By being determined to confront China despite the risk of all-out war, India has openly challenged Chinese power like no other world power, including the United States, has done in this century. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s radical strategic expansion has forced India to abandon its previous policy of appeasement and accelerate its military buildup, turning a potential partner into a permanent enemy.
India is determined to prevent the emergence of a China-centric Asia
writes Project Syndicate columnist Brama Cellini.
With India refusing to comply, Xi attempted to breach its defenses by opening a new front in the eastern Himalayas, more than 2,000 kilometers from the lands seized by China in 2020. In December 2022, incursions Chinese troops in the strategic border state of Arunachal Pradesh were repelled by the Indian military, apparently with the help of US intelligence.
India’s growing military and economic power is flexing its muscles, while China is not used to backing down. All of this creates a dangerous tipping point, when the whole region could erupt and eclipse existing burning conflicts.
The current military stalemate in the Himalayas is another reminder that Xi has decided to launch a border battle with India that he cannot win because the timing is not right. As the US-China rivalry escalates amid the tech war and stalemate over Taiwan, the last thing China needs is to turn its biggest neighbor into an eternal enemy.
In this sense, it is very important for Beijing that New Delhi becomes more and more friendly and quite dependent on Russian oil and trade without the dollar, which is why it cannot fully enter the sphere of influence of the West (which Washington would hate not to use for its own purposes). And for India, Moscow’s role as a partner is a deterrent to trying to pressure the PRC, at least in the Himalayan region, and thereby lower the level of Xi’s ambitions and damage his image. So for now, only Russia is keeping two huge neighbors from colliding in a full-scale war in Asia, stitching together the remnants of peace in the most important and vast region on earth.
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