations were given a fillip through the establishment of representative offices in each other's capitals. India-Taipei Association (ITA) served as a de-facto diplomatic mission for India in Taipei since 1995, while Taipei Economic and Cultural Center (TECC) became its counterpart in New Delhi. Political relations, however, have been inhibited by a number of factors. On India's part, there is continued recognition of the PRC and adherence to the 'One China Policy', even if this remains distinct from the rigid 'One China Principle' insisted upon by Beijing. On Taiwan's side, there are continued claims on behalf of the ROC of territory disputed with India, claims that are unlikely to be relinquished soon. For these reasons, political support for each other's disagreements with Beijing remains limited. 

These intractable legacy issues have been compounded by other factors. In Taipei, apprehensions about India's regional preoccupations, capacity constraints, and legacy of non-alignment persist. In India, there are concerns about Taiwan's own orientation, including a sizable (if diminishing) pro-unification sentiment embodied by elements of the Kuomintang (KMT), as well as the lack of preparedness of a very 'political' military. India does not have the legacy of military cooperation with Taiwan as the latter has with countries such as the United States (when it comes to equipment) or Singapore (when it comes to training). Nor will it be immediately embroiled in a military crisis in the manner of Japan, which is increasingly engaged in planning for cross-Strait scenarios. Military cooperation between India and Taiwan has, therefore, remained underdeveloped, and barring truly unforeseen developments is likely to remain so. 

A Five-Point Agenda 

While maintaining a realistic assessment of the state of relations between India and Taiwan, the present moment certainly offers an opportunity to improve broader relations for taking the strategic partnership to a qualitatively different plane. Continuing Chinese assertiveness along the border with India, in the Taiwan Strait, in the broader Indo-Pacific, and on international diplomacy has underscored the need for like-minded cooperation on regional and global issues. In India, there is greater appreciation for the need to understand China, including language and cultural training, intelligence on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and People's Liberation Army (PLA), and on emerging technologies. There are obvious complementarities with Taiwan. Meanwhile, in Taiwan, diplomatic pressures, concerns about supply chains, and broader Indo-Pacific shifts – including the development of the Quad – have enhanced the appreciation of India as a potential partner. With these opportunities in mind, a five-point agenda will help strengthen India-Taiwan relations in the years ahead. 

The first and most important priority will involve improvements to the bilateral economic relationship. Specifically, India will need to evolve into a preferred destination for investment and manufacturing by Taiwanese companies, particularly small and medium enterprises (SMEs) involved in integration into trusted global value chains. Taiwan has comparative advantages in a number of high technologies – of which the best known is the semiconductor sector – and an organic movement of manufacturing out of mainland China to other markets is already underway. However, India faces stiff competition from other emerging manufacturing hubs, notably Vietnam, but also South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Mexico, and even Taiwan itself. 

Some solutions may be found in working with third partners, such as Japan, which has been much more successful in penetrating the Indian market and creating manufacturing hubs. Additionally, recent efforts by the Indian government, including under the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme, offer an attractive option for Taiwanese companies to bypass regulatory hurdles. However, a number of challenges remain and continue to inhibit the bilateral economic partnership. These include third-country market access in the absence of Indian trade agreements, high and in some cases unpredictable Indian tariffs (including on intermediary goods), and a lack of appropriately skilled labor in India. Beyond that, a lack of awareness in both countries has helped ensure that two-way investment is still modest. 

A second agenda item relates to technology cooperation. The border crisis with China has underscored the need for trusted hardware providers for the growing Indian economy. As part of retaliatory steps taken, the Indian government has required greater scrutiny of Chinese bids for public procurement and effectively kept out Chinese companies from the development of India's 5G telecommunications infrastructure. On the other hand, Taiwan will require relatively low-cost software development in a manner that the United States, European, Japanese, or South Korean companies might not be able to provide. Beyond geopolitical and security concerns, there are compelling commercial prospects for cooperation in a range of emerging technologies. The sensitivity of some of these domains will naturally have positive implications for political, diplomatic, and possibly security relations as well. 

A third area of cooperation concerns defense and security. Although direct cooperation may still be constrained, indirect cooperation along with partners in the Quad, Southeast Asia, or Europe is certainly possible. In recent years, India has become more involved in the Pacific security, whether through small-scale official assistance, humanitarian aid to Southeast Asia and the South Pacific, and regular naval flotillas for public diplomacy, exercises, and operations. While building trust between militaries will take considerable time, deepening cooperation on strategic assessments, intelligence, language and technical training, and dual-use system development remain conceivable possibilities. Furthermore, security cooperation along all these vectors can be led by civilian agencies. 

Fourth, educational opportunities remain underutilized. Much like relations between India and much of the Anglosphere (e.g., the United States, United Kingdom, Australia), education can be an important springboard to accelerate relations. For India, Taiwan represents a natural bridge to understanding the Sinic world in a democratic setting. Expanding educational links and language training, including for those engaged in security functions, represent valuable opportunities to broaden the strategic relationship. However, this will require facilitating and communicating opportunities for higher and professional education, including graduate fellowships, English-language courses in certain disciplines, recognition of degrees, and attractive visa and short-term employment opportunities. Shorter- term exchange programs also represent another avenue for accelerating university- to-university engagement. 

Finally, given the complexities of diplomatic and military engagement, non- government dialogues and convening arranged by policy institutes in India and Taiwan represent an obvious way to deepen contacts between the two countries' policy and business communities. These could be pure 'Track II' initiatives involving private organizations or 'Track 1.5' dialogues involving government officials from both sides. Although some are already underway, these kinds of engagements can be widened on critical issues such as managing disinformation and foreign interference. The Raisina Dialogue – India's flagship foreign policy conference co-hosted by the Ministry of External Affairs and the Observer Research Foundation – has prominently featured Taiwanese think tanks in several editions. Beyond universities, think tank engagement provides opportunities for facilitating policy dialogue, understanding, and discrete cooperation in a number of sectors. In time, these could extend to such important areas as investment and supply chain cooperation, technological development, military assessments, and public health, climate change, and international institutional reform. 

Opportunities over the Next Decade 

A qualitative upgrade in India-Taiwan relations will require considerable spadework and is unlikely to occur overnight. Despite the increasingly heated rhetoric emerging from Beijing, New Delhi is concerned that a more likely military crisis scenario in the Taiwan Strait could emerge in a number of years, following the next general election in Taiwan, the entrenchment of Chinese leader Xi Jinping in a third term as party General Secretary, and the completion of a number of reforms by the PLA. These developments do offer time to implement a number of changes in India- Taiwan relations, whether the redirection of investment and supply chains or the building of trust between the two security establishments. 

Yet there is a meaningful opportunity now to deepen and broaden the strategic relationship, which is still at a very nascent stage. The fact that President Tsai Ing- wen singled out India in her inaugural address in 2016 is simply one major indicator of the heightened interest and enthusiasm at the highest levels for improved relations. It will be important to manage expectations and remain realistic given the obvious constraints. Nonetheless, a five-point agenda as outlined above – that includes aspects of economic, technology, security, education, and think tank cooperation – could help transform the India-Taiwan relationship and realize its potential over the coming decades. 

Balancing the Indo-Pacific

The following presentation was given at an academic seminar of the Council on Foreign Relations on October 6, 2021. A full transcript and video is available here. 

Thanks to the Council on Foreign Relations for having me as part of this program. I always welcome and appreciate the opportunity to interact with students whenever the opportunity arises, and with members of the academic community, with faculty of various kinds. It’s been a decade—more than a decade now since I was last in graduate school, but I feel like I never truly left, and still continue to learn from my colleagues in the academic world, and so really look forward to this engagement.

In some ways, this is a timely and important moment to be discussing the power of great power competition in the Indo-Pacific. The idea of great power competition, as many of you will be aware, has been a fixture of international politics really ever since the first stage of globalization after 1492, at least on a global scale. Shortly after that time Spain and Portugal decided to carve up the world between them. And whether or not they could actually implement much of that is another matter.

This was followed, of course, by a series of conflicts between primarily European powers that led eventually by—competing coalitions led by Britain and France through much of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, which waged war as far afield as North America and the Indian Ocean. And my own country, India, and this country, the United States, were both in many ways defined by those conflicts. Great power competition also was a feature in the rise of Germany and Japan and the two world wars in the early twentieth century. And perhaps the last period of really well-acknowledged great power competition was the Cold War between 1945 and 1991 between the United States and the Soviet Union.

But the period that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union may well be thought of as one where such competition between the world’s most powerful political entities went on something of a holiday, a hiatus, it took a break. And we saw something of a debate as to what would be the defining characteristics of that post-Cold War world. The end of history was what Francis Fukuyama, of course, famously proposed. Or Samuel Huntington argued that there would be a clash of civilization, a view that gained particular relevance after the 9/11 attacks. But others argued that this period would be defined by enlargement and engagement of the U.S.-led world order, particularly in Europe. Others said that there would be a new kind of economic and soft power competition, with a more unified European Union. Others thought the global war on terror would be the primary prism by which the world politics would be defined. Others saw the growing irrelevance of the state and the empowerment of corporations and individuals.

And these are the kinds of debates that occupied the study of international politics in the two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But at some point over the past thirteen years or so, and we can discuss whether that was after the 2008 global financial crisis or after the rise of Xi Jinping in China, or the election of Donald Trump in 2016. But at some point there was a growing acknowledgement that great power competition, in some form, is back. And let me briefly get into why I think this is the case. And in doing so, I’ll try to address what I see, at least, as some of the defining features of this new competition, centered as it is in the Indo-Pacific region.

Four reasons, at least, for intensifying global competition have to do very much with China itself. And I’ll start with the security aspects of China’s rise. For many years we—there was this sort of mantra attributed to Deng Xiaoping, China’s previous paramount leader, that was variously translated as “hide your time and bide your strength,” or, “hide your brightness.” And this was seen as the sort of defining feature of China during its rise, particularly during the 1980s and 1990s. But today China is very actively engaged in security competition, often over territory and occasionally over resources, with at least nine of its neighbors, depending on how you define such competition. This extends to Japan in the East China Sea, with Taiwan over the possibility and terms of reunification. It extends to the South China Sea, with a variety of claimant states there. And it extends to India and Bhutan over territory in the Himalayas.

The significance of the latter two, the South China Sea and the Himalayan competition in particular, I feel are often underappreciated in the United States. In the South China Sea, China has dredged artificial islands, laid claim to the surrounding waters and airspace, and militarized these entities in clear contravention of international law. It has engaged in intimidatory military standoffs with the Philippines and more recently with Malaysia, effectively taking control a few years ago of Scarborough Shoal, one of the disputed reefs. With India, China undertook perhaps it’s biggest military mobilization in four decades last year. The resulting standoff, which is still partially continuing, was marked last year by the deaths of twenty Indian and at least four Chinese soldiers. These were the first Chinese combat casualties outside of U.N. peacekeeping since 1988.

But it’s not just the security competition which defines the emerging great power competition in the Indo-Pacific. In international relations, as most of you would be well-aware, liberal theories posit that the pacifying or cooperating effects of interdependence, ideas, and institutions. But all of these today have become domains of competition. Today’s there’s widespread recognition that China does not offer a level economic and commercial playing field, with restricted market access in many sectors, technological theft, heavy state subsidies and predatory lending. Nor has its governance structures become more open and liberal, with a consolidation of power by Xi Jinping and the extension of a wide-ranging national security law to Hong Kong, in contravention of promises made previously to allow multiple systems of governance within one country. Finally, China has been eroding multilateral institutions and norms, whether with respect to nuclear nonproliferation, cybersecurity, outer space, freedom of navigation and overflight, financing standards, and even the Arctic and Antarctic treaties.

