Split India,says Chinese strategist

Zhan Lue of the Chinese government-funded think-tank, China International Institute for Strategic Studies says Beijing should join forces with different nationalities like Assamese, Tamils, and Kashmiris and support the latter in establishing independent nation-states of their own, out of India, for its own interest as also for the progress of Asia.

Should India have a panicked response to this writing? No. However, India cannot ignore such sentiments for two reasons. First of all, such expressions are being quite frequent. Second, CIISS being a government-funded think-tank, one can be reasonably certain that these expressions do have the government backing.

Here's D.S. Rajan's translation of the original Chinese article.

Almost coinciding with the 13th round of Sino-Indian border talks (New Delhi, August 7-8, 2009), an article (in Chinese language) has appeared in China captioned “If China takes a little action, the so-called Great Indian Federation can be broken up” ( Zhong Guo Zhan Lue Gang, www.iiss.cn , Chinese,8 August 2009). Interestingly, it has been reproduced in several other strategic and military websites of the country and by all means, targets the domestic audience. The authoritative host site is located in Beijing and is the new edition of one, which so far represented the China International Institute for Strategic Studies (www.chinaiiss.org).



Claiming that Beijing’s ‘China-Centric’ Asian strategy, provides for splitting India, the writer of the article, Zhan Lue (strategy), has found that New Delhi’s corresponding ‘India-Centric’ policy in Asia, is in reality a ‘Hindustan centric’ one. Stating that on the other hand ‘local centres’ exist in several of the country’s provinces (excepting for the U.P and certain Northern regions), Zhan Lue has felt that in the face of such local characteristics, the ‘so-called’ Indian nation cannot be considered as one having existed in history.

According to the article, if India today relies on any thing for unity, it is the Hindu religion. The partition of the country was based on religion. Stating that today nation states are the main current in the world, it has said that India could only be termed now as a “Hindu Religious state’. Adding that Hinduism is a decadent religion as it allows caste exploitation and is unhelpful to the country’s modernization, it described the Indian government as one in a dilemma with regard to eradication of the caste system as it realizes that the process to do away with castes may shake the foundation of the consciousness of the Indian nation.

The writer has argued that in view of the above, China in its own interest and the progress of whole Asia, should join forces with different nationalities like Assamese, Tamils, and Kashmiris and support the latter in establishing independent nation-states of their own, out of India. In particular, the ULFA in Assam, a territory neighboring China, can be helped by China so that Assam realizes its national independence.

The article has also felt that for Bangladesh, the biggest threat is from India, which wants to develop a great Indian Federation extending from Afghanistan to Myanmar. India is also targeting China with support to Vietnam’s efforts to occupy Nansha (Spratly) group of islands in South China Sea. Hence the need for China’s consolidation of its alliance with Bangladesh, a country with which the US and Japan are also improving their relations to counter China. It has pointed out that China can give political support to Bangladesh enabling the latter to encourage ethnic Bengalis in India to get rid of Indian control and unite with Bangladesh as one Bengali nation; if the same is not possible, creation of at least another free Bengali nation state as a friendly neighbour of Bangladesh, would be desirable, for the purpose of weakening India’s expansion and threat aimed at forming a ‘unified South Asia’.

The punch line in the article has been that to split India, China can bring into its fold countries like Pakistan, Nepal and Bhutan, support ULFA in attaining its goal for Assam’s independence, back aspirations of Indian nationalities like Tamils and Nagas, encourage Bangladesh to give a push to the independence of West Bengal and lastly recover the 90,000 sq km. territory in Southern Tibet.

Wishing for India’s break-up into 20-30 nation-states like in Europe, the article has concluded by saying that if the consciousness of nationalities in India could be aroused, social reforms in South Asia can be achieved, the caste system can be eradicated and the region can march along the road of prosperity.

The Chinese article in question will certainly outrage readers in India. Its suggestion that China can follow a strategy to dismember India, a country always with a tradition of unity in diversity, is atrocious, to say the least. The write-up could not have been published without the permission of the Chinese authorities, but it is sure that Beijing will wash its hands out of this if the matter is taken up with it by New Delhi. It has generally been seen that China is speaking in two voices – its diplomatic interlocutors have always shown understanding during their dealings with their Indian counterparts, but its selected media is pouring venom on India in their reporting. Which one to believe is a question confronting the public opinion and even policy makers in India. In any case, an approach of panic towards such outbursts will be a mistake, but also ignoring them will prove to be costly for India.

