For the past twenty years, the logic of American foreign policy in Asia has been simple: Build up India to box in China. Successive administrations, from George W. Bush to Joe Biden, pursued a policy of “strategic altruism.” They bent nuclear proliferation rules, shared cutting-edge technology, and looked the other way on trade disputes, all in the hope that a strong India would serve as a democratic bulwark in the Indo-Pacific.

In 2025, that era came to a crashing halt. In this week’s podcast, I explored this dramatic shift, drawing on a provocative analysis by Chinese scholar Mao Keji titled Favorite Child to Abandoned Pawn.