The G-7 Opportunity

Context: For India, Cornwall summit (G7) is an opportunity to expand the global dimension of India’s growing partnerships with the US and Europe.

The Growing relationship of India with the West:

• Changed US stance: the US wants to demonstrate that the collective West is an enduring force to reckon with under renewed American leadership.
  • While Donald Trump’s “America First” policies weakened the West, Biden is determined to strengthen US alliances and draw India into a new global architecture.
• Rising challenges: An increasingly aggressive China, the urgency of mitigating climate change, and the construction of a post-pandemic international order.
• Rising engagements:
  • Biden’s quick elevation of the Quad (which brings the US together with Australia, India and Japan) to the summit level in March was about defining a new agenda for a particular geography, the Indo-Pacific;
  • India’s current engagement with the G-7 is about global issues.
• An idea of Coalition of Democracies: The UK wants to build a coalition of leading democracies to “help fight and build back better from the coronavirus and create a greener and more prosperous future”.

Factors necessitating India’s convergence with the West:

• Threat of China:
  • The frequent military crises at the northern frontiers — in 2013, 2014, 2017 and 2020 — have compelled India to re-evaluate its threat perceptions.
  • China is the only great power that does not support India’s permanent membership of the UN Security Council and blocks India’s membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group.
  • India has relied on Western support to fend off China’s effort to internationalise the Kashmir question after the 2019 constitutional changes.
  • After China’s aggression in Ladakh last April, India has also sought to actively limit its exposure to Chinese investments and technology and also remained out of the RCEP.
• Emerging as a global leader: India is eager to emerge as a critical node in future supply chains oriented to the democratic world, including in the area of vaccine production.

India’s divergence with the West: From the economic role of the state to the democratic regulation of social media and the technology giants.

Way Forward:  A more productive partnership with the West helps secure a growing array of India’s national interests and adds a new depth to India’s international relations.

• Ensure sustained negotiations on converting shared interests: On reforming the global economic order, mitigating climate change, promoting greener growth, making the world immune to future pandemics, and constructing trusted supply chains — into concrete outcomes.