Geopolitics

Trajectory to regional and global power
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Issue Vol 24.3 Jul-Sep2009 | Date : 26 Oct , 2010

In time it may lead to the constitution of an Asian Union on the lines of the European Union but right now, given the mutual rivalries, fears and aspirations, the prospects are nowhere in sight. By being accorded a place in all these bodies, either as a member or observer, India’s role as a leader get fairly well established. A place in the East Asia Summit gives it a voice on affairs of the region.

The shift clearly signifies that the US was seeking Indias cooperation in dealing with a resurgent China which might challenge its preeminence in Asia and the world in future.

India’s rise has attracted US attention, which consequent to the shift of economic and political power to Asia, is seeking to establish a new security architecture in Asia as well as the world. In the new geopolitical situation of today, US prowess remains supreme and is likely to remain so at least for 20 to 25 years more. And yet, emergence of prospective power centers, principally in Asia, and growth of Islamic terrorism makes it feel vulnerable, causing it to look for new friends.

In March 2005 the US announced that it welcomes and supports India’s growth to a great power status. US shift towards India represented a fundamental and strategic shift of an exceptional nature, soon confirmed through the civil nuclear agreement between the two countries whereby, without having to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, India was to be made eligible for supply of nuclear fuel and equipment to augment its civil nuclear energy resources. Another agreement in June 2005 provided for a joint defense framework which laid the foundation for a ten year project to promote a military relationship between the two countries.

The shift clearly signifies that the US was seeking India’s cooperation in dealing with a resurgent China which might challenge its preeminence in Asia and the world in future. According to US calculation India’s democratic system was a big plus point. Japan and other smaller countries of East Asia had a similar understanding which had led to India being welcomed to join the East Asia Summit. Japan had been indifferent towards India earlier but is now seeking strategic cooperation, keeping in mind the historical bitterness with China. A new alliance of democracies seems to be in the offing between US, Japan, India and Australia that China perceives as targeting it directly. Already a joint naval exercise has been held between the navies of these countries and Singapore in the Bay of Bengal in 2007. However it is not easy to make a firm assessment about Japan’s commitment to India yet as its policies have appeared wobbly at times.

However, the coming together of US and India is just in the nature of a strategic partnership and is not a strategic alliance. Globalization has led to a great deal of economic interdependence with mutual trade and investments but relations between states will also simultaneously remain mutually competitive for access to resources from outside. Sometimes this competition may bring forth a military threat, or geopolitical rivalry. In such times policy making becomes a complex exercise. The present tilt in US policy towards India is just a product of current circumstances of the US. If the context changes, so can this tilt.

How true can this be is amply illustrated by the policies of the US towards Pakistan. During the 1990s when the US desperately needed Pakistan to be on its side to prosecute the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, it completely closed its eyes to Pakistan’s proliferation of nuclear materials to North Korea, Libya and Iran. Though the US knew India to be the target of Pakistani nuclear weapons development program, it never shared any information about this program with India. More recently, Pakistan’s campaign of terror against India was never condemned by the US in terms that would have required Pakistan to change its ways. Taking all this into consideration, it would be wise to treat US’s current interest in India as arising out of compulsions of its own national interests and no more. Any power trajectory that India may aspire to build in future will have to be on its own, not on any closeness to the US. US objectives to get India to cap, rollback and eliminate its nuclear weapons program will not be given up. US will mount pressures again the moment it judges it to be the right one.

Tibetan identity is not dead, nor the power of Buddhist monasteries in Tibet to serve as magnetic centers for mobilization. Choosing a successor to the Dalai Lama on his death can prove to be an explosive event.

The country which India has to be most wary about is China. It views India as a threat to its preeminence in Asia, which can engage in fierce competitions for scarce resources, political influences and friends. It will like to deny India strategic space in Asia, Africa and Latin America and to see India confined to South Asia as a regional power. In such a relationship some tension will always be present. As years pass by, tensions could rise. Another war, like 1962, may be unlikely but can not be ruled out altogether.

China is feverishly upgrading its military forces and space capabilities. In 2007 it surprised the world by shooting down a satellite with a missile. Its military budget of $45 billion  in 2007 was twice that of India and has for the past ten years been recording a double digit rise. Growing at this rate the Chinese armed forces will become a formidable machine. It is also developing a blue water navy with nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers that will enable it to project power in distant seas like the Indian Ocean.

Specially worrisome to India is the ‘string of pearls’ it is creating all around the sub-continental India, a deep sea port at Gwadar off Baluchistan coast in Pakistan, a road from Yunnan in China to the Bay of Bengal, surveillance facilities in islands of Myanmar and ports in Myanmar and Sri Lanka. It has arms supply relationships with Nepal and Bangladesh.

The most damaging anti-Indian action by China has been to setup Pakistan as its Israel. The Pakistani nuclear weapons program which is India specific was guided, nurtured, equipped and overseen by China. In 1990 it tested a Pakistani nuclear bomb at its test site in Lop Nor. China is unlikely to unravel the problems of borders in Arunachal Pradesh and Aksai Chin as it does not believe that a compromise will turn out to its advantage. It has gone back on an understanding that any border adjustment will not upset settled populations. The issues remain mired in procedures, far from substance. It may be noted that officially backed Chinese think-tanks have even talked of retrieving Arunachal Pradesh by force. China had opposed India’s’ access to Nuclear Suppliers Group in 2008 until forced by the US. On the Mumbai terrorist carnage by Pakistan, its scholars and media, all state controlled, expressed doubts about Pakistani complicity, placed the blame on internal contradictions in India, and called it a major blow to India’s big power ambitions. Thrice China had blocked UN efforts to have Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the Pakistani organization behind the outrage, declared an international terrorist organization in 2006.

Chinese antagonism against India emanates from its uneasiness about sturdy Tibetan nationalism and the fact that the Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama has made India his home along with 1,00,000 other Tibetans. China has taken great pains to pacify Tibet through development, colonization and redemarcating its borders with the adjoining Chinese provinces. Tibet seems to be firmly under Chinese control but the religion based Tibetan identity is not dead, nor the power of Buddhist monasteries in Tibet to serve as magnetic centers for mobilization. Choosing a successor to the Dalai Lama on his death can prove to be an explosive event. The Tibetans would want to make the choice themselves but the Chinese government is unlikely to grant this privilege to them. If commotion breaks out in Tibet over this issue that finds an echo in the diaspora abroad, relations between China and India can nose-dive.

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The views expressed are of the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions or policies of the Indian Defence Review.

About the Author

Anand K Verma

Former Chief of R&AW and author of Reassessing Pakistan.

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