Could China String Out Pullback Process? What This Means for India

The Chinese media has poured cold water over reports that appeared in the Indian media this week, claiming that India and China were close to a pullback agreement in  the Pangong-Chushul area.

In a report published on Thursday, the Global Times said that such assertions “are inaccurate and not helpful.” It accused the Indian media of deliberately projecting “India’s tough stance through partially true and partially false information with the aim of stirring up domestic nationalism.”

However, citing Qian Feng, working at the National Strategy Institute of the prestigious Tsinghua University, the newspaper acknowledged that the two sides were working in the same direction, “and have reached some consensus,” but not the wide-ranging agreement described by the Indian media.

According to Qian, the Indian sources who briefed the media were aiming to pressure China, as well as to appear favourable to the Indian public. The burden of the report is, of course, that China is right and India is wrong.

The Global Times was citing nearly identical reports that appeared in the Indian media on Thursday (12 November), suggesting that India and China were close to an agreement for the Pangong-Chushul area.

This disengagement, The Times of India said on Thursday, would begin from the north bank of the Pangong Tso, where the PLA had occupied and fortified an 8 km stretch from Finger 4 to Finger 8 since early May. The Chinese side would pull back to east of Finger 8, while the Indians would pull back to a position between Fingers 2 and 3. This zone would, thereafter, become a “no patrol” zone.

Then, they would then pull back tanks and heavy weaponry that had been brought into the area, and lastly, both sides would pull back from the forward positions they have taken along the Kailash range in the south bank of Pangong Tso and make this a ‘no patrol’ zone.

Two days earlier, on 10 November, the Indian Army Chief MM Naravane had told a defence conclave that he was hopeful of reaching an agreement with China in eastern Ladakh.

“The process is on. We are hopeful that we will be able to reach an agreement that is mutually acceptable, “ he was quoted as saying.

Premature, Not Inaccurate

Reading between the lines, it would suggest that the Indian reports may be premature, rather than inaccurate. That discussions have been going on various proposals was known since mid-October when External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar acknowledged that talks were on, but he said, “what is going on is something confidential between us and China.”

Various options are on the table, but, given the bad experience in the pull back in the Galwan river valley in June, there is need for caution. The tone of The Global Times report suggests that the Chinese could well string out the process and an imminent pull back may not quite be on the cards.

One reason for this is that the Indian side will be disproportionately affected by the cold weather with its routes to Leh snowed up. The Chinese side may want to test the Indian response as to how eager they were for a pull back.

The basic process of disengagement had actually begun after the very first round of talks between the Corps Commanders of the two sides, Lt Gen Harinder Singh and Maj-Gen Liu Lin at Moldo on 6 June. It was this meeting that obtained the pull back in Galwan, but that went awry because of some local factors. Successive meetings, though prolonged, have incrementally got the two sides into consensus of sorts, but no breakthrough is yet visible.

The key impetus to the process was given by the five point “consensus” arrived at between Indian and Chinese foreign ministers in Moscow at the side lines of the SCO ministerial meet in early September.

According to the joint statement issued after the talks, the two sides were enjoined to “continue their dialogue, quickly disengage, maintain proper distance and ease tensions.”

In turn, this statement rested itself in the “consensus” arrived at between Prime Minister Modi and President Xi in their informal summits in Wuhan and Chennai in 2018 and 2019, respectively, that they should abide by existing agreements and not allow differences to become disputes.

So, in the sixth round of talks on 21 September, the two sides had agreed to stop sending more troops to the frontline and avoid taking actions that may complicate the situation. In a joint statement, the Chinese and military commanders said that they were implementing the consensus reached by their leaders to strengthen communication on the ground and avoid misunderstandings.

On 12 October, they had their seventh round of talks, but there was no joint release indicating any sign of progress. And a month later on 6 November, they had held their eighth round of talks.

But the joint statement was anodyne and did not saying anything beyond the need to implement the “consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries.” But, in fact, they had already begun discussing the proposals that are now being talked about.

A Wide Gap

It is clear that there is still a wide gap between the position of two sides.

