India

Using Covid-19 as a trigger and the serial failures of the United Nations (UN) to reform, adapt or listen to voices outside the Permanent Members of the UN Security Council (UNSC) as context, this paper argues that the blunders of this institution’s past combined with the present aggressive behaviour of China that has created security threats in the region have come together to force the world to intellectually rethink and physically recreate a new world order.

The EU and India share already strong trade and investment ties, with bilateral trade in goods and services exceeding EUR 100 billion; the EU accounts for 22% of India’s FDI inflows. Significant Indian investments have also taken place in the EU. The EU-India Summit on 15 July further emphasized the strength of bilateral ties setting out an ambitious Roadmap up to 2025 for our strategic partnership.

The standoff between India and China at the Line of Actual Control (LAC), a disputed border between the two nuclear-armed powers, has been going on for a while. It has been a main story in South Asia, since at least 20 Indian soldiers were killed, while Beijing is yet to say anything on casualties, however it was reported that five PLA soldiers died as well. This has been the worst stand-off between the two regional powers in over 45 years.

India and China are once again involved in a military incident over disputed borders.

On 5 August 2019, India's BJP-led central government changed the geographical and political status of Indian-administered Kashmir. Together with the abrogation of Article 370 and 35a that protected permanent residents’ exclusive rights over jobs, education and land, Kashmir was divided into two federally administered territories.

Ever since Beijing started stretching its muscles into the Upper Western Indian Ocean (UWIO), New Delhi has refused to be a passive spectator. Some Indian policymakers interpreted Chinese actions in the area through the lenses of the “String of Pearls” theory, according to which China aims to gain access to a series of strategic locations (i.e., “Pearls”) in the Indian Ocean in order to project power.