(The writer, D.S.Rajan, is Director of Chennai Centre for China Studies, Chennai, India, email: dsrajan@gmail.com).

The Evolution of US Policy towards Kashmir

Here's a recent essay on the US policy towards Kashmir published in the Summer issue of the CLAWS Journal, published by the Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS).

The main argument is that American policy towards the Kashmir dispute has changed from active efforts to resolve the dispute in the 1950s and 1960s, to benign neglect in the 1970s, to a more proactive approach during the early Clinton period, to a more nuanced but hands-off approach subsequently. The US policy on the Kashmir dispute has changed because the US approach in Kashmir has changed, from attempting to solve the complicated dispute, a ‘broad’ approach, to ensuring that the conflict over Kashmir does not lead to instability and war in the region, a more narrow approach. How the Obama Administration wishes to take the issue further might be important to analyse what kind of a security-stability index might appear in the region.



Background
In 1947, at the time of Indian independence, the princely state of Kashmir was headed by a Hindu King, Maharaja Hari Singh, who ruled over a predominantly Muslim population. The Pakistan military attack on the western border of Jammu and Kashmir at the time, when the issue of accession of Kashmir to India or Pakistan came up, prompted Maharaja to seek Indian government support. Support was granted by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru but on the condition of Kashmir’s accession to India. Following the agreement, India deployed its forces to repel the invaders, leading to the first Indo-Pak war over Kashmir in 1947. When a cease-fire was eventually declared in early 1949, India controlled two-thirds of the territory, a position which has remained more or less constant over the last half-century, despite a war over Kashmir in 1965. After remaining dormant through the 1970s and 1980s, an insurgency, actively supported by Pakistan, began in the late 1980s, and continues to this day.

US Policy towards the Dispute
American position on the dispute has shifted several times in the last half-century. There appears to have been at least two broad approaches in recent American policy towards the Kashmir dispute, what may be referred to as the ‘narrow’ and the ‘broad’ approaches. Both were motivated by concern that the Kashmir dispute might lead to a new crisis and war, and possibly, nuclear escalation. The ‘narrow’ approach focussed on the core American concern -- the possibility of a crisis or war in the sub-continent, which the US tried very hard, and successfully, to prevent. The ‘broad’ approach sought to solve the Kashmir dispute itself, as a way of preventing the dispute from having any potential for escalation. These changes can be seen in the way Washington’s policy evolved throughout the 1990s.

When the Kashmir insurgency began in 1989, the (elder) Bush administration’s primary concern was to avoid a clash between the two countries. Several administration officials made clear the US position that it no longer supported the move for a plebiscite in Kashmir and the stated position was that the United States thought that the best framework for a resolution of the Kashmir dispute was through the 1972 Shimla Agreement, in which India and Pakistan agreed to resolve their dispute peacefully and through bilateral channels. US policy in fact was in complete endorsement of the Indian position on the dispute that the Kashmir dispute had to be resolved through bilateral negotiations. The primary Bush effort as regards the Kashmir dispute was directed at dampening down the 1990 crisis, which US intelligence believed had the potential for escalation.

US policy changed dramatically when the Clinton administration took over in 1993. It became much more pro-active, attempting to move towards the resolution of the dispute itself. However, after several mis-steps, and avoidable controversies, the US position became much more conservative, eventually returning to a posture that appeared similar to the earlier Bush approach of attempting to prevent a war or escalation rather than attempting to solve the dispute itself. This was best demonstrated by the US approach during the Kargil war in the summer of 1999.

The second Bush administration had taken a more conservative approach to the Kashmir dispute taking the position that the dispute needed to be solved through a bilateral framework between India and Pakistan. However, after the 9/11 terror attacks in the US, and with the war on terror emerging as a major foreign and security policy preoccupation, there was a general sense that this position would change as Pakistan, which has been a frontline state along with the US, could put pressure on the US to take on a more active role in the resolution of the dispute. Much to the disappointment of Pakistan, the US maintained its balanced approach in not dragging Kashmir as part of the Pakistan-Afghanistan problem. This is not to suggest that the US was not concerned about the problem. The US, particularly the Bush Administration obviously has had serious concerns that the Indo-Pak stand-off might escalate into full-fledged war in the sub-continent. Operation Parakram and the build-up of forces on both sides after the terrorist attack on the Indian Parliament in December 2001, saw a renewed US interest in Kashmir. The approach, however, was more similar to the Bush Senior’s approach of attempting to prevent a war or escalation rather than attempting to solve the dispute itself. In essence, both the exigencies of the situation (satisfying Musharraf’s desire for a more active American role), and a perception that Kashmir requires a fundamental solution could have led to a return to the ‘broad’ approach to the problem of the Kashmir dispute. But the Bush Administration’s position was much more nuanced. And, given Bush’s overall approach towards India and Pakistan’s double standard on the war on terror, there was no return to the broad approach in dealing with Kashmir.

