James Crabtree
You know a relationship is on the skids when one party refuses to answer the phone. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi did just that recently, according to reports in the German media, when he declined to take a number of calls from U.S. President Donald Trump. This week, Trump turned the simmering tensions into a full crisis by hitting India—notionally a vital U.S. partner in its long-term competition with China—with 50 percent punitive tariffs. Suddenly being treated this way has caused understandable anger and shock in New Delhi, prompting a hunt for new foreign-policy options.
Modi will demonstrate his independence from Washington when he heads to Beijing this week for a summit of the China-led Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a loose bloc promoting economic and security ties. It will be Modi’s first visit to China since 2018 and heralds an anticipated thaw in India-China ties, following a period of intense competition prompted by deadly clashes on their Himalayan border in 2020. Both China and Russia, which is also an SCO member, will now court India, seeking to capitalize on Modi’s rift with Trump. But New Delhi will rightly be wary of this. India’s recent foreign-affairs strategy has aimed for balanced engagement with multiple powers, with a particular focus on building ties with technologically advanced democracies. From India’s vantage point, this remains a sensible long-term approach, even if ties with the United States are tense. Throwing its lot in with China and Russia is to walk into a trap that could quickly backfire.
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