Thursday, 9 July 2009, IPS Newsbriefs
India Waiting to Hear Clinton on AfPak, China
Analysis by Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Jul 8 (IPS) – It is hard to say whether U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will find herself being quizzed more on Washington’s ‘AfPak’ strategy to contain global terror or her appeasement of a financially muscular China, when she lands in India mid-July.

Already much is being read into the fact that Clinton’s visit comes a full five months after she landed in Beijing where, to the consternation of international rights groups, she refused to allow human rights to “interfere” with talks on more pressing issues such as the financial crisis, climate change and security.

Abandoning the George W. Bush policy of ‘containing’ China through building up strategic ties with India (as well as with Japan and Australia), Clinton has described U.S.-China relations as “the most important bilateral relationship of the 21st century.”

But when she gets to India, Clinton will be expected to spell out the future of the landmark Indo-U.S. civilian nuclear agreement which was seen in China as part of the ‘containment’ strategy. Beijing had therefore opposed the special waiver sought by the U.S. from the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to enable India to resume nuclear commerce. Clinton will also be asked to explain the AfPak policy of jointly dealing with Afghanistan and Pakistan to contain terrorism with the focus on providing Pakistan more economic and military aid – though there have been complaints that it was being funnelled into militancy in Indian-ruled Kashmir.

“At a time of deep economic crisis and when the spectre of terrorism looms large over the world, India can only be supportive of the U.S. initiatives in engaging China and Pakistan,” says Prof. Sujit Dutta, an expert on India-China relations and currently attached to the Nelson Mandela Centre for Peace and Conflict Resolution in New Delhi. “On the other hand,” Dutta told IPS, “engaging with China must not lead to a reversal to the time during the late 1990s when the U.S. was beginning to look favourably at parcelling out hegemony over Asia to Beijing.”

Dutta pointed to the dramatic revelation by the U.S. Pacific Command chief Admiral Timothy J. Keating during his visit to India on May 14 that a top-ranking Chinese naval official had sounded him out on a proposal to split control over the world’s seas between the navies of the two countries.

Keating was reportedly told {by the Chinese}: “You (the U.S.) take Hawaii East and we, (China) will take Hawaii West and the Indian Ocean. Then you need not come to the Western Pacific and the Indian Ocean and we will not need to go to the Eastern Pacific.”

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If there is essence to the above, and looking at what went on in Sri Lanka as a barometer of China’s interest in getting some further warm ports, then when added to the arming of Pakistan, the Indians might have lots of questions to the US.