The May 26th Quad Foreign Ministers’ Meeting signified a critical cooperative signalling amidst global discourse on energy and critical minerals security. The minilateral grouping, consisting of the US, India, Japan, and Australia, was revitalised in 2017 due to concerns over China’s growing regional influence. The Quad’s post 2017 efforts to combat China’s practical power in the Indo-Pacific have been rooted in cementing regional power by boosting technological, infrastructural, health and climate development, among other similar spheres. While India, Japan and Australia have aligned themselves with the US against China in the scope of this project, it has not prevented them from engaging proactively with China in separate milieus. India propounds this strategic neutrality through its continued economic engagement with China. It demonstrates a new paradigm of political posturing in the midst of US-China bipolarity – rather than restricting alignment to one of the two powers, states are committing to a balancing act in between.
India’s post-2014 policy of strategic autonomy is, at its heart, rooted in pursuing advantageous international political avenues without being constrained by value-based allyship. Said ‘value-based allyship’ refers to the Western concept of maintaining inter-country cooperation based on the values of democracy and liberalism. This comes in contrast to a targeted realist strategy that would highlight statism and self-centeredness, according to staunch realists such as Morgenthau. India’s approach is supposed to take these considerations in tandem and focus on balancing domestic development with regional consolidation. In application, however, this ‘strategic autonomy’ often translates to ‘strategic neutrality’ due to the intertwined nature of its relationships with both the US and China, rendering singular alignment with either costly.
With increasing focus attributed to maritime security and strategy in the 21st century, a significant factor contributing to the US’s interest in India is its geostrategic location in the Indo-Pacific. The US’s foremost concerns in the Indo-Pacific relate to China’s dominance in the region. America is geographically not present in the region (apart from military bases), requiring it to diplomatically leverage the presence of cooperative countries in the region, and India has stepped up to the task. Maintaining alignment with India on different fronts, especially infrastructural and technological, enables America to strategically entangle itself with India in order to leverage its geostrategic location. The recent trade deal talks signify the US’s continued interest in engaging with India and vice-versa. The critical minerals deal is also evidence of mutually beneficial cooperation for both parties – the US gets to diversify its supply chain and derisk from China, and India’s critical minerals production capacities receive an audience and incentive to develop further. This relationship comes with caveats, however. The Trump administration’s tariff weaponisation and anti-immigrant policies – extending to valuable Indian visa holders – have kept New Delhi hesitant to place all its eggs in America’s basket. While India’s engagement with the US has long been multifaceted and interconnected, the initial phase of Trump’s volatile decision-making has caused India to take a step back and reassess the viability of relationship. It reinforces India’s acknowledgement of the need to strike a key balance in its dealings with America – continue so as to not disrupt mutually beneficial progress, but not to the extent of overdependency.
India’s dealings with China have been rooted in a mutual geopolitical distrust arising from the post-independence border conflict. The escalatory potential of this conflict, however, is kept at bay due to nuclear deterrence and the 1993 “Agreement on the Maintenance of Peace and Tranquility along the Line of Actual Control in the India-China Border Areas.” The former refers to the deterrence stemming from both parties being nuclear-armed and facing mutually assured destruction upon escalation of conflicts. Having kept military escalation at bay, the economic dimension of India-China relations has thrived since both countries signed a trade agreement in 1984, signifying the reopening of a trade relationship post the 1962 border war. Today, India and China remain deeply interlinked. The fiscal period of 2024-2025 had a record $113.46 billion Indian imports from China, forming 3.5% of China’s total global exports. The new Maersk maritime service, connecting the far east Shanghai port to western India’s Pipavav port and beyond, is a marked commitment to this dynamic trade relationship. This relationship, however, qualifies as a dependency that can prove to be costly. China’s recent protectionist supply chain restrictions pose as roadblocks to India’s technological advancement, highlighting India’s semiconductor chip gaps and the supply chain chokepoint.
India’s engagement with both the US and China demonstrates a keen strategic neutrality born of the political considerations of dependencies disguised as interconnectedness. This neutrality is a common political trend amongst the Global South – India, alongside countries such as Indonesia, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, among others, are playing a realist balancing game, where US-China bipolarity influences alignments, but not to a singular extent. Both powers have managed to entrench themselves within global politics, and Global South countries seeking to cement their own power are increasingly following the strategy of neutrality, albeit in different forms. Their neutrality arises from objective necessity.
