“No Question of U.S. Using India As A Cat’s Paw Against China”

On ‘Talking Point’, Lisa Curtis, Senior Fellow and Director of the Indo-Pacific Security Programme at the Centre for a New American Security (CNAS) in Washington,D.C., Former Deputy Assistant to the President of the United States and Former U.S. National Security Council Senior Director for South and Central Asia from 2017 to 2021 under three successive National Security Advisors in conversation with StratNews Global Associate Editor Amitabh P. Revi on India-U.S. Ties: China, the Indo-Pacific & the Af-Pak Region.

Lisa Curtis says “If President Biden does visit (for India’s Republic Day) in January, it will really show his commitment to the country because he’s going to be in full on campaign mode by that point”, adding, the India-U.S. ” ‘partnership plus’ has been expanding for the last 20 odd years”. “As China becomes more aggressive, then naturally a focus will be on India as well”, she says, but, on the idea that India is being used as a proxy in the confrontation against China, Ms Curtis is vehement, “there is not even a question of this idea that India would be the cat’s paw for the United States in getting at China”. The co-author of the CNAS report, ‘India-China Border Tensions and U.S. Strategy in the Indo-Pacific’ discusses the India-U.S. partnership including the 2+2 level meetings, pointing out that she “certainly hopes the MQ-9B drone deal moves forward. I worked on that when I was at the National Security Council a couple of years ago. When I was in the administration, we approved India receiving armed drones, the first non-NATO-ally country to be able to receive armed drones from the United States”, adding, “the breakthrough agreement where the U.S. and India are going to co-produce (GE-414) fighter jet engines is really remarkable. Not even China has this capability.” After the 2+2 meeting in Delhi, India’s Defence Secretary Giridhar Ramane, at a briefing, acknowledged the deal is “on track”.

Lisa Curtis also discusses the Philippines’ pushback against Chinese aggression, “Pakistan as a state that sort of lives in perpetual crisis mode”, the ratcheting up of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) attacks, tension with the Taliban, the deportation of over 1.4 million Afghan refugees from Pakistan, the “Taliban not taking orders from Islamabad”, the Doha deal, which she had spoken up against to the U.S. administration, even while being part of the negotiations, the Taliban’s “gender apartheid”, and U.S. and India’s engagement with the Taliban.