Autonomy Is Built in Factories, Not Bargained For in Summits

TAN's Position

India cannot secure its strategic autonomy by choosing the right hegemon or by bargaining cleverly between two. Autonomy is a capability and capabilities are built at home through factories, supply chains, technology and state capacity. Diplomacy can use that capability. It cannot replace it.

Why the Question Is Urgent Donald Trump and Xi

Jinping have met twice in 2026. Commentators, including former External Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid in an Indian Express column, describe the result as an emerging G2, a working accommodation between Washington and Beijing that may bring some order to a disrupted world.

For India, that order raises a harder question. The Thucydides Trap is usually read as a warning that a rising power and an established power may go to war. It has a second lesson that matters more to a third power: when the two giants settle their differences, they often do so at others' expense.

The Two Pressures on India

From China:

• A trade deficit of 112.16 billion dollars in 2025-26
• Repeated blocking of India's bid to join the Nuclear Suppliers Group - Territorial pressure along the border and support for Pakistan

From the United States:

• A new law, the Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026, that allows up to 100% tariffs on buyers of Russian oil - India depends on imports for over 88% of its crude oil, so the law targets a core national need - Signs, according to the column's authors, that Washington now expects Asian states to shoulder more of their own defence

The Reasoning

A country's options in a crisis are set by what it can do without asking permission. If India cannot make its own electronics, active pharmaceutical ingredients or solar components, then a trade dispute with China becomes a production crisis.

If it cannot source energy flexibly, a sanctions law in Washington becomes an energy crisis. In both cases, the choice India faces is decided by its dependencies, not by its diplomats.

The Strongest Objection Alignment with

Washington buys real things: defence technology, intelligence cooperation, a partner against Chinese pressure on the border and access to capital and semiconductor supply chains. An industrial base takes decades to build and India needs security during those decades.

Why the Position Still Holds

That objection shows that partnership is a useful input to autonomy. It does not show that alignment is a substitute for it. The test for any deal with Washington, Tokyo or Brussels is simple: does it leave India able to make something it could not make before?

Technology transfer, co-production and domestic supply chains pass that test. Buying finished dependency, however friendly the seller, does not. A G2 that can be negotiated over India's head is the clearest argument for building strength that cannot be negotiated away.