Afghan Fallout: Biden Ruins America's Most Important Relationship — India
by Gordon G. Chang • September 7, 2021 at 5:00 am
If Washington is going to deter a militant China, it needs the support of democratic India. Unfortunately, India looks like the country most immediately — and perhaps most adversely — affected by the Biden-created debacle. As a result, New Delhi could decide to side not with America but with a Chinese ally, Moscow.
India saw the Afghan government as a friend in blunting extremism in neighboring Pakistan, which has always defined itself as India's enemy.
The Biden administration may in fact be willing to defend Taiwan, but that is not all that counts at this crucial time. What also counts are perceptions, and the perceptions that especially count are those in Beijing. Chinese propagandists promoted two narratives as Kabul fell: The United States will not defend Taiwan and an America unable to deal with the Taliban cannot hope to stand up to China.
Those two narratives appear to in fact reflect Chinese thinking, especially because the withdrawal from Afghanistan signaled to Beijing a complete failure of the U.S. intelligence community, the Pentagon, and the White House national security apparatus. Chinese exercises in areas adjacent to Taiwan in August and an August 13 simulated attack on Taiwan with a short-range missile are, in this context, ominous.
India's close ties with Vietnam are an indication that India perceives its security as dependent on an open South China Sea and even East China Sea. Taiwan, which sits at the intersection of those bodies of water, is essential in keeping sea lanes there open.
President Biden's chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan has ruined, perhaps for decades, America's most important bilateral relationship of this era.
If Washington is going to deter a militant China, it needs the support of democratic India. Unfortunately, India looks like the country most immediately — and perhaps most adversely — affected by the Biden-created debacle. As a result, New Delhi could decide to side not with America but with a Chinese ally, Moscow.
New Delhi was one of the staunchest supporters of the American-backed Afghan government and was working alongside Washington in the war against the Taliban and other insurgents. For instance, Indian intelligence was instrumental in breaking up an Afghan ring of Chinese spies working with the Haqqani Network. The Trump administration believed that the Chinese members of that ring, taken into custody last December, were, among other things, offering cash to kill American troops in-country.
