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Hugh White

Why India is not going to save us from China's power

India is more likely to join Beijing in carving up the region than to help out Australia with its foreign policy dilemmas.

Will India save us from China? The Indo-Pacific concept which now lies at the heart of Australia’s foreign policy assumes that it will. It is founded on the belief that as America’s position in Asia fades, India will step forward to help balance and contain China’s power and prevent it dominating countries like Australia.

So the Indo-Pacific concept is not just a new way of reading the map. It is a vision of Asia’s strategic and diplomatic future. It imagines that countries right across a vast region stretching ‘from Hollywood to Bollywood’ will stand united and work together to contain China.

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Hugh White is the author of The China Choice and How To Defend Australia, and the Quarterly Essays Power Shift, Without America and Sleepwalk to War. He is emeritus professor of strategic studies at ANU.

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    Original URL: https://www.afr.com/policy/foreign-affairs/why-india-is-not-going-to-save-us-from-china-s-power-20200309-p5487r