Bharat Rakshak

naren wrote:I know who Bakistan is. [Hint 0:15-0:19]

abhishek_sharma wrote:“De-hyphenating” Sino-Indian ties

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article518943.ece

abhishek_sharma wrote:“De-hyphenating” Sino-Indian ties

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/article518943.ece

India needs to view Sino-Pak. ties in perspective and with new thinking.

A fortnight-long lecture tour of China in April was revealing as to how little the Indian discourse factors in the winds of change sweeping across that country. The day I arrived in Beijing from Shanghai en route to Tibet, the Chinese capital received a hugely controversial figure in the politics of our region — the redoubtable “Amir” of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-F) of Pakistan, Maulana Fazal-ur-Rahman, who is suspected to be the “father of the Taliban.”

Two aspects regarding Mr. Rahman's visit intrigued me. The JUI-F has no Chinese counterpart but Beijing solved the dilemma with the Communist Party of China (CCP) stepping in to hold Mr. Rahman's hand. The CCP and JUI-F may seem like oil and water but today's China hopes to make them mix. During Mr. Rahman's visit, the CCP and JUI-F signed a memorandum of cooperation. Second, from Beijing Mr. Rahman headed for Xinjiang.

It was an extraordinary moment — the energetic Maulana getting exposed to the violent politics of our region, thanks to the ideology of militant Islam practised by his progenies and on the other hand, the sheer audacity or ingenuity of Beijing's policies in hosting him while Xinjiang is bleeding at the hands of Islamist militants based in Pakistan and is barely coping with the shenanigans of the drug mafia on the Karakoram Highway.

Surely, Pakistan is of immense importance to the Chinese strategies. It is a time-tested friend, a market for China's exports, a vital link in China's new communication chain connecting the Persian Gulf, Middle East and Africa, but most important, a land that shelters Islamist militants from China who may have come under the influence of foreign powers. Unsurprisingly, security cooperation with Islamabad has assumed high priority. The following report in the government-owned China Daily newspaper last week underscored the complexity of the relationship: “An increasing number of members of the East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), which led the riots and is labelled a terrorist group by the U.N. Security Council, are reportedly fleeing to Pakistan and settling down there for future plots. According to latest reports, the ETIM has been in close collaboration with the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. An ETIM leader is also reportedly hiding in Pakistan and there are reports of a “Chinese battalion” made up of about 320 ETIM members of the Taliban forces. ‘It is not hard for them to hide in Pakistan. They have similar religious beliefs, appearances and languages as the locals,' the Beijing-based World News newspaper reported on July 1.”

Besides, China faces unprecedented geopolitical challenges in carrying forward the “all-weather friendship” with Pakistan. Pakistan has become a hunting ground for the U.S. regional strategies. There is a qualitative difference from the U.S.-Pakistan collaborative ventures of the Cold War era. The U.S. today depends on Pakistani military to end the Afghan war so that without the war casualties complicating the western public opinion, continued American and North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) military presence in the Central Asian region becomes sustainable. The U.S. strategies factor in the NATO's future as a global security organisation, trans-Atlantic ties and of course China's rise and the challenge it poses to the U.S. supremacy in the world order in the 21st century. In short, Pakistan is an-almost irreplaceable U.S. ally at the present phase of the geopolitics of the region and will remain so for the foreseeable future, given its geography, political economy and its unique dealings with terrorist groups. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's impending arrival in Islamabad for co-chairing the U.S.-Pakistan strategic dialogue — second in four months — underscores Pakistan's centrality in Washington's foreign policy calculus.

What emerges is that no more is it the case that whatever China does in Pakistan is with an ulterior motive against India or that Beijing's policy toward Pakistan is quintessentially India-centric. As a matter of fact, the trend for quite some time has been of Beijing trying to keep a balance between its relations with India and Pakistan. Unfortunately, motivated sections of the Indian strategic community in their self-seeking zest to sub-serve the U.S. geo-strategy, often deliberately obfuscate these sobering geopolitical realities. The political symbolism in the Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and other leaders receiving the National Security Adviser Shiv Shankar Menon in Beijing and holding discussions with him in his capacity as the special envoy of the prime minister just ahead of the arrival of the Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari on a weeklong “working visit” cannot go unnoticed — even while making allowance for the high esteem in which Mr. Menon is held as a scholar-diplomat on China.

