Trump-Xi meeting could test India’s positioning as China counterweight

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For more than two decades, successive US administrations have viewed India as a counterweight to China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific. However, the current US administration’s attitudes appear to favor Beijing while punishing India. This week, I will explain how the US-China summit could affect New Delhi’s equation with Washington.

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India, whose importance for US foreign policy is shaped by the frictions between Washington and Beijing, will closely follow the meeting between President Donald Trump and his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping.

When the summit between the world’s two largest economies begins later in the day, India will hope that Trump’s softening stance on China will not lead to a bargain that would reduce New Delhi’s role in the Indo-Pacific, experts said.

If Trump prioritizes a bilateral grand bargain with Beijing, India would have “reasonable concerns that the United States will treat China as the central negotiating partner in Asia rather than the central strategic challenger,” Ronak D. Desai, a visiting fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, told CNBC.

Therefore, “it will need to make India’s strategic value harder to ignore,” Desai said, adding that this will mean that the US-India relationship should lead to more tangible results in sectors such as defence, maritime security, critical minerals, energy and manufacturing.

Trump and Xi last met in November in Busan, South Korea, and the US president called Xi “He said he was “a very tough negotiator” and that the two sides “have always had very good relations.” Meanwhile, Xi calls on Beijing and Washington to be “partners and friends.” Reference was made to China and the USA As G2.

“HE [Trump] Nirupama Rao, India’s former ambassador to the United States, China and Sri Lanka, told CNBC’s “Inside India” on Monday that she pointed to Trump’s recent conciliatory attitude towards Xi.

“It was Trump who challenged America’s China policy in his first term and even gave impetus to the QUAD,” said Harsh Pant, vice president of research and foreign policy at the Observer Research Foundation. QUADRUPLE one diplomatic partnership A “peaceful, stable and prosperous Indo-Pacific” between Australia, India, Japan and the USA is aimed.

Rising trade tensions between China and the US during Trump’s first term made India one of the many beneficiaries of the China+1 policy as US companies began diversifying their supply chains away from Beijing.

However, during Trump’s second term, there was a change in US foreign policy; Washington and New Delhi’s relations have been frayed over trade and tariffs. The US president even warned Apple against manufacturing smartphones in India as he pursues his “America First” agenda.

“The narrative of India as a counterbalance to China has weakened under the Trump administration,” said Chietigj Bajpaee, senior research fellow for South Asia at Chatham House, adding that Trump’s foreign policy in the second term was more transactional and less value-oriented.

India-US relations took a hit last year after Washington accused New Delhi of profiteering from cheap Russian oil and China ignored Russian oil purchases and imposed a 25% penalty tariff.

Following the Xi-Trump meeting in Busan last year, Washington also reduced customs duties on Chinese goods to around 47 percent, below the 50 percent it had imposed on imported Indian goods before reducing them at the beginning of this year.

” [Trump] The second administration started out with a very hawkish tone when it came to China, but quickly realized that it did not have viable alternatives to the Chinese components that were needed for U.S. companies and consumers,” said Aryan D’Rozario, associate fellow and director of India and emerging Asian economies at CSIS. This led to a softening of the stance towards Beijing.

While US-India ties have deteriorated as Trump pursues his transactional foreign policy, Beijing and New Delhi have been entwined in border disputes for decades and relations are fraught with tensions. In this context, India will follow the results of the US-China summit more closely than most Asian countries.

“From New Delhi’s perspective, it will view the Trump-Xi meeting with a degree of trepidation amid concerns about the revival of the so-called ‘G2’ concept that marginalizes middle powers like India,” Bajpaee said. he said.

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