Posted on 01/16/2008 12:50:29 PM PST by charles m
Beijing/New Delhi: The India vs China syndrome is passe? From now, the global idiom for joint collaborative action will be India-China, says India's Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath, alluding to the growing friendship between the Asian giants.
On return from a visit to China accompanying Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, Nath said the engagement with Beijing was an important milestone bilaterally as the two rising economic powers set an ambitious trade target of $60 billion by 2010 - three times the goal set just five years ago.
"The engagement was important in the global context as well," Nath told IANS.
Much of the global discourse, on trade or climate change, has centred around the fact that the two countries were experiencing steady economic growth - China at 10 per cent and India at 9 - and accounted for a third of the global population.
But the two neighbours were also seen by the world as adversarial powers with competing claims to the world's riches, scarce resources and also global pre-eminence - a perception which Dr Manmohan Singh's visit sought to change.
There had also been speculation in the Western world about India lending itself to co-option as a buffer in a US-sponsored strategic plan to "contain" China's growing military and economic ambitions.
But the Indian prime minister, himself a great admirer of China's success story, insisted he would have no part in any alliance with the US, Australia and Japan aimed at "containing China".
"I have made it clear to the Chinese leadership that India is not part of any so-called 'contain China' effort," Dr Singh was quoted as saying in Beijing.
He was opting out of notions that New Delhi might, alongside Australia, the US and Japan, become a part of a new "quadrilateral" strategic pact conceived by Tokyo's former prime minister Shinzo Abe before his resignation.
But the "quadrilateral" concept has had little traction since then, and Dr Singh's rejection Sunday suggested it might be stillborn.
"Solid sustained growth of India and China was only in the nature of being an international public good," the prime minister said, especially at a time when uncertainty gripped the world economy amid fears of recession in US and Japan.
The prime minister said growth would not only help India and China but the global economy as a whole.
Nath, a strong and influential voice for the developed world in the global trade talks, said the global economic agenda in the future could well be set by India and China - a far cry from the days when the world would say: "When America sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold".
He said while the world viewed China and India as rivals in many respects, the two countries were pushing for energy and infrastructure projects in Africa and Latin America, and could drive the growth of these two regions in the future.
There is no doubt Dr Singh, who visited Beijing for the first time and saw showpiece infrastructure projects of the Olympic Games, has come back an ardent admirer of China for the way it was managing its developmental problems.
"China has become the world's manufacturing workshop. It's a phenomenal story and that is what development should be about," the prime minister told the accompanying media team. "China's achievements are quite remarkable. There is a lot we can learn."
Nath, on his part, is convinced this was the "most successful" of official visits that Manmohan Singh had made to date since the reform-minded economist-turned-politician became the nation's prime minister in May 2004.
"The Chinese regarded him highly, with Premier Wen Jiabao even telling him that he was the most popular of global figures among the Chinese netizens as a recent survey showed," the trade minister said.
This was reflected in Chinese leaders breaking protocol to show their personal regard and admiration for him - like when Wen came out of the state guesthouse in the freezing cold of Beijing to see off Dr Manmohan Singh.
Ahead of a meeting with Dr Singh in November 2006, Chinese President Hu Jintao had remarked: "When India and China and shake hands, the whole world will sit up and watch." The Indian leadership now firmly believes the time for such an impact has arrived.
IMHO, Yes they will...
implicit in his statements is that China needs to be contained.
And the Indian government is well aware of China's role in dragging out the Kashmir conflict.
I've been to both countries on business. China is by far more progressed and has energy. India has colonial infrastructure, no highways and routine blackouts. They've got a long way to go, imo.
Wow, so America will no longer shape the global economic agenda. I was not aware of that.
Oh well, was nice while it lasted. Now we just need to come to terms with our coming period of British-style “managed decline.”
Anyone who had any illusions about an alliance with the Indians is dreaming. India looks out for itself and nobody else. They hung back and watched as Tibet was overrun. Given this background, I can’t get too worked up about China’s annexation of large chunks of Indian territory during the Sino-Indian War.
Of course, note that Uncle Sam also routinely says it’s not part of any effort to contain China. But the Pacific Fleet is getting beefed, anyway. And Guam is getting additional units in case the balloon goes up.
