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2007-08-21 India-Pakistan

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Posted by john frum 2007-08-21 15:43|| || Front Page|| [9 views ] Top

#1 Tomorrow never dies

By Ashok Malik

The India-US civil nuclear cooperation agreement is just one element of a grand bargain that Japan and America are offering India. It is to the credit of the CPI(M) that only it has realised the implications

It is a strange week in Delhi. Communists don the garb of ultra-nationalists. India's formerly Right-wing party becomes an add-on of the Left Front. The accidental descent into an election that nobody - with the exception of Ms Mayawati and the BSP - is ready for is a clear and present danger.

In a week like this, only the big picture can provide reassurance. The small picture, alas, is simply too smudged.

While they are the villains of the day, Mr Prakash Karat and the CPI(M) need to be thanked for having brought into the open the philosophy behind the India-US nuclear deal. Yes, this deal is about energy security and containing greenhouse gas emissions from thermal fuel sources and such noble and good intentions. Yet, slipped into the 123 Agreement is the blueprint for 21st century security architecture.

By openly opposing the relationship with America - and by aligning their position with that of the Chinese Government - India's Communist parties have made a public debate on an overarching foreign policy decision simply unavoidable.

It is now becoming increasingly untenable to pretend that India's economic rise is simply a matter of higher GDP, better trade figures, more outsourcing contracts - and has no strategic implications. That may be the view preferred by the Indian ostrich, but the rest of the world is not looking at it that way. It is seeing India as a potential counterweight to China, at least as part of a mutually balancing concert of powers that would include, of course, both Asian giants and others such as the US and Russia.

In an extreme situation, India could have a role in a containment of China, though that eventuality seems far away. In any case, the very need to contain China would depend on how China and its polity evolve over the coming decade or two. To reflect on that right now would be to gaze into a crystal ball. For the moment, the world is only hedging its bets, which is why it is courting India.

The rise of China and what India should do vis-à-vis its northern neighbour are obviously exercising various groups of Indians. They are also the subject of cogitation in other countries. In offering India the civilian nuclear deal, the Republican Administration in the US has shown its cards.

In Australia, the degree of the national economy's dependence on China - Chinese factories are hungry for Australian commodities - has caused some disquiet. There is a perception, particularly to the right of the political spectrum, that this will compromise Canberra's ability to maintain an independent foreign policy, free of Beijing's influence.

It is this sentiment that is driving strategic affairs pundits in Australia to advocate sale of uranium to India. The point was made, for instance, in Widening Horizons: Australia's New Relationship with India, a paper brought out by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute in May 2007.

In Japan - as the current visit of that country's Prime Minister, accompanied by 150 odd businessmen, makes clear - India is seen as the next Asian manufacturing hub. The 1,500 km long Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor is, essentially, envisaged as a 10-year project for the transplanting of Japanese manufacturing facilities.

Japanese investment in India is the economic analogue of the nuclear deal or the American promise to provide India military hardware worthy of a future power. Why is Japan doing it? For one, it has a historically unsteady relationship with China. Second, Japan is an ageing society and moving its factories to India is part of an enormous retirement plan.

If it wants to retain the factories at home, Japan will have to open itself up to immigrant workers and managers - many of whom may be Chinese. It is looking at a more agreeable alternative - outsourcing manufacturing to India.

It is not television sets and mini-CD players that Japan wants to make in the DMIC. From high-end industrial electronics to elements of aerospace manufacture, very sophisticated technology transfer is on offer. The Japanese are also investing heavily in infrastructure.

There are no free lunches in economics, no free dinners in diplomacy. In return for Japanese investment, Australian uranium and American weaponry, India would not need to go to war with China - but it would need to make small, subtle and unavoidable choices. It is to the credit of the CPI(M) that it has understood the contours of the grand bargain and made its position clear.

In no country do complex foreign policy issues become the bread and butter of domestic, provincial politicians. India is not going to be an exception. As such, one cannot expect every member or party in Parliament to have an informed, enlightened view on the fork India finds itself at.

Yet, the role of the BJP in the entire discourse has been a trifle disappointing. As a nationalist party, which led a government that crafted the framework of 'modern diplomacy', surely it could do better than merely mimic Marxists and give them certificates of patriotism? Today, the credit for the deal lies with the Congress - even though it built on the gains of the NDA years - and the Opposition space lies with the Left. The BJP is everywhere - and nowhere.

Where will the Karat-Manmohan Singh brinkmanship on the nuclear deal lead to? In terms of ancillary negotiations and the wider foreign policy roadmap, it could delay matters rather than reverse the course. India's direction is inevitable; the Left is defending a lost cause.

Not that there isn't a precedent. Between the Spanish-American War and Pearl Harbour, 1898 and 1941, the US swung in and out of the international system. It saw intense internal debate over whether its economic muscle now obligated it to be a global power - or whether old-style isolationism was still feasible.

In 1919, at the end of World War I, President Woodrow Wilson helped frame the Treaty of Versailles, and helped found the League of Nations as part of 20th century security architecture. The US Senate, however, snubbed Wilson, rejected the treaty and kept America out of the League.

Wilson warned another war would engulf Europe within a generation. Provincial politicians, American exceptionalists and hyper-nationalists thought he was talking nonsense. Two decades later, Wilson was proved prescient. The US walked into World War II and recognised that this time there was no going back.

Do all aspirant powers go through such existential dilemmas? The big picture, remember, does look reassuring!

Posted by john frum 2007-08-21 16:27|| 2007-08-21 16:27|| Front Page Top

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