In India-China crisis, an India-US bonanza in view

A border clash has plunged ties between India and China to their lowest point in decades. But one beneficiary looks clear — the US-India relationship.

Experts say India could finally end equivocation about openly aligning itself with the long-eager United States, although there will still be disagreements — which, paradoxically, are now mostly due to Washington.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo told reporters that China “took incredibly aggressive action” in a hand-to-hand battle in the remote Himalayas on June 15 that killed 20 Indian soldiers.

The hawkish Pompeo characterized the violence as part of a broader strategy by Beijing to challenge all of its neighbors.

Jeff M. Smith, a research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation who has written a book on the India-China rivalry, said the United States is known to offer border intelligence to India, which is now likely to pick up the pace on defense acquisitions.

But Smith said that India has asked the United States to be publicly circumspect — in part to show the domestic audience that New Delhi does not need help.

India also does not want “to feed Chinese propaganda narratives that this is all a component of the China-US rivalry and that India is working at America’s behest,” Smith said.

Michael Kugelman, a South Asia expert at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, cautioned that neither India nor China wanted a complete rupture and said that both still saw some common interests, especially in international organizations.

“But make no mistake: This current India-China crisis is a watershed for the geopolitics of Asia, and the US-India relationship will be one of the main beneficiaries,” he said.

“Previous Indian concern about antagonizing China if it moves closer to the US is starting to melt away.”

– ‘Transactional’ ties –

The United States has been seeking warmer ties since the 1990s with India, which insisted during the Cold War on being “non-aligned” on the global stage.

President Do