 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. Today we have with us Ambassador Bhadrakumar and we are going to discuss Pompeo's visit, the US Secretary of State. Ambassador Bhadrakumar, you have been with us earlier as well. How do you see Pompeo's visit? Do you see an attempt to bring back India to the United States? Do you see an attempt also to say which they think now they are going out of? Because earlier United States had managed to get Indian government more closely aligned to it. We had the Malabar exercises. It appeared that on Southeast Asia as well as East Asia on the question of the islands and the disputes about the islands, India was siding more with the Americans than with the, you know, keeping a neutral profile on that. Do you think some of that has changed and that is why Pompeo's visit? Well, you know, the visit is overdue in the sense that towards the final lap of the first term of the government, the BJP government, the relationship was in a kind of a state of drift. And that is because primarily due to the Trump factor, the, you know, the aberrations that have come into, the incoherence that have come into the US policies created uncertainties. And you talk of the trade issues as well as... Overall. ...S-400 kind of issues where we have said. That has swung from one extreme to the other, say, for instance, with regard to China. So when he speaks about Indo-Pacific strategy, we are not very sure about its consistency, you know, this kind of thing. Then making very disparaging remarks about Prime Minister Modi more than once, you know. Then talking in a very blunt, undiplomatic way about the trade balance. For an economy of America's size, you know, even if he means what he says in terms of America first, the amount in question, you know, some 25 billion, 30 billion dollars is nothing. But, you know, to market the Prime Minister like this, you know, on Harley-Davidson motorbike and things like that. Producing the trade issue to a motorcycle issue. Yeah, motorcycle things and all that sort of thing. And as we have also said, it's a very small element. Yes. Plus, here Harley-Davidson's are actually assembled here. Yes. And it is not that the Harley-Davidson import is the basic issue. Yes. And I think also, despite whatever the Americans may claim now, that they were sympathetic towards India on the Doklam standoff and so on, the Doklam standoff, I think, was a watershed moment with regard to the India-U.S. relationship also. Because that was a rude awakening, you know, that we are on our own. And an independent line to China must be there and there is no alternative to it. And you can't bandwagon because we have specific interests with regard to the relationship with China. And it's a very hugely consequential relationship. And that prompted certainly the Prime Minister. And one can say with almost 100% certainty that there was no American input in it at all, the initiative that he took toward China for the informal summit in Wuhan. You know, without any agenda, structured agenda, a free-wheeling conversation where things which cannot be openly talked about can be talked about and each other's intentions could be fathomed. And on the basis of that, you know, a kind of understanding could be formed over time. Ambassador Bhadrakopal, I would like to go back a little on this. This is what would have been the Indian Foreign Office's position for a long time. And Indian Foreign Office would have taken always a position that India has to maintain a strategic autonomy because it's too big a country to be on one or the other bandwagon. So do you think in that sense we see coming back of this understanding in Indian foreign policy now and this government also accepting that? You know, a lot of aberrations were there in the Indian behavior with regard to China in the first three years. Things, you know, which really made no sense in terms of ground realities, in terms of India's comprehensive national power vis-à-vis China. The kind of things he did, you know, to build up Dalai Lama. You know, many, many things we did. Unnecessary pinpricks? Unnecessarily. Like, you know, getting into this joint vision statement with Barack Obama on the South China Sea. It's none of our concern, basically. You see, all these kind of things, and finally it came to that flash point in low-climb. And till today I really don't understand, you know, why such an irrational behavior to have gone for a showdown like that, you know, instead of talking things over privately behind the scenes. So there was a certain muscular diplomacy which was very much in evidence, you know, until that time. And that is why I said that it was a rude... I said it deliberately that it was a rude awakening, you know, that one. And till that point you find, you know, that things were going exceedingly well with the Americans. You know, there is no doubt about it that this government in the first term pursued an unambitiously pro-American foreign policy. There's no doubt about it. And there is also those, shall we say, the defense agreements. Yes. The logistics agreement and other things followed. Which actually tied the two sides together in a way which could be dangerous in the future. Because some of them, which appear very long-winded names, essentially call for an integration of the communication network. And that essentially means that, you will say, S-400 now cannot be integrated. There are air defenses which you want to buy from Russia cannot be integrated. Therefore, you should not buy it. Yes. You see, the Americans are clearly rattled by two things that Modi did. One was, two, three things that Modi did. One was his summit with Xi Jinping in Wuhan, end of April. Then followed by the next month, a meeting with President Putin. President Putin is poison, as far as Americans are concerned. I