Political Olympics in Beijing:The US is reaching out to China because of Russia

We are witnessing another twist in the kaleidoscope of the world order. Because of their convenient quadrennial occurrence, the Olympics are a good point to mark a shift in not just sports, but global affairs. Yesterday we carried an article noting that China could overtake the US as a “sporting power” by the time of the London Games in 2012. Today, I want to look at the issue through the prism of geopolitics.
From China’s point of view, the Beijing Olympics were meant to tell us what China has achieved and that it is now a top-ranking world power in every sense of the term. Remarkably, world powers, too, underscored that verdict. I say “remarkably” because just months ago, with the Tibetan protests at their height, it appeared that the world powers were determined to rain on China’s party. But on August 7th and 8th you only had to look at the love-fest that Hu Jintao, George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin were involved in during the pre-inaugural banquet and the inaugural ceremony to understand that China’s Olympian moment had indeed arrived.


The presence of the world leaders was no accident; they were responding to the shifting plates of the international system. It was not entirely a coincidence that the day Putin was watching the Olympic inaugural ceremony, Russian forces were invading Georgia.

Russia

Despite somewhat difficult relations with China during his presidency, George W. Bush came to celebrate Hu Jintao’s party in response to the oil- fueled resurgence of Russia. Beijing, ever-wary of Moscow, played its role as the good host to the hilt ignoring Bush’s for-the-record references to human rights and freedom. The Chinese may have settled their border dispute with Russia, but memories are long in Beijing, especially about the way in which China lost vast tracts of land to Imperial Russia during its century of shame. The Chinese are bound to have noticed that Russian arms exports have shown a steady downward drift as Moscow acts to preserve its own military edge over China.
Bush’s performance, a balancing act of enjoying the Games, praising China and at the same time trying to nudge it along better human rights observances is part of the new US strategy. Gone is the neocon effort to depict China as the new Soviet Union. The aim now seems to have reverted to the idea of coopting China and encouraging it to be more democratic and to play by the international rules which the US still defines.

America

The US argument on China is summed up by US Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson in an article in the current issue of Foreign Affairs. He said that some in the US argued that China was a threat and must be countered, while others like him felt that its growth “is an opportunity for the U.S. economy.” The challenge for Washington was to manage China through engagement.”
That this is the new strategy was underscored in an uncharacteristically nuanced speech by President Bush at the dedication ceremony for the huge new US embassy building in Beijing on August 7. He pressed all the right buttons on Chinese history, culture and its recent economic achievements. Even his references to the need for a regime of open trade giving way to a political atmosphere of open ideas was done in a tone of talking to Beijing, rather than talking down to it. “Change in China,” he declared, “will arrive on its own terms and in keeping with its own history and its own traditions.” This was a clear message that the US no longer sees the Communist party run government there as somehow transient.
All this is not about the economic rise of China alone. We know that the Chinese are now set to overtake the US as the largest producer of manufactured goods in the world, four years ahead of time because of the weakened American economy. The US will lose its 100-year dominance in this sector, but looked at another way, the Chinese will merely resume a position they occupied for four centuries till the Opium war of 1840.
This is also about the rise of Russia. They may have been intervening in a local quarrel, in Georgia, but their larger message was to tell the west that the climate in Moscow had changed and that Russia would act decisively to protect its national interests. Georgia, you may recall, is the region through which a US-backed pipeline commissioned in 2006 broke the Russian monopoly of Caspian oil. Just the other day, Russia had threatened to deploy nuclear-capable bombers in Cuba in retaliation for what it saw was an American provocation in putting their missile-shield radars in Poland and Ukraine, its erstwhile “allies.”

