Modi risking India's position in Asia: Expert
- By Zhang Liying
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E-mail China.org.cn, August 14, 2017
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is risking his country becoming isolated in Asia if he continues to reorient his foreign policy for closer American alignment while falsely treating China as a danger to regional stability.
Jude Woodward, advisor to the Mayor of London from 2000 to 2008, as well an experienced writer and lecturer on China, insists that Indian troops crossing into Chinese territory from Bhutan is a serious provocation.
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The cover page of Ms. Woodward's new book "The US vs China: Asia's new Cold War?" [Photo/China.org.cn] |
"India's military step was taken before any attempt at negotiation or even to find out exactly what China intended. Therefore, it looks like a deliberate escalation of tension," she believes.
Ms. Woodward also argues that India's actions in the Doklam region suggest a possible transformation of India's foreign policy away from its former multilateral approach.
Strengthening relations with America, maintaining long-standing friendship with Russia and nurturing good relations with China — India seemed to be pursuing a multilateral and independent foreign policy, as Modi had promised in his 2014 election manifesto, working with a "web of allies," developing a contemporary variant on India's old Cold War "non-alignment."
However, India's intrusion into Chinese territory and intervention in the South China Sea issue in support of the U.S. Asia-Pacific Rebalancing strategy indicate its intention of relying on the U.S. to seek regional hegemony.
This strategic miscalculation is dangerous for India, because the influence and credibility of the U.S. is rapidly – if not terminally – declining in the Asia Pacific, as Ms. Woodward has concluded in her recent book "The US vs China: Asia's new Cold War?"
"For most countries in the region, friendship with China in order to maintain regional peace and stability, together with the opportunities China offers for investment and trade, have become more important than maintaining U.S. 'leadership' in the Asia Pacific," she believes.
More importantly, she notes that, with the growing close relationship between China and Russia, if India strengthens ties with the U.S. to jointly contain China, it will find itself in isolation in Asia, rather than grasping the potential of forming part of a triangular Asian synergy that leads a new phase of peaceful development.
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