Category World News

New Delhi, India – When United States President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin meet in Alaska on Friday, their summit will be followed closely not only in both those countries, Europe and Ukraine – but also more than 10,000km (6,200 miles) away, in New Delhi.

Since the end of the Cold War, India has juggled a historically strong relationship with Russia and rapidly blossoming ties with the US. New Delhi’s relations with Washington grew particularly strong under the presidencies of George W Bush and Barack Obama, and remained that way during Trump’s first term and under Joe Biden.

At the heart of that US warmth towards India, say analysts, was its bet on New Delhi as a balancing force against Beijing, as China’s economic, military and strategic heft in the Asia Pacific region grew. With Soviet communism history, and China, the US’s biggest strategic rival, Washington increased its focus on Asia – including through the Quad, a grouping also including fellow democracies India, Australia and Japan.

But a decade after Obama famously described the US and India as “best partners”, they appear to be anything but.

Trump has imposed a 50 percent tariff on Indian imports, among the highest on any country’s products. Half of that penalty is for India’s purchases of Russian oil during its ongoing war with Ukraine – something that the Biden administration encouraged India to do to keep global crude prices under control.

Meanwhile, China – which buys even more Russian oil than India – has received a reprieve from high US tariffs for now, as Washington negotiates a trade deal with New Delhi.

That contrast has prompted questions over whether Trump’s approach towards China, on the one hand, and traditional friends like India on the other, marks a broader shift away from the US pivot to Asia.

Troubles for India, and Modi

Since the early 2000s, successive governments in New Delhi have embraced closer ties with Washington, with its stocks rising in the US as an emerging strategic partner in security, trade and technology.

Trump made that relationship personal – with Modi.

During Trump’s first term, he shared the stage twice in public rallies with Modi, as they also exchanged frequent bear hugs and described each other as friends.

But none of that could save New Delhi when Trump hit India with tariffs only matched by the levies issued against goods from Brazil.

“The tariff moves have triggered the most serious rupture in the US-India relations in decades,” said Milan Vaishnav, the director of the South Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

For months after Trump threatened tariffs on Indian imports, New Delhi tried to placate the US president, refusing to get drawn into a war of words. That has now changed, with India accusing the US of hypocrisy – pointing out that it still trades with Russia, and that Washington had previously wanted New Delhi to buy Russian crude.

“One thing is clear: Trust in the United States has eroded sharply in recent days, casting a long shadow over the bilateral relationship,” Vaishnav told Al Jazeera.

To Praveen Donthi, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, the crisis in the relationship also reflects a dramatic turn in the personal equation between Modi and Trump. The state of ties, he said, is “a result of a clash of personalities between President Trump and Prime Minister Modi”.

India has previously faced the threat of US sanctions for its close friendship with Russia, when it decided to buy S-400 missile defence systems from Moscow. But in 2022, under the Biden administration, it secured a waiver from those proposed sanctions.

“Not long ago, India could avoid sanctions despite purchasing S-400 weapon systems from Russia. However, now, India’s policy of multi-alignment clashes with President Trump’s transactional approach to geopolitics,” said Donthi.

To be sure, he pointed out, America’s Cold War history of bonhomie with Pakistan has meant that “a certain distrust of the US is embedded in the Indian strategic firmament”. The Trump administration’s recent cosiness with Pakistan, with its army chief visiting the US this year, even getting a rare meeting with the president at the White House, will likely have amplified those concerns in New Delhi.

But through ups and downs in India-US ties over the years, a key strategic glue has held them close over the past quarter century: shared worries about the rise of China.

“A certain bipartisan consensus existed in the US regarding India because of its long-term strategic importance, especially in balancing China,” said Donthi.

Now, he said, “the unpredictable Trump presidency disrupted the US’s approach of ‘strategic altruism’ towards India”.

It is no longer clear to Asian partners of the US, say experts, whether Washington is as focused on building alliances in their region as it once said it was.

Turn from Asia

Under the Obama administration in 2011, the US adopted what was known as the “Rebalance to Asia” policy, aimed at committing more diplomatic, economic and military resources to the Asia Pacific region, increasingly seen as the world’s economic and geopolitical centre of gravity.

This meant deeper engagement with treaty allies like Japan, South Korea, and Australia, strengthening security ties with emerging partners such as India and Vietnam, and pushing forward trade initiatives like the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).