India

So what we saw in Beijing on those two August days was a visible manifestation of the shifting tectonic plates of the world order. There were other leaders there as well — Yasuo Fukuda of Japan, Nicholas Sarkozy of France and our own Sonia Gandhi. But we are merely a supporting cast to the larger players. Ms Gandhi was received with due courtesy as the leader of India’s ruling party. The Chinese understand dyarchy where state and political power are shared, but India was not really in Beijing, either in the sporting events or in its politics.
China itself remains opaque. While its undoubted economic prowess is on display, there are unmistakable signs that its economy is slowing down. As it moves by design into the high-tech, high-innovation regime, its leaders need to also take care of the tens of millions who work in its low-tech, high volume sectors. Despite censorship, the internet has opened up China in an unprecedented way. Beijing may have been gratified by the nationalistic feelings that erupted in the wake of the Tibetan protests, but they know nationalism is a monster that cannot be easily controlled, by the party, or by anyone. Within China, the debate over whether China needs to integrate itself with the world system or go its own way, as it has done till now, has not been decided either way.
China has so far observed mercantilist principles in its dealings with the world — putting economics ahead of everything else. But the luxury of refusing to take positions on issues like Darfur may not last too long. If China wishes to be a world leader, it must display leadership, which also means taking the world community along with it on matters of international concern.
Nothing in these trends affects India in a negative way. We may not be growing as fast as China, but we are growing. “Rising India” can take advantage of China “risen” which has become an object of envy and fear in many world capitals. We are not competing with China for anything, most certainly not in the Olympics.
Our inner divisions and weak polity inhibit any aggressive Indian response to the rise of China. On the other hand, the Chinese ascendancy has pushed many countries to come closer to us as a way of hedging their bets on China. The problem is that there is no consensus on even the most obvious measures that would help India, such as the Indo-US nuclear deal which will remove India from a set of pariah regimes and provide it the wherewithal to make up its abysmal energy deficit.
In these circumstances, India will have to be a middle-of-the-pack runner till it can gather the wherewithal and the nerve to move to the front.
This article appeared first in Mail Today August 14, 2008

The Sum of All Their Fears

India's national security bureaucracy doesn't really have an inspired record. It seems to lack the grit to fight the country's battles abroad and wants to stay holed up in fortress India. This article was published in Hindustan Times November 29, 2006

As 2006 draws to a close, there is some satisfaction in knowing that despite turbulence — some of it caused by our own instrumentalities — India’s most important foreign relations, that with Pakistan and China, are on track. The year began with expectations of rapid movement on the Pakistan front, only to be belied by the Varanasi blasts, the blockade on Siachen, the recriminations of the Mumbai blasts, followed by postponement of the foreign secretary-level dialogue. Towards the year’s end, a throwaway remark on Arunachal Pradesh led to another kind of turmoil, one often caused by the circulation of a lot of hot air.

As is our national wont, we have been convinced that all the problems were caused by our adversaries, real and potential. Our own actions and motives are, and have always been, as pure as driven snow. However, more than anytime in the past, there were disturbing signs of a kind of dissonance being introduced into the system by what is politely called the ‘national security bureaucracy’. This comprises members from the armed forces, the intelligence agencies, police forces and the civilian babus who believe that they have the exclusive franchise on deciding what constitutes the national interest, and the best way of preserving it.

The best (worst?) example of this was the National Security Council Secretariat (NSCS) paper warning against investment by China into certain important sectors. This was sent out to various ministries reportedly by the principal secretary to the Prime Minister and has done a great deal to needlessly roil Sino-Indian relations. Just why this was done is a bit of a mystery.

The NSCS, comprising relatively junior officials, is meant to merely service the National Security Council. The latter body comprising the Prime Minister himself and his ministers for defence, finance, home and external affairs, take the actual decisions. To advise the NSC, two additional deliberative bodies have been provided — the National Security Advisory Board, comprising experts in various fields and a clutch of retired officials, and the Strategic Policy Group. While the former is meant to be the source of external advice to the NSC, the latter, comprising all the top secretaries to the government, the chiefs of the three services and the intelligence agencies, is the top advisory and deliberative body to the NSC. Its additional value is that it is supposed to undertake what the Americans call an ‘inter-agency process’, where the views of various important departments and ministries are put forward and reconciled before becoming official policy. A parallel system servicing the Cabinet is the committee of secretaries. In the case of the Chinese investment policy, it is well-known that the finance, surface transport and external affairs ministries disagreed with the NSCS’s view. But since a senior PMO official has fired the guns from the shoulders of the NSC secretariat, what we have is an ill-considered, hawkish policy, rather than a balanced and considered opinion of the government.