Bush’s approach towards Kashmir was also conditioned by the 9/11 terror attacks in the US. There was a decisive shift after the terror attacks, which was reflected essentially in the definitional aspects of terrorism. The US has had to accept a broad definition on terrorism to include all forms of terrorism, and everywhere, and not just acts committed on US soil, and against US citizens or institutions. Again, although the US appeared willing to adopt a broader connotation to “terrorism,” it was still not clear whether the US was using the same yardstick to terrorism in the US and in other parts of the world, including India. For example, the US was reluctant to characterise as terrorism various acts of political violence that terrorist groups have indulged in various parts of India. Though the US did characterise the December 13 attack on the Indian Parliament as a terrorist act, they have been unwilling to accept the considerable quantity of evidence that suggest that Pakistan had, at the least, an indirect hand in the attack. Even the concern that the US had shown appeared more motivated by the desire to soothe Indian anger rather than the result of genuine concern. This suggests two different yardsticks to define and tackle terrorism. When terror strikes America, war and other military action is the immediate response, but when India faces with an attack on its Parliament or a 26/11, restraint is sought.

Another aspect of change in the US approach was about how the US views liberation movements and freedom struggles all over the world. For example, violence by terrorists in Kashmir was not considered terrorism until 9/11. Today, some of the active terrorist groups in Kashmir - Jaish-e-Mohammad, Lashkar-e-Toiba (the two groups responsible for the December 13 attack on Indian Parliament) - are designated Foreign Terrorist Organisations (FTOs) under US law. It is well known that these two groups have been nurtured by the Pakistan government and its intelligence arm, the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). The Indian demand to Pakistan to take action against these two groups was not heeded by the Pakistan government until President Bush categorised these two groups as terrorist organisations. Hence, the US action on different terrorist groups and its overall approach to tackling terrorism has tremendous impact on several individual countries’ approach towards terrorism as well as the international counter-terrorism measures. India in fact has had its difficulties on the manner in which terrorism has been defined by the US. What constitutes terrorism for India has not been what the US characterised as terrorism.

It is however now appropriate to analyse how an Obama Administration would handle the Kashmir issue in his yearning to solve the Afghanistan problem and the war on terror. A few fundamental issues are to be borne in mind before analysing what Obama’s prescription for Kashmir would be.

The Democrats have generally tended to be more interventionist than the Republicans, as they are of the view that the US should play an active role in regional conflicts to both resolve these conflicts as well as to protect human rights during these conflicts. The Clinton Administration had intervened in a number of such conflicts including in Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia, Yugoslavia, Congo, Liberia, Albania, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen. Obama appears set to continue with that trend. Susan Rice, a key Obama advisor and US Ambassador to the UN, stated during her Senate confirmation hearing that the Obama Administration will continue with the traditional Democratic party policy of promoting democracy and human rights around the world.

The pro-interventionist strategy of the Democrats has caused problems in the Indo-US relations in the past. If Obama is to continue with such a strategy, this would involve the Obama Administration wanting to mediate and seek a solution to the Kashmir problem. Obama’s recent comments during interviews to Time magazine in October and December 2008 and the reported consideration (earlier) of former President Bill Clinton as a special envoy on Kashmir had created major stir in the Indian political and policy circles. Obama in his interview said, “We should probably try to facilitate a better understanding between Pakistan and India and try to resolve the Kashmir crisis so that they (Pakistan) can stay focused not on India, but on the situation with those militants.” Some analysts in India have tended to believe that a Kashmir-specific pro-active policy need not necessarily be bad, given Obama’s pro-India statements. However, it should be noted that his pro-India statements in the recent months had more to do with getting support from the Indian-American community.

The issue, however, is that Obama considers finding a solution to the Kashmir issue almost as a pre-requisite for getting Pakistan’s support for the war on terror in Afghanistan. Linking Afghanistan to the resolution of Kashmir dispute, as Obama did in his interview to Time magazine when he said that “working with Pakistan and India to try to resolve their Kashmir conflict would be a critical task for his administration’s efforts to try to counter growing instability in Afghanistan and Pakistan,” will be problematic. The tendency to link up Afghanistan’s security with terrorism in Kashmir is a dangerous trend and India must keep a close watch. The US has to focus on the problem, which is Pakistan, rather than get diverted by Pakistan’s diversions into Kashmir. As the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, recently noted, it is the Afghan-Pakistan border region that is the ‘site of planning for the next attack’ on the United States; hence, the US should not lose sight of their target - Pakistan.

