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The BRI and India’s Grand Strategy

Rajesh Basrur

To cite this article: Rajesh Basrur (2019) The BRI and India’s Grand Strategy, Strategic Analysis,
43:3, 187-198, DOI: 10.1080/09700161.2019.1598082

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Strategic Analysis, 2019
Vol. 43, No. 3, 187–198, [Link]

The BRI and India’s Grand Strategy

Rajesh Basrur

Abstract: India’s rejection of the BRI for strategic reasons does not mean it is
resistant to Chinese investments, which are—to the contrary—both welcome and
rapidly increasing. Indian strategy in this respect is in accord with the changing
character of the international system, where strategic competition co-exists with
economic cooperation as well as competition. In contemporary international politics,
structurally driven conflictive behaviour is modified by high levels of strategic and
economic interdependence. This incentivises India, like other major powers, to seek
optimal gains through economic exchange even as it defends its strategic interests
through military means short of war.

here has been considerable debate within India on the desirability of signing on
T to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Sceptics argue that hopping on board
this particular bandwagon is contrary to Indian strategic and economic interests.1
The portion of the BRI that passes through Pakistan—the China–Pakistan Economic
Corridor (CPEC)—goes through territory claimed by India. In addition, it is feared
the BRI will draw India into a relationship of dependency that China will be able to
exploit. Against this, others hold that keeping out of the BRI will deprive India of an
important opportunity to pull in much-needed investment for the Indian economy.2 Is
China’s economic power necessarily detrimental to India’s security? This article
shows that, notwithstanding India’s reservations, it is not. Rather, India’s response
to the BRI should be viewed within the context of India’s own grand strategy and
importantly, the way in which this strategy is crafted around the essential character
of the post-Cold War international system.
Most analysts make the mistake of conflating BRI with Chinese investment.
Although its relative weakness vis-à-vis China gives it good reason to be wary of the
BRI’s negative connotations, the fact is that India pragmatically continues to seek
foreign direct investment (FDI) from Chinese sources. Chinese FDI offers the
inducement of concrete benefits by way of capital and technology while simulta-
neously carrying the potential of moderating long-standing tensions, although the
political constraints attached to those tensions have a braking effect on the pace of
positive engagement. In the perennial debate over which comes first—politics or
economics—the former tends to circumscribe the latter in this instance, particularly
because China’s overall material power is much greater than that of India. But, as the

Rajesh Basrur is Visiting Professor in the South Asia Programme at the S. Rajaratnam School of
International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and Research
Associate with the Contemporary South Asian Studies Programme (CSASP) at the Oxford
School of Global and Area Studies, University of Oxford. Views expressed are personal.

© 2019 Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses

188 Rajesh Basrur

article will show, the nature of the evolving international system is such that the
dampening effects of political differences are limited and India has much to gain
from economic cooperation with China despite its rejection of the BRI.

India’s post-Cold War grand strategy

In its first four decades as a democratic republic, India’s basic foreign policy
orientation was shaped by its fear of the military and economic power of strong
states. This is hardly surprising, since it had borne the political and economic costs
of imperial power during two centuries of colonial rule. In a strategy of ‘moat
building’ typical of weak states, independent India’s overall approach to the world
was dominated by the desire to avoid proximity to the global sources of economic
and political power.3 On the economic side, the leadership under Jawaharlal Nehru
opted for an autarkic policy that emphasised self-sufficiency and avoided what were
seen as the structural disadvantages associated with global capitalism. Politically,
Nehru sought through non-alignment to distance India from the Cold War blocs that
dominated world politics at the time.
While moat building was the preferred option, it did not always work. From time
to time, India came to depend on the major powers at crucial moments when its
weakness was exposed. In 1962, following military defeat at the hands of China,
Nehru asked for and received US military assistance, though it was limited by the
strategic gap between non-aligned India and the priorities of Cold War-dominated
Washington. In the mid-1960s, a crisis in agriculture led India to lean on the US for
food aid and for technical assistance in developing the ‘green revolution’ to raise
agricultural productivity, especially in food grains. The Soviet Union became
a major source for the development of heavy industry, as well as a steady supply
of weapons to help bolster India’s security against twin threats from China and
Pakistan. A treaty of friendship with Moscow in 1971 reflected India’s dependence
on the Soviet Union to balance a threat from the emerging US–China–Pakistan
nexus. Through all this, India did manage to keep the big powers at arm’s length
to a considerable degree. Nevertheless, it remained vulnerable to external shocks.
Two major ones came in the early 1990s, forcing policymakers to rethink their
grand strategy.4 First, the Cold War came to an unexpected and rapid end, bringing
the collapse of the Soviet Union, on which India had come to depend for balancing
China, a regular supply of military hardware, and political support on the Kashmir
dispute with Pakistan. This effectively left a still relatively weak India without
a critical pillar of strategic support and at the same time made non-alignment, the
centrepiece of its foreign policy, irrelevant—for what was there now to be non-
aligned in relation to? Simultaneously, India’s long-stagnating economy was beset by
a balance of payments crisis. This forced the leadership to turn for succour to the
same capitalist system it had long shied away from. The International Monetary
Fund (IMF) provided funds, but required it to loosen its highly regulated economy,
while the additional short-term loans needed from the market came only after India
physically deposited a substantial proportion of its gold reserves with European
banks.
The shocks of the early 1990s galvanised India into a radical reordering of its
priorities. It now sought to draw closer to the sources of military and economic
power by forging a close linkage with the United States, which soon became a major
 Strategic Analysis 189

