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Thread: China's border invasion will push India toward the U.S.

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    Default China's border invasion will push India toward the U.S.

    – A flare-up in a long-running border dispute between China and India has raised the temperature in their bilateral relationship. Yet it may be just as significant for the trilateral U.S.-China-India relationship, which will do a great deal to shape the strategic landscape of the 21st century.

    As the U.S.-China rivalry goes global, India may be the only nonaligned country that can, by itself, make a major difference in the balance of influence and advantage. The good news is that the geopolitics of the triangle are producing a tighter U.S.-India partnership. The bad news is that trade frictions and India’s internal politics are getting in the way.
    The details of the border crisis are murky, in part because both governments are remaining tight-lipped. But it’s clear that China and India are in the midst of one of their most serious showdowns in decades, 4,270 meters above sea level in the Himalayas. There are reports of several Chinese incursions into Indian-held land, including territory beyond what Beijing has traditionally claimed. China has sent thousands of troops to reinforce its presence in the area; both sides are reportedly deploying heavy weapons to bases near the area in dispute.
    For the time being, though, neither side seems eager to escalate into a shooting war.
    Nationalist newspapers in India are already crowing about a Chinese retreat. This seems dangerously premature. Beijing has succeeded in reminding India that it has powerful coercive capabilities along their shared frontier — that the “salami slicer” China uses to carve away at its opponents’ positions is ultimately backed by a meat cleaver.

    That’s trouble for India, but it may offer an advantage for the United States. Since American officials started worrying about China’s rise in the 1990s, they have looked to India as a counterweight. India’s nuclear tests in 1998 temporarily threw a wrench in the relationship, but U.S. President Bill Clinton nonetheless visited India in 2000, and a series of Democratic and Republican presidents have made cultivating a strategic relationship with New Delhi a priority.

    Indian governments rarely move as quickly as their U.S. counterparts might like, in part because the bureaucracy moves glacially even when there is a meeting of the minds among political leaders, and in part because of the residue of India’s Cold War tradition of nonalignment. U.S. cooperation with Pakistan on counterterrorism after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks was also a sticking point. More recently, Indian officials have been reluctant to do anything that risks making an outright enemy of China, a natural rival that they must nonetheless find ways of living with.

    Yet the geopolitical logic of a U.S. partnership has grown stronger over time, mostly because China has become more assertive. Indian strategists can be forgiven for wondering if Beijing’s "Belt and Road" initiative is an encirclement campaign, given how determinedly China has been building its presence in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and other points along the Indian Ocean.

    That China now appears to have conducted a small-scale invasion of Indian-controlled territory, less than three years after a tense standoff in 2017, has reminded Indian officials of what living next to an aggressive, autocratic superpower might mean. India’s having to impose a nationwide lockdown to deal with a virus that began in China has hardly improved the tenor of the relationship.

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    India already has a fascist leadership. The US has already broken its own laws in order to assist India with nuclear technology. Just how much closer do you think India can get ?


    Haw, haw.......................haw.
    " First they came for the journalists...
    We don't know what happened after that . "

    Maria Ressa.

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    The pace of U.S.-Indian affairs has quickened in recent years. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Act East policy — an evolving effort to increase ties with countries in East and Southeast Asia — and the increasing U.S. emphasis on the Indo-Pacific has created a framework for better security cooperation.

    The Quad, an informal strategic partnership between the U.S., India, Australia and Japan, constitutes an implicit (if still nascent) anti-China coalition of democracies
    .
    In 2019 and 2020, Modi and U.S. President Donald Trump exchanged visits, featuring Trump’s “Howdy, Modi” rally in Houston and Modi’s “Namaste, Trump” reciprocation in Gujarat.

    Defense sales and other military ties have increased, with Trump announcing a $3 billion weapons deal after his visit in February. India is also maneuvering to displace China in certain global supply chains, a welcome initiative given U.S. officials’ concern about dependence on Beijing.

    India would be a demographically young and vibrant friend at a time when many of America’s traditional allies are going gray. Symbolically and geopolitically, India is a billion-plus person democracy to balance a billion-plus person autocracy.

    In regional terms, U.S.-India cooperation is critical to ensuring the security of the Indian Ocean and bringing greater leverage to bear in the Western Pacific. If Washington were ever to mount a far-seas blockade against China, it would benefit enormously from access to India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
    A U.S.-India strategic partnership would confront China with a heightened challenge on its Western flank in the event of war in East Asia.

    Still, there are hurdles. The trade relationship is contentious, with both sides slapping tariffs on each other’s goods and the Trump administration ending India’s ability to export certain goods duty-free through the Generalized System of Preferences. Trump’s obsession with trade deficits and Modi’s own moves to protect domestic manufacturing bode ill.

    Then there are Modi’s domestic policies. A crackdown in Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir, the enactment of a citizenship law that has been criticized for giving privilege to non-Muslims, and recurring anti-Muslim violence have stirred concerns that Modi is reverting to the incendiary Hindu nationalism that once earned him a U.S. visa ban by President George W. Bush’s State Department. Although Trump seems little bothered by these issues, an India that regresses politically will make a less comfortable partner for the U.S. down the road.