Which is why Mr. Menon's remarks in Beijing following his consultations needs to be welcomed as reflective of a profound understanding at the top policymaking level in New Delhi regarding India's most crucial foreign policy challenge in the period ahead – relations with China. Mr. Menon said that India is looking forward to forging “a relationship [with China] which is not externally driven.”

Hopefully, a lid has been firmly put on the can of worms that Uncle Sam periodically held out in front of us — an “alliance of Asian democracies” involving the U.S., Japan and Australia. There is great need to shield India's normalisation with China from episodic U.S. interference. On the sidelines of the recent U.S.-India strategic dialogue in Washington, senior American officials resuscitated in their public diplomacy the George W. Bush era ideas of the U.S. and India patrolling the Indian Ocean and working together with Japan and Australia – doctrines which seemed irrelevant and quixotic once the world financial crisis erupted and new realities emerged in the international system.

Equally, India needs to view Sino-Pak ties in perspective and with new thinking. Mr. Menon was spot on while saying that China's close relationship with Pakistan should have no bearing on the momentum of New Delhi advancing the impetus of Sino-Indian ties. Indeed, it is high time to de-hyphenate. “We're no longer in an either-or, zero-sum game kind of situation. Our [India's] relationship with China is not dependent on the state of our relations with Pakistan, or vice versa. And judging by what we have seen in practice over the last few years, I think that is also true of China.” He said this while stressing the convergence of Indian and Chinese interests on a range of global issues, which demand a “new stage of the relationship”.

The government has done well to refuse to be enticed by the motivated exhortations by sections of our strategic community to join issue with Beijing over the China-Pakistan nuclear deal controversy – despite genuine apprehensions over anyone consorting with Pakistan, which could have a bearing on nuclear non-proliferation. Mr. Menon said, “This [Sino-Pakistan deal] was not the whole point of the visit. This took less than two and a half sentences in the whole visit.” The U.S. opinion-makers and the noisy pro-American lobby in the Indian strategic community have been suggesting that the Sino-Pakistan nuclear deal was primarily directed against India. To quote from a western media report, “China and Pakistan are threatening to disrupt India's nuclear aspirations by stepping up collaboration of their own.” However, the two reactors that China proposes to set up at Pakistan's Chashma complex under IAEA safeguards do not threaten India's security nor do they shift the “strategic balance” between India and Pakistan. On the contrary, if Pakistan steps into the fold of any form of non-proliferation regime including the IAEA safeguards that China seems to have in mind, it can be a good thing to happen.

Again, the American commentators attempted to insinuate that the China-Pakistan deal raises misgivings in the international community, which in turn may revive concerns about the wisdom of the U.S. making out a special dispensation for India. This is sheer baloney. The litmus test is Japan's readiness to open negotiations to explore the possibility of nuclear commerce with India. What is overlooked is that the NPT as such did not bar nuclear trade with a non-signatory like India. Rather, it was the Nuclear Suppliers Group [NSG] that brought in the “iron curtain”. The NSG was a one hundred percent American concoction aimed at penalising India under a designated multilateral regime. Plainly put, as the U.S. began sensing the compelling need in terms of its global strategies to forge partnership with India as an emerging power, the barriers became an inconvenient relic of the past. Similarly, let us not overlook that the US may well offer a nuclear deal to Pakistan at some stage.

In short, Beijing will foster its ties with Pakistan at a crucial juncture when the latter figures as a key partner in the US regional strategies. Pakistan, on its part, has been an exemplary partner who robustly eliminates any U.S. interference in its relationship with China. The US has been savvy enough to realise the virtues of “de-hyphenated” ties in our complicated region. The spectacle offers a morality play for India.

