It may be another case of the adage: The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
Either way, it has come as a welcome surprise for China to see its top global rival, the United States, pick a fight with Beijing’s biggest Asian competitor, India.
Relations between Washington and New Delhi are on the fritz after the Trump administration threatened early this month to double tariffs on Indian goods to a whopping 50 percent, citing India’s imports of Russian oil.
The sudden rift threatens to undermine years of growing cooperation between the United States and India in areas like security and technology that had been fueled in large part by a shared desire to keep China’s global ambitions in check.
It has also injected new momentum into an easing of tensions between China and India, which had ramped up in recent years. The thaw started in earnest last October when President Xi Jinping of China met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India at a summit of emerging economies in Kazan, Russia. Since then, the two countries have increased official visits and discussed easing trade barriers and the movement of people.
“I assume that there is a certain amount of schadenfreude among some folks in Beijing when they look at the trade issues between India and the United States,” said Manoj Kewalramani, head of Indo-Pacific studies at the Takshashila Institution in Bangalore, India. “A breakdown of political trust between New Delhi and Washington works in Beijing’s favor.”
To be sure, there is still much that divides the two Asian giants. That includes control of a 2,100-mile shared border; China’s coziness with India’s adversary, Pakistan; and India’s ambition to attract the multinational manufacturers that have been trying to reduce their dependence on China.
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