Foreign policy leadership in India requires a refreshing change, according to Bharat Bhushan.
In a notable turn of events, Indian ministers and officials have been making unexpected visits to Moscow and Beijing, marking a sudden shift in their outreach. This outreach is seen as damage control by both Russia and China, yet they welcome it as a step towards a broader multipolar realignment.
China, in particular, claims that India has implicitly recognised Taiwan as a part of China. However, India has clarified that it supports the "one China policy" and is focused only on Taiwan's "economy and culture."
The Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi's recent visit to New Delhi marked a movement forward from stalemate to tactical engagement. India agreed to an "early harvest" approach to border settlement, a decision that has raised eyebrows, with China claiming that India had recognised Taiwan as a part of China.
India's reengagement with China appears transactional, focusing on restarting direct flights, promoting trade, and holding summits, without addressing core disputes like the standoff in eastern Ladakh and China's support to Pakistan. This raises questions about the effectiveness of India's foreign policy strategy.
The writer, a senior journalist based in New Delhi, suggests that those responsible for India's foreign policy failures, including those who encouraged "prestige diplomacy," lack of economic foresight, and strategic miscalculations, need to be held accountable and make way for new leadership to allow India a fresh start.
Much of India's reengagement with China appears to be a response to the strained relationship between India and the United States. During the Cold War until the early 1970s, much of India's foreign policy sought to achieve major successes through closeness to Washington DC. However, relations deteriorated under Nixon in the early 1970s as India aligned more with the Soviet Union while the US supported Pakistan militarily.
In an interesting development, Moscow has suggested the revival of the trilateral Russia-India-China (RIC) dialogue, a potential building block of a non-Western alliance. China has also condemned the punitive US tariffs as "bullying" and invited India to join its stance as defender of a rules-based system of trading under the World Trade Organisation.
However, suspicion of India in multilateral forums of the Global South is likely to persist due to its close alignment with the US. India, due to its democracy, pluralism, and rule-of-law, had greater credibility than authoritarian regimes among nations of the Global South, but is now forced to make common cause with them.
Sadly, India's ties with its immediate neighbours are at an all-time low, despite Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "neighbourhood first" approach. This raises concerns about India's ability to navigate the complexities of its foreign policy landscape.
In the Sikkim region, India has agreed to settle the border with China under the "early harvest" proposal, isolating the Sikkim boundary from other disputed sectors. This border settlement could potentially allow China to settle its border with Bhutan with an eye towards the Doklam plateau, with India gaining little.
These developments underscore the need for a radical redesign of India's foreign policy due to its failed strategy of aligning with the United States. The Indian foreign policy establishment still has one leg firmly in the American camp, but the writing on the wall is clear: a new era of multilateralism beckons.
