America is trying to neutralise China’s attempts to influence market access

In the shifting sands of geopolitics, several changes in the past few weeks would make agile diplomacy the key instrument of foreign affairs for any country. First up is the difficult, India-US-Russia tightrope trick. Russia last week announced their new foreign policy, which emphasises the deepening of ties with strategic allies India and China. The Russian NSA and his Indian counterpart also got into a huddle on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, NSA-level meeting, to discuss expanding the bilateral defence partnership. It now emerges that the two sides could have discussed expanding the partnership for joint research and manufacturing of next-generation supersonic Brahmos missile systems.

Russia seems to have greater technological know-how for the development of this high-speed (at least five times faster than the speed of sound with higher degrees of manoeuvrability) missiles, ahead of both China and US. Meanwhile, India is all set to enhance its naval capabilities including its ability for defending its sea frontiers, from the recent acquisition of superior technology helicopters, missiles and torpedoes capable of taking down submarines, from the US. The initial reluctance from the US to have India as a strategic defence partner in the Indo-Pacific region now seems to have given way to a pragmatic approach, keeping in mind India’s strategic defence needs, and its centrality to the Indo-Pacific.

The Indo-Pacific region, at one point in time, relegated to appendix sections of Washington’s foreign policy books, has found complete bipartisan support from opposite ends of the political spectrum in US politics. The imminent threat is the rising heft of China in the region, which has assumed the role of being the biggest bully, having clawed into some of the most influential national economies in the region. Most of the influence China wields in the Indo-Pacific rides on its opaque infrastructure funding policies, which have forced many of these growth-hungry economies to fall into a fatal debt trap. These economic blunders in turn give China the upper hand to start influencing the nation’s domestic politics, which goes well with the dragon’s expansionist agenda.

However, the US has taken note and brokered a peace truce between Japan and South Korea, the two technology-aided Asian giants. These two countries, even though not too warm to each other due to historical reasons, are joined in the common threat of an aggressive China in their backyard. The US knows that any future dominance in the global world order would be defined by technological advancements, and the ability to integrate technology into their defence equipment. Every breakthrough, every new use case and standard set, for emerging technology such as Artificial Intelligence would be critical for the race to the top.

 It has already operationalised the US-India initiative on Critical and Emerging technologies, to expand the existing defence industrial partnership and strategic technology partnership to a wider set of stakeholders. Meanwhile, discussions regarding supply chain resilience, expansion and cooperation, on new technology form the pillars for all QUAD discussions, which has the US, India, Japan and Australia, as its members. The US is also aggressively pushing countries in South and South-Southeast Asia into a like-minded bloc of partners through the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework initiative, where India is also a founding member. China meanwhile has also managed to stitch together one of the largest free trade agreements in the world, through the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, giving it market access to most of the economies in the region. India chose to sit out of RCEP, citing the unfair advantage accrued to China.

Against this backdrop, the guns are still blazing in eastern provinces of Ukraine. Many expect China and India to play the silent backroom boys role to broker peace between Ukraine and Russia. It is going to be volatile situations ahead for every country.

(The author is a foreign affairs commentator)