As President Donald Trump embarks on a historic five-nation tour of Asia, beginning in Japan, it is time for the Asian giants to fasten their seat belts. At this strategic conjuncture, India and China are engaging in a tough race to establish cordial ties with Trump’s US while ensuring a healthy partnership with other Asian states, such as Japan. With Asia is in the spotlight, India will be well advised to maintain a strategic posture equidistant from the US and China.
Trump’s Asia tour comes with three prominent objectives. First, he aims to build a stronger security alliance with the major Asian powers, primarily Japan and South Korea, as evidenced by a range of scheduled multilateral summits. Secondly, he wants to establish a like-minded grouping to counter the aggressive Kim regime and an expansive China. Last but not least, he is pushing for strong economic and trade relations with the major states in the region, including China – the latter having gained immense significance with the withdrawal of the US from the Trans-Pacific Partnership and China’s purported takeover as the region’s economic powerhouse.
This comes in the context of Trump’s asserted eagerness to intervene aggressively in Afghanistan. In his recent announcement, he went on to suggest the time had come for India to set boots on the ground and play a pivotal role in transforming the conflict there. While keen to engage with the Asian powers more actively, Trump is committed to prioritizing US security interests in Afghanistan, rather than investing in the process of nation-building which has been India’s raison d’etre in the region. In addition, he has cautioned Pakistan to stop being a safe haven for terrorists.
Trump may have reassured many in Afghanistan,struggling with exhausted security forces and a dilapidated socio-economic infrastructure. But the role he envisages for the US in the region merits close scrutiny. India, having invested heavily in developmental efforts in Afghanistan, has time and again refrained from engaging militarily in the state, even when the US ‘global war on terror’ agenda was at its peak.
While Pakistan has enjoined India to act cautiously in Afghanistan, India has equally been restrained, with its ideological stance of non-intervention and commitment to the process of nation-building. An increased US focus on the region would however ramp up Pakistan’s engagement with its strategic partner and all-weather friend, China, which has been a vocal supporter of its Afghan policy.
Trump seems to have reckoned on a policy which harnesses US interest to the optimum while expecting India to follow suit. Indeed, highlighting India’s trade relationship with the US, he suggested India had a responsibility to support it in Afghanistan. From India’s perspective, however, it seems pertinent to engage with Afghanistan cautiously, taking into account the several contributing, and restraining, factors affecting India’s posture in the region.
India has been the centerpiece of Afghanistan’s rebuilding process. With an investment of US$2 billion and a commitment of another $1 billion by September next year, India has established itself as a significant neighbor for Afghanistan. Conversely, New Delhi’s ties with Beijing have reached a dead end, with India reluctant to get on board with the ‘one belt, one road’ initiative and anxious about China’s engagements with Pakistan. It is in this context that India ought to view Trump’s reinvigorated interest in the region, his perception of the conflict and the role he believes the US should play.
As Trump sees it, the US aspires to be a conflict mediator – not primarily to establish peace in the region, however, but to ensure that terrorism emanating from it does not spread to the US. Trump’s Asia strategy also betrays an ambition to establish a stronger US presence as an expression of status as much as in pursuit of security. With his bellicose rhetoric on the Afghan conflict, Trump ensures (by his lights) that the US is perceived as a powerful country in the region, its superpower status accruing thereby greater legitimacy and recognition.
It only makes sense at this hour for India to tread very cautiously, without injuring its status in the region – peaceful and non-interventionist vis-a-vis affairs in Afghanistan. While China will lurk in the background, as a country trying to erect an image of being the strongest in the region, India will gain heavily from maintaining a safe distance from both the US and China.