FOREIGN POLICY: New, Strong and Clear Outreach

[Kharavela]

After Sushma
India needs a working Foreign Minister right away.
By N.V. Subramanian (7 December 2016)
New Delhi: In all the turmoil over demonetization, one thing has gone unnoticed. India has been without a working Foreign Minister since Sushma Swaraj was hospitalized. Her recovery from an imminent kidney transplant would take its due course and Prime Minister Narendra Modi would have to fill the vacancy at the earliest. This writer will not draw up a candidates’ list nor comment on a single name making the rounds as a possible successor. In this matter, the Prime Minister’s judgement would be superior. At the same time, the position cannot be left unfilled for much longer.

The world promises to be a topsy-turvy place after the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump on 20th January. It would be unfair to blame Trump entirely or even substantially for the looming uncertainties and disequilibrium. When a Great Power becomes less sure of itself, goes into decline, and retrenches from global engagements with tiresome regularity as it has happened with the United States under Barack Obama, their cumulative repercussions are bound to overflow the election cycle and bedevil future administrations. In that sense, Trump would be a victim of Obama’s presidency more or less to the same degree as Obama was to George W. Bush’s two terms. Since the United States is a democratic Great Power, the decline is still manageable. It will not come down with a thud like Soviet Russia did or China would if it imperially overstretches itself.

For all manner of contingencies, however, India has to be prepared. The key to being prepared is that India gains a full-fledged Foreign Minister at the earliest. Indian Foreign Ministers do not principally formulate foreign policy. That responsibility firmly vests with the Prime Minister, the elected head of government. At first look, this may seem unusual. It is not. Foreign policy does not exist in isolation. It flows out of domestic politics and constitutes that part of polity that secures the country’s external interests. From the time of Jawaharlal Nehru, Indian Prime Ministers have kept total control of foreign policy-making, and Prime Minister Modi cannot be an exception. But even in these circumstances of wielding curtailed and quite limited powers, Foreign Ministers play a significant role. Their significance has greatly rebounded now as the Donald Trump era comes into play.

Sooner or later, India has to abandon the policy of non-alignment and strategic autonomy. It could be argued that India has scarcely been non-aligned or strategically autonomous since the Cold War ended. Even during the Cold War, India flirted with the two rivalrous blocs. After the 1962 debacle, Nehru desperately leaned towards the US; and Indira Gandhi’s 1971 war victory should not have been possible without the peace and friendship treaty with Soviet Russia. Still, the Cold War put such pressure on the two superpowers for allies that they were often constrained to put up with half-hearted friends. India gained from this scope for ambivalence. The situation that obtains now and in the immediate future does not allow for a large degree of successful high-wire acts. India no longer claims non-alignment as a central policy. There may be some residual nostalgia about the Non-Aligned Movement but that is that. Strategic autonomy had a nicer ring but no longer serves India’s interests sufficiently. The world has grown too multi-polar to suffer the hypocrisy of such terms. Unless two nations are sure of each other’s alliance and all-weather friendship, strategic ties won’t be secure. For example, Japan and India have to enter a formal alliance to manage and stabilize the Indo-Pacific region. India cannot claim strategic autonomy and still expect assistance from the Asia-Pacific region against its northern adversary.

In other words, India has to assess the entire spectrum of external relations and advance ties to its best interests. Prime Minister Modi would need a highly active and energetic Foreign Minister to align the world closer to India’s strategic interests. His core vision and that of the Union cabinet would still drive foreign policy. But its external execution would continue to demand a highly capable and meritorious Foreign Minister. Sushma Swaraj was all these and her successor must carry to office her admirable qualities and compassion. Her successor must be appointed soon.

Editor’s Note: The Reserve Bank might like to explore with the central banks of the US, the UK and Japan about the expeditious printing of Indian currency notes to meet the current currency crunch. Indian gold was pledged overseas and kept in the Bank of England in the early 1990s. If sovereignty was not compromised then, it would be safe with this suggestion too. Obviously, some sort of parliamentary approval would have to be obtained, and the President and the Supreme Court brought into the picture at the same time. The cash crisis needs immediate redress. A cashless economy cannot be imposed before its natural time, which is at least two years away, if not more.

N.V.Subramanian is the Editor of www.newsinsight.net.

Source: http://www.newsinsight.net/AfterSushma.aspx#page=page-1

 

[prohumanity]

Firstly, Sushma Swaraj had a successful kidney transplant and she is here to stay for some more years.
As for India's foreign policy, India has never been and will not be a puppet of any major power...that's not in India's nature.
At best, what I see...India is going to remain more or less autonomous in its foreign policy with being a pillar of fast evolving multi-polar world.
With BJP at the helms...India's strategic autonomy is even more certain. With rising economic and military power, India will be courted by USA and Europe but it's foolhardy to imagine India becoming a vassal state of any of these western powers. Using Pakistan to keep India on edge has become an obsolete policy.

Pitting India against China ,also not going to succeed as a war between two giants will lead to total destruction of the world including the western world ,who will regret such an outcome.

 

[indiandefencefan]

Trump should read India's playbook for taunting China
Donald Trump's decision to break protocol and become the first president-elect in decades to speak by phone with a Taiwanese president was either a colossal blunder or a shrewd strategic coup, depending on which Beltway insider you ask. At the least, Trump's divisive exchange with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has sparked a substantive debate about the nature of U.S.-China-Taiwan relations and the sanctity of Beijing's version of the "One-China" policy, which codifies China's inalienable sovereignty over Taiwan and Tibet.

Yet, as Washington braces for potential blowback from Beijing, both critics and supporters of the Trump-Tsai exchange have overlooked one key fact. In an era when global powers are shunning both Taiwanese and Tibetan leaders (like the Dalai Lama) under the weight of Chinese pressure, one country has been openly challenging Beijing's One-China policy for more than six years: India.

Like many of China's neighbors, in the late 2000s India was still adjusting to the more assertive and nationalistic brand of Chinese foreign policy that emerged in 2008, when Beijing's leaders interpreted the global financial crisis as symbolic of a great power shift from a declining West to an ascendant China. Bilateral ties were repeatedly tested by friction over Chinese incursions into India across their disputed border, Beijing's efforts to block U.N. sanctions on Pakistan-based terrorists, and visits by the Indian prime minister and the Dalai Lama to the state of Arunachal Pradesh, most of which is claimed by China as "South Tibet," among others.

One Chinese provocation cut deeper than the rest. In 2010, Beijing denied a visa to Lt. Gen. B.S. Jaswal on account of his posting as the head of India's military command in Kashmir, the long-disputed territory claimed by China's "all-weather friend" Pakistan. China had been employing consular chicanery with India for years - stapling separate, unique visas to Indian residents of Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh as an informal challenge to Indian sovereignty there - but the denial of a visa to Jaswal struck a nerve.