(The writer is a former diplomat.)

ramana wrote:

What is fascinating is TSP while depending on both US and PRC for its very survival, it works very hard at undermining both of them thru Islamist insurgencies and non state actors. And both still keep their ties with TSP!

ramana wrote:

What is fascinating is TSP while depending on both US and PRC for its very survival, it works very hard at undermining both of them thru Islamist insurgencies and non state actors. And both still keep their ties with TSP!

Acharya wrote:

ramana wrote:

What is fascinating is TSP while depending on both US and PRC for its very survival, it works very hard at undermining both of them thru Islamist insurgencies and non state actors. And both still keep their ties with TSP!

That tells all how dominant their perception about India is.
Pakistan is essential even during death and destruction!

DavidD wrote:

ramana wrote:

What is fascinating is TSP while depending on both US and PRC for its very survival, it works very hard at undermining both of them thru Islamist insurgencies and non state actors. And both still keep their ties with TSP!

I think you're overestimating their abilities to control these Islamic insurgencies. Pakistan has a ton of internal problems, but hopefully they can be soothed with cooperative efforts from both China and India.

ramana wrote:What is fascinating is TSP while depending on both US and PRC for its very survival, it works very hard at undermining both of them thru Islamist insurgencies and non state actors. And both still keep their ties with TSP!

India’s unwise military moves

In the last few days, India has dispatched roughly 60,000 troops to its border with China, the scene of enduring territorial disputes between the two countries.

J.J. Singh, the Indian governor of the controversial area, said the move was intended to “meet future security challenges” from China. Meanwhile, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh claimed, despite cooperative India-China relations, his government would make no concessions to China on territorial disputes.

The tough posture Singh’s new government has taken may win some applause among India’s domestic nationalists. But it is dangerous if it is based on a false anticipation that China will cave in.

India has long held contradictory views on China. Another big Asian country, India is frustrated that China’s rise has captured much of the world’s attention. Proud of its “advanced political system,” India feels superior to China. However, it faces a disappointing domestic situation which is unstable compared with China’s.

India likes to brag about its sustainable development, but worries that it is being left behind by China. China is seen in India as both a potential threat and a competitor to surpass.

But India can’t actually compete with China in a number of areas, like international influence, overall national power and economic scale. India apparently has not yet realized this. (that number is in millions...)
Indian politicians these days seem to think their country would be doing China a huge favor simply by not joining the “ring around China” established by the US and Japan.

India’s growing power would have a significant impact on the balance of this equation, which has led India to think that fear and gratitude for its restraint will cause China to defer to it on territorial disputes.

But this is wishful thinking, as China won’t make any compromises in its border disputes with India. And while China wishes to coexist peacefully with India, this desire isn’t born out of fear.

India’s current course can only lead to a rivalry between the two countries. India needs
to consider whether or not it can afford the consequences of a potential confrontation with China. It should also be asking itself why it hasn’t forged the stable and friendly relationship with China that China enjoys with many of India’s neighbors, like Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

Any aggressive moves will certainly not aid the development of good relations with China. India should examine its attitude and preconceptions; it will need to adjust if it hopes to cooperate with China and achieve a mutually beneficial outcome.

