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Woman wearing a mask of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a 2019 campaign rally
Photo: Anuwar Hazarika / REUTERS
We are under the spell of Russia's war of aggression in Ukraine and, with good reason, we are again focusing on questions of national and collective defense in Europe.
But that shouldn't distract us from the fact that this century will be Asian, not European.
The core of global economic dynamics will be in Asia.
With its almost five billion people, it will be decided there whether humanity can master the climate crisis.
The traffic light government's coalition agreement rightly calls for “a free and open Indo-Pacific region”.
This is a clear message to China, which wants to subject the region to its hegemonic claims.
If Germany wants to achieve the goal of economic diversification, i.e. away from the Chinese market, then this can only be done with the help of large alternative markets in Asia.
We must therefore invest much more in relations with the important countries in Asia.
It was therefore understandable that the Federal Chancellor traveled to Tokyo to see G7 partner Japan this week - unimpressed by the CDU/CSU's criticism of the timing of the trip.
It is also very welcome that the entire federal cabinet is taking the time to attend the Indo-German government consultations with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his cabinet in Berlin on Monday.
The government should seize the opportunity to live up to the promise of the coalition agreement "to deepen our strategic partnership with India".
So far, Germany has not fully exploited the potential of relations with India, with its huge market of 1.3 billion people.
The trade volume with India is only about a tenth of the volume with China.
At the same time, Germany and India have strong common interests, particularly in view of their geostrategic rivalry with China.
Germany should steer away from the often invoked hopes of a "partnership of values" towards a sober but sustainable "partnership of interests" with India that is embedded throughout Europe.
If relations are geared primarily to the fact that India, as the world's largest democracy, is a »value partner«, one quickly comes up against limits.
In western democracy indices, India has been slipping for years, and Indian civil society has also loudly criticized Modi's rulership.
It's also easy to get frustrated if you expect India, as a like-minded democracy, to position itself unequivocally on Europe's side against Russia.
Not only is India generally skeptical of Western sanctions practice.
Delhi is heavily dependent on Moscow for armaments.
Also, India is concerned that Russia is moving closer to Beijing, which already backs India's arch-rival Pakistan.
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Delhi does not want to fuel this rapprochement by worsening relations with Moscow.
But India's relationship with Moscow bears little resemblance to the "borderless partnership" that Chinese President Xi Jinping has announced with Russian President Putin.
India abstained from UN votes on Russia's war of aggression, but at the same time unequivocally condemned the massacres in Butcha.
However, there is little point in publicly urging India to strengthen its condemnation of Moscow.
Several European foreign ministers had to experience this this week in Delhi at the Raisina Dialogue, the Indian counterpart to the Munich Security Conference.
When they asked about India's positioning, they received scathing replies from Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar.
Offer stronger military cooperation
It would be much more productive to offer India alternatives to Russian weapons technology, especially since Western technology sanctions will make Moscow a much less reliable supplier in the future.
Great Britain and France have already done this vigorously.
Berlin should also make concrete offers on how Germany and especially the armaments industry can cooperate more militarily with India.
So far, the government consultations, which have been taking place every two years since 2011, have suffered from a certain lack of ambition on both sides, both in terms of setting goals and implementation.
On the German side, this was also due to the fact that India was seen as a far less important partner than China.
And at the same time, for the German side, cooperation with China was for a long time more efficient than with India, which often had even more cumbersome bureaucracy.
This led to great disillusionment and an underestimation of India's potential on the German side.
Today things are different.
Disillusionment with China dominates: both in relation to the Chinese market and in relation to the Chinese regime.
For Jörg Wuttke, BASF's deputy and President of the EU Chamber of Commerce in Beijing, the opportunities on the Chinese market are "in free fall".
At the same time, it is becoming increasingly clear that Beijing does not shy away from using economic relations as a political weapon.
China demonstrated this when it refused market access to products from German companies with Lithuanian components in order to exert political pressure on Lithuania.
Today, we should see economic ties with China as risky as with Russia.
Doing business with India might be easier than with China
India, on the other hand, offers great growth opportunities combined with geopolitical reliability.
If Germany and Europe are looking for trustworthy partners in technological value chains, they can find what they are looking for in India, unlike in China.
Europe and India also share the goal of a free and open Indo-Pacific and oppose Chinese claims of dominance.
Germany and India should use this agreement in the basic geopolitical orientation in the government consultations and give new impetus to the relationship.
It is important that the deliberations not only discuss economic issues, but also fundamental global political challenges - with a view to China, Russia and the Indo-Pacific.
This is the only way for the two states to consolidate the political basis for cooperation.
Likewise, Germany and India can make the security and diversification of value chains an important topic of cooperation.
In the pan-European context, this can be promoted with India within the framework of the Trade and Technology Council (TTC) presented by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen together with Narendra Modi in Delhi this week.
Germany can provide important impetus for this.
The TTC can be an enormously useful tool because it allows Europe and India to work together pragmatically outside the formalistic straitjacket of FTA negotiations.
Build more India competence
There are also opportunities for cooperation in the area of (digital) infrastructure development, for which Europe can also use the new Global Gateway initiative.
This represents an alternative to Beijing's Silk Road initiative. Germany can also supplement and strengthen this bilaterally with India.
Another important area is cooperation on green technologies.
Here India seeks to close ranks with Germany and Europe.
At the same time, India's global leverage in combating the climate crisis is enormous, which makes cooperation particularly urgent for Germany.
In order to implement these ambitious goals, the ministries and members of parliament should also commit to an exchange between the government consultations that take place every two years.
At the same time, an ambitious India agenda must also be strengthened between the societies.
First and foremost, this presupposes the intensification of »India competence« in Germany.
Language and culture studies dominate in Indology today.
Sanskrit expertise is a fine thing, but it's not enough on its own.
There are far too few chairs and research groups on contemporary Indian politics, economy and society in this country.
It is incomprehensible how little German think tanks invest in India expertise.
At the largest German foreign policy think tank, the Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), for example, a single post covers the entire Indian subcontinent.
No matter how well this post is filled, it is an impossible task.
German think tanks invest too little in India expertise
In other think tanks, however, one often looks in vain for India expertise.
This reflects the often rather low interest of public donors and foundations in promoting India competence and work with a broader connection to Asia.
Government and foundations should change this, both by promoting India-related positions and projects at individual institutes and by building up a larger cluster of India expertise.
The extremely successful investment in China expertise through the establishment of the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) can serve as a model.
The expansion of Asia competence laid down in the coalition agreement should place an important focus on India.
In addition, it is important to expand intersocietal exchange and cooperation programs, both in research and in civil society.
Here, participants should not only include India experts, but also generalists or those with a thematic focus in another area, who are thus introduced to India.
The Indian voices who are critical of the Indian Prime Minister Modi's understanding of democracy should also be included in this cooperation.
When Olaf Scholz visited India in 2012 as Hamburg's head of government, he said at the end that what impressed him most was "the optimism of overcoming challenges".
Ten years later, as chancellor, he would allow himself to be infected by this optimism and venture more into India with the entire government.