Ideally, both sides will want the other to act, arguing that their own are legitimate. Failing this, the Chinese would like the Indians to initiate the withdrawal, while the Indians want the Chinese to do so first, because they were the ones who altered the status quo. Then, the Chinese would like to limit the issue of the Pangong area, while India also wants agreement in the Depsang blockade which prevents the Indian forces from patrolling a significant part of the area that it claims and where it patrolled earlier.

Actually it’s not even clear as to whether the Chinese will want to make any significant pullback in the Pangong area. The Global Times report cited above says that “India has always had ‘unrealistic’ ideas” about the LAC, “unilaterally believing that Fingers 4 to 8 are its patrolling areas.”

Then, there are influential figures like Lt Gen HS Panag, who has warned against pulling back from the forward positions Indian forces took on 29 and 30 August at the Kailash range. These positions have given them an overview of the Chinese garrison along the Spanggur Tso lake, and forcing them to construct an alternate road to bypass Indian line of sight.

Quint, November 14, 2020

https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/india-china-ladakh-galwan-valley-standoff-pullback-agreement-strategy-indian-army-chinese-army#read-more

Biden’s China policy

One of the biggest questions confronting the future American foreign policy is: What will be the Biden administration’s outlook towards China? If there has been one decisive shift in the Trump era, it has been the change in China’s status from a friend to a peer competitor and, indeed, adversary. This has not come about with any great planning. It began with a seemingly whimsical policy of equalising the trade balance between the two countries, but morphed into a technology war that saw the US pass increasingly restrictive rules against high-tech trade with China. Then, mixed with the Xinjiang and Hong Kong issues, it has brought relations between the two countries to a new Cold War.

Biden’s political life has spanned an era in which there was consensus in US politics and business that the goal of American policy was to integrate China into the US-led world order. He was an early champion of China joining the WTO and argued that it was in America’s self interest to have China prosper. But neither he nor his contemporaries of either party addressed the currency manipulation, the forced transfer and the outright theft of technology that China used to get ahead, issues that hurt America grievously. It was only towards the end of the Obama presidency that the US began to raise the issue of cyber theft, tightening restrictions on Chinese investments in the US, challenging China in the South China Sea.

Trump was a quintessential outsider, not attached to any policy and he had no hesitation in attacking China, the WTO, the WHO or whatever. His signature concern was trade deficits and so he imposed tariffs on most Chinese exports to the US. But this January, he signed a phase I trade agreement with China which would have substantially enhanced China-US trade, but then Covid-19 intervened. Even as he stepped up his attack on China, a clutch of his advisers, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, trade adviser Peter Navarro, and Deputy National Security Adviser Matt Pottinger, pushed policy aimed at an across-the-board decoupling from China.There are two aspects of policy now. First, what could Trump do between now and the date he must leave office, January 20, 2021, with regard to China. He is bitter indeed that the pandemic undermined what looked like a shoo-in re-election. Egging him on will be his hardline officials who will want to alter the US policy to China in such fundamental ways that it cannot be undone.

The second is Biden’s own policy thereafter. Though in the Obama administration, Biden was no China hawk, during the presidential campaign to respond to the Trump administration, he has positioned himself as a hardline critic of China who has even called Xi Jinping a ‘thug’ over his treatment of the Uighurs in Xinjiang.

People will be looking to see how he acts on the issue of tariffs and Taiwan, if that issue comes up. But he is unlikely to undo the current consensus that a more forceful and even confrontational approach is needed vis-à-vis Beijing. But one big difference is that instead of the whimsical, go-it-alone Trump style, the Biden administration could make it far more effective by roping in allies and building a consensus. The US now realises that the competition with China is not just over the South China Sea; there is an all-round competition involving technology, ideology and the economy. It’s a big task, and Biden and his advisers are savvy enough to realise that this is best handled by taking allies along, something that Trump disdained.