New Delhi's reaction was uncharacteristically swift and punitive, suspending all forms of bilateral military ties and joint exercises. When Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited New Delhi in December 2010, for the first time India refused to acknowledge the One-China policy in a joint statement with China. Beijing, New Delhi signaled, would have to recognize Indian sovereignty over Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh if it wanted India's consent on the One-China policy. "The ball is in their court. There is no doubt about that," explained Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao at the time.

Joint statements in the years to follow continued to omit the One-China policy, a position adopted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he assumed office in 2014. "For India to agree on a one-China policy, China should reaffirm a one-India policy," External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj declared before Chinese President Xi Jinping's first trip to New Delhi in September 2014. "When they raised the issue of Tibet and Taiwan with us, we shared their sensitivities. … They should understand and appreciate our sensitivities regarding Arunachal Pradesh."

China relented on the visa question two years after Wen's visit, and military ties were restored shortly thereafter. More important, six years after India's change of heart on One-China policy, it has suffered no discernable political or economic backlash that can be tied to the policy shift.

To be sure, India's denial of the One-China policy is less emotionally and politically contentious for China than any shift in American posture toward Taiwan. In the context of China-India relations, the One-China policy mostly relates to Tibet and, to a lesser extent, their long-standing border dispute, in which more than 30,000 square miles of Indian territory is still claimed by Beijing.

In 1947, the Republic of India inherited from the British Raj an unsettled border with China and a series of special trading privileges with Tibet, including the right to station escort troops at specified trading posts. Ever since China "peacefully liberated" Tibet in 1950, it has been critical of Indian intentions on the plateau and sensitive to Indian interference there. That anxiety was amplified after the Dalai Lama fled a Chinese crackdown in 1959 and sought refuge in India, later establishing a Tibetan government in exile in Dharamsala. After China and India fought a monthlong war across their disputed border in 1962, Chinese leaders argued that the "center of the Sino-Indian conflict" was not the border dispute but a "conflict of interests in Tibet."

It's notable, then, that beyond its broad refusal to endorse the One-China policy, New Delhi has given no indication that it plans to walk back its repeated reaffirmations of Chinese sovereignty over Tibet (much less Taiwan). On the other hand, Prime Minister Modi has adopted several initiatives short of that threshold to signal a more defiant posture on Tibet and the border dispute. Early in his tenure, for instance, Modi fast-tracked military and civilian infrastructure upgrades along the disputed Sino-Indian border, where Beijing has enjoyed a large and widening advantage.

More recently, New Delhi granted the Dalai Lama permission to visit Arunachal Pradesh in early 2017, a move that has drawn Chinese ire in the past. Perhaps most surprising, this past October New Delhi granted U.S. Ambassador to India Richard Verma access to the sensitive, Chinese-claimed town of Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh, another first. And just last week Indian President Pranab Mukherjee hosted the Dalai Lama at India's Presidential Palace, blithely dismissing Beijing's protesting diplomatic note. In a rare move, it even offered to help Mongolia weather trade sanctions recently imposed by Beijing as punishment for Mongolia's hosting of the Dalai Lama in November. None of this has resulted in any direct punitive response from Beijing.

It's not just Tibet, either. Since the visa denial incident in 2010, India has witnessed a marked acceleration in its outreach to Taiwan, including hosting several Taiwanese government ministers in 2011; signing new agreements on double taxation avoidance, cultural cooperation, and mutual degree recognition; permitting a former Taiwanese president and vice president transit layovers in 2012 and 2014, respectively; and inviting a former Taiwanese official to address two high-profile international conferences this year. These moves have yet to draw any sharp response from the mainland.

What does India's approach to the One-China policy tell us about the Trump-Tsai phone call? Namely, that questioning the sanctity of the One-China policy is not necessarily a "death sentence" with Beijing, especially when the challenges are indirect and inexplicit. To date, China's muted response to the phone call supports that assessment.

To Beijing's mandarins, Modi represents an unfamiliar commodity: a confident, assertive, nationalist Indian leader with a surplus of political capital. The same is even truer for Trump, who, for China, remains shrouded in a cloak of uncertainty and unpredictability. China's leadership isn't nearly as confident that it can predict Trump's response to each move on the regional chessboard, compared with Barack Obama's more calculable style, and is naturally inclined to proceed cautiously. After years of testing the "red lines" of its neighbors and Washington as well, Beijing is not nearly as comfortable being on the receiving end.

If the Trump-Tsai exchange was part of a nuanced, calibrated strategy designed to diminish China's near-monopoly on strategic ambiguity and the initiative it seized during the Obama administration, it could eventually produce a more balanced trilateral relationship between the United States, China, and Taiwan.

If, on the other hand, the Trump-Tsai exchange precedes a more indiscriminately vindictive posture toward China using Taiwan as a pressure point, Trump's team should be prepared for a wide range of potentially volatile, dangerous, and unpredictable Chinese responses.

As a party to more than a dozen meetings in Beijing and Washington with China's current Taiwan affairs minister, Zhang Zhijun, and to numerous exchanges on Taiwan with some of China's senior-most diplomats, I find it difficult to overstate the intensity and seriousness Beijing devotes to Taiwan and its status. It is far more sensitive to changes in America's posture on One-China policy than India, partly because China has never felt particularly threatened by Indian power, and partly because its leadership has more directly linked its legitimacy to the reunification of Taiwan than to any issue related to Tibet.

That doesn't mean Washington should compromise its values under threat of Chinese coercion: I believe the U.S. president should reserve the right to speak to whomever he likes and at the time of his choosing, whether that's Taiwan's president or the Dalai Lama.

Trump and his team appear to have reclaimed that right and, thus far, to have moved the needle on Taiwan without destabilizing ties with China. But for this to be remembered as a shrewd strategic coup, they will have to walk a fine line in creating a new balance in trilateral relations not only more favorable to U.S. and Taiwanese interests but stable enough to prevent an unnecessary war with China in the Western Pacific.



---



Smith is the director of Asian security programs at the American Foreign Policy Council and author of Cold Peace: China-India Rivalry in the Twenty-First Century.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-wp-china-policy-comment-883b5ae6-c6ce-11e6-8bee-54e800ef2a63-20161220-story.html

 

[Kshatriya87]

Our policy is to take action at any place, any time: Army Chief Gen Bipin Rawat

NEW DELHI: Army Chief Gen Bipin Rawat today promised tough position against terrorism and warned Pakistan that any ceasefire violation on the Line of Control (LoC) would be responded befittingly with "force".

Gen Rawat, who said India wants peace on the frontiers with Pakistan as well as China, said, "Our efforts to restore peace on the border must not be viewed as our weakness" as "While being always ready, our policy is to take action at any place and any time."

He said, "I understand that our competitors" are aware of the strengths of the Indian armed forces.

"Despite Pakistan's continuous support to proxy war against India, we want peace on the Line of Control," he said addressing officers and jawans of the force at Parade Ground here on the occasion of Army Day.

"However, We will not hesitate from giving a fitting reply in case of any ceasefire violation," said Gen Rawat, who took over as head of the 12 lakh-strong force only 15 days back.

He said "ceasefire violations or untoward incidents propagated by Pakistan will be responded to by force" by the Indian army.

