Celebrated International Relations scholar John Mearsheimer gave an extended interview to The Indian Express about the present state of global affairs, which importantly touched upon the Sino-Indo rivalry. In his view, another large-scale war between them isn’t inevitable, but China’s forthcoming efforts to secure its Sea Lines Of Communication in the Indian Ocean will certainly stoke tensions. Accordingly, India and the US will move closer in response, at least according to his prediction.
In fact, Mearsheimer claimed that “If the Chinese threat were to disappear, then the US and India would not be anywhere near as friendly.” This point will soon be returned to in the review. Moving along, the next thing that he predicted is that China will try to resolve the Himalayan border dispute on its terms as it gets stronger, but he advised that India should tread carefully because “You don’t want to provoke the Chinese unnecessarily”. This doesn’t mean giving Beijing a carte blanche, just reacting responsibly.
To sum it up, Mearsheimer is of the opinion that the worsening Sino-Indo rivalry will serve to keep Indian-American relations solid, but this regional competition must be handled with the utmost of care in order to avoid sparking a large-scale war by miscalculation. This is sound advice and aligns with the Realist school of International Relations thought that he represents, but it overlooks the fact that “American Experts Won’t Admit That Their Country Is Responsible For Fragile Indo-US Ties”.
The aforementioned hyperlinked analysis elaborates more on this, but in brief, the US has accused India of Islamophobia, a planned extrajudicial killing of a dual US citizen on American soil, and persecuting the political opposition ahead of the six-week-long national elections from 19 April-1 June. This coincided with the comparative improvement in Sino-US ties after the Xi-Biden Summit in mid-November, notwithstanding America tightening its containment noose around China, thus spooking some Indians.
The latest Iranian-Israeli tensions caused by Israel’s bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus, Iran’s retaliation against Israel over the weekend, and worries about Israel responding in a way that escalates everything into an uncontrollable conflict spiral have placed West Asia back in the center of US focus. If the US revives its anti-Iranian containment policy even in part instead of fully “Pivoting (back) to Asia” upon the inevitable end of the Ukrainian Conflict as planned, then India would be left in the lurch.
The Realist school of International Relations thought suggests that China and the US could reach an understanding with one another for more responsibly managing their systemic rivalry, which would be driven by the US’ inability to contain the People’s Republic as robustly as it previously planned. The “Chinese threat” wouldn’t disappear from the US’ perspective, but it would be somewhat reduced by necessity upon an even partial revival of its anti-Iranian containment policy at India’s expense.
The sequence of events that exacerbated the latest Iranian-Israeli tensions couldn’t have been foreseen when Indo-US ties began fraying late last year, but the fact that they already weakening prior to that is why they’re expected to weaken even further if the US divides its focus between West and East Asia. In that event, India’s ties with Russia would become more strategic as Delhi relies on Moscow to exert a positive influence upon Beijing by ideally getting it to reconsider forcefully pushing its Himalayan claims.
Facing an emboldened China on the border while feeling increasingly abandoned by America due to its newfound Israeli-pressured West Asian security commitments vis-à-vis Iran, India would be more vulnerable than it’s been in half a century, but Russia’s role would be greater than any time since. The best way to ensure its interests would be for India to rely on Russia as explained above, though the asymmetries within the Sino–Russo Entente might limit Moscow’s influence on Beijing.
Nevertheless, China and Russia still share the same aligned multipolar worldview, so it’s possible in theory that President Putin could leverage his close personal relations with President Xi to try convincing him that their joint goals would be endangered by too forcefully pushing China’s claims on India. The risk of sparking a large-scale war by miscalculation could open up an opportunity for the US to divide-and-rule those Asian giants in advance of its hegemonic interests at the expense of genuine multipolar ones.
Returning to Mearsheimer’s insight into the Sino-Indo rivalry, it can therefore be concluded that while he has a sense of its general dynamics, he lacks specific knowledge about the latest trouble in Indian-American ties that contradicts his school of thought’s expectation that they’ll continue strengthening. This in turn has direct implications for the Sino-Indo rivalry, but hopefully he’ll be brought up to speed about everything soon enough and can then share more detailed predictions on this important subject.
