A great wall against China
The Quad maritime agreement may help India contain Chinese aggression, but normalisation of New Delhi’s relations with Beijing needs a push from the highest levels of government
China found no direct mention in the joint statement of the Quad foreign ministers who met in Tokyo, but many of the document’s assertions — from the reiteration of the commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific to the creation of a regional order where “no country dominates” the South China Sea — were a direct response to Beijing’s increasingly aggressive actions across the region. Quad also agreed to expand its maritime domain awareness initiative to the Indian Ocean and to continue the rollout of open radio access network or Open RAN telecommunications in the Pacific Islands — both moves aimed at offering alternatives to countries to make their own choices free of coercion or hidden disadvantages. Quad also emphasised that the Arbitral Tribunal’s award of July 2016, which rejected China’s expansive maritime claims in the South China Sea as having no basis in international law, should be the foundation for peacefully resolving territorial disputes.
Quad’s moves came at a time when the India-China relationship, in the words of external affairs minister S Jaishankar, continues to be “not normal”. In addition to China’s efforts at stalling the bilateral dialogue aimed at disengagement and de-escalation on the Line of Actual Control (LAC), more and more evidence has emerged of Chinese troops digging in for the long haul along the disputed border to tie down a large number of Indian troops. This has included the creation of dual-use infrastructure such as airports and railway lines, and military infrastructure such as the bridge across the Pangong Lake, a short distance from the LAC in a region illegally occupied by China for six decades. Beijing has also stepped up its activities in New Delhi’s sphere of influence, including the neighbourhood and the Indian Ocean. Despite two-way trade ballooning to $118 billion, it remains skewed in China’s favour, mainly because of India’s dependence on Chinese raw materials and China’s reluctance to open up its markets to Indian goods. But trade can hardly be the panacea for the instability that currently characterises the India-China relationship. Jaishankar’s meetings this month with Wang Yi, his Chinese counterpart, only resulted in reiteration of stated positions. With engagements at the military and diplomatic levels yielding virtually nothing, it is time perhaps for an engagement at the highest levels of the political leadership of the two countries to come to an understanding on much-needed de-escalation.