"I repeat, we will give a befitting reply to any action on LC or the border," the army chief said.

His warning to Pakistan came two days after he made it clear that more surgical strikes cannot be ruled out as India has the "right to retaliate" if Pakistan does not react positively to offers of peace.

On the terror menace, he said the situation on this front had "become very sensitive recently but due to brave action of the armed forces on the ground, we were able to improve on the situation."

He hailed the commendable job being done by the soldiers to stop the cross-border infiltration.

"On the northern front, India wants peace with China. Both sides are adopting confidence building measures (CBMs) so that tension on the border can be reduced. Despite transgressions on LAC, the armies on both sides have improved on mutual coordination," said Gen Rawat.

 

[Kshatriya87]

India's most intense dialogue with Nobel Foundation

By PTI | Updated: Jan 15, 2017, 10.50 AM IST

AHMEDABAD: The Nobel Prize is one of the most coveted awards of the world and India's strike rate is abysmally low -- just four Indian citizens have won the award out of the 870 individual winners since 1901.

India accounts for every sixth person who walks on the globe and the number of Nobel Awards won by Indian citizens amounts to a mere 0.45 per cent for a country of 1.3 billion! In all only 15 people of Indian origin have won the coveted prize.

Hoping to correct this situation soon, India has embarked on the most intense dialogue with Nobel Foundation till date. Towards that there is an effort to expose the younger generation to what it means and how lives have been transformed by thinkers and doers who won the Nobel Prize.

As part of the mega Vibrant Gujarat event held in Gandhinagar, India invited nine Nobel Laureates in science to engage with large audience hoping they would trigger the minds of young Indians to take up a career in science and then push the frontier to bring laurels to the country.

Inaugurating a special exhibition organised by the Nobel Foundation at the Science City in Ahmedabad, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose affection for science and technology is well known, gave his own mantra to the youngsters who may hold such aspirations.

Speaking to a largely 5000-odd young audience, Modi said, "Be inspired and be daring, have courage and be your own person and not imitative. That is how our honoured guests (the Nobel Laureates) succeeded and that is what you should learn from them."

Inspiring words from a charismatic leader who got a rock star welcome from the normally less than effusive scientific community.

"The Laureates represent the peaks of science and you must learn from them. But remember that the peak rises from great mountain ranges and does not stand alone," Modi added.

The Department of Biotechnology and Nobel Foundation have signed a five-year agreement where annually the Swedish organisation will bring to India about a dozen Nobel Laureates who will deliver talks, meet students in mega fairs and concomitantly an exhibition titled 'Ideas that Changed the World' would be put up to show case the award winning work.

All in the hope that at least some young minds will be ignited to take up a passionate career in science.

India last won a Nobel Prize in science way back in 1930 when C V Raman got a Nobel in Physics for his discovery of the Raman Effect and since then the prize has eluded Indian scientists. It is not that Indian S&T has not done well, India is today recognised as the sixth largest powerhouse by way of number of science publications but the big award has evaded Indian boffins. Some even suggest it is the colour of the skin that mattered.

While the temporary Nobel exhibition housed at the 100- hectare Science City in Ahmedabad for the next five weeks may get a lot of footfalls with the replica of the Nobel gold medal and some original personal artefacts of Wilfred Nobel being on display including the now famous 'dynamite sticks' on which Mr Nobel made his fortunes.

But viewers may not be any wiser on many Indian contributions.

There is just a short video clip on Rabindranath Tagore who won a Nobel in Literature in 1913. There is absolutely no mention of C V Raman in the Nobel Exhibition even though his path breaking finding are now used to detect bombs and explosives on almost every airport of the world.

Amartya Sen, the 1998 Nobel winner for economics, finds zero mention on all the panels. Interestingly while there is a whole panel devoted to the world's youngest Nobel Awardee from Pakistan, Malala Yousafzai, there is no mention on the same panel that she shared the Peace award with India's very own firebrand child rights activist Kailash Satyarthi in 2014.

Such omissions are very stark and hopefully in the next four years of the exhibition a special India section would be created as local role models with whom one can relate to are more inspiring than distant foreign achievers.

The Rs four crore India has spent on the series called Nobel Dialogues would be well spent if India centric suitable additions are made in the coming episodes. To gloss over suggesting that the exhibits are chosen by the Swedes would be a travesty of justice since as it's said he who pays plays the tune.

More over the Nobel Foundation is also engaging with India for its own benefits as they till now have largely ignored the world's largest democracy.

Some of the people visiting the exhibition also complained that while there was a panel on inventor Guglielmo Marconi and the wireless technology but there was no mention even by the volunteers in the interactive verbal explanations that India's own J C Bose was slighted in the 1909 award.

Subhash Minda, a physician at the SAL Hospital in Ahmedabad who came with his whole family, said, "This was just not acceptable."

Another irony that could not be overlooked since the Nobel exhibition was being held not far from the famous Sabarmati Ashram was the fact that the Nobel Foundation missed out in bestowing a Nobel Prize to Mahatma Gandhi.

Ironically one of the panels on display has a prominent mention of 'indigo' the dye extracted from the plant Indigofera tinctoria which led to Gandhi organising his first satyagraha in 1918 that subsequently came to be known as the Champaran Movement.

It is ironical that the Nobel Foundations outreach unit displayed a pair of 'blue jeans' showcasing work on dyes and missed the sensitivity of Mahatma's aura in his own city.

"I think Gandhi should have won the (Nobel) prize," said Lars Heikensten, executive director of Nobel Foundation, adding that they have section on their website which says 'Mahatma Gandhi - The Missing Laureate'.

It is almost unpardonable to have an exhibition in Mahatma's own home town on the subject 'ideas that changed the world' and ignore displaying anything on 'non-violence', an idea that got India its independence.

Nine visiting Nobel laureates -- the single largest contingent ever to come as a team to India -- are travelling across the country to inspire Indians through their real life stories on how to succeed and more importantly how to overcome failures but stay the course.

India is rapidly awakening and is no longer a pushover in the world order, there are many Indians who deserve the Nobel Prize, recognise them soon.

Read more at:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...ofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

 

[kunal1123]

India’s Global Role: Marching To Its Own Drummer – Analysis

Last para..
To this determination, which lies at the core of US strategic thinking, UPA policymaker Menon has this to say in his book: “At the risk of disappointing those who call on India to be a ‘responsible’ power – meaning they want us to do as they wish – and at the risk of disappointing Indians who like to dream of India as an old-fashioned superpower, I would only say as Indira Gandhi once said, ‘India will be a different power’ and will continue to walk its own path in the world. That is the only responsible way for us.” Or, as Schaffer and Schaffer defined so perceptively what they called the central element of the vision guiding Indian foreign policy down the years as “India determination to march to its own drummer”.

