Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

US building India as counterpoise to China

By Khalid Hasan

WASHINGTON: From the moment they took office, President George Bush and his administration were keen to do everything they could to counter the expanding Chinese military, one way being to develop a relationship with India, according to a veteran observer and commentator of South Asian affairs.

Steven R Weisman, the chief diplomatic correspondent of the New York Times, who was the newspaper’s bureau chief in New Delhi during the 1980s made this and several other observations in an interview with Bernard Gwertzman of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Weisman said, “This is something that the administration has been loath to acknowledge publicly, but it’s clearly underneath the surface.” In the last couple of years, the Pentagon has become much more alarmed over Chinese military intentions, and the Chinese acquisition of high technology that has given it an upper hand in the Taiwan Strait. The administration also felt alarmed over Europe’s selling of high-tech equipment to China.

Asked about the current India-Pakistan dialogue, Weisman said relations between the two countries have been “calmer than they have been in some time,” but “it would be foolish to think this state of affairs is permanent. Elaborating, he added, “Things are going well now, but when I talk to Indians and Pakistanis, they recognise that it would only take one bus bomb in Kashmir or New Delhi to get things off track. And the Indians, although they’re improving relations with Pakistan, adamantly insist that Pakistan has done nothing to stop the infiltration of militants or extremists - whatever you want to call them - into Kashmir to provoke militant opposition to Indian sovereignty there. So, it’s a very touchy situation that is only temporarily in a good place. Naturally, the administration is taking some credit for the peaceful state of affairs, saying they are the first administration in history that has tried to have good relations with both India and Pakistan. Well, with all due respect, it would not be possible if India and Pakistan were not themselves trying hard to have good relations.”

Asked if there was a paradox in the situation, considering that Washington sees India as a way to offset China, but India has been trying to improve its own relations with China, Weisman answered, “India is playing Kissinger-like games of making up with the longtime enemy. India and China fought a war in the early 1960s … and they still have a boundary dispute left over from that war. India accelerated a policy of improving relations with China, and when you talk to Indian officials, they are adamant, and resentful, frankly, that they are being seen in Washington as a kind of a pawn here to beat up on China among the China-bashers. So, for both India and the Americans, you don’t hear very much (public) talk about, ‘Let’s build up India as a counterweight to China,’ even though everybody knows that’s part of what’s happening.” As to how it would work strategically, since India is not interested in any confrontation with China, Weisman replied that India has its own ambitions, such as a blue water navy. India’s navy is a presence in a part of the world where China also wants a presence, which could make it a “stabilising force” in the region from Pentagon’s perspective.

About the Bush decision to sell nuclear supplies to India for non-military use, the NYT correspondent said the decision would no doubt be seen, by its critics, as just another case of the administration seeking to dismantle an international arrangement. While US law forbids such a deal, national security exemptions enable the President to override bans on selling equipment on national security grounds, as is currently the case with Pakistan. The law will have to be changed before the administration can implement the deal with India. He said it could be argued that what the administration has decided to do is just to “recognise the reality and try to make it as effective as possible for its objectives.” He also felt that while India had agreed to the separation of its military and civilian nuclear programme and place the latter open to inspection, “that’s going to take a long time, and it’s going to be very complicated, and hard to do that-and to make sure that it is being done.”

Asked if Pakistan is going to want the same deal, Weisman replied, “The Pakistanis, as of today, haven’t made clear what deal they want. But, this spring, they already got their biggest priority, and that was the F-16s that the United States agreed to sell them … I don’t know that Pakistan now wants the kind of thing that India has been given, which is help on its civilian nuclear programme. They do have reactors, and frankly, I don’t know what plans Pakistan has in the civilian sphere or what kind of outside aid it wants. But chances are if the India deal goes through, Pakistan will line up and ask for the same deal after they have a bit of a better record on non-proliferation.”


http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_24-7-2005_pg7_30