India's gambit for the Indo-Pacific century

  What is becoming increasingly evident in the second quarter of this century is the perceptible rebalancing of global economic power. To be fair, the US remains the world’s largest economy, and the north Atlantic economies still collectively account for about 40 per cent of the global GDP. But it has steadily dropped from a high of 60 per cent in 1980, whereas Asian economies which accounted for around 20 per cent of the global GDP in 1980 have almost come up to the same level as the Western economies. To be sure, this is principally due to China’s share of nearly 18 per cent of the global GDP, but it is also equally true that the significant, if less dramatic, advances made by other Asian countries like South Korea, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, have also facilitated the millennial shift from the north Atlantic back towards the Indo-Pacific. This might be a century-long process, but it unfolds to India’s advantage. Our geopolitical location on the Indo-Pacific playing field, and our demographic advantage as well as a growing capacity for innovation and enterprise, promises a bright future if the opportunities are utilised in a timely way.

  Taking advantage of this shift in the global balance of power might have been easier had the world’s two superpowers, the US and China, continued to act in concert within the current global scheme of things, the one providing global security and the other powering the world’s economy. What we are witnessing, however, is the emergence of structural rivalry between them with major consequences for the Indo-Pacific region.  

  The US’ attempts to leverage its unipolar status to secure a Pax Americana in which, so long as no other nation challenged its supremacy we could also prosper economically, has not happened. According to a recent article in Foreign Affairs, the era of American largesse is ending and the US may be engaging in a new wager: the “strategy of reciprocity” that compels others who wish to benefit from the US to engage with it on comparable and reciprocal terms, thus limiting “free rides” (A Grand Strategy of Reciprocity: How to Build an Economic and Security Order That Works for America, Oren Cass, Foreign Affairs, November-December 2025). The other great power, China, flushed from economic successes of the past three decades, believes it is now in the ascendant and can set the global economic and technological pace rather than simply follow in the American wake. A recent visitor observed that the technological achievements stand on full display for foreigners to observe, and a nation once famous for hiding its strength seems to no longer see any value in doing so (A Proud Superpower Answers to No One: Notes from a Visit to China, Ryan Fedasiuk, choosingvictory.com, October 21, 2025).

  Their interests converge and diverge, most crucially, in the Indo-Pacific. Therefore, their behaviour, individually and collectively, in the coming decade is more likely to shape the Indo-Pacific balance of power than any other player. Of course, there are others in this region, India included, who have important agency that will not allow the two superpowers free rein to act as they feel. But an honest accounting of the current realities must also accept that the incipient multilateralism that is emerging in the Indo-Pacific as a consequence of the shift in the global centre of gravity is tinged with a strong bipolar colour. As the Sino-US rivalry grows, so will the bipolarity become more manifest. It will affect trade, investment and technology choices that Indo-Pacific states had taken for granted.

  The leveraging of American power with allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific is already triggering disquiet, even resentment. Given its dominance, many might submit, unwillingly perhaps, in the hope that the next presidency might restore many of the attributes of US power and diplomacy that its allies and partners are used to. But there is no question that such corrosive behaviour generates uncertainty and mistrust that could weaken the US-led alliance system in the Indo-Pacific. It is unlikely that, under such circumstances, the US’ partners and allies may agree to American demands to deny market access or to reduce their industrial dependency on China when there is no clarity on whether, and how, the new American strategy of reciprocity will affect them. To the contrary, it might strengthen China’s industrial power, which is a prerequisite for its hegemony. China is already eroding US military supremacy in the western Pacific, daring it to respond to provocative actions against the maritime interests of Japan and the South-East Asian states, and by pushing the envelope of quasi-military action in the Taiwan Strait. The destabilising of American alliances and the ambiguity on Quad at such a time might conceivably further tilt the balance in China’s favour.   