I don’t think anyone wants to take over India. It is safe.
Sukhoi, the biggest India FR backer wont like this...
There are NO “friends” in intl diplomacy AND politics, just countries who share a common interest. India will want to flex it’s muscle and even if they wont listen to us, coddling to a future enemy like China wont serve their interests as well.
Too bad that the USN itself continues to decline...down to a scant 280 ships.
Here’s what an Indian commentator had to say about this:
(Quote)
China still claims an entire Indian state and occupies a big chunk of Kashmir. It has begun forays into India and Bhutan.
The Indian Elephant will not forget this, no matter what the politicians say in public.
The IAF is moving Su-30 fighters to airbases near China and the IA has moved an entire division of mountain warfare troops into theater.
(Unquote)
The Chinese are kinda touchy, and (unlike Uncle Sam) will react to perceived verbal slights by punishing foreign businessmen. My feeling is that the Indians are simply telling the Chinese “good dog, good dog”, while looking for a club. Note that a fair chunk of the Indian press consists of unrepentant communists who used to look to the Soviet Union for inspiration. These days, they look to China.
Who ever said that China containment was an American objective?
There is no need or desire to attempt China containment.
The Chinese Freepers are among the most naive people I have seen anywhere. Indians behave like good guests...tell their hosts exactly what they want to hear and then they will do what they will. India and China will never be “friends”. It maybe true that India wont be America’s scape goat, we can’t help America contain China. From our perspective, we need America’s help to contain China...note the difference? Stop dreaming silly of a grand alliance against the USA with China in command, it will never happen and India will not be part of such an alliance.
Here’s an editorial article from the Time of India yesterday.
Counter China’s Designs
Burma and Tibet are pivotal to Indian strategy
Brahma Chellaney
One issue emblematic of the Sino-Indian strategic dissonance is Burma. Indeed, there are several important parallels between Burma and the vast territory whose annexation brought Han forces to India’s borders for the first time in history — Tibet. India and China may be 5,000-year-old civilisations but the two had no experience in dealing with each other politically until Tibet’s forcible absorption made them neighbours. In contrast, India has had close historical ties with Tibet and with Burma, part of the British Indian empire until 1937. The majority people of Burma, the Burmans, are of Tibetan stock, and the Burman script, like the Tibetan one, was taken from Sanskrit.
Today, Tibet and Burma are at the centre of the India-China relationship. Having lost the traditionally neutral buffer of Tibet, India sees Burma as a hedge against China’s authoritarian rise. It is significant that the resistance against repressive rule in both Tibet and Burma is led by iconic Nobel laureates, one living in exile in India and the other with close ties to India but under house arrest in Rangoon. Equally remarkable is that the Dalai Lama and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi received the Nobel peace prize in quick succession for the same reason: for leading a non-violent struggle, in the style of Mahatma Gandhi.
Yet another parallel is that heavy repression has failed to break the resistance to autocratic rule in both Tibet and Burma. More than half a century after Tibet’s annexation, the Tibetan struggle ranks as one of the longest and mostpowerful resistance movements in modern world history. With no links to violence or terror, it actually stands out as a model. Similarly, despite detaining Suu Kyi for nearly 13 of the past 19 years, the junta has failed to suppress the democracy movement, as last September’s monk-led mass protests showed.
For the autocrats in Beijing, who value Burma as an entryway to the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean, the demonstration of people’s power in a next-door state was troubling news because such grass-roots protests could inspire popular challenge to their own authoritarianism. Having strategically penetrated resourcerich Burma, Beijing is busy completing the Irrawaddy Corridor involving road, river, rail and energy-transport links between Burmese ports and Yunnan.
For India, such links constitute strategic pressure on the eastern flank. China is already building another north-south strategic corridor to the west of India — the Trans-Karakoram Corridor stretching right up to Pakistan’s Chinese-built Gwadar port, at the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz — as well as an east-west strategic corridor in Tibet across India’s northern frontiers. In Burma, Beijing
is also helping construct a 1,500-km highway leading to Arunachal Pradesh.
