Report: New Geopolitics of China, India, and Pakistan
Report
Report

Report: New Geopolitics of China, India, and Pakistan

Insights From a CFR Symposium

May 2016

Report

Overview

South Asia is in the midst of a geopolitical transformation wrought by several simultaneous developments: China's rise, both economically and militarily, and its efforts to increase its commercial and diplomatic influence throughout Eurasia; India's rise, and its own efforts to work with South and Southeast Asia; and attempts by the United States to recalibrate its own grand strategy to address new power dynamics across the arc of Asia from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean. These shifting dynamics carry within them not only the seeds of potential conflict but also the hope for greater cooperation, both among regional powers and between them and the United States. 

The Council on Foreign Relations' Asia program hosted a symposium to discuss the new geopolitics of southern Asia. This report, which you can download here, summarizes the discussion's highlights. The report reflects the views of symposium participants alone; CFR takes no position on policy issues.

Framing Questions for the Symposium 

Flashpoints in Southern Asia

More on:

Global Governance

China

India

Pakistan

How will the rise of China and India affect regional dynamics in southern Asia? Could a combination of crises trigger conflict between China and India, given their historical relationship and future ambitions? What might change the nuclear escalation scenario in South Asia, particularly between India and Pakistan? How could China and the United States encourage de-escalation? How would a U.S.-China collision affect regional stability (for example, in the South China Sea), and how will India respond to China's expanding maritime activities in the Indian Ocean region? In what ways could China, India, Pakistan, and the United States best support stability in Afghanistan, and how can the regional countries overcome the competition for influence in Afghanistan?

Integrating the Region

Will China's ambitious One Belt, One Road blueprint create opportunities for regional collaboration, or spark competition in the region for economic influence in Asia? Will China deliver on its $46 billion pledge to develop the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor? How can the United States leverage its New Silk Road initiative with China's efforts to promote regional connectivity? Similarly, will it be possible to link up India's infrastructure efforts in the greater Mekong Delta area with China's project? How can India lead integration efforts in its neighborhood while facing continuing resistance from Pakistan to allowing overland access between India and Afghanistan? How can China, India, and Pakistan cooperate on river management to mitigate the effects of climate change?

U.S. Policy Toward Southern Asia

How can the United States work with China, India, and Pakistan to promote economic integration across southern Asia? How will China's increased involvement in Afghanistan affect U.S.-China relations? What is the appropriate balance of U.S. military, economic, and political involvement to effectively advance U.S. foreign policy goals in Asia? What steps can the United States take to boost India's profile in regional trade organizations and other regional groupings (for example, U.S. support for India's membership in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum)? How can the United States join or increase its involvement in regional groupings? Is regional cooperation on counterterrorism feasible? How should the importance of the U.S. role in Asia be explained to the American public to assuage concerns related to trade and international involvement?

More on:

Global Governance

China

India

Pakistan

Top Stories on CFR

Europe

On the eighty-first anniversary of D-Day, CFR President Michael Froman and senior fellows discuss the Trump administration’s diminished appetite for engagement in European security affairs—even as the Russia-Ukraine war drags on.

Ukraine

The Sanctioning Russia Act would impose history’s highest tariffs and tank the global economy. Congress needs a better approach, one that strengthens existing sanctions and adds new measures the current bill ignores.

China Strategy Initiative

At the Shangri-La dialogue in Singapore last week, U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said that the United States would be expanding its defense partnership with India. His statement was in line with U.S. policy over the last two decades, which, irrespective of the party in power, has sought to cultivate India as a serious defense partner. The U.S.-India defense partnership has come a long way. Beginning in 2001, the United States and India moved from little defense cooperation or coordination to significant gestures that would lay the foundation of the robust defense partnership that exists today—such as India offering access to its facilities after 9/11 to help the United States launch operations in Afghanistan or the 123 Agreement in 2005 that paved the way for civil nuclear cooperation between the two countries. In the United States, there is bipartisan agreement that a strong defense partnership with India is vital for its Indo-Pacific strategy and containing China. In India, too, there is broad political support for its strategic partnership with the United States given its immense wariness about its fractious border relationship with China. Consequently, the U.S.-India bilateral relationship has heavily emphasized security, with even trade tilting toward defense goods. Despite the massive changes to the relationship in the last few years, and both countries’ desire to develop ever-closer defense ties, differences between the United States and India remain. A significant part of this has to do with the differing norms that underpin the defense interests of each country. The following Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) memos by defense experts in three countries are part of a larger CFR project assessing India’s approach to the international order in different areas, and illustrate India’s positions on important defense issues—military operationalization, cooperation in space, and export controls—and how they differ with respect to the United States and its allies. Sameer Lalwani (Washington, DC) argues that the two countries differ in their thinking about deterrence, and that this is evident in three categories crucial to defense: capability, geography, and interoperability. When it comes to increasing material capabilities, for example, India prioritizes domestic economic development, including developing indigenous capabilities (i.e., its domestic defense-industrial sector). With regard to geography, for example, the United States and its Western allies think of crises, such as Ukraine, in terms of global domino effects; India, in contrast, thinks regionally, and confines itself to the effects on its neighborhood and borders (and, as the recent crisis with Pakistan shows, India continues to face threats on its border, widening the geographic divergence with the United States). And India’s commitment to strategic autonomy means the two countries remain far apart on the kind of interoperability required by modern military operations. Yet there is also reason for optimism about the relationship as those differences are largely surmountable. Dimitrios Stroikos (London) argues that India’s space policy has shifted from prioritizing socioeconomic development to pursuing both national security and prestige. While it is party to all five UN space treaties that govern outer space and converges with the United States on many issues in the civil, commercial, and military domains of space, India is careful with regard to some norms. It favors, for example, bilateral initiatives over multilateral, and the inclusion of Global South countries in institutions that it believes to be dominated by the West. Konark Bhandari (New Delhi) argues that India’s stance on export controls is evolving. It has signed three of the four major international export control regimes, but it has to consistently contend with the cost of complying, particularly as the United States is increasingly and unilaterally imposing export control measures both inside and outside of those regimes. When it comes to export controls, India prefers trade agreements with select nations, prizes its strategic autonomy (which includes relations with Russia and China through institutions such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and the BRICS), and prioritizes its domestic development. Furthermore, given President Donald Trump’s focus on bilateral trade, the two countries’ differences will need to be worked out if future tech cooperation is to be realized.