source of arms as well as FDI. In effect, India shifted from a policy of distancing vis-
à-vis the sources of power to embracing those sources. But with China emerging
rapidly as a major power, India’s military security had to be augmented, which led it
to take yet another radical step: the nuclear tests of 1998. The spurt in economic
growth and the declaration of its status as a nuclear-armed state transformed India’s
Weltanschauung from one dominated by fear to one characterised by much greater
self-confidence.
Nevertheless, the rise of China as a major global power continued to be a source
of insecurity. China had surged far ahead of India in economic growth. In 1960,
India’s GDP (in current US dollars) of $36.53 billion was 61 per cent of China’s
$59.71 billion; but by 1998, the year India carried out nuclear tests, India’s GDP of
$415.73 billion was just 40 per cent of China’s $1.02 trillion.5 The gap in military
expenditure was much greater: Indian military spending on the eve of the tests in
1997 was $10.9 billion, while China’s was a hefty $74.9 billion.6 Besides, China had
crossed the nuclear threshold and begun to develop a nuclear arsenal as early as
1964, whereas India, having first tested in 1974, had hesitated thereafter. In addition,
Beijing exacerbated India’s fractious relationship with Pakistan by means of military
(including nuclear) assistance to Islamabad.7 The China threat, combined with US
pressure to roll back its limited and covert nuclear weapons programme, caused
India to go nuclear officially while also moving strategically closer (after an inter-
regnum owing to American anger over the tests) to the United States.
Despite the new warmth in Indo-US relations, the core preference for strategic
autonomy has remained central to Indian strategy in the post-Cold War era.8 While
drawing closer to the United States, India has spread its bets and sought to develop
strategic relationships with other major powers: Japan; Russia; France; Germany;
and the United Kingdom.9 To counter the power and influence of a rising China, it
has entered into a series of strategic partnerships with these powers. This is not
a grand-strategic framework peculiar to India. All major powers and many smaller
ones tend today to look for strategic partnerships rather than alliances as they are in
accord with the nature of contemporary strategic politics, where political-military
competition goes hand in hand with economic integration.10 Like India, Japan and
the United States compete strategically with a rising China while cooperating with it
in the realm of trade and investment, current tensions on trade notwithstanding. Does
the new strategic closeness between the three mark the beginnings of a ‘triple
alliance’?11 Not really, for alliances are passé—there are no new ones in the post-
Cold War age, while existing ones are loosening up. The objective appears to be one
of creating an environment in which—to quote a Japan expert—major democracies
try to ‘shape China’s rise in a peaceful way.’12 The strategy is fundamentally
symbolic and psychological, since there is no desire to employ military capabilities
against China other than possibly in a marginal and defensive way. There is no
clarity on how a democratic concert might ‘shape’ China’s rise in a desirable way.

Structure, interdependence and homeostasis

Contemporary international politics has been characterised by increasing interdepen-
dence of two types. First, nuclear weapons rule out rational resort to war between
nuclear-armed states, since there is no reasonable expectation that such a conflict can
leave one side a ‘winner’ or even at any meaningful advantage.13 The history of
190 Rajesh Basrur

nuclear rivalries demonstrates that antagonisms between nuclear-armed states pro-

