> clearly seems like dragging them into intrigues they otherwise could have simply avoided

India and China have been at logger heads since the 1960s. The same moment India and Japan started the joint JV, India and China had a naval standoff because India's ONGC began developing Vietnam's claim in the South China Sea [0] and the PLA began normalizing encroachment [1] in Ladakh and Arunachal.

China has weaponized export controls against India for years now, from requiring Foxconn pull back Chinese employees working on equipment transfers to India [2] to barring magnet exports for India's EV industry [3] to barring Chinese EV firms and suppliers from moving to India and Vietnam [4].

China is trying to do to India what America should have done to China in the 2000s and 2010s. Even if the US did not figure in conversations, the same weaponization against India by China would have happened.

> By genuinely using the materials in India which Indian JVs typically do

Japanese and Korean companies have been using IREL and transferring IP to Indian SOEs for almost 15 years now as well.

[0] - https://thediplomat.com/2011/09/india-china-navies-face-off/

[1] - https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2023/08/impasse-at-th...

[2] - https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/02/foxconn-tells-hundreds-of-...

[3] - https://www.reuters.com/world/china/chinas-magnet-curbs-risk...

[4] - https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/15/business/china-electric-v...

How are these points even relevant to the comment?

They seem orthogonal to the issue of Indian board members now being involved on the record.