mean, for whatever reasons of their own, Russia doesn't pose that kind of a challenge to them for their supremacy in a medium-long-term like China does. But on their radar, somehow, I mean, Putin, they are very allergic to it. I think it's... And then, that's so cheap meeting. So that, I think, is also part of the, shall we say, the older anti-Soviet, shall we say, hatred that they have, which is morphed into anti-Russia now. This is a toxic relationship. And, you know, now it has gone beyond all this Russia collusion and Trump and everything. They just don't want this relationship, you know. So, you see, and so Prime Minister Modi has... It has come to their notice as a wonderful personal equation, first of all, with President Putin. They're very warm towards each other. And then the Sochi meeting. And then, in a Shangri-La dialogue in Singapore on the 1st of June, he made his keynote speech. It was a stunning speech in the presence of the... Mattis, at that time, the then Secretary of Defense. Defense. Saying that Indo-Pacific is not a strategy. It is a geographical description. Which is very different from what? Very different from... He had signed on earlier on the issue. The complete reversal of the joint vision statement... With Barack Obama. With Barack Obama. He has said that the strategy in that region as far as India is concerned should be inclusive. Which means that anything that doesn't include China, you know, counters out of it. We are not ganging up. And that we give a centrality to the ASEAN, which is very fast and which has almost normalized its relations with China. And even holding joint military exercises is discussing a code of conduct and so on, you know. So you see, that reversal, or rather what began as a course correction, is actually taking very interesting forms today. As we saw in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit in Bishkek. Now, it's not a small matter that between this time of the year in June, in the next six months, he's meeting Xi Jinping four times. They've slaughtered it, you know, like that. And then he has invited President Xi Jinping for Wuhan too. Wuhan too in the sense of similar informal meeting in India. And you know, diplomatic courtesy means he could, you know, give a response and it will be discussed through the diplomatic channels in Dukos and all that. But President Xi Jinping spontaneously accepted. He warmed up to the idea and he said he would like to come. So you see, now that is taking place. So last time it got sabotaged because of the military standoff on the border. No, Wuhan. Not Wuhan. I said when he had come to India at that point of time. So what I'm saying is then that and then in Bishkek, they have also said, and you know, it should not have been released to the public if there wasn't at least, you know, some degree of confidence about what they have said, which is instructing the two special representatives, both the leaderships, to expedite a border settlement. Now I'm coming to this, that I get a sense that in this second coming to power after the election, recent election, Mr. Modi has no more heights to capture. He is at the pinnacle. And I think he's looking in certain ways at his legacy. And I will not put it beyond that this has not been written about, but I get a sense that he's looking at a border settlement with China as an enduring historic legacy for his leadership. It'll go down in the history books. If that happens. If that happens. Now, as far as the Chinese are concerned, you have to see that because the Americans take notice of all this, which is why I brought in the China factor into this. And this is what is upsetting the Americans also. In the run up to the election also, the Chinese commentators were uniformly supportive of Prime Minister Modi calling him a reformer and all that. And their experience with him as Chief Minister of Gujarat was also very happy. Chinese companies did rather well there in Gujarat. So they have a confidence that Prime Minister Modi will now give with the kind of political consolidation through the last five year period that he has managed. Very turbulent, very controversial path he took. But it was essentially a matter of political consolidation. And the result of 2014 has indicated the trajectory he did. You may disagree or not. That's a different matter. But from the Chinese point of view, they feel that the kind of legacy that he's building up, China will have a role to play and he recognizes that. The shall we say those parts out, he can deliver according to China. He can deliver and he can deliver at the moment. The problem is that if you look at it today in terms of the world scenario, the job creation is number one concern definitely. Even though there is a big mandate, it can change in a matter of one year to two years if dissolutionment sets in. Absolutely. So it's a flash point that is remaining there despite the mandate. We know that. So there is a short window in which you can actually do certain things. The kind of investment and the kind of relevant technology for India's stage of growth and investable surpluses in large quantities. Infrastructure alone needs more than a trillion dollars according to the Indian estimations. If that is the case and as he said in the first meeting here on the 16th of the month after taking over, after being sown in, that you know this five trillion dollar, even if it is not five trillion dollar, if such an ambitious goal is there, the Chinese see that they have an opportunity. But specific to this now, we have to pump your visit. So what is the American perspective? Why they are going to be here? What would they like to press India? And what could be India's interest? You see in a nutshell, this is a disconcertering trajectory from the American point of view, because this is completely exposing the