US-India Partnership driven by China
With Donald Trump's visit, prospects of US India's ties strengthening are deepening especially at a point in time when both the countries' mutually have problems with their nemesis China. Donald Trump’s visit aims at presenting an opportunity to move the Indo-Pacific agenda forward for allied proceedings.
BY SIRJAN KAUR KOHLI | 4 Mins Read
In all possibility the “C” word is not to be mentioned publicly during Donald Trump’s visit to India. A report recently revealed that the US president had no idea that China and India share a 2,500-mile border. Arguably, though, Mr Trump’s trip would not be taking place without shared concerns about China’s rise, which have driven the US-India partnership over the past two decades.
The results of these shared anxieties about Beijing’s intentions and actions have been evident in recent years. The Trump administration and Modi government have started a yearly foreign and defence ministers’ dialogue, worked on upgradations of their trilateral relations with Japan and revived a quadrilateral dialogue that includes Australia as well.
India has signed several agreements with the United States to enhance military co-operations and intelligence sharing and to make optimum use of the available American military equipment. Both countries have upgraded and expanded mutual military exercises. . India and America's navies can also be found sailing with the Filipinos and Japanese through the South China Sea.
The blossoming US-India partnership is similar to the one that existed in the 1950s and 1960s, when both countries saw China as a threat. The current partnership also comes from a similar root and similar motives. The prior convergence led to significant American economic aid to India and benefitted the country's economy, military assistance and, after the 1962 Sino-Indian war, an air defence agreement and intelligence sharing further strengthened and tightened the bond.
The US and India maintain a wide-based strategic partnership, carried on by shared interests, democratic values and strong people-to-people ties through years of mutual dependence and understanding.
Acknowledging the strategic partnership between India and the US has strengthened significantly over the past few years, the Congress revealed that both countries realise the importance of the Indo-Pacific alliance to global trade and commerce and share a common outlook on the region and the benefits derivable from it.
The Indo-Pacific region contributes to two-thirds of global growth in gross domestic product (GDP) and accounts for 60 per cent of the global GDP in all.
The region includes the world's current largest economies- the United States, China and Japan- and six of the world's fastest growing economies - India, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Nepal and the Philippines.
About a quarter of the US exports go to the Indo-Pacific. Exports made to India and China have more than doubled over the past decade because of the existence of free and open trade routes through the air, sea, land, space and cyber commons that form the current global system.
Therefore India and US relations are strengthening because of the common target of the two. The unification of these two countries and building stronger alliance becomes the motive and the reason for the US President's recent visit to India. The visit being planned at a time when the trade war is in action further proves the motivation behind this visit.