Let's admit it: the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska was a failure. As to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in Shanghai, which featured, among other notables, Presidents Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin, and our own Prime Minister Narendra Modi, not much was expected, especially when it came to India.
The SCO summit, let us immediately acknowledge, was more about optics than substance in the first place. The well-publicised bonhomie between Chinese President and host, Xi Jinping, and his dear friend and partner, Russian President Vladimir Putin, only underscored how closely intertwined their interests are. Who can doubt that without Chinese support, Russia would not be able to prosecute its war in Ukraine? China not only buys Russian oil—much more of it than India—but also supplies critical military and strategic support to Russia. In fact, before Russia invaded Ukraine, Putin not only secured China’s permission but an explicit undertaking of aid. It would be delusional to expect India to join such an axis of power against the free world.
The Alaska summit, on the other hand, had a huge build-up, at least from the American side, what with Trump’s election boast of an overnight end to the war in Ukraine. Not only is the world far from that promised peace, but Russia quickly turned the negotiation into a negation with a single word, nyet. It wasn’t buying any of Trump’s deals.
Instead, it gave the impression that it is sitting pretty, not only winning the war in Ukraine, but also unwilling to negotiate a ceasefire despite the carrot of an advantageous territorial swap. Indeed, it intends, it would seem, to eviscerate Ukraine as a viable state. An unintended consequence, from the Russian side, is that this has driven the US and Europe closer together than ever before during the Trump presidency. On both sides of the Atlantic, there is now a much clearer understanding of where the future of the free world lies.
Where does this leave India? I am afraid that our stature, both as a swing state and a rising power, stands diminished. It is not that our leadership hasn’t recognised this. If the latest exchange on X is to be believed, the US and India are, once again, the best of friends. I predict that we will see a toning down of the anti-Trump rhetoric in government-aligned mainstream and social media.
There is no doubt that the Trump tariffs are going to hurt India. Forget about one of the alleged, biggest export items— gems and jewellery, mostly Gujarat based. The real pain, so far only imagined and not yet actualised, is our software and services exports, which, according to a Reserve Bank survey, exceeded $205 billion in the last fiscal year, with the US alone accounting for 54 percent. Compared to this, India’s pharma exports to the US are less than $10 billion.
What I am suggesting is that the tariffs, painful as they are, are not as important as the fact that Indo-Chinese relations are at an impasse. Despite whatever claims we might make of ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’, China has a $100 billion trade surplus with us, with Chinese products, from electric kettles to statuettes of Lord Ganesha labelled ‘Made in Bharat’, flooding our markets. Worse, China holds some 45,000 sq km of Indian territory, the size of Switzerland. Don’t forget China’s open backing of Pakistan during our recent undeclared war with the latter.
The last time the Chinese said “Hindi Chini Bhai-Bhai,” they proceeded to invade India. Many were not even born during those heady days of the bromance between Jawaharlal Nehru and Chou En Lai (now written as Zhou Enlai). No wonder most Indians must have forgotten the second half of the slogan, the line that followed the one I have just quoted. It was: “Ye deshhamarahai, tum yahan se bhag jai”. Bad Hindi, you might think? But much worse for us militarily, as the popular film, Haqeeqat, captured: Ill-clad soldiers with hardly any armaments sent to die on the Himalayan heights. Followed by Nehru’s abject letters to US President John F Kennedy for military aid to stall a full-on Chinese invasion.
Who, in their right mind, can doubt that Communist China is an imperialist and expansionist hyperpower? Under Red China’s revolutionary leader and first president, Mao Zedong, it more than doubled its state boundaries. Tibet alone, which it overran and gobbled up, is 75 percent the size of India! Far from becoming allies, much, much more will have to be done before Indo-Chinese relations can be normalised.
Yes, China is a great country and an even greater civilisation. Yes, we have co-existed as neighbours for millennia. Yes, we have had, by and large, peaceful relations. Yes, India’s greatest gift to China, which it gratefully absorbed and acknowledged, was Buddhism. And yes, the Chinese people are, on the whole, well-disposed towards India. Who can deny all this—and more? However, does that leave us safe when the Red Dragon is breathing fire across our borders or breathing down our neck through proxies located in Pakistan or, possibly, Bangladesh or Myanmar? With its huge influence on Nepal and Sri Lanka, in addition to its ability to create trouble at the drop of a hat in Manipur or Arunachal Pradesh? Who can counterbalance Chinese dominance in our region except the United States? India and the US are, therefore, both natural and strategic allies. The sooner we openly acknowledge this, the better.
In India, we now see a strange convergence of the traditional, intransigent leftist anti-Americanism and the Swadeshi brand of self-righteous, rightwing patriotism, which wants to stand up to the neo-imperialist bully. Trump’s taunts and slights, not to mention the outrageous casteist slurs of his ‘durbari’, Pete Navarro, have only worsened matters. However, as anyone in the know will readily confirm, such dissonant sonics hardly matter in a long-term, mutually beneficial relationship, such as that between India and America.
Let me end on a provocative note. If the next border skirmish with our northeastern ‘mota bhai’ across the Himalayas ensues with a million Chinese drones invading India, who can we turn to give us the technological tools to tackle or disable them?
Makarand R Paranjape | RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE | Author and a commentator
(Views are personal)
(Tweets @MakrandParanspe)