duce much manoeuvring, signalling, rhetoric and threat projection, but no more than
marginal combat in a few cases, as between China and the Soviet Union in 1969 and
between India and Pakistan in 1999.14 The belligerents simply cannot afford to fight.
Yet nuclear rivals engage in arms racing, brinkmanship and other forms of standar-
dised balancing behaviour, though always well short of full-scale conventional (let
alone nuclear) war, which has the potential to escalate and result in unacceptable
levels of mutual destruction. And with every crisis, we find strenuous efforts being
made both during and after the event to bring about stability.
On the economic side, despite rising trade competition, the transnational inter-
dependence created by exponential growth in flows of goods and money and by the
emergence of transnational production chains has brought about a system in which
all the players have a stake in stability. World merchandise trade, to take one
instance, has grown from $130.62 billion in 1960 to $18.02 trillion in 2015.15
Similarly, net inflows of FDI, which were $10.17 billion in 1970, stood at $1.95
trillion in 2015 (having peaked briefly at $3.11 trillion in 2007).16 While investments
can be cut—as indeed they have been owing to the on-going tensions between the
US and China—the result is likely to be problematic for both. The same can be said
of the interdependence created by China’s massive purchases of US Treasury bonds
(aggregating at $1.1 trillion in April 2018): China cannot sell off these bonds without
incurring a high cost to itself (as well as to the US).17
As in the realm of nuclear weapons, simultaneous cooperation and competition
are manifest in economic rivalries among major powers. Tariffs, non-tariff barriers,
threats and counter-threats, and brinkmanship have appeared from time to time. The
so-called ‘trade wars’ currently under way appear to be an extreme manifestation of
economic competition, but are highly unlikely to escalate to the level of all-out trade
conflict, which would conceivably involve a return to old-style mercantilism with
a massive slow-down of trade, reversal of investment flows, and the dismantlement
of transnational production chains. Instead, such competitive episodes spawn nego-
tiations and efforts to come to an understanding on what might be called the ‘rules’
of exchange. It is worth recalling that a similar portent of serious trade conflict was
visible during the 1970s and 1980s between the United States and Japan, but
subsided as both negotiated their way out of the tension and steadily increased
their interdependence.
In sum, when interdependent states appear to be hastening towards conflict, what
eventually happens is much more limited. In both kinds of antagonism—military and
economic—competing states engage in restrained conflict-oriented behaviour simul-
taneously with efforts to moderate the risks involved by exercising caution (by
avoiding steps that lead to serious conflict) as well as by cooperative bargaining
aimed at stabilisation.18 In this context, states tend to seek appropriate ways of
responding to perceived threats and their responses tend to be different from those
that were considered normal in earlier times.
On military-strategic issues, we inhabit a post-alliance world in which the age-
old conception of ‘balance of power’ does not always work well. Among interde-
pendent states, the bottom line of a power-centric approach—the application of
power to one’s advantage—is severely inhibited by the potential costs of using it.
The more prevalent form of ‘balancing’ is through the ubiquitous phenomenon of
strategic partnerships. Unlike alliances, strategic partnerships involve limited
 Strategic Analysis 191

commitments and there is no explicit identification of an enemy state or indeed of an

ally. This leaves space for individual states to move closer to or away from an
adversary or partner depending on the situation at any point of time.
Developments in the immediate aftermath of the Cold War’s end provide a useful
illustration. At the time, an implicit strategic partnership began to develop between
the US and China—there was even some talk of an emerging ‘G2’—but the growing
competition between the hegemon and the challenger soon pulled them apart.19
Similarly, post-Soviet Russia and the United States showed signs of entering into
a strategic partnership until the eastward expansion of NATO revived tension
between them. Current strains between the US and its allies (NATO) and strategic
partners (India) have produced similar if as yet less substantial effects, and both
Tokyo and New Delhi have sought to move closer to each other. Unsurprisingly,
trade pressure from the US has caused India and China to reduce their tensions.
This appears to reflect a system characterised by shifting balances, but the term
‘balance’ is inaccurate because the scope for application of power in interdependent
relationships is limited. Perhaps ‘soft balancing’ is closer to the reality of limited
balancing-type strategic behaviour.20 In a system of interdependent states, where all
the players have strong incentives to ensure stability, deviant strategic behaviour by
one state (or more) brings a homeostatic response through which affected states
undertake balancing-like actions that seek restoration of the pre-existing equilibrium.
The post-Cold War prospect of an emergent US–China G2 applying increasing
pressure on India to dismantle its nuclear weapons programme caused India to test
the bomb in 1998. Note that this was an autonomy-emphasising response rather than
one that specifically aimed at deterring either China or Pakistan at the time, since it
was well known that India already possessed a covert arsenal.21 Similarly, India’s
response to US pressure on trade by attempting an understanding with China—and
China’s symmetrical response—represents a soft balancing strategy.
Overall, the pattern is one where soft balancing behaviour occurs in response to
disturbance in the equilibrium in what is essentially a homeostatic process. This is
not to say homeostasis is necessarily achieved or that it take place automatically;
only that it is a desirable condition for each of the major players in an international
system where the fates of nations are inextricably intertwined.
In this context, it is important to be clear about the nature of strategic linkages.
The content of strategic partnerships is fairly uniform.22 They involve most—though
not always all—of the following features:

● No formal identification of a common enemy (when strategic adversaries are

economic collaborators notwithstanding competition for markets);
● Sharing of capabilities through military exercises, arms transfers, joint patrols
and similar activities (though there is no real intent to use these capabilities
jointly against a major adversary and very limited intent to use them indivi-
dually in the event of marginal conflict);
● Networking through regular high-level political interactions that seek to coor-
dinate policies vis-à-vis areas of common interest;
● Avoiding dependence on a strong partner by keeping other options open;
● Avoiding ‘entrapment’ in the event a partner is involved in a strategic dispute
with a third state (because there is no alliance-type commitment to partners); and
192 Rajesh Basrur

● Keeping open channels of communication and collaboration with strategic

adversaries.