The implication of this stiff stance by China towards Pakistan could have far reaching consequences for the gains achieved in India-China relations, including from last year's Copenhagen dividend and the high-level visits between the two. Previously, the joint statements and declarations between India and China had suggested that each should address the other's security concerns. Also, China's stance could be a stumbling block in the flowering of 'strategic partnership and cooperation' signed by the two countries in April 2005.China's insistence on helping Pakistan in the nuclear power plant construction is also an indication that India-China cooperation, if any, is taking a backseat.For instance, article 8 point 27 of the joint declaration of November 21, 2006 between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh [ Images ] and visiting Chinese President Hu Jintao stated that they agreed 'to promote cooperation in the field of nuclear energy'. It also called for enhancing 'exchanges in the related academic fields'. These imply possible Chinese bidding for the Indian nuclear power plants. However, so far there has been no major progress in this regard as the Chinese nuclear technologies are relatively outdated.
Third, despite making periodic announcements on abiding by the arms control and disarmament measures, China's track record so far appears to be mixed, with proliferation tainting its image. Indeed, China had threatened to increase weapons of mass destruction transfers to areas of concern to the Western countries if the latter transfer arms to Taiwan or if the US proceeds with ballistic missile defense shields.Termed as a 'strategic proliferator', China has embarked on selective transfers of WMD to counter the US. China had also transferred WMDs to countries closer to the US, like Pakistan. While China is opposed to any transfers of WMD to Taiwan, it is willing to send supplies to other regions which can pose problems to countries like the US or potential adversaries to Chinese security in future.

Opening a new source of potential friction with China , the United States said on Friday that it was ready to step into a tangled dispute between China and its smaller Asian neighbors over a string of strategically sensitive islands in the South China Sea.

abhishek_sharma wrote:U.S. Challenges China on Island Chain

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/24/world ... diplo.html

Opening a new source of potential friction with China , the United States said on Friday that it was ready to step into a tangled dispute between China and its smaller Asian neighbors over a string of strategically sensitive islands in the South China Sea.

abhishek_sharma wrote:The death of the China lobby?

http://drezner.foreignpolicy.com/posts/ ... hina_lobby

And here I must dissent from Rachman. In some ways, I do think the Chinese government has been pretty stupid over the past year in executing its "Pissing Off As Many Countries As Possible" strategy. China rankled the Europeans over its climate change diplomacy at Copenhagen. For all of Beijing's bluster, it failed to alter U.S. policies on Tibet and Taiwan. It backed down on the Google controversy. It overestimated the power that comes with holding U.S. debt. It alienated South Korea and Japan over its handling of the Cheonan incident, leading to joint naval exercises with the United States -- exactly what China didn't want. It's growing more isolated within the G-20. And, increasingly, no one trusts its economic data.

This doesn't sound like a government that has executed a brilliant grand strategy. It sounds like a country that's benefiting from important structural trends, while frittering away its geopolitical advantages. Alienating key supporters in the country's primary export markets -- and even if Chinese consumption is rising, exports still matter an awful lot to the Chinese economy -- seems counterproductive to China's long-term strategic and economic interests.

Developing.... in a very interesting way.

NRao wrote:

abhishek_sharma wrote:U.S. Challenges China on Island Chain

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/24/world ... diplo.html

Opening a new source of potential friction with China , the United States said on Friday that it was ready to step into a tangled dispute between China and its smaller Asian neighbors over a string of strategically sensitive islands in the South China Sea.

One fray that needs to get into.

Mrs. Clinton sought to apply lessons from the American experience in the Korean War to Afghanistan. “We saw South Korea struggle to become a functioning democracy — huge amounts of instability, coups, corruption, scandal, you name it,” she said. “It’s good to remind ourselves: the United States has stood with countries that went through a lot of ups and downs for a lot longer than eight years.”

Sanjay M wrote:
Apply one lesson - partition that place.

New US thinking on India
Coming Obama visit offers an opportunity
by G. Parthasarathy

