At the talks between India and China this week,there is an elephant in the room the United States of America. The one significant international change since National Security Adviser Shivshankar Menon and Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo met last in July 2010 has been the much touted US pivot to Asia.
As Beijings relations with Washington enter a difficult phase,there has been some concern in China about the nature of Indias partnership with the US. This concern is not very different from Delhis past apprehensions about a Sino-American condominium in Asia. The fear in Beijing and Delhi about what Washington might be up to with the other is part of an established pattern of third party impact on Sino-Indian relations.
Pakistan has long been at the top of Indias list of grievances against China. Sino-Pak relations often described in Beijing as deeper than the Arabian Sea and higher than the Himalayas have served to deepen Indias distrust of China over the last few decades. Like Russia and Pakistan in the past,the US has now emerged as the principal third party with significant negative impact on Sino-Indian relations.
In a series of visits to the region during 2010-11,US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Barack Obama went to great lengths to refute notions of American decline and reaffirm strong commitment to maintain US primacy in the region.
The US has backed the Trans-Pacific Partnership as a potential alternative to China-led economic integration of Asia. As it winds up the costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,the Obama Administration has announced plans to strengthen its forward military presence in Asia.
Amidst escalating maritime tensions between China and its Southeast Asian neighbours,the US has proclaimed an interest in the peaceful resolution of the South China Sea dispute and has contested Beijings effort to limit the freedom of US military navigation in the Western Pacific.
These moves by the United States have been widely described as Americas return to Asia after a prolonged military preoccupation with the Middle East. It is not that the US had withdrawn from East Asia in the last couple of decades. The phrase return to Asia is about a prospect for a structural change in Sino-US relations. After nearly four decades of expansive collaboration,China and the US are now confronting the prospect of an adversarial relationship.
Where does India come into this? On its own,Delhi does not pose a threat to Beijing. China is acutely conscious of the widening gap with India in the economic and military domains. What concerns Beijing is the prospect of Indias alignment with Washington in a putative containment of a rising China.
Chinas strategic tradition is very sensitive to power politics. Chinese policymakers tend to assume that Delhi is imitating Beijings strategic behaviour in the 1970s and 80s of aligning with the distant power (the United States) in order to counter a powerful neighbour (Soviet Union).
On the face of it,an Indian strategic assurance that it will not gang up with the United States against China,would seem a precondition for reducing Beijings distrust of Indias intentions.
If Beijing,however,takes the trouble of understanding Delhis foreign policy legacy,it should have little difficulty in recognising how much value India places on the concept of strategic autonomy and how reluctant it is to become a junior partner to any other power.
Beyond the words of mutual reassurance,Delhi and Beijing must come to terms with the changing distribution of power in the international system. While the US will remain the worlds pre-eminent power for a long time,it is on a path of relative decline. China and India in contrast find their respective weights in the international system rising.
As Menon pointed out in his speech at the Chinese embassy last week,this shifting balance has resulted in every major power hedging against the actions of others. This strategic flux carries with it great possibilities for misperception,miscalculation and misadventure by the major powers.
For Delhi and Beijing three policy challenges flow from this. First,despite its emerging weakness,Washington will remain the principal foreign policy account for both Beijing and Delhi. To prevent their ties with the US from becoming a bone of contention in their own bilateral relationship,India and China must explore the prospects of a triangular dialogue with the US. Consultation,if not cooperation,between the three parties has become critical for the resolution of all major global issues today. The proposal for a triangular dialogue is already on the table. Dai and Menon should endorse it.
Second,as a weakening US and the West fear the rise of China and India and turn their back on globalisation,Beijing and Delhi must be ready to take greater responsibility in the maintenance of international economic order. After all,China and India have been the biggest beneficiaries of globalisation.
Third,a declining US can no longer provide public goods in Asia on its own. India and China must necessarily cooperate with each other and the US to ensure the flow of oil from the Middle East,to stabilise Afghanistan and Pakistan and to secure the sea lines of communication in Asias waters.
Defining this new agenda of expanding strategic communication,limiting the potential for friction,and promoting bilateral as well as trilateral cooperation is central to the realisation of what Dai has called the golden age in Sino-Indian relations.
The writer is a senior fellow at the Centre for Policy Research,Delhi
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