Daily Times

It was only natural for Beijing to go active in Southeast Asia considering how the US secretary of state was just in Bangkok as part of the Biden administration’s “aggressive diplomacy” to counter Chinese influence in China’s own backyard. That’s why Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi was expected to address this issue as he spoke at the ASEAN secretariat in Jakarta the other day, where he advised his neighbours to “insulate this region from geopolitical calculations and the trap of the law of the jungle, from being used as chess pieces in major power rivalries, and from coercion”.

Washington’s obsession with checking China’s rise is hardly a new thing. It became official policy when President Obama launched the Pivot to Asia initiative, which sought to disengage the US from the Middle Eastern region to focus on Asia-Pacific, primarily to contain China. Since Joe Biden was a vice president at that time and worked very closely with potential allies, like India, to work out all the details, his presidency was always going to go down this road with a lot of force. And that is precisely what it is doing. And since its principal partner in this containment effort, if it can be called that, is India, it also raises other concerns as well as a clear grouping in the region.

The only potential beneficiaries of such a clash would be forces, far away from here, that thrive on conflict in this region. As such, India should seriously reconsider its approach of tilting towards America at this decisive moment instead of trying to strengthen its ties with China and take the whole area forward. All of South Asia already suffered to no end because of Delhi’s stubbornness on issues like Kashmir, which has held back progress and trade for everybody. For, all it would gain at the end of the day from such a partnership is the status of a pawn in a bigger game, just as the Chinese foreign minister implied. *