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41. The United States and Japan Should Cooperate to Include India in Indo‐Pacific Economic Governance

Author:
Kensuke Yanagida
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
Both the United States and Japan consider India as an important strategic partner in their respective Indo-Pacific concepts. However, India still faces many domestic challenges as a developing country. India also has traditionally been reluctant when it comes to trade liberalization. U.S. bilateral trade negotiations with India, and Japan`s effort in promoting an East Asia regional trade agreement that includes India share objectives and interests and hence can be coordinated. On November 15, 2020, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) was signed by 15 countries with the glaring exception of India. RCEP is a regional free trade agreement (FTA) whose negotiations were initiated by ASEAN and six partner countries, namely Japan, China, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India in 2012. The signing of RCEP finally came after eight years of negotiations, but India decided to pull out from the pact at the final stage of negotiations. The Japanese and U.S. Indo-Pacific concepts aim to achieve regional peace, stability, and prosperity through ensuring a rules-based international order, and to enhance cooperation among like-minded countries in both economic and security spheres. RCEP can be positioned as an important economic partnership initiative that embodies the Indo-Pacific concepts of rules-based, free and fair trade and investment governance, and contributing to the economic prosperity of the region.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Treaties and Agreements, Bilateral Relations, and Trade
Political Geography:
Japan, India, Asia, North America, United States of America, and Indo-Pacific

42. India’s Networking Response to the Chinese Threat

Author:
Rajesh Basrur
Publication Date:
06-2021
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
East-West Center
Abstract:
India has experienced rising tensions with China in recent years, as demonstrated by two border crises in 2017 and 2020-21. The second event saw the death of some 20 Indian troops, and at least 4 Chinese soldiers, in hand-to-hand combat – the first fatalities in nearly half a century of periodic border face-offs. New Delhi’s policy response has spanned both internal and external balancing. The former has involved augmenting India’s capacity to engage in limited combat of the type that nuclear-armed states have occasionally fought, as did the Soviet Union and China in 1969 and India and Pakistan in 1999. The Indian military has bolstered its border by deploying combat troops, cruise missiles, and advanced combat aircraft. However, China has done much the same, putting pressure on India to upscale its military capabilities. Simultaneously, India has tried to reduce its dependence on the Chinese economy, a more complicated task. Despite a 10 percent decline in bilateral trade owing to the Covid-19 pandemic and border tensions, China was India’s largest trading partner ($77.7 billion) in 2020. The Narendra Modi government sharply cut Chinese investment when the 2020 border confrontation in Ladakh broke out, expelling major Chinese companies like TikTok, WeChat, and UC Browser. Despite these measures, India’s ability to shut China out of its economy is limited. The Indian market depends heavily on Chinese electronic components (70 percent in value terms), pharmaceutical ingredients (70 percent), and consumer durables (45 percent).
Topic:
Conflict Prevention, Bilateral Relations, Economy, and Trade
Political Geography:
China, South Asia, India, and Asia

43. China-India New Intricacies: Rivalry and Cooperation in a New Changing Global Context

Author:
Buddhi Prasad Sharma
Publication Date:
09-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Journal of Liberty and International Affairs
Institution:
Institute for Research and European Studies (IRES)
Abstract:
At the changing geopolitical landscape with the Covid-19 pandemic scenario, the China-India tussle and scale of regional and global exposition has begun to display with certain consequences, which seems to shake the existing regional balance of power. A mounting political and military confrontation between these two powers as experts suggested could create a hurdle on regional-global stability and can strike on the path of globalization. With historical and existing context analysis, this paper explores that putting genuine differences aside, China and India being responsible stakeholders of the global community, can cooperate and contribute to regional and global peace and prosperity. This paper is based on qualitative research and explorative form in a pattern. This paper concludes that to reduce protracted political and border-related tensions, continuous institutional dialogue, regular communication, and formal-informal exchanges could be effective tools for a peaceful resolution. At this juncture, the competition and cooperation approach could be useful for fostering China-India bilateral relations, and this situation will help to address common challenges of the global community, restructure the global order, and re-adjust regional and global scenarios crippled by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Bilateral Relations, Hegemony, Borders, and Rivalry
Political Geography:
China, India, and Asia