http://www.tribunei ndia.com/ 2010/20100722/ edit.htm# 4

When an anxious Andrei Gromyko met Atal Bihari Vajpayee just after the Janata Party government assumed office in 1977, he was assured that Indo-Soviet relations were strong enough to withstand changes in the government in New Delhi. When a populist Barack Obama assumed office in January 2009 there were good reasons for many in New Delhi to feel concerned about the future of India-US relations. Obama made no secret of his view that he intended to resolve world issues in partnership with a resurgent and assertive China.
Â
As President-elect, he averred: We also have to help make the case that the biggest threat to Pakistan right now is not India, which has been their historical enemy; it is actually from within their borders. While these views are unexceptionable, what raised the eyebrows in India was his assertion: “We should probably try to facilitate a better understanding between Pakistan and India and try and resolve the Kashmir crisis, so that they (Pakistan) can stay focused not on India, but on the situation with those militants.� President Obama subsequently expressed his displeasure with American outsourcing to India by stating: “Say no to Bangalore; say yes to Buffalo.�
Now, in the second year of his presidency, we are evidently seeing a turnaround in President Obama's thinking. His administration is recognising that an assertive China is set to challenge US power worldwide and particularly in the Asia-Pacific region, where the US has alliance relationships with a number of countries like South Korea and Japan. Not only is China strengthening its navy to militarily assert its territorial claims on maritime boundaries with Malaysia, the Philippines, Japan and South Korea, but it is also challenging the presence of the American Pacific Fleet in the South China Sea and the Yellow Sea, off the Korean coast.


The Chinese have introduced new concepts in international relations by claiming that foreign ships cannot enter the waters in their neighbourhood even if they are outside Chinese territorial waters by describing these areas close to their shores as “waters of China's interests, or as being within China's sphere of influence�. Moreover, China’s export-led growth and manipulation of exchange rates are seen as producing destabilising global trade imbalances, and its approach to climate change is less than positive.

On India's western borders, the US is now realising that despite all its solicitude towards and assistance for Pakistan, Gen Ashfaque Parvez Kayani has no intention of ending his support for Taliban groups like the Quetta Shura led by Mullah Omar and the Haqqani network, based in North Waziristan, which are inflicting heavy casualties on the American forces in Afghanistan. Moreover, these groups are now being reinforced by the Lashkar- e-Toiyaba. In these circumstances, there are now calls in the US, led by influential Congressmen and Gen David Petraeus, to declare the Haqqani network as a terrorist organisation.

Thus, contrary to earlier perceptions, it is now clear that while the US may nominally thin down its forces in Afghanistan and even move its forces out of Southern Afghanistan, it will not permit a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. The US will retain adequate air power and ground forces across Afghanistan to inflict damage on the Taliban and Al-Qaida bases there and even in the tribal areas of Pakistan.

{Blackwill formulation. Now we have GP to the mix of KS and BC accepting the Blackwill formula}


On July 1, the Pentagon’s Under Secretary for Defence Policy, Michele Flournoy, outlined the US approach in Asia. She asserted that it no longer makes sense to discuss the increasingly interconnected Asian region in terms of “East Asian� security or “South Asian security�. She added: “It also means that the security of Asia’s two dominant powers (India and China) can no longer be viewed as a zero-sum game. A safer and more secure India that is close to the US should not be seen as a threat and vice-versa. Indeed, all three countries play an important role in that region’s stability�. Flournoy also remarked that the economies of both India and the US relied on effective maritime security to preserve free passage in the Indian Ocean and surrounding waterways.

India believes that its interests are not served when US-China relations are marked by collusion, as was apprehended in the first year of the Obama Administration, or by confrontation, which marked the early years of the Cold War. Moreover, the emerging American policies appear to reject Chinese efforts to undermine India's Look East policy. China views Indian engagement with its Asia-Pacific neighbourhood with suspicion, asserting that India is merely a “South Asian power.
Â
While Michele Flournoy has indicated that the Obama Administration recognises that India has a lot to offer in space technology and that agreements are being finalised to permit “frontline American (defence) technologies to be shared� with India, substantial spadework remains to be done if the relationship is to grow significantly. American firms are still restricted in developing relations with the Indian Space Research Organisation and key Indian defence industries. Though India has already moved to acquire C-130 J transport aircraft and P-8I maritime reconnaissance aircraft and appears interested in meeting its shortages in field artillery by purchases from the US, for its Mountain Divisions, future high-value Indian defence acquisitions should have detailed provisions for technology transfers and imports from India by American suppliers — the provisions which American defence industrial units need to get familiar with.
Â
 The US State Department has rejected Pakistani accusations of “human rights violations� during recent protests in Kashmir. Referring to these events, the State Department Spokesman stated: “We regret the loss of lives in this incident. It is an internal matter (of India). We respect the efforts of the Government of India to resolve the current situation in Kashmir. In terms of the protest, we would urge everyone to refrain from violence and conduct protests in a peaceful manner.� Moreover, during his visit to New Delhi on July 15 President Obama’s National Security Adviser Gen James Jones came down heavily on Pakistan-based terrorist groups, stating: “In our bilateral relationship with Pakistan, we have expressed strong concerns over the existence within the borders of Pakistan of terrorist organisations that have goals to destabilise our way of life, your way of life, to prevent (our) strategic goals from being achieved in Afghanistan.

