The increasing uncertainty in the current phase of the Great World Game is affecting the behavior of all the major players on the global field of play, not least, modern India.
The President of Indonesia was a guest of honor at the Republic Day celebration
Republic Day (R-Day), India’s main holiday, was established on the occasion of the national Constitution enacted on January 26, 1950. It should be noted, by the way, that Independence Day, which marks King George VI’s decree of August 15, 1947 approving the earlier decision of the British Parliament, is much less important for Indians, although it is also celebrated on a national scale.
The political leaders of India tend to celebrate R-Day “at home,” without making it into a big international event. Nevertheless, at least one high-ranking foreign guest invariably appears on the government rostrum to observe the main festivities. And every year commentators analyze the choice of guest in search of the message which they believe that the country’s leaders are sending out to the international community. It should be noted that in the past leaders of all the world’s leading powers have been invited to stand on the rostrum (for some countries, more than once) and all of them have considered this an honor.
On January 26, 2025, Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto appeared on the rostrum. The largest country in the Muslim world, with a population of some 280 million people, Indonesia is one of the main members of ASEAN, an association of ten countries in the Southeast Asian region, control over which is becoming an issue of key importance in the current stage of the Great World Game. It should be noted, however, that each of the ASEAN members and the Association as a whole are still the object of a complex struggle between the leading global players.
We should repeat that this fact in no way limits the growing role of Indonesia in the global order, and the current Indonesian leader was an honored guest at the national holiday of one of the “first tier” global players. In October 2024, Subianto took office as President of Indonesia following the general elections held in February of the same year. He had previously served as Minister of Defense. In inviting him to attend the R-Day celebrations as a guest of honor, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was clearly aiming to establish direct contact with the leader of one of the leading countries of South-East Asia.
This also corresponds to India’s ongoing transition from a Look East to an Act East strategy. However, India is also, inevitably, finding itself in complex relations with China, for which the situation in South-East Asia has long been an issue of special attention. It should also be noted that at the beginning of 2025 Indonesia became a full member of BRICS, and the state of relations between India and China in this configuration is perhaps the main challenge to its effective functioning.
On the latest signals in India-PRC communication lines
Meanwhile, in recent months, there have been signs of an improvement in these relations, and the very existence of these signs is, in the present author’s opinion, a consequence of the uncertainty on the global playing field, which is prompting New Delhi to relieve excessive tensions in relations with its powerful neighbor and search for points of interaction with it. The meeting between Narendra Modi and China’s leader Xi Jinping in Kazan in October 2024 on the margins of the latest BRICS Summit undoubtedly served as a catalyst for this positive development.
This trend continued during the meeting in Beijing two months later between India’s National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. Although the main topic of the negotiations was the whole “border issue,” it appears that a wider range of problems affecting relations between the two countries was touched upon. This last meeting was followed up by a visit to Beijing in late January this year by Vikram Misri, second-in-command in the Indian Foreign Ministry, who held negotiations with Liu Jianchao, head of the International Department of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, Wang Yi, and his deputy Sun Weidong. Both in China and India, the very fact of Vikram Misri’s visit to Beijing was viewed as a positive development, as were the results of the negotiations.
Nevertheless, it is worth reiterating that it is premature to hope for miracles in the extremely complex relations between the two Asian giants. Each of them has its own vision of the answer to the eternal question of “what is good and what is bad” in foreign policy in general and, especially, in areas where their interests conflict with those of other countries.
Contacts with the outgoing and incoming US administrations
New Delhi, for example, sees the wide-ranging development of relations with Beijing’s main geopolitical opponent, Washington, as a positive and organic component of India’s foreign policy. However, India, like all other significant players, is in a state of uncertainty, the main reason for which is everything that has been happening in recent months in the leading global power. The US is currently going through a process of transition, but exactly what the results of that process will be, especially in relation to this or that aspect of its foreign policy, is becoming an increasingly pressing issue.
Uncertainty about the answer to this question is prompting all the other players, without exception, to search for fallback options for their own strategies in the global game. This is currently particularly evident in the behavior of Japan, perhaps the main foreign policy ally of the United States, but it is also, as we have noted, an important consideration for India. Moreover, if Donald Trump’s administration delays setting out the USA’s position on the international stage under the new conditions, it will face the risk of losing control over the situation in the key Indo-Pacific region.
Moreover, the focus of the current stage of the Great World Game is located in the Indo-Pacific region rather than in the Arctic (including Greenland, with its 60,000 Inuit who want to become Americans) and certainly not in Europe. The importance of the situation in the Indo-Pacific region is continuing to grow. Washington undoubtedly realizes the seriousness of the said issue and is sending signals to both Japan and India along the broad lines of: “Guys, don’t worry! Everything will continue to be OK in our relations with you.” Representatives of the previous administration, Jake Sullivan (January 5, 2025) and Antony Blinken (January 7, 2025), visited India and Japan, respectively, with a similar message.
Two weeks later, the same message was confirmed by the new administration, represented by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, in meetings with Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar and Japanese Foreign Takeshi Iwai, who arrived in Washington for the inauguration of Donald Trump. A week later, Donald Trump and Narendra Modi spoke about relations between the US and India in similar terms in a telephone conversation. Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba is scheduled to visit the United States in February this year.
On the relations between Japan and India in the Indo-Pacific region
First of all, it is worth reiterating the view that the situation in the Indo-Pacific region will, increasingly, be determined by the relations between the three leading powers of the region, China, India and Japan, both trilateral and between each of the three sides of this strategic “triangle.” As for the Japan-India ”side,” it is continuously strengthening, as evidenced, in particular, by the regular contacts between top officials, including the 2+2 Format meetings between ministers, and the participation of both countries in the Quad configuration, which also includes the US and Australia.
The latest regular meeting of the Foreign Ministers of the Quad member states was held on January 21 in Washington. The meeting resulted in the adoption of a brief Joint Statement, which, among other things, states that the Quad Summit will be held in India in the coming year. In other words, New Delhi’s recent activities in the foreign policy arena make it clear that its leaders, while maintaining their policy of strengthening relations with the United States and Japan, seek to gain additional space for their own maneuvering. First of all, by removing (or at least dialing down) tensions in its relations with China.
Vladimir Terekhov, expert on the issues of the Asia-Pacific region