The overall pattern is one where friendships as well as rivalries are located within
a narrower range than has been the case historically. Strategic friendships are
constrained by economic competition; economic competition is restricted by inter-
locking interests in trade, investment and transnational production chains; and
strategic rivalries are constrained by both the high costs of military conflict and by
cross-cutting economic interests. In contrast with what realists see as essentially
a ‘war system’, this is a ‘post-war system’.23 In the former, the rational possibility of
war was a constant; in the latter, the rational impossibility of war is a constant. The
dynamics of this system, while often identified in material terms (such as power
balances), are in fact primarily symbolic and psychological, since the application of
material power is sharply checked by interdependence, i.e. the high cost of conflict,
both economic and military. It can hardly have escaped notice that, for the past seven
decades and more, major powers have never engaged in full-scale conflict, whether
military or economic.24
Conceptually, it is useful to view this pattern as the search for space within
the constraints imposed by the interacting effects of structure and interdepen-
dence. What realists call ‘structure’—the existence of anarchy and thus of
a ‘self-help system’, plus the impact of power distribution—is modified by
what they fail to properly acknowledge: interdependence, which generates
collective interest and undermines the effects of structure. The more difficult
problem that eludes resolution is that interdependence as a general phenomenon
sets limits to what states can do (with respect to rational conflict-oriented
behaviour), but does not necessarily cause them to cooperate for stability except
in a crisis. It is only when there is immediate interdependence—when a crisis
occurs—that states are compelled to cooperate in order to avoid an imminent
breakdown. At other times, the power of millennia of structurally driven think-
ing—a long-established ‘thought style’—constrains cooperation and facilitates
competitive behaviour.25

India’s strategic middle way

India’s preference for multiple strategic partnerships may have a post-colonial
genealogy—the prioritisation of autonomy was a natural consequence of the colonial
experience—but happens also to be in accord with the demands of the complex
world described above. This, we have seen, was not always the case. In the years
after independence, the overriding outlook was fear of others’ power. After the
shocks of the early 1990s and the reordering of foreign policy, accelerated economic
growth and the acquisition of enhanced military capabilities have given Indian
strategy an element of confidence (some might say overconfidence, reflected in the
ambition to be a ‘leading power’26). The key point is that, when it was a relatively
weak state, India was prone to intervene militarily in its neighbourhood from time to
time in the pursuit of security. In its perception, if India did not do so, other major
states (the United States, China) would have had the opportunity to intervene. In
contrast, as a ‘rising power’ with much enhanced military capabilities at its com-
mand, India has shown a remarkable reluctance to exercise its growing military
 Strategic Analysis 193

capability. The combination of multiple strategic partnerships and military restraint

is optimal in an international system where interdependence incentivises cooperation
rather than conflict. Strategic partnerships enable India to gain from its positive
strategic and economic relationships, including economic gains from China, and
minimise the potential costs of those relationships that are competitive (again, China)
as well as those cooperative ones which carry the risk of dependence (with the US).
The strategic geometry that is central to Indian foreign policy today is the
triangular relationship with the United States and China.27 Both bilateral relation-
ships are complex and carry elements of cooperation and conflict. The United States
is a source of economic gain—trade, investment and high technology—as well as of
military wherewithal to meet the needs of India’s expanding security interests. But it
is also a source of pressure, as has become evident today on a number of key issues.
The United States, reacting inchoately to the fading of its unipolar moment, has
become a flailing state hitting out at both friends and adversaries who it believes are
taking advantage of its hitherto benign hegemony. India’s economic and strategic
interests are under pressure. On the economic side, Washington has imposed higher
tariffs on Indian steel and aluminium and taken India to the dispute mechanism in the
World Trade Organisation (WTO) on issues such as non-tariff barriers on imports of
solar panels and subsidies for wheat and rice. On the strategic front, India has been
under American pressure to stop buying oil from Iran, reduce its involvement in the
construction of Iran’s Chabahar Port, and cancel its proposed purchase of the
Russian S-400 air defence system valued at $5.5 billion.
India’s response has been mixed: retaliating with tariffs on US shrimps and
apples; conceding on Iranian oil (orders have been reduced); negotiating on the
Chabahar issue (which complements US interests in Afghanistan); standing firm on
the S-400 (India will not drop an important strategic partner); offering carrots by
way of arms purchases from the US (Apache attack helicopters worth $930 million
and the NSAMS-II missile defence system worth $1 billion); and adjusting its trade
policy (reducing duties for economic partners, including China, in the Asia-Pacific
Trade Agreement or APTA).
China, for its part, has responded to US pressure by softening policy towards
India: lowering import duties (through APTA), reducing restrictions on the import of
Indian rice, and agreeing to share hydrological data relating to common river
systems. Despite India’s continuing efforts to build up its military capability vis-à-
vis China and the rising India–China border frictions that culminated in the Doklam
crisis of 2017—and perhaps in part because of it—India and China have held
a number of top-level political meetings that have seen the reduction of tensions.
For India, the move to ‘reset’ relations with China is a typical soft balancing
response to US pressure and by no means resolves any of the major problems that
have bedevilled their relationship over decades. In particular, China remains unwill-
ing to make a deal on the chief source of tension between them: the constant friction
over the disputed Line of Actual Control (LAC) which divides their troops along
a 4,000 km-long disputed border. This remains the case despite Prime Minister
Modi’s public assurance that an agreement on the LAC will not prejudice a border
settlement.
The rise of China has meant the extension of its strategic interests into the Indian
Ocean, as well as a massive flow of investments in South Asia and elsewhere under
the BRI. Concerned about Beijing’s ‘string of pearls’ (port investments with the
194 Rajesh Basrur

