> I’ve seen a lot of hateful talk towards them from content creators and politicians. I don’t know if that is a misrepresentation but I’ve got the sense that th

> I’ve seen a lot of hateful talk towards them from content creators and politicians. I don’t know if that is a misrepresentation but I’ve got the sense that there is hostility... > Is it really viable for European politicians to partner with India in that environment? And will India go for it or will they distrust Europe? It doesn't matter. The decisions that matter to India can be forced through the European Council, and even in those countries with nativist sentiments like Croatia [0], Greece, Cyprus and Italy [1], India increasingly uses it's monetary power to extract the deals it wants - especially because China has decided to increasingly consolidate it's investments in Hungary and Spain instead and OBOR funding in much of Europe has been scaled down [2][3] so the only large economy left that can help. On top of that, European countries like France are using India as a backdoor for continuing business operations on dual use technology like Safran-UAC's SJ-100 commercial jet project [4]. Essentially, those politically unpopular decisions that require public consent go through the European Council, and everything else is done via business and state-level engagements. It's the same model China used in the late 2000s and early 2010s when it was at the stage that India is at today. > I think the same question could be asked for Southeast Asian countries too but they’re smaller and maybe are less of a focus in geopolitics ASEAN nations like Vietnam already have FTAs with the EU [5] and are conducting influence ops within Europe with impunity [6] This is why I made an earlier comparison to the EU with the Qing and Mughal Empires - both federal empires collapsed because individual European states made deals with those empires subnational units, which undermined both empires. [0] - https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/analyses/2025-06-26/modi-visits-zagreb-croatias-dreams-a-mediterranean-hub https://www.osw.waw.pl/en/publikacje/analyses/2025-06-26/mod... [1] - https://orionpolicy.org/imec-and-the-battle-for-connectivity-why-trieste-matters/ https://orionpolicy.org/imec-and-the-battle-for-connectivity... [2] - https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67634959 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-67634959 [3] - https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/greeces-policy-on-china-debt-era-deals-and-recalibration/ https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/re... [4] - https://idrw.org/original-sam146-engine-likely-to-power-indian-superjet-100-variant/ https://idrw.org/original-sam146-engine-likely-to-power-indi... [5] - https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/eu-trade-relationships-country-and-region/countries-and-regions/viet-nam/eu-viet-nam-agreements_en https://policy.trade.ec.europa.eu/eu-trade-relationships-cou... [6] - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-25/berlin-kidnapping-accusation-hangs-over-rise-of-vietnam-enforcer https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-25/berlin-ki...