Report of the Webinar on China’s Himalayan Hustle – Part IV: EU, India, and US – Framing a Troika to Scuttle China’s Himalayan Strategy?

This report is an outcome of ‘China’s Himalayan Hustle-IV’ webinar on “EU, India, and US – Framing a Troika to Scuttle China’s Himalayan Strategy?” which was conducted by the Stockholm Center for South Asian and Indo-Pacific Affairs (SCSA-IPA), Institute for Security and Development Policy, on August 16, 2024. The webinar was moderated by Dr. Jagannath Panda, who welcomed all the panelists and shared that this was the fourth webinar in the series.

The first webinar covered China’s infrastructural planning in the Himalayan region while the second was about China’s economic dominance in the region. The third webinar dealt more with how the Chinese are trying to change the status quo in the Himalayan region. The fourth webinar aimed to visualize the possibilities and potential for the EU, India, and the US to work together to highlight China’s revisionist actions in the Himalayan region, beyond the India-China border scuffles or the potential for limited war. For such a purpose, it looked into the following questions: What are the ways through which the Chinese activities in the Himalayan states could be highlighted in the European Parliament and the US Congress? What is the extent, scope, and impact of the massive military modernization in the Tibetan Plateau for the region?

In what ways can NATO be engaged to counter China’s military muscle in the Tibetan Plateau, without aggravating the regional balance? Should there be a cooperative dialogue between India and NATO on the same? What are the chances of the EU acknowledging / recognizing China’s Himalayan hustle as part of its Indo-Pacific strategy? What is the level of awareness in the European Parliament about China’s Himalayan revisionism? What tactics can India, the EU, and the US together employ to undo China’s clout in the Himalayas? How can the US and the EU contribute to checking Chinese infrastructure activities and taking action against their negative environmental impact on the region? Can the US and European policymakers bolster India’s efforts to maintain its geopolitical influence and to fight against China’s disruptive tactics in the Himalayas for the greater good of Indo-Pacific politics?