Read more at:
http://www.eurasiareview.com/29012017-indias-global-role-marching-to-its-own-drummer-analysis/

 

[Chinmoy]

Trump should read India's playbook for taunting China
Donald Trump's decision to break protocol and become the first president-elect in decades to speak by phone with a Taiwanese president was either a colossal blunder or a shrewd strategic coup, depending on which Beltway insider you ask. At the least, Trump's divisive exchange with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen has sparked a substantive debate about the nature of U.S.-China-Taiwan relations and the sanctity of Beijing's version of the "One-China" policy, which codifies China's inalienable sovereignty over Taiwan and Tibet.

Yet, as Washington braces for potential blowback from Beijing, both critics and supporters of the Trump-Tsai exchange have overlooked one key fact. In an era when global powers are shunning both Taiwanese and Tibetan leaders (like the Dalai Lama) under the weight of Chinese pressure, one country has been openly challenging Beijing's One-China policy for more than six years: India.

Like many of China's neighbors, in the late 2000s India was still adjusting to the more assertive and nationalistic brand of Chinese foreign policy that emerged in 2008, when Beijing's leaders interpreted the global financial crisis as symbolic of a great power shift from a declining West to an ascendant China. Bilateral ties were repeatedly tested by friction over Chinese incursions into India across their disputed border, Beijing's efforts to block U.N. sanctions on Pakistan-based terrorists, and visits by the Indian prime minister and the Dalai Lama to the state of Arunachal Pradesh, most of which is claimed by China as "South Tibet," among others.

One Chinese provocation cut deeper than the rest. In 2010, Beijing denied a visa to Lt. Gen. B.S. Jaswal on account of his posting as the head of India's military command in Kashmir, the long-disputed territory claimed by China's "all-weather friend" Pakistan. China had been employing consular chicanery with India for years - stapling separate, unique visas to Indian residents of Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh as an informal challenge to Indian sovereignty there - but the denial of a visa to Jaswal struck a nerve.

New Delhi's reaction was uncharacteristically swift and punitive, suspending all forms of bilateral military ties and joint exercises. When Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao visited New Delhi in December 2010, for the first time India refused to acknowledge the One-China policy in a joint statement with China. Beijing, New Delhi signaled, would have to recognize Indian sovereignty over Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh if it wanted India's consent on the One-China policy. "The ball is in their court. There is no doubt about that," explained Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao at the time.

Joint statements in the years to follow continued to omit the One-China policy, a position adopted by Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he assumed office in 2014. "For India to agree on a one-China policy, China should reaffirm a one-India policy," External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj declared before Chinese President Xi Jinping's first trip to New Delhi in September 2014. "When they raised the issue of Tibet and Taiwan with us, we shared their sensitivities. … They should understand and appreciate our sensitivities regarding Arunachal Pradesh."

China relented on the visa question two years after Wen's visit, and military ties were restored shortly thereafter. More important, six years after India's change of heart on One-China policy, it has suffered no discernable political or economic backlash that can be tied to the policy shift.

To be sure, India's denial of the One-China policy is less emotionally and politically contentious for China than any shift in American posture toward Taiwan. In the context of China-India relations, the One-China policy mostly relates to Tibet and, to a lesser extent, their long-standing border dispute, in which more than 30,000 square miles of Indian territory is still claimed by Beijing.

In 1947, the Republic of India inherited from the British Raj an unsettled border with China and a series of special trading privileges with Tibet, including the right to station escort troops at specified trading posts. Ever since China "peacefully liberated" Tibet in 1950, it has been critical of Indian intentions on the plateau and sensitive to Indian interference there. That anxiety was amplified after the Dalai Lama fled a Chinese crackdown in 1959 and sought refuge in India, later establishing a Tibetan government in exile in Dharamsala. After China and India fought a monthlong war across their disputed border in 1962, Chinese leaders argued that the "center of the Sino-Indian conflict" was not the border dispute but a "conflict of interests in Tibet."

It's notable, then, that beyond its broad refusal to endorse the One-China policy, New Delhi has given no indication that it plans to walk back its repeated reaffirmations of Chinese sovereignty over Tibet (much less Taiwan). On the other hand, Prime Minister Modi has adopted several initiatives short of that threshold to signal a more defiant posture on Tibet and the border dispute. Early in his tenure, for instance, Modi fast-tracked military and civilian infrastructure upgrades along the disputed Sino-Indian border, where Beijing has enjoyed a large and widening advantage.

More recently, New Delhi granted the Dalai Lama permission to visit Arunachal Pradesh in early 2017, a move that has drawn Chinese ire in the past. Perhaps most surprising, this past October New Delhi granted U.S. Ambassador to India Richard Verma access to the sensitive, Chinese-claimed town of Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh, another first. And just last week Indian President Pranab Mukherjee hosted the Dalai Lama at India's Presidential Palace, blithely dismissing Beijing's protesting diplomatic note. In a rare move, it even offered to help Mongolia weather trade sanctions recently imposed by Beijing as punishment for Mongolia's hosting of the Dalai Lama in November. None of this has resulted in any direct punitive response from Beijing.

It's not just Tibet, either. Since the visa denial incident in 2010, India has witnessed a marked acceleration in its outreach to Taiwan, including hosting several Taiwanese government ministers in 2011; signing new agreements on double taxation avoidance, cultural cooperation, and mutual degree recognition; permitting a former Taiwanese president and vice president transit layovers in 2012 and 2014, respectively; and inviting a former Taiwanese official to address two high-profile international conferences this year. These moves have yet to draw any sharp response from the mainland.

What does India's approach to the One-China policy tell us about the Trump-Tsai phone call? Namely, that questioning the sanctity of the One-China policy is not necessarily a "death sentence" with Beijing, especially when the challenges are indirect and inexplicit. To date, China's muted response to the phone call supports that assessment.

To Beijing's mandarins, Modi represents an unfamiliar commodity: a confident, assertive, nationalist Indian leader with a surplus of political capital. The same is even truer for Trump, who, for China, remains shrouded in a cloak of uncertainty and unpredictability. China's leadership isn't nearly as confident that it can predict Trump's response to each move on the regional chessboard, compared with Barack Obama's more calculable style, and is naturally inclined to proceed cautiously. After years of testing the "red lines" of its neighbors and Washington as well, Beijing is not nearly as comfortable being on the receiving end.

If the Trump-Tsai exchange was part of a nuanced, calibrated strategy designed to diminish China's near-monopoly on strategic ambiguity and the initiative it seized during the Obama administration, it could eventually produce a more balanced trilateral relationship between the United States, China, and Taiwan.

If, on the other hand, the Trump-Tsai exchange precedes a more indiscriminately vindictive posture toward China using Taiwan as a pressure point, Trump's team should be prepared for a wide range of potentially volatile, dangerous, and unpredictable Chinese responses.

As a party to more than a dozen meetings in Beijing and Washington with China's current Taiwan affairs minister, Zhang Zhijun, and to numerous exchanges on Taiwan with some of China's senior-most diplomats, I find it difficult to overstate the intensity and seriousness Beijing devotes to Taiwan and its status. It is far more sensitive to changes in America's posture on One-China policy than India, partly because China has never felt particularly threatened by Indian power, and partly because its leadership has more directly linked its legitimacy to the reunification of Taiwan than to any issue related to Tibet.