The idea was to shape a regional order that could balance China’s rise.

During Trump’s first term, the economic leg that gave the pivot its weight hollowed out. The US withdrawal from the TPP in early 2017 removed the signature trade pillar, leaving behind a strategy that leaned heavily on military cooperation and less on binding economic partnerships.

Yet, he refrained from the bulldozing negotiations that have shaped his approach to tariffs, even with allies like Japan and South Korea, and from the kind of tariffs Trump has imposed now on India.

“There is currently a period of churn and uncertainty, after which clarity will emerge,” Donthi said. “There might be some cautious rebalancing in the short term from the Asian powers, who will wait for more clarity.”

India, which, unlike Japan and South Korea, has never been a treaty ally to the US – or any other country – might already be taking steps towards that rebalancing.

Russia-India-China troika?

Faced with Trump’s tariff wrath, India has been engaged in hectic diplomacy of its own.

Its national security adviser, Ajit Doval, visited Moscow earlier this month and met Putin. Foreign Minister S Jaishankar is scheduled to travel to the Russian capital later this month. Also in August, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is expected to visit New Delhi. And at the end of the month, Modi will travel to China for a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, his first trip to the country in seven years.

India has also indicated that it is open to considering the revival of a Russia-India-China (RIC) trilateral mechanism, after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov proposed the platform’s resurrection.

The concept of trilateral cooperation was first proposed in the 1990s and formally institutionalised in 2002, an idea Lavrov credited to the late Yevgeny Primakov, former chair of the Russian International Affairs Council.

Although the RIC met regularly in the years following its creation, there has been a gap in recent times, with the last meeting of RIC leaders in 2019, on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan.

India’s Modi faces some “very difficult choices”, said Michael Kugelman, a senior fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation. “Clearly, India is not going to turn on Russia, a very special partner. And India does not turn on its friends.”

But doubling down on its strategic independence from the US – or multi-alignment, as India describes it – could come with its costs, if Trump decides to add on even more tariffs or sanctions.

“The best outcome for India immediately is the Russians and Ukrainians agree to a ceasefire,” said Kugelman, “because at the end of the day, Trump is pressuring India as a means of pressuring Russia.”

Even as questions rise over Washington’s pivot to Asia under Trump, such a rebalance will not be easy for countries like India, say experts. Ultimately, they say, the US will find its longtime partners willing to return to the fold if it decides to reinvest in those relationships.

The cost of a rebalance

An RIC troika would ultimately be “more symbolic than substantive”, Kugelman said.

That’s because one of the sides of that triangle is “quite small and fragile: India-China ties”.

While there have been “notable easing of tensions” in recent months, “India and China remain strategic competitors,” added Kugelman. After four years of an eyeball-to-eyeball standoff along their Himalayan border, they finally agreed to withdraw troops last year, with Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping meeting in Kazan.

But “they continue to have a long disputed border”, Kugelman said, and trust between the Asian giants remains low.

Vaishnav of the Carnegie Endowment agreed.

“There may be opportunistic venues and moments where the countries’ interests converge. But I think, beyond defence and energy, Russia has little to offer India,” he said. “With China, while we may see a thaw in economic relations, it’s difficult to see a path to resolving broader security and geostrategic disputes.”

Jon Danilowicz, a retired diplomat who worked in the US State Department, said that a total breakdown of the US-India partnership is in neither’s interest. “The cooperation in other areas will continue, perhaps with less open enthusiasm than had been the case in recent years,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Trump tariffs could help Modi domestically.

“Trump’s hardball tactics could bolster Modi’s domestic standing. They highlight Washington’s unreliability, allowing Modi to frame himself as standing firm in the face of the US pressure,” said Vaishnav.

Modi had been facing pressure from the opposition over the ceasefire with Pakistan after four days of military hostilities in May, after 26 civilians were killed in an attack by gunmen in Kashmir in April. The opposition has accused Modi of not going harder and longer at Pakistan because of pressure from Trump, who has claimed repeatedly that he brokered the ceasefire between New Delhi and Islamabad – a claim India has denied.

“Any further appearance of yielding – this time to the US – could be politically costly. Resisting Trump reinforces Modi’s image as a defender of national pride,” added Vaishnav.

