Originally published at World Politics Review, 13 July 2022. It has been over two years since Chinese incursions in the summer of 2020 along the disputed India-China boundary in eastern Ladakh led to a series of skirmishes that left dozens of soldiers dead on both sides. Yet unlike a February 2019 confrontation with Pakistan, which …
Continue reading “Two Years After Border Clashes, India Still Lacks a Coherent China Policy”
It appears that the Indian government lacks the political will to deal with China firmly and unambiguously
China forces India to bend to the lowest standards possible in terms of democracy and accountability — which is to say to Chinese standards
Quad 2.0 has proceeded more determinedly even if slowly but the Covid-19 pandemic now offers an opportunity to step up the pace. The issue now is of ensuring that Chinese pressure does not derail its development yet again.
There is a case to be made for an India-led initiative in the Indo-Pacific that displays greater commitment to upholding international law than to ‘inclusivity’ as well as willingness to take on a wider ambit of regional responsibilities in the security and political domains
In the second Modi term, New Delhi will have to do a better job than issuing statements on the BRI or ignoring it altogether and be willing to offer credible alternatives if it is retain any standing among its neighbours and further afield.
Jabin T. Jacob and Hoang The Anh (editors), China and Its Neighbourhood: Perspectives from India and Vietnam (New Delhi: Pentagon, 2017).
The recent visits of Indian Vice-President Hamid Ansari and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to Vietnam are signs of a growing convergence of concerns that these countries have about China. But no strategic grouping can be sustainable without also developing linkages at multiple levels.
If “much of the history of the 21st century will be written in Asia”, then New Delhi will need to find the energy and resources to focus not just on its troubled western frontiers but also on its sprawling and diverse eastern neighbourhood.
Thinking about China in India 