potential for strategic bases) and its growing presence in the Indian Ocean, India has
responded by turning to China’s chief adversaries, the US and Japan, for help in
strengthening its military capabilities and, more importantly, by establishing sym-
bolic linkages with them. The term ‘symbolic’ is used here because the linkage is
sharply limited in important ways. Despite their strategic cooperation through
military exercises and arms transfers (now extended to the provision of Japanese
patrol boats to Sri Lanka as a counter to Beijing’s influence), there is no identifica-
tion of China as the common adversary. For instance, India does not support Japan in
its territorial dispute with China, and Japan, like the US, stays out of the India–China
border dispute. To avoid applying too much pressure on China, India has been
careful to minimise the strategic profile of the so-called ‘Quad’ (India, the US,
Japan and Australia) by keeping Australia out of the India–US–Japan Malabar naval
exercises.
Has strategic tension eclipsed economic cooperation? The trade imbalance
favouring China is often brought up by Indian policymakers, but the benefits of
trade must surely outweigh its disadvantages for India to allow China to become its
largest partner in trade in goods. Total trade, which stood at just $188 million in
1992, touched $69.48 billion in 2016.28 The BRI, which India has rejected, is a more
complex issue. The official position of the Indian government is that the China–
Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which is part of the BRI, passes through
a portion of territory claimed by India and held by Pakistan. But the reality is
more complicated. Even as it shuns the BRI, India welcomes large-scale Chinese
investment.29 Despite political tensions, China’s rank as a source of FDI in India
displays a rapidly rising trajectory: it rose from 35th in 2011 to 28th in 2014 and
17th in 2016.30 Official figures put the quantum at $1.6 billion in 2016, but knowl-
edgeable sources say the actual level is around five times as much, since much of
these flows originates outside mainland China, coming from Chinese firms in
Hong Kong, Macau, Singapore and the United States.31
The spurt has been led by big players such as Xiaomi, Alibaba and Tencent.
Large Chinese firms are planning mega-investments over the next two years:
machinery producer Sany Heavy Industry is reported to be committing
$9.8 billion, while Pacific Construction, China Fortune Land Development and
Dalian Wanda are each planning to put in over $5 billion.32 The largest FDI flows
into India expected in the near future are from China (42 per cent), with the United
States (24 per cent) and the United Kingdom (11 per cent) following well behind.33
In short, India is not necessarily losing out by rejecting the BRI. More broadly,
strategic tensions have not negatively affected economic cooperation. The slight
loosening of barriers in recent months may be a precursor to further growth in trade
and FDI. But restrictions on Chinese FDI (and indeed FDI from other sources)
remain with respect to sensitive sectors such as defence, telecommunications, oil and
gas, airlines and ports.34
On the other hand, rising trade tensions between the US and China have
brought a sharp drop in Chinese FDI in the US: in the first half of 2018,
Chinese investments in the United States fell by more than 90 per cent as
compared to the first half of 2017; and net Chinese direct investment was
negative, with divestment exceeding investment by $7.8 billion in the first half
of 2018.35 This makes investment in India, with its high rate of growth, more
attractive for Chinese investors. The growing cost of American imports as a result
 Strategic Analysis 195

of rising tariffs has also opened up opportunities for Indian exports of products
like cotton and soyabeans to China.36 But the prospect of an intensifying trade
war (and of its attendant investment fallout) is unlikely to be sustained in the
longer run. Though less dramatically than in the case of nuclear weapons, the
instruments of economic conflict are counter-productive when brinkmanship spills
over the threshold of ‘war’, as there are likely to be no winners in a ‘trade war.’
This also means that there is every likelihood of a new equilibrium emerging in
US–China economic relations, which will slow down the pace of growth of
Chinese investment in India as well as Indian exports to China over time. But
having been once bitten, Chinese investors are likely to remain twice shy with
respect to the US as an investment destination, so the outlook for Chinese FDI in
India remains positive.

