India 2021-2022: Playing against China on different Chessboards (original) (raw)

2023, Asia Maior XXXIII/2022

This article focusses on the five major developments which characterized Indian international relations in 2021 and 2022. The first of them was the gradual disengagement between Indian and Chinese military forces along the Himalayan undefined border. The second was the launching of an ambitious «vaccine diplomacy» aimed mainly to strengthen India’s influence world-wide, but more specifically in Asia. The third was India’s role in the Quad. The fourth was joining Israel, the UAE and the US in a new quadrilateral entente. The fifth was India’s reaction to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Concerning the first development, this article analyses the peculiar and undefined nature of the Himalayan border, highlighting the fact that in large areas it exists only on the drawing boards of India’s and China’s military staffs and leading political circles. This situation – which, by itself, makes incidents bound to happen – is of no easy solution, even if the two parties involved were characterised by a sincere desire to resolve the issue, which does not seem to be the case. In fact, as this article points out, in spite of the process of disengagement along the Himalaya, anti-Chinese feelings remained dominant among Indian politicians and public opinion. Therefore, it comes as no surprise that, as this article shows, India’s «vaccine diplomacy» (which, after a promising start, failed spectacularly), her participation in both the Quad proper and the new quadrilateral entente (whose official name became I2U2), and her highly ambiguous policy of neutrality on the Russian invasions of Ukraine (in spite of India’s close connection with the US) had all as a main aim confronting and containing China.