A fallout of the ‘milestone’ visit of the Chinese President, Hu Jintao, to the US in mid-January has been the assessment by various experts on the impact it may have on Indo-US relations. Some have expressed concern; some others do not see it as being relevant to bilateral relations with the US or China.
The comparison in some quarters about the outcome of the visit of US President, Barrack Obama, to India last November, and Hu’s visit to the US is unnecessary; as is the talk of India being propelled by the US as a counter-weight to China. That will be reviving the Cold War spirit that neither India nor any country in the world would wish to see happen. Significantly, the American and Chinese leaders did not discuss India or Pakistan in their talks.
As a next door neighbour of China and forging strategic relationship with the US, it is perhaps right for India to keep an eye on the progress of the up-and-down relations between those two countries. The US is still the world’s sole super power and the largest economy, and China is quickly moving from the number two position in these two matters to the top.
India too is inching upwards in both economic and military terms. That should give enough confidence to the country to stop from pressing the panic button or getting too alarmed if these two countries try to paper over their differences and come closer.
In any case it is certain that for a long time to come the US and China are not going to reach a stage where their relations are marked by mutual trust and genuine friendship and warmth.
This should be reason enough for India to think about its bilateral relations with these two countries separately instead of worrying about an uncomfortable triangle. If India perceives China as being a less than friendly neighbour, it is unlikely to change its colours on the basis of its equation with the US. Just as the US advances its relations with India unmindful of what the Chinese might think or say.
Generally speaking, India maintains that it does not see itself as part of a ménage-a-trois, the unhappy triangle, in forging relations with any other country. There are a lot of countries with which India has excellent relations but these countries maintain almost similar relations with Pakistan. Likewise, China can do little on its own or with the help of another country to dissuade India from coming closer to its neighbours—Japan, South Korea, Vietnam, Myanmar, Indonesia to name a few.
The only reason that can cause worry in India when it comes to US-China relations is the possibility of the two of them joining hands to put pressure on India to offer concessions to Pakistan. In his first year in office, the US President Barack Obama had made such an effort. But a prompt protest by New Delhi made him wiser and since then he has stayed clear of the muddied waters of Indo-Pak relations.
Despite being an ‘all weather’ friend of Pakistan and all the provocations that it indulges in from time to time vis-s-vis India (claiming Indian territories and issuing stapled visas to certain Indian nationals), China has become wary of meddling in the Indo-Pak cesspool. Of course, China’s continuous help in nuclear build up of Pakistan is a source of worry and friction between New Delhi and Beijing. The state of China’s relations with the US will not change that equation.
There are, however, two separate sets of issues between the US and China that do interest the world. One is economic; the other has militarist tone. The US is desperate to see the Chinese end the artificially low parity of their currency with the dollar. The US is unhappy with the virtual one-way trade with China that has left a $270 billion surplus in favour of China. Lack of Chinese cooperation on climate issues is another area of concern with the US.
Important as these issues are, they are by and large matters that only these two countries can sort out. It is the military matters where India will be keen to trace the progress of US-China relations. The US has been unsuccessful in its attempts to decipher the military doctrine of China which is surely different from the public statement of the Chinese leaders that their military build-up is not designed for aggressive purposes. The US could not have been comfortable after the Chinese unveiled their stealth fighter when Defence Secretary Gates was on a visit to Beijing.
Only recently the Chinese had suspended a high-level military exchange with the US. India has done the same thing with China after it refused to welcome a senior Indian Army officer as part of a delegation to Beijing.
It may not have any direct bearing on India, but the US effort to persuade China to stop making threatening gestures in its East Asian neighbourhood, either directly or through its proxy, North Korea, may be of interest to India since it may also influence China’s aggressive posture on Indian borders.
The US has been hoping to bring China to its point of view on North Korea and some other issues, including Iran’s nuclear programme. Some progress was visible after the visit of Hu Jintao to the US. The unpredictable regime of North Korea has agreed to talk to South Korea. Hopefully, the talks will go through and pave the way for melting of tension that has been building up in the region for a long time.
The point of all this is that areas of differences between the US and China are wide but they have decided that they can still move forward on the strength of their growing economic ties. The two countries do not care if any third country has any problems with their efforts to improve bilateral relations in the midst of differences on certain matters.
The US and China have intertwined their economic ties despite their differences over strategic and security matters. That looks very much like the scenario of Indo-China relations. There are many in India who are unhappy at this scenario but they have been vetoed by advocates of a ‘pragmatic’ relationship between India and China. They probably see the same ‘pragmatic’ approach in the ties between Washington and Beijing.
