India seeks military-industrial collaboration with the USA in an anti-Chinese function
The United States and India agreed on a roadmap for military-industrial cooperation on Monday, as New Delhi seeks to reduce its dependence on Russia, a key arms supplier, amid tensions with China.
“ We have established an ambitious new roadmap for defense industrial cooperation that will accelerate high-priority co-development and co-production projects ,” US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said at the end of an overnight visit. in New Delhi.
But analysts have warned that such promises need to be backed up by concrete action.
Moscow and New Delhi have been allies for decades, and Russia is by far India's largest arms supplier. Now India – which has not condemned Russia for its invasion of Ukraine – is seeking to diversify, both by expanding its sources of imports and by increasing domestic production.
Western countries including the United States and France are negotiating multibillion-dollar contracts and diplomats say India places a high priority on technology transfer as part of any deal.
The agreement will accelerate technology cooperation and co-production in areas including air combat and ground mobility systems, "submarine dominance" and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, the US Department of Defense said.
The initiative "aims to change the paradigm of cooperation between the defense sectors of the United States and India," he said, and "could provide India with access to cutting-edge technologies and support plans to modernize the Indian defense".
India ousted China as the world's most populous country this year, and relations between the Asian giants have been strained after the deadly high-altitude border clash in June 2020. At the same time, Washington and Beijing are engaged in a fierce competition on the diplomatic, military, technological and economic fronts.
A response against bullying and coercion
But India is walking a diplomatic tightrope: It is a unique member of both the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which includes Russia and China, and the Quad, set up with the US, Japan and Australia to counter Beijing's growing assertiveness .
In addition to arms, India also imports oil from Russia, increasing its purchases since the start of the war in Ukraine.
Analysts said they would wait to see if the US-India roadmap was anything more than rhetoric. Expectations that Austin would talk about transferring engine technology to India and a deal on armed Predator drones have gone unheeded, Indian defense analyst Rahul Bedi said.
“We have already heard this many times from the respective defense secretaries and the Indian side,” he told AFP. “But unless something concrete emerges, I remain skeptical. The right path (of relations between India and the United States) must be supported by certain contracts and guarantees".
Austin, speaking to reporters after meeting his counterpart Rajnath Singh, said strengthening partnerships with India comes against a backdrop of "bullying and coercion" by China, as well as "Russian aggression against Ukraine ”.
The Indian Defense Ministry said the discussions focused in particular on identifying ways to enhance industrial cooperation with Washington, including the "co-development of new technologies and co-production of existing and new systems".
Austin's visit precedes a trip by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Washington this month.
Austin is currently on an Asian tour that has previously taken him to Japan and Singapore, with a view to countering China and an increasingly bellicose North Korea.
The United States is "committed to working closely with India in support of our shared vision of a free and open Indo-Pacific," Austin said.
But he added that Washington is "no way trying to establish a NATO equivalent" in the region. But having an ally in an anti-Chinese function is always good.
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The article India seeks military-industrial collaboration with the USA in an anti-Chinese function comes from Scenari Economici .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/lindia-cerca-una-collaborazione-industriale-militare-con-gli-usa-in-funzione-anti-cinese/ on Mon, 05 Jun 2023 20:05:00 +0000.