A scandal suddenly erupted within the Quad earlier this week after India refused to allow a plane from fellow partner Japan’s “Self-Defense Forces” (SDF) to pick up humanitarian supplies in the country that were destined for Poland and Romania. New Delhi quickly clarified, however, that “We have conveyed our approval for picking of such supplies from India using commercial aircraft.” The Hindu noted that the use of civilian aircraft is obviously preferred by India over military ones like the SDF plane that was initially dispatched on this mission since the South Asian state very proudly practices a policy of principled neutrality. It continues to do so despite immense American pressure to publicly condemn Russia for its ongoing special military operation in Ukraine. Since the scandal has now been clarified, it’s time to analyze exactly why it even happened at all and what everything related to it might mean.
India and Japan have excellent relations and closely cooperate bilaterally and through the Quad alongside America and Australia. They’re officially driven by their pursuit of mutually beneficial outcomes that supposedly aren’t directed against any third party even though most observers suspect that shared concerns about their mutual Chinese neighbor’s rise played a role in bringing them closer together over the past decade at the accelerated pace that their relations have since developed. Whether that’s the case or not, there’s also no denying that these two strategic partners practice different policies towards Russia: India’s is one of principled neutrality while Japan has dutifully complied with its American overlord’s demands to sanction that Eurasian Great Power even though it’s declined to quit its Sakhalin energy project on the pretext that doing so would somehow help Moscow.
Nevertheless, the Japanese leadership seems to believe that their national interests are best served by taking on a more prominent role in their American overlord’s anti-Russian campaign to the extent that’s realistically possible given Tokyo’s limitations in this respect. With that in mind, it seems to have plotted to rope India into an anti-Russian provocation by dispatching its SDF plane to pick up humanitarian aid in that country en route to Ukraine’s NATO neighbors in Central Europe. Had New Delhi approved its landing, then the optics would have been such that Moscow might have wondered why its special and privileged strategic partner would allow a military plane from a newly designated unfriendly country (the legal category of which refers to states like Japan and those in the EU that have sanctioned Russia) to carry out this humanitarian mission when a civilian one could have been used instead.
India’s strategists have very wise and know their Russian de facto allies very well, which is why they weren’t going to get roped into this provocation by their fellow Quad partner. That’s why they refused to authorize the SDF plane’s landing since Japan should have known better by dispatching a civilian aircraft for carrying out this humanitarian mission instead.
[Read the rest at One World Press.]