But it’s not just Chinese territorial revisionism, economic mercantilism, institutional degradation, and intensifying authoritarianism that are driving the new great power competition in the Indo-Pacific, although these are arguably the primary drivers. In many other countries, not least the United States and Europe, we’re witnessing in some ways a backlash to globalization and a refocus on job-related growth, national industry policy, a greater scrutiny of migration policies, and so forth. In short, we’re seeing greater nationalism around the world. Moreover, other trends are adding further to competition, as we’ve seen more recently in Afghanistan. China’s role there in facilitating the Taliban’s return to power is perhaps an important indicator of the kinds of instrumental alliances it will seek, including with Russia and Pakistan, which have their own agendas.

Finally, I should mention that technological developments, both civilian and military, are transforming the nature of competition. On the military side, we have seen perhaps a sneak peek of what is to come in the recent conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan. But technological competition is playing out increasing in domains such as cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, 5G telecommunications, and quantum computing—all of which have both civilian and military applications, and therefore have significant implications for the future of economic growth and for military conflict.

So these, as I see it, are the key drivers developing—that are shaping and fueling the balancing behavior on the part of many other actors in the Indo-Pacific, beginning, of course, with the United States, which has five treaty allies in the Indo-Pacific. Namely, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, the Philippines, and Australia. The United States is also, of course, a resident power in the Indo-Pacific, with both military forces and territory, as well as citizens, in Guam, America Samoa, and Hawaii. Beyond the United States, Japan is the U.S.’s closest ally and, despite a pacifist constitution, has in the last few years assumed many of the features, roles, and responsibilities of a normal military power—again, often in response to—as they see it, to Chinese assertiveness.

Australia, once more conflicted, has experienced China’s use of economic coercion and political interference, resulting in a strong backlash from Canberra, and a reaffirmation of its alliance with the United States, most recently in the form of the AUKUS agreement, along with the United Kingdom. This, of course, is quite significant because it involves, amongst other things, the acquisition of nuclear propulsion for attacks submarines, with the support of the U.S. and U.K.

India too has been slowly improving its security relations with the U.S., Japan, and Australia since about 2000, and especially after about 2014, and has also engaged in balancing behavior—reorganizing its military forces, rebalancing assets towards China-related military contingencies, and deepening defense technology relationships with the United States and its allies. The coming together of these four countries, the U.S., Japan, Australia, and India, under the Quad—whose leaders met for the first time just a few weeks ago—is perhaps the best encapsulation of the emerging balancing relationships in the Indo-Pacific.

Beyond these four countries something of a question mark remains about other actors in the region. These include South Korea, the ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, the smaller states of South Asia, East Africa, and the South Pacific. And Europe too is looking at all of these developments that I outlined with keener interest, given their own economic agendas, domestic politics, and, in some cases, European security roles in the Indo-Pacific. In all of these cases, countries will strive to balance relations with China on the one hand and the United States and its partners on the other. But the room for maneuver may be narrowing, and the proposition that economic and security policies can be kept separate will certainly be tested in the years to come.

Finally, I’ll just mention that there’s some key differences between the emerging Indo-Pacific balance and the Cold War of the 20th century. The most important is the continuing economic interdependence and social interchange between the various actors. So, for example, China and the United States are still major trade partners with each other, and still enjoy significant people-to-people exchanges, research collaborations, and personal relationships. These are all much thicker than they were between the U.S. and the USSR during the height of the Cold War. The same story, in some ways, applies, with variations, to other relationships in the region. So it is right to question some of the lazy analogies that are made between what some have described as the new Cold War and the original one.

But the principal catalysts of great power competition that I outlined very briefly are unlikely to dissipate in the near future. And for both students and scholars of international relations, it’s all the more reason to be focused on how the Indo-Pacific balance shapes up in the coming years and decades. Thank you.

Contrasting Takeaways from the India-China Boundary Crisis

The following article originally appeared as part of the China-India Brief #179 published by the Centre for Asia and Globalisation at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. 

There is a lot that is still not publicly known about what transpired along the disputed India-China border in eastern Ladakh over the past 18 months. What is clear is that the crisis led to the worst violence between forces of the world’s two most populous countries since 1967. The future implications are also far from certain. Perceptions about recent developments vary, not just between India and China, but also within both countries. Unfortunately, this suggests that differences between India and China are likely to remain, contributing further to what had already become a more competitive relationship.

The boundary between India and China has been unsettled since 1950, when the People’s Republic of China annexed Tibet. The western sector in Ladakh was always the least-clearly demarcated portion due to the complex geography and insufficient cartography inherited from the time of the British Raj and the Qing Empire. Even after their 1962 border war, India and China held different perceptions of the Line of Actual Control (LAC), with significant areas over which their competing claims overlapped. Following a series of agreements beginning in the early 1990s, the countries effectively allowed for overlapping patrols in some of these areas while normalizing their relationship along other facets. But the prerequisite for these arrangements was that certain protocols would be adhered to by both sides that limited the use of deadly force and did not alter the territorial status quo.

Despite these series of agreements between 1993 and 2013, both China and India engaged in the building of road infrastructure in the border areas to improve their own mobilization and access. China gained a first-mover advantage, which forced India to play catch-up. These developments resulted in more frequent confrontations between patrols from both sides. Indian attempts at reinforcing a road to its northern-most base at Daulat Beg Oldi in the Depsang Plains was of particular strategic significance, as it consolidated Indian positions between Chinese forces to the east and areas disputed with Pakistan to the west.

In late 2019, China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) inducted new armaments – including Type 15 lightweight tanks and the 155-millimeter vehicle-mounted howitzers – in their units in western Tibet. Then, in early 2020, the global coronavirus pandemic hit. As the PLA’s routine military exercises took place in the spring, Chinese forces rapidly mobilized along at least four points on the LAC – the Galwan River Valley, Hot Springs, Gogra, and Pangong Tso (lake) – and unilaterally attempted to define the Line of Actual Control on preferred Chinese terms. By April 2020, the size of their build-up was without recent precedent and these actions changed the status quo on the ground, most significantly on the north bank of Pangong Tso. The friction points added to earlier points of contestation to the north in Depsang and to the south in Demchok.

In early May 2020, Indian troops challenged the Chinese incursion at Pangong Tso; the resulting clash led to the hospitalization of several Indian soldiers and a continued Chinese forward presence. Negotiations followed and a disengagement plan was agreed to on June 6. But disagreements about the implementation of that plan in the Galwan Valley led to violence and on June 15 the deaths of 20 Indian and at least four (and possibly more) Chinese soldiers. An impasse followed in negotiations until late August, when Indian forces in a surprise operation seized heights on the southern bank of Pangong Tso, granting India a better negotiating position. At the same time, throughout 2020, India took steps to tighten scrutiny of incoming Chinese investment, ban specific Chinese-owned apps for mobile devices (such as TikTok and PUBG), and create additional screening for Chinese companies in Indian public procurement.

As both sides continued their stand-off over the winter – with about 50,000 troops on each side – a breakthrough was finally reached at the 9^th round of military discussions in January 2021. A verifiable disengagement plan was agreed, and initiated at Pangong Tso, with phased disengagement to follow at other points. This is to be followed by de-escalation – the thinning out of troops on both sides – although that process is expected to take much longer.

Despite the beginnings of disengagement, the situation on the ground has not yet reverted to pre-April 2020 normalcy. Both militaries remain present, armed, and reinforced in the vicinity of Ladakh. Furthermore, there are still differing Chinese and Indian views about the road forward. Chinese officials have indicated a link between disengagement on the border and a return to normal economic and political relations. India has essentially signaled a different view in its official statements: that a return to normal economic relations is predicated upon disengagement, de-escalation, and peace and tranquility on the border, which was both the objective and basis for the agreements between 1993 and 2013.  Given that a return to even a modicum of trust on the border will take time, the lifting of Indian restrictions on Chinese investment, technology, and suppliers is unlikely to be swift or sweeping.

Meanwhile, Chinese analyses of the disengagement process continue to suffer from some shortcomings. Because it is impossible for Chinese commentators to publicly accept the role of China as aggressor, they have suggested that Indian concerns about a Biden administration or its domestic challenges forced it to withdraw from its points of advantage. There is no evidence to suggest such a cause and effect. This inability– at least publicly – to examine the reasons for the deterioration in China-India ties suggest that many lessons from this episode may go unlearned.

While the fact that China and India have agreed to, and have begun to implement, a disengagement plan, is obviously welcome news, the 2020-21 border crisis will have long-term effects for relations between the two countries. In India, it has negatively affected public opinion, which already expressed a critical view of China. Trust built up over two decades on the management of the border has evaporated. India has made it clear that there will be implications for the larger relationship, including economic ties. Meanwhile, Chinese analysts and commentators appear not to have appreciated the effects of Beijing’s build-up, and continue to lay the blame at New Delhi’s doorstep. Despite superficial attempts at reverting to normalcy, these consequences suggest a longer-term chill in relations between the world’s two most populous countries.

For India, Miles to Go to Reengage Southeast Asia

 The following article was originally published in Fulcrum on February 26, 2021.

The years between roughly 1962 and 1992 reflected three lost decades for India’s engagement with Southeast Asia. The years prior had seen India play a role in supporting decolonisation efforts in Indonesia, Indochina, and Burma. The years that followed saw a gradual reengagement with Southeast Asian economies and regional institutions. But while recent decades have witnessed concerted attempts at widening and deepening Indian interactions with the region – from trade and tourism, to military cooperation and investment – the latest survey data also shows how very far India has to go to regain Southeast Asians’ confidence.

From an Indian standpoint, the State of Southeast Asia: 2021 survey conducted by the ISEAS – Yusof Ishak Institute presents a sobering picture. More Southeast Asian respondents expressed more confidence than no confidence in the international roles played by Japan (a net +50.6 per cent), the European Union (+21.4 per cent), and the United States (+17 per cent). On the other hand, negative perceptions dogged India – 19.8 per cent of respondents expressed confidence in India’s global role against 50.3 per cent who expressed the contrary, giving New Delhi a negative 30.5 per cent score. This was only surpassed by those of China, which scored a net negative 46.5 per cent. The two major reasons cited for the lack of confidence in India were that it was too preoccupied domestically or in South Asia (39.7 per cent) and that New Delhi lacked the capacity and will for global leadership (39.7 per cent). The silver lining is that very few of those with negative views attributed it to India posing a threat to their country’s interests (1.7 per cent) or having an incompatible political culture or worldview (2.5 per cent).

The more revealing picture of Southeast Asian perspectives on India concerned specific issues. While the region views China as its major economic partner, the United States’ military as a prominent security provider, Japan as a significant investor, and the European Union as a normative power, India’s role is almost completely overshadowed. Only 0.1 per cent of respondents saw India playing the most important economic role in the region. Only 0.8 per cent of respondents saw India as the primary champion of free trade. Only 0.6 per cent saw India as the country doing most to support the rules-based order. Only 0.3 per cent said India was their preferred country to study, and only 1 per cent said India would be their preferred country to visit, the lowest among ASEAN partner countries.

Things look only slightly less bleak when it came to coronavirus assistance and strategic alternatives. Only 1.6 per cent of respondents believed that India had provided the most assistance for Covid-19, although the one Southeast Asian country that was a major recipient of Indian-made vaccines – Myanmar – reflected a more positive view, with 7 per cent of respondents there recognising India’s role. Beyond the United States and China, India featured as only the fourth alternative partner of choice in the survey at 6.6 per cent, behind the European Union, Japan, and Australia. When asked as to who they would turn to if the US is perceived to be unreliable, only 7.8 per cent of respondents saw India as the preferred alternative. This put India in 5th position after Japan, the EU, China and Australia (but ahead of South Korea and the United Kingdom).