There are important signals that could be sent at the very outset. If Michele Flournoy is appointed to head the Department of Defence, there will be a hardliner who will not compromise on taking on the Chinese militarily. Likewise, a great deal will depend on the China position of his other Cabinet and sub-Cabinet appointees.The second, and from India’s point of view, potentially important signal, has been Biden’s promise that he will meet with the Dalai Lama at the earliest. Biden attacked Trump as being the first President in three decades not to have met His Holiness. This will be seen as a hostile act by Beijing.

Biden is unlikely to face opposition in rejoining the Paris climate accord or the WHO, but whether or not he can return the US to the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) or begin reducing tariffs on the $360 billion worth of Chinese goods, is not easy to say. His advantage is that many of the things that Trump did was through executive orders (EOs) and did not have the force of legislation, so it should be easy to turn the clock back by simply issuing fresh EOs.

Beyond policies and personalities, there will be larger trends influencing America’s China policy in the post-Covid world. There are shifts in global trade and industrial techniques which will bring supply chains closer home. Biden has said it will encourage this through policy, and possibly even subsidy. The second leg of this policy will be a government-backed campaign to take on China in high-tech areas like AI, quantum computing, 6G and so on. The emphasis will be on making the US more competitive, rather than on blackballing China. Actually, China’s economic strength, the reforms in its financial sector will emerge as a strong magnet for Wall Street and US corporates who will push to moderate any hardline position.

The Tribune November 10, 2020

https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/bidens-china-policy-168462

Biden-Harris Will Bring Continuity for Delhi But Some Challenges Too

Conventional wisdom has it that the Republicans are good for India and Democrats a problem. The former are hard-headed realists, while the latter tend to be woolly-headed liberals, worried about issues like human rights.

That is largely a folk tale. When push comes to shove, the Democrats, from John Kennedy to Barack Obama have been as good for India as the Republicans from Dwight Eisenhower to Donald Trump. That is because like all US presidents they have largely followed their perception of their national interests. There have been presidents like Richard Nixon who have allowed personal views to influence their approach, or Trump who made things look outsized with his shared penchant for rallies with Narendra Modi. But what has driven American policy in his administration has been the same thing that got Obama to India on Republic Day 2015 to sign the declaration on the US-India joint strategic vision on the Asia Pacific and the Indian Ocean.

If Trump overlooked issues like human rights, or the Modi government’s attempts to marginalise and demonise Muslims, it is because he did the same when it came to those whom he considered “friends” – Jair Bolsanaro, Benjamin Netanyahu, Vladimir Putin and even Kim Jong Un.

To understand the realist perspective in which the Biden policy will unfold, we need to get a measure of the Indo-US relationship in the context of China. Contrary to what many believe, the US is not relying on India to take on China in the Indo-Pacific. The Indian military capacity is puny and its reach doesn’t go beyond its immediate neighbourhood. The size of India’s economy may kick in some day, but that is still decades away. Whether it is the western Pacific, or the Indian Ocean, the Americans are by far the biggest military power and will remain so for the next two decades at least.

US aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71), Japanese Maritime Self-defense Force Akizuki-class destroyer JS Fuyuzuki (DD-118) transit alongside the Indian Deepak-class fleet tanker INS Shakti (A 57) during a replenishment-at-sea exercise. Photo: U.S. Navy

So, India plays a kind of symbolic role here – a respected regional power with significant diplomatic equities in the Indian Ocean region (IOR) and South Asia. Its voice is heard around the world, and given its size and potential, it adds heft to the coalition arrayed against Beijing, not to make war, but to push it in the direction of playing by the American rules.

From the American point of view, it has been a long-term project to have India as part of its global alliance system. Again, this is not about war, but deterrence and stability that the US needs to maintain its global primacy. Congruence of policy means the US doesn’t have to worry about Sri Lanka, Bangladesh or Myanmar going up in smoke, India can handle that job. In the last two decades, that project has been moving along at a speed inversely proportional to the rate at which the gap in the comprehensive national power of India and China is increasing.

Also Read: What a Biden Administration Could Do – Or Not Do – for India’s Key Priorities

India needs the US

At this stage, India clearly needs the US. Its economy is in a rut and it has reached a dead end with its military modernisation. Propaganda may convince you that five Rafale aircraft can tilt the balance against China, but the reality, according to defence finance expert Amit Cowshish, is that “no enhancement of outlay will ever be enough” to cope with India’s tangled defence modernisation. As for reform, banning foreign booze in canteens, increasing the retirement age of officers or snipping the pensions of prematurely retiring officers is to whistle in the dark.

