Staying the Course on the China Consensus Requires Reassurances in Post-Ukraine Global Order

This article is part of the series—Raisina Edit 2022.

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In a disruptive global order upended by the pandemic, the aftershocks of the Ukraine crisis have claimed an important victim, at least in perception. The fragility of geopolitical perceptions stand exposed. The ability of the coalition of the willing to manage the China challenge and stay focused on the Indo-Pacific theatre has been called into question. This is unfortunate, not because it is true, but because it plays into narratives of adversaries, quick to project perceptual differences as a break in commitment and consensus. This perception needs to be checked in the Indo-Pacific, which is sensitive to the slightest winds of change, given incessant bullying by China. Worryingly, it also knocks down compacts declaring ‘habits of cooperation’ that help withstand the bluster of disinformation synonyms with new-age wars. The critique of India by sections of the western media for its independent stand on the crisis is a case in point.

India responded with calls for immediate cessation of violence, the demand for the non-politicisation of a humanitarian crisis, and reportedly disagreed to co-sponsor a resolution on the behest of Russia.

The counterproductive messaging coming from certain commentariat bludgeoning home the “you are either with us or against us” agenda has drowned out the progress made by practitioners on all sides working to resolve differences behind closed doors. For one, when the foreign ministers of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) countries met in Melbourne, Australia, in February, India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar clarified: “we are for something not against someone.” In fact, the West, including Quad members, have empathised with India’s evolving position , even as they made a case for New Delhi to demur Moscow’s actions. India responded with calls for immediate cessation of violence, the demand for the non-politicisation of a humanitarian crisis, and reportedly disagreed to co-sponsor a resolution on the behest of Russia. However, what the crisis exposed is an enduring weakness of misinterpreting Indian foreign policy. First, the cacophony is tone deaf to India avoiding extreme strategic and political behaviour in world politics. Second, it reveals the lack of conceptual clarity on how India applies its practice of strategic autonomy. Colouring a tool to maximise India’s strategic options with selective moral grand standing is unfair. As witnessed in the past, New Delhi has fallen out of favour with global mandates often when it secures its national interests. Third, the caveat of “aligned not treaty ally” that informs and anchors how India’s strategic partnerships operate need to be understood and mainstreamed. This fundamental tenet holds true for India's approach when it joins forces with the global powers on contemporary challenges, including managing China, and stays the course after Ukraine. Importantly, it explains why the West and its allies find India useful in efforts to impose costs to Chinese unilateralism, but simultaneously allows for divergence on interests that are not aligned—like Russia or Iran in the past. Thus, for countries working hard to stitch together a loose-knit regional architecture, such messaging by sections is counterproductive. First, because India’s evolving position—which had to factor a quick evacuation of stranded Indian students, its dependency on Russian arms and spares, its energy necessities,  or rationale for its voting patterns at the United Nations General Assembly—has been clearly articulated by New Delhi. The spin of values that ride the hyperbole in some western narratives castigating India are often selective in their bias and undercut their internal debates on the dangers of foregrounding the ideological dimension of global competition and rivalry.

This fundamental tenet holds true for India's approach when it joins forces with the global powers on contemporary challenges, including managing China, and stays the course after Ukraine.

