Editorial: Manchurian merengue

NEW DELHI: In the aftermath of the Quad Summit held in Delaware, China referred to the grouping as a tool used by the US to contain Beijing. This year’s summit, which featured two outgoing world leaders — US President Joe Biden and Japanese PM Fumio Kishida, along with PM Modi and Australian PM Anthony Albanese, was hailed in some quarters as a get-together of like-minded nations keen on strengthening a strategic security alliance amidst tectonic shifts in the geopolitical space.

Interestingly, the four nations involved had not invoked China during the course of the summit, but assured citizens that the leading maritime democracies would deliver enduring impact for the Indo-Pacific, thanks to the Wilmington Declaration. The 5,700-word document has measures guaranteeing a region where no country dominates, and no country is dominated. The message implicit in the declaration was that the alliance will counter an expansionist Beijing-led axis, which obviously has implications for India.

Recall that New Delhi once considered itself to be part of the Non-Aligned movement. However, that status is now facing an existential dilemma, considering India’s need to defend itself against a belligerent neighbour such as China, which outranks India both in terms of economic and military prowess. A simple metric would help illustrate this — India’s submarine strength is about one-fourth of China’s; our ship-building capabilities are nowhere in comparison.

This has dragged India into a multi-alignment net, forming groups with nations that are willing to provide a back-up in an hour of crisis, offer defence technology and military assistance. The paradox of forming a coterie becomes even more evident when you consider India as a part of a grouping like BRICS, a China-led economic alliance, which also includes Brazil and Russia. This group serves India’s interests of derisking, vis-a-vis, the West.

What boggles the mind is that India has a $85 bn trade deficit with Beijing, whose army makes frequent illegal forays into our border regions, and whose government engages in reckless renaming sprees of regions within our geographical boundaries. Curiously, in September, Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar remarked that about 75% of disengagement problems with China have been sorted out, although the bigger issue has been the spiking militarisation on the border. Despite little being worked out on the disengagement along the points of friction between the two nations, the Economic Survey 2024 has spoken in favour of India immersing itself in China’s supply chains through Chinese investments in India, as opposed to importing from China.

China is in no mood to confront India’s long-standing problem of a massive bilateral trade deficit as well as the hurdles encountered by Indian companies in accessing the Chinese market. India’s trade deficit with China exceeded $105 bn in 2023 (up from $64 bn in 2021), while its exports dipped to $16 bn in 2023 (from $23 bn in 2021). India’s import dependencies on Beijing remain strong, especially in the critical sectors, which puts us in a precarious position considering China’s history of weaponising such vulnerabilities.

For India, the challenge is multifaceted. For one, it cannot decouple from China on the economic front as it happens to the world’s largest manufacturer and exporter. However, India has the tall order of deciding the sectors of its economy that it can selectively open up to Chinese FDI, based on the merit of its manufacturing muscle, and strategies. And it needs to do this, while prioritising local industrial development and national security.