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India, America and the China challenge

Why in News?

Recently, America’s national security strategy issued by the Joe Biden Administration last week and the Chinese Communist Party’s 20th Congress this week promise to reshape the geopolitics of Asia and the Indo-Pacific. The US NSS has affirmed that China remains its greatest threat. The CCP this week is likely to double down on Xi Jinping’s muscular quest to replace the US as the dominant power in Asia.

Indo-Pacific:

• The Indo-Pacific is a geopolitical construct that has emerged as a substitute to the long-prevalent “Asia-Pacific.
• Indian ocean and pacific ocean: It is an integrated theater that combines the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, and the land masses that surround them.
• Strategic and economic: It is both a strategic as well as an economic domain comprising important sea-lines of communication
• Maritime security: The Indo-Pacific is also associated with maritime security and cooperation.
• US: It describe the Indo-Pacific as a region that starts at the:
  • Western shore of the Americas and ends at the shores of the Indian subcontinent.
• India and Japan: the concept is much broader in expanse, extending to the shores of the African continent.
• Major stakeholders in the Indo-Pacific include: India, U.S.A., Australia, Japan, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members and other maritime nations that occupy the strategic positions in the Indian and Pacific Ocean including small island countries.

Phases in the US-China relationship:

• 19th century: American missionaries began to arrive in China and began to generate empathy for the nation.
• During World War II: US backed Chinese nationalists in their fight against Japanese occupation.
• The US tried to isolate China from 1949: when the communists prevailed over the nationalists.
• The 1970s: It saw the US and communist China come together to counter the Soviet Union.
• The 1980s: Beginning of an economic engagement that turned into a huge commercial and technological partnership from the 1990s.
• 21st century: some in the US began to see China as a potential threat.
  • America believed that China’s growing economic prosperity would inevitably lead to greater democratization of its society.

China’s stand under Xi Jinping:

• Chinese interests: Reshape the Asian as well as the global order to suit Chinese interests.
• No effort to hide China’s new geopolitical ambition: nor been defensive about authoritarian rule.
• Self-reliance: China has emphasized the importance of self-reliance in the name of a “dual circulation strategy”.
• From globalization to internal economic dynamism: Now, there is a greater emphasis on internal economic dynamism and reducing the reliance on foreign technologies.
• Global dependence on China: China has sought to enhance the world’s dependence on its economy and leverage it for strategic benefit.
• China has actively sought to undermine US alliances in Asia: mount pressure on American forward military presence in Asia.
  • The US is now pushing back.

US’s response:

• Confrontational approach: More confrontational approach during the Donald Trump presidency.
• Joe Biden: More structured policy of competing with China.
• The National Security Strategy: postulated the return of great power rivalry and the need to respond to the challenges presented by Russia and China.
• Biden’s NSS: builds on that proposition and identifies China as the more demanding challenge than Russia.
• The US has imposed a series of technology sanctions: against China and has turned to the once taboo “industrial policy” to strengthen internal innovation.

America’s national security strategy(NSS):

• Russia: It poses an immediate threat to the free and open international system.
• China: The only country with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, the economic, diplomatic, military and technological power to advance that objective.
• The European challenge is real
• Strategic theater: The Biden Administration now sees the Indo-Pacific as the principal strategic theater.
• Broadening the coalition: To include countries that may not be democratic.
• The US will “look beyondthe traditional free trade agreements and make major “adjustments” to the old model of globalization.

India’s stand on US-China dynamics:

• Us-China dynamic: India’s engagement with the US-China dynamic has not been an uncomfortable one in the past.
• International acceptance: When the US sought to isolate China in the 1950s, India tried to befriend it and promote its international acceptance.
• Alliance with Russia: When the US and China joined to limit Soviet power in the 1970s, India deepened its alliance with Moscow.
• Modernization of China: India watched with envy as the US helped the rapid modernization of the Chinese economy.

India on Indo-China border dispute:

• Peace and tranquility in the border areas: It remains the basis for normal ties between India and China and “new normals of posture” will inevitably lead to “new normals of responses”, India said.
• Sino-India ties must be based on three mutuals:
  • Mutual sensitivity
  • Mutual respect
  • Mutual interest

Way Forward:

• Systemic changes: To limit the Sino-US conflict receding, India and the rest of Asia must adapt to the systemic changes that it is likely to produce.
• Contest between the US and China: It will be the principal factor shaping international relations of Asia and the Indo-Pacific.
  • India and the rest of Asia must now engage with at least three dimensions of the Sino-US conflict.
• The principal instrument in the US response: It has been rebuilding the traditional bilateral alliances with Japan and Australia as well as constructing new partnerships with countries like India and developing new regional coalitions.
• Economic, technology and geopolitical front: On the economic and technological front, both India and the US are trying to reduce their exposure to China.
  • On the geopolitical front, a US plan to look beyond formal alliances suits India, which is wedded to an independent foreign policy.
• Convergence: The current churn in Asia provides India and the US with a historic opportunity to build on the new convergences in the areas of trade, technology, and geopolitics.

Q1. With respect to the South China sea, maritime territorial disputes and rising tension affirm the need for safeguarding maritime security to ensure freedom of navigation and overflight throughout the region. In this context, discuss the bilateral issues between India and China.(UPSC 2014)