That doesn't mean Washington should compromise its values under threat of Chinese coercion: I believe the U.S. president should reserve the right to speak to whomever he likes and at the time of his choosing, whether that's Taiwan's president or the Dalai Lama.

Trump and his team appear to have reclaimed that right and, thus far, to have moved the needle on Taiwan without destabilizing ties with China. But for this to be remembered as a shrewd strategic coup, they will have to walk a fine line in creating a new balance in trilateral relations not only more favorable to U.S. and Taiwanese interests but stable enough to prevent an unnecessary war with China in the Western Pacific.



---



Smith is the director of Asian security programs at the American Foreign Policy Council and author of Cold Peace: China-India Rivalry in the Twenty-First Century.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/sns-wp-china-policy-comment-883b5ae6-c6ce-11e6-8bee-54e800ef2a63-20161220-story.html

Post this in some paki forum with this.....

 

[sorcerer]

Bhutan won't accept China's offer to ditch India in exchange for a border fix

Highlights

• Bhutan has as much at risk from the Chinese incursion in Doklam plateau as India
• Giving up Doklam will give access to Chinese troops into other parts, even the capital

Bhutan is unlikely to enter into a compromise and accept China's offer to ditch India in exchange for settling the border problems. The reason goes beyond India-Bhutan relations. It involves Thimphu's fears that Chinese troops may proceed further to cut off the country's main thoroughfare connecting the capital.

"Bhutan will never go behind India's back. It has as much at risk from the Chinese incursion in Doklam plateau as India," a Bhutanese analyst said while requesting anonymity.

"If Chinese troops claim the disputed area, including Doklam, they will be in control of the high mountain ridges. This will put our Haa, Paro and Thimphu valleys within China's artillery range," he said. Forward movement of Chinese troops will make them capable of cutting off the 165 km road from Thimphu, the capital, to Phuentsholing, the city which is the gateway for import of food and other materials from India, he said.

China is claiming 495 square kilometers in eastern Bhutan and 286 sq km in the western sector, which includes the Doklam Plateau. At one stage, China offered to give up its claims in eastern Bhutan if Thimphu handed over the Doklam plateau, which will give Chinese troops a commanding position over India.

Bhutan did not agree and is unlikely to accept the offer because giving up Doklam will give access to Chinese troops into other parts of the country, and put even the capital, Thimphu, at risk.

"The attempt by the Chinese is to take as much roads as it can from there to the Indian and Bhutanese borders in the vicinity," Thimphu-based weekly, The Bhutanese, wrote in a commentary.

"For Bhutan, loss of any territory or incursions into its areas is not welcome as discussed in several past National Assembly sessions, with both pre-democracy Chimis (people's representatives) and the post-democracy MPs from the area bringing up the issue of encroachments from the Chinese side," it said.

China is trying to make a big push into the Himalayan kingdom because it is undergoing major changes both at the economic and socio-political levels. India is financing four major hydroelectricity projects, which is expected to bring considerable wealth to the country. India is both the financier and sole buyer of the electricity that will be generated.

"What is bothering the Chinese, among other things, is that increasingly Bhutan will be even more dependent on India because India is also the sole buyer of its hydroelectric resources," Rakesh Mohan, who was earlier the executive director for India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Bhutan for the International Monetary Fund, told TNN.

"If all these hydroelectricity projects come on stream in the next 15 years, Bhutan will actually become quite rich like a petroleum exporting country," he said.

But India must be careful not to seem bossy, and end up souring up its relationship with Bhutan as was done in the case of Nepal, Mohan said.

"India has to bend backward not to assert Bhutan's dependence, and not treat it as a satellite of India," he said.



http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...will-not-ditch-india/articleshow/59531400.cms

 

[sorcerer]

Vietnam Is Chasing India To Escape The Grip Of China
China and Vietnam have talked peacefully over the past year about cooperating despite a bitter, decades-old maritime sovereignty dispute. China needed to reconcile because a world arbitration court ruled in July 2016 against the legal basis for its claims to most of a 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea that overlaps waters heavily used by Vietnam. Vietnam wanted to talk because it depends so heavily on China’s economy, its top source of trade as of early 2017. Leaders in Hanoi weren’t sure whether U.S. President Donald Trump would help Vietnam military the way his predecessor Barack Obama had.

Now Vietnam is pushing for stronger ties with India. The two countries have explored together for oil in the South China Sea -- the one Beijing believes is mostly its own -- since at least 2014 when the overseas subsidiary of India’s state-run firm ONGC and PetroVietnam Exploration Production Corp. signed an agreement for exploring three oil blocks despite bristling in Beijing, Indian media reported. That cooperation was extended last year and again this year.

Vietnamese Foreign Minister Phạm Bình Minh told Indian President Pranab Mukherjee last week on a visit to New Delhi that he wanted to “step up” a year-old strategic comprehensive partnership, Viet Nam News reported. The partnership should contribute to “stability, security and prosperity,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was quoted saying last year. The Vietnamese prime minister had suggested in April that two-way trade should reach $15 billion by 2020. Vietnam-China trade totaled $95.8 billion in 2015, per this news report.

But the Vietnamese have resented China over centuries of territorial disputes including a war in the 1970s and a boat-ramming incident three years ago over a Chinese oil rig in the disputed sea.


Smart diplomacy

Courting India means smart diplomacy for Vietnam. India has the world’s fourth-strongest armed forces, research database GlobalFirePower.com says, offering a deterrent against Chinese influence over Vietnam. India offers Vietnam credit to buy weapons and trains Vietnamese sailors, says Trung Nguyen, international relations dean at Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities. The two had agreed earlier to accelerate patrol boat production for Vietnam and India has said it would bolster naval training.

“One of the most fruitful areas that Vietnam is benefiting from relations with India is in defense cooperation,” Nguyen says. “India's possession of some technological transfers in weapon production from Russia is also what Vietnam is looking to, to upgrade its stockpile.”

Vietnam, which also signed a 33-point partnership declaration with India in 2007, has championed relations with that country as well as with Japan and Russia “to avoid being caught in the middle of strategic rivalry between a rising China and the United States,” Carl Thayer, emeritus professor of politics at the University of New South Wales in Australia, argues in a 2016 paper. Vietnamese leaders are ill at ease about Washington’s exit from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, a would-be boon to Vietnamese exports, as well as Hanoi’s uncertainty about continuity of U.S. defense aid.

India, which feels its own squeeze from China’s growing military and economic influence, values the Vietnam relationship as a way to keep Beijing in check, scholars such as this one with the China Policy Institute in the United Kingdom say. India calls closer ties with Vietnam part of its Act East policy.

“Modi has been seeking stronger relationships with states that have ongoing disputes with China on multiple fronts,” the institute scholar says. “Clearly, Vietnam has emerged as a pivotal state...as a strategic partner in countering China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea and in the Indian Ocean region.

