The performance of Indian Prime Minister Modi at this Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit is attracting global attention. After arriving in China, he first said that India and China should jointly build a "Century of Asia," and then had a pleasant conversation with Russian President Putin. I saw online analyses suggesting that Modi is trying to send a signal to Trump that "India will not back down in the trade war" through frequent interactions with China and Russia. This argument has some merit, but soon, the U.S. response came.

Trump is now in a difficult situation

U.S.-India relations have broken down

According to sources from the White House, President Trump has canceled his plan to visit India this autumn to attend the "U.S.-India-Japan-Australia Quadrilateral Summit." In other words, Modi's demonstration did not achieve any effect, but instead led to more severe punishment from Trump. Normally, this quadrilateral summit is an important part of the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy to "contain" China. During Biden's term, they met several times and issued many strongly worded joint statements.

Why did Trump skip the quadrilateral summit at this critical moment? Besides anger at Modi's defiance, there may be a more important reason: The Trump administration has realized that the problems within the United States are too serious. If they continue to pursue an expensive foreign policy strategy of rallying allies to contain China, as the Biden administration did, the United States itself might collapse soon.

Modi: It's him, bullying India

The most evident shift is reflected in the U.S. Indo-Pacific strategy. In the past, the U.S. had good relations with Pakistan and looked down on India. Because at that time, the U.S. was fighting in Afghanistan, and Pakistan helped the U.S. a lot. Since 2014, when Modi took office, to highlight India's value, he started provoking issues on the China-India border.

A big problem for the U.S.

If we trace the timeline, we can see that Trump won the election in 2016, and in 2017, China and India had a standoff in Doklam. At the end of the same year, Trump proposed the Indo-Pacific strategy. In 2018, the U.S. unilaterally initiated a trade war with China, and in 2020, the Galwan Valley conflict between China and India occurred. Throughout Trump's first term, Modi's strategy was successful; he exchanged a tough stance against China for U.S. favor and gained many benefits.

During this period, the U.S. also ended the war in Afghanistan, reducing its dependence on Pakistan. Trump thus discovered India's strategic value: to trouble China. Under Biden, this approach didn't change much. Even after the outbreak of the Ukraine-Russia conflict, Biden allowed India to import Russian oil, letting them act as middlemen to make profits. But when Trump returned, the situation changed significantly.

Biden gave India a lot of concessions during his term

Biden's Ukraine-Russia conflict failed to dismember Russia, but instead severely drained U.S. strategic resources. The Democratic Party logic is that as long as they can unite allies to wear down China and Russia, it's acceptable for the U.S. to pay some cost. That's how the U.S. wore down the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

Trump's decision

The problem is that the U.S. was still on the rise at that time, and economic globalization was thriving, with plenty of wealth at home. However, today's U.S. is declining, and the global economy is contracting after the pandemic. The landlord's house really doesn't have extra grain. The diplomatic strategy based on Cold War thinking by the Democrats is undoubtedly a failure. Hence, Trump mentioned during his presidential campaign that he hoped an economic crisis would erupt before he took office.

Now, a large-scale economic crisis always looms like the Sword of Damocles over Trump's head. After taking office, he has launched a tariff war globally and pressured the Federal Reserve to cut interest rates, all to delay the crisis. Under these circumstances, Trump is unwilling and unable to spend money to rally allies. Japan, South Korea, India, and the EU have become blood bags in his eyes, which must be ruthlessly exploited.

It is said that his health is also problematic

Regarding relations with China, Trump's latest statement is: to get along well with nuclear powers. What does this mean? I believe people like von der Leyen, Ishiba, and Modi can understand it. The good days of following the U.S. have come to an end. Whether to offer tribute to maintain their unipolar hegemony, everyone must make a choice.



Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7545054951869841954/

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