A powerful Congressional Committee has suggested enhancing NATO Plus by integrating India, which is a major move ahead of Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit to the United States.
In order to strengthen international military cooperation, NATO Plus, or NATO Plus 5, a security arrangement, brings together NATO and five allies: Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Israel, and South Korea.
Joining forces with India will enable smooth information exchange between both nations and provide India quick access to the newest military technologies.
With Chairman Mike Gallagher and Ranking Member Raja Krishnamoorthi at the helm, the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) overwhelmingly approved a plan to increase Taiwan's deterrence, including by expanding NATO Plus to include India.
“The United States must improve connections with its friends and security partners, particularly India, if it is to prevail in its strategic conflict with the Chinese Communist Party and maintain Taiwan's security. The Select Committee suggested that include India in NATO Plus security arrangements to “build on the US and India's close partnership to strengthen global security and deter the CCP's aggression across the Indo-Pacific region.”
The Select Committee, often known as the China Committee, was a Republican leadership endeavour.
Indian-American This is a huge breakthrough, according to Ramesh Kapoor, who has been working on this plan for the last six years. He hoped that the suggestion will be included in the 2024 National Defence Authorization Act and eventually result in legislation.
According to the China Committee's recommendations, enlisting the support of important allies like the G7, NATO, NATO+5, and Quad members will maximise the impact of economic sanctions against China in the event of an attack on Taiwan. Negotiating a coordinated response and making this message widely known will also increase deterrence.
“We must collaborate with US allies during peacetime, just as we do cooperative contingency preparation for combat. Congress should approve legislation akin to the STAND with Taiwan Act of 2023, which requires the creation of a set of economic penalties to be used in the case of a PRC assault on Taiwan, in order to achieve this, it stated.
It should also adopt laws to thwart the CCP's economic pressure, including measures to protect international allies who have been the subject of the PRC's economic pressure. The opposite of economic deterrence is engaging Taiwan economically.
Therefore, the committee recommended that Congress support initiatives to lessen the tax burden on US-Taiwan cross-border investment as well as wider trade discussions with a specific emphasis on establishing common standards and regulations to counter the CCP's discriminatory economic policies.
“The US should make the NATO Plus agreement more inclusive of India. By promoting Taiwan's participation in international organisations and amending the Taiwan Act to state that the United States, alongside its allies and partners, should publicly oppose any efforts by the CCP to resolve the status of Taiwan's sovereignty by purposefully misusing, misinterpreting, and misleading others on the true intent of UN Resolution 2758 or the United States' One China Policy, the United States should also strengthen diplomatic deterrence.
Next month, Prime Minister Modi will go to the US on an official state visit.
