As US President Donald Trump’s new ‘Donroe doctrine’ accelerates the fragmentation of the global order into a multi-polar world, India and China are likely to work towards stabilising their relationship, while India’s best long-term strategy in its own neighbourhood lies in restraint, regional accommodation and preventing external powers from exploiting internal divisions, according to former Singapore foreign minister and strategic thinker George Yong-Boon Yeo.
In an exclusive interview to UNI, Yeo said the reshaping world order would see India, China and Russia emerge as “countervailing forces”, even as the United States retreats to prioritising its near hemisphere and Europe is left to “take care of itself”. In such a setting, he argued, India and China, ancient civilisations with a deep mutual awareness, would be compelled by circumstance to steady their ties.
“Trump is fast-forwarding the future… towards multi-polarism,” Yeo said, adding that both India and China “doff their caps” to each other and therefore may well stabilise their relationship despite periodic tensions.
Yeo, who is in the capital to deliver the C.D. Deshmukh Memorial Lecture organised by the India International Centre, pointed out that at one time sections of India’s leadership believed the US would be its “principal ally” against China.
However, recent developments had altered that perception. Referring to the Pahalgam terror attack in Kashmir in April 2025, he noted that instead of backing India, President Trump invited Pakistan’s leadership to Washington within weeks, causing disquiet in New Delhi.
The former foreign minister, said Trump had believed he could “browbeat India” over tariffs, but New Delhi did not yield. Similarly, tariff pressure on China failed when Beijing “played the rare earth card”, forcing Washington to pull back.
“They have an adult relationship… I think India and China will now stabilise their relationship,” Yeo remarked. He added that despite heated rhetoric on social media, the leaderships of both countries had never publicly attacked each other.
He also pointed to Trump’s ambivalent response to China’s military drills around Taiwan, suggesting that China, Taiwan, Japan and India would therefore “keep all options open”.
Turning to South Asia, Yeo argued that India’s strategic interest lay in keeping tensions low and making the Westphalian system of sovereign states work in its favour. South Asia’s political borders, he said, often mask much older social and cultural continuities, making the region vulnerable to manipulation by outside powers.
Recalling a visit to Bangladesh, Yeo noted how people from West Bengal and Bangladesh communicated effortlessly in Bengali, underscoring the “artificial nature” of many post-Partition boundaries.
“The division between Bengal and Bangladesh is artificial, just as the division between the two Punjabs is,” he said, adding that such borders had not erased shared histories or emotional ties.
At the same time, he acknowledged that accumulated mistrust in the region had no easy solutions and that these unresolved tensions constrained India’s strategic autonomy. Major powers, he warned, could exploit South Asia’s divisions to deepen ruptures.
“That is why it is in India’s best interest to try and keep things low,” he said.
Yeo observed that China itself had, over the past two decades, sought to prevent India–Pakistan relations from spiralling out of control, noting that Chinese leaders visiting Pakistan had also made it a point to visit India. Beijing, he added, had remained publicly silent after the most recent India–Pakistan clash.
Speaking on Islamic radicalisation in South Asia and West Asia, Yeo said the region had seen a significant wave, but suggested it may have peaked. Extremist movements, he argued, were often “deliberately fostered” in earlier geopolitical phases through a mix of American strategic objectives, Pakistani facilitation and Saudi funding.
“We see the footprints of big powers in the rise of ISIS and Al-Qaeda,” he said, adding that the situation had since changed as countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE now viewed extremism as a threat to their own stability.
In Afghanistan, he said, the Taliban’s return had paradoxically led to a degree of moderation driven by necessity rather than ideology. “Extremism will take time to subside, but the crest is over,” he said.
Addressing concerns about Bangladesh, Yeo cautioned against alarmism. “Bengalis have a long intellectual and philosophical tradition. They are not a people inclined towards immoderation,” he said, adding that the country’s economic success, especially women’s participation in the workforce, made prolonged instability unlikely.
Deliberating on Iran, where protests have erupted against the current regime, Yeo urged observers to view developments through a civilisational lens.
While acknowledging popular frustration over political rigidities and economic mismanagement, he said unrest there was also shaped by sustained external pressure, including US and Israeli involvement.
Even so, he cautioned that any regime change would not easily overturn Iran’s deep societal foundations.
Summing up, Yeo said both South Asia and West Asia were shaped less by short-term political shocks than by long historical continuities.
For India, he concluded, the wisest course in an emerging multi-polar world would be to protect itself, keep its neighbourhood stable, and focus on economic growth. “In the end,” he said, “economic might is greater than force.”
