Chinese diplomats in New Delhi and Beijing picked up speed on Wednesday, launching strong counterattacks against the United States after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo promised to support India in its confrontation with China after the 2 + 2 strategic dialogue between India and the United States.
“The United States will support the people of India as they face threats to their sovereignty and freedom,” Pompeo said at a news conference in the national capital, Delhi, just before concluding his visit to India and addressing Sri Lanka, Maldives and Indonesia. US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, who had delivered the opening statement at the joint press conference in New Delhi, had also declared that the United States would stand shoulder to shoulder for a free and open Indo-Pacific, in light of of what he said. called “China’s increased aggression and destabilizing activities.”
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The two comments, there were others as well, were unusual in that visiting foreign dignitaries are expected to steer clear of negative references to a friendly third country at bilateral public events. Pakistan and its terror factories had been the only exception to this rule at joint events in New Delhi. On Tuesday, the joint press conference was a break from this tradition, implying that India was bracketing China with Pakistan as an adversary.
As always, the Foreign Minister, S Jaishankar, and the Defense Minister, Rajnath Singh, did not name China. Behind closed doors, India has clearly been much more explicit. “The challenge of defeating the pandemic that came from Wuhan also fueled our strong discussions about the Chinese Communist Party,” Pompeo said at the briefing, stressing that the communist party “was not a friend of democracy.”
One step at a time, a person familiar with India’s gradual approach later explained, underscoring that a shift in New Delhi’s approach would likely become more pronounced over time if China showed no intention of resolving the standoff. along the actual Line of Control. The Chinese People’s Liberation Army had sparked the clash in early May this year when its troops went beyond routine patrol points and stayed. Over the next six months, China and India have brought tens of thousands of soldiers closer to the points of confrontation.
Galwan’s bloody standoff prompted New Delhi to block popular mobile apps linked to China, dumped the rulebook into its Confucious centers, restricted the flow of investment and created obstacles for Chinese companies bidding for government contracts. All this, without explicitly naming China.
It has been a continuation of an approach New Delhi has taken for decades and is based on the belief that China will adapt to India if it hides disagreements under the rug for the greater good of the relationship.
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In an interview with Times Now, Pompeo said the United States did not want a conflict to break out between India and China. It wouldn’t be good for either of us or the world. But he stressed that “every time a nation shows weakness, aggression from the Chinese Communist Party is invited.”
Indian officials who have followed the 175-day standoff in Ladakh agree with this assessment.
New Delhi has taken steps to confront Beijing. Regarding the preventive action taken by Special Border Force commandos to take control of the north shore of Pangong Tso in August this year and diplomatically as well.
India has also invited Australia to join its high-level Malabar naval exercises with Japan and the US, an invitation that pretty much turns the exercise into a QUAD affair.
In 2007, when India had invited Australia as a non-permanent member for the Malabar exercise, Beijing had made its discontent known, leading India and Australia to take a big step back. As QUAD seemed to fade over the next few years, an emboldened Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi pushed aside the informal grouping of four nations in 2018, hoping it would dissipate like “sea foam.”
Speaking at a Kuala Lumpur event earlier this month, China’s Wang Yi acknowledged that the US Indo-Pacific Strategy presented “great underlying risk” in sparking confrontation between different groups and fueling geopolitical competition with the mindset of the Cold War.
But it has mainly been Xi Jinping’s aggressive expansionist approach that has led a diverse group of countries to unite.
Former Japan Self-Defense Forces Joint Chief of Staff Katsutoshi Kawano told the Mount Fuji Dialogue, an annual gathering of business and political leaders from Japan and the United States that “China’s recent border clash with India and the escalation Tensions with Australia over its response to the coronavirus led Quad members to strengthen their cooperation.
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