India will never involve itself in any US confrontation with China that does not directly threaten its own security, says Ashley Tellis, one of the strongest advocates of closer US-India ties in Washington DC. He asserts that the Biden administration’s “current expectations of India are misplaced” and it should “harbour no illusions that its support, no matter how generous, will entice India to join it in any military coalition against China”.
Writing in the May issue of Foreign Affairs, Tellis, who served with the U.S. Department of State as senior adviser to the undersecretary of state for political affairs, that “India values cooperation with Washington for the tangible benefits it brings but does not believe that it must, in turn, materially support the United States in any crisis – even one involving a common threat such as China.”
This claim from Tellis runs contrary to the prevalent narrative in the Biden administration, whose officials have been seen to be going out of their way to court the Modi government without raising any public objection about the erosion of democracy and ill-treatment of minorities in India in recent years. In a recent editorial, The Washington Post had pointed out that “the Biden administration has chosen not to speak loudly about Mr. Modi’s distressing retreat from democracy.”
Modi is scheduled to have a much-coveted state visit to the US in June. Unlike his predecessor Dr Manmohan Singh who had a state visit in his second year as Prime Minister, Modi has been able to secure one only in the tenth year.
In a scathing assessment of the Modi government’s China policy, Tellis writes that India relative weakness compels it to avoid provoking Beijing and it “seeks to avoid doing anything that results in an irrevocable rupture with Beijing”. He goes on to state that “New Delhi desires American support in its own confrontation with China while at the same time intending to shy away from any U.S.-China confrontation that does not directly affect its own equities”.
His argument diverges from the recent work of Lisa Curtis, a former official in the Trump White House, who wrote that “developments along the LAC in 2020 brought clarity to India’s strategic approach toward China, meaning India’s views of the China challenge are starting to converge with those of the United States.”
Meanwhile, Scott Savitz of RAND corporation has warned that hoping for an easy military victory against India, which would elevate perceptions of China’s military prowess and enable Beijing to better hone its forces for future combat, China could be tempted into a ‘splendid little war’ against India. He states that “defeating India in a limited border war might be a way for China to reassert itself for both domestic and international consumption”.
In a warning to the White House, Tellis says that “if the Biden administration proceeds to expand its investment in India, it should base its policies on a realistic assessment of Indian strategy and not on any delusions of New Delhi becoming a comrade-in-arms during some future crisis with Beijing”. He claims that New Delhi’s goal has been to receive all the help from the US to build its own domestic capabilities so that India can tackle the threats on their own.
Tellis is unenthusiastic on the Quad, writing that the Modi government has supported the grouping only “in some areas of low politics, such as vaccine distribution, infrastructure investments, and supply chain diversification, even as it insists that none of these initiatives are directed against China” while refusing to play any role in “securing meaningful military contributions to defeat any potential Chinese aggression” which is “the most burdensome challenge facing Washington in the Indo-Pacific”.
It calls into question this statement by Kurt Campbell, the White House coordinator for Indo-Pacific affairs: “We want to see an India that increasingly operates in the Indo-Pacific in a responsible way and you see that reflected in a number of engagements with Indian partners…we can hope for and expect in the US-Indian relationship is better and bigger things in the future and I think that includes working more together as partners on the security side as well.”
The next Quad summit is scheduled to held at Sydney in Australia on May 24. Besides Modi and Biden, it will witness the participation of will see the participation of Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese.