The G2.5 world

From China’s rare earths counterstrike to India’s resilient defiance, how a new G2 anda half world is being constructed.

- HINDOL SENGUPTA

In time, I "announcement No. 62 of 2025" of the Chinese government may be remembered as the moment when the power balance of the world comprehensively tipped. The government order that made the export of rare earths-crucial to a range of industries from mobile phones to fighter jets-subject to official clearances showed by the Chinese could, at least in the near term, bring vital sectors to a halt if they clamp down on the source of rare earth minerals, of which China controls 70% of global supplies. In the immediate future, China, therefore, has an equal-if not even more powerful-leverage on America, as US President Donald Trump has with his tariffs upon China.

And despite ever more dramatic tariff escala-| tions, India has not crumbled before the dictates of Trump. India has retained its relationship with Russia, and, despite Trump's announcements, there has been no confirmation of any major reduction of Indian purchases of Russian oil.

In between, news of the arrest of Ashley Tellis, the most prominent Indiapundit on the Beltway, accused of sharing top secret documents with Chinese officials, stunned the so-called "South Asia" community. The question of whether India-born Tellis, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and former adviser to President George W. Bush, was an asset of the American deep state, or the Chinese one, now haunts.

"South Asian-ists". If the charges are validated, this is damning evidence of the reach of Chinese espionage within both the US government and the "South Asian network".

Are there more such examples? Possibly.

All of this adds up to a world where America is accepting that it has to accommodate China, and in the remaining space.

India is jostling in. I call it the "G2 and a half" world.