Border stand-offs with China, air strikes in Pakistan, and a strong-arm approach to smaller neighbours marked his first term as prime minister. Now safely re-elected, is it time for the friendly approach?

by Ananth Krishnan

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s stunning election victory on Thursday was the third re-election for a leader of a major regional democracy in a week, days after the return to power of Australia’s Scott Morrison and Indonesia’s Joko Widodo.

This continuity in three key Indo-Pacific powers strikes a curious note amid the increasing uncertainty facing the region and the world.

Modi’s remarkable win – the first time since 1971 that an incumbent prime minister in India has retained an absolute majority – will lend some predictability to India’s engagement with both the region as well as the United States and China.

The first foreign policy challenge already confronting the Modi government is a decision to be made on India’s oil imports from Iran, which are under pressure on account of the US-Iran tensions. India delayed a decision until the elections were over, following a US move to discontinue a sanctions waiver for India.

This is just one of the many challenges Modi faces in the increasingly difficult task of navigating a world in flux – from the US-China trade war to Iran – to secure India’s interests.

The sense in Delhi is that Modi is likely to continue with the approach he settled on towards the end of his first term, which was marked by a strong stand on terrorism and Pakistan, a focus on boosting connectivity in India’s immediate neighbourhood, and a careful balancing act in India’s relations with the US, Russia and China.

Much of the first part of his tenure, however, was marked by twists and turns. Consider Pakistan. An effort at the start of his term to reach out was subsequently derailed by numerous Pakistan-sourced terror attacks, and his tenure ended with the Balakot air strikes, the worst tensions between the neighbours in decades, and continuing problems in Jammu and Kashmir.

Similarly, what began as an overly dominating approach to India’s neighbours, most typified by a Nepal blockade in 2015, appeared to yield to a much needed course correction in how India engages with her smaller neighbours, which has now seen improved relations with both Nepal and Sri Lanka.
In 2014, Modi’s election gave both India and China, with two strong leaders at the helm, a unique chance to fundamentally transform relations.

In 2014, Modi’s election gave both India and China, with two strong leaders at the helm, a unique chance to fundamentally transform relations. Photo: Reuters

Modi’s perusal of closer security relations with the US was also, to some degree, later calibrated with the unpredictability of Donald Trump, who has taken a hard stand on trade issues with India as well, perhaps prompting the two major “informal summits” with China and Russia in Modi’s last year.

In a recent interview, Modi chose to highlight this emphasis on strategic autonomy in India’s outreach, describing how two sideline meetings at the G20 summit – between Japan, America and India, and Russia, India and China – in Modi’s words, “got the attention of global think tanks”.
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In contrast to the 2014 election campaign when Modi described China as an “expansionist” power, his comments on China this year have been considerably measured.

Ties have no doubt been helped by China’s long-overdue move to finally back the designation of the Pakistani terrorist Masood Azhar at the United Nations Security Council 1267 sanctions committee, after a decade of essentially vetoing the listing at Pakistan’s behest.

When pressed about China’s backing of Azhar, Modi insisted in another recent interview during the campaign that the “blacklisting is the result of a global consensus against terror and it would be unfair to reduce it to a China-centric issue”.

“China is also [one] of the countries across the world concerned about terror,” he said. “The India-China relationship is one of mutual respect. When the world is speaking of this century being Asia’s century, they are speaking of the rise of both China and India becoming the powers they used to be historically. So, we are working together, with the knowledge that we are both focusing on growth. Even if there are some differences, both the countries understand there is a lot we agree upon as well.”

Modi did acknowledge the many unresolved issues with China – such as the boundary question – but stressed that the common approach since a summit in Wuhan last April was to not allow “differences to become disputes”. As much as managing stable relations with China will be a priority, Modi’s first term underlined the challenge in doing so, evident during a 72-day border stand-off at Doklam.

While India and China will continue to cooperate on shared interests such as trade, particularly amid the China-US trade war and several common concerns on ensuring global free trade, the list of thorny issues does grow longer.

India remains concerned by the deepening China-Pakistan relationship, particularly under the China Pakistan Economic Corridor which passes through Indian-administered Kashmir. While China largely did not involve itself in the recent India-Pakistan tensions after Balakot, that may not always remain the case, with rising Chinese stakes in Pakistan.

India for the second time was absent at China’s second Belt and Road Forum in April, underlining its continuing concerns about the project. The Modi government has begun cooperating more closely with Japan and the US on connectivity. Translating this into credible alternatives remains a challenge for Modi’s second term.

In 2014, Modi’s election gave both India and China, with two strong leaders at the helm, a unique chance to fundamentally transform relations and evolve a new paradigm. That opportunity was squandered, with the start of his term marred by recurring border stand-offs, seen by some officials in India as a move by Beijing to test the new government. The old model, of ignoring differences while finding areas of convergence, has certainly been successful, but may have reached its limits. For China, the return of Modi with a strong mandate presents another opportunity to change relations, which it must seize.

India’s security cooperation with the US has deepened, with Modi in his first term signing two key foundational agreements on logistics support and communications interoperability. India’s trilateral naval exercises with the US and Japan have also grown in scale and scope, although in apparent deference to China’s sensitivities, the exercises haven’t yet included the fourth member of the so-called Quad grouping, Australia.

Yet only two weeks before Modi’s election, a different and first-of-its-kind quadrilateral exercise was quietly taking place away from the glare of the campaign, as two Indian naval ships in a rare exercise sailed jointly with ships from the US, Japan and the Philippines through the South China Sea. This would normally be a red rag to China, but what was striking was that shortly before the joint sail, the same two warships had sailed all the way to Qingdao to represent India at a fleet review to mark the 70th anniversary of the Chinese navy – another carefully considered decision that saw India’s warships sail beside China’s, when ships from the US – and not to mention China’s close “all-weather” ally Pakistan – were missing.

The balancing, no doubt, is set to continue in Modi’s second term, even if the act has got trickier.