Fortunately, the trend over the year before is positive: 20 per cent of respondents expressed confidence in India this year compared to 16 per cent the year prior. The negative views have also declined slightly from about 53.5 per cent to 50.3 per cent. But these minor shifts are almost meaningless unless a positive trend can be sustained over several years. By far the biggest factor among those respondents who were positively inclined was India’s image as a responsible stakeholder that respects international law (37.3 per cent). Smaller numbers expressed admiration for India’s worldview (18.1 per cent), economic leadership (17.6 per cent), and culture (17.2 per cent).

The overall survey results suggest points of opportunity or convergence between India and Southeast Asia in the future. The broad Southeast Asian consensus about the South China Sea, particularly the need to uphold UNCLOS and respect the 2016 tribunal ruling, represents an alignment with Indian positions. The rising importance of Mekong River issues was also reflected in the survey, with India harboring similar concerns as a lower riparian state about the exploitation of rivers originating in the Tibetan plateau. The survey reflected general receptivity in Southeast Asia to developing the Indo-Pacific as a strategic concept, a view that will undoubtedly be welcomed in New Delhi.

There also appears to be growing alignment between Indian and Southeast Asian views of China. Overwhelmingly, survey respondents identified China (76.3 per cent) as the most economically influential actor in Southeast Asia, although a majority (72.3 per cent) worried about that influence. A plurality (49.1 per cent) perceived China as the most influential political and strategic power, although an even higher proportion (88.6 per cent) worried rather than welcomed this development. Concerns about China extended to territorial disputes, respect for sovereignty, and unfair or coercive trade and economic practices. A growing number of respondents (61.5 per cent over 53.6 per cent last year) believed that if forced to align, that ASEAN should align itself with the United States rather than China.

Despite the apparent commonalities in worldviews between Southeast Asia and India, much more work is clearly in order. This extends to economic connectivity, people-to-people exchanges, and security partnerships. India is unlikely to play a dominant role in Southeast Asia in the near future, comparable to China or the United States today. But featuring more prominently and positively in public opinion surveys in Southeast Asia ought to be a desirable and achievable outcome.

When Liberalism Grows Up

The article excerpted below originally appeared in American Purpose on January 27, 2021.

For liberalism, the equivalent of John Cage’s “4'33"” composition may have been the evening in August of 2008 when the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics served as an announcement of China’s global ambitions. On the same day, Russian forces entered Georgia. In the same month, Lehman Brothers laid off 1,500 employees, a precursor to its crash and the global financial crisis. In that year, the Chinese navy deployed to the Gulf of Aden in its first modern operations outside its claimed territorial waters. These developments, though obscured by Barack Obama’s historic election victory that November, heralded an end to Western liberal primacy.

Still, liberalism has not come crashing down in the years since. Liberal aspirations—human dignity, individualism, equal rights—remain achievable, desirable, and inherently unobjectionable. What the events of the last twelve years have done is to expose liberalism’s inherent weaknesses. Human beings are not just logical but emotional creatures. Free markets attain miraculous economic growth but undermine equality of opportunity. Access to abundant information does not guarantee enlightenment. Individuals exercising free choice may choose to be tribal. Elected officials exploit these conditions.

The way to perfect these imperfections is not simply to reaffirm liberalism’s moral superiority. It is to tinker continuously with liberalism, exploring the potentially infinite variations upon its themes.

Read the full article here.

The US Elections and India-Russia Relations

The following article was originally published by the Valdai Discussion Club - in collaboration with the Observer Research Foundation - on September 29, 2020.

The 2020 US elections are being followed keenly in India, as they are in many other parts of the world. India’s direct stakes in the outcome are relatively minor. Both major party candidates — Republican Donald Trump and Democrat Joe Biden — have indicated a willingness to improve relations with New Delhi, although with different areas of emphasis. Trump’s visit to India in February of this year left a positive impression. Biden himself described the US-India relationship as a “special bond” and committed to continue “standing with India in confronting the threats it faces in its own region and along its border”. He has also committed to working with India to expand trade, tackle global challenges such as the climate crisis, and strengthen democracy.

The indirect implications of the election for India, however, might be more significant. After all, the election outcome will affect US foreign policy, such as relations with China, Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran. India would like to see the US take a tougher position against its regional adversaries, China and Pakistan. It would also ideally seek a more favourable outcome in negotiations with the Taliban in Afghanistan, as well as exemptions from Iran-related sanctions. Beyond strategic affairs, the US election could also influence its economic and social policies, including trade, immigration, climate change, and democratic cooperation. India would naturally prefer more favourable terms of engagement on these issues.

However, one area of particular concern to India relates to future US policy towards Russia. New Delhi continues to have a strong relationship with Moscow. The centrepiece is the defence relationship: Russia remains the largest provider of arms to India and is critical partner in jointly developing other weapons systems; still others are produced under license. Additional cooperation extends to the civilian nuclear sector and space, including India’s fledgling manned spaceflight programme. Trade had increased somewhat, prior to the coronavirus pandemic (although from a modest base), while India had committed to increasing investment in the Russian Far East. Finally, India-Russia relations have extended to multilateral affairs and global governance, including such forums as BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

Meanwhile, US relations with Russia remain strained. Although only 18% of Americans have a favourable impression of Russia, there are partisan divergences: only 35% of Republicans view Russia as a threat, as opposed to 65% of Democrats. Despite Trump’s apparent willingness to engage with Moscow, a combination of such political factors, the proceedings of Trump’s impeachment, certain moves by Russia, and the predispositions of national security policymakers in Washington have ensured that relations remain fraught. Other developments have contributed further to tensions. The US and Russia support rival factions in Syria. The United States’ abrogation of the INF Treaty has further set back cooperation on arms control. And the United States has criticized Germany’s continued commitment to the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.

These contrasting attitudes to Moscow between New Delhi and Washington — coming at a time of greater India-US bonhomie — remains a source of some friction, although the extent and significance might sometimes be exaggerated. In part, these differences are a natural consequence of the relationship between India and the United States becoming closer. Today, the United States is India’s most important economic partner, if trade in services and goods, investment, research and development, education, people-to-people links, and corporate relations are taken into consideration. India also sees in the United States an important strategic partnership, whether in terms of regional coordination, military operations in the maritime sphere, or defence technology. For its part, Washington sees in India a growing economy with largely congruent interests in Asia. These realities imply some contradictions in the US-India-Russia triangle, further complicated by the three parties’ relations with other actors, such as China, Pakistan, Europe, and Japan.

India has made it clear that its relationship with Russia will remain independent of US policy, as encapsulated in the agreement to procure the S-400 air defence system. In the face of India’s insistence, the US Congress has created some legislative wiggle room to exempt India (and other partners) from resulting sanctions, conscious that the implications of sanctioning India for its relationship with Russia would be to the long-term detriment of US strategic interests. However, the legislation does not allow for an open-ended waiver, and must be approved on a case-by-case basis. US policymakers have drawn a distinction between India and Turkey (which is also acquiring the S-400) by highlighting India’s past relationship with Russia and current defence acquisition trends. While the situation at present could be seen as part of a successful Indian attempt at balancing its relationship with both countries, it has also injected a degree of uncertainty in ties with Washington.

Overall, from New Delhi’s vantage point, a more accommodating approach by the United States towards other countries’ engagement with Russia would be ideal. However, should he win this November’s election, the administration of Democrat Joe Biden will be wary, at least initially. Public sentiment and other points of difference between Washington and Moscow are likely to remain, and there is little political appetite for a “reset,” a term associated today with the failure of post-2009 engagement. But, equally, it is unclear whether a second Trump administration will have much more latitude, particularly if the Democrats secure majorities in both houses of the US Congress. India may be left with little choice but to continue making the strategic case for its Russia relationship to Washington, trusting that it would result in more flexible outcomes. In this effort, it will not be alone, with other US partners in Asia (notably Vietnam and Indonesia) also seeking to preserve defence relations with Moscow while improving their ties with Washington.

At the same time, India’s efforts to preserve the primacy of its partnership with Russia would be made much easier should Russia pay more heed to certain Indian concerns that are distinct from Washington’s. Such Indian concerns relate to Moscow’s more accommodating approach to the Taliban in Afghanistan, its resistance to the Indo-Pacific strategic concept (as articulated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi this year), its willingness to engage in high-technology military commerce (including ballistic missile defence) with China, and its nascent defence cooperation with Pakistan. Some notional commitments reportedly made during Defence Minister Rajnath Singh’s recent visit to Moscow offer a promising signal. But, regardless of the US election’s outcome, greater Russian sensitivities to Indian concerns on these and similar issues will be vital to preserving a robust India-Russia partnership in a period of greater strategic flux.

 

The Australia-India Strategic Partnership

The following Analysis was published by the Lowy Institute on September 16, 2020. The Executive Summary is below, and the full text can be accessed here.

After five decades of testy or distant strategic relations, India and Australia began in the early 2000s to forge an increasingly cooperative defence and security partnership. The primary drivers were similar concerns about China’s rise, behaviour, and assertiveness, as well as converging views about the regional strategic landscape.

The decreasing salience of their divergences — Cold War-era geopolitics, India’s nuclear status, strained people-to-people ties, and shallow economic and trade links — also helped create more favourable conditions. Starting slowly in 2000, and accelerating in 2006 and 2014, the Australia–India strategic relationship began to involve policy dialogues, military exercises, defence exchanges, and security arrangements of greater frequency and sophistication.

Today, all the major elements of a robust defence partnership are in place, although still at very early stages of development. Important constraints remain, including mismatched capabilities, divergent priorities, and differing strategic circumstances, especially concerning relations with China and the United States. In addition to appreciating and navigating these differences, New Delhi and Canberra can enhance their strategic partnership by structuring and prioritising their consultations, improving military interoperability, deepening technological collaboration, and broadening relations. [Full text]

The Sunnylands Principles on Enhancing Democratic Partnership in the Indo-Pacific Region

The following document published by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) was based on a meeting at Rancho Mirage, California, from January 23-25, 2020, to achieve consensus on a vision for regional cooperation to advance democratic governance norms in the Indo-Pacific. 

"The basis for all these diverse and inclusive efforts should always remain the promotion of human dignity. We are optimistic about the future of democracy in the Indo-Pacific region, but old challenges remain and new ones have arisen. Diverse approaches to advancing democracy must be more consciously aligned to build momentum that achieves the region’s vision for open, free, transparent, accountable, inclusive, and prosperous societies." 

Read the full document here. 

The Evolution of the India-China Boundary Dispute

The following article originally appeared in The Washington Examiner under the headline "India and China Peace Pacts Are Disintegrating" on June 25, 2020. 

On June 16, reports trickled in from the remote mountainous region of Ladakh that Indian soldiers had died in violence the previous night along the disputed border with China. Many details are still uncertain, with the Indian and Chinese governments trading blame for the incident, but what is clear is that a fight broke out between Indian and Chinese troops in the isolated Galwan River Valley. It resulted in 20 Indian Army deaths, including that of a senior officer, along with dozens of injuries, some inflicted using sticks covered in nails or barbed wire. China’s People’s Liberation Army also suffered casualties, although the Chinese government has not released the number and names of those killed.

The victims represent the first violent deaths on the India-China border since 1975 and the most fatalities at that location since 1967.

The Galwan River clash also marks a significant turn in relations between India and China — and that, in turn, will have long-lasting implications for the rest of the world.

It’s worth briefly reviewing what that relationship is, exactly, and how it got that way. Although China and India both consider themselves ancient civilization-states, historical contacts between them were limited yet important — premodern trade, plus religious and cultural exchanges, notably the spread of Buddhism from its birthplace in India to China.

