India: The Other Asian Giant

European Straits #73

Dear all,

Last week I was in Portugal to participate in a 2-day-long meeting on the strategic relationship between the European Union and India. My role was to deliver a keynote speech on regulating emerging technologies. But I had the fortune of having access to the entire proceedings, which proved an extraordinary opportunity to learn a great deal about India and to connect with people from there.

The European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) that organized the meeting has worked for years on European strategic positioning regarding China, exemplified by publications such as this white paper and this shorter article by François Godement, the Director of the ECFR Asia & China Programme. Now it is extending this approach to India. From what I understand, there are at least two underlying reasons. China has become so powerful in Asia and so central on the global stage that there’s now a need for Europe to diversify and rebalance things. At the same time India is actually catching up f…