Conclusion
The high degree of interdependence in both the military and economic realms con-
strains the scope for traditional balance-of-power politics beyond a limited point. We
are sometimes reminded that the growing economic interdependence characteristic of
the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries did not prevent the outbreak of two
world wars. But the world today is very different from those times. Nuclear weapons
have revolutionised the relationship between politics and the instruments of war and
created an unprecedented strategic interdependence between their possessors.
Similarly—though less dramatically—the high-level interdependence created by trans-
national production chains, massive transnational investment patterns and extensive
trade (much of it intra-firm) has sharply curtailed the scope for economic conflict. The
idea of ‘limited war’ has been explored in the former realm, but the reality is that there
has been no more than marginal combat and that too on rare occasions.
Similarly—though to a lesser degree—the notion of ‘trade war’ is likely to
remain limited given its cost implications as seen in the US–Japan case. In both
spheres, there are strong incentives to restrain behaviours that might upset the
equilibrium. The real question is the extent to which this equilibrium is stable or
unstable. Variations in this respect are likely to be shaped by the nature of domestic
politics and the extent to which it pushes leaderships into the illusory gains of policy
positions such as ‘America first’.
India’s grand strategy should be understood in this context. A rising power possessing
the deterrent capability of nuclear weapons, it has no serious concerns about national
security vis-à-vis China beyond the (not inconsiderable) risk of marginal ‘war’ of the kind
that loomed close at Doklam. Hence India’s broad strategy vis-à-vis its adversaries and its
border disputes is stability-oriented and status quo-ist in inclination.
India’s security concerns are nonetheless real, as it is under pressure from
a revisionist Pakistan and a China that is palpably uninterested in stabilising their
border. But these apprehensions notwithstanding, the Indian strategy is in tune with
the essential character of the international system. The nature of interdependence in
the international system and the consequent tendency towards homeostasis means
that an optimal strategy is one that is not geared for major war, but for preserving
national interests with respect to marginal conflict at most. The two central features
of Indian post-Cold War strategy—multiple strategic partnerships to preserve stable
autonomy while minimising security threats and the maximisation of economic
196 Rajesh Basrur

exchange with adversaries—are well designed as they are congruent with the evolu-
tion of the system.37 Hence India’s rejection of the BRI should be viewed as
a calibrated response rather than simply as resistance to Chinese economic and
political power. India wants Chinese investment but not at an unacceptable strategic
cost, which is why it has welcomed the China-led Asian Infrastructure Investment
Bank and increasing flows of Chinese FDI, but not the BRI.38

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes
1. Rekha Dixit, “BRI Will Change Rules of Engagement, Fears India,” Week, December 27,
2018 at [Link]
[Link]> (Accessed on February 13, 2019); Ashok K. Kantha, “Why India is Cool
towards China’s Belt and Road,” South China Morning Post, June 30, 2017 at <[Link]
[Link]/week-asia/opinion/article/2094167/why-india-cool-towards-chinas-belt-and-road>
(Accessed on July 3, 2017); Tanvi Madan, “What India Thinks about China’s One Belt One
Road Initiative, But Doesn’t Explicitly Say,” Brookings Institution, March 14, 2016 at
<[Link]
connectivity-madan#.[Link]> (Accessed on March 21, 2016); “Geopolitics
in Indian Ocean Region Makes Neo-colonialism a Possibility: Ram Madhav,” Hindustan
Times, July 3, 2017 at <[Link]
ocean-region-makes-neo-colonialism-a-possibility-ram-madhav/story-BbwRhuQkYDEhH
[Link]>(Accessed on February 13, 2019).
2. Sushil Aaron, “Why India Needs to Take China’s One Belt One Road Initiative
Seriously,” Hindustan Times, March 31, 2017 at [Link]
sis/why-india-needs-to-take-china-s-one-belt-one-road-initiative-seriously/story-OpfzM
[Link] (accessed on same day); Kanti Bajpai, “Backed in a Corner:
By Staying Away from China’s Belt and Road Initiative, India Has Succeeded in
Isolating Itself,” Times of India, May 20, 2017 at [Link]
com/toi-edit-page/backed-in-a-corner-by-staying-away-from-chinas-belt-and-road-
initiative-india-has-succeeded-in-isolating-itself/ (Accessed on same day); Srinath
Raghavan, “India Must Involve Itself in the China-Pakistan One Belt, One Road
Initiative to Stay in the Game,” Hindustan Times, March 23, 2017 at <[Link]
[Link]/columns/india-must-involve-itself-in-the-china-pakistan-one-belt-one
-road-initiative-to-stay-in-the-game/[Link]> (accessed on
same day).
3. On the broad strategies of weak and strong states, see Michael Mandelbaum, The Fate of
Nations: The Search for National Security in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries,
Cambridge University Press, New York,1988.
4. Sumit Ganguly and Manjeet Pardesi, “Explaining Sixty Years of India’s Foreign Policy,”
India Review, 8 (1), January 2009, pp. 11-12.
5. World Bank, Data, n.d. at <[Link]
1998&locations=CN&start=1960&year_low_desc=true> (Accessed on June 10, 2018).
6. United States, Department of State, World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers, 1998 at
<[Link] (Accessed on June 10, 2018).
7. On Chinese nuclear assistance to Pakistan, see R. Jeffrey Smith and Joby Warrick, “Pakistani
Nuclear Scientist’s Accounts Tell of Chinese Proliferation,” Washington Post, November 13,
2009 at <[Link]
[Link]?noredirect=on> (Accessed on June 10, 2018); T. V. Paul. “Chinese-
Pakistani Nuclear/Missile Ties and Balance of Power Politics,” Nonproliferation Review 10
(2), 2003, pp. 21-29; Julian Schofield, Strategic Nuclear Sharing, Palgrave Macmillan,
Basingstoke and New York, 2014.
 Strategic Analysis 197

