'Washington’s mood will shift...': Former Intel exec says India risks US backlash if it shuns China

India’s race to the top could end with a thud unless it embraces Chinese capital and supply chains, warns former Intel executive William Huo. In a fiery thread on X, Huo urged Delhi to learn from China’s 1980s playbook—when Beijing wooed Japan for tech and investment—or risk staying a “glorified outsourcing shop” vulnerable to Western pressure.

“India should be doing the same with Chinese supply chains. That’s the shortcut to industrialization,” Huo wrote Tuesday, arguing that decoupling from Beijing is not a realistic path to becoming a manufacturing powerhouse.

Huo warned that Washington’s warm embrace of India could chill the moment its economy surpasses Germany’s, predicting the U.S. would pivot from seeing India as a partner to branding it a “problem.” “Containment will follow,” he said.

He also spotlighted India’s strategic vulnerabilities if relations with the West sour, questioning whether the country could withstand sanctions or bans on U.S. tech platforms. “Can India survive without AWS, Google, Apple, and Visa? Not yet,” Huo wrote.

Slamming India’s current industrial strategies as “slogans,” Huo argued that “Make in India” must go beyond assembling phones and cars. “It has to mean software, services, chips, cloud, the whole stack,” he said.

Without homegrown tech champions, Huo warned, India risks forever playing the role of Washington’s “strategic junior partner.” He pointed to historical patterns, recalling that for 2,000 years India and China exchanged ideas and monks—not missiles. “They shared Buddhism, trade, and ideas, not invasions,” he wrote.

In a symbolic jab at today’s geopolitical animosity, Huo suggested the perfect meme would feature a Chinese monk and Indian sage under a Bodhi tree, with the caption: “Why can’t we all just get along?”

His message was blunt: India’s economic ascent could trigger a new Cold War—but not with China. The real battle, he suggested, might come from its supposed allies.