India's Foreign policy

miketheterrible wrote:


India will never be a super power no matter how many times Indians wish for it. They have nearly zero control over their own country and foreign policy as is.

Strange Bedfellows and Buried Hatchets
Starting with the administration of George W. Bush, the US has tried to lure India into an alliance with Japan and Australia – the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or “Quad” – to challenge China in the South China Sea and Indian Ocean.
The Americans turned a blind eye to India’s violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and dropped the ban on selling arms to New Delhi. The Pentagon even re-named its Pacific Command, “Indo-Pacific Command” to reflect India’s concerns in the Indian Ocean. The US is currently training Indian fighter pilots, and this summer held joint naval maneuvers with Japan and the US – Malabar 18 – in the strategic Malacca Straits .
But following an April Wuhan Summit meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, New Delhi’s enthusiasm for the Quad appears to have cooled. New Delhi vetoed Australia joining the Malabar war games.
At June’s Shangri-La Dialogue held in Singapore, Modi said “India does not see the Indo-Pacific region as a strategy or as a club of limited members,” and pointedly avoided any criticism of China’s behavior in the South China Sea. Given that Indian and Chinese troops have engaged in shoving matches and fistfights with one another in the Doklam border region, Modi’s silence on the Chinese military was surprising.
China and India have recently established a military hotline, and Beijing has cut tariffs on Indian products.
During the SCO meetings, Modi and XI met and discussed cooperation on bringing an end to the war in Afghanistan. India, Pakistan, and Russia fear that extremism in Afghanistan will spill over their borders, and the three have joined in an effort to shore up the Taliban as a bulwark against the growth of the Islamic State.
There is also a push to build the long-delayed Iran-Pakistan natural gas pipeline that will eventually terminate in energy-starved India.
India signed the SCO’s “Qingdao Declaration,” which warned that “economic globalization is confronted with the expansion of unilateral protectionist policies,” a statement aimed directly at the Trump administration.
The Modi government also made it clear that New Delhi will not join US sanctions against Iran and will continue to buy gas and oil from Tehran. Indian Defense Minister Nirmala Sitharaman also said that India would ignore US threats to sanction any country doing business with Russia’s arms industry. https://original.antiwar.com/hallinan/2018/08/30/as-washington-vacillates-asias-alliances-are-shifting/

Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian announced at a regular press briefing on Thursday that joint China-India military exercises would be held in November in the southwestern Chinese city of Chengdu. Details of the training are still being discussed, he added.

When India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrives in Tokyo on Sunday for an annual summit with his Japanese counterpart Shinzo Abe, they are expected to sign a logistics pact that will allow access to each other’s bases.
In practical terms, that would mean that Japanese naval vessels will be using Indian naval bases on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands to refuel and get other services.
India’s navy will also get access to Japanese facilities for maintenance. For the first time, the Indian Army and Japan’s Ground Self Defense Force will also conduct joint exercises at Vairengte in the northeast Indian state of Mizoram in November.

Tsavo Lion wrote:Modi II: Reclaiming the neighborhood
https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/06/opinion/modi-ii-reclaiming-the-neighborhood/

Transfer by China of the frigate of the project 053H3 to the Navy of Sri Lanka

June 5, 2019 in Shanghai, the solemn ceremony of transferring the former frigate of the project 053H2G "Tongling" to the PLA Navy (crew number 542) to the naval forces of Sri Lanka was held. The frigate built in 1994 was transferred to the Lankan side free of charge and converted into a coast guard patrol ship [in fact, the ship will join the Sri Lankan Navy with a ship number P 625].

Tsavo Lion wrote:'Balance of power' a strategic trap for India
http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/1164295.shtml

I agree. India will lose more by trying to contain China & becoming a de-facto US & Japanese proxy/counterweight in S. Asia.

Global times is chinese mouthpiece hence has no credibility in india and what is india gaining when china openly supporting pak and undermining indian interests openly ?

GarryB wrote:

Global times is chinese mouthpiece hence has no credibility in india and what is india gaining when china openly supporting pak and undermining indian interests openly ?

If China is the enemy because it supports Pakistan, I guess that makes the US the enemy too?

Of course India looking to the US more will make Russia look to other clients too including Pakistan and then Russia becomes the bad guy as well...