Of strategic partnership and being a world power

It will not have escaped the notice of even the most casual observer that the centrepiece of attention of the two visitors was India. As Scott Baldauff writing recently in the Christian Science Monitor says: "Like the prettiest girl at a fairy-tale ball or in a Bollywood movie, India suddenly has lots of suitors calling."

What catches one's attention is not only the US Secretary of State's articulation of India's growing international clout that has caused the US to look afresh at the region, particularly at India, but also Washington's official pronouncement to help India become a world power. And China, India's largest neighbour has sought a larger "strategic partnership" with it, to forge a new era of cooperation and peace. It, however, remains to be seen how India's transformation into a "world power" would come about, and what that would mean, since power has many determinants and dimensions and is not merely a single construct; whether it is soft power or the Morgantheauan description that the US has in mind?

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However, the strategic motivations for US and China to seek closer ties with India are quite different, although economic interest remains the guiding force in their policy formulation. And that is the quandary that India finds itself in.

Sino-Indian rapprochement indicates a thaw in the relationship between the two neighbours that have between them almost 40 percent of the world's population and 18 percent of the world's GDP. And the prospect of a burgeoning Indian and Chinese economy has prompted Lee Kuan Yew, Asia's elder statesman to prophesy that it will "shake the world." But even more, the air of harmony that now pervades Sino-Indian relations demonstrates the predominance of economic interests in the formulation of the foreign policies of the two countries, rather then mere rhetoric or raw emotion. In other words, it is realpolitik that has dictated policy. It is an object lesson for those that would allow the baggage of history to mar the growth of normal relations between nations.

The US motivation has both geo-political and geo-economic dimensions. India is ranked by many analysts as Asia's third great power, and, given India's economic prospects, that has the potential, according to a recent report, of propelling it to one of the leading economies in the world by 2030, its consequent power potential is not lost on the US strategic planners. And it is this potential that the US wants to make use of to countervail the growing Chinese influence in the East and South East Asian region. (Indian domination of South Asia is a reality, which the US accepts and acquiesces in.)

For China, closer economic interaction with India is very much in line with its strategic policy, since the time Deng Xiao Ping opened up and reformed the Chinese economy to make economic growth China's principle objective. And, in keeping with it, as the recent visit, as well as the declarations of the two previous visits to China, that of Rajeev Gandhi in 1986 and Atal Bihari Bajpai in 2003, all show, all the contentious issues that have defied resolution so far have been kept under the carpet for the greater interest of economic cooperation between the two countries. The vexing border dispute has been addressed in the most pragmatic manner while at the same time making sure that it did not come in the way of cooperation in other fields while the issue was being tackled.

It is also in China's strategic interest to see a concrete relationship mature between it and India. Given the time-line of history, the two countries had the best of relations over many centuries except perhaps for a very brief period between 1962 and 1978. In a display of true statesmanship, the Chinese Premier Wen himself calls on both countries to "refuse to let questions left over from history disrupt and impede the development of bilateral relations."

Whether or not by implication the US wants a strategic relationship with India would be too premature to suggest at this stage. But some Indian analysts like Subramanian Swamy suggest that neither is the time appropriate nor is the situation ripe to seek a strategic linkage with big powers without running the risk of being consigned to the role of playing second fiddle, having to be ready at all times to do the biddings of the stronger partner. Whether India would be prepared to do that is doubtful, more so if it were pitted directly in a confrontational role with China.

It would therefore not be wrong to assume that rather than feeling elated about the prospect of being propelled to the rank of a world power, India finds itself in an unenviable position of having to weigh between the two big powers.

India's current trend of GDP growth rate of more than 6 per cent will make India external resource dependent, in which, according to experts, US will be a "controlling factor." And insofar as the Sino-Indian economic dimension is concerned, again, according to Subramanian Swamy: "[A] partnership between India and China will for long remain highly diluted because of a fundamental fault line that divides the two countries. For at least two decades, Chinese economic growth necessitates a relaxed US attitude. Hence, whatever the atmospherics generated by the visit of the Chinese Premier to India and however sweet he sounds, the bottom line is that China will, for the foreseeable future, not cross the US."

Moreover, it would also be a matter of more intense academic study to ascertain whether India at this point in time aspires to be a world power, something that the US is so keen to see it become. It is not merely the question of acquiring power, it is also a matter of being able to project power, well beyond one's national and regional boundaries for the purpose of safeguarding one's national interest. Merely patrolling a stretch of international water does not accord one a power projection capability. However, even if India had the capability, one wonders whether it would be willing to do so. It is also pertinent to ask whether India has the will to fulfill the responsibilities that is expected of a world power.

It may not also be out of place to suggest that perhaps it is time that India also took on board the idea of fulfilling it responsibilities as a regional power first, something that critics say it has overlooked for long in its urge to become a world power.

The author is Editor, Defence and Strategic Affairs, The Daily Star.