Then there is the Chinese challenge – on our borders, in our South Asian region and the IOR. In August, Biden made it a point to say he would back India against “threats on the border” without specifying China. But the US is not about to fight our battles for us, and neither do we expect them to do so. This is more about taking on the 1,000 pound gorilla named China, again, not militarily, but on issues like technology, connectivity, development of infrastructure and so on. And this is to be done through coalition-making, with the US leading and countries like Japan, Australia, Singapore, and increasingly the European Union, playing their role. The key feature of the Biden-Harris foreign policy will be an emphasis on multilateralism, rather than the chaotic ‘America First’ policy of Trump.

The Biden administration is unlikely to go for the erratic policies that alternated between deal-making and deal breaking with China. Its approach will be more systematic and an effort will be made to develop a consensus with friends and allies, especially Japan and South Korea and maybe rejoin the Trans Pacific Partnership.

On the other hand, the US under Biden may also not be confrontationist enough for India’s liking, especially in our current Line of Actual Control predicament. Despite Trump, the US still has a dense relationship with Beijing with trade in goods and services topping $634 billion in 2019. Trump initiated the process of decoupling, but the Biden administration is likely to make it less confrontational and more systematic, a process encouraged by the COVID-19 experience, to rejig supply chains to ensure there is no over-dependence on one particular region or country. Much more so than Trump, Biden also realizes that the US lives in the same world as China. There are important world order issues – climate change, trade rules, proliferation, terrorism – where he needs China’s cooperation, regardless of the ongoing US-China competition.

Chinese and US flags flutter near The Bund in Shanghai, China July 30, 2019. Photo: REUTERS/Aly Song

No free ride

As far as India’s domestic affairs go, the Modi government will not get the free ride it has got so far even if the Biden administration will not allow its activist impulses to override US strategic interests. As Democratic contender for the presidential nomination, Kamala Harris had declared in October 2019 that Kashmiris were not alone in the world, and that there was a need “to intervene if the situation demands.” She also stood by her Congressional colleague Premila Jayapal when the latter was disinvited from a meeting with external affairs minister S. Jaishankar. Biden himself has declared that he was “disappointed”  with the Modi government’s measures relating to the National Register of Citizens in Assam and the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA). But in an election campaign, many things get said which are then ignored.

The fact is that the US and India have the basic structure of a sound strategic relationship more or less firmly in place. India has signed the four foundational agreements that smoothen defence cooperation. The two countries are part of the Quad and coordinate policies on China, they have institutionalised the ‘2+2’ dialogue at the level of their respective defence and external affairs ministers which makes for better synchronisation of policy.

But the real push in the relationship will come from the officials selected at key positions – the assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, or the counterpart who deals with India in the Department of Defence. Alice Wells has been acting in the Department of State as assistant secretary is 2017. As for defence, it is difficult to find any official who has the kind of interest and commitment to a good relationship like former defence secretary Ashton Carter.

Biden himself has had considerable interest in American foreign policy, having been the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations committee at several points in time in the 2000s when the Indo-US nuclear deal came up. According to Foreign Policy, Biden had a formidable informal team of advisers for his campaign. They comprised 49 working groups and two former State Department officials, Sumona Guha and Tom West, lead the group on South Asia. Some of these advisers may show up at various levels in the new administration.

As for Kamala Harris, her views on foreign policy are close to those of Biden and she has appointed Indian American Sabrina Singh as her press secretary. Sabrina is the granddaughter of the legendary J.J. Singh, who founded the India League of America in the 1940s. In the August 2020 event featuring “South Asians for Biden”, Harris invoked Mahatma Gandhi and said that India’s freedom struggle spoke for values like tolerance, pluralism and diversity.” None of this is likely to make for a comfortable relationship with the current dispensation in New Delhi.

