In his second term, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has sought to initiate a new practice on New Year's Day: To discuss a shared vision of peace and prosperity in India's subregion, Modi on Jan. 1 telephoned leaders of all neighboring nations other than his country's two adversaries, China and Pakistan.
Modi's exclusion of India's two closely aligned neighbors that routinely flout international norms was intended to underscore the threat to regional peace from their growing axis. China, for example, kicked off the new year (and the new decade) by launching a major combat exercise along the Himalayan border with India, deploying its lightweight Type 15 tank, a new 155-mm howitzer, and other weapons from the Tibetan capital of "Lhasa to border defense frontlines."
China's challenge to norms and rules, of course, extends across the Indo-Pacific region.