India's U-Turn Destroys Trump's Anti-Chinese 'Quad' Strategy

moon of alabama

A change in India's foreign policy last week disintegrated the Trump administration's strategy against Russia and China. U.S. media pronouncements about India will now change. The Indian government under Narendra Modi will come under heavy propaganda fire.

Two weeks ago the MoA Weekly Review mused about the corrupt Rafale fighter jet deal India's Hindu-fascist President Modi had arranged:

In short: The previous government signed a contract with France' Dassault to buy 126 Rafale jets for $10.6 billion. Thirty percent of the price would flow back from Dassault to the Indian state owned aviation manufacturer HAL, which would assemble most of the planes.

Modi flew to Paris and changed the deal without the knowledge of his cabinet and the country's military. India will get only 36 Rafales but pay $8.7 billion for them. Thirty percent of the money would flow back to a private Indian company belonging to the largely bankrupt, privately held Reliance Group for unrelated projects and without any know-how transfer.

How much Reliance, owned by the once very rich Ambani family, would hand over to Modi and his party is yet unknown. There are calls for Modi to step down which he is unlikely to do.

The writing was based on and credited to the legwork Caravan Magazine had done.

Today the New York Times picked up the story - With ‘Fishy’ Jet Deal, India’s Opposition Finally Lands a Blow on Modi.

The 'paper of the record' is two weeks late with the story, adds nothing new to it and does not even credit Caravan which uncovered the details of the corrupt deal.

The question thus is: Why was this published now?

The U.S. had hoped that it could pull the traditionally non-aligned India to its side and use it in its strategic wars against China, Russia and Iran. The Quad strategy of an Indo-Pacific alliance of Japan, Australia and India under U.S. leadership was agreed upon a year ago,  supposedly to implement a "rules based order" in which the U.S. makes up rules of what China (and others) are allowed to do - or not allowed to do - in the Indo-Pacific realm.

Critics of the Modi government did not like the subservient role proud India was supposed to play in that game.

Then the U.S. Congress, through the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanction Act (CAATSA), threatened India with sanctions should it buy the Russian S-400 air-defense systems. Trump also threatens with sanctions over India's purchase of Iranian oil.

Domestic criticism of Modi's strategy increased. The Rafale scandal added to the pressure. After some dithering he finally changed course.

Last week President Putin visited India and signed a number of big deals. India will buy 5 regiments (40 launchers) of the S-400 system for a cool $5 billion. Moreover both sides agreed on a deal for 6 additional nuclear reactors to be build by Russian companies in India. (Two Russian reactors are already running in India while two more are under construction.) The reactors come at some $20 billion each and will be build over the next decade. Rosneft signed a ten year deal to provide India with 10 million tons of oil per year. There are also a number of other new agreements.

The leaders' remarks at the summit referred to multilateralism and the joint statement they issued was a kick into Trump's ass. At Indian Punchline the former Indian ambassador M. K. Bhadrakumar remarks:

We seem to have flushed down the drain the Trump administration’s idea of the “Quad”, which of course was a barely-disguised attempt to create a US-led alliance system in the Asia-Pacific to isolate China in its region. India is marking its distance from that enterprise.

In a wider essay Bhadrakumar expands on the Indian perspective:

The big picture is incomplete unless we draw in these trends in the world order to conceptualise our response. We should put in proper perspective the growing Sino-Russian entente instead of viewing it sceptically. The entente underscores that the US strategy to divide China and Russia and fight them separately—China in the Pacific battlefield and Russia in the European battlefield—has not worked. On the contrary, what is under way is a squeezing of the US out of the Middle East and Southeast Asia. Washington is showing signs of nervousness. This explains the desperate American attempt to draw India into a military alliance to suit its own needs. We will be erring seriously in any mistaken belief that this is about a “liberal international order”, which, of course, is only an American myth.

Despite U.S. sanction threats India will also continue to buy Iranian oil:

India will buy 9 million barrels of Iranian oil in November, two industry sources said, indicating the world's third-biggest oil importer will continue purchasing crude from the Islamic republic despite U.S. sanctions coming into force on Nov. 4.

China will likewise continue to buy hydrocarbons from Iran.

All these transactions will, of course, not be done in U.S. dollars as was once customary, but in bilateral currencies or as barter deals.

The new Indian deals with Russia, the statements from the Russia-India summit and the continued oil buying from Iran are huge defeats for the Trump administration's anti-China, anti-Russia and anti-Iran policies. Its global strategy to rescue the 'unilateral moment' for the U.S. has failed over India's recalcitrance.

And that is the very reason the New York Times is now drawing attention to the Rafale corruption scandal and highlighting the opposition to Modi.

India under Modi is now on the official American shit list. Bring out the propaganda guns. It's time for regime change.

Posted by b on October 7, 2018 at 10:45 AM | Permalink

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/10/indias-u-turn-destroys-trumps-anti-chinese-quad-strategy-.html