Washington needs New Delhi more than ever to prevail against China

Brahma Chellaney, Nikkei Asia

In April 2022, U.S. President Joe Biden’s top economic adviser, Brian Deese, told India that “the costs and consequences” for it would be “significant and long term” if it refused to cooperate with Washington over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Two and a half years later, it is apparent, whether by coincidence or design, that America’s once-blossoming strategic partnership with India is fraying.

India’s neutrality in the Ukraine conflict marked just the beginning of a series of disputes that have roiled the bilateral relationship, which Biden has acknowledged is “among the most consequential in the world.”

With the new strains becoming increasingly apparent, U.S.-India ties today are clearly at a low point. Yet, the White House recently declared, “The president is very proud of the way in which our bilateral relationship with India has transformed during his administration.” The relationship may have been transformed — but not exactly in a positive manner, other than stepped-up engagement through the Quad grouping and greater U.S. weapons sales to India, like the latest $3.8 billion drone contract.

In India’s own neighborhood, the divergence of U.S. and Indian interests is becoming stark. The Biden administration has given support to military-backed regimes in Bangladesh and Pakistan but sought to overthrow Myanmar’s military junta through stringent sanctions and “nonlethal” military aid to rebels, even as cross-border arms flows fuel ethnic conflict in India’s Manipur state. Bangladesh’s descent into violent Islamism threatens the security of India, which is already home to millions of illegally settled Bangladeshis.

Salvaging the relationship with India is one of several foreign-policy challenges — from the Ukraine war to the Middle East conflict — that Biden’s successor, Donald Trump, must address after he takes office.

The U.S.-India relationship is key to a stable balance of power in the Indo-Pacific region, the world’s emerging economic and geopolitical hub. Biden’s foreign policy, instead of driving a wedge between China and Russia, has turned the two natural competitors into budding allies. The Sino-Russian unholy alliance against America has made it more imperative for Washington to partner with another nuclear-armed giant, India, especially if the U.S. is to rein in China’s aggressive expansionism.

Restoring the momentum in ties with India, however, will require resolving the differences and concerns that underlie the new strains.

The tensions burst into the open recently when India’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party accused the “U.S. deep state” of using “false narratives” to destabilize India and its business conglomerates, especially the Adani Group, led by Asia’s second-richest man, Gautam Adani, whose major infrastructure projects at home and abroad help advance Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s efforts to showcase India’s rapid strides and enlarge its global footprint.

Biden may have publicly commended Modi’s contribution to strengthening bilateral relations, but he and other prominent U.S. Democrats have barely disguised their antipathy to the Indian leader’s Hindu-nationalist brand of politics. Some U.S. statements during India’s monthslong 2024 election process, by echoing Indian opposition parties’ positions, were viewed by the BJP as an attempt to interfere in the world’s largest democratic exercise.

The simmering bilateral tensions have now come to a head. While New Delhi was still smarting from the dramatic overthrow of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s India-friendly government, the U.S., by filing an indictment against a former Indian intelligence officer in October, implicitly accused elements in Modi’s government of orchestrating a failed plot to kill a New York-based Sikh militant wanted in India on terrorism charges.

And then, by indicting Adani last month on fraud-related charges, centered on alleged bribery in India to win contracts, Washington was widely seen in New Delhi as seeking to indirectly target Modi, given the perceived closeness between the billionaire and the Indian leader.

Those two politically sticky indictments have laid bare the new problems in Washington’s ties with New Delhi and strengthened the view in India that the U.S. legal system has not just been weaponized, as Trump contends, but also has become an instrument of foreign policy. Adani, meanwhile, has responded to the indictment by seeking to cut his U.S.-related risks, including deciding to forgo a Sri Lankan port-related $553 million American loan, which would have been the U.S. government’s largest infrastructure investment in Asia.

The striking irony over the tensions, which have perceptibly soured the mood in New Delhi, is that Modi has come to be seen as India’s most pro-U.S. prime minister ever. While hewing to the country’s traditionally independent approach to international affairs, Modi’s foreign policy has betrayed a not-so-subtle pro-Western tilt.

The new strains in ties with Washington are reinforcing the Indian imperative for better balance and greater maneuverability in foreign policy as a hedge against American unpredictability. This may well explain the agreement India recently reached with China to ease their Himalayan military standoff, which was triggered in 2020 by furtive Chinese encroachments on some Indian borderlands.

Against this backdrop, the future direction of the U.S.-India strategic partnership hinges on the path the incoming Trump administration takes.

Trump’s personal rapport with Modi offers some hope that the U.S. and India may be able to overcome their disputes to invigorate ties. Trump’s first term represented the halcyon days of Washington-New Delhi ties, with the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy giving India pride of place in American strategy.

Trump, with a reputation of being a wily businessman who seeks to drive a hard campaign, has called India a “very big abuser” of tariffs and will likely demand lower tariffs and greater market access for U.S. products and companies.

But Trump knows the strategic importance of building stronger ties with India, especially given that Washington is unlikely to be able to split China and Russia. If the U.S. is to prevail in its escalating rivalry with China and Russia, and avoid strategic overstretch, it needs India more than ever. Reversing the alienation of America’s most important partner in countering China’s expansionist rise is also crucial for Asian security, as intensifying Chinese coercive pressure threatens to turn Taiwan into the next Ukraine.

Trump has a high favorability rating in India. And by mending bilateral ties, he could seize the historic opportunity to forge a “soft” alliance with India.

Brahma Chellaney, a professor of strategic studies at the independent, New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research and fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin, is the author of nine books, including “Water: Asia’s New Battleground” (Georgetown University Press), which won the Bernard Schwartz Book Award.