”https://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphj...in-a-new-gambit-to-resist-china/#9462b7e5f591

 

[sorcerer]

Chinese media protests against unfurling of Tibetan flag in Ladakh

• Tibetan govt in exile has unfurled a flag representing its idea of "Tibetan national flag" on the shores of Bangong Lake in Ladakh.
• The lake is near the actual line of control between China and India.
• The flag hoisting has sparked speculation that Indian authorities have instigated Tibetan separatists to do this in order to exert pressure on China

BEIJING: Chinese media is criticizing a reported move by the Tibetan government in exile to unfurl a flag representing its idea of "Tibetan national flag" on the shores of Bangong Lake, known as Pangong Lake in India, in Ladakh. The lake is near the actual line of control between China and India, a commentary in Beijing-based Global Times pointed out.

The article said that the flag-hoisting, which comes in the midst of the border standoff, has "sparked wide speculation" that Indian authorities have instigated the Tibetan separatists to do this in order to exert pressure on China. "Although the involvement of New Delhi remains unclear, we hope they did not send any signal of approval," Yu Ning, the article's author said.

Though there is no evidence of the New Delhi's involvement, the article accused India of using the Tibet card. "New Delhi publicly promises not to allow any anti-China political activities by Tibetan exiles on Indian territory. But it has long used the Tibet question as a diplomatic card in dealing with Beijing," it said.

The article also said. "Given the ongoing border spat, the Indian government should act prudently to avoid escalating tensions. It has the responsibility to control Tibetan exiles and their anti-China activities on Indian soil".

He argued that India should consider ways to de-escalate the border face-off at this moment, the author said. His argument is that India's large-scale poverty and the need for peace and development are the reasons why "New Delhi cannot afford to mess up the China-India bilateral relationship". The article also pointed out that China is India's biggest trading partner.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/...betan-flag-in-ladakh/articleshow/59517311.cms

 

[Kshatriya87]

Vietnam Is Chasing India To Escape The Grip Of China
China and Vietnam have talked peacefully over the past year about cooperating despite a bitter, decades-old maritime sovereignty dispute. China needed to reconcile because a world arbitration court ruled in July 2016 against the legal basis for its claims to most of a 3.5 million-square-kilometer sea that overlaps waters heavily used by Vietnam. Vietnam wanted to talk because it depends so heavily on China’s economy, its top source of trade as of early 2017. Leaders in Hanoi weren’t sure whether U.S. President Donald Trump would help Vietnam military the way his predecessor Barack Obama had.

Now Vietnam is pushing for stronger ties with India. The two countries have explored together for oil in the South China Sea -- the one Beijing believes is mostly its own -- since at least 2014 when the overseas subsidiary of India’s state-run firm ONGC and PetroVietnam Exploration Production Corp. signed an agreement for exploring three oil blocks despite bristling in Beijing, Indian media reported. That cooperation was extended last year and again this year.

Vietnamese Foreign Minister Phạm Bình Minh told Indian President Pranab Mukherjee last week on a visit to New Delhi that he wanted to “step up” a year-old strategic comprehensive partnership, Viet Nam News reported. The partnership should contribute to “stability, security and prosperity,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was quoted saying last year. The Vietnamese prime minister had suggested in April that two-way trade should reach $15 billion by 2020. Vietnam-China trade totaled $95.8 billion in 2015, per this news report.

But the Vietnamese have resented China over centuries of territorial disputes including a war in the 1970s and a boat-ramming incident three years ago over a Chinese oil rig in the disputed sea.


Smart diplomacy

Courting India means smart diplomacy for Vietnam. India has the world’s fourth-strongest armed forces, research database GlobalFirePower.com says, offering a deterrent against Chinese influence over Vietnam. India offers Vietnam credit to buy weapons and trains Vietnamese sailors, says Trung Nguyen, international relations dean at Ho Chi Minh City University of Social Sciences and Humanities. The two had agreed earlier to accelerate patrol boat production for Vietnam and India has said it would bolster naval training.

“One of the most fruitful areas that Vietnam is benefiting from relations with India is in defense cooperation,” Nguyen says. “India's possession of some technological transfers in weapon production from Russia is also what Vietnam is looking to, to upgrade its stockpile.”

Vietnam, which also signed a 33-point partnership declaration with India in 2007, has championed relations with that country as well as with Japan and Russia “to avoid being caught in the middle of strategic rivalry between a rising China and the United States,” Carl Thayer, emeritus professor of politics at the University of New South Wales in Australia, argues in a 2016 paper. Vietnamese leaders are ill at ease about Washington’s exit from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal, a would-be boon to Vietnamese exports, as well as Hanoi’s uncertainty about continuity of U.S. defense aid.

India, which feels its own squeeze from China’s growing military and economic influence, values the Vietnam relationship as a way to keep Beijing in check, scholars such as this one with the China Policy Institute in the United Kingdom say. India calls closer ties with Vietnam part of its Act East policy.

“Modi has been seeking stronger relationships with states that have ongoing disputes with China on multiple fronts,” the institute scholar says. “Clearly, Vietnam has emerged as a pivotal state...as a strategic partner in countering China’s assertiveness in the South China Sea and in the Indian Ocean region.

”https://www.forbes.com/sites/ralphj...in-a-new-gambit-to-resist-china/#9462b7e5f591

But I heard that the Akash SAM deal is scraped due to China's pressure? If Vietnam really wanted to increase ties with us, they should have gone ahead with the deal.

 

[sorcerer]

But I heard that the Akash SAM deal is scraped due to China's pressure? If Vietnam really wanted to increase ties with us, they should have gone ahead with the deal.

Everyday chinese is giving us more reasons to arm vietnam and pull back our reservations

 

[mayfair]

I think we are still fulfilling Akash requirements for our forces. The producers have their hands full.

 

[sorcerer]

India befriends new anti-China Mongolian President

India has acted fast to reach out to new President of Mongolia Khaltmaagiin Battulga, who has been arguing against his nation’s dependence on its giant neighbour China.

A few days after Battulga was elected as the president of Mongolia, riding on a campaign built on the simmering resentment among the Mongolians against China, Prime Minister Narendra Modi invited him for a visit to India.

President Pranab Mukherjee, too, sent a message, congratulating Battulga and stressing that India and Mongolia shared their belief in democracy.

India’s quick move to warm up to the president of Mongolia assumes significance in the wake of the face-off between the Indian Army and Chinese People’s Liberation Army in western Bhutan. Battulga indicated that his government would seek to end Mongolia’s dependence on China and strengthen foreign relations with the United States and other countries.

China imposed economic sanctions on Mongolia, after it hosted the Dalai Lama, the icon of Tibetans’ struggle to end China’s rule over them, in November 2016.

The then Mongolian government succumbed to pressure from Beijing and promised not to allow the Dalai Lama into the country anymore.


http://www.deccanherald.com/content/624206/india-befriends-anti-china-mongolian.html

 

[Trinetra]

India last won a Nobel Prize in science way back in 1930 when C V Raman got a Nobel in Physics for his discovery of the Raman Effect and since then the prize has eluded Indian scientists. It is not that Indian S&T has not done well, India is today recognised as the sixth largest powerhouse by way of number of science publications but the big award has evaded Indian boffins. Some even suggest it is the colour of the skin that mattered.