Political relations were shaped by the colonial period, when India became part of the British Empire and China experienced intervention and subjugation by a number of imperial powers. The British recognized Chinese suzerainty (but not sovereignty) over Tibet, partly to preempt the possibility of encroachment by the Russian Empire. A number of border agreements were concluded in this period between British India and the Qing dynasty, although they were often vague, incomplete, or subsequently contested.

The Communist Revolution of 1949 and the annexation of Tibet by the People’s Liberation Army in 1950, coming shortly after Indian independence in 1947, meant that for the first time, China and India were immediate neighbors. India was initially quick to establish diplomatic relations with the communist government in Beijing, and the two cooperated to establish an anti-colonial consensus among Asian and African countries. But it soon became apparent that there would be trouble on the border.

The term “border dispute” tends to evoke images of a limited standoff, but the India-China row is over territory larger than the state of Pennsylvania. It consists of three distinct sectors. Disputes in the middle sector are relatively small and include grazing grounds and passes that link India with Tibet. The eastern sector includes China’s claim to almost the entire Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh, home to more people than Montana, which China calls “South Tibet.” That section includes the town of Tawang, birthplace of the sixth Dalai Lama, and thus has particular significance for Tibetans, and by extension, for Chinese claims to Tibet.

The western sector is in the Indian union territory of Ladakh, which was, until last year, part of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. Here, the borders with Tibet were never clearly demarcated. This land resembles a high-altitude desert: impossibly rough terrain with steep ravines, glaciers, and peaks rising to over 20,000 feet. In the virtually treeless landscape, landslides and dust storms are frequent, and the altitude makes it difficult to breathe without proper acclimatization.

Nonetheless, this territory is strategically important for both China and India. China constructed a vital highway through an area claimed by India in the 1950s to connect the restive regions of Xinjiang and Tibet. Ladakh is important for India not only for its own sake, but for supplying Indian forces along the disputed Line of Control with Pakistan, meaning this area is considered crucial to Indian security and to the geopolitical balance of power across a large part of Asia.

In some ways, this faceoff is a long time coming. In the 1950s, a series of developments led to an escalation of tensions on the border. One was India’s realization that China was moving the goalposts and making more aggressive territorial claims. The status of Tibet was an added complication: In the 1950s, a revolt in eastern Tibet against communist China resulted in a brutal crackdown by Chinese forces, during which the Dalai Lama and some of his followers fled to India. Amid the catastrophe of Mao Zedong’s “Great Leap Forward” and inadequate Indian military preparation, a short but sharp border war broke out in late 1962. China decisively won, advancing over some territory in the western sector. In the east, China inflicted a humiliating defeat but withdrew before the onset of winter, believing it had taught India a lesson.

India-China relations remained strained for another 15 years. Violent skirmishes erupted in 1967 in Sikkim in the eastern sector. Negotiations eventually restarted following the resumption of full diplomatic relations, and for a brief period in the early 1980s, Beijing floated the possibility of resolving the boundary once and for all. That changed abruptly in 1985, when China once again made aggressive claims, a policy that has continued. Despite another standoff in the eastern sector in 1986-87, steps toward normalization began after 1988.

Then, in a series of unusual agreements between 1993 and 2013, the two maintained a peaceful posture on the disputed border. This opened pathways to cooperation on other matters, including trade. The two sides agreed that if Indian and Chinese patrols came into face-to-face contact, they would “exercise self-restraint,” not “threaten to use force,” and “enter into immediate consultations” to resolve the problem. In practice, this resulted in both Indian and Chinese military units patrolling some of the same ground, where their claims overlapped. Despite frequent run-ins between their patrols, there was rarely violence and never any that resulted in serious injury, let alone death.

But this period also saw the beginnings of a new kind of arms race as both sides attempted to improve infrastructure — roads, bridges, and airfields — near the Line of Actual Control, the vaguely defined, de facto boundary. China moved first and more quickly, driven by a combination of political will, more favorable terrain, and, eventually, greater resources. But India soon started to catch up. The run-ins between patrols became more frequent.

In 2013, the first major standoff between India and China in 26 years occurred on the remote Depsang Plains when China attempted to establish a permanent presence in disputed territory just as India prepared to open a high-altitude airfield at nearby Daulat Beg Oldi. This was resolved when India threatened to cancel the visit of the Chinese premier. But in 2014, as Chinese President Xi Jinping was in India, another flare-up occurred in Chumar, farther south. A more significant standoff occurred in 2017, involving China’s territorial dispute with Bhutan, an Indian ally. Indian forces intervened to stop Chinese road-building in disputed territory, resulting in a brief spike in tensions.

Earlier this year, as a critical Indian road to Daulat Beg Oldi came closer to completion, Chinese forces deployed in larger numbers at the LAC, and as Indian troops matched them, standoffs occurred at four points. One was the Galwan River Valley, an area that had witnessed fighting in 1962 but had not been a major source of friction since. To the south, by a picturesque lake called Pangong Tso, Chinese and Indian forces entered into a tussle in May. In between, near an area known as Hot Springs, two smaller buildups took place.

On June 6, senior military commanders from India and China met and agreed to a road map for phased disengagement by both militaries at the Galwan River and Hot Springs. It was as this disengagement was taking place that violence erupted on the night of June 15. The Indian government accuses China of not having adhered to the disengagement road map, while China claims Indian forces crossed the LAC.

The melee in the Galwan River Valley has a number of clear consequences. The first is that China has embarked upon a massive military buildup far out of proportion to any real military threat. While observers can speculate about Chinese motives, the intimidatory nature of its actions is evident. The second is that the clash calls into question protocols that had been carefully established between the two governments since 1993. Resuscitating any level of trust on the border will now be difficult since existing agreements proved unable to prevent deadly conflict. The third is that Indian public opinion toward China has become markedly more hostile, something China has sought to avoid in the past.

But the friction also has implications for the wider world, including the United States. They bring into focus similar concerns that India, the U.S., and others — including Japan, Australia, Taiwan, and allies in Southeast Asia — have when it comes to China’s growing assertiveness. Accelerated efforts by India and the U.S. to share intelligence and assessments, improve military cooperation, and build up defense capabilities would be a natural consequence.

Since 2005, New Delhi and Washington have concluded a defense framework agreement, a civilian nuclear deal, and military agreements on logistics, secure communications, and industrial security. U.S. secretaries of state and defense often hold regular strategic dialogues (called “2+2”) with their Indian counterparts. The American and Indian armies, air forces, and navies conduct regular exercises, including a new triservice amphibious exercise. India has also acquired seven major weapons platforms, including reconnaissance and transport aircraft, attack helicopters, and artillery, from the U.S. Such tangible forms of security cooperation may now intensify.

But despite healthy cooperation on security matters, Washington and New Delhi have sparred on other issues. India-China competition over the medium-term future will not be restricted to military affairs. Should Washington reach agreements with India on matters such as trade, investment, and immigration, it would go a long way toward preserving a favorable balance of power in Asia amid China’s continued assertiveness.

Perspectives on a Changing World Order: India

The following essay appeared in a collection published by the Council on Foreign Relations (Discussion Paper Series on Managing Global Disorder No. 1) in June 2020. The full text can be accessed here.

The international order has changed radically over the past three decades in ways that are clearly discernible but not easily conceivable. This shift is evidenced by the lack of a commonly recognized term to characterize the emerging international order, beyond the increasingly inappropriate post–Cold War, which describes what the order is not. Without question, the prevailing international order has been under considerable strain, and the novel coronavirus has stretched it almost to a breaking point. Governance of the global commons is being undermined, rival economic institutions are being created, and international security institutions are increasingly anachronistic. The risk of great power conflict has increased as deterrence, interdependence, and socialization have given way to low-risk offensive weapons, changing cost-benefit calculations, and rising nationalism. Domestic political constraints in the United States, the nature of China’s rise, and the role of other actors (Europe, India, Japan, and Russia) mean that the emerging international system could quite possibly reflect elements of unipolarity, bipolarity, and multipolarity simultaneously. 

48 Questions: Reddit "Ask Me Anything"

The following Q&A is adapted from a Reddit ‘Ask Me Anything’ for IndiaSpeaks between April 10-12, 2020. Questions and answers have been edited for clarity and flow.

Jump to:

·       Part I: China’s Rise and India’s Response

·       Part II: The U.S.-India Strategic Partnership

·       Part III: Rethinking South Asia

·       Part IV: India’s International Partnerships - New and Old

·       Part V: The Study and Practice of International Relations in India

·       Part VI: U.S. Politics: Trump or Biden?

·       Part VII: COVID-19 and Its Aftermath

·       Part VIII: The Domestic Foundations of International Power

·       Part IX: The West and the Rest

·       Part X: The Media and Misperceptions

Part I: China’s Rise and India’s Response

Question 1: Can you share your insights about India's position vis-à-vis the US-China dynamic. Will we need to choose one or the other?

I think we need to break this issue down in two. One, how are U.S.-China relations evolving? Will there be long-term cooperation (a 'G2'), mostly competition with tactical cooperation, or all out competition (a 'new Cold War')? Most countries would prefer the first, although India has harbored strong reservations about what that means for its own position. The growing consensus, one I happen to subscribe to, is it will look more like the third option going forward: long-term strategic competition. This is likely to continue, with some variation, even under a Democratic administration in the United States.

If that is the case, what options does India have? Crudely speaking, there are three: (1) siding more with China, (2) siding more with the U.S., (3) equivocating. Of course, no one doubts India's positions will be taken on a case-by-case basis and its likely to disagree with both countries on various issues. This idea of India becoming a coopted ally of one or the other is a straw man argument. India is not about to sacrifice its autonomy to anyone: it did not do it when it was weaker, and is even less likely to do so as it gets stronger. But my point is to underscore that *not* making a choice is itself a choice. Even Non-alignment - as originally envisioned - was a proactive policy, not one of sitting back and letting events take their own course.

So if one analyzes the problem this way, we look at relations with two great powers. With one, India has (a) a massive boundary dispute, (b) intensifying competition in its immediate neighbourhood, (c) a trade deficit that is comparable in size to its entire defence budget, and (d) differences over institutional membership and values. With the other, you have (a) broadly convergent strategic interests, (b) a diversified and balanced economic relationship, (c) a large diaspora that provides a bridge, and (d) similar democratic values. I worry that not making a choice - although an option - could put India in a far more dangerous predicament.

India will have most options in a world of managed competition between the United States and China. But the ideal scenario where the U.S. and China manage their competition is unlikely to occur, so India will have to make choices. And when you compare India's interests vis-a-vis the two countries, as I attempted to do in my answer above, it becomes evident which way most (even if not all) those choices will go.

Question 2: Why is China trying to surround India with all those military bases in other countries of South Asia? We aren't in anyway a threat to them by any measure. Do you think India will become one of the respected world powers on par with China and the USA?

It is hard to discern the motivations behind Chinese actions, including in South Asia. Part of it is part of a broader strategic objective focused on major chokepoints, which partly explain the older focus on Pakistan (Gwadar) and Myanmar (Kyaukpyu), and also strategically important Sri Lanka and the Maldives. But there is also a long history of using Pakistan to hem in India, which explains China-Pakistan cooperation on nuclear and defence matters dating to the 1970s. Bangladesh too has been a beneficiary of Chinese military assistance from the 1980s, partly because at that time only China could provide the low-cost equipment that Dhaka wanted. On balance, a broader Chinese strategy of 'going out' combined with a policy of keeping India in check may be responsible for a lot of what we are witnessing.

