India in the Era of China’s Belt and Road Initiative: How Modi Responds to Xi

Anil Sigdel dives into some of the most interesting trends in international relations, such as the rising influence of China and the instruments it uses to advance its interests worldwide, chiefly among them the Belt and Road Initiative(BRI) and the interplay between China and India, and what means New Delhi employs to come after China in the wider world. To this end, Sigdel takes both a geographic view by analyzing China’s and India’s relations with key regions – South East to Central Asia, Indian Ocean Region and Africa – and a functional view scrutinizing issues of relevance to the main topic – from cultural ties to infrastructure investment and maritime security. In his incisive analysis, Sigdel provides rich details on how India’s partnership is shaping with the major stakeholders in the Indo-Pacific region such US, Japan and France, and how India is balancing these partnerships vis-à-vis the one with Russia. The conclusions point to interesting prospects for the future – China challenge has, in a way, helped India further advance its own ambition of becoming a separate pole or leading power, therefore, India is likely to pursue that status by aligning issue-wise with all the powers.