Nearly a decade later, Modi has revamped and dominated India’s political landscape — and now he’s looking to assert the nation’s presence on the world stage. 近十年后，莫迪改变并主导了印度的政治版图——现在他正寻求维护印度在世界舞台上的存在。 His vision has India as the fulcrum between Washington and Beijing, beholden to neither and free to pursue its own national interests to build its economy and claim a greater global role. 他的愿景是让印度成为华盛顿和北京之间的支点，不受任何一方的影响，可以自由地追求自己的国家利益，建设经济并要求发挥更大的全球作用。 Officials with knowledge of Modi’s thinking portray India’s approach as opportunistic, looking for ways to take advantage of the intensifying US-China competition and Russia’s war in Ukraine. 了解莫迪想法的官员将印度的做法描述为机会主义，寻找方法利用日益激烈的美中竞争和俄罗斯在乌克兰的战争。
The G-20 summit in New Delhi is set to showcase Narendra Modi’s attempts to demonstrate that geopolitics goes beyond the US and China.
The statue depicting the revered Hindu god Shiva at the Bharat Mandapam venue for the G-20 summit in New Delhi.
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As a symbol of India’s intent to reshape the global order, the 19-ton statue depicting the revered Hindu god Shiva set to greet world leaders at the Group of 20 summit this week is hard to miss.
Standing 28-feet (8.5 meters) tall and forged with metals such as gold, silver and iron, the Nataraja dancing figure is an appropriate icon for the summit host, Narendra Modi, who celebrated his rise to power in 2014 with a prayer service on the Ganges River at a temple dedicated to Lord Shiva, the god of destruction, creation and transformation.
Nearly a decade later, Modi has revamped and dominated India’s political landscape — and now he’s looking to assert the nation’s presence on the world stage. His vision has India as the fulcrum between Washington and Beijing, beholden to neither and free to pursue its own national interests to build its economy and claim a greater global role.
Officials with knowledge of Modi’s thinking portray India’s approach as opportunistic, looking for ways to take advantage of the intensifying US-China competition and Russia’s war in Ukraine. India has refused to condemn the war or join international sanctions on Moscow, happily stocking up on Russian oil and weapons even as it looks to strengthen military ties with the US. India also has one foot in the US-backed Quad security grouping with Japan and Australia, and another in the BRICS bloc that includes China and Russia.
India’s top diplomat, Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, once described the nation’s foreign policy in terms of “hedging” — a delicate act that entails having multiple balls in the air while “displaying the confidence and dexterity to drop none.”
“To the uninitiated or the anachronistic, the pursuit of apparently contradictory approaches and objectives may seem baffling,” he said in a 2019 lecture. “Think of it not just as arithmetic, but as calculus.”
Apple Inc.’s first company-owned store in India opened in April.
Whatever it is, it’s mostly working for Modi’s government. India is sitting in a geopolitical sweet spot, with the US and its allies trumpeting the nation as an essential counterweight against China. Tech companies like Apple Inc. are moving to India as they diversify away from China and appeal to a growing middle class in the world’s most populous nation. And emerging geopolitical powers in the so-called Global South see India as a key partner in securing more funds from rich nations on issues like climate change while avoiding a firm stance on Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
In the last nine months, Modi has invited Russian investors to participate in India’s steel industry while also dining at both the White House and Emmanuel Macron’s Élysée Palace in Paris. President Joe Biden affirmed India and the US as “among the closest partners in the world,” while Putin just last week touted a “specially privileged strategic partnership” with India, even though he’s not attending the G-20 summit as the war rages on.
Narendra Modi, India's prime minister, and US President Joe Biden, during a state dinner at the White House in June.Photographer: Al Drago/Bloomberg
“India has walked the multi-alignment tightrope quite well,” said Milan Vaishnav, director and senior fellow of the South Asia Program of Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Its ability to do so is driven by larger geopolitical factors, namely a rising China and a declining Russia.”
But Indian officials, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations, also acknowledge the precariousness of what they term “multi-alignment.” If India represents the new center of global geopolitics, holding that center is already proving difficult — even before a real crisis like a military conflict in Taiwan makes it downright untenable.
That tricky balancing act is perhaps most apparent in the absence at this week’s G-20 summit of Chinese President Xi Jinping, who has sought to win over the same group of emerging market economies in an effort to undercut US influence around the world.
Escalating diplomatic tensions came to a head last month at the BRICS summit in South Africa, with India resisting plans to expand the group to 11 members over fears that it would turn into a pro-China bloc. Yet more nations ended up siding with Xi, forcing Modi to agree to allow new entrants including Iran, which is subject to a range of US-backed sanctions.
The 2023 BRICS Summit in August.Photographer: Gianluigi Guercia/Getty Images
“India’s participation in BRICS was meant to act as a check on the designs of Russia and China to convert it into an anti-G-7 organization, but New Delhi failed to perform that role,” said Sushant Singh, senior fellow at New Delhi-based Centre for Policy Research, referring to the Group of Seven advanced economies. “It is going to reduce India’s heft as a power that can counter China in various geopolitical calculations.”