44. India and Iran Relations under the Shadow of Global Politics: A Brief Historical Overview

Author:
Mukhtar Ahmad Bhat
Publication Date:
10-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Novus Orbis: Journal of Politics & International Relations
Institution:
Department of International Relations, Karadeniz Technical University
Abstract:
In contemporary world politics, India and Iran occupy great strategic significance. Both countries have huge convergence of national interests. Collaboration and cooperation between the countries would resolve their respective domestic issues and challenges and play a determining role in strengthening their role in global affairs. For a fast-growing economy and energy deficit country like India, Iran provides access to a huge amount of natural resources and opens up its vast untapped market for Indian finished goods and services. In addition to that, Iran, due to its geographic location can act as a transit route for India to reach strategically important countries in Central Asia and Afghanistan. Being the second-largest Shia populated country in the world after Iran and one of the highest energy importing countries, India occupies an important place in the strategic thinking of Iran. In the past, India was the second-largest oil-exporting destination for Iran and an important trading partner for Iran. Taking the structural realism as a theoretical framework, the article attempts to seek an answer to the questions, why despite belonging to a single-family, living together for many centuries and sharing common social, religious and traditional values, the two countries have been unable to transform their mutual understanding into a long term strategic partnership, and how the global events have affected their mutual understanding and replaced it with trust deficit.
Topic:
Security, Diplomacy, Bilateral Relations, and Strategic Interests
Political Geography:
Iran, Middle East, India, and Asia

45. Europe-India: new strategic challenges

Author:
Karine Lisbonne de Vergeron
Publication Date:
12-2021
Content Type:
Policy Brief
Institution:
Robert Schuman Foundation (RSF)
Abstract:
The most recent India-EU summits, held on 15 July 2020 and 8 May 2021, significantly enhanced the strategic dimension of the bilateral relationship. India was one of the first countries to establish diplomatic relations with the European Union when representatives of the then EEC met with several Indian diplomats based in Europe in 1961. But it was not until much later that the first high-level summit between India and the EU took place in Lisbon in June 2000, marking the real beginning of meaningful bilateral relations. It was followed in 2005 by the launch of a “strategic partnership” between the two parties. The push to deepen bilateral cooperation in recent years is all the more important and necessary given that economic and political relations between Europe and India have long been better defined with individual Member States, rather than with the European Union as a whole. This has been reinforced by a certain inertia in the intensity of the bilateral link over the years, as EU-India bilateral summits, although annual in principle, were blocked between 2012 and 2016 and the negotiations launched in 2007 for a Free Trade Agreement are still ongoing. The strategic strengthening of Indo-EU dialogue over the past three years therefore marks an important turning point and underlines a clear commitment to move forward on major issues of common interest to move beyond piecemeal politics and give the bilateral relationship a more strategic, long-term focus.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Bilateral Relations, European Union, and Partnerships
Political Geography:
Europe and India

46. How Do Indian Americans View India? Results From the 2020 Indian American Attitudes Survey

Author:
Sumitra Badrinathan, Devesh Kapur, and Milan Vaishnav
Publication Date:
02-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Indian Americans are now the second-largest immigrant group in the United States. Their growing political influence and the role the diaspora plays in Indian foreign policy therefore raises important questions—about how Indian Americans view India, the political changes underway there, and the course of U.S.-India relations. Since coming to power in 2014, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made outreach to the far-flung Indian diaspora a signature element of his government’s foreign policy. Modi’s courtship of the diaspora has been especially notable in the United States, where the Indian American population has swelled to more than 4 million and has become the second-largest immigrant group in the United States.1 In two separate, large rallies on U.S. soil—in 2014 and 2019—Modi sought to highlight the achievements of the diaspora, outlining the many ways in which they can support India’s interests from afar while underscoring their increasingly substantial economic, political, and social influence in the United States. These high-octane gatherings, however, naturally lead to a series of questions: How do Indians in America regard India, and how do they remain connected to developments there? What are their attitudes toward Indian politics and changes underway in their ancestral homeland? And what role, if any, do they envision for the United States in engaging with India?
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Bilateral Relations, Immigration, Public Opinion, and Survey
Political Geography:
South Asia, India, North America, and United States of America

47. The Road from Galwan: The Future of India-China Relations

Author:
Vijay Gokhale
Publication Date:
03-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
China and India struggle to comprehend each other’s international ambitions. The misperceptions that follow lead to a lack of trust, border skirmishes, and potentially worse. On June 15, 2020, Indian and Chinese troops engaged in a brawl that left twenty Indian soldiers dead while causing an unspecified number of Chinese casualties. The clash is a part of a broader border standoff along the Galwan River between the two forces on the Line of Actual Control that is yet to be resolved. The Indian strategic community is broadly in agreement that this border dispute marks an implacable decline in India-China ties. They argue that the very basis of relations that emerged after former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s visit to Beijing in 1988 has been shaken, if not destroyed. Yet, how did the two countries manage to reach this nadir in ties, and furthermore, what does the Galwan clash signify for the future of Sino-Indian relations? This paper argues that, long before the present border dispute occurred, Sino-Indian relations had been steadily declining due to rampant misperceptions of the other side, contributing to a lack of trust. The most fundamental misperception between the two countries is the inability to comprehend each other’s international ambitions, yielding the fear that their foreign policies are targeted against the other. This paper traces the impact and development of these misperceptions on Sino-Indian ties through three different phases before considering the future of the relationship after the Galwan dispute.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Bilateral Relations, Territorial Disputes, and Borders
Political Geography:
China, South Asia, India, and Asia