8. Sunil Khilnani, Rajiv Kumar, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Prakash Menon, Nandan Nilekani,
Srinath Raghavan, Shyam Saran and Siddharth Varadarajan, Nonalignment 2.0. (Centre for
Policy Research, New Delhi, 2012);
M. K. Narayanan, “Non-alignment to Multi-alignment,” The Hindu, January 5, 2016 at http://
[Link]/opinion/lead/indian-diplomacy-nonalignment-to-multialignment/arti
[Link]?homepage=true (Accessed the same day).
9. Satish Kumar, S.D. Pradhan, Kanwal Sibal, Rahul Bedi and Bidisha Ganguly, India’s
Strategic Partners: A Comparative Assessment, Foundation for National Security Research,
New Delhi, November 2011 at <[Link] on
February 10, 2015); Ian Hall, “Multialignment and Indian Foreign Policy under Narendra
Modi,’ Round Table 105 (5), 2016 at <[Link]
(Accessed on 18 May 18, 2016).
10. Feng Zhongping and Huang Jing, “China’s Strategic Partnership Diplomacy: Engaging with
a Changing World,” Working Paper, 8, June 2014, European Strategic Partnerships
Observatory, Brussels at [Link]
partnership-diplomacy-engaging-with-a-changing-world/, (Accessed on February 10, 2015);
Natalie M. Hess, “EU Relations with ‘Emerging’ Strategic Partners: Brazil, India and South
Africa,” Focus, 2, 2012 at [Link]
emerging-strategic-partners-brazil-india-and-south-africa (Accessed on February 10, 2015);
Vidya Nadkarni, Strategic Partnerships in Asia: Balancing Without Alliances, Routledge,
Abingdon and New York, 2010; Prashant Parameswaran, “Explaining US Strategic
Partnerships in the Asia-Pacific Region: Origins, Development and Prospects,”
Contemporary Southeast Asia, 36 (2), 2014, pp. 262-89; Thomas S. Wilkins, “‘Alignment,’
Not ‘Alliance’ – the Shifting Paradigm of International Security Cooperation: toward
a Conceptual Taxonomy of Alignment,” Review of International Studies, 38 (1), 2012, pp.
53-76.
11. Daniel Twining, “Asia’s New Triple Alliance,” Foreign Policy, February 24, 2015 at <http://
[Link]/2015/02/24/asias-emerging-triple-alliance-india-china-japan-modi-obama/>
(Accessed on July 1, 2015). A strong case for a balancing linkage between the three states vis-à-
vis China is made in Satoru Nagao, “Japan, the United States, and India as Key Balancers in
Asia,” Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC, n.d. [2015] at <[Link]
org/files/publication/150331_Nagao_JapanUSIndia.pdf> (Accessed on September 29, 2015).
12. Dinakar Peri, ‘“India, Japan and U.S. can shape China’s peaceful rise,”’ The Hindu,
22 July 2015 at [Link]
chinas-peaceful-rise/[Link], (Accessed same day).
13. Kenneth N. Waltz, “Nuclear Myths and Political Realities,” American Political Science
Review, 84 (3), September 1990, pp. 731-745.
14. Rajesh Basrur, “Nuclear Deterrence: The Wohlstetter-Blackett Debate Re-visited,” Working
Paper No. 271, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore, April 15, 2014 at
<[Link] (Accessed on March 18,
2018).
15. World Bank, Data, n.d. at <[Link]
view=chart> (Accessed on February 13, 2019).
16. World Bank, Data, n.d. at <[Link]
view=chart> (Accessed on February 13, 2019).
17. Thomas Kenny, “How Much US Debt Does China Own?” Balance, June 12, 2018 at https://
[Link]/how-much-u-s-debt-does-china-own-417016 (Accessed on
February 13, 2019).
18. For an insight into this, see Benjamin Miller, When Opponents Cooperate: Great Power
Conflict and Cooperation in World Politics, University of Michigan Press, Ann Arbor, 1995.
19. On hegemons versus challengers, see Robert S. Gilpin, War and Change in World Politics,
Cambridge University Press, New York, 1981.
20. T. V. Paul, “Soft Balancing in the Age of U.S. Primacy,” International Security, 30 (1),
Summer 2005, pp. 46-71; T. V. Paul, Restraining Great Powers: Soft Balancing from Empires
to the Global Era, (Yale University Press, New Haven, 2018.
21. Jyotika Saksena, “Regime Design Matters: The CTBT and India’s Nuclear Dilemma,”
Comparative Strategy, 25 (3), July 2006, pp. 209-229.
198 Rajesh Basrur