China’s opposition to key aspects of the G-20 communique — including the use of Sanskrit phrases, provisions regarding emerging market debt and the description of Russia’s war in Ukraine — also threatens to leave Modi as the first leader to fail to achieve consensus since the group’s founding in 1999.
For Russia, the BRICS expansion gives some hope that Moscow’s position will receive more support — or at least less opposition — at the G-20 summit, according to a senior Russian official. That scenario wouldn’t be good news for Ukraine, nor its allies, adding to the sense of frustration among them at India’s neutral stance on Russia’s invasion.
To officials in the 27-nation European Union, no communique wouldn’t necessarily be a bad outcome. Separate officials from France and Germany said it was in their interests to help India to host a successful G-20 since it is such an important strategic partner, particularly in terms of technology and trade.
Germany, France and Spain are working with Indian shipyards to design and manufacture submarines equipped with an air independent propulsion mechanism, a technology that allows diesel electric submarines to stay underwater longer than other conventional subs. The EU also has a Trade and Technology Council with India to further cooperation, an arrangement it doesn’t have with any other country besides the US.
Modi and Emmanuel Macron, France's president, review troops during the Bastille Day military parade in Paris in July.Photographer: Emmanuel Dunand/AFP
Even the economic discussions aren’t going smoothly. EU officials have been left with the impression that India sees the bloc as an increasingly irrelevant aging society despite the fact that it’s the world’s largest single market, according to two people familiar with the discussions.
Still, the US and allies such as Japan, France and Germany have taken a long-term view of their India engagement, said a senior official who asked not to be named because of the sensitivity of matter. India is the only country in the Indo-Pacific with the economic and military capability — and importantly the will — to counter China’s increased assertiveness, the official said.
Modi has already taken strong action on China, including banning smartphone apps, making investments difficult, and rejecting Xi’s flagship global infrastructure project, the Belt and Road Initiative. India’s push for admission of the African Union into the G-20 — a move backed by the EU — is also a step that counters China’s reach in the developing world, while feeding Modi’s self-proclaimed role as leader of the Global South.
The US has sought to strengthen economic ties with India, particularly on clean energy and defense. India’s state-owned enterprise Hindustan Aeronautics Limited and General Electric Co. have agreed to jointly manufacture jet engines, allowing India access to an elite club as the Boston-based company progressively transfers technology to its Indian partner.
“The world order is ambivalent today and India is hedging its bets till a clear winner from the current geopolitical churn emerges,” said Swasti Rao, a senior fellow at Manohar Parrikar Institute For Defence Studies and Analyses, a Defense Ministry-backed research group in New Delhi. “Multi-alignment can be viewed as a selfish approach, but as I see it India is trying to take advantage of the uncertainties to put its national interest first, and the global community understands that.”
But shock events such as the war in Ukraine taking a turn for the worse, or a spike in tensions over Taiwan, will make it ever harder for India to sit on the fence. Its proximity to bottlenecks in the Indian Ocean such as the Malacca Strait and a long Himalayan border with China are strategic assets that partners such as the US and other nations would want to utilize in a broader war.
G20 “One Earth, One Family, One Future” signage in New Delhi.Photographer: Sanchit Khanna/Hindustan Times
As for now, Modi will emphasize unity under the theme “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam,” or “One Earth, One Family, One Future.” Yet that Sanskrit-inspired slogan has proved divisive, both among some G-20 members and his political opponents within India ahead of a national election next year that Modi’s party is expected to win yet again.
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As well as the usual fresh paint and newly planted shrubs that a summit brings, posters and billboards prominently featuring Modi’s image adorn gas stations, public transportation and the airport in the capital. The deployment of Sanskrit, the Shiva statue and a lotus flower G-20 logo, which is also the election symbol of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party, all further point to the summit being co-opted into the nationalist Hindu agenda of his government.
In the run-up to the gathering, some of the worst religious violence in years highlighted accusations of growing human-rights abuses under Modi, particularly by the Hindu majority and against religious minorities like Muslims. Modi has largely brushed off the concerns, saying during his US visit earlier this year that he was “really surprised” to hear India’s commitment to democracy questioned.
Posters and billboards featuring Modi’s image adorn the capital.Photographer: Prakash Singh/Bloomberg
In any case, India is far less concerned these days about criticism from other countries, both when it comes to domestic strife and navigating complicated geopolitical issues that involve the US, China, Russia and other world powers.
“We are a nation of 1.4 billion people and we are the fifth-largest economy,” Jaishankar, India’s foreign minister, told local broadcaster NDTV last week. “You take a stand and say it confidently, people accept it. But if you don't take a stand and if you are hesitant, the world will push you to a corner.”
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— With assistance by Alberto Nardelli, Samy Adghirni, Jorge Valero, Alex Wickham, and Michael Nienaber
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