On October 27, India and the US will sign the Basic Exchange Cooperation Agreement (BECA), the last of the four fundamental military agreements that allows both countries to share geospatial data. The signing is the culmination of 13 years of negotiation, delays and reflects the mistrust between New Delhi and Washington in the past. The misplaced fear that the United States could access Indian data, potentially compromising national security in the future, was used by South Block to oppose the deal. It was not considered that India could obtain geospatial data for the entire neighborhood, including its adversaries, from the US.
That was not surprising.
Since the 1960s, India’s national policies and goals have been formulated in such a way that strategic independence meant distancing itself from the United States. The matter was compounded when a Republican administration under Richard Nixon celebrated China in July 1971 and sent Task Force 74 led by USS Enterprise to the Bay of Bengal in December to punish India for liberating Bangladesh and dissuading New Delhi from undertaking military actions against Pakistan. The Enterprise’s presence in the Bay of Bengal had such a lasting impact on young congressional politicians at the time that neither Pranab Mukherjee nor AK Antony could erase from their memory as defense ministers during the UPA I and II regimes. It was Enterprise syndrome that sowed the seeds of suspicion between India and the US Today, the Republican administration of the United States under Donald Trump has turned Nixon’s decision in China 180 degrees after 50 years at the openly questioning Beijing’s expansionary policies.
If it was the company syndrome that hampered India’s relations with the US, then Indian policy planners, since the border skirmishes of 1962, have taken an ostrich-like approach to China with all their moves. of foreign policy towards Beijing bordering on appeasement. The mere belief that China will accommodate India if the latter is reciprocal and that disagreements should be wiped off the carpet for the greater good of the relationship has not worked, at least for New Delhi. While China wants to deal with India bilaterally on the border issue, it had no qualms about including its all-weather ally Pakistan in the border equation when the latter illegally ceded 5,180 square kilometers of territory in the Shaksgam Valley to Beijing in 1963 and then allowed the CPEC. construction through occupied Kashmir. It was China that bought Pakistan as a third party without any qualms. The fact is that China has encouraged Pakistan to overcome its weight class with India to create obstacles in the form of terrorism, communalism and entangle it globally on the Jammu and Kashmir issue. China has prevented India from becoming a permanent member of the UN Security Council and the Nuclear Suppliers Group and has gone to the extent of conspiring with Pakistan to label Indian engineers working in Afghanistan as global terrorists under UN resolution 1267. United Nations Security Council.
India, in the name of strategic autonomy and non-alignment, has always been accommodating to China since the Panchsheel Treaty of the 1950s, trying to ignore China’s unwanted comments on the status of J&K, Ladakh and Arunachal. Pradesh in the past, even maintaining a studied study. silence on its iron dominance in Tibet, Xinjiang, Hong Kong and Taiwan. There was an initial attempt to downplay the Arunachal Pradesh stapled visa issue in 2010 and the visa denial to the Northern Army Commander (Kashmir is under his protection), but India finally took a firm stand after the events. were made public.
China has been quite ruthless with New Delhi and has always been wary of the economic rise of India, a country with much more soft power and natural affinities with the West, especially the United States. The ongoing aggression in Ladakh is also designed to punish India for repealing Article 370, making Ladakh a separate union territory and publishing a new map of Ladakh on November 20, 2019 with Aksai Chin occupied and Gilgit-Baltistan as part of him. . The resurrection of the 1959 claim line already rejected by Beijing and the declaration of Ladakh under the occupation of India is also an attempt to test the resistance of the Narendra Modi government and at the same time ask New Delhi not to be part of any American alliance. . Beijing has played its cards very smartly. He saw an opportunity in the global economic crisis of 2008-2009. Today, under the shadow of the coronavirus disease, which originated in Wuhan, he is again at the forefront and has no qualms about even involving Iran while pushing India over Ladakh, Australia in trade, Japan over the Senkaku Islands, Taiwan. with brute military force. and ASEAN countries such as Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia, albeit pure intimidation for claims already rejected in the South China Sea.
Under the circumstances, as a rising power, India must not only protect its national interest, but also promote it by aligning itself with other QUAD members to boost trade and connectivity; work together on anti-terrorism initiatives; and strengthen your financial situation. QUAD should be seen as a stabilizing global order in a growing multipolar world and a counterattack to China’s expansionary movements under Xi Jinping. At its peak, the United States would have run only China, but today, with its weight declining, it needs a rising Japan, Australia, and India to restore the rule of law, trade, and free and open-sea communication channels. The third edition of the two plus two dialogue and QUAD maritime exercises next month in the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea provide India with an opportunity to synergize its tough security goals with the US. QUAD is a reality now and not an impossible dream.
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