The aim no doubt was to upset the government’s China policy. As indeed was the needless furore on the Chinese envoy Sun Yuxi’s remarks. While Sun could have had a better sense of timing to reiterate Beijing’s known views on the subject, it was not particularly edifying to hear the whining and sloganeering over what is a well-known Chinese position. A country aspiring to be a global player, must have the maturity to accept that if it has a point of view, so do others.

No doubt there are similar forces at work within Pakistan and China as well. But in India, we have the benefit of living in an all-too-transparent system where manoeuvres of mendacious officialdom are easily visible. Such openness is not available in Pakistan or China. The actions of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in using jehadis as a cat’s paw are not easy to prove, even though we must cope with their impact. The Chinese system is even more opaque. But its policy is to use Pakistan as a foil against India, rather than do anything negative frontally.

Fortunately, on both Pakistan and China, the political leadership of the country has shown a strong and steady hand. They have ensured that the momentum of efforts to normalise ties with these countries have not been derailed. At every stage of improving relations with difficult neighbours, the political class has had to lead. Rajiv Gandhi had to overrule officials before his pathbreaking visit to Beijing in 1988. Manmohan Singh, who does not have Rajiv’s clout, has had to fight every step of the way against bureaucrats and ministers who claim they are the repository of Rajiv’s legacy. It was on his insistence that the Hurriyat was permitted to travel to Pakistan without visas. He has also expended personal political capital on pushing the Indo-US nuclear deal.

The PM and his team have pushed through the anti-terror mechanism with Pakistan and the result has been a distinct improvement in India-Pakistan relations. Despite uncalled for pressure by the army, they have set the resolution of the Siachen and Sir Creek issues as a benchmark for the coming months. They are keeping their eyes firmly on the capstone of the peace process — the final settlement of the Jammu and Kashmir dispute. This process is further down the road than publicly acknowledged.

Likewise, despite Chinese procrastination, the government has steadily pushed for a final settlement of the Sino-Indian border dispute. The recent visit of Chinese President Hu Jintao gives a feel of the texture of New Delhi’s global policies. The latest Sino-Indian joint communiqué talks of the “global and strategic” significance of the relations between the two countries — a factual description of the current reality. It says that the two countries do not see themselves as “rivals or competitors but [are] partners for mutual benefit”. This sounds somewhat rhetorical, but is again true in that the unmoderated rivalry and competition between two nuclear armed States in a globalised economy is tantamount to mutually assured destruction. So the statement adds that “they agree that there is enough space for them to grow together”, a practical and forward-looking formulation. While the opacity we have referred to does cloud a better understanding of Chinese policies towards India, the facts are that Beijing is shifting towards a neutral position on the India-Pakistan issues, especially on Kashmir.

The broader Indian strategy, as probably that of China, is to enhance relations with a cross-section of important countries — the US, the EU, Japan, Russia, the Asean, South Africa, Brazil, etc. Based on the values that shape our nation and its foreign policies — secularism and democracy — it is inevitable that our ties with some countries will have a flavour quite different from those of others. But this does not mean that one set of relations will be benevolent, and the other conflict-ridden.

As long as human relationships are about power, the only way to promote restraint is to maintain a balance of power. But where in the past this was seen as a zero-sum game, in today’s inter-dependent world, it requires an appreciation of the balance of interests of various nations.

In this new vision of the world, too much is at stake to allow the national security bureaucracies to decide the direction of policies. While we must heed their views with all the seriousness they deserve, because it is their task to keep track of the family silver, we cannot allow them to run away with the agenda. They have the right to be suspicious of our real and potential adversaries. But suspicion unrelieved by any effort towards amelioration usually becomes paranoia. It breeds a ‘fortress mentality’ that takes comfort in hiding behind the high walls of national security. But the threats outside will inevitably breach the walls if not countered, through flexible and innovative strategies, at some remove from the walls of our fort.