A lot will depend on how the new president and the vice-president will divide their work. One may choose to focus on the pressing domestic issues, while the other looks after foreign policy. This itself could make a difference in the tone and tenor of US policy towards India.

The Wire November 8, 2020

https://thewire.in/world/joe-biden-kamala-harris-india-narendra-modi-policy

China’s economic plans: Reading the tea leaves

To understand the outcome of the Communist Party of China’s 5^th plenum that concluded last week, it would be useful to look at a speech that President Xi Jinping made in April, but which was revealed only on Sunday in the top CPC theoretical journal Quishi.

Reporting the speech, the Global Times said that the Chinese leadership is signaling a strategy which would focus on boosting domestic supply chains and home-grown innovation to “become completely self-reliant in economy and core technologies.” This move, the report said was in the context of the mounting “external risks.” These “external risks” have been painfully apparent to the Chinese in recent years as Chinese companies like Huawei, Bytedance and Tencent are getting shut out of foreign markets under US pressure, with even friendly Europe reassessing its Chinese options.

In the speech, Xi spoke of the strategy (accessed using Google translate) which has subsequently been mooted as the “dual circulation system” wherein the economy relies primarily on domestic production, supply chains and markets, and only secondarily on world trade. Xi also called for excelling in core technologies like high-speed rail, electric power equipment, new energy, telecom equipment, etc. in the medium to long-term. In the interests of “industrial and national security” there was need, he said, to be “autonomous, controllable, safe and reliable” domestic production and supply chains. Xi went on to extol the size of the Chinese middle class and touted it as the world’s largest consumer market. He said that the emphasis on making consumption the engine of growth would also lead to expanding the scale of the middle class, enhance the urban experience.

The 5^th plenum was called to discuss what is officially called the “14^th Five Year Plan (2021-25) for National Economic and Social Development and the Long-Range objectives through the year 2035” which is under preparation currently and is expected to be approved in the annual session of China’s Parliament, the National People’s Congress (NPC) next spring. The four-day meeting held in Beijing was chaired by Xi and attended by over 350 top officials and it stressed providing the economy with an inward-looking approach.

The communique of the plenum (accessed using Google translate) did not spring any surprises. It was predictably focused on boosting China’s technological capabilities and self-reliance, as well as security and military modernisation. In addition, the document spoke of “dual circulation.”

There are 12 focus areas listed for the plan. These are, a scientific technical self-reliance and innovation, a modern industrial system, a strong domestic market, reform, prioritising agriculture, regional development and urbanisation, cultural or “soft” power, green development, foreign relations, the quality of life of citizens, integrating civilian and military sectors of the economy and military modernisation.

Looking beyond to 2035, the plenum set the goals for achieving what they say is “socialist modernisation.” These are to significantly increase the country’s economic and technological strength and enhance the per capita income of both rural and urban residents. By that date, China expects to finish building a modernised economy which will be based on new industrialisation, IT application, and agricultural modernisation. Likewise, the modernisation of the military would have been achieved. By this time the per capita GDP will be the level of moderately developed countries and disparities between rural and urban, as well as regions will be reduced. As the Wall Street Journal points out, becoming a “moderately developed country” by 2035 would mean a per capita GDP of around US$ 30,000 per year, as against the current US$ 10,262, something that is equal to South Korea’s current level.

The emerging plan has no indications that the Chinese intend to set any formal growth target. Whether they will have other benchmarks to measure the annual performance during the plan period remains to be seen. The 13^th Five Year Plan target was to have a 6.5 percent rate of growth per annum and a doubling of the economy between 2010 and 2020. Covid-19 has ensured that China will fall a little short of target, most of which have been met. However in Xi’s explanatory remarks made public on Tuesday, he said that it was possible for China to meet the current standards for high income countries and to double the size of the economy or per capita income by 2035. This would require an annual GDP growth rate of around 5 percent, so we could have an implicit, rather than explicit target. Even so, the focus is clearly on technological innovation, upgrading of industries and supply chains and developing the domestic markets to drive growth.

