Le Monde, France

India between China and the U.S.

By Frédéric Bobin

Translated by Noga Emanuel

January 26, 2008

France - Le Monde - Original Article (French)

French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s January 26 visit to New Delhi was intended as a show of political support for India, a nation increasingly being courted in the international arena. For all of India’s many social ills, Paris’s apparent interest in this new ascendant Asian power is laudable and necessary. India no doubt appreciates the active support exerted by the French to promote its candidacy as permanent member of the Security Council of the United Nations.

However, imagining that New Delhi is all starry-eyed by the goodwill gestures coming from Paris would be presumptuous and misleading. To understand where India’s strategic priorities lie, it is important to note how slowly the Indians react to French overtures of co-operation in their civil nuclear programs. These overtures are less important than their ambitious collaboration with the United States.

India’s strategic priorities are fixed very clearly upon the two main actors in the Asian stage: the United States and China. In this geopolitical equation, the question of where India fits is basically very simple. It has to work out its newly minted collusion with Washington without upsetting China, whose “model" of success New Delhi lionized in the past. Indian diplomacy is thus fully mobilized to dance this delicate minuet among its disparate suitors.

The honeymoon between India and the United States is definitely the major event to have occurred in Asia in the last years. If we recall the Cold War era, when India/USSR were allied against the rivaling tandem of Pakistan/United States, this latest development is nothing short of a landslide.  It was the Americans, rather than the Indians, who hastened to tie the knot.

At the end of the 1990’s, American strategists recognized the importance of a rapprochement with India.  Beyond its democratic ethos and the lure of its economic potential, India shares with Washington its concerns about Islamist terrorism and the rising power of China.

An indicator of the United States’ good intentions was their less than rigorous condemnation of New Delhi’s series of nuclear tests, which had thrown a pall over its international relations in 1998. Better still, in 2006 the Americans signed a civil nuclear cooperation agreement with India, an exceptional gesture since India is not a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty (NPT).  Of course, the interests of these two countries are far from converging on all issues.

The day after September 11, 2001, Washington was forced to pander to its historical propinquity with Pakistan, defined as the crucial front line in the war against terrorism, which played out in Afghanistan and its environs.

India, for its part, cultivated a very friendly relationship with the generous oil supplier, Iran, a step that drew some disapproving scowls from the White House. All the same, these respective centrifugal forces did not impede the reconciliation that was in progress.

The pro-American lobby gaining the greater influence in New Delhi largely engineered this denouement.  Free Market economy gave birth to a middle class, which, though nationalist, wanted to divest itself of the old moons of the Nehru-Gandhi era, characterized by the twin markers of support for the Third World and anti-Americanism. The Indian Diaspora in the United States played an active role in promoting the ideological opening up to modernity. India’s trepidations over the Chinese push further consolidated the process. It is not a coincidence that the Hindu nationalists of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in power in 1998, expressly declared China to be among the "threats" which justified their nuclear tests.

The mixture of "American temptation" and wariness of Beijing remains acute in India, where the memory of the humiliating defeat of 1962 war is still alive. The disputed border deep in the Himalayas, where the two giants meet, still remains unregulated. Furthermore, India keeps a suspicious eye trained upon China’s diplomatic, military and economic activity in India’s backyard  (Pakistan, Burma, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri-Lanka).

Particularly worrisome for India is the construction by China of the Pakistani port of Gwadar, on the edge of the Persian Gulf. This enterprise fits in with the strategic arc, a pearl necklace, which China seeks to build from the Persian Gulf to its Pacific front in order to safeguard its energy supplies. In reaction, New Delhi reinforces its naval presence in the Indian Ocean, considered a vital zone.  Nor is India loath to join in military maneuvers with countries like the United States, Japan or Australia. These countries have recently been engaging in a discourse about “a diplomacy of values” (implying shared democratic ethics), a small melody, which is squeaky noise to Chinese ears.

"American temptation" thus works the strategic circles of New Delhi. But it would be a hasty mistake to forget Indian diplomatic history, in which non-alignment and an obsession with "strategic autonomy" are articles of faith. Coupled to India’s deep distrust of Beijing, is an equally intense allergy to any American manipulation, which might seek to recruit India into an anti-Chinese strategic coalition. New Delhi does not want to be sucked into a conflict with Beijing by mechanically playing its role in a new alliance with Washington.

India fears becoming an instrument of a super power. This fear may explain the difficulties that have accrued in the last few months to the Indo-American civil nuclear cooperation agreement, which grants a few minor favors to New Delhi.

The Communists, who form part of the coalition presently in power, headed by the Congress Party, exploit this weakness. It weighs in by threatening to bring on a political crisis if the agreement is endorsed.

The wind has turned. There is a widespread feeling that the process of opening up to the West has gone too far. So much so that the Congress government of New Delhi must chill out its pro-American inclination.

Sonia Gandhi, president of the Congress Party, and Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister, have been visiting Beijing, seeking to dispel China’s concerns.  The Indian school of the equidistant minuet has triumphed. The "fundamentalists" are back. Is the Indian dream of American companionship likely to suffer from it? Most likely.