I know this is case all along.. same as Oscar award same as all international awards.. the 2nd quality is you talent and 1st quality is what colour skin u r having.. its just waste to time to fool around these awards..

 

[sorcerer]

India invites new Mongolian President, a known China critic

India has invited Mongolia’s new President, Khaltmaa Battulga, days after he won the election, a development which assumes significance amid the India-China standoff since he is a vocal China critic and has been arguing against Mongolia’s economic dependence on China.

Mongolia’s security and cultural relations with India are witnessing a steady growth, as became evident when the resource-rich landlocked country reached out to India after China imposed an economic blockade on it after it hosted Dalai Lama last year. The Mongolian government at the time, however, buckled under pressure from China and promised not to allow any future visits of the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people.

The East Asian country wants to reduce its economic dependence on China since this partnership is pushing it into a debt trap. China accounted for 68.5% of Mongolia’s foreign trade between January and May this year, up from 1.5% in 1989. China’s share of Mongolia’s exports during this period was 90.5%. China is believed to be eyeing Mongolia’s coal and copper deposits.

India on its part is keen to expand its presence in Mongolia situated in China’s periphery. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who visited Ulaanbaatar in 2015, invited Battulga for a visit soon after the results of the presidential election were announced earlier this month. Then President, Pranab Mukherjee, sent him a message saying that India and Mongolia shared belief in democracy.

T Suresh Babu, Indian envoy to Mongolia, was among the first ambassadors to call on the new President, according to people aware of the matter. Battluga urged Babu to convey to the Indian PM his proposal for opening an Indian Institute of Technology in Ulaanbaatar. An India-Mongolia joint school of information technology will also be set up in that country. The Modi government had extended a line of credit of $1 billion to Mongolia.

Battulga , a Russophile, wants Mongolia to have partners in other continents. Despite Mongolia’s natural resource wealth, mismanagement of the economy in recent years has led to deflation and a $5.5 billion IMF bailout package.

India and Mongolia have seen a growing defence partnership. A civil nuclear deal was concluded in 2009. The India-Mongolia Joint Working Group for defence cooperation meets annually and India contributes to training of Mongolian military officers.


ET View: Engage with Mongolia ::

India’s decision to invite Mongolia’s newly elected president should not be viewed only as an attempt to needle China. Its outreach to Mongolia, in fact, predates the current standoff with China. And New Delhi must continue to pursue diplomatic relations in keeping with national interests. At the same time, Beijing needs to be given a clear signal that New Delhi will not be hemmed in or constrained in its interactions.


http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...a-known-china-critic/articleshow/59762643.cms

 

[sorcerer]

Little Noticed, But Hugely Important: India's Counterterrorism Outreach in the Philippines

In a significant development, India recently decided to provide financial assistance amounting to $500,000 to the Philippines, to aid Manila in its fight against Islamic State-affiliated terror groups in the troubled Mindanao province. This is the first time India is sending aid to another nation to help it fight terrorism, marking an important development in New Delhi’s attempts to burnish its credentials as an emerging security provider in the wider Asian region.

For a long time, India has been trying to convince the world that it remains one of the worst victims of terrorism. But its focus has largely been on Pakistan’s use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy. And while India has viewed Pakistan as the epicenter of terrorism, the world remained reluctant to put adequate pressure on a nation that was seen as a close ally in the post-2001 global war against terrorism.

Under the Modi government, India has taken a tough stand on Pakistan’s support for terrorism by underscoring its concerns in various international forums about terrorism emanating from Pakistan. But while the rest of the world has a greater appreciation of India’s terror problem now, there is a growing expectation that India too will play a greater role in global counterterror efforts. In this context, India’s support to Manila shows a new-found sense of urgency in standing shoulder-to-shoulder with other victims of terrorism, even when the source of the problem might be different.


The siege of Marawi City, about 800 km south of the capital of Manila, began in late May when Philippines security forces launched an offensive to capture Isnilon Hapilon, leader of the ISIS-affiliated Abu Sayyaf group. Despite the military offensive, militants remain in control of Marawi, which is viewed as key in their efforts to create an ISIS province. The civilian toll has been rising and their situation is becoming grave, with more than 500 people having been killed and nearly 400,000 civilians displaced. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has taken a hard-line, vowing to “crush” the militants and declaring martial law over the entire southern Philippines. Yet the end of the conflict is not in sight.

India has expressed its concern at the situation and used this crisis to enhance anti-terror and de-radicalization partnerships with the Philippines. India is also conducting cybersecurity training for the Philippine security forces, focusing on de-radicalization. And with last week’s financial aid, India has emerged as the largest donor for this crisis. China has provided 15 million pesos in aid, compared to 25 million from India.

The Delhi-Manila counterterror engagement comes at a time when, with the recent fall of Mosul and the fight for Raqqa intensifying by the day, there are suggestions that the days of the ISIS in its current shape are numbered. It is true that the Islamic State of today is a pale shadow of its past; at its peak, the end of 2014 through 2015, ISIS controlled territory comprising roughly 110,000 square kilometers across both Syria and Iraq. But the underlying forces that gave rise to the emergence of ISIS in the Middle East remain as potent as ever and its ideological attraction is not going anywhere in a hurry. The ideology’s discontents are also haunting India in myriad ways, despite limited inroads made by ISIS in the country so far. In many ways it is imperative for India to take a more proactive role in the global struggle against ISIS. Its aid to Manila might seem to suggest that New Delhi is serious about the problem and its own role in the comity of nations.

India’s engagement with the Philippines is also key to underscoring New Delhi’s growing role in Southeast Asia, where China’s rise has already created serious challenges for the wider region. Regional states are looking at external balancers at a time when America’s commitment to regional security has come under a scanner under the Trump administration. The regional security architecture is under strain as China’s divide and rule approach has made it difficult for regional states to put up a united front. Many states have suggested that India needs to play a larger role. As India and ASEAN celebrate 25 years of their partnership this year; it is a politically opportune moment to upgrade India’s regional profile.

The Philippines has also been trying to recalibrate its ties with Beijing, which have been under stress because of a suit brought by the Philippines to the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague challenging China’s maritime entitlement claims across almost all of the South China Sea. Though Manila won the case, it has not been able to push Beijing to moderate its stand on the maritime dispute. Duterte visited China last October and signed deals worth $24 billion in infrastructure investment and loan pledges. India cannot easily match China’s growing economic profile in the region, but it has other means to build partnership with a very important region in its foreign policy matrix. India’s recent outreach to Manila is an important step in that direction. Hopefully, it won’t be the last.

http://thediplomat.com/2017/07/litt...counterterrorism-outreach-in-the-philippines/

 

[Tshering22]

Little Noticed, But Hugely Important: India's Counterterrorism Outreach in the Philippines

In a significant development, India recently decided to provide financial assistance amounting to $500,000 to the Philippines, to aid Manila in its fight against Islamic State-affiliated terror groups in the troubled Mindanao province. This is the first time India is sending aid to another nation to help it fight terrorism, marking an important development in New Delhi’s attempts to burnish its credentials as an emerging security provider in the wider Asian region.

