Veteran Indian diplomat and strategic affairs analyst Ambassador Talmiz Ahmad believes that a recent proposal by a US House Committee to expand the ‘North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) Plus’ arrangement to include India is “completely absurd” and bears no “resemblance to reality”.
The US House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, chaired by Republican Congressman Mike Gallagher, said that Washington must "strengthen and better coordinate collective planning for how they will deter or would respond diplomatically and economically to a crisis over Taiwan".
"India has never joined any military alliance and has continued to maintain its well-cherished strategic autonomy,” Ahmad, a former Ambassador to Saudi Arabia, Oman and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), told Sputnik.
Ahmad underlined that New Delhi’s policy has always been to not be part of any geopolitical bloc.
“The US wants to involve India in a military and a political confrontation against China. The US Congress wants to co-opt India in a military confrontation against China over Taiwan,” stated the ex-diplomat.
He said that there wasn’t any question of India being part of such a “worthless proposal”.
Eric Garcetti, Washington’s Ambassador to New Delhi, told Indian news channel WION on Tuesday that it was up to India to “decide what makes the best sense for them”.
“We have deepened our defence cooperation, unimaginable some 30 to 40 years ago. (We are) Leaning in further with India than some of our closest allies to make it safe,” Garcetti stated.
The US Congress proposal comes against the backdrop of NATO’s growing engagement with Indo-Pacific countries such as Japan, Australia, South Korea and New Zealand.
In this regard, the NATO ‘Strategic Concept’ released last year identified China as a “systemic” challenge" for the trans-Atlantic military pact.
India’s Policy of ‘Strategic Autonomy’
Ambassador Ashok Sajjanhar, New Delhi’s former envoy to Sweden, Latvia and Kazakhstan, also outrightly rejected the idea of India being part of the ‘NATO Plus’ arrangement.
“I don’t think that the question really arises because of India’s well-maintained policy of strategic autonomy,” Sajjanhar told Sputnik.
While ties between New Delhi and Washington remained “strong” regardless of its decision on the US Congress proposal, India would not support the “use of force” in changing the status quo on Taiwan, which India officially recognizes as part of China under its ‘One China Policy’.
Last year, the Indian foreign ministry had expressed its concern over the situation in the Taiwan Strait after the visit of US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to Taipei led to Beijing conducting massive military drills around the renegade Chinese province.
“Like many other countries, India too is concerned about this development [in Taiwan]. We urge the exercise of restraint, avoidance of unilateral actions to change the status quo, de-escalation of tensions and efforts to maintain peace & stability in the region,” foreign ministry spokesperson Arindam Bagchi said at the time.