The Evolving “Asian NATO” For The Indo-Pacific Region

By Patrick Mendis and Antonina Luszczykiewicz –NOVEMBER 5, 2020

The simultaneous visit by President Donald Trump’s two top national security officials to India raises the crucial triple “W” questions of when and who participated in the bilateral talks—and most importantly for what reasons.

Before arriving in Sri Lanka, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to New Delhi coincided with India-China border tensions, but one might also ask: why now? The visit took place just a few days ahead of the US presidential election and it leaves no doubts about the importance of American engagement with India when the most powerful and the largest democracies are being challenged by their failure to control the covid-19 pandemic. This was Pompeo’s fourth visit to India as Secretary of State and the third in the US-India 2+2 ministerial dialogue as part of the broader Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (the Quad).

The significance of his latest trip is that Pompeo was accompanied by US Defense Secretary Mark Esper to meet with their counterparts: Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and Defense Minister Rajnath Singh of India. As members of the Quad with Australia and Japan, the US and India now signed the last of four foundational accords – Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA) – for geospatial and intelligence cooperation to cement their bilateral military ties.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi characterized the goal of Quad is to build an “Indo-Pacific NATO” in a strategy to harken back to the Cold War mentality. In 2018, however, Wang dismissed the Quad and the Indo-Pacific (instead of Asia-Pacific) alliance as a “attention-grabbing idea” that would “dissipate like ocean foam.” Despite his political warfare, the evidence suggests the emergence of new NATO-like Indo-Pacific alliance, triggered largely by the recent Sino-Indian border conflict.

No More Long Shadow of Border Disputes

The last June clash between Indian and Chinese soldiers in the northwestern Himalayan region resulted in the first recorded casualties since 1975. New Delhi retaliated with banning over 100 Chinese apps – such as WeChat and TikTok – for which India was supposed to become the biggest foreign market for Chinese products. By doing so, Indian government went against the 1988 breakthrough, according to which economic and cultural relations between India and China were to be developed irrespectively of the ongoing border dispute.

It is no secret that in recent years India and the US have been working on tightening cooperation. It all began with the US-India civil nuclear cooperation agreement signed in 2008. The 2020 BECA agreement will allow India and the US to share satellite and mapping data for better accuracy of their missiles and drones—and for better surveillance against adversaries. This accord is the last and concluding part of four military agreements between India and the US that fortify their military cooperation.

Certainly, the US-India alliance is aimed mainly at counterbalancing influences of China. After the 2+2 ministerial dialogue in New Delhi, Pompeo remarked that “we have a lot to discuss today: our cooperation on the pandemic that originated in Wuhan, to confronting the Chinese Communist Party’s threats to security and freedom, to promoting peace and stability throughout the region.” From an American perspective, China is not the elephant in the room anymore, but the enemy of the US—pointing openly finger at Beijing.

Meaningful Timing?

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