The big downside to Chinese plans is its growing rift with the US. Financial Times cited a senior Chinese government official advising on the five-year plan’s manufacturing strategies who said that regardless of whether Donald Trump is re-elected on 3 November or defeated by Joe Biden, “it is certain that industrial decoupling between the US and China will continue into the next year.”

However, at the public level, Chinese officials are playing down the notion of decoupling. Speaking at press briefing after the plenum, Han Wenxiu, a senior party official dealing with finance said that decoupling was not realistic and would hurt both the US and Chinese economies. He underscored the importance of dual circulation where domestic and international markets would complement each other, with the former being the anchor.

At the same press conference, Wang Zhigang, China’s Minister for Science and Technology said that technological self-sufficiency was a strategic necessity for the country. “We must boost independent innovation, because key technologies can’t be bought or asked for.”

Observers are expecting a sharp rise in China’s R&D funding, especially for biotechnology new energy vehicles and semi-conductors. Expectations are that the R&D spend could be increased to 3 percent of GDP as against 2.2 percent currently. Even so, there is a huge gap in China’s ambitions and its current situation. This is most stark in the case of semi-conductors where China purchased US$ 300 billion worth of chips last year. According to one estimate, in 2019, less than 16 percent of the chips China needed were produced there. So much then, for self-reliance which is, at the best of times, a dubious slogan.

In essence, what the Chinese seem to be doing is to be putting on a brave face in dealing with what are actually self-inflicted wounds of alienating all the major countries of the world. The emphasis on self-reliance, innovation and the whole business of “dual circulation” seems to be aimed at convincing the country that the process of decoupling currently underway could somehow be made to work in China’s favour.

On the other hand, China is the only major economy whose economy expanded this year, with all others being driven to negative growth because of the pandemic. This will certainly help Beijing to stave off the pressure of decoupling for a couple of years. In addition, by undertaking reforms such as opening up its finance sector, China could provide a further incentive for western banks and financial institutions to continue doing business. China’s strategy is to use special zones in Shenzhen and Hainan to become global hubs of technology, finance and industry. Both regions have been encouraged to experiment with policy to encourage more foreign investment. Shenzhen was the region which triggered the first spurt of Chinese growth. Now, Xi and his associates are hoping that the larger Guangdong-Macao-Hong Kong region will rise up to meet the new challenge.

ORF NOvember 4, 2020

https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/china-economic-plans-reading-tea-leaves/

Building upon the American connection

On Tuesday, October 27, India and the US signed the Basic Exchange Cooperation Agreement (BECA) on the occasion of the third ‘2+2’ in-person meet held between the Indian and US foreign and defence ministers in New Delhi. The agreement gives India access to classified US geospatial and GIS data.

India-US defence ties predate the strategic congruence that became evident after the Jaswant Singh-Strobe Talbott dialogue in the late 1990s, followed by President Clinton’s visit to India in 2000. In fact, they go back to efforts to develop defence technology ties during Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure between 1984-1989.

GSOMIA (a military information agreement) was the first of the foundational agreements to be signed in 2002 during the visit of  Defence Minister George Fernandes to Washington DC. It essentially guaranteed that the two countries would  protect any  classified information or technology that they shared. It was aimed at promoting interoperability and laid the foundation for future US arms sales to the country.

There was a long stretch thereafter when the two countries continued to discuss various other foundational agreements, but nothing came through in the UPA years.  It was only after the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014 and the US had an unusually talented and sensitive Defence Secretary, Ashton Carter, that the two sides were able to work out the LEMOA (logistics exchange agreement) signed in August 2016 during Carter’s visit. It was the second agreement to be signed and required a great deal of negotiation since its implications went beyond the Indo-US plane. It provides the framework for sharing military logistics, for example for refuelling and replenishment of stores for ships or aircraft transiting through an Indian/US facility. The third agreement, COMCASA (communications security agreement) was signed during the inaugural ‘2+2’ meeting in September 2018. This is an India-specific version of the Communication and Information Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA).  COMCASA enables the US to supply India with its proprietary encrypted communications equipment and systems, allowing secure peacetime and wartime communications between high-level military leaders on both sides. Further, it also enables Indian aircraft and ships with the US-made equipment to communicate with each other and with the US seamlessly. Because of the lack of this agreement, India had operated the US-made C-17s, C-130s and P-8I’s with commercially available systems for nearly half a decade.