For a long time, India has been trying to convince the world that it remains one of the worst victims of terrorism. But its focus has largely been on Pakistan’s use of terrorism as an instrument of state policy. And while India has viewed Pakistan as the epicenter of terrorism, the world remained reluctant to put adequate pressure on a nation that was seen as a close ally in the post-2001 global war against terrorism.

Under the Modi government, India has taken a tough stand on Pakistan’s support for terrorism by underscoring its concerns in various international forums about terrorism emanating from Pakistan. But while the rest of the world has a greater appreciation of India’s terror problem now, there is a growing expectation that India too will play a greater role in global counterterror efforts. In this context, India’s support to Manila shows a new-found sense of urgency in standing shoulder-to-shoulder with other victims of terrorism, even when the source of the problem might be different.


The siege of Marawi City, about 800 km south of the capital of Manila, began in late May when Philippines security forces launched an offensive to capture Isnilon Hapilon, leader of the ISIS-affiliated Abu Sayyaf group. Despite the military offensive, militants remain in control of Marawi, which is viewed as key in their efforts to create an ISIS province. The civilian toll has been rising and their situation is becoming grave, with more than 500 people having been killed and nearly 400,000 civilians displaced. Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has taken a hard-line, vowing to “crush” the militants and declaring martial law over the entire southern Philippines. Yet the end of the conflict is not in sight.

India has expressed its concern at the situation and used this crisis to enhance anti-terror and de-radicalization partnerships with the Philippines. India is also conducting cybersecurity training for the Philippine security forces, focusing on de-radicalization. And with last week’s financial aid, India has emerged as the largest donor for this crisis. China has provided 15 million pesos in aid, compared to 25 million from India.

The Delhi-Manila counterterror engagement comes at a time when, with the recent fall of Mosul and the fight for Raqqa intensifying by the day, there are suggestions that the days of the ISIS in its current shape are numbered. It is true that the Islamic State of today is a pale shadow of its past; at its peak, the end of 2014 through 2015, ISIS controlled territory comprising roughly 110,000 square kilometers across both Syria and Iraq. But the underlying forces that gave rise to the emergence of ISIS in the Middle East remain as potent as ever and its ideological attraction is not going anywhere in a hurry. The ideology’s discontents are also haunting India in myriad ways, despite limited inroads made by ISIS in the country so far. In many ways it is imperative for India to take a more proactive role in the global struggle against ISIS. Its aid to Manila might seem to suggest that New Delhi is serious about the problem and its own role in the comity of nations.

India’s engagement with the Philippines is also key to underscoring New Delhi’s growing role in Southeast Asia, where China’s rise has already created serious challenges for the wider region. Regional states are looking at external balancers at a time when America’s commitment to regional security has come under a scanner under the Trump administration. The regional security architecture is under strain as China’s divide and rule approach has made it difficult for regional states to put up a united front. Many states have suggested that India needs to play a larger role. As India and ASEAN celebrate 25 years of their partnership this year; it is a politically opportune moment to upgrade India’s regional profile.

The Philippines has also been trying to recalibrate its ties with Beijing, which have been under stress because of a suit brought by the Philippines to the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague challenging China’s maritime entitlement claims across almost all of the South China Sea. Though Manila won the case, it has not been able to push Beijing to moderate its stand on the maritime dispute. Duterte visited China last October and signed deals worth $24 billion in infrastructure investment and loan pledges. India cannot easily match China’s growing economic profile in the region, but it has other means to build partnership with a very important region in its foreign policy matrix. India’s recent outreach to Manila is an important step in that direction. Hopefully, it won’t be the last.

http://thediplomat.com/2017/07/litt...counterterrorism-outreach-in-the-philippines/

I didn't know that we are getting involved with Philippines too.

This anti jihadi alliance that's coming up is amazing idea by Ajit Doval.

Sent from my ONEPLUS A5000 using Tapatalk

 

[sukhish]

India invites new Mongolian President, a known China critic

India has invited Mongolia’s new President, Khaltmaa Battulga, days after he won the election, a development which assumes significance amid the India-China standoff since he is a vocal China critic and has been arguing against Mongolia’s economic dependence on China.

Mongolia’s security and cultural relations with India are witnessing a steady growth, as became evident when the resource-rich landlocked country reached out to India after China imposed an economic blockade on it after it hosted Dalai Lama last year. The Mongolian government at the time, however, buckled under pressure from China and promised not to allow any future visits of the spiritual leader of the Tibetan people.

The East Asian country wants to reduce its economic dependence on China since this partnership is pushing it into a debt trap. China accounted for 68.5% of Mongolia’s foreign trade between January and May this year, up from 1.5% in 1989. China’s share of Mongolia’s exports during this period was 90.5%. China is believed to be eyeing Mongolia’s coal and copper deposits.

India on its part is keen to expand its presence in Mongolia situated in China’s periphery. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who visited Ulaanbaatar in 2015, invited Battulga for a visit soon after the results of the presidential election were announced earlier this month. Then President, Pranab Mukherjee, sent him a message saying that India and Mongolia shared belief in democracy.

T Suresh Babu, Indian envoy to Mongolia, was among the first ambassadors to call on the new President, according to people aware of the matter. Battluga urged Babu to convey to the Indian PM his proposal for opening an Indian Institute of Technology in Ulaanbaatar. An India-Mongolia joint school of information technology will also be set up in that country. The Modi government had extended a line of credit of $1 billion to Mongolia.

Battulga , a Russophile, wants Mongolia to have partners in other continents. Despite Mongolia’s natural resource wealth, mismanagement of the economy in recent years has led to deflation and a $5.5 billion IMF bailout package.

India and Mongolia have seen a growing defence partnership. A civil nuclear deal was concluded in 2009. The India-Mongolia Joint Working Group for defence cooperation meets annually and India contributes to training of Mongolian military officers.


ET View: Engage with Mongolia ::

India’s decision to invite Mongolia’s newly elected president should not be viewed only as an attempt to needle China. Its outreach to Mongolia, in fact, predates the current standoff with China. And New Delhi must continue to pursue diplomatic relations in keeping with national interests. At the same time, Beijing needs to be given a clear signal that New Delhi will not be hemmed in or constrained in its interactions.


http://economictimes.indiatimes.com...a-known-china-critic/articleshow/59762643.cms

it will be interesting to see he shows up

 

[mayfair]

He will most likely show up, but this move is unlikely to be aimed at antagonising China. Mongolia is strongly dependent on China for much of its needs and an anti-China rhetoric can go only thus far. Russia will not be interested in stirring up the pot either.

I think in this meeting India and Mongolia will be careful to keep the events under control. But China being China is sure to find something to take offence to.