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May 18, 2022

India halts Ka-31 helicopter deal with Russia

 


 India has halted negotiations with Russia for the former to acquire 10 Kamov Ka-31 airborne early warning helicopters for $520 million, following uncertainties in arms supplies amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Indian government indefinitely suspended the negotiations with Rosoboronexport and original equipment manufacturer Russian Helicopters, an Indian Defence Ministry official told Defense New on condition of anonymity. The official, who was not authorized to speak to the press, said the government-to-government deal added that the suspension is due to concerns over Moscow’s ability to execute orders as well as issues related to payment transfers.
Indian Navy officials have said the suspension represents a setback for the service because the Ka-31 helicopters are needed for the country’s second aircraft carrier INS Vikrant, which was locally built and will be commissioned in July.

Amit Cowshish, a former financial adviser for acquisitions with the ministry, said the suspension could also be due to geopolitical pressure as the international community condems Russia’s attack on Ukraine, which began Feb. 24. Other factors, he added, could include budgetary constraints and India’s preference to acquire locally developed helicopters.

And a stalemate in negotiations over technical and financial issues could have also played a role, he noted.
India asked to buy Ka-31 helicopters from Russia in May 2019, but the acquisition program faced inordinate delays due to the coronavirus pandemic and the platform’s high price tag.

Acquisition talks resumed in February 2022 after negotiators settled on a price of $520 million for 10 Ka-31 helicopters, but the effort hit another snag when officials couldn’t agree on a rupee-ruble currency mechanism.

The MoD official said India’s central bank, Reserve Bank of India, has worked overtime since March 2022 to establish an alternative payment mechanism, but negotiators have been unable to come to an agreement.

Neither ministry nor Navy officials would discuss whether India is exploring alternatives to the airborne early warning craft.

The Navy currently operates 14 Ka-31 helicopters, which were inducted progressively — four in 2003, five in 2005 and five in 2013 — and are dependent on the original equipment manufacturer for spare parts, repairs and overhaul support.

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Why China Is Paranoid About the Quad

 


 India may be nowhere near turning its partnership with the United States into any sort of formal or informal military alliance, but their growing strategic engagement dominates China’s discourse on India. Next week’s Tokyo summit of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or Quad—a loose grouping of Australia, India, Japan, and the United States—is therefore bound to be of special concern in Beijing.

On the face of it, China’s persistent campaign against India’s ties with the United States, its characterization of the Quad as an “Asian NATO,” and its blistering attacks against the Indo-Pacific geopolitical construct embraced by New Delhi and its partners in the Quad seem unnecessarily alarmist. Its top diplomats have castigated the Quad members for “ganging up in the Asia-Pacific region, creating trilateral and quadrilateral small cliques, and [being] bent on provoking confrontation.” China focusing its outrage on the Quad looks odd considering Beijing has long lived with real U.S. alliances and hard security commitments on its periphery, including U.S. troops stationed in South Korea, Japan, and elsewhere.

Two factors, however, help explain China’s aggressive campaign against the Quad and, especially, nascent U.S.-Indian ties.

The most obvious factor is India’s sheer size and potential power to shape China’s strategic periphery. Although China has rarely seen India as a peer competitor, Beijing is acutely conscious that India could create significant problems for China if aligned against it with other powers. Keeping India—a potential superpower—from aligning with the United States is thus a first-order strategic goal for Beijing.
That China’s concerns about a potential U.S.-Indian alignment have recently taken a paranoid turn reminds us of Beijing’s endless rants about New Delhi’s strategic collaboration with Moscow during the 1960s and 1970s. Beijing worried about Russian imperialism aligning with India’s own hegemonic ambitions in South Asia. Chinese leader Mao Zedong was at his vulgar and pithy best in a poem describing the Soviet Union’s relationship with India: “The bear flaunts its claws / Riding the back of the cow.” Then, as now, China did not like to see India’s relations with other powers looking better than its own mostly failed attempts to win allies.
Second, Beijing is playing to the gallery of entrenched anti-American sentiment in New Delhi that insists on Asian solidarity and avoidance of Western coalitions. Although the weight of this sentiment—a product of India’s history of anti-colonialism, quasi-socialism, and Cold War alignment with the Soviet Union—has begun to decline, there are many in the Indian establishment who worry that getting too close to the United States might provoke China. Beijing is betting that its warnings might stoke further unease in New Delhi.

China, of course, has a much longer history of partnership with the United States, beginning under former U.S. President Richard Nixon in the 1970s. In New Delhi, on the other hand, keeping a reasonable distance from Washington has been a long-standing policy. Even as India warmed up to the United States in recent years, New Delhi has insisted that its policy of “strategic autonomy” remains unchanged—currently demonstrated by India’s refusal to join its Quad partners in denouncing Russia’s unprovoked aggression against Ukraine.