India can be a respected power on par with China and the U.S. only if its economy is roughly on par. At 4% or 5% growth that will take a lot longer than 7-10% growth. For now, I would hold my breath. It is of little use trying to predict the future beyond 20 years, but at the present rate, India is likely to be #3, but well short of the U.S. and China. In the medium-term future, we can expect a bipolar world in which a few key actors, India among them (but also Japan, Russia, Europe) will play important roles in the balance of power.

Question 3: How serious do you believe the Chinese are in their claim over ‘South Tibet’? Do you think this can be addressed with mutual satisfaction or will this claim fester forever? Finally, any differences between the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) on their Arunachal policy?

China’s claim over much of Arunachal Pradesh, which it calls South Tibet, is based on customary claims linked to the region's tribute to Lhasa. But a few things are notable. One is that China withdrew to behind the McMahon Line in 1962, despite inflicting a decisive defeat in that sector over India. This was for logistic reasons, but also paradoxically reinforces an acceptance of sorts that this is Indian territory. Secondly, when India made Arunachal Pradesh a state, there was a spike in tensions. The Sumdorongchu stand-off in the 1980s, when India airlifted forces and China eventually backed down, again reinforced the status quo. So that tells you that while China will not for now drop its claims, and will use various related issues (e.g. visas to people from Arunachal Pradesh) as bargaining chips, that its claims are both tenuous and hard to enforce. Remember too that both those incidents were before the 1998 nuclear tests.

You would have to ask someone with much more tangible China expertise than me on the bureaucratic divisions, although differences between MFA and the PLA have been in evidence in the recent past, including over the handling of Doklam. Additionally, it appears as if any resolution will be part of a 'package deal' when all or most sectors of the boundary dispute between India and China will be resolved. A sector-by-sector approach will inevitably play in China's favour.

Question 4: How would you rate this government’s policies in handling in China?

I do not think it is fair for me to rate this or any other government, nor is that my job. I try instead to explain what has occurred, examine why, and suggest alternatives if they're found wanting. On China, let me just point to a few developments in recent years: India has dropped routine reference to 'One China' policy in statements, boycotted BRI, engaged in a Quad dialogue, stopped illegal Chinese road building at Doklam, expelled Chinese journalists who were engaging in non-journalistic activities, criticised Chinese actions in the South China Sea, withdrawn from RCEP (which would have benefited China), and evacuated students from Wuhan despite Chinese requests that they remain.

Part II: The U.S.-India Strategic Partnership

Question 5: The US is a practitioner of realpolitik. Do you think the US-India partnership can rise above mere transactions? Can the US be considered a reliable partner on major issues such as trade and China? How is China able to influence the liberal Western media, educational institutions and international institutions (such as the WHO) despite having such ugly record on human rights?

There are two ways of considering your first question. The realist approach is that no other country can be trusted: international relations are not dictated by trust, and ultimately everyone looks out selfishly for themselves. But what does matter is self-interest. So if there is an alignment of Indian and U.S. interests on a particular issue (e.g. China, terrorism, defence trade), the two will work together. The second approach suggests that values matter, at least to some degree. The fact that the U.S. system of foreign policy decision-making is more open and transparent helps India (and other countries) ensure that their interests can be protected to a certain degree. Consider how India has (mostly) successfully advocated to be exempted from sanctions related to defence trade with Russia (CAATSA) or Iran (specific to Chabahar). That might not be possible in a more closed system. In that worldview, the United States' liberalism (meaning "openness" in this context), is an asset not a liability. So the short answer to your question is that the U.S. can't be trusted, cooperation is really about alignment of interests, but that the distrust can be mitigated to some extent by its relative transparency.

The question of Chinese influence is a big one these days. It looks like a few factors are at play. One, money talks. China can exert a lot of sway because people are loathe to lose market access or business opportunities or (with academics) simply access to China. Two, China has exploited the openness of Western societies but has not offered reciprocal benefits. Huawei can sue scholars for defamation in Europe, China Daily has inserts in the Washington Post, and Chinese officials are on platforms like Twitter that are banned in China. At the same time, Facebook and the New York Times are banned in China, foreign companies cannot rely on the rule of law there (and are vulnerable to the whims of the CCP), and foreign officials don't have the same public diplomacy opportunities with the Chinese public. So it's really a question of reciprocity. Third, China has been smart in building goodwill with countries that are most desperate and vulnerable (often through BRI), and that has created a formidable voting bloc in international institutions.

Question 6: What do you see as the future of the Quad? Just a talk shop or something more substantial?

The Quad is a foreign ministry dialogue at a senior working level (joint secretary-level). So it's not really about posturing but actually serves both a signaling purpose (showing cooperation among the four) and a coordination purpose. Just in the past few months, we've seen other aspects develop including some table-top exercises, cyber coordination efforts, and now some coordination (with other countries) on COVID-19. Additionally, as I've pointed out, the real story on the defence side is what's happening among the Quad countries not just through a quadrilateral process.

Question 7: Will project Blue Dot bring more American investment in the future and is this project better than China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)?

Blue Dot is a project to certify standards. It is not a financing mechanism. So one would be comparing two different things. It is clearly a response to BRI, but I suspect it is just one arrow in a quiver of measures the U.S. and others will take to compete with BRI. The idea presumably is that by raising standards and publicly naming and shaming substandard projects, that it would dissuade countries from entering into bad deals with China.

Part III: Rethinking South Asia

Question 8: Why does India keep reviving SAARC and not create a parallel organisation minus Pakistan?

In my personal opinion, SAARC suffered from some design flaws. Its biggest advocate in the early 1980s was in fact Bangladesh, and other smaller South Asian states were early supporters (e.g. Sri Lanka). Both India and Pakistan had their own reservations. India felt that with all original seven members given an equal say, it would constrain India. Pakistan feared that India would use it to advance regional hegemony. So both were not that enthusiastic about SAARC at its creation, which goes a long way towards explaining why it has not developed as it could. At the same time, SAARC does some important work, including technical cooperation, that does not always get much attention. International institutions are generally reluctant to radical change; they suffer from the fallacy of sunk costs. So that's partly why we see SAARC continue: by now, all the other countries have some stakes in the project. But it is also clear that it has hit its limitations as far as cooperation can go, largely because of the India-Pakistan dynamic. We have therefore seen India starting to explore alternatives, often without Pakistan. These include ad hoc agreements (the BBIN motor vehicle agreement that Bhutan withdrew from), a "SAARC-minus" approach (as in the South Asian satellite), and other institutions (last year, India's budget for BIMSTEC matched that for SAARC for the first time). So it's not entirely accurate that India keeps 'reviving' SAARC: it's a permanent fixture and has a full-time secretariat. In fact, most other South Asian countries complain that India doesn't invest enough in it. The challenge, for the reasons I've outlined above, is to do what is possible within SAARC but not be unduly limited by it in achieving regional objectives.

Question 9: This government has repeatedly said that Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir (PoK) is part of India and any talks with Pakistan can only happen on that point. Given that PoK is an existential issue, how do you think India can get it back?

A few facts that must be simultaneously kept in mind on this issue: India has a legal claim to PoK based on the Instrument of Accession signed by Maharaja Hari Singh and the Indian government. Pakistan does not have a similar legal basis, which also explains the special status accorded PoK by the government of Pakistan (there is a 'President' of so-called 'Azad Kashmir'). India lost control on the ground of PoK during the 1947-1948 war and has not had governance over the area since. A lot has changed since, including to the social composition of the region. The Shimla Agreement and LoC has established a de facto border. This was agreed to by both parties and the sentiment was reinforced in the Lahore Declaration of 1999. Pakistan, despite criticising India for changing the status of Jammu and Kashmir, has repeatedly changed the status of PoK, including as recently as 2009. Both countries are nuclear-armed powers, and that has important implications for their ability to change the territorial status quo. Under these circumstances, India regularly reinforces its rhetorical claims to PoK because it cannot afford not to: it is part of the negotiation towards a settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir issue. Those (including in the U.S. I find) who claim Indian reiterations of this claims are attempts to change the status quo are therefore being somewhat disingenuous in their characterization.

Question 10: How important is Nepal to India? Can India bully Nepal to have say in their things? Does the relationship between India and Nepal change along with changes in ruling government? Where does China fit in?

Nepal is very important for India. Think of how unusual the relationship is: we have an open border and few mobility restrictions. There are 7 regiments of Nepalis serving in the Indian Army (and about 120,000 Nepalis receive pensions from India). The level of physical integration has also increased of late, especially energy integration, with India investing heavily in hydropower projects. So it remains a very close relationship, despite various frictions.

I don't think "bully" is the right word. India and Nepal have revisited the terms of their special relationship periodically, starting in the 1950s itself. Nepal settled its boundary dispute with China, for example. But while Nepal has occasionally sough to demonstrate its autonomy from New Delhi, it has been incumbent upon India to remind Nepal's leadership that some of its actions might undermine relations with India. One prominent example of course was in the late 1980s, when under King Birendra, Nepal attempted to forge a security partnership with China (including anti-aircraft weapons) and suspend some of the privileges it afforded Indians in Nepal. This led to a blockade and combined with democratic protests to compel Nepal to reverse these positions. Overall, it should be welcome that Nepal has become a democratic republic and ended years of painful civil war. But its democracy has led to new dynamics, and occasionally greater differences with India. It seems we are over the worst of it (2015-2016) and the relationship is now on a more even keel. But I did find in visits to Kathmandu an unfortunate tendency to blame India for some of Nepal's domestic governance challenges (at that time, it concerned the delivery of earthquake relief). While India could do a better job of being sensitive to Nepal's concerns and responding proactively, it should also recognise attempts to scapegoat India for problems that are not of its own creation.

There are minor changes here and there with changes in government. In recent times, the cultural connect has gained greater prominence. Different prime ministers in Nepal have also had different instincts when it comes to relations with India and China.

There is no question that China's role in Nepal has steadily increased, although the degree is sometimes overstated. There are stronger party-to-party links between Beijing and Kathmandu, which I have witnessed firsthand. Chinese investment and tourists are more evident now, and promises of Chinese financing are large. That said, there are still functions and arrangements that China will not be wholly willing to replicate. For India, China's growing profile in India's neighbourhood should be a wake-up call, but I find a lot of the commentary in India on the subject to be excessively alarmist.

Part IV: India’s International Partnerships, New and Old

Question 11: Why do you think India's position in Malaysia and Indonesia has worsened all of a sudden?

Relations between India and Malaysia have long been difficult, and that stems from some of the bumiputera policies that Mahatir and other leaders enforced in the past, which biased against Indians. This was not always the case. In fact, in a little-known episode, Malaysia's Ambassador to the UN criticized Pakistan during the 1965 War (Indonesia then provided Pakistan with arms) and Pakistan and Malaysia broke off diplomatic ties! More recently, however, that has changed, and Malaysian criticism of Indian actions have made things worse. The spat over palm oil imports is reflective of this.

Indonesia, I would be much more positive about, despite some of the public criticism. Chinese encroachment into the areas around the Natunas Islands has increased concerns in Jakarta, and one consequence is that the Jokowi government is much more seriously looking at India as a defence partner. India's coast guard and navy do coordinated patrols around the Strait of Malacca and have accessed the port at Sabang. There is also movement towards cooperation on coastal radar systems. So overall, the trajectory is positive, despite some public posturing.

Question 12: Do you think India has historically given too much importance to Iran? Hasn’t Iran provided more costs than benefits?

I'll say two things. Policymakers need to assess the relative benefits, costs, and risks associated with every relationship. For some time, since the early 2000s, there have been some in India who have argued that India's interests aligned more with the GCC states and Israel than with Iran, and that is a compelling case when one considers the totality of energy flows, diaspora links, and other factors. Second, it's important (albeit difficult) for observers to distinguish between rhetoric and reality. So for all the talk of 'civilizational links' between India and Iran, the reality of the relationship has been a lot more prosaic. I'd advise to look less at words and more at actions by both parties, and that tells a different story.