Preparations now appear to have commenced for President Obama’s visit to India this November. While the Obama Administration is now showing a better understanding of India’s security concerns, New Delhi would be well advised to prepare now to utilise his visit for addressing other concerns also like the existing sanctions on the Indian defence research and space organisations. A strategic partnership can have little meaning if such sanctions persist.

{Especially when PRC can get access to all that no matter what.}

The writer is a former Ambassador of India to Pakistan.

chanakyaa wrote:The view from the other side of the border.. (old article, June 2009)

http://opinion.globaltimes.cn/editorial ... 36174.html

India’s unwise military moves


It should also be asking itself why it hasn’t forged the stable and friendly relationship with China that China enjoys with many of India’s neighbors, like Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka.

Prasad wrote:

Sanjay M wrote:
Apply one lesson - partition that place.

Wouldn't the spectre of creating a NoKo equivalent hang heavily above their necks? Besides, would the US be able to manage both sections if they do partition that place?

The Chinese have introduced new concepts in international relations by claiming that foreign ships cannot enter the waters in their neighbourhood even if they are outside Chinese territorial waters by describing these areas close to their shores as “waters of China's interests, or as being within China's sphere of influence�.

Carl_T wrote:I think a possible analogy might be Lebanon in the 80s.

The simultaneous rise of China and India is phenomenal, but serious concerns also arise on the bilateral relationship. After all, the lingering border dispute, geopolitical mismatches, inevitable conflict of interests, and a huge trust deficit between the two nations could all trigger tensions and even confrontation, bringing about disastrous consequences to both countries and the entire region.

But the problems in Indian-China relations are mostly the legacy of the Cold War, during which India and China were in different camps. Indeed, in those years, the two countries shared little common ground in their development — India and China did not really need each other in their nation-state building, nor did they have any joint security concerns. While China perceived its fundamental threat coming from the North (during the Cold War) and Pacific, India saw the de facto Sino-Pakistan coalition as a real security threat. As a result, there were little exchanges between the two neighbouring nations. Mutual suspicion and even hostility prevailed.

Fundamental changes have taken place since the 1990s, and these changes have made cooperation the only option for China and India to sustain their ascendancy. First and foremost, unlike previous powers whose rise was preconditioned by the global reach of their military capability, China and India cannot rise through expansion backed by military might in today’s world. Rather, China and India are rising through integration into the existing world system amidst globalisation; and, this world system is based on capitalism and is dominated by developed countries.

Thus, reform, not military power, has been the precondition for the rise of China and India. Only by changing themselves first, in order to join the world, can a rising China and India help change the world.

The pursuit of a similar path in their ascendancy has resulted in common interests and demands. Rising as status quo powers, India and China have a shared demand to reform the existing world system, so that it can continuously facilitate, rather than hinder, their development. This explains why on major global issues — from environmental concerns to food security and from restructuring the world financial system to trade policies — India and China are naturally on the same side.

Beneath these common interests lies the fact that India and China are facing the same fundamental challenge in their endeavours for modernisation. Yet the established model to achieve this goal — modernisation through industrialisation — is unsustainable because the experience of the developed countries shows that industrialisation means massive consumption of natural resources and rampant urbanisation. Given the combined population of 2.5 billion people, western-style industrialisation in India and China would bring doomsday.

