ASEAN remains ill-equipped to handle the fallout from the tensions in the South China Sea or the potentiality of a full-blown Taiwanese conflict.
Against this backdrop, India has been promoting the idea of ‘net security provider’ in South Asia and the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).
Following the attack on a mosque in Kunduz, Afghanistan on October 8, 2021, ISK confirmed the recruitment and mobilization of Uyghur fighters. This was the first time that the alliance between IS-K and Uyghurs was affirmed by IS-K on media platforms.
But New Delhi must not be complacent, because a lot more needs to be done in acquisitions and modernisation to match the much larger and more sophisticated Chinese arsenal and to raise India’s politico-diplomatic assertiveness against Beijing's muscle-flexing.
A forceful "unification" of Taiwan has been projected by most analysts as happening within the next five years of Xi’s new third term, as he will need this to cement a history-making legacy that will help him extend his rule for life
Bangladesh negotiated with India for 35 years, but the negotiations did not make any headway due to the river's importance to West Bengal. So Bangladesh has to look for other solutions where advanced Chinese technologies and experiences may have something to offer.
This partnership is also mutually driven by concerns over China’s territorial and naval expansion in its neighbourhood. As India prepares for the Malabar exercise being hosted by Japan this year, the focus should be on providing a stable, secure and prosperous Indo-Pacific.
Taipei needs full regional support for its survival and in its efforts to repel a Chinese invasion; it cannot afford to be distracted by other lingering issues with other neighbours, including Japan, which Beijing is happy to exploit to its advantage.
"The National Defense Strategy is really premised on this urgent need to sustain and strengthen deterrence with the focus on the People's Republic of China," the US official said.
Myanmar's military junta is facing fierce resistance from various ethnic minorities. A shadow government, called National Unity Government (NUG), was formed to counter the military government. The shadow government has already appealed to the international community for support, to which the United States, the European Union and ASEAN member states have responded.
Experts have even called for Japan to deepen bilateral security cooperation with India, Britain and France, countries that have shown a new resoluteness towards Chinese actions in the Indo-Pacific.
No country comes close to China’s sophisticated influence-seeking tools and the way it leverages its soft power. The relentless pursuit by Chinese propagandists, out to stake their claim on the global information order, are challenges that the independent global information order needs to meet.
The launching of supply chain resilience in the Indo-Pacific region is another attribute of the rising interest in India. India’s strong leadership in the region evokes new opportunities to reap benefits from its low-cost hub, laden with high IT technology.
Colonna tweeted in French that it was the “launch of a new trilateral format in the #Indo-Pacific zone with India and the Emirates“ with “a common ambition to move forward in 4 areas: #security and #defence, #Climate, #Technologies and people(-to-people) exchanges”.
Professor Thussu says, ”Although New Delhi remains a traditional friend of Dhaka, the growing presence of China in Bangladesh and elsewhere in South Asia, makes it difficult for Hasina to prioritize India over China: the scale and depth of Chinese investment, aid etc. can’t be matched by India.”
In this regard, both ASEAN and Malaysia seem to have lost their appeal to the West for a deeper security foothold, with Washington realising that the current situation of the region's pandering to Beijing makes it difficult for the US to establish rooted military alliances and placement of strategic anti-missile capacities, among others
Not surprisingly, India has not come out with any condemnation of China for its atrocities in Xinjiang, a classic example of India in recent times trying to steer clear of global contestations
It will be for the first time that the Pentagon is getting involved in a high-altitude exercise with Indian troops, a fact that will not go unnoticed in Beijing. Is staging these combat drills so close to the disputed region indicative of a strategic shift on the part of New Delhi?
A new, long and potentially ugly physical and mind games have begun, where conventional and tactical firepower alone would not guarantee long term success and acceptance
