India shapes two strategic ‘triangles’ to manage security challenges
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Just over two months after the general elections that enabled Prime Minister Narendra Modi to form his third government in New Delhi, India is facing numerous foreign policy challenges in its strategic space that embraces Eurasia and the Indian Ocean. In its immediate neighborhood, it has had to offer refuge to Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, its closest friend and ally in South Asia.
A month earlier, Modi had affirmed India’s close ties with Russia with a high-profile visit to Moscow, even as a NATO summit was taking place in Washington. Meanwhile, S. Jaishankar, India’s external affairs minister, has met his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, and visited Mauritius, and will be in the Maldives in mid-August to affirm India’s crucial interests in the Indian Ocean.
The challenges posed by China to India’s strategic interests will remain the principal driver of New Delhi’s foreign policy. Besides the continuing military confrontation at the undemarcated 3,400-km Sino-Indian border, India views with concern China’s expanding influence in South Asia and the Indian Ocean. Thus, India’s security dilemma has given rise to two triangular engagements: the India-China-US triangle and the India-China-Russia triangle.
Given the asymmetry in its power equations with China, India has sought to build its domestic capacity by expanding defense, economic, and technological ties with the US, besides joining certain US-sponsored regional groupings. Despite these collaborations, India continues to uphold “strategic autonomy” — the right to reject externally sponsored security alignments, and assert independent decision-making and action in the national interest. Thus, India has helped dilute the Quad as a security coalition directed at China, and focus on areas of long-term cooperation, such as technology, health, and cybersecurity.
Modi’s visit to Moscow in early July exemplifies the importance of the second triangular relationship, one that links India with Russia and China. Russia meets 40 percent of India’s defense requirements, particularly in core areas, such as personal weaponry, armor, artillery, naval vessels, and aircraft. India’s purchases of discounted Russian oil in 2022-23 were valued at $67 billion, compared with $9 billion the previous year, and have made Russia India’s fourth-largest trade partner.
These enduring and substantial Indo-Russian ties have been shaped even as Sino-Russian relations have emerged as a key factor in challenging the US global hegemony. This provides a significant strategic value to the India-China-Russia triangle in that the three partners support the shaping of a new multipolar order in which middle-powers will exercise influence over issues and geographies that are important for their interests.
Given the asymmetry in its power equations with China, India has sought to build its domestic capacity by expanding defense, economic, and technological ties with the US.
Talmiz Ahmad
The Modi government has already signaled that improvement of ties with China will be a priority concern. The present state of bilateral relations displays an important contradiction: While there are deep concerns relating to the confrontation at the border, economic ties are flourishing. China is now India’s largest trade partner, with imports in 2022-23 worth almost $102 billion. The Indian government is also relaxing restrictions on Chinese investments in Indian enterprises, and is supporting participation in China-related supply chains.
Beyond these “triangles,” ties with immediate neighbors in South Asia will receive priority attention from the Modi government. These states periodically experience major changes in their own domestic affairs, as has happened recently in Bangladesh, with ties with India usually an important source of domestic discord.
In recent years, there has also been an increase in Chinese influence in these states, particularly through major investments in infrastructure. Jaishankar realistically sees this situation as an expression of “competitive politics,” one in which India should garner its own resources to provide effective competition to China.
The Middle East also calls for a fresh approach from the Indian government. India has strategic partnership agreements with most Middle East nations. However, its engagements with them have remained bilateral and transactional. India does not have a collective region-wide approach to the region, and has avoided getting involved in regional disputes or in promoting peace and stability.
In the Middle East, China has important energy and economic stakes, interests that it shares with India. China has also recently emerged as a significant player in the political arena, best exemplified by its promotion of Saudi-Iran reconciliation last year, and the recent convening of a meeting in Beijing of the diverse Palestinian factions to promote their coming together.
Despite these important Chinese initiatives, the region remains mired in instability and uncertainty, largely connected with the long-standing Israel-Palestine conflict, the absence of trust among major regional powers, the threat to global shipping from the unresolved conflict in Yemen, and the burgeoning role of non-state actors in regional disputes. Given their high stakes in regional peace and stability, these are areas where Sino-Indian cooperation would be in the interest of the two countries and to the region as well.
From the Indian perspective, the principal source of the divide is that China sees India only as an appendage to the state Sino-US ties. It thus fails to accept that India has its own crucial interests in the region, remains committed to strategic autonomy, and has agency in shaping and pursuing its interests.
Flowing from this, India calls for the completion of the disengagement process at the Sino-Indian border, and full respect for the Line of Actual Control and past agreements. This, in its view, will prepare the ground to achieve what Chinese officials have called for — a dialogue with India “to maintain strategic communication, to align development goals, and to manage disputes without aggravation of escalation.”
• Talmiz Ahmad is a former Indian diplomat.
