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Modi PNG trip expands India’s balancing act

Korybko’sANDREW KORYBKO
| Andrew Korybko’s Newsletter

MONTREAL - India is the only Great Power whose growing ties in any region aren’t seen by the New Cold War’s Chinese and Western protagonists as a threat to their interests.

This makes these nations amenable to accepting India’s envisaged balancing role in the countries they’re competing over, like those in the Pacific.

India’s grand strategy in the New Cold War is to multi-align between all key players.

To this end it seeks to informally lead the Global South in helping it more adroitly balance between the US-led West’s Golden Billion and the Sino-Russo Entente.

This unofficial declaration of intent was conveyed during January’s first Global South Summit that India virtually hosted with dozens of fellow developing countries.

It’ll now be implemented in the Pacific upon prime minister Modi’s trip to Papua New Guinea today to attend the third Forum for India-Pacific Islands Cooperation (FIPIC).

The host state’s expected socio-cultural and economic deliverables are listed here, which will likely be replicated to varying extents in India’s relations with the other regional countries that’ll participate in this event.

The driving force behind their ties is more important than the details thereof, which will now be explained.

The Pacific Island Countries (PICs) have recently attracted the attention of China and the US, the first of which is expanding its influence via its Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) investments while the second has traditionally focused on security cooperation.

The US has a security-centric perception of the Belt & Road Initiative, however, since it believes –rightly or wrongly – that BRI will be leveraged by China to advance its security and strategic interests.

This view is shared by its Australian ally, which fears its regional influence is eroding.

China’s soft security pact with the Solomon Islands exacerbated the US and Australia’s threat perceptions, which has in turn prompted them to collaborate much more closely in pushing back against BRI’s expansion into the Pacific Island Countries.

Their regional axis is aimed at coercing those countries into a zero-sum choice between China or the West, which neutralises PICs envisaged strategic autonomy in the New Cold War and essentially makes them objects of the US-China competition.

It's within this context that India is expanding the scope of its balancing act in a major way through prime minister Modi’s personal attendance at the third FIPIC.

Whereas the US mostly focuses on zero-sum security-centric competition and has only belatedly come to appreciate the importance of fairer economic-financial engagement with the Global South, India is driven first and foremost by economic engagement.

India understands that fellow developing countries are in a dilemma where it’s becoming difficult to balance between economic ties with China and security ones with the US upon the latter imposing its aforesaid zero-sum demands upon them.

What the PICs urgently need is a truly neutral third party with which to fairly engage on economic-financial issues in a way that gently balances China’s related influence and thus avoids triggering the West’s threat perceptions that in turn prompt the latter to force zero-sum demands upon them.

It’s here where India can play an indispensable role in attempting to cool some of the New Cold War competition between China and the West over the PICs.

The PIC countries are attracted to India’s status as the world’s fifth largest economy, which makes them receptive to its outreaches.

The advantage of pursuing economic and financial deals with India is that they’re expected to be fairer than the West’s while not exacerbating that bloc’s threat perceptions like China’s do.

While each would of course prefer to advance their own interests in the region, neither has a problem with India making inroads there since it can’t compete with BRI and isn’t seen as a security rival.

Accordingly, China can remain confident that India won’t displace it in the PICs just like the West won’t have to worry that it might set up bases on Australia’s doorstep like Beijing is suspected of seeking to do.

India is the only Great Power whose growing ties in any region aren’t seen by the New Cold War’s Chinese and Western protagonists as a threat to their interests, which thus makes them amenable to accepting its envisaged balancing role in the countries they’re competing over.

The PICs also serve another purpose for Indian grand strategy by showing the world that this giant nation can enter into equal relations with much smaller states.

The optics of this reinforce India’s reputation as a truly neutral partner with whom the expansion of ties can help others strengthen their strategic autonomy.

Today’s FIPIC is therefore worth keeping an eye on since it’ll enable observers to better understand India’s evolving engagement with the Global South in the New Cold War.

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Lindsay F Bond

On the basis of immigration and emigration, is there a nation more imbued with experience of participation than India?

For an opinion via the Migration Policy Institute, see: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/article/india-migration-country-profile

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