Thus, it is a joint mission for India and China to find an alternative path and, moreover, to persuade the developed countries to support this mission and help pay up the environmental deficit that had been accumulated in their modernisation process.

Bilateral cooperation also serves the interests of India and China on other more pressing issues. “Water shortage looms for China, India” — this eye-catching Bloomberg headline on May 31, 2010 indicates a looming crisis of water in India, China and all the Asian-continental countries, where the flowing water comes from the same place. As water has become a vital economic resource and an important strategic asset, bilateral cooperation between the two big powers in Asia is the key to solve this problem. Confrontation will only make everyone the loser.

Nowadays, India and China also find convergent concern rather than divergent interest on the Pakistan issue. Lingering instability, rapid expansion of fundamentalist influences, and persistent military dominance since the start of the Afghan war have dramatically increased Pakistan’s profile in China’s security concerns, especially after the violent, explosive riot in Xinjiang on July 5, 2009. China and India will have to work together to promote stability and development in Pakistan, with a military under solid civilian control and an economy integrated regionally.

Even on the thorny border issue, bilateral cooperation brings more benefits. Beijing and New Delhi have keenly realised that the border dispute involves strong nationalistic resentment because it roots deep in the injustice both nations had endured during the colonial period. Any compromise on this issue — even if necessary — can provoke damaging backlashes in domestic politics. Thus, the bilateral approach towards the border dispute, as indicated by the dialogue between National Security Advisor M K Narayanan and State Councilor Dai Bingguo in August 2009, is to seek effective management, rather than a premature solution. Obviously, it takes constant consultations to manage the dispute and prevent explosive escalation.

Indeed, bilateral cooperation demands a forward-looking vision. The explosive increase in Sino-India trade — from merely $2 billion in 2000 to over $60 billion in 2009 — is but a footnote of the unfolding momentum in bilateral relations. It is true that Sino-India trade was less than 3 per cent of China’s total trade volume — $2007.2 billion — in 2009. But bilateral trade — if its annual increase keeps just half of the 50 per cent annual rate in the past decade — will be over $400 billion in 2020, which is larger than the present trade between China and America.

No doubt that there are conflicts of interest between the two rising powers. But this only highlights the importance and necessity of bilateral cooperation, not just because common interests far outweigh conflictual ones, but because confrontation would surely make both losers. It is high time for China and India to make a joint effort to promote bilateral exchanges and, specifically, to institutionalise bilateral summits and high-level dialogues.

An Asian Group of Two (AG2) — the institutionalised management of bilateral cooperation — is necessary to promote and sustain a peaceful and constructive relationship between the two rising Asian powers, whose success is essential for peace and prosperity in the entire region.

How China Gambit Backfired
By Thomas Wright


http://the-diplomat .com/2010/ 07/28/how- china-gambit- backfired/


China’s more assertive foreign policy has challenged the Obama administration’s worldview. Expect a new US grand strategy.


In its first year, the Obama administration envisaged a
two-pronged foreign policy. The first prong—cooperative strategic
engagement—sought to build and sustain cooperative partnerships with
states and non-state actors who operated within (or hoped to join) the
international order. The second, which was aimed at actors like the
Taliban and North Korea who seek to undermine or destroy the
international order, consisted of a quite different approach—war,
containment, or coercive diplomacy.

US policy toward China was supposed to be the centerpiece of the
first approach, based on the underlying assumption that the world’s
major powers ultimately share the same threats and interests— tackling
terrorism and pandemics, ensuring economic instability, and preventing
nuclear proliferation. The Obama administration hoped to build on these
shared interests to bring emerging powers, like China and Brazil, fully
into the US led international order.

Essentially what the administration aspired to create was a concert
of powers—geopolitical competition was supposed to be consigned to
history. As Secretary of State Hillary Clinton put it
in July 2009, the multi-polar world would be a multi-partner world,
with the United States set to use its unique role in the world to help
major powers overcome barriers to cooperation so they could collectively
pursue their common interests.

