Beijing’s rogue behaviour with India is coming back to haunt China at a time when it is isolated amidst a global campaign to support the WHO membership bid of Taiwan.
India has kept its cards close to its chest and has not come out publicly supporting Taiwan’s WHO membership bid or denouncing the “One China Principle” explicitly. But the larger pattern over the recent past is clear. China is trying to hamper India’s interests, and the Modi government is standing up to Chinese aggression and putting a check on Chinese influence globally. And this trend of India’s constant rejection of China, makes it clear that India’s position will be inclined towards Taiwan.
India has a multitude of reasons to support Taiwan and none to back Beijing’s “One China Principle”. Ever since the Modi government came to power, relations have been such that it is unlikely for India to take a pro-China stance on the Taiwan issue.
The Modi government’s policy over the years has been circled around not letting the mighty Dragon grow bigger than what it already is. To start off, the present administration started building solid road infrastructure close to the Line of Actual Control (LAC)- the effective Sino-India border. This is at variance with the past Congress regimes in India that played into Beijing’s hands by not constructing border roads along the LAC to avoid giving the Chinese troops an easy path in case of another 1962 war-like event.
Then came the biggest fallout. India refused to participate in China’s ambitious $1 trillion Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). There was extensive international pressure on India throughout 2016 and 2017 to join this Chinese infrastructure project. But New Delhi saw through Beijing’s ‘debt trap’ diplomacy right then and there.
India had a chance to put Kolkata on the BRI map. But India understood how the BRI furthered China’s ‘string of pearls’ strategy to encircle India in its own vicinity with infrastructure investments in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Pakistan.
More importantly, India had another objection to the BRI project. Under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor– a part of the BRI project, China has kickstarted infrastructure projects in Pakistan occupied Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan, both of which form a part of India’s territory currently occupied by Pakistan. China, Pakistan’s all-weather ally and money-lending master, showed an absolute disregard for India’s sovereignty and no sweet-talk could make India join the BRI.
Since 2017, India has persistently resisted invites to join the BRI despite several other countries going ahead to join it. And to weaken bilateral ties further, the Doklam stand-off happened in the year 2017, when the Modi government once again boldly stood up to Chinese aggression.
The Indian Army engaged itself in a tense stand-off with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) at the Doklam Plateau on the China-Bhutan border for 73 days. India’s courageous step to rescue Bhutan from Chinese expansionism took the Chinese by surprise, and ultimately the latter backed off. New Delhi literally gave China a bloody nose, embarrassing it before the international community.
This pattern of rejecting Beijing’s domineering continued last year when India junked the China-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). India’s reason to reject the RCEP was simple- out of the 15 countries, India already had a free trade agreement with the ten ASEAN countries. The only countries with whom India would have got free-market access were New Zealand, Australia and China. China had much to gain from RCEP, and it envisioned leading a trading bloc in the Indo-Pacific. India wouldn’t let this happen.
With this move, India made it clear that it won’t even accidentally allow China to gain hold of a huge trading bloc that could give Beijing a giant leap. India would sign bilateral free trade agreements with Australia and New Zealand instead of accidentally ending up in a bloc that puts the Dragon in a dominating position.
India’s rejection of the Chinese alliance is not unilateral either. In fact, it is consequential. China has constantly maintained a hostile approach against India by allying with Pakistan and turning a blind eye to Pakistan-sponsored terrorism. China’s attempts to build naval bases in the Indian ocean by using debt-trap diplomacy with India’s neighbours, is also not lost on New Delhi. Chinese expansionism at the border with India also hardened India’s distrust of the dragon.
Reluctant to share power with India, China has been trying to drag down its neighbour. China has repeatedly blocked India’s entry in the 48-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). India has managed to gain support from all the major global players except China in its membership bid in the NSG.
At the UN Security Council, India has been able to gain favour with all permanent members, except China. The US, the UK, France and Russia have backed India’s UNSC membership, but Beijing has become a roadblock in way of India’s ambitions to become a Permanent member of the UNSC.
China is not a friend on a bilateral front either. The country has deliberately kept border disputes living with India despite India’s insistence to resolve them. China believes in expansionism and constantly laying claim on territory. Therefore, it doesn’t want to finalise a binding for once and for all. It wants to keep disputes living so that it can keep pushing further.
China meddles deeply with India’s internal affairs in Kashmir, hence why should New Delhi recognise the baseless “One China Principle”? After the Pulwama attack, China kept shielding the JeM chief, Masood Azhar and relented only when diplomatic costs became too exorbitant. After the abrogation of Article 370, a matter totally internal to India, China has raised it three times at the UN Security Council at the behest of its “all weather ally” Pakistan.
India can afford to be discreet in its Taiwan policy. No one is forcing New Delhi to pronounce its Taiwan stand immediately. But eventually India has to lean in favour of Taiwan’s pro-Independence outlook. Till then, PM Modi can afford to keep his card close to his chest, while Xi Jinping remains on the edge.