Wed, Sep 10, 2025 page8

• EDITORIAL: India a natural partner for Taiwan

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  The narrative surrounding Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s attendance at last week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit — where he held hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin and chatted amiably with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) — was widely framed as a signal of Modi distancing himself from the US and edging closer to regional autocrats.

  It was depicted as Modi reacting to the levying of high US tariffs, burying the hatchet over border disputes with China, and heralding less engagement with the Quadrilateral Security dialogue (Quad) composed of the US, India, Japan and Australia.

  With Modi in China for the SCO summit just as Beijing prepared for its military parade last week, many assumed he would join Xi, Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at the event, which was staged to commemorate “the 80th anniversary of the Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression.”

  Such a move would have sent a powerful and troubling message to the coalition of partners seeking to project freedom in the Indo-Pacific region. It would have been a disaster for the democratic bloc and a blow to Taiwan.

  Yet Modi chose not to attend. Unlike Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, who risked domestic criticism to make the trip to Beijing despite ongoing unrest at home, Modi declined the invitation, even though he was already in China. It would have been logistically easy to do so. Logistically, not politically.

  India plays its own game, guided by its calculations of interest. Since independence in 1947, its approach has been to reject alignments that might constrain its freedom of action in international affairs. New Delhi has preferred to keep its diplomatic powder dry, its external obligations light and its decisionmaking firmly in its own hands to demonstrate its status as a power to be reckoned with in its own right.

  Washington might be unhappy with India’s purchases of Russian oil, but heavy tariffs are unlikely to mean the US has “lost India.” New Delhi’s ties with Moscow are long-standing. At the same time, India’s relationship with Beijing is complicated: Border disputes remain unresolved, and domestic opinion has soured since the deadly Galwan Valley clashes in 2020. However, India also recognizes that it cannot benefit from a complete breakdown in dialogue with its neighbor.

  However, Japan, is a crucial partner beyond its role in the Quad. The nature of Beijing’s parade would have made Modi’s endorsement politically awkward for Tokyo, highlighting why New Delhi sometimes chooses restraint. New Delhi is not afraid to stand up to China, or to carve its own way when it believes certain actions might jeopardize its relations with friendly nations.

  This is why India is a natural partner for Taiwan. As Uma Chinnannan, a doctoral candidate in the Asia-Pacific Studies program at National Chengchi University, writes on today’s page in “Taiwan, India and aerospace ties,” the two nations have considerable room for collaboration beyond high-profile sectors such as semiconductor manufacturing.

  She writes that on a technical level, combining India’s scale, cost advantages and engineering capability with Taiwan’s manufacturing precision and certification expertise offers a compelling case for cooperation in the aerospace sector. Such collaboration would not only be practical, but also symbolically significant for the future of the Indo-Pacific region and for the role that like-minded democracies can play in securing critical supply chains.

  India would continue to adhere to its “one China” policy, but it would not allow Beijing to dictate the terms. New Delhi would also maintain relations with Taipei until it, and only it, decides that something needs to change.
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