{"id":5409,"date":"2020-01-07T15:50:20","date_gmt":"2020-01-07T10:20:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/?p=5409"},"modified":"2020-01-07T15:50:20","modified_gmt":"2020-01-07T10:20:20","slug":"bilateral-regional-and-global-groupings-and-agreements-involving-india-and-or-affecting-indias-interests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/bilateral-regional-and-global-groupings-and-agreements-involving-india-and-or-affecting-indias-interests\/","title":{"rendered":"Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and\/or affecting India\u2019s interests"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Relevance: Mains: G.S paper II: Polity<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Context:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The \u201cPhase One\u201d trade deal between the United States and China gives both sides a reprieve, especially since the U.S. stayed its hand in not imposing additional tariffs worth $160-billion in mid-December.<br \/>\n\u2022 A technology war has erupted in the areas of artificial intelligence, digital space and 5G. Tensions have risen following the U.S.\u2019s passing of the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act of 2019 and the proposed Uighur Act.<br \/>\n\u2022 The slowdown in the global economy is compounded by the U.S.-China trade war. As more sectors get drawn in, costs are rising and disrupting global supply chains.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Energy concerns<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Slack demand for energy and surplus production mainly by the U.S. had lowered oil prices, which was good news for India, given its huge imports.<br \/>\n\u2022 Lower energy prices may help India address its current account deficit. It can also make India\u2019s export sector more competitive.<br \/>\n\u2022 But oil prices have surged more than 4% following the U.S. airstrike killing Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, Commander of the Qods Force.<br \/>\n\u2022 An outbreak of hostilities would send oil prices soaring. Unlike India, China continues to buy Iranian crude oil and is its largest buyer.<br \/>\n\u2022 Reports suggest that China will invest $280-billion in developing Iran\u2019s oil, gas and petrochemical sectors and even station Chinese security personnel to guard Chinese projects.<br \/>\n\u2022 Dependence on China prevents Iran from criticising China on its policies in Xinjiang. In tensions with the U.S., Iran sees in China a sympathizer.<br \/>\n\u2022 India\u2019s ramped up energy imports from the U.S. are likely to touch $10-billion in 2019-2020.<br \/>\n\u2022 China\u2019s interest in Saudi Aramco\u2019s initial public offering and interest in weakening the dollar in the global energy market has grown.<br \/>\n\u2022 It is forging closer ties with oil producers that are in the U.S.\u2019s crosshairs on human rights and governance issues.<br \/>\n\u2022 This facilitates its naval presence in the western Indian Ocean, including the Strait of Hormuz.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>On trade:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>According to a State Bank of India \u201cEcowrap\u201d report of July 2019, India has scarcely benefited from U.S.-China trade.<br \/>\n\u2022 Of the $35-billion dip in China\u2019s exports to the U.S. market in the first half of 2019, about $21-billion (or 62%) was diverted to other countries.<br \/>\n\u2022 The rest, $14-billion, was made good largely by the U.S. producers.<br \/>\n\u2022 Going by a UN Conference on Trade and Development report of November 2019, additional exports from India to the U.S. market in the first half of the year due to trade diversion amounted to only $755-million.<br \/>\n\u2022 U.S. tariffs on China seem to have made some other players such as Taiwan, Mexico, Vietnam, and the European Union even more competitive.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Shortage in meat export:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>China is facing a great shortage of pork due to an outbreak of swine flu but India\u2019s meat exports, primarily buffalo meat, reach China indirectly through Vietnam and the Philippines, adding to costs and reducing market share.<br \/>\n\u2022 Besides, India\u2019s pork exports are meagre.<br \/>\n\u2022 China\u2019s ambitious thrust on artificial intelligence, robotics, autonomous vehicles, and space technologies has goaded the Donald Trump administration into action.<br \/>\n\u2022 With tensions rising after the blacklisting of Huawei Technologies by the U.S., the spectre of a high-tech war looms large.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Challenges in IT autonomy:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The big three Chinese high-tech companies, Baidu, Alibaba, and Tencent, together with poured in $5-billion in Indian startups in 2018.<br \/>\n\u2022 India could use this opportunity to try and force China to pry open its market to India\u2019s IT and other tech exports.<br \/>\n\u2022 The U.S.-China high-tech war threatens India\u2019s strategic autonomy. Yet India has decided to allow all network equipment makers, including Huawei, to participate in 5G spectrum trials. The outcome is far from clear.<br \/>\n\u2022 As U.S.-China tensions drive supply chains out of China, India could emerge as an alternative destination with the right policies, as Vietnam has done.<br \/>\n\u2022 Any impact on clean energy targets in China due to U.S. technology restrictions in the nuclear field could be a setback to efforts to reduce emissions and mitigate climate change in the entire region.<br \/>\n\u2022 Denial regimes often spur domestic research and development and if the development of India\u2019s own missile program during years of U.S. sanctions is anything to go by, China may yet succeed in riding out the storm on the technology front.<br \/>\n\u2022 China claims that the U.S. is behind the disturbances in Hong Kong. There is no sign of the protests abating. If things turn uglier, India may have to cater to refugees of Indian origin.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Key regional issues:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The situation in the South China Sea is weighted in favor of China given its fait accompli in occupying several man-made islands.<br \/>\n\u2022 India has no role in negotiating the \u201cCode of Conduct\u201d with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, though it is a participant in the \u201cQuad\u201d dialogue on broader issues in the Indo-Pacific.<br \/>\n\u2022 India reserves the right to sail and fly unhindered through the South China Sea in accordance with the principles of freedom of navigation and overflight.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>On connectivity:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The U.S.\u2019s position is helpful to India.<br \/>\n\u2022 Recently, the U.S. Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs Alice G. Wells criticised the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, which traverses Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, as eventually worsening Islamabad\u2019s economic troubles.<br \/>\n\u2022 India is neither part of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) nor the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership.<br \/>\n\u2022 It is absent from the Indo-Pacific Business Forum created by the U.S., Japan, and Australia as also from the Blue Dot network.<br \/>\n\u2022 A future challenge lies in India having to reconcile its own regional connectivity initiatives with the BRI projects that have mushroomed in the neighborhood.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>On defense sector:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>China\u2019s economic success has emboldened it such that it challenges the liberal democracy model and offers an alternative developmental model based on its own system.<br \/>\n\u2022 Overall, the military advances by China notwithstanding, U.S. defense spending far outstrips China\u2019s budget. Its nuclear arsenal dwarfs that of China. With the creation of a U.S. Space Force as a separate arm under the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. will seek to increase its superiority in network-centric warfare.<br \/>\n\u2022 As China\u2019s anxieties in the Asia-Pacific theatre grow, India may yet have to contend with a greater Chinese military presence on its periphery.<br \/>\n\u2022 The Western Theater Command created in 2016 is responsible for the border with India.<br \/>\n\u2022 It is the largest of China\u2019s military regions, and the Tibet Military Command under it has been accorded a higher status than other provincial commands to widen its scope for combat preparedness.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Way forward:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>U.S.-China rivalry coincides with an upward trajectory in India-U.S. relations.<br \/>\n\u2022 This is important for equilibrium and multi-polarity in Asia, even as India and China try and build much-needed trust and cooperation.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Relevance: Mains: G.S paper II: Polity Context: The \u201cPhase One\u201d trade deal between the United States and China gives both<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3530,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[123,18],"tags":[392],"class_list":["post-5409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-current-affairs","category-general-studies-ii","tag-union-public-service-commission-upsc"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5409"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5410,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5409\/revisions\/5410"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3530"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/triumphias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}