Beijing’s obsession with Indian-U.S. relations also stands in contrast to the fact that China has rarely objected to Pakistan’s intensive, formalized military partnership with the United States over the decades. China seems to have no issues reaching out to Pakistan despite the latter’s bilateral military cooperation agreement with the United States and former membership in the Central Treaty Organization and Southeast Asia Treaty Organization—two alliances sponsored by Britain and the United States, respectively, in the 1950s.

Despite occasional hiccups, the U.S. military partnership with Pakistan endured through the decades but drew little criticism from Beijing. When the United States declared Pakistan a major non-NATO ally in 2004, it evoked little protest from China—on the contrary, Beijing continues to celebrate its “all weather” partnership with Islamabad. This stands in sharp contrast to China’s ballistic rhetoric in 2007, when India invited Australia, Japan, and Singapore to join its annual Malabar naval exercises.
Beijing called the event the precursor to the formation of an Asian NATO. 

Chinese propaganda along these lines has had some measure of success in India in the past; the narrative of Washington trying to engineer an Asian NATO resonated with Indian nationalists and leftists who shared the Chinese idea that Asian security must be shaped by Asian powers. In September 2007, Beijing’s campaign against a U.S.-led Asian NATO triggered large-scale protests by the Indian communist parties and played a role in the eventual collapse of the coalition, backed by the left, supporting the Manmohan Singh government.

 foreignpolicy

US Seeks To Wean India From Russia Weapons With Arms-Aid Package

 


 The US is preparing a military aid package for India to deepen security ties and reduce the country’s dependence on Russian weapons, people familiar with the matter said.

The package under consideration would include foreign military financing of as much as $500 million, according to one person, which would make India one of the largest recipients of such aid behind Israel and Egypt. It’s unclear when the deal would be announced, or what weapons would be included.

The effort is part of a much larger initiative by President Joe Biden’s administration to court India as a long-term security partner, despite its reluctance to criticize Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, according to a senior US official who asked not to be named.

Washington wants to be seen as a reliable partner for India across the board, the official added, and the administration is working with other nations including France to make sure Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has the equipment it needs. While India is already diversifying its military platforms away from Russia, the US wants to help make that happen faster, the official said.The major challenge remains how to provide India major platforms like fighter jets, naval ships and battle tanks, the official said, adding that the administration is looking for a breakthrough in one of these areas. The financing package being discussed would do little to make those types of systems -- which can cost billions or tens of billions of dollars -- more affordable, but it would be a significant symbolic sign of support.

India’s Foreign Ministry didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Officials at the State Department and US embassy in New Delhi didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

India is the world’s largest buyer of Russian weapons, although it has scaled back that relationship of late. Over the past decade, India has bought more than $4 billion worth of military equipment from the US and more than $25 billion from Russia, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, which collects data on arms transfers.

India’s dependence on Russia for weapons against neighbours China and Pakistan is a big reason Modi’s government has avoided criticizing Russian President Vladimir Putin over the war in Ukraine. As the US, Europe, Australia and Japan piled economic sanctions on Russia, India has held off and instead continued imports of discounted Russian oil.Reliance On Russia

While the US and its allies were initially frustrated with India, they have sought to woo Modi’s government as a key security partner -- including against China in the Indo-Pacific region. Modi is set to join a summit with Biden next week in South Korea. The meeting will include leaders from the Quad, a partnership between the US, India, Japan and Australia that has drawn criticism from China. Modi also received an invitation to join the Group of Seven leaders in Germany next month.

Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin made the point about China when he spoke at a news conference in April with Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Indian Defence Minster Rajnath Singh and Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.

“We’re doing all this because the United States supports India as a defence industry leader in the Indo-Pacific and a net provider of security in the region,” Austin said. “And we all understand the challenges that we face there. The People’s Republic of China is seeking to refashion the region and the international system more broadly in ways that serve its interests.”

Links between the US and India have steadily deepened over the past two decades, with the two sides reaching agreements that allow for more interoperability between their military platforms.

 indian defensenews

May 17, 2022

China Enhancing Infrastructure Near Arunachal Border, Says Army

 


 China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) is enhancing its capacities with infrastructure development across the Arunachal Pradesh border, Indian Army Eastern Commander Lt General RP Kalita said on Monday.

General Officer Commanding-in-Chief of the Eastern Command, Lt General RP Kalita, however, said the Indian side is also continuously upgrading its infrastructure and capabilities to deal with any situation which may arise along the border.

“Across the Line of Actual Control in Tibet region, a lot of infrastructure development is going on. The other side is constantly upgrading their road, rail and air connectivity so that they are in a better position to respond to a situation or mobilise forces,” he said at a presser.

The Chinese authorities have built border villages close to the LAC that can be used for dual purposes, Kalita said.

“We are continuously monitoring the situation. We are also upgrading our infrastructure and capabilities as well as the mechanism to handle the situation. These have put us in a robust position,” he added.

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