Many analysts have said they see Trump’s tariffs also as the outcome of as-yet unsuccessful India-US trade talks, with New Delhi reluctant to open up the country’s agriculture and dairy sectors that are politically sensitive for the Indian government. Almost half of India’s population depends on farming for its livelihood.

Modi has in recent days said that he won’t let the interests of Indian farmers suffer, “even though I know I will have to pay a personal cost”.

“He is demonstrating defiance to the domestic electorate,” said Donthi, of the International Crisis Group.

Ultimately, though, he said, both India and the US would benefit if they strike a compromise that allows them to stop the slide in ties.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia – When four Chinese vessels joined with Russian ships earlier this month in joint naval drills in the Sea of Japan, few eyebrows were raised.

Moscow and Beijing have been reinforcing their military partnership in recent years as they seek to counterbalance what they see as the United States-led global order.

But what did raise eyebrows among defence analysts and regional governments had occurred several weeks earlier when China sent its aircraft carriers into the Pacific together for the first time.

Maritime expert and former United States Air Force Colonel Ray Powell described the “simultaneous deployment” of China’s two aircraft carriers east of the Philippines as a “historic” moment as the country races to realise Chinese President Xi Jinping’s ambition of having a world-class navy by 2035.

“No nation except the US has operated dual carrier groups at such distances since [World War II],” said Powell, director of SeaLight, a maritime transparency project of the Gordian Knot Center at Stanford University.

“While it will take years for China’s still-nascent carrier capabilities to approach that of America’s, this wasn’t just a training exercise – it was China demonstrating it can now contest and even deny US access to crucial sea lanes,” Powell told Al Jazeera.

China’s state-run news agency Xinhua described the exercise by the aircraft carriers as a “far-sea combat-oriented training”, and the state-affiliated Global Times reported that China was soon poised to enter the “three-aircraft-carrier era”, when its Fujian carrier enters service later this year.

East Asia is a ‘home game’ for China

China currently has two operational aircraft carriers – the Liaoning and Shandong – and the Fujian is undergoing sea trials.

While the Chinese navy operates the world’s largest naval fleet with more than 370 ships compared with the US’s 251 active ships in commission, Beijing still lacks the global logistics network and advanced nuclear submarine technology required of a truly mature blue water force, Powell said.

Beijing’s three aircraft carriers run on diesel compared with Washington’s 11 carriers, all of which are nuclear powered.

But “gaps” in naval capabilities are closing between the US and China.

“[China] fully intends to close these gaps and is applying tremendous resources toward that end, and with its rapidly improving technical prowess and vastly superior shipbuilding capacity, it has demonstrated its potential to get there,” Powell said.

Beijing’s more immediate focus is not directed towards competing with the US globally, Powell added.

Rather, China is focused on changing the balance of power and convincing its allies and adversaries to accept China’s dominance within its chosen sphere of influence in East Asia.

The second option, if ever necessary, is to defeat them.

“East Asia is a ‘home game’ for China – a place where it can augment its small carrier force through its far larger land-based air and rocket forces – including so-called [aircraft] ‘carrier killer’ missile systems that can strike targets up to 4,000km [2,485 miles] away,” Powell said.

Regionally, while the Philippines engages in increasingly frequent high seas confrontations with the Chinese coastguard, it is Japan that is watching China’s naval build-up with concern, experts said.

Japan’s Defence Minister Gen Nakatani said in June – after confirming that China’s two carriers had operated simultaneously in the Pacific for the first time – that Beijing apparently aims “to advance its operational capability of the distant sea and airspace”.

With the US increasingly perceived as becoming more inward-looking under President Donald Trump, Japan is considered a growing force in the contested maritime terrain in the Asia Pacific region amid what Tokyo has called “the most severe and complex security environment since the end of World War II”.

‘Preparation for a more uncertain future’

Even before Trump’s second stint as US president, Japan had embarked on the most pivotal shift in post-World War II military spending.

Tokyo’s defence spending and related costs are expected to total 9.9 trillion yen (about $67bn) for fiscal year 2025, equivalent to 1.8 percent of Japan’s gross domestic product (GDP), and the government has committed to raising spending on defence to 2 percent of GDP by 2027, according to Japanese media reports.

“[Japan’s] naval capacity is growing steadily, not just in support of the US alliance but in quiet preparation for a more uncertain future – perhaps even one in which America withdraws from the Pacific,” said Mike Burke, lecturer at Tokyo-based Meiji University.

