From India’s surprise announcement on Monday, expanding its trilateral naval exercises with the United States and Japan to include Australia, to its coming high-level defence and diplomatic dialogue with the US, the winds of policy change might be blowing in New Delhi.
And China might be at the heart of much of that change.
Even as thousands of its troops have been locked in a tense stand-off with Chinese troops in the icy Himalayan region of Ladakh for over five months, India has been taking slow but sure-footed strategic decisions that it had been putting off for fear of inviting Beijing’s wrath.
After finally agreeing to expand the naval exercises to include all the member countries of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad – a decision that it had been dithering on for a while – New Delhi is getting set to sign a separate military agreement with the US next week, the last of the four foundational military agreements that will allow for the greater sharing of geospatial intelligence.