The latest ‘Point Blank’ conversation between HT Executive Editor Shishir Gupta and anchor Ayesha Verma portrays a world where US-China rivalry, disputed waters and an extended Middle East war are all converging to redraw the strategic map from Honolulu to Hormuz.
East Asia Summit: Indo-Pacific remains at the center
21st East Asia Summit continues July 22, with 19 participating countries, emerged as a key moment in clarifying how the major powers now view the Indo-Pacific theatre. Despite speculation that Washington has quietly removed “Indo” from its Indo-Pacific Command, Gupta insisted that this narrative is misleading: the change appears to have come from within the US War Department bureaucracy, and not from a strategic rethink at the political level. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio repeatedly referred to Indo-Pacific Command throughout the summit, signaling continuity in Washington’s framing of the region and its role as a resident power in the broader Indo-Pacific.
The surrounding message was equally important Tractor. Far from being sidelined by President Donald Trump’s talk of a US-China “G2”, the Quad’s foreign ministers have already met twice this year – on May 26 and July 22 – and another meeting is planned. Gupta argues that this rhythm of engagement underscores that the Quad format remains central to regional security thinking, even as Trump continues to rhetorically align with great-power condominium ideas.
ASEAN and other East Asia participants, except China, sent a clear collective signal: they would support the Philippines, Japan, and other Southeast Asian states in the event of Chinese expansionist moves. According to Gupta’s reading, it was a political pushback against Beijing’s behavior in the South China Sea, and it precipitated the summit with a shared concern over Chinese maritime coercion.
South China Sea: Towards a “Hormuz Scenario”?
Gupta framed South China Sea Moving increasingly towards a chokepoint dynamic analogous to the Strait of Hormuz – where freedom of navigation can be held hostage by a single power’s military posture. He points out that China is not only making claims but actively militarizing the South China Sea and exerting strong pressure against Japan, the Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries under Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi through the expansionist PLA navy. He warned that if left unchecked, Chinese dominance would make regular commercial and naval transit “a very difficult issue” for other states, as Iran’s ability to threaten shipping has done in the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea.
In his view, the East Asia Summit had two objectives. First, it made it clear that regional states understand and oppose what China is doing in the maritime domain. Second, it linked maritime risks in East Asia to broader patterns of global instability – Ukraine, the Iran–US confrontation, unresolved crises in Gaza and Lebanon, and even unrest in South America – creating a single frame of “global uncertainty” within which the South China Sea is only one, but an important, front.
India-China: talks in the shadow of the border
On the sidelines of the summit, External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar’s meeting with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi highlighted how little scope there is for delinking the India-China economy from the border question.
Gupta says Jaishankar was clear: For New Delhi, everything comes from a “peace and quiet border”, and India has not made any geographical advances against China. Yet, Chinese forces continue to occupy Indian territories – a situation not just a current crisis for India but a pattern established over the past five decades.
Gupta explains that Beijing stressed that economic ties should be improved, but “does not want to move back even a millimeter” on the border issue. This asymmetry – economic engagement without regional agreement – remains a core Indian concern. As Gupta explains, the Narendra Modi government’s position is that good relations are impossible without border stability and that China should avoid projects with third countries in disputed areas, such as occupied Kashmir.
The meeting did not resolve these contradictions, but Gupta stressed that it is still important: in an era of global instability, neither side wants to open a front on the other, and high-level dialogue allows each capital to gauge the other’s thinking and calibrate reactions.
India-America: Difficult but positive partnership
Turning to India-US relations, Gupta described the relationship as “difficult” but clearly positive in its core principles. Trade frictions exist, but he views them as manageable rather than structural. The recent US tariff on Indian goods is 10 per cent, down from 12.5 per cent after India addressed specific US concerns; Notably, Japan – Washington’s closest ally – still faces 12.5 per cent tariffs, which suggests India’s position remains competitive in a regional trade landscape that includes Pakistan, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
More broadly, Gupta points out that an ongoing, constructive dialogue is underway as US agencies examine further trade issues and India responds. He believes that as long as that channel remains open, the relationship will be able to absorb disagreements. On key geopolitical questions, he sees convergence rather than divergence: both India and the US aim to prevent war in Ukraine while addressing the core concerns of both Kiev and Moscow, and they share a common interest in ending the Iran conflict and protecting freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz and the Red Sea.
This alignment has been strengthened by intensive defense dialogue and multiple layers of political engagement, with the top leadership in constant touch. Gupta characterizes this as “two big powers” playing, negotiating and managing differences, but moving in an overall positive direction.
The Middle East: American leverage, withdrawal in the Gulf, and Iran’s long war
In the final section, Gupta and Verma move from East Asia to the Middle East, asking how America’s behavior toward Iran and the Gulf compares with its support of Taiwan and the Philippines against China. Gupta’s assessment is clear: the US is clearly not bothered by the expansion of the Iran war because its own economy is performing well and it is successfully selling oil, defense equipment and energy to the rest of the world. As long as that economic engine remains intact, Washington can continue the war effort rather than rapidly deescalate tensions.
He noted that operational challenges remain – including a shortage of air defense interceptors and missiles – which could explain the recent pause in fighting since Friday. Yet he highlights more structural steps: Washington has offered Saudi Arabia a civilian nuclear deal, conditional on Riyadh signing it. abraham accordsEffectively linking to normalizing nuclear cooperation with Israel. In his words, it is a “double whammy”, complicated by Saudi Arabia’s defense alliance with Pakistan, a state with a shaky nuclear record and known for “rogue” behavior on proliferation. Pakistan thus becomes the center of risk calculation, and the US is well aware of the red flags.
Gupta also flagged discussion around the “Islamic Quad” of Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt – a potential Sunni alignment with some perceived legitimacy in Washington, though not easy to operationalize. In parallel, the US has offered Turkey F‑35 fifth generation jets, but only if Ankara gives up its Russian S‑400 systems and other Russian defense equipment, to prevent Moscow from extracting signatures of US platforms.
At the ground level, Gulf states are no longer passively tolerating Iranian pressure. Saudi Arabia retaliates against Houthis after tanker attacks in the Red Sea; Kuwait and Bahrain have also retaliated after provocation by Iran. Iran, for its part, continues to fire medium-range ballistic missiles and rely on proxies, deploying weapons such as the Khyber Shakan – described as a “Jewish destroyer” missile with a variable terminal trajectory that makes interception difficult – against Jordan and other regional targets. The cumulative effect is a war that Gupta doesn’t see ending any time soon, with oil prices rising to $100 a barrel and “life becoming very difficult for the whole world”.
In Indo-Pacific waters and Middle Eastern deserts, the picture that emerges from Point Blank is one of an international system under constant tension: great powers striving for advantage, regional actors resisting coercion, and chokepoints – from the South China Sea to the Straits of Hormuz and the Red Sea – are becoming decisive theaters where economic interdependence meets hard military power.
