India uneasy with Obama’s Chinese checkers

By Saurav Jha
Column: The Estranged Analyst

Published: November 17, 2009

U.S. President Barack Obama (L) and China's President Hu Jintao attend a joint press conference in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Nov. 17, 2009. "The major challenges of the 21st century, from climate change to nuclear proliferation to economic recovery, are challenges that touch both our nations and challenges that neither of our nations can solve by acting alone," Obama said. (UPI Photo/Stephen Shaver)

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Kolkata, India — There is no capital in Asia where U.S. President Barack Obama’s visit to China is being watched more closely than in New Delhi. In the lead-up to his visit, some Indian analysts in the past week have been calling for Obama to communicate a firm message to China in support of India’s legitimate interests on the Asian stage.

However, a number of reports suggest that Obama is likely to adopt a “neutral” stand on issues such as the Indo-China dispute over the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh.

Naturally, Indian officials are concerned over what they see as a climb down in U.S. commitment to the Indo-U.S. strategic alignment. In the worst case, there are fears that something similar to the 1970s, when a change in the U.S. administration saw a sudden turn to China at the expense of India, is in the offing.

During the era of former U.S. President George W. Bush, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s government had grown used to timely support from the U.S. administration on a number of issues of geopolitical importance. However, the financial meltdown in the United States and the new presidency may now leave New Delhi somewhat shortchanged, if recent U.S. posturing is anything to go by.

The pusillanimous U.S. position on Tibet is worrying New Delhi. Obama’s refusal to meet the Dalai Lama in Washington prior to his China visit was a huge disappointment for exiled Tibetans, who had come to expect this as a bare minimum from the world’s most powerful democracy. It only shows that the United States is no longer in a position to even make symbolic gestures toward promoting freedom, lest they annoy China.

Allied to this, of course, is Obama’s stance of neutrality on the Sino-Indian border dispute. The U.S. refusal to have joint exercises in Arunachal Pradesh underscored this newly adopted policy. Also, grand multilateral naval maneuvers in the Asia-Pacific – involving countries such as Japan and Singapore as well as India and the United States – are now out of the picture. Clearly, Obama is set to take the substance out of Indo-U.S. military-military contacts.

The United States may also be moving the goalposts on nuclear cooperation yet again. It seems that the United States wants India to acquiesce to a nonproliferation clause as a precondition to nuclear trade with U.S. majors.

The issuance of a mandatory license called Part 810, which gives the U.S. secretary of energy the final right to clear U.S. companies for overseas nuclear trade in special materials, is being made subject to India toeing the U.S. line on the Obama administration’s new “disarmament doctrine.”

This is happening even as there are reports that China will ask Obama to pressure India to enter the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. This goes against the spirit of the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal, which is the basis for bilateral nuclear engagement.

India’s policies need to be fine-tuned to contend as much with U.S. fickleness as with Chinese caprice. The two are in any case not unrelated to each other.

As of now, India’s key diplomatic counter to both countries seems to be a “carrot only” policy – tempting both the United States and China with the promise of a large Indian market, albeit in different segments. But in return, India has received precious little from either China or the United States. While the latter under the Obama administration has sought to limit outsourcing and put pressure on climate change issues, the former has turned belligerent over border issues.

Maybe the time has come for India to signal these players that engagement with it is not necessarily without cost. Indeed, India can begin by stressing the fact that its policies may not necessarily be in consonance with what the United States and China expect in the arc stretching from Afghanistan and Pakistan through Kashmir and East Turkestan into Tibet.

In the opinion of this writer, India should extricate itself from any ensuing India-U.S.–China triangle. India should stop being used as a balancer in the Sino-U.S. bilateral relationship, which is obviously more important to either party than their individual engagement with India.

India’s current policy of all alignment is not leading anywhere. The adoption of a “new” nonalignment posture, backed by internal reforms, may be in order.

In the last decade, as India became more of an international player, the notion arose that external relationships matter more than internal strength. Instead of boosting infrastructure and indigenous military development at a frenetic pace, the Indian establishment seemed rather regaled by its new “global circuit.”

Unfortunately, that circuit is not an easy place to dwell. It requires that each player hold its own – a fact that should not be lost on India’s strategic planners. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin once identified India as one of only five truly sovereign states in the world. It is time India lived up to that reputation.

(Saurav Jha works as an independent consultant in the energy sector in India. He is consulting editor of India Power magazine and author of a forthcoming book on nuclear power. He can be contacted at sjha1618@gmail.com. ©Copyright Saurav Jha.)