Second, this messaging is being tracked by many developing countries in the Indo-Pacific, who are already weary of choosing sides. It additionally undermines assurances that guarantee equity and individual agency as fundamental to capacity building exercises offered to nations. If this troubled region is to be convinced that the Indo-Pacific vision is a positive one, not based on binary choices, we must walk the talk. The reality is that co-operation in the Indo-Pacific among leading partners continues to be prioritised and requires the momentum to be sustained. The US 2022 National Defense Strategy reiterated that Washington was not willing to take its eyes off China, despite the Ukraine crisis. To be fair, despite the current/perceived frustrations with New Delhi, the document put India at the centre of Washington’s plan for the region, describing India as driving force of the Quad. Sensitive to India’s challenges along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), it credited India as "an engine for regional growth”, which was a befitting  in shaping strategic outcomes in the Indo-Pacific. Similarly, from India’s perspective, the red lines vis-a-vis China remain despite the Chinese foreign minister’s orchestrated outreach in March. While the visit was aimed at signalling the possibility of new alignments, India clarified that there was no reverting to business as usual, until the situation was resolved along the LAC. Despite optics over Ukraine, a stream of high profile visits to New Delhi from global capitals reaffirmed that Indo-Pacific cooperation remains vital. The Indian foreign secretary’s briefing on the India-Australia Summit highlighted that “leaders had a fairly clear perspective that the situation in Ukraine should not impact the Indo-Pacific and that the focus and priority of the Indo-Pacific for the Quad and for our countries should continue to remain as they were.” The breakthrough interim Free Trade Agreement with Australia, aiming for US$45 billion in bilateral trade in five years, or Tokyo’s investment target of US$42 billion in India over the same period, were announced after landmark summits. These deals are important as both partners nations already partner New Delhi in the Supply Chain Resilience Initiative and the India-led Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative, working on rewiring regional supply chains, attracting investment, and delivering quality infrastructure. Similarly, the recently concluded US-India 2+2 shows that public narratives notwithstanding both sides are going the extra mile to deliver tangibles bilaterally, prioritising the political and economic turmoil in South Asia  and reaffirming  Indo-Pacific cooperation.

The breakthrough interim Free Trade Agreement with Australia, aiming for US$45 billion in bilateral trade in five years, or Tokyo’s investment target of US$42 billion in India over the same period, were announced after landmark summits.

Given the global low economic recovery post-pandemic, amplified further by an energy and commodity price rise amid the Ukraine crisis, it is vital that burden sharing is scaled up. There exist frameworks for mitigation as far as the building blocks of Indo-Pacific cooperation go. These are exemplified in three specific trends: Issue-based coalitions driven by function, where flexibility of these configurations remain a strategic asset; like-minded countries working together in overlapping bilateral, minilateral, and plurilateral formats; and a focused effort on building capacity of countries to give them viable alternatives vis a vis China. Consensus is key, , because Indo-Pacific is a “big and complicated region” that needs countries to be “open to many building blocks..(…) instead of seeing shadows.” As the Ukraine crisis unfolds, this approach holds true for challenges that Indo-Pacific nations currently face. Despite the rhetoric, the economic blueprint of Indo-Pacific cooperation is lacking. New Delhi will require strategic partners to come on board and devise ways to handle crises in the neighbourhood given realistic resource constraints. Connectivity initiatives like the Build Back Better World or Europe’s Global Gateway project, tipped to match China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in scale and economic heft, allow for alignment with India’s plans. For the developing world, these look solid on paper, as they offer more transparency and green alternatives for infrastructure investments. Yet, in execution, the of delivering model projects and finding ways to “resonate with leaders,” especially where BRI inroads exist, remains challenging. Secondly, the stated goal of countering a “Digital Sinosphere,” while harmonising standard setting especially among Quad partners, is easier said than done. Experts point out that this will be difficult because divergences on elemental technology issues such as cross-border data flows, data privacy, payments, digital taxation, competition, and e-commerce still need to be ironed out. These are a few examples, but the larger point remains that tangible deliverables in the Indo-Pacific theatre will determine how successful the consensus of managing the China challenge proves to be and whether attempts to build habits of cooperation will endure. The Ukraine crisis spotlights that consensus on foreign policy calculations, even regarding Beijing, is a work in progress. Geopolitical perceptions are flimsy and can hold hostage global diplomacy in an era of transactional relationships. Staying the course on the China consensus will not only need sustaining the momentum but will also require reassurances in the post-Ukraine global order.

• International Affairs
• Great Power Dynamics
• China
• European Union
• India
• Russia and Eurasia
• The Pacific, East and Southeast Asia
• BRI
• Free Trade Agreement
• Global Order
• Indo-Pacific
• Post-Ukraine
• QUAD
• Ukraine crisis
• UNGA

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