For the time being, the Obama Administration seems sensitive enough to India’s concerns in this regard. The recent news of the possible appointment of Richard Holbrooke as the special envoy on South Asia had created concern in India. Any individual would have been bad, but as one former US official noted in an article in Foreign Policy, “The Indians do not like Holbrooke because he has been very good on Pakistan ... and has a very good feel for the place.” However, thanks to Indian lobbying in Washington, India has been able to ensure that the official “Terms of Reference” of Holbrooke is limited: he has been appointed as “special representative for Afghanistan and Afghanistan.” This remains, as the Foreign Policy reported, “a sharp departure from Obama’s own previously stated approach of engaging India, as well as Pakistan and Afghanistan, in a regional dialogue.” South Asian analysts in Washington noted that it was prudent of the Obama Administration not to include India in Holbrooke’s official mandate, or else the special envoy’s mission could have been a “non-starter.” It might be true that the Obama transition team did not meet with any foreign representatives on the issue, but a meeting of the Aspen group in Washington was attended by some of the Obama team members where it was categorically stated that “India might pre-emptively make Richard Holbrooke persona non grata if his South Asia envoy mandate officially included India or Kashmir.” Among the Obama team members who attended the meeting were former Navy Secretary Richard Danzig; Kurt Campbell, the director of the Aspen Strategy Group who was later named as assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, and former Pentagon official and Harvard University professor, Ashton Carter,.

In conclusion, one might say that it will be prudent of Obama Administration not to meddle in the Kashmir imbroglio, not because India cannot withstand those pressures but because it might avoid an irritant in the otherwise prospering Indo-US bilateral relations. At some level, it can be concluded that India is comfortable with the ‘narrow’ approach towards Kashmir that the US has adopted from time to time, as was done during Kargil. It may not be correct to say that India does not seek US involvement in India-Pakistan issues. India does seek selective US intervention as is being witnessed currently too. After the Mumbai terror attacks, India has been unable to bring Pakistan to cooperate and so sought US intervention to put pressure on Pakistan. However, such intervention can only douse the occasional fire, not settle the matter once and for all.

Randon Thoughts on China Factor in Indo-US Relations

State of US-China relations will affect Indo-US relations. Neither do we want to see very close relations between the two countries like during the Clinton administration, where they “want to jointly manage south Asia” just as they did post-1998 n-tests. On the other hand, we do not want to see them hostile to each other and get into conflict situations, where India being a neighbor, may be forced to take sides. That could prove dangerous for India. While the two extremes should be avoided, there are increasing concerns about China, its rise, particularly on the military side. The rising profile actually translates into hardline postures adopted by china in various decision-making foras and those decisions are more taking care of china’s national interests reasons than for regional and global issues. Every country will pursue its national interests, but if they are pursued in a short-sighted manner without any regard for other country could be harmful. Here, China’s repeated attempts at curtailing India’s rise could prove a limiting factor in improving the atmospherics of this important bilateral relationship.



China’s hardlining positions in the last few years, clearly a result of its increasing international profile, is creating difficulties for India and other regional players. It has toughened positions on the border issues, Arunachal Pradesh, Tibet issue. China adopted a less than constructive role in the last few years, evident at the September 2008 NSG meeting, post-Mumbai attacks at the UNSC, and most recently at the ADB where it vetoed and withheld its approval on a development loan for India’s northeast Arunachal Pradesh. Such behaviour on the part of china is going to create increasing frictions on the bilateral relations as well as on the emerging Asian strategic framework.

Such concerns on the part of US and India had become the basis for closer indo-US relations in the last few years. In fact, indo-US nuclear deal was the result of such a line of thinking. The more sec concerns with china, the more we will look at the US for closer relationship. How and whether the US reciprocates in another matter. So far it has. But how the Obama administration will look at the China and india is extremely important. Especially under the current circumstances where china and the US are caught in a symbiotic relationship. Their closer ties are bound to have effect on Indo-US relations. However, this is not to suggest that this is a zero sum game, that improvement in one relationship will necessarily lead to complete downturn in the other relationship. It might be correct to say that it will be a negative sum, where a strengthened US-China relationship could slowdown in certain aspects. An improved Indo-US relationship will have negative effect on Sino-India ties as well as a slowdown in US-China relations. Similarly, an improved US-China relations will raise the antenna in New Delhi and could affect both US-India as well as Sino-India relations.

