Indo-US Rapprochement and Chinese Discomfiture
24 Mar, 2000 · 343
Rahul Arun reckons that in any analysis of India’s security imperatives the designs of the dragon cannot be ignored
The statement of Indian defense minister George Fernandes in the wake of Pokhran II regarding
China
was definitely a faux-paux. But the nuclear dynamics between
India
and
Pakistan
can never be understood without factoring in the parabellum strategic culture of the Chinese analysed by Alastair Iain Johnston.
Beijing
’s advice to
U.S.
on the eve of the President, Mr. Bill Clinton’s visit here, to be firm with
New Delhi
on nuclear and non proliferation issues.
Beijing
reminded Mr. Talbott of the American obligation to the international non proliferation regime and the importance of not accepting additional states into the nuclear club. Chinese officials have often publicly objected to Mr. Talbott’s nuclear dialogue with the external affairs Minister Mr. Jaswant Singh which, according to them, violates U.N. Security Council resolution No. 1172. The reason why Indo-U.S. rapprochement upsets
China
because it feels that the concert of Democracies could well serve
Washington
's plans to contain
China
's growing economic and military strength in
Asia
.
U.S.
seems to be oblivious to of its own contribution to precipitating the nuclearisation of
South Asia
. Very recently the Federation of American Scientists satellite imagery of
Pakistan
’s nuclear and missile facilities have once again highlighted the Chinese complicity in this process. The Sino-Pak nuclear axis and co-operation, it is often asserted, is unprecedented in the history of international relations since 1945. Indeed, not even the
US
. &
U.K.
shared such a relationship. According to James Woolsey, CIA Director. “
Beijing
has consistently regarded a nuclear armed
Pakistan
as a crucial regional ally and a vital counterweight to
India
’s growing military capabilities".
China
not only supplied
Pakistan
military equipment and issued veiled threats of intervening if
India
extended the war to
East Pakistan
, but its official media condemned
India
as the aggressor that needed to be punished. The 1971 Indo-Pak war occurred when the Chinese were deeply indicted to
Pakistan
for its role in facilitating Henry Kissinger’s secret trip to
Beijing
in July 1971 that led to the historic Sino-US détente. Thereafter,
China
has not only provided the moral and political support, but also supply military equipment to
Pakistan
through the
Karakoram Highway .
India
signing a Treaty of Friendship and co-operation with the former
Soviet Union
in August 1971, and exploding a nuclear device in May 1974,
China
signed a historic Defence co-operation agreement with
Pakistan
in September 1974. This agreement is believed to have laid the framework for
China
’s nuclear and missile technology supplies to
Pakistan
, which had a profound impact on
India
’s national security.
China
that advised the
U.S.
to be firm with
India
over the nuclear issue was one which has accused
Washington
of being a proliferator of nuclear weapons and the worlds largest weapons exporter. The Chinese government was also furious which the sale of high tech
U.S.
weapons to
Taiwan
and the TMD umbrella that would be provided to
Japan
.
U.S.
, Chinese Ambassador to India Zhou Gang, commented that “In the long term if you analyse the international situation, you will see that there is only one force dominating the world and asserting its domination to create a unipolar world.” Speaking in a similar vein, last year Ziang Zemin accused the
U.S.
of practising “gunboat diplomacy” and “economic neo colonialism” which had undermined the independence and development interest of many small and medium sized countries and threatened world peace and international security.
China
which is hypercritical of
U.S.
hegemony in world affairs on the one hand and advises the same power to be firm with
India
on the one hand smacks of diplomatic duplicity. Such doublespeak by
China
exhibits a key axiom of its hard realpolitik or parabellum strategic culture i.e. the notion of quan bian – which stresses absolute flexibility and conscious sensitivity to changing relative capabilities. The more this balance favours
China
, the more advantageous it becomes for it to adopt offensive coercive strategies; the less favourable the balance the more advantageous it is for
China
to adopt defensive or accommodative strategies to buy time until balance shifts again.
India
’s security imperatives the designs of the dragon cannot be ignored.
This is vindicated by
The hypocritical advice by the Chinese to the
During the 1965 Indo-Pak war,
Later, in the backdrop of
What confounds Indian strategic observers is that the same
Only a few days back, in a veiled accusation of the
Such equivocation by
The upshot of this discussion for Americans in particular and the world community in general is that in any analysis of
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