India and Russia: With Chinaor the U.S.?
By M. D. Nalapat
MANIPIL, India, (UPI) -- Under Russian PresidentVladimir Putin ties between India and Russia have recovered thecloseness that was a geo-political given until the Yeltsin years.Before, the Mafia ruled in Moscow and external interests manipulatedthe two countries into compromising national interests for protectionabroad.
Today, India's best friend has recoveredfrom the chaos of those years and is on track to restoring itssuperpower status and responsibilities. New Delhi and Moscow comeas a package. An alliance with the one implies an accommodationwith the other.
While the United States is a bi-continental-- in fact, quadric-continental -- power thanks to its superbcultural amalgam of Europe and Asia, Russia is equally so becauseof geography.
Unfortunately, thus far, the hidden oppositionof France and Germany -- eager to retain their shared dominationover Europe, a control that would dissolve in the event of Russia'sentry -- has prevented Moscow from being offered terms for integrationinto European structures that are commensurate with its potential.
Similarly, China has worked with successto prevent India from playing the formal role in Asia that itslocation and strengths entitle it to.
Since 1962, Beijing has reinforced the countriesaround India in an alliance designed to contain New Delhi. Itis only the economic modernization begun in the 1990s -- in theteeth of opposition from China's political allies in India, theleft and what may be termed the Buffalo Belt -- that has enabledNew Delhi to escape from such restraints and begin flexing continentalmuscle.
After a delay of three decades caused byadherence to the foreign policy nostrums of founding Prime MinisterJawaharlal Nehru, India has begun expanding its ties with thenecklace of nations beginning with Japan, South Korea, the territoryof Taiwan, Vietnam, Indonesia and Singapore.
The holdout is Australia, which for commercialreasons is enthusiastically playing the Beijing game of tryingto keep India confined to the "South Asia" box. It isnot accidental that the shrillest condemnation of each Indiannuclear and missile test has come from Canberra, a capital inangst over its self-declared goal of carrying the "WhiteMan's Burden" in a sea of brown.
Where India goes, Russia can follow.
Were Moscow to reinforce the potential alliancebetween New Delhi and the littoral states of the China Sea andthe Indian Ocean, the strategic benefits both to it and to theother partners would be immense.
Fortunately, there is no Paris or Berlinin Asia blocking the integration on acceptable terms of Russia'sstrategic interests with the "necklace" of alliancesemerging with Japan as the northern prong and India as its southerncounterpart.
However, there is a rival vision, one promotedby the emerging superpower, the People's Republic of China. Whileit had been courted in the 1970s and for the subsequent two decadesby the United States, today Washington is rediscovering the strategictensions that underline the competing interests of itself andBeijing.
After a period of belief that Australiawas a sufficient southern "jaw" to the emerging Asiannetwork of alliances designed to keep China in check, U.S. policycircles appear to have accepted that only India has the depthneeded to fulfill such a task.
Today, despite the hostility of a StateDepartment mired in the Cold War past, the U.S. Defense Departmentis pushing for engagement with India. Clearly, shared traditionsof democracy and a common language virtually mandate that Indiaand the United States will be partners within the decade. Thisimplies an accommodation of Moscow's interests, in view of the"Siamese twin" relationship between the two old friends.
Worried about the U.S. diplomatic push toisolate it, Beijing is attempting to play the card of a tripartitealliance between itself and the New Delhi-Moscow duo. However,this is less out of conviction than necessity. Within the ChineseCommunist Party, where numerous senior cadres have illegally acquiredproperties in Europe and the United States, a significant factionstill believes that the deal nearly consummated with an obligingBill Clinton -- of China being the United States' strategic partnerin Asia the way the European Union is in Europe -- can yet bereached.
To such optimists, Taiwan would be a smallprice for the United States to pay to ensure the goodwill of China.
The problem with such logic is that it confusesChina with the Communist Party of China. While the former is welcomein a future security calculus, it will apply only after the CommunistParty is removed from office the way the CPSU was by 1991. Underthe straight-talking George W. Bush, the irreconcilability betweencontinued Communist rule in China and U.S. national security interestshas become overt. Unless Beijing were to agree to a much-diminishedrole in Asia, essentially subsidiary to the U.S.-led "necklaceof allies," tensions with Washington are likely to intensify.
India and Russia face a choice. Should it be a linkup with Washingtonor with Beijing?
In both countries, there are those who favorone or the other option. In large part, the answer will lie inthe U.S. ability to escape from the restraints of its Cold Warpast and offer the New Delhi-Moscow duo terms that acknowledgethe India-Russia alliance to be the cornerstone of strategic dominancefor whichever is its partner in the world of the new century.