    Yet it is worth keeping these issues in perspective
    . The economic disputes are small beer compared with the strategic stakes. The U.S. tolerated worse forms of economic discrimination from some Cold War allies as the price of strengthening them against communist expansionism. India is still more pluralistic and democratic than other key countries the U.S. will have to hold close in the coming years, such as Vietnam and, under the authoritarian President Rodrigo Duterte, the Philippines.

    U.S. officials should speak candidly, in public and in private, when human rights are abused or civil liberties are abridged. They should aggressively encourage economic reforms that India needs to become more of a match for Beijing. But Washington should meanwhile keep the relationship focused on what is bringing India and the U.S. into closer alignment: They have a great deal to gain if they can hold the line against China, and much to lose if they cannot.
    https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion...w#.XtdV3MB7mM8

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    Quote Originally Posted by moon View Post
    India already has a fascist leadership. The US has already broken its own laws in order to assist India with nuclear technology. Just how much closer do you think India can get ?

    What are you talking about? nuclear proliferation violations? nobody cares.

    This is classic big power geopolitics, with India looking west to guard against China's voracious One Belt One Road encirclement.
    A security alliance with the US and a counter to China.

    Trump and Modi met at the beginning of this year and were hammering out trade issues;
    but the Quad is the strategic alliance strengthened with India

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    Beijing Flexes Its Muscles – And Washington Better Get Ready
    https://www.realcleardefense.com/art...wfxh5en9sXoFE0




    ager to consolidate and extend its authoritarian control, Beijing brushed aside its international obligations last week and advanced plans to crush dissent in Hong Kong. Following the nearly unanimous approval of Beijing’s rubber-stamp faux-parliament, a standing committee will now draft the law that will attempt to progressively deprive the people of Hong Kong of their freedom.

    The Chinese Communist Party's Hong Kong political power grab represents just the latest manifestation of what constitutes a clear decision by Beijing to adopt a more aggressive policy. The goal is to consolidate and extend the CCP's authoritarian control and undermine the interests of the U.S. and its regional partners. One can see this more aggressive strategy not only in Thursday's political decision with respect to Hong Kong but also in Beijing's recent and planned military actions.

    With the world busy confronting the coronavirus, the CCP escalated its aggression in the South China Sea in recent months. Sending vessels to attack and bully others, China’s Coast Guard even rammed and sank a Vietnamese fishing vessel in the vicinity of the contested Paracel Islands.

    And now, according to the Japan Times, Beijing is preparing for a “large-scale landing drill” this summer in the South China Sea that “will mobilize an unprecedented level of forces, including marines, landing ships, hovercrafts and helicopters.”

    The drill may also include one or both of China’s aircraft carriers. In anticipation of their potential deployment, the Liaoning and Shandong carriers have been training in the Yellow Sea.

    Some officials in the American, Japanese, and Taiwanese governments worry that the drill could represent a precursor to Chinese military action in the South China Sea, or military action against Taiwanese-controlled island of Pratas or Taiwan itself.

    Pratas, also named Dongsha Island, lies roughly 200 miles southeast of Hong Kong and approximately half-way between Taiwan and Hainan. The strategically located island includes a small airfield utilized by the Taiwanese military. Some worry that a Chinese aircraft carrier strike group will pass through the Pratas islands on their way to the exercise.

    In light of these reports, speculation has proliferated regarding the CCP’s intentions. It is possible that large-scale Chinese military aggression may not be imminent in any of these areas. The Chinese may just be conducting the kinds of exercises that the U.S. and its partners regularly conduct to maintain and improve readiness.

    But motives and intentions in international relations can change quickly; it is best to focus on military capability, which takes time to create. And the drill this summer will provide the PLA valuable training and preparation directly applicable to a potential seizure of Pratas island or an invasion of Taiwan.

    More broadly, it is clear that U.S. military supremacy in the Indo-Pacific has eroded and that the Chinese military has become more formidable. As the military balance of power has shifted both in reality and in Beijing’s perception, the CCP has acted more aggressively.

    If the U.S. and its allies permit the balance of power to erode further, the CCP may eventually conclude that it could successfully – and with acceptable costs – employ military force to achieve its political objectives in the South China Sea and Taiwan. This puts a serious burden on the United States to take tangible and urgent steps.

    The Trump administration seems to recognize the stakes, issuing a policy paper on May 20 entitled the “United States Strategic Approach to the People’s Republic of China.” The document condemns Beijing’s “provocative and coercive military and paramilitary activities” in the South China Seas, the Taiwan Strait, and elsewhere.

    And the Pentagon is undertaking its most significant military modernization effort in decades –
    focusing research and development efforts on artificial intelligence, biotechnology, autonomy, cyber, directed energy, hypersonics, space, and 5G.

    But advanced technologies, systems, and weapons are not enough. The Department of Defense must also build the logistical infrastructure to employ and sustain these weapons. Yet projects related to overseas infrastructure and logistics sometimes struggle to garner sufficient political support.

    Thankfully, momentum is building in both the House and Senate to ensure that the American troops in the Indo-Pacific have the infrastructure necessary to successfully employ these capabilities. On Thursday, Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman James Inhofe (R-OK) and Ranking Member Jack Reed (D-RI) confirmed that they would seek to use this year's annual defense policy bill to establish a Pacific Deterrence Initiative. Among other benefits, such an initiative would ensure that U.S. and partner forces in the Pacific have the "theater missile defense, expeditionary airfield and port infrastructure, fuel and munitions storage" capabilities they require.

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