Question 13: Why do you think the India-Turkey relationship has underperformed? Does New Delhi want to change this dynamic? What needs to be done in this relationship?

Turkey has bene attempting to improve the business-to-business relationship, as Erdogan made clear on his last visit to India, but the poor performance of the Turkish economy hasn't helped matters. Ties have been tricky for some time; Turkey was once seen as the model state for a country like Pakistan (especially its military) to follow. But the rather dramatic shift in Turkey's foreign policy under Erdogan has not helped matters. There are other irritants, including Fethullah Gulen followers.

Question 14: What is your opinion about Australia’s weight in the international order? Can they get more powerful? While they seem an attractive power for India to have now, they do not seem able to provide India with what a France or a Japan can.

Australia is an attractive partner in many ways for India. Some cultural and political commonalities, growing demographic, educational, and energy links, an active armed forces, and immense natural resources. The limitation that you seem to be driving at are two-fold: Australia is not a manufacturing or investment powerhouse on the scale of Japan, nor is it a leader in strategic technologies (defence, space) that France is. On the security side, while we may see more consultations, exercises, and agreements between India and Australia, with significant implications for the eastern Indian Ocean, defence trade and technology cooperation will be more modest than many of India's other security partners.

Question 15: What are India’s options in Myanmar? It seems like that is one neighbour where we have historically been second to China and that seems set to continue. Anything unique Delhi can offer that Beijing can’t?

China has a much larger presence in Myanmar; it was the primary external supporter of the junta and the resources it is able to deploy in Myanmar dwarf those of India. So it's unrealistic to expect India to play a role akin to China in Myanmar. Instead, look at where India has stronger interests. A few areas of emerging cooperation include: cross border trade and connectivity (the IMT trilateral highway and Kaladan corridor will be completed eventually, even if both have lagged tremendously), counter-terrorism cooperation has been very successful (and has received little attention in India), India has helped with training modules on civil-military relations and disarmament for the Myanmar military, there is some cooperation on coastal radar and naval patrols, and the fact is for all the talk about Chabahar, India has actually built a port in Sittwe, despite adverse conditions in Rakhine. At the same time there has been some pushback, including local-level protests over the implications of the IMT highway, and difficulties faced by Indian engineers in getting visas to Myanmar.

Question 16: Are you surprised at the lack of a solid India-EU relationship? Is it not a very natural partnership? Who would be more to blame in this?

I spent some six years trying to improve the understanding of India in Brussels and the EU in New Delhi and it was like hitting one's head against a brick wall. In some ways, Indian euroscepticism (before it became fashionable) was justified following the eurozone, refugee, Ukraine, and Brexit crises. But there was also a tendency to let bilateral issues (such as with Italy over marines, or with Denmark over extradition) vitiate the overall India-EU relationship. Some of those avoidable problems have been remedied, and again with little fanfare. The EU, for its part, consistently under invested in India, and put all its eggs in the trade basket. There may be some changes now, and the EU High Representative Josep Borrell seems to have made India a priority. For too long, Asia was equated with China, but that misperception has also started to change.

Queston 17: How concerned should we be about the India-Russia relationship for the 2020s? India’s military acquisitions from Russia will not cease, but will probably slow. Any other carrots here?

There have been recent attempt to try to diversify the India-Russia relationship beyond defence. There has been a noticeable uptick in overall trade and energy cooperation has also increased, although both are modest relative to India's partnerships with others. You'll notice also India's attempts at investing in Russia's Far East. Russia's dependence on oil and gas and the strength of its corporate sector are limitations. As I've written, it appears as if Russia under Putin views India (and everyone else) in rather transactional terms.

Question 18: Do you see any benefit for India to keep championing the Global South? Should Delhi not focus on the countries which have billions for investment?

Actually, I would argue that now is the time for India to double down in its engagement of the Global South and not because of any perceived moral obligation. Many parts of Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America are doing really well, and will be future drivers of growth. The demographics of Africa in particular are very positive. India has many natural advantages (including its diaspora), and is perceived as a model for democratic development. India's investment in Africa is about 1/13th China's, but in many cases it has demonstrated that these investments are more beneficial to local populations. China has demonstrated how investments can strengthen its international position, including in international institutions.

Question 19: What is your stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

I'm not sure my view matters very much, and I'm not a Middle East specialist (there are people who have spent their entire careers trying to resolve this issue). I have traveled to Israel and crossed over to territory administered by the Palestinian Authority. I've spoken with people on both sides across a pretty wide spectrum. A two-state solution has, at various times since the 1990s, come frustratingly close to being realised. But there now appears to be an impasse, with Israeli political consensus hardening against a two-state solution and the legitimacy of the Palestinian leadership in question following the ascent of Hamas in Gaza. The consequences of the Arab Spring have not made things easier. The Syrian Civil War and tensions between the GCC and Iran have also diluted the centrality of the Israel-Palestine dispute in the broader region.

I don't think India gains much by wading into this situation, certainly not in an aggressive fashion. The relationship with Israel is important and multi-faceted, encompassing trade, technology, defence, agriculture, and tourism, among other things. But there is value in continuing to engage with Ramallah, including for India's position in the region as a whole. This is in part why we have seen President Pranab Mukherjee and the PM visit in recent years.

Part V: The Study and Practice of International Relations in India

Question 20: How important are think tanks in influencing policymakers in reality? Can you give some examples of where you’ve seen a particular think tank be behind an innovative foreign policy approach a government ended up following?

The role of think tanks are several. (1) Governments in opposition (this applies more to the US and UK than to India). (2) Neutral venues to bring together multiple stakeholders on a given subject. (3) A platform that grants the luxury of time to dwell and publish on matters that are important, but not issues that governments or businesses have the competence or time to investigate. (4) An avenue for shaping (often gradually) the broader intellectual consensus surrounding a given issue. For these reasons, it's very hard for think tanks in general to 'prove' that they have had an impact. We use metrics (number of citations, government consultations, media hits, publications) but these do not do justice.

I'm of the view that think tanks shouldn't be offering specific policy proposals; that's for people in government to decide based on other factors such as politics, budgetary constraints, etc. Think tanks can play a useful role by (a) identifying 'big ideas', including both big concepts and big problems, (b) doing the painstaking work of data compilation, and (c) offering specific domain expertise that those in government might not possess. To give a few examples: think tanks (IDSA, NMF, Carnegie India) have played a role in developing the idea of the Indo-Pacific that has now become common currency in governments and has led to shifts in strategic posture; think tanks (TERI, Brookings India) have done detailed data-driven work on healthcare, climate change, and energy modeling which the government now uses; and people from think tanks (ORF, IDSA) have served as consultants to the Indian government on issues such as cyber governance and civil nuclear energy.

Question 21: Who are the best young scholars - could be Indian or foreign - writing about Indian foreign policy these days? Do you worry that many of them are based in overseas universities and not many remain in India?

There are so many, and a lot are indeed overseas. This is in large part because Indian institutions (both academic institutions and think tanks) are restricted from offering competitive salaries and providing scholars with the resources and atmosphere that would allow them to do the best work. But a lot (myself included) felt compelled to return to India, and I hope that trend continues.

I am probably neglecting some people, but I'd recommend in no particular order: Anit Mukherjee, Harsh Pant, Rudra Chaudhuri, Rahul Sagar, Rohan Mukherjee, Avinash Paliwal, Srinath Raghavan, Constantino Xavier, Tanvi Madan, Nicolas Blarel, Iskander Rehman, Arun Sukumar, Raji Rajagopalan, Zorawar Daulet Singh, Paul Staniland, Darshana Baruah, Vipin Narang, Prashant Jha, Sushant Singh, Manjeet Pardesi, Nilanthi Samaranayake, Deep Pal, Jeff Smith, and Garima Mohan. I don't always agree with all their conclusions but I find all of them diligent researchers (whether at universities, at think tanks, or in the media) and well-worth reading. I should add: Kunal Singh, Nitin Pai, Sameer Patil, Ananth Krishnan, Manjari Miller, Sumitha Kutty, Walter Ladwig, Rani Mullen, Jabin Jacob, Prabir De, and Amrita Narlikar. I am almost certainly forgetting some others too.

Question 22: How can a 23-year-old beginner join or take part in think tank activities if he has interests in geopolitics and national security? Can you suggest 10 books on topics like India, geopolitics, and the world order in general and future trends in national security?

Sign up for mailing lists of think tanks and attend, whenever possible, think tank discussions. Many resources are completely free. Use this both to learn about areas of interest and network with professionals. Read relevant books by the leading experts in the field of interest to get a sense of what knowledge is already out there. Practice, even for yourself, reading, analyzing a problem, and writing about it. If you can offer novel insights based on relevant empirical facts, then voila, you have arrived!

Ten books seem like both too many and too few! I'll just list a few of my favorites. 5 on general international politics that I enjoyed were: Mark Mazower's Governing the World, Eliot Cohen's Supreme Command, Edward Luttwak's Strategy, John Ikenberry's Liberal Leviathan, and Steve Coll's Ghost Wars. Five on India: Upinder Singh's Political Violence in Ancient India, George Perkovich's India's Nuclear Bomb, The Kargil Review Committee Report From Surprise to Reckoning, Srinath Raghavan's War and Peace in Modern India, and TCA Raghavan's The People Next Door (on India-Pakistan relations).

Question 23: What disadvantages are there to joining the Indian Foreign Service (IFS) in today's age? What sort of benefits are there are to joining, in terms of opportunities and learning-environment?

I'm not in the IFS and have never sat for the UPSC exam, although I know plenty of people who have. The advantages to joining are you are on a set career path, working in a specialised field (diplomacy), and there are perks (travel, housing, schooling, language training), and job security. The down sides are being part of a rigid hierarchy, the low pay (relative to private sector), the prestige (which has declined somewhat as service preferences indicate), and the recruitment process (where the margins in the UPSC are so small that it becomes like a lottery as to whether you get in).

Question 24: I am presently a law student. How do I switch to a career in geopolitics?

I would advise against a career in geopolitics, especially over law, partly because one doesn't really exist (unfortunately). Briefly: the only way you can get paid for a job related to geopolitics is: (1) take the UPSC and join the IFS, (2) get a Ph.D. and become a professor, (3) become a full-time foreign affairs or security reporter, although these opportunities are few and require you to be able to write well and quickly, (4) work for little pay at an NGO for a cause you believe passionately in, (5) become a consultant in a private sector company but that requires a knowledge of international business, or (6) work at a think tank, which requires a background in one or more of the above. Overall, it's not much of a 'profession' and rarely pays well. I advise a lot of people to keep their day jobs, while developing expertise and writing, commenting, and analyzing on the side.

Question 25: Tell us about your experience working as a research assistant for Edward Luttwak. What did you learn the most from him?

A lot! He's one of the most innovative and outrageous thinkers I've ever come across, and is really one-of-a-kind in terms of his work. (I'd recommend this long profile of him, even if it makes him seem a little more sinister than is warranted.) I suppose I learned most to see a problem from multiple angles, and the importance of having wide-ranging interests. Conversations with him would be all over the place: Napoleon's campaigns, Indonesian piracy, Byzantine warships, Mussolini's legacy, the Danish language, the advantages of some semi-automatic rifles over others, Claus von Stauffenberg, Carnatic music, Chinese luxury hotels, Israeli military recruitment, and tribal art in Arunachal Pradesh.

Part VI: U.S. Politics: Trump or Biden?

Question 26: Biden or Trump? And why?

