The US-India relationship entails a common concern about Xi Jinping’s expansionist China.
The US and Indian goal in dealing with China should be to build lasting peace and stability. This requires the waging of peace just as vigorously as the waging of war. The waging of peace requires positive engagement on a broad range of fronts.
Since the opening in the early 1990s, the US and India have made great progress in all aspects of their relationship. Trade and investment, people-to-people contacts, and technological cooperation have all increased exponentially. These types of engagement have given a heft and closeness to the relationship that enables the US and India to cooperate internationally in building the sort of peace and stability that encompasses inclusive prosperity and well-being. However, in the real world, these types of engagement are not sufficient for the waging of peace in regard to China. A military component is also a necessity to keep the peace.
Thus, recent remarks by India’s Defence Secretary Giridhar Aramane concerning US support for India in the event of incursions from China should be welcomed. He said, “We expect that our friends the US will be there with us in case we need their support.”
Instead, the Secretary’s remarks have been denigrated by members of the diplomatic establishment in both India and the United States. Former Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran attacked these remarks as “They may not have been appropriate to the occasion….” He indicated they characterized India as a “supplicant,” certainly a pejorative term rejecting the Defence Secretary’s remarks. US Deputy Secretary of State and former US Ambassador to India, Rich Verma, when asked about the remarks, indicated that the US-India relationship was bilateral and not “about any third country.”
The US-India relationship entails a common concern about Xi Jinping’s expansionist China, a China that explicitly rejects a rules-based international order when it comes to national boundaries on land and sea. Of course, this US and Indian common concern about China has military dimensions. To pretend otherwise in hopes that China will not be offended fools no one—least of all the Chinese. The explicit recognition of this concern and a US-India allied approach to the threat should add to the effectiveness of waging peace with China rather than detract from its effectiveness.
Of course, India is perfectly capable of handling on its own the types of border flareups that have occurred along the Line of Actual Control between India and China in 2020 and since. It is to be hoped that Indian and Chinese diplomacy alone will ultimately resolve the threat to peace posed by conflict with China along India’s northern border.
However, it would be a mistake to see the Chinese threat as simply defining a border in remote, mountainous territory. In its extreme form, Chinese demands would at least move the border from watershed ridgetops to the base of the Himalayas, encompassing the entire Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh and significant portions of other Indian states. As demonstrated by China in 1962, it is perfectly capable of invading Indian territory on a substantial scale.
In today’s world, a threat to the peace by a major power somewhere can be a threat to peace everywhere. Unfortunately, meeting these threats entails a military component. The militaries of both the US and India understand this very well. Thus, nowhere in the US-India partnership has there been greater progress over the past three decades than in the military-to-military sphere. India conducts more military exercises with the US than any other country. In addition to intelligence sharing, a portion of these exercises are dedicated to high altitude training, obviously designed to deter aggression along the India-China border.
Historically, India has been afraid to be in a relationship with the US that could characterize the two countries as allies. In part, this is a legacy of the Nehruvian policy of non-alignment, later characterized as strategic autonomy. Today, the aversion to being characterized as an ally is the fear of being drawn into armed conflict such as would be entailed in the defense of Taiwan against a Peoples Republic of China takeover of the island by force.
Viewing the US and India as allies in waging peace with China need not involve a NATO-style commitment and can be adjusted to fit evolving circumstances. This is the unspoken premise of the Quad involving the US, India, Japan, and Australia. It is no sign of weakness or the infringement of national sovereignty to acknowledge that nations facing the threat from China need partners with whom they can cooperate across the board to keep the peace and uphold their national interests.
The US and India have come a long way since the opening of the Indian economy and the fall of the Soviet Union. As Secretary Aramane said, “In navigating the complex dynamics of this region, India and the US find themselves as key stakeholders, bound by shared values and common interests.” It is these “shared values and common interests” that underly the US-India relationship. When it comes to waging peace with China, neither India nor the US should shy away from the term “allies” and acknowledge the accuracy of Aramane’s statement, “We expect that our friends the US will be there with us in case we need their support.” Likewise, the US should be able to count on India when it comes to waging peace with China.
Raymond E. Vickery, JR. is Senior Associate, Center for Strategic and International Studies, Chair in US-India Policy Studies; Senior Advisor, Albright Stonebridge Group; Former US Assistant Secretary of Commerce.