  India is beginning to reshape its approach to the Indo-US strategic partnership by recognising that while interests and values may converge, they can never be fully congruent. There is currently no short-term substitute to American technology or markets for powering economic growth and, so, India cannot afford to allow this partnership to languish. But, American presumptions that India must surrender its multipolar dreams and engage in “hard bandwagoning” with the US because, by itself, its vulnerabilities will not permit it to deal with China, must also become more realistic. India has fought a war but also made peace with China, dealt with coercive grey-zone conflict and negotiated a return to normalcy, depended on their supply chains but also competed economically. It has the experience and capacity to handle China despite the current differential in military and economic power. It has not, contrary to the views of some American scholars, been “skittish” on confronting them (Multipolar Dreams, Bipolar Realities: India’s Great Power Future, Ashley J Tellis, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, October 7, 2025). Not just on our borders, but even on other matters of China’s interest like the Belt and Road Initiative or their aggressive behaviour in the western Pacific, India has not hesitated to call out such actions as destabilising or dangerous. The presumption in some quarters in the US that India’s weakness in comparison with both the US and China in military, economic, or technological terms compels it to bandwagon completely with one against the other is not likely to bring India to doing things the way that the US desires.  

  Where China is concerned, the display of confidence and power is undoubtedly underpinned by solid economic prosperity. It is the first non-Western nation in centuries to shape the trajectory of development. But the presumption that the past 30 years of sustained growth, based on state capitalism and political authoritarianism, makes this a sustainable model for the future also needs to be examined closely. China’s rapid rise happened in an open global system and under benign American eyes. As the global economic climate becomes less friendly and more restrictive, the question of whether China can transition from export-driven to consumption-driven growth, from infrastructure-led to technology-fuelled growth, and from state-subsidised to private sector innovative models, that will allow it to maintain the scale and pace of growth to outstrip the US, is in doubt. So is its long-term structural political stability. History has shown that authoritarian regimes have a shorter shelf life and, generally, dramatically collapse. This cannot be ruled out when there is no visible succession plan to the current Chinese leader. Its consequences for the region might be catastrophic, either because the regime under stress might engage in external aggression against imagined adversaries, or due to the ripple effects globally of the world’s second-largest economy facing a fundamental political crisis. 

  India, of course, cannot proceed solely on worst-case scenarios. It has shown both patience and maturity in dealing with the much stronger China, carefully preserving its geopolitical interests in the Indo-Pacific region in the face of expanding Chinese influence. China ought to recognise that although India is still far behind on the economic curve, our capacities are growing to the point where China can no longer simply set the terms of engagement. The size of our market and the concomitant geopolitical influence will bring economic and political benefits to China only if it can craft a stable and predictable India policy that accommodates its interests and sensitivities as well. In some quarters in China, as in the US, the view still prevails that if India is to prosper, it has no real option if the US turns away other than to work with China on the latter’s terms. The latest conflict between India and Pakistan ought to have made clear that India will not hesitate to exercise agency if it must, including in conjunction with others, when either superpower seeks to bully it.  

  There is always the question of whether the two superpowers can amicably agree to a division of the Indo-Pacific into spheres of influence. A recent RAND report states that a new modus vivendi could evolve provided the US accepts the Chinese Communist Party’s political legitimacy, and both can agree to a shared vision of organising principles for world politics (Stabilizing the US-China Rivalry, Michael J Mazarr, Amanda Kerrigan, Benjamin Lenain, RAND, October 14, 2025). This line of argument would likely resonate with the Donald Trump administration, which seems to think that a dramatic retrenchment of the American security presence is more likely to produce the better outcome than the ongoing descent into what one study characterised as “late-imperial exhaustion” (A Grand Strategy of Reciprocity: How to Build an Economic and Security Order That Works for America, Oren Cass, Foreign Affairs, November-December 2025). If the US were to do that, it would mean accepting Chinese dominance in parts of the Indo-Pacific, especially the Indian Ocean region where the US has less interests involved.  There have been previous instances, notably in 1971 but also in 1998, when overriding American interests with China threw India under the bus. In light of the current administration’s wish for a grand trade deal with China, this possibility cannot entirely be ruled out. India needs to prepare for it while simultaneously evolving an Indo-Pacific approach that leverages its steadily growing economic, technological, and military capacities to ensure that it can find a place of its own in the Indo-Pacific sun. And, in the opinion of a former Indian foreign policy practitioner, this can happen only when India reduces its dependency on either superpower so that it does not exceed a quarter of its total requirement (New Delhi’s New Target: 25%, Syed Akbaruddin, The Times of India, October 16, 2025). Unless we recommit to sustained development with the necessary reforms, the Indo-Pacific century might not be ours.