Arnab Dasgupta asked: Why India is not following a pro-active policy towards Taiwan as a counterweight to China?

Jaganath Panda replies: India officially endorses the ‘one-China’ policy. That means; India officially recognizes the legitimacy of the PRC as the legitimate entity of both ‘mainland China and Taiwan’. Hence, the diplomatic and strategic space for India is limited as far as Taiwan is concerned. Besides, India's relations with China are more important strategically than Taiwan. It is not a wise move for any modern, rational state like India to use this kind of proxy. This is for two reasons: (a) India would not like to damage its relationship with China by unnecessarily pursuing a ‘pro-active’ policy towards Taiwan; (b) no major country in the world would like to use this tactic, given the importance China holds in world politics. As far as Taiwan is concerned, India has good economic, social and cultural linkages; but political/strategic relations will always remain a restricted one.