India and US-China Competition

As the rivalry between the US and China has intensified, the choices of countries in the Indo-Pacific such as India have come under the spotlight. There has been a prevailing view, shaped by India's stated non-alignment during the Cold War, that New Delhi will walk a middle path and avoid taking sides in US-China competition. This talk will outline, however, why and how India is making choices -- choices that are increasingly in alignment with the United States and its allies. It will cover India's deteriorating relationship with China, and its deepening partnership with the U.S., as well as how those two trends are connected. Finally, it will assess the prospects and limits of US-India alignment in the context of a more assertive China.

Tanvi Madan is a senior fellow in the Project on International Order and Strategy in the Foreign Policy program, and director of The India Project at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. Madan's work explores India's role in the world and its foreign policy, focusing in particular on India's relations with China and the United States. She also researches the U.S. and India's approaches in the Indo-Pacific, as well as the development of interest-based coalitions, especially the Australia-India-Japan-U.S. Quad.

Ms. Madan is the author of the book "Fateful Triangle: How China Shaped US-India Relations during the Cold War" (Brookings Institution Press, 2020). Her ongoing work includes a book project on the recent past, present, and future of the China-India-US triangle, and a monograph on India's foreign policy diversification strategy. Dr. Madan has a doctorate in public policy from the University of Texas at Austin and a master's degree in international relations from Yale University.