Collin Koh, senior fellow at the Singapore-based Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS), also said that China’s growing military might, assertiveness and proclivity to resort to coercive behaviour have “aggravated Japan’s threat perception”.

But Japan alone cannot guarantee security in such a regional hotspot as the South China Sea, said Burke.

Instead, Tokyo’s goal is to check Beijing’s growing power through a Japanese presence and building partnerships with other regional players.

This year alone so far, Japan has deployed two naval fleets to “realise” what Japanese officials describe as a free and open Asia Pacific region. The first fleet was deployed from January 4 to May 10 and docked in 12 countries, including Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Oman.

The second was deployed on April 21 and is ongoing until November, with port calls in some 23 countries, as well as roles in multilateral military exercises.

Japan aims to build trust with other allies, Burke said, noting that Japan has worked on its soft power by funding radar systems, investing in civil infrastructure from ports to rail networks in Southeast Asia, and supporting maritime domain awareness initiatives in the region.

Noriyuki Shikata, Japan’s ambassador to Malaysia, described Tokyo’s approach as a strength at home and reinforcing collaboration abroad with “like-minded countries and others with whom Japan cooperates”, in order to uphold and realise a free and open international order.

“Japan has been strengthening its defence capabilities to the point at which Japan can take the primary responsibility for dealing with invasions against Japan, and disrupt and defeat such threats while obtaining the support of its [US] ally and other security partners,” the ambassador told Al Jazeera.

Zachary Abuza, professor of Southeast Asia studies and security at Washington, DC-based National War College, said the Japan Maritime Self-Defence Force (JMSDF) is a world-class navy that is focused on building the highest level of capabilities.

Abuza also described Japan’s submarine force as “exceptional”, while it is also building up its capabilities, including more high-end antiship missiles.

“All of these developments should give the Chinese some pause,” Abuza told Al Jazeera in a recent interview.

“That said, they [the Japanese] are nervous about Trump’s commitment to treaty obligations, and you can see the Japan Self-Defence Force is trying to strengthen its strategic autonomy,” he said.

‘Chinese assertiveness could result in an accident’

Geng Shuang, charge d’affaires of China’s permanent mission to the United Nations, said earlier this year that China was committed to working with the “countries concerned” to address conflicting claims in the South China Sea through peaceful dialogue.

He also lambasted the threat posed by the US navy’s freedom of navigation operations in the contested sea.

“The United States, under the banner of freedom of navigation, has frequently sent its military vessels to the South China Sea to flex its muscles and openly stir up confrontation between regional countries,” Geng was quoted as saying by Xinhua.

China claims almost all of the South China Sea, a vast area spanning approximately 3.6 million square kilometres (1.38 million square miles) that is rich in hydrocarbons and one of the world’s major shipping routes.

Vietnam, the Philippines, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei are claimants to various parts of the sea.

Ralph Cossa, chairman of the Honolulu-based Pacific Forum research institute, said “the challenge to freedom of navigation is a global one”.

But the challenges posed are particularly worrying when it comes to the rival superpowers China and the US.

“I don’t think anyone wants a direct conflict or is looking to start a fight,” Cossa said.

“But I worry that Chinese assertiveness could result in an accident that it would prove difficult for either side to walk away or back down from,” Cossa said.

Speaking on the sidelines of the Institute of Strategic and International Studies’ Asia Pacific Roundtable 2025 summit in Kuala Lumpur earlier this year, Do Thanh Hai, deputy director-general at Vietnam’s East Sea Institute Diplomatic Academy, said no one will emerge unscathed from an incident in the disputed region.

United States President Donald Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin are set to meet in Anchorage, Alaska, on Friday to discuss how to end the war in Ukraine.

On Wednesday, following a virtual meeting with European leaders including Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Trump warned of “severe consequences” if Putin refuses to accept a ceasefire after more than three years of war.

The venue for the high-profile meeting is Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, a US military installation on the northern edge of Alaska’s most populous city.

Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson is Alaska’s largest military base. The 64,000-acre outfit is a key US site for Arctic military drills and readiness.

When Trump visited the base during his first term, in 2019, he said the troops there “serve in our country’s last frontier as America’s first line of defence”.

But that wasn’t always the case. Indeed, the US government actually bought Alaska from Russia – separated by just 90km (55 miles) at the narrowest point of the Bering Strait – in 1867.