48. The United States in India's Strategy in the Indo-Pacific Region Since 2014

Author:
Jakub Zajaczkowski
Publication Date:
01-2021
Content Type:
Journal Article
Journal:
Polish Political Science Yearbook
Institution:
Polish Political Science Association (PPSA)
Abstract:
The article's objective is to analyze the main assumptions of India's strategy in the Indo-Pacific region and define the role of the US in it. The time frame of the article is determined by the assumption of power in India in 2014 by the Indian People's Party (Bharatiya Janata Party, BJP), led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, as well as the opening of a new stage of the US-led Indo-Pacific rebalancing strategy, which followed China's initiation in 2013 of its Belt and Road Initiative (previously known as the One Belt One Road project). The article seeks to answer the following main research question: What role has India attributed to the United States in its Indo-Pacific strategy since 2014? It hypothesizes that the United States has assumed an increasingly significant role in India's regional strategy over the past seven years, but not to the extent of a formal alliance, only approaching at best the status of a strategic partnership. The theoretical framework used to analyze the case study of the US role in India's regional strategy is the category of institutional balancing and the assumptions of neoclassical realism. The choice of such research tools was determined by their explanatory value. Moreover, both models complement each other. Bearing the above in mind, the following structure of the article was adopted. The first part presents the general assumption of the analysis and the theoretical framework. The second discusses the evolution of India's approach to the US from 2014 to 2021, indicating the reasons for its change and reconstructing the role of the US in the Indian regional strategy, especially after 2020. The third part draws on the theoretical framework adopted in the article, i.e., the assumptions of institutional balancing and neoclassical realism, to offer conclusions that answer the main research questions.
Topic:
Diplomacy, International Cooperation, Bilateral Relations, Hegemony, and Strategic Interests
Political Geography:
India, Asia, North America, and United States of America

49. Don’t be rude, don’t be docile! How to manage freedom of manoeuvre in tense bilateral diplomacy

Author:
Hans Mouritzen
Publication Date:
11-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
Abstract:
Bilateral diplomacy has become increasingly important in today’s multipolar world. A number of cases are analysed in this DIIS Working Paper, where Nordic countries have been ‘disciplined’ in bilateral diplomacy by the emerging great powers of Russia, China, or India. Compared to the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, with US unipolarity and EU normative power, the Nordics have experienced a narrowing of their freedom of manoeuvre. It is no longer possible, without significant costs, to criticise these great powers’ internal affairs or foreign policies based on allegedly universal values. In general, it is crucial for decision-makers not to overstep their state’s freedom of manoeuvre. But on the other hand, they should not be too docile and desist from occasionally challenging its limits. Trial balloons or parallel action with related countries might do exactly that.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Power Politics, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
Russia, China, India, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and United States of America

50. Critical technologies and the Indo-Pacific: A new India-Australia partnership

Author:
Aakriti Bachhawat, Danielle Cave, Jocelinn Kang, Rajeswari Pillai, and Trisha Ray
Publication Date:
10-2020
Content Type:
Special Report
Institution:
Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI)
Abstract:
This report by ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre and India’s Observer Research Foundation argues that as the India-Australia bilateral relationship continues to grow and evolve, both governments should invest in the construction of a new India–Australia partnership on technology. The foundation for such a partnership already exists, and further investment areas of complementary interests could stimulate regional momentum in a range of key critical and emerging technology areas including in 5G, Artificial Intelligence, quantum technologies, space technologies and in critical minerals. The report contains 14 policy recommendations that will help build this new technology partnership. This new report outlines what this new India-Australia technology partnership could look like. It examines the current state of the India–Australia relationship; provides an overview of current technology cooperation and where challenges and roadblocks lie; analyses each state’s competitive and complementary advantages in selected technology areas and highlights opportunities for further collaboration across the areas of 5G, Artificial Intelligence, Quantum technologies, Space technologies and in critical minerals.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Science and Technology, Bilateral Relations, Partnerships, and Cybersecurity
Political Geography:
India and Australia