US-India forging tenuous ties of convenience: China Daily editorial
China DailyUS National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan. The joint statement of the United States and India and a series of technology cooperation agreements released during US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan's visit to India earlier this week serve to elucidate that the only consensus, if any, that the two sides have is "the enemy of my enemy is my friend". A core mission of Sullivan as the first senior US official to visit the South Asian country since Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi started his third consecutive term earlier this month, and who met with not only his Indian counterpart, but also Modi and the Indian foreign minister, as well as business and industry leaders during his two-day visit, was to ensure that the Modi government does not drift away from its assigned role in Washington's China-targeted "Indo-Pacific" strategy. By taking the initiative to offer to remove some "long-standing barriers" that the US has intentionally maintained and which have hindered high-tech cooperation with India, Sullivan tried to show New Delhi that Washington is willing to up its ante to persuade India to not only sustain its in-spirit presence in its anti-China gang but also play a substantial part in it. By ignoring India's sizable and fast-growing trade with Russia and New Delhi's stable relations with Moscow, which suffice for Washington to smear Beijing as an accomplice of Moscow in the Ukraine crisis, as well as recent reports that Indian government agents conducted covert missions to commit extrajudicial killings in Canada and the US, Sullivan laid bare the special favor Washington is willing to show India in exchange for the latter's participation in the US administration's "Indo-Pacific" strategy.