India’s Security and Climate Policy: Navigating the China Challenge
| Published date | 01 December 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/23477970241284451 |
| Author | Miriam Prys-Hansen,Simon Kaack |
| Date | 01 December 2024 |
Research Article
India’s Security and
Climate Policy:
Navigating the
China Challenge
Miriam Prys-Hansen1 and Simon Kaack2
Abstract
In a world rich in climate knowledge but short on climate action, it is important
to understand the political reasons behind the apparent failure of states to ad-
dress this planetary crisis. One underexplored dimension of this phenomenon is
the impact of broader geopolitics and rivalry, in specific the ability and willingness
of potential and actual security and economic rivals to leave their contention at
the gates of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change
(UNFCCC). This article focuses on India’s multifaceted approach to its ‘China chal-
lenge’ with and outside the climate regime. While conventional scholarship focuses
on the security and economic dimensions of this rivalry, this study offers a distinct
perspective that examines whether this rivalry might lead to a breakdown of co-
operation and an increased potential for conflict and weaponisation of seemingly
disconnected issue areas. Drawing on a comprehensive triangulation of policy doc-
uments, government statements and scholarly literature, this article evaluates the
domestic and international factors shaping India’s climate-related China policies,
including the countries’ unique economic ambitions, development imperatives, en-
ergy needs and global climate commitments. Furthermore, the article examines
Sino-Indian interactions in international arenas such as the UNFCCC and Brazil,
Russia, India, China, South Africa (BRICS), and how these interactions influence
global climate governance.
Keywords
India, China, climate governance, rivalry, great powers
Introduction: How Contentious Is India’s Climate Policy?
In a world rich in climate knowledge but short on climate action, it is important to
understand the political reasons behind the apparent failure of states to address this
Journal of Asian Security
and International Affairs
11(4) 557–576, 2024
© The Author(s) 2024
Article reuse guidelines:
in.sagepub.com/journals-permissions-india
DOI: 10.1177/23477970241284451
journals.sagepub.com/home/aia
1 German Institute for Global and Area Studies, Rothenbaumchaussee, Hamburg, Germany
2 Independent Researcher, Germany
Corresponding author:
Miriam Prys-Hansen, German Institute for Global and Area Studies, Rothenbaumchaussee 32,
Hamburg 20148, Germany.
E-mail: miriam.prys@giga-hamburg.de
558 Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs 11(4)
planetary crisis. One underexplored dimension of this phenomenon is the impact of
broader geopolitics and rivalry, in specific the ability and willingness of potential
and actual security and economic rivals to leave their contention at the gates of
the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), so to
speak. India, as an environmental power (Prys-Hansen, 2022), plays a unique role
as a contemporary major emitter1 (yet without much historical responsibility for
causing the climate crises). In this article, we focus on one important driver of
India’s climate strategies, bringing together literature on global climate cooperation,
and the Sino-Indian rivalry with an analysis of the simultaneity of cooperation and
conflict among the two Asian climate powers. More specifically, we offer insights
into the impact of the Indo-Sino rivalry on their ability to cooperate in the global
climate regime. Different pieces of literature point to the possibility of a ‘side-
by-side’ of cooperation and conflict across different contentious issues, yet surpris-
ingly little empirical, qualitative research has been produced on the conditions for
cooperation within an overarching bilateral rivalry. We focus here on the Indian
perspective, as the seemingly weaker contender within the relationship, building on
theoretical literature on rivalry that assumes that, for instance, ‘demonstrating
resolve’ is more important for weaker states, especially if they have failed ‘in past
disputes’ (Akcinaroglu & Radziszewski, 2024).
Indeed, China’s continued rise and its increasing assertiveness pose a massive
foreign policy challenge to other states, and, sharing an extensive land border with
China, Delhi has a specifically complex relationship with the People’s Republic.
While the historical basis of India’s strategy towards China can be traced back to
ancient trade and cultural exchanges, the modern relationship between the two
nations is overshadowed by the consequences of the 1962 Sino-Indian War, which
resulted in a dispute that remains unresolved (Ganguly et al., 2023) and is illustra-
tive of India’s overarching perception of threat and provocation coming from
China. The list of India’s grievances with China is long and mostly related to ter-
ritorial integrity but also positional conflicts about hierarchy in Asia and security
provision expectations (Krothwal & Kumar, 2023), leading to expectations of
deep rivalry and a focus on safeguarding its territorial integrity and sovereignty.
This often is at odds with the extent of substantial economic ties that both share,
representing the biggest intra-Asian trade numbers (Raha et al., 2023), yet mostly
to the benefit of China’s export industries. We further find significant pockets of
Indo-Sino cooperation on issues of global relevance, including in the WTO
(Hopewell, 2023; Ramasamy & Ananth, 2021), climate negotiations (Kıprızlı &
Köstem, 2023; Mizo, 2016) and the Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa
(BRICS) (Chaulia, 2021; Cooper, 2021).
This, often pragmatic, simultaneity is puzzling for realist approaches to interna-
tional relations (IR), which expect conflict and balancing to prevail, but also
for liberal approaches that in turn assume absolute gains to prevail in decisions
about international cooperation. Consequently, scholars come to different, yet
equally ambivalent descriptions of India’s China policy as asymmetric rivalry
(Pardesi, 2022; Paul, 2018a), under balancing (Mastro, 2019), ‘evasive balancing’
(Rajagopalan, 2020) or a ‘double-edged sword’ (Ogden, 2022); these approaches
also have different views on whether rivals can cooperate or not. More often or not,
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