US partnership with China on a range of issues on global governorship, is understandable, from North Korea to Afghanistan and Central Asia to the current economic crisis, but if this relationship is strengthened at the cost of India, it could lead to a slowdown of Indo-US relations. It will also have its ramifications on the emerging Asian security order.
This is not to say that the US does not have any concerns. At least until early this year, these concerns were pretty loud and clear.

At the same time, closer Indo-US partnership – concern for china. India’s rising profile of which Indo-US relations is one aspect, continues to worry China. Although India has never been formally listed as one of the challenges that China faces, it certainly irks them to see a more powerful India in its neighbourhood. As India continues to re-define and modify its foreign and security policies, given its increasing stature in the international arena, it calls for a dynamic debate on how Beijing views this emerging pole.

There have been several analyses pointing out to Chinese concern on a rising India –talking about India’s democratic and capitalist orientations, India’s territorial disputes with China, talking about India having a militaristic and religion-based strategic culture. Similarly, China views India as a “future strategic competitor” that would join any anti-China grouping in the future. In fact, one of the well-known scholars, Mohan Malik brings to the fore an internal study undertaken in 2005 that recommended China to undertake measures to keep the current strategic leverage in terms of territory, P-5 membership, and the Nuclear Club, hold on to diplomatic advantages through its special relationship particularly with India’s neighbouring countries and as also maintain the economic lead over India. This has become evident several times in the recent past, which all is an evidence that China does not willingly accept India's rise on the world stage, nor the prospect of closer US-India ties. However, India’s rising stature is a reality and China has to live with that reality.

Another issue. India’s role and stand on Tibet may be irksome to the Chinese leadership.
China has continued to reiterate its claims on Tibet and thereby Arunachal Pradesh through a series of statements as well as action on the ground by the PLA forces. Chinese leadership’s assertion to choose the next Dalai Lama is another way of pressuring India and Tibet on its claims, because such a step would essentially mean India conceding its access to the Tawang monastery. Article 2 of the Shimla Agreement was categorical to state that China recognizing the autonomous nature of Tibet shall “abstain from interference in the administration of Outer Tibet (including the selection and installation of the Dalai Lama),” which was totally left to the Tibetan government in Lhasa. The recent Chinese interest in the selection of Dalai Lama go against the principles of this treaty. However, China will continue to maintain the stand that it does not recognise this treaty as any valid instrument.
China has unleashed huge economic and infrastructural development programmes in Tibet as part of this larger politico-military objective of systematically killing the spirit of Tibetan nationalism. The new railway line – Qinghai-Tibet line – is being further extended, linking Lhasa with Shigatse and Yadong, near the Sikkim border. Hence, if China has some concerns of India’s strengthening relations with the US and other major powers, India too has concerns of a rising China whose ambitions are not very clear.

Arms control issues: FMCT, CTBT. These are issues that are going to be taken up by the Obama administration before too long. Obama’s renewed interest in getting the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) ratified by the US Senate and thereafter by other countries, including India and Pakistan could become a sore point in bilateral relations. India remains opposed to signing CTBT and this was clarified recently again by India’s envoy on nuclear issues, Ambassador Shyam Saran. He stated that India remained opposed to CTBT because it “was not explicitly linked to the goal of nuclear disarmament.” Additionally, he said, “this was crucial since it was not acceptable to legitimize, in any way, a permanent division between nuclear weapons states and non-nuclear weapons states.” Shyam Saran in fact suggested that if abolition of nuclear weapons was an agenda, then both India and the US should establish a working group at the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva to chart a future direction, which could possibly be a positive and constructive link in the bilateral relations. If Obama administration is willing to look at strengthening Indo-US ties, this could be a positive agenda on the table. Otherwise, this is an area where the US and China will arrive at a common position and that could prove harmful for Indo-US relations. US and China already have similar positions on FMCT.

Terrorism: South Asia is the other area. In fact, the AfPak strategy that has come about, linking Kashmir to the security of Afghanistan, it is not a very palatable situation to India. This is exactly what Pakistan has always sought and it could possibly an area that China too agrees. There again, you have China, US and Pakistan on the same side and this could create setbacks in Indo-US relations.

Obama Presidency and India

This analysis on Obama Presidency and India first appeared on the ORF website.

