New Delhi: The real strategic game is being played to contain China with the ‘Quad’ security alliance or for that matter the new defence pact among the U.S, Australia and U.K, which will enable Australia to build nuclear-powered submarines for the first time using technology provided by the United States. Australia has emerged as the real challenger to the Chinese aggression in the region, now backed by a ‘Quad alliance’ and the ‘AUKUS’ defence pact. China has already sent warning signals accusing the West of a cold war mentality and ideological prejudices.
India has so far, kept silent on the new strategic alliance. Now the question is what the new AUKUS alliance means for India and what implication it would have for the geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific region. An expert says that it is a win-win situation for India because since India is not near the South China Sea, it could not directly intervene. But Australia, U.S and the U.K having a strategic interest can actively try to control the Chinese hegemonic power in the region.
India’s Former ambassador Jitendra Tripathi said that what India could not do directly is being done by the UK, US and Australia. Tripathi claims that the AUKUS pact has sort of reduced the importance of ‘Quad’. He pointed out that two of the four members of the Quad are members of AUKUS. Now the problem is that what Japan also could not do effectively, is being done by the new strategic alliance-AUKUS, he said.
“Now it seems that America’s total focus is on the South China Sea as the U.S has stated earlier that one of the reasons of their exit from Afghanistan is to increase focus on the South China Sea or Indo-Pacific. That means America’s focus on Afghanistan has reduced, which again is a growing concern for India”, Tripathi underlined.
The AUKUS pact will also cover Artificial intelligence, cyber and quantum technologies- the biggest defence partnership among the countries in decades. The expert says that though India is not a member of AUKUS, containment of China is done by the members of AUKUS, which is to the benefit of India.
Notably, India faces an unresolved border issue with China and the 18-month long military standoff between the two sides in eastern Ladakh is yet to be resolved.
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Ambassador Tripathi believes that in the upcoming Quad summit to be held in Washington D.C on September 24, it is expected that US President Biden and the Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison will apprise the other two members of Quad on the importance of AUKUS. He pointed out that globally, there will be major repercussions in Europe. France has already recalled the envoys from the US and Australia. Australia, on the other hand, has revealed that it has informed India of its pulling out from the French contract for the supply of submarines.