COMCASA enables the US to supply India with its proprietary encrypted communications equipment and systems, allowing secure peacetime and wartime communications between high-level military leaders on both sides. Further, it also enables Indian aircraft and ships with the US-made equipment to communicate with each other and with the US seamlessly

The BECA facilitates the provision of targeting and navigation information from US systems. As is well known, for example, that the GPS, which was developed by the Pentagon, has a classified section which is far more accurate than the one available for use by US in our cars. But in addition, missiles and systems require geomagnetic and gravity data if they want pinpoint accuracy. But, of course, having the data by itself doesn’t guarantee accuracy; your missile navigation systems must also be able to use this highly accurate data.

The BECA facilitates the provision of targeting and navigation information from US systems. As is well known, for example, that the GPS, which was developed by the Pentagon, has a classified section which is far more accurate than the one available for use by US in our cars

In themselves the agreements are fairly routine and should not be over-hyped. They are really about building trust and setting the trajectory for future relations. They are not the end, but the means to get there.

As of now,  all of them would enable cooperation and exchange in a range of sensitive area, but they do not  obligate the two countries  to provide or service a particular requirement.

Also, it needs to be pointed out that in all the agreements except LEMOA, the traffic is really one way, i.e. from the US to India. To clarify further, our asymmetry ensures that the technology that needs to be protected and the service that is expected, will come from the US, whether it is military technology, encryption systems, or GIS data.

It needs to be pointed out that in all the agreements except LEMOA, the traffic is really one way, i.e. from the US to India. To clarify further, our asymmetry ensures that the technology that needs to be protected and the service that is expected, will come from the US, whether it is military technology, encryption systems, or GIS data.

However, India being a resident Indian Ocean power, is important from the LEMOA point of view. Indeed, India has to worry that by synchronising its systems with those of the US,  it will enable Washington to enter its decision-making loop, something that no sovereign country would like, especially since we do not have an identity of views relating to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and have different perspectives on some important Indian Ocean issues.  Even in the case of China, there are differences that would prevent whole-hearted cooperation.

These foundational agreements are a product of the American bureaucratic culture. They have scores of commitments around the world and their  bureaucracy is particular in ensuring that they all fall into a legal framework.

This is what the Pakistanis realised too late. Islamabad thought that the bilateral defence agreement they had signed with the US in 1959  would compel Washington to aid them in war with India, but the pact was merely an Executive Agreement, not a treaty approved by the US Senate. Indeed, the US could have come to their aid in 1971 using that agreement  with a much more friendly Administration in Washington, but it didn’t.

So, we need to be clear that the US is not obliged to provide us any technology that we want under GSOMIA, neither will it have any obligation to provide us geospatial data in every circumstance. Certainly, it is unlikely to assist India in any venture relating to Pakistan. In the case of China, this administration may be obliging, but that may not necessarily be true of succeeding administrations in the US. At the end of the day, the reality is that the US is the giver and India the receiver.

Likewise, of course, India may not necessarily provide logistics facilitation to US vessels, were they to be involved in a war against, say for the sake of discussion, Iran. But as this author’s Ph.D. supervisor once said, agreements are a scrap of paper, unless they are backed by a mutuality of interest at the given time.

What these agreements do is to provide a trajectory which may lead somewhere, in this case, a India-US military alliance. But we’re not there as yet. As the Pakistan case reveals, that even as formal allies, assistance does not automatically kick in.

However, it is undeniable that there is a lot of room for cooperation even short of a formal alliance. During the Raisina Dialogue in March 2016, the then chief of the US Pacific Command, Admiral Harry Harris had called on the two countries to be more ambitious, and perhaps undertake coordinated patrols in the South China Sea. But here we need to enter the caveat that Indo-US defence cooperation remains confined to the region under the responsibility of the US Indo-Pacific Command which ends in India’s western shores. But India’s primary naval challenge is in the western and north-western Indian Ocean. Just how these agreements can be finessed to serve our ends there remains to be seen.

