As President Donald Trump upends the years-long US partnership with India, Narendra Modi is turning to Asia.
The Indian prime minister is in Japan on a two-day jaunt, where he’s set to secure an economic-security pact covering semiconductors, critical minerals and artificial intelligence — key needs for India’s booming economy.
Modi will then make his first visit to China in seven years to attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, where he will hold talks with President Xi Jinping.
Trump has targeted India with 50% tariffs over its imports of Russian oil on the grounds it funds Vladimir Putin’s war on Ukraine. Yet instead of reducing those crude shipments, Modi appears to be in the mood to shore up relations in India’s backyard.
It’s a gamble. The US is India’s largest export market. The tariffs are expected to curb economic growth and ravage labor-intensive industries from textiles to gems and carpets. Foreign investors will surely now be wary of locating new factories in India.
But mending fences with China is increasingly in both countries’ interests. India needs China’s critical minerals, factory machinery and personnel. Given the new trade barriers in the West, China is looking to India’s massive consumer market.
The biggest hurdle to closer ties has always been their longstanding border dispute. India and China fought a brief border war in 1962, and clashed again in 2020. Of the two, China by far remains the dominant economic and military power.
Yet there are indications that barrier is a little lower. Back in March, Xi wrote a secret letter to India’s figurehead president testing the waters on improving ties. The rapprochement has gathered steam since.
Xi wants the SCO forum to be a grouping that rivals the US-led order. Closer ties with India are a step in that direction. — Dan Strumpf