Pratap Bhanu Mehta: How did India manage to lose its neighbourhood? Answers lie at home

By Dilip -
As the border stand-off with China deepens, India will have to think of all possible strategic options that give it leverage in this crisis. One element often discussed in this context is new arrangements with a variety of powers. Many strategic experts are salivating at the prospect of an even closer alliance with the US.
This is a propitious moment to mobilise international opinion on China. The degree of global alienation with the Xi Jinping regime is unprecedented. But can this be translated into concerted global action to exert real pressure on China? India should pursue all possible avenues. But we should also have a clear-eyed view of the limitations of what new alliances or arrangements can do for India.

It is important to remember that international relations are formed in the context of a country’s development paradigm. India’s primary aim should be to preserve the maximum space for its development model, if it can actually formulate one. India is not unique in this respect. The US-China relationship may have had its origins in the strategic attempt to create a Sino-Soviet split. But for decades, this relationship was sustained not by a strategic logic, but by the logic of the political economy of development in both the US and China, where they reciprocally depended on each other. 

What has changed profoundly in the US is the view that this arrangement largely benefitted big business in America at the expense of its own domestic manufacturing base....
https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/india-china-border-dispute-on-our-own-pratap-bhanu-mehta/

 Modi blows hot air at China in a rally in Arunachal Pradesh // Vajpayee in 2003

Bharat Bhushan: China sizes up PM Modi and India // Mohan Guruswamy: Why the Chinese are laughing at us
Lt Gen H. S. Panag (retd): India’s Fingers have come under Chinese boots. Denial won’t help us // Colonel S Dinny: How China changed status quo
Uyghur leader Dolkun Isa’s statement on India’s withdrawal of his visa // India denies visa to Tiananmen activist Lu Jinghua

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