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Though it is the election held in the US for the election of the US President, it is closely followed throughout the world given the dominant position of that country in the world and impact of the US Presidents decision on the world. This article analyses the implications for India in both the scenarios re-election of Trump or Joe Biden winning the election.

Implications for India

• Broader foreign policy decisions will have significant implications for India.
• Particularly consequential will be how a second Trump administration or a Biden administration perceive and approach China and, relatedly, the question of America’s role in the world.
• The outcome will depend on the choices that the next American president makes on key personnel and policies.

Analysing Trump administration’s approach to China from India’s perspective

• The Trump administration’s more hawkish view of China broadly converges with Indian concerns about a rising China’s actions and intentions.
• And it has facilitated the Trump administration to assign India an important role in its strategic framework, including through the Free and Open Indo-Pacific concept.
• This has laid the basis for defence and security cooperation, helped to manage differences with Delhi on trade, Russia, Iran, and human rights, and vocal American support for India in the ongoing crisis with China.
• Unlike India’s subtler approach to highlighting Beijing’s malign behaviour, the administration’s more explicit one has put a global spotlight on Chinese assertiveness.
• However, there are aspects of President Trump’s China approach that have caused concerns in Delhi.
• There has been concern about Trump striking a deal with Chinese leader Xi Jinping since summit in April 2017.
• The administration subsequently pivoted to competition with China that summer.
• Concerns have also been raised due to neglect in the Trump administration of developments related to Hong Kong, Xinjiang and Huawei/ZTE.
• The other aspects of Trump’s China approach that have given Delhi pause are its ideological dimensions, as well as responses like tariffs that have hurt India too.
• On the similar lines American withdrawal from international institutions and agreements that has served to benefit Beijing.
• The China prism has had its limits — it has not, for instance, resulted in concessions to India on trade and immigration.

What would be Joe Biden’s to approach towards China and implications for India

• And there is recognition among most Democrats that the US-China relationship today is different from what it was in 2009, 2012 or 2016.
• An Obama administration China hand noted that opinion in the US on approach to China has “moved from balancing co-operation and competition, to competition and confrontation”.
• But what a Biden administration sees as the terms of strategic competition with China and how it might choose to blend in cooperation will have implications for India.
• Its outcome will depend in part on the president’s views, who holds key foreign and economic policy positions, as well as Beijing’s approach.
• India will closely watch how Biden might respond to any overtures from Beijing.
• It will particularly worry about any signs that Washington would be willing to limit competition or criticism in return for Chinese cooperation on certain administration priorities.
• More broadly, it will look at whether Biden administration’s Asia policy derives from its China policy or vice versa.
• Other aspects of Biden’s preferred approach might suit India, for instance:
• 1) acting collectively with allies and partners rather than unilaterally,
• 2) Not imposing tariffs that hit allies and partners along with China,
• 3) Recommitting to international organisations in ways that could blunt Chinese influence.
• India might also broadly approve of — and could benefit from — the 3Ds of a Biden foreign policy: Domestic (renewal), deterrence, and democracy.
•  If a Biden administration sees engagement with China on climate change, global health security and non-proliferation as a priority that will complicate the Indian government’s options and require adjustments.
• Moreover, with either Trump or Biden, foreign economic policy choices and budgetary ones for example, spending at home versus abroad will have crucial implications for India.

Conclusion

India will need to consider what America’s choice on November 3 will mean for American power and purpose — because assessments of that could determine how Beijing decides to act in the region and globally.

While highlighting the importance of navy for India, the article examines the need to define the role and relation between the Quad and Malabar.

The salience of navy for India

• It took confrontation in the Himalayas to bring focus on India’s maritime domain clearly indicates that the salience of maritime power is not yet understood in India.
• On its northern and western fronts, India faces a formidable challenge and can at best hope for stalemate due to two factors :
• 1) Economic, military and technological asymmetry between China and India.
• 2) Active China-Pakistan nexus.
• Attention has, therefore, been focused on the maritime domain, where it is believed that India may have some cards to play.
•  While preparing to fight its own battles with determination, it is time for India to seek external balancing (read Quad) — best done via the maritime domain.

Evolution of Malabar Exercise

• Above is the backdrop against which one must see the progressive evolution of Exercise “Malabar”,
• At beginning, it was a bilateral event involving just the Indian and US navies.
• It became tri-lateral with the inclusion of Japan in 2015.
• And now it has transformed into a four-cornered naval drill that will also include Australia.
• Apart from its geo-political significance for the Indo-Pacific, this development poses two conundrums.
• Firstly, given the same composition, what is the distinction, now, between “Malabar” and the “Quad”?
• Secondly, does Malabar 2020 mark the release of Australia from China’s thralldom?

Defining the roles and relation betwee Malabar and Quad

• The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or Quad has its roots in the Core Group of four senior diplomats representing the US, India, Japan and Australia.
• The group was formed to coordinate relief efforts after the Great Asian Tsunami of December 26, 2004.
• The present Quad has obviously retained this tradition and its members have neither created a charter nor invested it with any substance.
• The Quad is 16 years old now, and Malabar 28.
• Both have served a useful purpose, and a reappraisal of the roles and relationship of the Quad-Malabar concepts is, therefore, overdue.
• Since it is India which faces a “clear and present danger”, it should boldly take the initiative to do so.

Need for the Indo-Pacific Concord

•  In order to rein in China’s hegemonic urges, there is need for affected nations to come together to show their solidarity and determination in a common cause.
• In this context, there is need to create a broad-based “Indo-Pacific Concord”, of like-minded regional democracies.
• This should be an organisation with a maritime security charter, which has no offensive or provocative connotations.
• Using the Quad and Malabar templates, a shore-based secretariat can be established in a central location like Port Blair, in the Andaman Islands, which would schedule and conduct periodic multinational naval exercises.
• The exercises could be structured to hone the skills of participating navies in specialisations like humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, countering non-traditional threats, undertaking search-and-rescue operations and establishing networked maritime domain awareness.
• The Concord could also designate forces to uphold maritime security or “good order at sea”.

What Australia joining Quad means

•  The prospect of Australia belatedly joining the Quad is expected to reinforce the Quad and enhance its credibility.
• But there are reasons for India to be circumspect it.
• Memories are still alive of its past political ambivalence towards India, its criticism of our naval expansion and its vociferous condemnation of the 1998 nuclear tests.
• Nor should one overlook Beijing’s recent influence on Australia’s foreign policy.
• This influence on Australia’s foreing policy caused it to flip-flop over the sale of uranium to India as well as its peremptory withdrawal from the Quad in 2008.

Implications of singing of BECA with the U.S.

• India signing the BECA (Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement) with the US last of the four “foundational agreements” would enhance interoperability between the respective militaries.
• However, there is need to pay heed to two valid concerns:
• 1) Regarding the possible compromise of information impinging on India’s security.
• 2) Whether these agreements will barter away the last vestiges of India’s strategic autonomy.

Consider the question “The changing geopolitical equations has necessitated the formation of Indo-Pacific Concord by the democracies of the region.” In light of this, elaborate on India’s role in Quad and its implications for the region”

Conclusion

Indians, given our history, should never lose sight of the truism in international relations, that it is the unerring pursuit of national interests that guides the actions and policies of every nation.