- Saturday, April 20, 2024
In May, a powerful Congressional Committee in the US recommended strengthening of NATO Plus by including India.
By: Shubham Ghosh
The Chinese media have expressed concerns over the US allegedly wooing India to persuade it to join the NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) Plus saying citing experts that if New Delhi made the “unwise choice” of leaning towards NATO, it would harm its strategic autonomy, international status and relations with neighbouring nations.
China’s state-run Global Times, which is known for its belligerent takes, on Thursday (1) came up with an article saying, “The US has stepped up efforts to woo India ahead of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Washington, with its envoy to India recently hailing New Delhi as “one of Washington’s closest allies,” and saying India should decide whether to join US-led NATO Plus while highlighting the need to deepen defense cooperation.”
Modi is set to visit the US on a state visit later in June — which will be his first state visit but overall eighth to the US since becoming the prime minister in 2014.
The Chinese tabloid cited experts as saying that the US’s hyping of the issue is more about giving a shape to a favourable public environment for its “Indo-Pacific” security structure and added that New Delhi’s official stance towards a membership of NATO Plus remains unknown.
It said US ambassador to India Eric Garcetti on Tuesday (30) said in an interview with Indian media outlet WION that “anything is on the table” when asked to comment on a report mentioning that a US committee has recommended inclusion of India in the US-led NATO framework.
Last month, a powerful Congressional Committee in the US recommended strengthening NATO Plus by including India. NATO Plus, currently NATO Plus 5, is a security arrangement that brings together five aligned nations with NATO — Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Israel and South Korea — to better global defence cooperation.
Bringing India, which is a member of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue including the US, Japan and Australia, on board would facilitate seamless intelligence sharing between these nations and New Delhi would access the latest military technology without delay.
Garcetti said it was up to India to decide whether it wants to join NATO plus, emphasising that the South Asian nation is one of Washington’s closest allies.
Qian Feng, director of the research department at the National Strategy Institute at Tsinghua University, Beijing, told the Global Times that Washington “wants to replicate in the Asia-Pacific region the model of confronting Russia through the NATO framework to counter China, in which the US regards India as a key link that will determine whether its “Indo-Pacific strategy” will succeed”.
New Delhi also wants to leverage the US and NATO framework to better its influence and, to some extent, its strategic leverage with China, according to Qian.
On Monday (5), US defense secretary Lloyd Austin will meet his Indian counterpart Rajnath Singh in New Delhi where he will “further deepen the US-India Major Defense Partnership,” a release from the US defense department said on Tuesday (30).
The Global Times also cited Qian as saying that while the possibility of India’s closer cooperation with NATO in the future cannot be ruled out, New Delhi is wary at the moment of being pushed into a direct confrontation with Beijing by Washington, even if the two neighbours’ relations have hit a low due to their border standoff.
He also said that India will take into account its long-term cooperation with Russia and keep a distance with the US.