Overall, I don't think India will be as affected by changes to the U.S. presidency as much as many other countries. India is neither as dependent on the U.S. for security(as NATO or Japan or on trade as Mexico or China, although the United States remains India's most important partner. This goes some way to explaining the broadly improving ties under successive leaders in both countries.

That said, there will be some inevitable changes, which is why such leadership changes matter. In Trump, India now has some familiarity and relatively good rapport, particularly after his visit to India (which he still speaks about). His unpredictability has become more predictable. India broadly welcomes his tough talk on China and terrorism and gets the transactional nature of his diplomacy. The down sides is his reelection will be seen as a validation also of his social policies, so I would expect a much tougher approach to immigration. This will have significant implications for India and Indians, whether short-term immigrant workers (H1Bs), students (F1), or all those who have overstayed their visas.

With Biden, India also has some familiarity both from his time in the Senate and as Vice President. Some of Biden's advisors are quite hawkish on China, although there will also be an impulse to cooperate with China on global issues (such as climate change). Biden is also likely to be more open to trade than other Democrats, although sentiment on both the right and left has dampened. We may see a greater emphasis on human rights and values but may not see the strident criticism that might have accompanied another Democratic president further to the left. At the same time, a Biden presidency could mean a return to some professionalism and consistency that's been missing from the White House over the last three years or so.

So overall, India is not likely to face severe setback either way, although both candidates are more prone to offer India better opportunities in some areas, and some slight difficulties in other areas.

Question 27: With a rise in star power of left leaning "progressive" politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC), Bernie Sanders, Rashida Tlaib and others, there is a lot of unfair commentary on CAA-NRC, which is amplified by the media as well. What does the research community think of this?

A few issues have changed in recent years in U.S. politics, particularly on the left. One, there's a sharper divide between a vocal progressive wing of the party and a more centrist wing who hope to gain power by appealing to swing voters, and growing competition between them for attention, funding, and votes. This has also led to sharper debates on U.S. foreign policy in general. Two, identity-based coalitions have consolidated and changed, leading to some positions becoming politically more powerful than even a few years ago. For some of these constituencies, there's value in criticism of India for some of its policies. Three, there has always been a strong human-rights first constituency: these people have been critical of lots of countries, and not just India, but also China, Pakistan, and even the United States. Finally, the sharper partisan politics means that it's become harder to engage a leader (e.g. Trump) without contributing to the perception of partisan politics. A combination of all of these factors are at play.

There are two kinds of responses to this. Those policy professionals who want to be involved in politics (including political campaigns) will have to wade into this, and decide what positions are worth taking on different issues. To others who are more apolitical, and I would put myself in this category, I think the challenge is to understand the political dynamics at play but analyze the merits of various policy positions. In other words, make sure that people have thought through all sides of a particular issue, whatever the political value of their rhetoric or policies. Sometimes, policy professionals - particularly specialists - are not fully cognizant of the politics; I've found immense value in recent years in interacting with political influencers, who often look at the same problems from a very different perspective. It's been a learning experience for me.

Question 28: With Sen. Bernie Sanders suspending his campaign, Joe Biden and Donald Trump are the only candidates for the 2020 elections. Do you think Bernie's withdrawal is beneficial for India?

Bernie Sanders' criticism of India was, in part, motivated by an attempt to appeal to certain constituencies; I've already highlighted some of the political dynamics at play, and I fear it's something that a lot of policy specialists tend to overlook. But that overshadowed what I perceived to be a bigger challenge: many of his key advisers had suggested a scepticism of great power competition and U.S. leadership in global affairs. And if that is the worldview of a U.S. president, it would overturn decades of U.S. foreign policy, with potentially detrimental consequences for India-U.S. relations.

Part VII: COVID-19 and Its Aftermath

Question 29: What is your opinion on the future of globalisation in post-COVID-19 world? Will there be a concerted effort by the international community to check the Chinese influence in international organisations like the WHO, the WTO, etc.? What are the ways in which India can gain after this epidemic?

Funny you should ask about globalization, since I wrote a column on that exact topic. On international institutions, many people had argued, including in India, the U.S., and elsewhere, that power is power, and that it made little difference if the U.S. or China or some other country had inordinate sway over international institutions. Others, who have argued that a state's behaviour abroad is reflective of its domestic politics, may now have stronger arguments on their side, as evident from China's behaviour at the WHO, ICAO, etc. To give one example as to how this has already had an effect, notice the pushback against Chinese leadership at the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), which elected a new Director-General last month. The winning candidate from Singapore was supported by the U.S. and India, among others. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/us-diplomats-scored-a-quiet-but-important-win-against-china/2020/03/10/64dd0fdc-62fb-11ea-845d-e35b0234b136_story.html

If it plays its cards right, India can receive a boost from manufacturing following the coronavirus pandemic. This will be not only due to the renationalisation of some manufacturing but incentives provided by others to invest away from mainland China. But it depends on whether India can make the terms attractive enough for both domestic and foreign business, and can scale up quickly.

Question 30: What according to you are the factors responsible for delayed response to the pandemic through out the world? Considering news of the disease being communicable were reported as early as last week of January.

First, there was lack of knowledge initially about COVID-19 and how communicable it was. This tripped up the Chinese response in particular, but was exacerbated by Beijing's attempts at covering things up at an early stage. The politicization of the WHO's early report did not help. Second, many countries did not take the threat seriously and were reluctant to move when the number of confirmed cases were so low. This is part of a general problem in how large organisations respond to drastic change. Third, there were concerns by leaders about the implications of severe measures (such as lockdowns and quarantines) on business and the economy. So they tried a business-as-usual approach, and only changed course when it proved either unpopular or the severity of the virus became apparent.

Question 31: Do you think the US and European leaderships came out as a bit ignorant on the COVID-19 front as compared to their Asian counterparts?

In Asia, (particularly East and parts of Southeast Asia), there have been consistent fears of a SARS-like epidemic since 2003, and their public health systems have prepared accordingly. In fact, South Korea's government did an exercise just a few months ago that anticipated exactly such an outbreak. But it has been interesting to see parts of South, Southeast Asia, and Latin America (including India) taking the challenge that is COVID-19 much more seriously, at an earlier stage, than many countries in Europe and North America.

Question 32: What are the reasons for why the COVID-19 cases in the U.S are unimaginably higher than any other country? Are all reasons linked to their delayed response?

A big part of it is that the U.S. is far more decentralised than many people imagine. State governments (and their governors) as well as county and municipal governments actually are quite autonomous. So we haven't seen a unified national response to COVID-19 as we have in other countries. Additionally, there were concerns about the legality and constitutionality of some of the measures. Finally, there were also concerns about the adverse effects on the economy, which meant that leaders (both at the federal and state level) were unwilling to impose stringent measures to counter the pandemic. The U.S. is therefore bearing the consequences. We may very well see multiple waves of the virus as well, as it will be hard to impose domestic travel restrictions.

Part VIII: The Domestic Foundations of International Power

Question 33: Do you think that India should shift away from interventionist policies to free market policies (lower taxes, lower business regulations)? If so, how do you think such policies could help break the poverty cycle for poorer communities?

As I belong to probably the last generation who can remember pre-1991 India, I'm generally in favour of liberalization because I've seen what it's done for the country. Naturally there are secondary problems, such as inequality and poverty alleviation, but without growth, solving India's myriad problems would be virtually impossible. And we simply can't have that growth without investment and employment which in turn requires a better business climate. Obviously blanket liberalization isn't a panacea, but it's hard to envision progress for the country as a whole without some meaningful liberalising steps. That said, there are a number of headwinds, including the realities of electoral politics, strong vested interests, and an adverse international climate (which makes India vulnerable to dumping by other countries).

Question 34: I'm a huge fan of high-speed rail and think it's an excellent idea to significant infrastructure reform. Do you think this is realistic given how large India is? If yes, how do you think high speed rail can lead to improvement in job creation, bridging access between urban & rural areas and also cut down on pollution? How do you think we could make this possible?

On high-speed rail, it makes sense generally for mid-range distances (e.g. Tokyo-Fukuoka, Beijing-Shanghai, Madrid-Barcelona) but the cost makes less sense for longer distance travel (e.g. Beijing-Guangzhou). So there are some corridors in India which are natural candidates, but other connections may make less sense. In terms of scepticism about the ability to execute such a project in India, I recall similar scepticism about the safety and operational capability of the Delhi Metro 20 years ago! And yet most major metro areas in India are investing in rapid transit. Final point on this is that Indian Railways is going to suffer in the future as subsidies from freight (e.g. coal) diminish; so there will have to be other means of getting passengers back on trains, particularly given the building of highways and civil aviation boom.

Question 35: Do you believe the Indo-US nuclear deal tied our hands in terms of increasing nuclear warheads and in testing a new arsenal? If so, why did we agree to that deal which weakens India against China?

I don't think there's any evidence that the India-U.S. civil nuclear agreement restricted India's ability to develop its nuclear arsenal in any way. In fact, a significant development since has been that of a submarine-based nuclear deterrent as part of a triad, which has helped India to develop a second strike capability. The consequences of nuclear testing could be more severe only because India now has more to lose, but there's enough latitude for India to be potentially exempted from sanctions if there was another round of testing by other countries (after all, no one else has tested since 1998 other than North Korea). Furthermore, if India's hands were bound by the nuclear deal, why did China attempt to block the exemption for India at the Nuclear Suppliers Group in 2008 (and continue to oppose India's membership at the NSG until the present day)? No, on balance, India has benefited, largely by receiving access to a lot of technology - including in defence and space - that would have continued being denied to it had a global exception not been made for its nuclear status. And that global exception would not have been possible without the advocacy of the United States. There were some very illogical and factually questionable arguments made against the civil nuclear agreement by certain vested interests in India; had they had their way, India's ability to compete globally would have been set back significantly.

Question 36: As U.S. private industry becomes increasingly assertive in space, how will the world react to this new reality? How will this affect national security calculations and what should be the way forward for India?

Space is one area that will see increased competition not just between states but also between private players, partly due to the diminishing costs of launch. That said, there is limited real estate in space, which means it will become more crowded. We tend to think of outer space as a vast resource but its far more limited. It seems as if India has adopted an unusual (and right) approach of prioritizing development objectives, but the militarization of space is inevitable. I'd see India's ASAT test in that light, along with other parallel initiatives. If you'd like to know more, Air Marshal M. Matheswaran (based in Chennai) and my colleague Raji Rajagopalan are valuable resources.

Question 37: What would be your primary reform and policy points to make India the global leader in the next generation of key technologies in green-tech, clean-tech, and the circular economy?

I would point you to a compilation I edited last year, after the final votes had been cast in the Indian general election but before the votes were counted and the results were declared. I do not ascribe to all the views here, but there are some thoughtful suggestions, including on the subject of green tech, from knowledgeable experts.

Question 38: Is there a way for India to protect herself against foreign influence exerted to destabilise her?

The question of foreign influence has become more salient in recent years, and not just in India. Every country has to have its own internal debate about what constitutes legitimate foreign activity and what is illegal. The U.S., for example, offers quite a lot of latitude for other countries to invest in the media, contribute to the ideas industry, engage business interest groups, and hire lobbyists. India has traditionally been far more restrictive. In my view, as long as there is clarity on the rules as to what is acceptable, it becomes easier to distinguish between legitimate foreign activity and illegal influence. The trouble is the rules are not always so clear. India has rather strict rules against the foreign funding of NGOs, and makes it hard to invest in the media or academia. Certainly, India is more restrictive than most Western democracies. When one reads about concerns, for example, of Chinese influence activities in Australia, the U.S., or Germany - much of it technically legal according to local laws - one realises that a lot of that is simply impossible in India.

