In China, as the assembled leaders of more than 20 nations waited in the hall for the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization to begin, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin walked in holding hands. They approached China’s President Xi Jinping and formed a tight, intimate circle. The leaders talked and laughed as Modi joined hands with Xi.
For a Trump administration bent on driving wedges between these leaders, this scene, more than any words that came out of the SCO summit, was a shocking blow. Most alarming was the warmth shown between Modi and Xi. In the battle between the American-led unipolar world and the multipolar world favored by China and Russia, the U.S. has long seen India as the giant with one foot in each camp. In Washington’s strategy, the choice that India, the world’s most populous country in the world, makes will tip the balance in the battle for the international order.
If there were words that shattered America’s international vision and its hegemonic ambitions almost as much as the image of the leaders of India, China, and Russia holding hands, it was a series of statements made by those leaders and their government’s respective readouts after their meetings.
Far from yielding to White House demands for India to stop purchasing Russian oil, Modi praised the “depth and breadth” of India and Russia’s “Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership” and told Putin that the two countries should “deepen bilateral cooperation in all sectors.” The Indian readout similarly emphasized that India and China are “development partners and not rivals,” while the Chinese one said that if India and China stick to this principle of non-rivalry their “relations will flourish.” Xi, in his widely publicized opening remarks at the summit, said that “it is the right choice” for China and India “to be friends… and to have the dragon and the elephant dance together.”
The U.S. has long sought to parlay India’s animosity toward China into a wedge between India and the multipolar Global South. But three recent tactics of the Trump administration have undermined that strategy.
Perhaps the most consequential was the punishing tariffs the U.S. imposed on India. Starting at 25 percent as punishment for unfair trade practices, they ballooned to 50 percent after India refused to bend on the issue of Russian oil—a level that China, the largest purchaser of Russian oil, has been spared.
An earlier misstep was the embarrassing attempt by the Trump administration to take credit for a ceasefire between India and Pakistan. In May, fighting broke out between the neighboring countries. Just as India was about to announce that a ceasefire had been agreed to, Trump took to social media to take credit: “After a long night of talks mediated by the United States, I am pleased to announce that India and Pakistan have agreed to a FULL AND IMMEDIATE CEASEFIRE.” Indian officials were furious. Trump’s post undermined India’s announcement that India and Pakistan had spoken for hours and agreed to a ceasefire, and it betrayed India’s firm policy that the Kashmir dispute must be resolved through bilateral talks between India and Pakistan.
Modi expressed his fury to Trump on a June 17 phone call. The two leaders have reportedly not spoken since, with Modi refusing Trump’s calls. Other signs of a rift abound. Trump, for example, has cancelled a scheduled trip to India for an upcoming summit of the Quad, an international grouping of Australia, India, Japan, and the U.S.
Another sticking point is Washington’s improving relations with India’s rival Pakistan and the plausible suspicions that the current Pakistani government came to power with U.S. assistance.
These moves have had the unintended, though predictable, consequence of pushing India closer to Russia and China. India has responded independently and defiantly to American pressure, extolling its “steady and time-tested partnership” with Russia. At the SCO summit, Modi rode in Putin’s limousine, where they spoke for 50 minutes. Modi later posted a picture of the ride on his social media with the statement that “conversations” with Putin “are always insightful.” Referring to the upcoming Putin visit to India that was announced at the same time the U.S. announced tariffs on India, Modi told the Russian president that “1.4 billion Indians are waiting with excitement” to welcome him.
More surprising is that U.S. foreign policy has also begun to heal the wound between India and China, two longtime rivals. At the recent BRICS summit, Xi and Modi met for the first time in over five years. Modi stressed that “India–China relations are important” while Xi expressed his “great pleasure” at meeting Modi” and said that their meeting “best serves the fundamental interests of our two countries.”
Days before their meeting on the sidelines of the BRICS summit, China and India reached an agreement to de-escalate tensions on their disputed Himalayan border. In August, Chinese foreign minister Wang Yi and Indian foreign minister S. Jaishankar met in New Delhi. And, also in August, India and China agreed to resume direct flights to each other’s countries. And, of course, on August 31, on the first day of the SCO summit in Tianjin China, Indian prime minister Modi stepped foot on Chinese soil for the first time in seven years.
Driving a wedge between India and China and India and Russia has been a core foreign policy goal of the U.S. The recent SCO summit demonstrated in symbolism and words that Trump’s foreign policies are having the opposite effect.
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