And China was supposed to feature strongly in these plans, with the
administration working hard to deepen strategic and economic dialogue
and offering China more influence in the international order. Senior
officials talked up China’s importance and leverage over the United
States and avoided any actions that could antagonize Beijing. For
example, in 2009, the president didn’t meet the Dalai Lama and accepted a
tightly choreographed visit to China, while his administration
initially avoided selling defensive arms to Taiwan and explored
adjustments to its relations with India.

But what followed was nothing short of a revelation for much of the administration’s foreign policy team.

Instead of accepting the offer of a full partnership, China became
far more antagonistic and assertive on the world stage. It expanded its
claims in the South China Sea, engaged in a major spat with Google over
Internet freedom, played an obstructionist role at the climate change
negotiations in Copenhagen, regularly and openly criticized US
leadership, and, sought to water down sanctions against Iran’s nuclear
programme at the UN Security Council.

Senior administration officials said influential voices
in Beijing saw the United States as a power in decline and perceived an
opportunity for China to take advantage. The United States’ regional
allies and partners, meanwhile, expressed their concerns over this turn
of events and called upon the United States to restore its traditional
leadership role in the region.

The mounting evidence that China simply isn’t interested in becoming a
full stakeholder in the US-led liberal international order has forced
the administration to respond with a new policy in Asia. In addition to
ongoing engagement with China, this new tack seeks to deepen US ties
with other powers in the region, and unlike the earlier approach doesn’t
shy away from advancing US interests and values—even if it upsets
Beijing.


This new approach has been on full display over the past few
weeks, with the United States standing shoulder to shoulder with South
Korea in the face of North Korean aggression by undertaking military
exercises in the region to demonstrate its alliance commitments, and it
has also offered to mediate on disputes in the South China Sea, much to
Beijing’s displeasure.

But the implications of this shift extend well beyond China policy.
More than any other development, China’s increasing assertiveness
revealed a fundamental flaw in the Obama administration’s worldview—that
although multilateralism is needed more than ever, emerging powers (and
not just China) will often define their interests in ways that conflict
with US interests and they will continue to engage in traditional
geopolitical competition with the United States.

So what does this mean for US foreign policy? The United States is
likely entering a geopolitical period unlike any it has faced before.
Americans are used to countries being friends or enemies—for us or
against us (something that fit 20th century realities almost perfectly).
But relations with China will be a peculiar blend of cooperation and
rivalry, meaning the US will be faced with a more competitive world than
it has over the past 20 years (although unlike the Cold War, it will be
a competition within limits, between interdependent powers, and with
plenty of potential for cooperation) .

Such unprecedented developments have also sparked a vital debate
inside the Obama administration about how to respond, and how best to
preserve the liberal international order created at the end of World War
II.
On the one hand are those who wish to persist with cooperative
strategic engagement so the international order is run by a concert of
powers, with the United States and China at its heart. On the other are
those who believe that, even as they cooperate, relations between the
United States and emerging powers will be far more competitive and prone
to limited rivalry than relations between members of the old Western
order, meaning the United States will have no choice but to compete with
emerging powers to shape the international order while maintaining a
geopolitical advantage over its competitors.

If the China policy is an early test case, then it shows a tilt
toward competitive strategic engagement. The question now is whether
this approach will stick and gradually spread to influence the
president’s overall grand strategy.

There’s no guarantee it will—the 2010 National Security Strategy,
released in May, continued to articulate the old way of thinking. But if
America’s new Asia policy is a sign of things to come, China’s major
gambit to take advantage of what it perceived as US weakness in 2009 may
go down as its greatest foreign policy mistake in recent memory.
Beijing’s assertiveness discredited those Americans who were most
willing to compromise with China. Its spurning of them has now acted as a
catalyst for a more competitive—and geopolitically savvy—US
multilateralism.

Thomas Wright
is Executive Director of Studies at The Chicago Council on Global
Affairs. He can be reached at [email protected]. You can
follow him on twitter @thomaswright08