From Collins Chong
India’s 75th independence day yesterday provides the opportunity for a fresh reflection on the growing power, role and influence of New Delhi in regional and global stability and progress.
Its ties with Malaysia remain crucial and strategically bankable for both over the long-term.
India’s rise, unlike China’s, has been predominantly welcomed by both the West and the East, and seen as becoming an alternative power that can check Beijing’s growing presence.
China sees India as a possible roadblock to its expansionary strategy, being a component of the containment team that targets Beijing.
The hawks and nationalists in Beijing view India as being untrustworthy, too close to the West and a rising direct challenge to its regional hegemonic intention. Hence the “strings of pearls” strategy of encircling India with strategic economic and military installations, one of many options Beijing uses to try to keep New Delhi in check.
Beijing is believed to want to extend this encirclement elsewhere in the Indian Ocean and the Andaman Sea, particularly the Nicobar island chain.
India on the other hand is bent on maintaining its leadership and influence in these decisive zones, and is keen to thwart China’s attempt to alter the regional maritime and security order.
Regarding the Malacca Straits and the Indian Ocean where the West has far greater military capacity to manoeuvre and impose a blockade, Beijing’s strategists have relied on both economic and military tools to deter this through its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the region to ensure that its expansionist and revisionist objectives are met.
New Delhi has its own “necklace of diamonds” to foil China. One move is to strengthen its influence over traditional regional players both defensively and economically. Another is developing a multi-pronged counter-offensive military readiness.
It also aims to build new networks and ties of strategic returns with unconventional players beyond the region, all the way to Mongolia.
One strategy is its Act East Policy, an effort to integrate India’s economy with Southeast Asian nations and strengthen military ties with them.
On the other hand, Beijing also realises the value of better relations with India due to New Delhi’s influence on other countries in the region. Some in Beijing believe that India remains a potential advantage for China’s long-term projections.
New Delhi is also seen by some in Beijing as the weakest link in the Quad, the quadrilateral security dialogue between Australia, India, Japan and the US that has been engineered as another anti-China front.
Openings for mutually beneficial arrangements include support for India’s goals in exchange for reciprocal support. India’s aspiration in joining the Nuclear Suppliers Group, for instance, will be supported by Beijing in exchange for India’s greater role and reciprocal contributions in the BRI.
If all the intentions to get India into the larger frame of Beijing’s Indo-Pacific ambition fail, Beijing would then be compelled to ensure that New Delhi is unable to present a credible threat to its goals. This might include continuing to drive a wedge between India and its key allies
Beijing will ensure that New Delhi remains on the sidelines of regional primacy, further using the upper hand Beijing enjoys in pressuring players in the region to accommodate its needs in establishing a greater presence and capacities that will hurt India most.
Other options will include narratives and strategies that encourage New Delhi to maintain its historical uniqueness of foreign policy independence and strategic autonomy. Through this, Beijing hopes that the China containment team will be further weakened, and that a direct challenge to its primacy will be further fragmented.
India is poised to be a future superpower, able to provide a different alternative and growth model compared to China and possessing a different and advantageous set of development tools.
Malaysia remains a crucial partner for New Delhi and vice versa, and we should be strategic and wise in further deepening our vital ties with India. Future returns in food security and digital and technological advancement, among others, remain highly critical in our socio-economic progress.
Military and defensive capacities provide immense openings that are yet to be fully galvanised, which will strengthen our joint capacities, readiness and interoperability strength in facing both traditional and non-traditional challenges.
China looms large over security concerns to both countries, and stronger India-Malaysia bilateral ties will reinforce our mutual reliance and interests.
For this, strategic trust, openness and honesty are needed and it remains imperative for both countries’ economic and defensive spheres in the future that our cooperation remains pillared on shared values, respect and understanding that have underpinned our historical legacies. - FMT
Collins Chong is an FMT reader.
The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.
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