22. Rajesh Basrur and Sumitha Narayanan Kutty, “Conceptualizing Strategic Partnerships”, in
Rajesh Basrur and Sumitha Narayanan Kutty (eds.), India and Japan: Assessing the Strategic
Partnership, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2018, pp. 1-12.
23. Caveat: This applies only to powers which are militarily and/or economically interdependent.
24. On the military aspect, see Raimo Vayrynen (ed.), The Waning of Major War: Theories and
Debates, Routledge, New York and London, 2006.
25. On “thought styles,” see Barry O’Neill, Honor, Symbols, and War, University of Michigan
Press, Ann Arbor, MI, 2002.
26. See Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar’s speech on “India, the United States and China,” IISS-
Fullerton Lecture, July 20, 2015, International Institute of Strategic Studies, Singapore
at<[Link]
jaishankar-f64e> (Accessed on January 10, 2016).
27. Walter C. Ladwig III and Anit Mukherjee (eds.), India and the United States, Special Issue, Asia
Policy, 14 (1), January 2019; Sumit Ganguly, “India and China: On a Collision Course?” Pacific
Affairs, 91(2), June 2018, pp. 231-244; Stephen Blank, “The Geostrategic Implications of the
Indo-American Strategic Partnership,” India Review, 6(1), January-March 2007, pp. 1-24.
28. International Monetary Fund, Direction of Trade Statistics, International Monetary Fund,
Washington, DC, n.d. [2017] at <[Link] (Accessed
on August 17, 2017).
29. S. Arun, “India Seeks More Chinese Investments,” The Hindu, September 9, 2017 at <https://
[Link]/business/Economy/india-seeks-chinese-investments/article19651557.
ece> (Accessed on September 10, 2018).
30. Reshma Patil, “More Chinese Companies Investing in India, But Political Thaws [sic],
Barriers Remain,” Hindustan Times, April 17, 2017 at <[Link]
business-news/more-chinese-companies-investing-in-india-but-political-relations-barriers-
remain/[Link]> (Accessed on September 10, 2018).
31. Nantoo Banerjee, “China’s Investment in India: Investors Find Doing Business with India
Safe and Attractive,” Millennium Post, February 26, 2018 at <[Link]
opinion/chinas-investment-in-india-286998> (Accessed on March 24, 2018).
32. Ruchika Chitravanshi, “Led By Chinese, Nearly 600 Companies Line up $85 Billion
Investments in India”, The Economic Times, October 16, 2017 at [Link]
[Link]/news/economy/finance/led-by-chinese-nearly-600-companies-line-up-85-
billion-investments-in-india/articleshow/[Link] (Accessed on March 24, 2018).
33. Ruchika Chitravanshi, Ibid.
34. Jayanta Roy Chowdhury, “Select Restrictions on FDI to Stay,” The Telegraph, March 17,
2017 at <[Link]
(Accessed on September 10, 2018).
35. Thilo Hanemann, “Arrested Development: Chinese FDI in the US in 1H 2018,” Rhodium
Group, June 19, 2018 at <[Link]
us-in-1h-2018/> (Accessed on September 10, 2018).
36. Byron Chong, “India and the US-China Trade War,” China Brief, 120, July 11-31, 2018 at
<[Link] (Accessed
on August 3, 2018).
37. This has long been India’s approach to Pakistan as well, but has not been reciprocated by the
latter, notably with regard to the offer of Most Favoured Nation status.
38. Kiran Stacey, Simon Mundy and Emily Feng, “India Benefits from AIIB Loans despite China
Tensions”, Financial Times, March 18, 2018 at [Link]
11e8-b27e-cc62a39d57a0 (Accessed on February 12, 2018).