US- INDIA RELATIONSHIP AND CHINA CRISIS

A border clash has plunged ties between India and China to their lowest point in decades. But one beneficiary looks clear — the connection between us and India.

Experts say India could finally end equivocation about openly aligning itself with the long-eager US, although there'll still be disagreements which, paradoxically, are now mostly thanks to Washington.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters that China “took incredibly aggressive action” during a hand-to-hand battle within the remote Himalayas on June 15 that killed 20 Indian soldiers.

The hawkish Pompeo characterized the violence as a part of a broader strategy by Beijing to challenge all of its neighbors.

Jeff M. Smith, a search fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation who has written a book on the India-China rivalry, said the US is understood to supply border intelligence to India, which is now likely to select up the pace on defense acquisitions.

But Smith said that India has asked the US to be publicly circumspect — partially to point out the domestic audience that New Delhi doesn't need help.

India also doesn't want “to feed Chinese propaganda narratives that this is often all a component of the China-US rivalry which India is functioning at America's behest,” Smith said.

Michael Kugelman, a South Asia expert at the Wilson International Center for Scholars, cautioned that neither India nor China wanted an entire rupture and said that both still saw some common interests, especially in international organizations.

“But make no mistake: This current India-China crisis may be a watershed for the geopolitics of Asia, and therefore the US-India relationship is going to be one among the most beneficiaries,” he said.

“Previous Indian concern about antagonizing China if it moves closer to the US is beginning to melt away.”

'Transactional' ties

The as been seeking warmer ties since the 1990s with India, which insisted during the conflict on being “non-aligned” on the worldwide stage.

US President Donald Trump has seemed to form a bond with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, a fellow nationalist who warns of the threat of radical Islam, and therefore the pair have held two joint mega-rallies.

But Trump, his eyes reception before elections, has also taken action detrimental to India, including last year kicking it out of a preferential trade status under which it had exported billions of dollars in goods.

Trump, citing the coronavirus pandemic, more recently has suspended high-tech visas and threatened to expel international students, moves with significant impacts on Indians.

India is happy to ascertain Trump's tougher stances on China also as historic adversary Pakistan but also feels demands, especially on trade, said Aparna Pande, director of the Hudson Institute's Initiative on the longer term of India and South Asia.

“It may be a semi-transactional relationship. it's not a strategic relationship, because it was in earlier years,” she said.

Trump, who has frequently sparred with Western allies, might not even need a more committed relationship with India, she said.

“I wouldn't say there's the maximum amount reluctance on the Indian side. That has calmed down,” Pande said. “The two are closer than they need ever been. But are the 2 able to take that extra step?”

Warmth no matter election

In another recent shift, US lawmakers, mostly Democrats, have openly criticized India on human rights, including Modi's revocation of autonomy and controls on the web in occupied Kashmir.

Anthony Blinken, an in-depth aide to presidential candidate Joe Biden, said that the Democrat if he defeats Trump, would seek to “strengthen and deepen” the connection with India. But Blinken shared concerns on freedoms.

“You're always better engaging with a partner, and a vitally important one like India, once you can speak frankly and directly about areas where you've got differences,” Blinken said at the Hudson Institute.

Trump has stayed mum on rights and has offered, with little detail, to mediate between India and China.

But John Bolton, Trump's former national security adviser who recently published an explosive memoir, doubted Trump understood the border situation.

“He may are briefed thereon, but history doesn't really persist with him,” Bolton told Indian news channel WION.