The United States government is stepping up its effort to mobilize its friends and allies to challenge China’s growing influence across large swathes of the Global South. While Southeast Asia is the primary front in this burgeoning rivalry, Africa and the Americas are also emerging as important regional theaters.
India is playing a central role in all of this. As a founding member of the Quad, the four-country coalition that also includes the U.S., Japan and Australia, New Delhi aims to challenge China’s in vaccine distribution, hegemony in the Indian Ocean and in portions of East Africa.
