 "India's strategic caution in South China Sea: Why joining Squad alliance is unlikely")
On March 19, General Romeo S Brawner, Chief of Staff of the Philippines Armed Forces, addressed a session at the Raisina Dialogue urging India and South Korea to join the informal Squad alliance to counter the ‘coercive’ activities of China in the South China Sea. While India has not issued an official confirmation to this end, it is not likely that New Delhi will join the minilateral in the immediate future.
General Brawner’s statement follows the episode of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) holding live fire drills off the coast of Kaohsiung and Pingtung in Taiwan, Gulf of Tonkin near Vietnam and the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand last month.
The recent months have seen China further amp up its aggressive and escalatory posture in the region including incidents such as the presence of two Chinese coast guard vessels near the disputed Scarborough Shoal irking the Philippines and a Chinese J-16 fighter aircraft releasing flares in close proximity to a Royal Australian Air Force P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft in the South China Sea.
The spurt in Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea can be due to a number of factors. First, the PLAN seeks to engage in a show of strength and power projection to gain recognition as a regionally dominant force and establish itself as a blue-ocean power.
Impact Shorts
More ShortsSecond, with President Trump back in office in the US – a country deemed to be the chief security guarantor in the region – now involved in a range of global issues including the Russia-Ukraine war, Gaza ceasefire, tariff war with China, Mexico, Canada, India, and Trump’s plan for US acquisition of Greenland, China, consistent with its pattern of strategic opportunism, has stepped in to fill the power vacuum.
Third, with the evolution of several minilaterals, namely the Quad, Squad, AUKUS, and US-Japan-Philippines trilateral, and the rise of joint maritime exercises in the Indo-Pacific, China seeks to project its combat readiness to regional and extra-regional powers.
India’s to join the Squad or not
Over the past five years, India has solidified its position as a rising global power. Its leadership in humanitarian initiatives like Vaccine Maitri, the successful Chandrayaan-3 lunar mission in 2023, and its status as the world’s fifth-largest economy have all contributed to its growing stature. Additionally, India has emerged as a potential peacemaker in the Russia-Ukraine crisis and has demonstrated its ability to navigate complex geopolitical relationships through its strategic partnerships with the US, the West, and Russia.
India’s ambitious foreign policy agenda includes becoming a leader of the Global South, promoting a multipolar world order as an alternative to China’s Middle Kingdom theory, and actively participating in the Quad. Its balancing act in the Middle East and its support for a more equitable global order have also earned it recognition as a confident and influential player on the world stage.
In this context, it’s noteworthy that countries like the Philippines are urging India to join forces to counter the growing influence of China, underscoring India’s increasingly important role in shaping the emerging global order.
Since the Galwan clash in Eastern Ladakh with China in 2020, New Delhi has recalibrated its stance on the South China Sea dispute. The government has, over the past five years, sharply expressed support for ‘development, not expansionism in the region’ and called for an early conclusion of a code of conduct in the South China Sea in accordance with relevant international norms.
However, despite a notable shift in India’s position, the government has adhered to strategic caution vis-à-vis China. This is primarily because, unlike other major powers such as the US, Australia and Japan of the Quad, India shares a territorial border with China.
Factors such as territorial proximity, a disputed land border, differences in military capabilities, the Chinese so-called String of Pearls strategy to counter India’s regional dominance, and India’s import dependence on China in sectors including pharmaceuticals, chemicals and telecom are reasons behind New Delhi’s measured stance towards Beijing.
India under Narendra Modi pursues a policy of multi-alignment while preserving its strategic autonomy. It is mindful against aligning itself to any military alliance in the Indo Pacific. New Delhi is especially cautious as Donald Trump takes office in the White House for a second term.
The US policy towards China appears provocative yet confused with Trump waging a tariff war against China, appointing China hawks like Marco Rubio and Michael Waltz in the cabinet, while acknowledging his fondness for Chinese President Xi in his virtual address to the World Economic Forum in January where he emphasised “I like President Xi very much….we look forward to….getting along with China.”
India is playing its cards carefully and does not wish to be caught off-guard in case of tactical rapprochement between the US and China. As the US turns inwards, India will wait and watch for the dynamics to play out in the South China Sea dispute as well.
Finally, the Narendra Modi government has an ambitious agenda for India in its third term. It aspires for India to attain the spot of the third-largest global economy by 2030, a developed nation status by 2047, emergence as the leader of the Global South and a major maritime power in the world.
New Delhi, in its pursuit of self-interest is likely to use the window of tactical détente with China to its advantage and make constructive strides towards the attainment of these goals. India is well aware that China will continue to use the unresolved border dispute in Eastern Ladakh as a pressure point in the future; therefore, it will be mindful to voice only a layered criticism of Chinese coercion in the immediate and extended neighbourhood.
India is thus less likely to join the Squad alliance in the near future. However, with the possibility of China’s wolf warrior tactic extending its forays into the East Indian Ocean, India must step up its capacity building assistance to countries in the region, enhance maritime domain awareness capabilities, bolster port infrastructure and institute naval surveillance facilities in the littoral states of Indian Ocean, engage in intelligence sharing, participate in multi-nation naval exercises and foster defence partnerships with countries having overlapping interests in the South China Sea dispute.
It is time New Delhi sheds its hesitation to address China’s muscle-flexing in the Indo Pacific, a move that will up its strategic heft in the region and take it a step towards its great power ambition.
The author is a visiting fellow at the Fudan Development Institute in Shanghai. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.
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