Author: Kanti Bajpai, National University of Singapore With the general elections resoundingly won, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will likely maintain an accommodative realist policy towards China, largely because of ongoing difficulties with the United States and the country's economic fragility. From May 2014 to August 2017, Modi's China policy focussed on constructing a balancing coalition with Australia, Japan, Vietnam and the United States, the most significant military powers in the Asia-Pacific (excluding South Korea). The objective was not to build an alliance, but rather to increase India's diplomatic leverage with China. Doing this, Modi moved away from non-alignment and an insistence on following ASEAN's lead in Asian security. Simultaneously, Delhi sought to deepen economic relations with China — cooperating to launch the BRICS's New Development Bank (NDB) and the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), promising to develop two industrial parks for Chinese