ORF October 28, 2020

https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/building-upon-the-american-connection/

Flaws in US electoral system

Exactly a week from today, on November 3, the US will have its presidential elections. These will, perhaps, be one of the most consequential elections the country has ever had. American democracy itself is at stake. Trump may have his die-hard supporters, but any objective assessment of his presidency would be that he has brought the US to a tipping point.

Trump has undermined the integrity of the electoral process by making false claims of electoral fraud, his supporters have sought to derail the mail-in voting process, and the President himself has suggested that he may not accept the verdict of the election. He has earned the fanatical support of a minority of mainly white Americans, but in sufficient numbers to place a political stranglehold on his Republican Party which has stood by as he has undermined the institutions of governance and subverted the Supreme Court.

There are concerns over armed right-wing militias mobilising if things don’t go their way on election day. It has come to such a pass that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen Mark Milley, has had to rule out military involvement in any election dispute. Even now, we are not sure how the election will play out. Given Trump’s record of lawless behaviour, anything is possible.

There are many factors responsible for this situation. In part, it is the outcome of globalisation that took the jobs of many US communities. Then, automation made many jobs obsolete. Successive governments did little to deal with these issues, leaving angry disaffected people who are attracted to Trump’s populism and white nationalism.

This has been compounded by the archaic US election system. Two centuries ago, the US adopted a system where the person with the largest number of votes does not necessarily win. Bush in 2000 and Trump in 2016 lost the popular vote, but won the vote of an electoral college.

So, next Tuesday, even if Biden wins the popular vote, he may lose the presidency, unless his margin of popular vote is bigger than 6 to 7 per cent. This rule of the minority translates itself in other institutions like the Senate and the Supreme Court.

The Senate, where each state gets the same number of Senators, was aimed at providing a sense of equality for the entire country. But in the two centuries since it was created, the demography of the country has completely changed. So, California with a population of 40 million is represented by two senators, as is Kansas with a population of 3 million, or Oklahoma with 4 million. And it is this skewed Senate which confirms nominees to the Supreme Court.

America’s problems go back to its very founding. At the root lies a constitution which was designed to serve a sprawling agricultural country peopled by white people, many of who had black slaves. The US is a nation of immigrants and just about 10 years separate the arrival of the first whites and the first blacks in the early 17th century. The only difference being that while the former came willingly, the latter did so otherwise.

Cut to the founding of the US and its constitution in the late 18th century. The document does not mention ‘slave’ or ‘slavery’ at all, even though more than a quarter of the population at that time were black Americans, most of them held in slavery. Many states were admitted into the union, with three-fifths of their slaves being counted for their representation and taxation.

The sorry story of discrimination against black Americans comes down to this day. Wherever it can, the Republicans gerrymander electoral districts to keep out black districts. They purge voter rolls based on flimsy pretexts to exclude poorer people, especially blacks.

It’s hard to believe, but a poor Indian peasant got the right to vote in 1950, before the black man did in the US in 1964.

There is an interesting coincidence in the voter behaviour in India and the US. In both countries, it would seem, elites—whites in the US and upper castes in India—have fretted about the prospect of having a real democracy where the majority rules. Barack Obama’s election triggered the upsurge of white nationalism in the US, where there is a belief that traditional American values are under threat which may even necessitate people taking law into their hands to protect themselves.

What emerges from all this is the deep fissures in the US polity where the ideological divide between the Republicans and Democrats makes bipartisan cooperation on issues of national importance difficult. The most recent example of this is on the issue of working out a public health and financial response to the Covid pandemic.

A minority of whites can delay the process, but the US will become the multi-ethnic democracy it is on track to be, sooner, rather than later. This was evident from the protests following the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis which set off what may have been the biggest wave of protests in US history. But the process does not look to be an easy one. A militant minority, with a sense of entitlement, is ready to do virtually anything to protect its privileges. Therein lies the danger to the US, and by extension to democracies around the world.

The Tribune, October 27, 2020

https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/flaws-in-us-electoral-system-161528?