Such links hold serious implications for India because they allow Beijing to strategically meddle in India’s restive north-east and step up indirect military pressure. Operating through the plains of Burma in India’s northeast is much easier than having to operate across the mighty Himalayas. In 1962, Indian forces found themselves outflanked by the invading People’s Liberation Army at certain points in Arunachal (then NEFA), spurring speculation that some Chinese units quietly entered via the Burmese plains, not by climbing the Himalayas.
The potential for Chinese strategic mischief has to be viewed against the background that the original tribal insurgencies in the northeast were instigated by Mao’s China, which trained and armed the rebels, be it Naga or Mizo guerrillas, partly by exploiting the Burma route. During World War II, the allied and axis powers had classified Burma as a “back door to India”. Today, India shares a porous 1,378-km border with Burma, with insurgents operating on both sides through shared ethnicity.
Tibet and Burma are going to stay pivotal to Indian security. The centrality of the Tibet issue has been highlighted both by China’s Tibet-linked territorial claim to Arunachal and by its major inter-basin and inter-river water transfer projects in the Tibetan plateau, the source of all of Asia’s major rivers except the Ganges. By damming the Brahmaputra and Sutlej and toying with the idea of diverting the Brahmaputra waters to the parched Yellow River, Beijing is threatening to fashion water into a weapon against India.
The junta has run Burma for 46 years, while the communist party has ruled China for 59 years. Neither model is sustainable. The longest any autocratic system has survived in modern history was 74 years in the Soviet Union. But while Burma has faced stringent sanctions since the 1988 pro-democracy uprising, the post-Tiananmen sanctions against China did not last long on the argument that engagement was a better way to bring about political change — a principle not applied to impoverished Burma.
India cannot afford to shut itself out of Burma, or else — with an increasingly assertive China to the north, a China-allied Pakistan on the west, a Chinese-influenced Burma to the east, and growing Chinese naval interest in the Indian Ocean — it will get encircled. Just as India has not abandoned the Tibetan cause and indeed remains the seat of the Tibetan government-in-exile despite doing business with China, India will continue to support the Burmese democracy movement and remain home to large numbers of refugees and dissidents despite a carefully calibrated engagement with the junta aimed at promoting political reconciliation and stemming the growing Chinese clout.
Sorry...that was meant for charles_m and not Zhang Fei.
I think an important point to note is that Uncle Sam really isn’t going to do anything to China as long as the latter doesn’t do something threatening, like enforce its claim to the entire South China Sea as its inland waters. So this paranoid stuff from the Chinese about containment is head-scratchingly silly - unless China really does have territorial ambitions that extend to the piecemeal annexation of foreign lands. On the other hand, perhaps containment is defined by China to mean any effort to prevent its conquest and annexation of foreign lands.
IMHO, Yes they will...
Eggs-actly, or are we supposed to believe that India will let China over run the subcontinent?
Come back to me when China stops arming Pakistan & returns the few thousand kilometres of occupied Indian territory.
You don’t need to be an Inda backer to have common sense.
Actually, the club the Indians have in mind is probably Uncle Sam. Trouble is, the only way Uncle Sam will get involved in something like this is if a mutual defense pact is signed. The Indians want protection without the obligations of such a pact. It's the typical Indian (and Chinese) mentality of wanting something for nothing.
Shhhhh The sheeple are sleeping. Pay no attention to the current and then previous two presidents who have sold out our military and then sold out our nation as well to China.
A good Republican doesn't talk about these things. Don't rock the boat. There are coprporations at stake here. How dare you wish them misfortune /sarcasm
If it’s as simple as that,why is the US courting India???
India sees China as a threat,a perception shared by the US.It also sees Pakistan,a country allied to the Chinese & to a lesser degree,the US as a threat.So who is that wants something in this mess??
There is a need as they are a Communist nation and that will not change in our lifetime. However you're right that there is no desire. Our leaders both corporate and political are far too busy stuffing their big fat portfolio's with our childrens future and China business. We will see the day of regret for every dollar traded with China.
Bump! You got that right!
India is also probably recognizing that the threat from China is far more near-term, rather than distant, than most Western pundits (from their vast remove, not merely physically, but attitudinally) apprehend.
The Chinese incursion just last month completely destroying an Indian
The Chinese incursion just last month completely destroying an Indian munitions dump, for one little prod in that direction....
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