“The increased prospect of India-China border hostility has implications for the United States.”

Some of the steps being taken by Beijing along the India-China border has been “provocative”, a top White House official has said while reaffirming that the United States is “destined” to work more closely with India. Kurt Campbell, the Deputy Assistant to the US President and Coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, told a Washington-based think-tank on Thursday that India is not an ally of the United States and will never be so.

“But it does not mean that we will not be close partners and share many things. That’s how we need to understand the role that India will play as a great nation on the global stage.

“We want to encourage that and support that and deepen this relationship, which is already very strong, probably the strongest people-to-people relationship of any country that the United States has on the global stage,” he said.

Campbell said that the India-US relationship “is the most important bilateral relationship for the United States in the 21st century”.

“I believe we are destined to work more closely together. I believe that our people-to-people ties are strong, animate in a relationship that is becoming deeper, richer and more strategically important,” he said.

The think tank — Centre for a New American Security (CNAS) — in a report said that the India-China border intrusions and clashes have become more frequent and threaten to lead to all-out conflict.

Den øgede udsigt til grænsefjendtlighed mellem Indien og Kina har konsekvenser for USA og dets Indo-Stillehavsstrategi mellem de to asiatiske giganter, hedder det.

India’s engagement with China is “complex” and Chinese attempts to unilaterally alter the status quo along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh starting from April-May 2020 seriously disturbed the peace and tranquillity in border areas and impacted overall ties, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said in a report this month.

I sin årsrapport for 2022 sagde MEA, at udenrigsministeren formidlet til sin kinesiske modpart, at genoprettelse af normalitet i bånd vil kræve genoprettelse af fred og ro langs grænsen.

“India’s engagement with China is complex. The two sides have agreed that pending the final settlement of the boundary question, maintenance of peace and tranquillity in the border areas is an essential basis for the overall development of the bilateral relationship,” the MEA’s annual report said.

I mellemtiden sagde CNAS-rapporten, at indiske embedsmænd mener, at Kina forsøger at begrænse Indien ved at tvinge det til at omdirigere flere ressourcer til samtidig at forsvare både sin vestlige grænse til Pakistan og østlige flanke med Kina og ved at svække sin vilje og evne til at udfordre kinesiske ambitioner om at dominere regionen.

Campbell told the think-tank, “Some of the steps that China has taken along this vast 5,000-mile border had been provocative and deeply concerning to Indian partners and friends.”

The think-tank’s report, authored by Lisa Curtis and Derek Grossman, has made several recommendations to help deter and respond to further Chinese aggression along the border with India.

Prominent among them include the United States should elevate Indian territorial disputes with China on par with Beijing’s assertiveness against other US allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific and ensure this is reflected in all national security-related documents and speeches.

Det anbefalede også, at USA tilbyder Indien den sofistikerede militærteknologi, det kræver for at forsvare sine grænser og igangsætte samproduktion og fælles udvikling af militært udstyr og bistå Indien med at styrke dets maritime og flådekapacitet.

Tænketanken opfordrede også USA til at gennemføre fælles efterretningsgennemgange med Indien for at tilpasse vurderinger af kinesiske planer og hensigter langs Line of Actual Control (LAC) og forbedre koordineringen med indiske embedsmænd om beredskabsplanlægning i tilfælde af en fremtidig Indien-Kina konflikt.

It asked the US to criticise Beijing’s “efforts at land-grabbing” in multilateral forums, including the UN, Shangri-La Dialogue, G20, and East Asia Summit and be prepared to extend full support to India in the event of another border crisis or conflict.

Send besked til Pakistan og få hjælp fra dets andre vigtige partnere til at formidle lignende punkter om behovet for at forblive neutral i tilfælde af en potentiel fremtidig grænse mellem Indien og Kina, hedder det i rapporten.

Som svar på et spørgsmål sagde Campbell, at der har været en eksponentiel stigning i engagementet på stort set alle områder.

“We just concluded discussions in a form called ICET in which the Indian National Security Advisor brought the highest-ranking group of Indian technologists ever to come to any country, and came to the United States to talk about how to partner on areas going forward,” Campbell said.

“We’re working more on defence-related issues on people to people. We want more Indian students in our universities. We want more American students in Indian universities. We want more people-to-people, university partnerships more generally, and health partnerships. We have just announced efforts to work together in space. So the agenda is extraordinarily rich. The ambitions are high,” he added.

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