At a news briefing on August 9, Russian presidential assistant Yuri Ushakov pointed out that the two countries are neighbours.

“It seems quite logical for our delegation simply to fly over the Bering Strait and for such an important … summit of the leaders of the two countries to be held in Alaska,” Ushakov said.

When did Russia assume control of Alaska?

When Russian Tsar Peter the Great dispatched the Danish navigator Vitus Bering in 1725 to explore the Alaskan coast, Russia already had a high interest in the region, which was rich in natural resources – including lucrative sea otter pelts – and sparsely populated.

Then, in 1799, Emperor Paul I granted the “Russian-American Company” a monopoly over governance in Alaska. This state-sponsored group established settlements like Sitka, which became the colonial capital after Russia ruthlessly overcame the native Tlingit tribe in 1804.

Russia’s Alaskan ambitions, however, quickly faced numerous challenges – the vast distance from then-capital St Petersburg, harsh climates, supply shortages, and growing competition from American explorers.

As the US expanded westward in the early 1800s, Americans soon found themselves toe to toe with Russian traders. What’s more, Russia lacked the resources to support major settlements and a military presence along the Pacific coast.

The history of the region then changed dramatically in the mid-19th century.

Why did Russia sell Alaska after the Crimean War?

The Crimean War (1853-1856) started when Russia invaded the Turkish Danubian principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia, modern-day Romania. Wary of Russian expansion into their trade routes, Britain and France allied with the ailing Ottoman Empire.

The war’s main theatre of battle became the Crimean Peninsula, as British and French forces targeted Russian positions in the Black Sea, which connects to the Mediterranean through the Bosphorus and Dardanelles straits – previously controlled by the Ottoman Empire.

After three years, Russia humiliatingly lost the war, forcing it to reassess its colonial priorities. According to calculations by Advocate for Peace, a journal published by the American Peace Society in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Russia spent the equivalent of 160 million pounds sterling on the war.

Meanwhile, due to overhunting, Alaska yielded little profit by the mid-1800s. Its proximity to British-controlled Canada also made it a liability in any future Anglo-Russian conflict.

By the early 1860s, Tsar Alexander II concluded that selling Alaska would both raise funds Russia desperately needed and prevent Britain from seizing it in a future war. The US, which had continued to expand across the continent, emerged as a willing buyer, leading to the 1867 Alaska Purchase.

How was the sale received in the US?

After the American Civil War ended in 1865, Secretary of State William Seward took up Russia’s longstanding offer to buy Alaska. On March 30, 1867, Washington agreed to buy Alaska from Russia for $7.2m.

For less than 2 cents an acre (4 metres), the US acquired nearly 1.5 million sq km (600,000 square miles) of land and ensured access to the Pacific northern rim. But opponents of the Alaska Purchase, who saw little value in the vast ice sheet, persisted in calling it “Seward’s Folly” or “Seward’s Icebox”.

“We simply obtain by the treaty the nominal possession of impassable deserts of snow, vast tracts of dwarf timbers… we get… Sitka and the Prince of Wales Islands. All the rest is waste territory,” wrote the New York Daily Tribune in April 1867.

But in 1896, the Klondike Gold Strike convinced even the harshest critics that Alaska was a valuable addition to US territory. Over time, the strategic importance of Alaska was gradually recognised, and in January 1959 Alaska finally became a US state.

What’s its economy like now?

By the early 20th century, Alaska’s economy began to diversify away from gold. Commercial fishing, especially for salmon and halibut, became a major industry, while copper mining boomed in places like Kennecott.

Then, during World War II, the construction of military bases brought infrastructure improvements and population growth. The most transformative moment, however, came in 1968 with the discovery of vast oil reserves at Prudhoe Bay on the Arctic coast.

Oil revenues became the cornerstone of Alaska’s economy, funding public services as well as the Alaska Permanent Fund, which pays annual dividends – via returns on stocks, bonds, real estate, and other assets – to residents.

These payments, known as the Permanent Fund Dividend, will ensure that Alaska’s oil wealth continues to benefit residents even after reserves run out. This system has allowed Alaska to have no state income tax or state sales tax, a rarity in the US.

More recently, tourism has surged in Alaska, drawing visitors to the state’s national parks and glaciers. Today, Alaska has transformed from a ridiculed purchase into a resource-rich state, built on a mix of natural resource extraction, fishing and tourism.