assumptions that they had made about India, that they got India in their pocket. Now you see if you look at the military part, there has been magnificent progress on the military cooperation not only the military exercises in terms of the exports hardware and these agreements which you mentioned, which are like umbilical cords and under the rubric of interoperability, they are striving to get India into the American orbit. Things are going exceedingly well for them. And from this point of view, from this point now, they had gained such a confidence that earlier time they used to look at it only in terms of having a much bigger presence in the Indian defence sector and so on. But now the next stage, they need to evict the Russians. Yes. You know, it's a qualitative difference. So they have started leveraging the influence they have to that tent. S-400, for example, you know, is one example. And there now Alice Well said a testimony in the US Congress on the 12th of June where she has openly said that a certain moments arise when a country has to take a strategic stance and getting weapons is a statement about your position. And India must take that position. There's no alternative. So you see, it's not just a matter of interoperability or anything like that. They just want India to roll back the relationship. And integrate military. And now I mentioned that earlier part only because of this that put in an allergy and so on. They see that there is a, you see this, we must connect the dots. Then only we'll get the picture. There is also a Russian, a Sino-Russian enthron. Which is assumed the nature of a quasi-alliance today. I'm not, they will never probably have a military alliance like NATO. They will not. And it doesn't suit them and they don't need it. But today they have created so much space for each other by just this, you know. And the Americans are being checkmated everywhere. Yesterday Putin said that under no circumstance over my dead body, you know, that you can have an agenda towards Venezuela like this. When Putin could say things so very bluntly, which he did yesterday, you can imagine, you know, the kind of space that, you know, the Russians have created for themselves. They are all over the place now on the world stage. And they've also said similarly similar things about Iran for instance. Other issues. Other issues. That you will not let Iran sink. What I'm trying to say is this, that, you know, that they are coordinating their foreign policies, these two great powers, so comprehensively today that I suspect again, this is again, you know, from my professional background and having lived and worked in Russia and so on, they must be talking the India part with the Chinese quite a bit. And they are in a position to influence the Chinese also. Now mediation and all that is a very loaded expression. But part of the alchemy that is developing in India-China relationship, the Russians are probably playing. High probability is that they are playing a very helpful role. That is why there is an RIC summit which they have slated in the sidelines of the G20 in Osaka. Russia, India, China. When they probably have this summit, a couple of rooms away, Trump would be sitting because Trump is also taking part in it. Look at the symbolism. So you see, Americans have caused to worry that this is not a disjointed thing but there is any picture emerging of India basically exercising its strategic autonomy. So the assumptions that they made, that is why I said, and that is why you find that, you know, that they feel rattled. They feel rattled and they think, therefore, that they must really give a push and make the Indians take a stance, not allow the Indians to remain ambivalent like this. So is your understanding that he has come to arm twist or he has come to who? There are two ways of doing this. One is to say, well, you know, we are great friends and why are you doing this? We should get back together. And why do you need S-400? We'll give you something else, which is what they have been saying. But, you know, the way Trump has dealt with the trade issue, for instance, where he has made disparaging remark is only one part of it, but he has also imposed unilateral sanctions, now which to which India has responded. Now, given the very much larger picture on which you have been talking, these appear like peanuts and this appears to be also, shall we say, very tug-ish international behavior that you are not discussing. You are not even trying to sort out the issues bilaterally. There are multilateral bodies. You are not doing anything on that. Plus vis-a-vis Iran, you have violated the treaty that you had signed. You have withdrawn from it. And the arm-twisting countries like India, not to buy Iran oil, be a part of, shall we say, private sanctions of the United States, not an international sanctions, not a sanction sanctioned by the United Nations. All of this is also something which is deeply concerning for countries like India and therefore the need to either arm-twist India or then try to soften them up in some other sense. We'll have to see this to what extent, because this would not be all decided during this couple of days, Tuesday and Wednesday alone. He is landing tonight, I think. It will be an incremental process. But my hunch is that we are resetting the compass for a new journey. And the Americans have got wind of it. They don't like it. And they are trying to stop it, arrest it, and get it back into the earlier mold. I don't think we will give in. This is my hunch. Thank you very much, Mr. Bhadrakumar, for being with us, talking about a new cusp point, shall we say, of our foreign policy, and hope that we can continue these discussions, post-prop-view visit, as well as other types. Thank you. This is all the time we have for NewsClick today. Do keep watching NewsClick.