Modi 3.0, Trump 2.0 and Lai 1.0 is the opportune time to build up a connect among the three including in matters of security.
IT or India-Taiwan has been in vogue for quite a while. Yet a close partnership between India and Taiwan still seems distant. Both countries have yet to forge a close partnership that is essential for the 21st century, despite 25 years and counting. Having visited Taiwan since the time Lee Teng-hui was President, and having visited the country several times, it is worth noting that the relationship appears to be moving onto an accelerating trajectory. That such is the case is no accident. Cold War 2.0 has well and truly replaced Cold War 1.0 not just within the more rarefied circles of government but to the level of the people at more than just the top or just below levels. Such a trickledown effect is not accidental but is caused by the increasing number of Taiwanese businesses that have invested in India and vice versa. It so happens that across the world, Taiwanese tech is being used, sometimes with no account of origin. And all across the world, techies from India are omnipresent. In the past, there were very few Indian citizens working in Taiwan, but that number has been growing. Still nowhere near the figure what it ought to be, but rising. Small wonder that the relationship has been growing, for after a long period of denial, it is now widely acknowledged that Cold War 2.0 between the US and China principally has replaced Cold War 1.0 between what was once the USSR but since the close of 1999, has become the Russian Federation. The remark attributed to Putin that the collapse of the USSR was the biggest tragedy for Russia marked the period when Russia began to get perceived as the primary adversary, if not in communiques, then among ordinary Europeans. Few countries that were outside the Soviet bloc were friendly to the USSR, most were wary. And small wonder, as the USSR seemed focused on dragging the whole of Europe into the Soviet tent.
Fear of Russian expansion and the consequent Russophobia was pervasive in Europe and across the Atlantic. The advent of the nuclear age only sharpened such feels, as both sides competed in accumulating more nuclear weapons. It was truly a mad scenario, with each side growing its arsenal as a consequence of the other side increasing theirs. Spies were many, and several were found and executed, sometimes in particularly unspeakable ways. Methods that harked back to periods when civilisations were considered less evolved. None of this deterred more spies from coming up, whether out of the ideology of greed or political ideology. The ideology of greed is toxic. The urge to put as many zeroes as possible after a numeral was consuming effort. In the case of several such persons, the money deposited in Swiss banks or other financial havens evaporated into the ledgers of such institutions should some mishap take away life.
Countries where kleptocracies ruled, had poverty, extreme poverty, as commonplace. In contrast, in countries where ideals, and not greed, motivated policymakers, economic growth was strong, as was the dissemination of such income into the bank accounts of ordinary citizens. The time has come for India, US and Taiwan to build a strong partnership. Under Modi, those with bank accounts grew into the tens and soon after, the hundreds of millions of citizens. As for India and Taiwan, the partnership has accelerated in scope.
Both have become aware of the security challenges of the other, and understood that the security of one is important for the other. In the Indian Ocean segment of the Indo-Pacific, the Indian Navy remains the primary force. And these waters are critical to the flow of commerce from one ocean to the other. As for the Air Force, the IAF proved its value during the operation to retake the Kargil heights. And as for the Army, the women and men in uniform do better under conditions of war than the armies of other countries, as do the Navy and the Air Force. Such effectiveness would get multiplied were there to be a seamless partnership with the US and not just its present but its potential arsenal that is now being built up by President Trump. In the case of Taiwan, President Lai is carrying forward the legacy of his predecessors, and in a fashion that is much more transparent than in the past. Small wonder that he is the object of much calumny in the Chinese media across the Taiwan Straits. And now when the three, Modi, Trump and Lai are in charge of the governments of India, the US and Taiwan. Modi 3.0, Trump 2.0 and Lai 1.0 is the opportune time to build up a connect among the three including in matters of security. Not to cause a kinetic conflict but to prevent such a conflict from taking place. It needs to be remembered that CCP General Secretary Xi is not just ruthless, more so than any of his predecessors but for Mao Zedong. However, perhaps there are situations in which he may not take ground, air, sea realities into account. In such circumstances must come the reality that in conditions of combat, his armed forces are a largely untested commodity, and as Galwan has shown, the PLA less than a match for India. As the PLAAF and PLAN will be on the seas and in the air.
All this will become clear in actual combat. So while the intent is to avoid kinetic combat, such a conflict needs to be planned and prepared for. Indeed, such planned operations already are being, if not trilaterally as yet, then certainly bilaterally. Such interaction would provide the requisites for each understanding the strengths of the other, and how to harness them to a winning strategy. Where Artificial Intelligence and other advanced tech is concerned, a combination of the knowledge pool of India, the US and Taiwan working seamlessly logethe would be unbeatable. Bharat i.e. India has made great strides during the period when Narendra Modi has been the Prime Minister, and among the tasks of such a group would be to unlock the power of fusion technology. Were that to happen, energy would become as plentiful and low cost as water once was, and air fortunately still is, although the same cannot be said of unpolluted air. As the most important champion of the Global South, which India under PM is, low cost energy would be a boon that has the potential to raise health, housing, health and nutrition standards to much higher standards than is presently the case. Such unlocking of potential would be a gift to all of humanity.