With the results of the US Presidential elections out, Senator Barack Obama will become the 44th President of the United States, the first African-American to assume the highest office in the US. How does an Obama administration look to India and the region in general? There are three issues on which the Democrats can be thought to have a less pro-India policy as compared to the Republicans.



In general, Indo-US relations have not prospered much under Democratic presidents. More specifically, the pro-interventionist stance of the democrats could result in an Obama administration wanting to involve itself in trying to solve the Kashmir problem. Obama’s recent comments on the Kashmir issue and the reported consideration of Bill Clinton as special envoy on Kashmir are pointers to this pro-active stand that India has to be prepared for. He said, “We should probably try to facilitate a better understanding between Pakistan and India and try to resolve the Kashmir crisis so that they can stay focused not on India, but on the situation with those militants.”
The democrats have been more interventionists than republicans. Democrats have traditionally believed that the US should intervene in regional conflicts to protect human rights. During President Bill Clinton’s term, the US militarily intervened in a number of conflicts including Haiti, Somalia, Bosnia, Yugoslavia, Congo, Liberia, Albania, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yemen. More specifically, the Democrats have generally taken a more interventionist attitude towards Kashmir, and Obama seems set to continue that trend. The Bush administration has taken a less active approach to Kashmir, and McCain could have been expected to continue that policy. Obama has paid greater attention to India policy recently, if only to seek the support of the Indian-American community. Some believe that a Kashmir-specific pro-active policy need not be necessarily bad, given Obama’s pro-India statements. But because Obama believes that solving the Kashmir problem is a pre-requisite for getting Pakistan’s support for the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), New Delhi needs to be cautious.
Obama’s tough talk on Pakistan might be soothing to the ears of Indian policy makers. While Obama pledges huge military/financial aid to Pakistan in the war on terror, it is conditional. Pakistan has to prove that it is making considerable progress in eliminating training camps, evicting foreign militants/terrorists that are based on Pakistani soil, as well as preventing the Taliban/al Qaeda from using Pakistan as a base for attacks in Afghanistan. He was also categorical that if his administration has credible intelligence on the whereabouts of Taliban/al Qaeda in Pakistan, the US forces will be sent into Pakistan to hunt them down. It is too early to say whether Obama will carry forward his tough stand on Pakistan once he assumes office.
Second, for the Democrats, the issue of non-proliferation has been so important that it sets limits to Indo-US friendship. The policies during the Clinton administration were a pointer to this. India’s nuclear tests of 1998 proved to be a setback, as it invoked series of economic and technological sanctions on India by the US and its allies, including Japan and Australia. India not being a signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) continues to be an important factor for the democrats. It does not seem to bother them that much that China violated the NPT, despite being an NPT member-state, especially with Pakistan. Though the US-India nuclear agreement received bipartisan support, most of the opponents were Democrats. Though he finally, reluctantly, supported the US-India nuclear deal, Obama had tried to introduce killer amendments to it. India should be prepared to see the Obama Administration and a Democratic-majority Senate reviving the CTBT issue, which has been comatose for a while, as well as the FMCT with vigour.
Third, the democrats have generally tended to have a stronger partnership with China as compared to India. This may not be palatable to India. In fact, President Clinton and President Jiang Zemin agreement in 1998 to “jointly manage South Asia” had angered India. It was President George Bush who managed to break that trend and establish a strategic partnership with India.
How the next administration would shape its policy towards Beijing will also influence the extent of India’s role in Asia. Obama has raised issues with regard to China, although his concerns are with regard to economic rather than military issues. Obama has said that while the US should have cooperative relationship with China, it should not hesitate from being “clear and consistent” if the US disagrees on issues such as manipulation of its currency, human rights violation, its economic and diplomatic policies with Sudan or Iran. However, trade troubles with China appear to be the focus and have emerged as a serious political issue in the campaign. Analysts believe that a bill aimed at levying punitive duties on Chinese goods supported by Obama indicates that the US would pursue a hardline approach towards Beijing on trade issues. Though close US-China relations, with South Asia being jointly ‘managed’ by the US and China, is an unappealing thought, a serious dispute or a US-China clash will have wider security consequences throughout Asia and will affect India also. We need neither.
On another important foreign policy issue, both candidates were critical of Russia, and this could put India in a tight spot. India does not want Russia to be written off; in fact, to the contrary, India believes that Russia will be one of the poles of power in the new Asian security framework.
Overall, though a Republican administration would have been better for India; New Delhi, however, needs to get ready to play with an Obama administration.