Question 39: Is there dissonance in India's foreign policy and domestic politics i.e. ideas and values which we promote externally while doing the opposite internally? Is it possible to bring coherence or is that the case worldwide?

Values are aspirational. When the Indian constitution first articulated the quest for certain basic values, it was not as if the majority of Indians espoused or benefited from those values at the time. There was no suffrage, you still had big landowners and zamindars, the education and health metrics were abysmal, etc. So Indian democracy - like all democracies - is a constant work in progress, with the capacity for self-improvement. The same goes, to some degree, in international relations. It is perfectly fine to articulate the desire for a certain kind of world, even if that world does not exist (and may be a utopia). This means there will always be a dissonance, which will lead to charges of hypocrisy. I point out to my American friends that the U.S. didn't really export democracy during the Cold War, except to parts of Europe and Japan, despite talking a good game. The great democratization of the world happened only in the 1990s after Cold War imperatives became less pronounced, and often despite U.S. policy. But the basic character of a country is certainly reflected in its international behaviour to some degree: it's difficult to imagine a closed society and political system being truly accommodating of others on the international stage.

Part IX: The West and the Rest

Question 40: Why is so much of the symbolism in America based on Roman and Greek culture? Also could you please explain where does the concept of the ‘West’ come from?

The roots of Roman and Greek cultural influence on the United States are in some ways two-fold. The first is that classical antiquity (ancient Roman and Greek culture) constitutes one part of what defined "European culture", along with Western Christianity (Catholicism and later Protestantism) and Teutonic or Germanic cultural influences. If you think these factors don't still matter, consider the seemingly arbitrary criteria for European Union membership, which prioritised majority Catholic/Protestant states (the Baltics, Visegrad 4, Slovenia, and Croatia) over Eastern Orthodox (until Romania and Bulgaria) and yet fast-tracked Hellenistic Greece and Cyprus. So the definition of what constitutes 'Europe' is still influenced by these cultural identifiers. In other words, the classical world was one of the 'glues' that linked together the different cultures of Europe. The United States was in this sense an outgrowth of 'European civilization.'

The second factor was the more immediate context of the European Enlightenment, which presented the circumstances under which the United States was founded. The founders of the United States in some ways put into practice the European intellectual scene's rediscovery of both Athenian democracy and (especially) Roman Republicanism. There's an important distinction here. While Athenians prioritised the one-citizen-one-vote model of governance in a city-state, the Romans were more pessimistic about human nature and created a complex system of checks and balances. So much of what we consider modern American democracy derives from Roman Republicanism: the Capitol (named after the Capitoline Hill in Rome), the Senate, bicameral legislature, term limits, etc. And this was reflected in art and architecture too, hence the neo-classical buildings of the period. George Washington, when he opted to relinquish power, was likened to the Roman general Cincinnatus. Incidentally, some of those same Enlightenment ideals also drove the French Revolution, although that eventually assumed a different form.

I've already partly answered the notion of what constitutes the 'West' although this cultural definition is fluid and debatable. The 'core' West includes European countries that were traditionally majority Catholic or Protestant, and which had the shared experience of classical antiquity, Western Christianity, medieval feudalism, the Renaissance, Reformation (and Counter-Reformation), Enlightenment, and Industrial Revolution, as well as those countries in North America that were cultural outgrowths (the United States and Canada). Thus the Baltic countries, Scandinavia, Italy, Spain, Ireland, and Poland all easily qualify. (Many Poles, Czechs, and East Germans during the Cold War argued that they were naturally 'Western' societies on the wrong side of the Iron Curtain.) Things get less clear-cut in other parts of Europe, such as the eastern Balkans or Caucasus, and this issue of what constitutes the 'West' is the undercurrent in discussions about Ukrainian accession to 'Western' organisations such as NATO and the European Union. Many Europeans don't consider Russia part of the West, even if many Russians consider themselves Europeans. And it can be debated whether Australia, New Zealand, Israel (where a plurality is of European origin), South Africa (during Apartheid), Turkey (which is a member of NATO), and Latin America (which also has large populations of European origin) are part of the West too. It really depends on the context.

Question 41: You hinted at the ‘othering’ of Russians by Europeans. How important is this tendency to ‘other’ certain people for maintaining group cohesion?

It is possible that two things can be true at the same time. One, collective identity remains strong even in a globalized world, and is exacerbated in times of stress (say, during economic crises). Second, culture and cultural identity changes with time. In the United States, certain groups that were not considered 'white' are now generally considered so. The idea of a common 'Asian' identity is a more recent creation. There were pan-German, pan-Italian, and pan-Slavic movements in the 19th century, which both followed and preceded periods of factionalism. There's some fascinating work on how an integrated and cosmopolitan city like Sarajevo could fracture so suddenly along ethnic lines with the outbreak of the Balkan Wars.

Question 42: Almost all literature related to the rise and fall of empires is written from a Eurocentric view. Could you recommend some similar texts which expound on the strategic culture of India?

It's funny that because the nation-state is the basic unit of analysis in traditional international relations, that all non-nation states are ignored in the literature, and that applies to much of the non-Western world for much of human history. I much prefer reading histories to international relations partly for that reason. There's some very interesting and exciting scholarship about pre-modern India but it suffers from a general disinclination away from the study of power politics, methodological limitations for cross-cultural studies, and vagaries in the source material (which itself is inaccessible to most people who don't have the required language skills). For this reason, it remains understudied. However, I'd recommend Upinder Singh's work, also some of Rizvi's work on medieval India, some of which has been superseded in recent years. For an interesting take on inter-state rivalry between the Mughals, Safavids, and Ottomans, I'd point you to this article by Manjeet Pardesi.

Question 43:  I’d like to know more about hearing what officials and academics in other countries think about India’s position in the world order and it’s future potential? Which countries were the most bullish on India and which were the most disdainful?

It’s hard to generalize. There is a lot of variety in each place, and I always meet people who are bullish or bearish in different countries. Some of those sentiments are justified but others are actually driven by an absence of familiarity with India. If I had to hazard an estimation, I would say that the U.S. (government and defence establishment), Japan (among officials only), France (government and business), Australia, UAE, Sweden, Singapore, and Israel are among the more bullish. Even the UK, to some degree, although this is not always reflected among intellectual elites. Europeans by and large are less bullish on India, although big business interest has picked up in places like Germany, Scandinavia, and Central Europe. China, on the other hand, is becoming more dismissive, which is perhaps natural given it is only country where the power differential with India has *widened* over the past three decades. Sometimes the lack of understanding about India in places like Iran, Russia, Germany, and South Korea - places that one might expect greater familiarity - can be quite astounding. Others don't necessarily view India through a strategic lens, and that was my sense in places like Canada and New Zealand.

Part X: The Media and Misperceptions

Question 44:  Why do you think the Western media tends to have some kind of contempt for India?

I know a lot of Western media correspondents based in India, many personally. The majority I do not think are motivated by any particular ill-will towards India (there are, I suspect, a few exceptions). In fact, many foreign correspondents picked their assignments to India because of a particular attraction or fascination for the country and its people.

However, I do sense a strong bias in favour of certain kinds of stories about India in the Western press, often negative. This is for a few reasons, including: (1) Editors are likely to prefer 'bad news' to 'good news', and that applies universally, not just to India. (2) Quirky stories that reinforce stereotypes are more likely to be published: pollution, monkeys, bovine worship, bureaucratic incompetence, child labour, etc., (3) Many reporters may be nostalgic for an old, gentle India that may never have actually existed and are uncomfortable with the changes they're witnessing in an increasingly aspirational and assertive society, (4) Journalists are people, and everyone prefers talking to those who speak and think like them, which reinforces certain viewpoints when conducting interviews and reflecting Indian opinion about a certain issue, (5) Some relative newcomers among foreign journalists may be unaware of longer term trends and ways in which things have actually improved in India over the last few decades ("oh my god, there is poverty!"), (6) Indian commentators in the Western press reflect particular viewpoints often motivated by their own ideology and personal biases, and editorial boards are either not willing to air or are sometimes simply unaware of alternative viewpoints.

I suspect much of the negative press that India receives in the Western press is due to a combination of these and other causes, rather than some centralised plot to malign India. But I do sense a pretty consistent bias. Let me give an example: I know that three leading Western newspapers solicited opinion articles for an Indian point of view following the abrogation of Article 370 last year. However, one asked that the author include specific content in the piece (which the author refused), a second made such drastic editorial changes that the author withdrew the submission, and the third sat on the copy on the grounds of 'fact checking' while running an article by Imran Khan that was full of questionable assertions. So the charges of editorial bias do have some merit.

Another example of bias: I have seen the following two headlines in recent weeks in Western media outlets: "The Callousness of India's COVID-19 Response" and "Has Sweden Found the Right Response to the Coronavirus". Admittedly, things could still change, but as of now, Sweden, a country of 10 million people, has 9685 confirmed cases and 870 deaths, while India with over 100 times the population has 6725 confirmed cases and 229 deaths. Make of this what you will.

Question 45: How would the media reaction have been different if the virus had originated in India?

It's hard to speculate, but consider how India successfully managed to contain a Nipah outbreak in Kerala in 2018. Only 17 people died, over 2000 people were quarantined.

Question 46:  The last year has been a roller-coaster for India from the Section 370 removal to CAA to riots. How do you think India’s image has been affected globally?

By and large, criticism of India for some combination of Article 370, CAA, and the violence in Delhi has been higher, but relegated to some quarters. Officially, Pakistan and occasionally China, Malaysia, and Turkey have led criticism. In the West, this has been led mostly by the media and legislatures (sections of the U.S. Congress, British Parliament, and European Parliament for example), although some U.S. presidential candidates did indeed weigh in. Overall, there has been more criticism of CAA than of Article 370, which many countries (barring some of those listed above) consider a national security issue. But CAA has elicited some negative responses even in Bangladesh, Afghanistan, and Indonesia. It's important to examine the domestic political factors at play in some of these countries as well, which have influenced their positions on these issues. Unfortunately, in India, a lot of the media commentary tends to overlook some of these factors.

Question 47: Does the news ever find its way into government-to-government conversations these days? Does it affect positively or negatively?

There can be multiple tracks in relations between two countries. Sometimes government-to-government interactions are very strong even when people-to-people contacts are not (e.g. India and Japan today, or China and Pakistan traditionally). Obviously a stronger relationship would include a shared understanding of culture and values as well, but sometimes (and one could argue traditonally) governments understood that national interests could override other concerns. The U.S. continues to do business with a lot of pretty reprehensible regimes, despite adverse media coverage.

I think we forget that governments and businesses often have access to other sources of information (intelligence agencies or diplomatic reporting in the case of government). I've often seen U.S. officials roll their eyes at media coverage on a specific topic related to India, for example. (The recent outcry over hydroxychloroquine being but one example.) Moreover, sometimes there's so much information out there that officials feel inundated; they don't have time for so much public chatter and find a lot of it useless or well-informed. That is not to say that public opinion or elite opinion do no matter. They absolutely do. But only up to a point. This is an example that is more specific to the U.S., but sometimes news stories in the U.S. press lead to calls by constituents to their elected representatives in the U.S. Congress, who then write letters to the State Department. That's one example of how such information shapes policy discussions.

Question 48: Do you think bad press in the Western media can cause a significant amount of investment to turn away from India?

Yes and no. On the one hand, negative coverage - particularly in publications read by business leaders (Financial Times, The Economist, The Wall Street Journal) does influence decision-making. At the same time, investors tend to be pretty amoral. Consider how many continued doing business in Xinjiang, or take money from Saudi Arabia, despite severe human rights concerns. And you frequently see business leaders bending over backwards to justify working in countries with really bad track records. So negative media coverage of India may have some adverse implications, but probably not as much as many people imagine.