{"id":80891,"date":"2023-07-03T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-07-03T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=80891"},"modified":"2023-07-03T13:08:20","modified_gmt":"2023-07-03T03:08:20","slug":"india-the-us-and-the-global-balance-of-power","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/india-the-us-and-the-global-balance-of-power\/","title":{"rendered":"India, the US and the global balance of power"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with US President Joe Biden in the White House last month, many observers saw the makings of an evolving alliance<\/a> against China. But such expectations are overwrought. As Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar has made clear<\/a>, a formal alliance is not in the cards, even if it is still possible to maintain long-term partnerships<\/a> in a multipolar world of \u2018frenemies\u2019.<\/p>\n

India has a long history of post-colonial mistrust of alliances. But it has also long been preoccupied with China, at least since the Himalayas border war<\/a> the two countries fought in 1962. While serving in President Jimmy Carter\u2019s administration, I was sent to India to encourage Prime Minister Morarji Desai to support a South Asian nuclear-weapons-free zone<\/a>, lest the burgeoning nuclear race<\/a> between India and Pakistan get out of hand. As my Indian hosts told me at the time, they wanted to be compared not to Pakistan in South Asia, but to China in East Asia.<\/p>\n

After the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, the United States and India began 20 years of annual \u2018track 2<\/a>\u2019 talks between former diplomats who were still in close contact with those in government. (The American delegation, for example, included figures such as Henry Kissinger and Richard Holbrooke.) The Indian participants shared their US counterparts\u2019 concerns about al-Qaeda and other extremist threats in Afghanistan and Pakistan, but they also made clear that they objected to the Americans\u2019 tendency to think about India and Pakistan as \u2018linked by a hyphen<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n

The Indians were also concerned about China, but they wanted to maintain the appearance of good relations\u2014and access to the Chinese market. China has long been one of India\u2019s largest trading partners<\/a>, but its economy has grown much more rapidly than India\u2019s. Using market exchange rates, China represented 3.6%<\/a> of world GDP by the turn of this century, but India didn\u2019t reach that level until the 2020s.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In the 2000s, as China\u2019s growth far outpaced theirs, the Indians in the track 2 talks worried not just about China\u2019s support for Pakistan, but also about its increasing global power more broadly. As one Indian strategist put it, \u2018We have decided we dislike you less than we dislike China\u2019\u2014and this was long before the 2020 skirmish on the disputed Himalayan border, where 20 Indian soldiers<\/a> were killed.<\/p>\n

The India\u2013US alignment has since strengthened considerably. A decade ago, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue meetings between US, Indian, Japanese and Australian diplomats were downplayed; now, Quad meetings are loudly publicised and held at the head-of-government level. India today holds more joint military exercises<\/a> with the US than with any other country.<\/p>\n

But this arrangement is a far cry from an alliance. India still imports over half<\/a> of its arms from Russia, is a major buyer<\/a> of sanctioned Russian oil (alongside China) and frequently votes against<\/a> the US at the United Nations. Indeed, India has still refused to condemn<\/a> Russia\u2019s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, just as it failed to condemn<\/a> the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. For all of India\u2019s self-congratulation as the world\u2019s largest democracy, it has not come to the defence of democratic Ukraine. Its top priorities are to maintain its access to arms and oil, and to avoid pushing Russia further into China\u2019s embrace.<\/p>\n

Though Biden has invited<\/a> Modi to both of his Summits for Democracy, there\u2019s no shortage of Western and Indian critics who have decried Modi\u2019s illiberal turn<\/a> towards Hindu nationalism. Recent statements<\/a> about the two largest democracies\u2019 \u2018shared values\u2019 may sound nice, but they, too, don\u2019t make an alliance. The key to Indo-US relations is the balance of power with China, and India\u2019s place in it.<\/p>\n

In this respect, India\u2019s importance is growing. Earlier this year, it surpassed China as the world\u2019s most populous country. While India\u2019s population has grown to 1.4 billion<\/a>, China has been experiencing demographic decline, with a labour force<\/a> that peaked. And India\u2019s economy is on track to expand by 6% this year\u2014faster than China\u2019s\u2014making it the world\u2019s fifth-largest economy<\/a>. If it continues at this rate, it could be the same size as the eurozone economy by mid-century.<\/p>\n

With a huge population, nuclear weapons, a large army, a growing labour force, strong elite education, a culture of entrepreneurialism and links to a large and influential diaspora, India will remain a significant factor in the global balance of power.<\/p>\n

But one shouldn\u2019t get carried away. India alone can\u2019t balance China, which got a big head start in its development. China\u2019s economy remains about five times larger<\/a>, and poverty<\/a> is still widespread in India. Of India\u2019s 900 million working-age people, only around half<\/a> are in the labour force, and more than a third of women and girls are illiterate<\/a>. For India\u2019s growing population to be an economic asset, rather than a potential liability, it will have to be trained. Though China\u2019s labour force has peaked, it rests on a higher average level of education.<\/p>\n

Despite the selective decoupling of trade in key strategic sectors, India still doesn\u2019t want to forgo access to the Chinese market. While it participates in the Quad, it also participates in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the periodic meetings of the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). Although it no longer speaks of non-alignment, nor is it interested in restrictive alliances. Following the basic logic of balance-of-power politics, India and the US seem fated not for marriage but for a long-term partnership\u2014one that might last only as long as both countries remain concerned about China.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with US President Joe Biden in the White House last month, many observers saw the makings of an evolving alliance against China. But such expectations are overwrought. As …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":500,"featured_media":80894,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[52,772,69,31],"class_list":["post-80891","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-china","tag-geopolitics","tag-india","tag-united-states"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nIndia, the US and the global balance of power | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/india-the-us-and-the-global-balance-of-power\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"India, the US and the global balance of power | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with US President Joe Biden in the White House last month, many observers saw the makings of an evolving alliance against China. 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