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Building Bridges

Now that the hoopla over President Clinton's visit is over, could we sit down and find out what the actual results are? There is, to be honest, no tangible gain for either side that you can point to. The United States did not condemn Pakistan for its sins quite as strongly as the Indian side wished; India has given no indication about giving ground on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. This was, at best, a feel-good kind of a visit, an opportunity for the chief players in both countries to get to know each other better as a first step, perhaps, to better things.

That is not bad, really. Henry Kissinger described the relationship between India and the United States as that of a married couple who could neither live together nor divorce amicably. And let us be honest: Much of the blame must lie at India's door, a legacy of Jawaharlal Nehru's idiotic posturing and the laziness of his successors who could not reformulate India's foreign policy.

Think about it for a minute. India's statecraft has been so inept that we have been at loggerheads with both, the most powerful country in the world and the strongest nation in Asia for the past four decades or so. We have been so obsessed with Pakistan that we failed to define our policies regarding the United States and China. The Vajpayee administration has finally succeeded in mending fences with the United States. The question is whether it can do so with the giant in the north as well.

Some might question whether we should try to mend fences with China at all in the first place. It still occupies thousands of square miles of Indian territory and has shown no desire to return an inch. It is also a fact that the Chinese sold, or gifted, military technology to Pakistan. Nevertheless, there is a strong feeling in the Vajpayee ministry that it is time to improve relations.

There are a couple of reasons for this line of thought. First, the Chinese authorities are increasingly nervous about Islamic militancy in the western provinces of their country. This was a prime reason why Beijing resolutely, if very politely, snubbed Pakistan during the Kargil conflict, turning down any mention of arms shipments.

Second, China is also worried that the United States is beginning to perceive it as the chief potential enemy now that the old Soviet Union has collapsed. It did not escape anyone's notice that the American Secretary of Defense was visible in his defence of Taiwan even as Clinton was in India, nor that the United States has also begun mending fences even with Vietnam. (India and Vietnam are, of course, the two strongest military powers on China's borders; the two greatest economic powers -- Japan and South Korea -- are already in the American camp.)

There are two ways by which the Indian government can handle this situation. It could take up all the hints about being a "natural ally" of the United States and make up for all those "missed opportunities" that the visitors spoke about. But an open alliance would drive China into Pakistan's embrace, as Beijing tried to give Delhi something else to think about.

What is the alternative? Simple. India reassures China that closer ties with the United States would not necessarily lead to an anti-Chinese alliance.

What can India offer? I am not sure, but I think we could see a variant of the offer that the prime minister took to Lahore last year: Lay aside the vexed question of land disputes to be resolved in time and let us talk about issues such as trade where we can make genuine progress. As we all know, the leadership in Islamabad was not prepared to accept that solution and the result was the invasion of Kargil. Will the powers-that-be in Beijing, a xenophobic lot at the best of times, be any more willing to accept the Indian offer of friendship?

With the disillusionment of Kargil still fresh in everyone¹s mind, there is no proposal to stage any drama along the lines of the bus-ride to Lahore. But the Indian government knows that it needs to make some gesture and it is doing so by getting President K R Narayanan to visit China. I am not sure if India will succeed in reassuring the Chinese, but I am happy to note that Delhi is, finally, getting over the silly habit of conducting foreign policy as an exercise in countering Pakistan.

T V R Shenoy