Windjammer
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The Indian media just celebrated that China is open to India’s “constructive and positive” role in maintaining peace and stabilizing the situation in the South China Sea. However, theChinese Foreign Ministry website (which is the official record) says no such thing. The Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson’s remarks were in response to a pointed question regarding a speech by Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar at the recent ASEAN defence ministers meet expressing concern over the South China Sea. The Chinese statement implied that the issue is none of India’s business.
The nuance cannot be missed. China does not consider India to be a relevant party on an issue that concerns it and “other littoral states” of the ASEAN. Perhaps, India should be pleased with this Chinese stance, which is akin to our own approach to resolving bilateral disputes with neighboring countries.
Indeed, is it wise or necessary for India to poke its nose into the South China Sea situation? The plain truth is that the freedom of navigation and overflight freedom in that part of the world has never been affected. So, why is India getting excited every now and then? The answer seems to be that India wants to be a pillion rider in the US’ rebalance in Asia, no matter where the rider is taking us or whether the motorbike is roadworthy — or has enough fuel to keep going.
Under the Narendra Modi government, India’s policy toward China has abandoned the previous policy of differentiating itself from the US’ pivot to Asia and of pursuing an independent course. Today India is visibly hitchhiking in the American bandwagon. Why is this happening? Of course, full credit for this must be given to the principal ‘China hand’ in the Indian foreign policy establishment today (someone who once figured in the Wikileaks cables as an overzealous informant/confidante of the American embassy in New Delhi and who on another occasion even publicly espoused a US-Indian alliance in Asia to transform China as a liberal democracy.)
Obviously, Parrikar himself was on a learning curve in international diplomacy, and would have taken note that the ASEAN defence ministers meet as such refrained from taking sidesin the US-China dispute in the South China. The European Union also chose a calibrated linecalling on all sides to exercise restraint. The point is, the US has a need to keep stoking the regional tensions over the territorial disputes in the South China Sea, while China’sdiplomacy is on overdrive to win friends and make bridges with the ASEAN countries as well as to calm the troubled waters.
India should have the foresight to figure out that in such a big-power contestation, the advantage in the longer run always lies with the party that wants to douse tensions, because the other party faces a dilemma as to how far to queer the pitch of the tensions in a contrived fashion without taking matters to a flashpoint. This acute dilemma on the part of the rabble rouser surfaced during the recent voyage of the US warship through the waters that China claims as its territorial waters. The Pentagon is in a quandary whether it was asserting ‘freedom of navigation’ or the ‘right of innocent passage’. The conduct of the warship was, to say the least, highly ambivalent – showing the flag to the US’ regional partners (which have disputes with China) while also being discreet so as not to unduly provoke China. The sailors on board the American warship since made light of the entire affair, too.
Interestingly, Beijing understands that it is entangled in ‘tough love’, as a commentary in the government-owned China Daily flagged on Saturday, underscoring the need for a “wise response” on the part of China that is imbued with “some new thinking… to protect its legal interests and ensure freedom of navigation without undermining the two sides’ shared pursuit of non-confrontation”. Quintessentially, as the noted Australian scholar Hugh White noted, “The United States has to decide how serious it really is about preserving primacy in Asia and how much cost and risk it is willing to accept to do so. If it is not willing to do more than a few [freedom of navigation] operations, the outlook is not bright for America in Asia over the longer term.” (Read the Foreign Policy magazine’s commentary entitled Washington’s Muddled Message in the South China Sea.)
What actually causes the “muddled message” is that that there is a growing interdependency between the two countries – and also between China and the US’ European allies. (By the way, it has just been disclosed that China is seeking membership of the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development.) Therefore, the Indian leadership needs to tread softly on this issue. Prime Minister Narendra Modi may or may not have heard the proverb from his guests sometime during last week through the Africa Summit he hosted in New Delhi, ‘When elephants mate, it’s the grass that suffers’. He should not allow himself to be misled by a solitary ‘China hand’ counseling him.
Simply put, in a longer term perspective in a post-Modi era, India wouldn’t even qualify to be a ‘poodle’. Prime Minister Modi should have sensed by now after his last meeting with US President Barack Obama in New York in September that the latter lacks any real enthusiasm for the famous document ‘India-US Joint Strategic Vision for the Asia-Pacific’, which we imposed on him in January when he was our state guest in New Delhi.
Suffice it to say, one solitary ‘China hand’ in South Block — not more than a bird of passage in the ultimate analysis — cannot change eternal India’s DNA. Now, wouldn’t an erudite mind like Obama understand that much? But then, if the Modi government still insists on behaving like a poodle, Washington sees no reason to discourage it.
By M K Bhadrakumar – November 8, 2015
US gets an Indian poodle – Indian Punchline
The nuance cannot be missed. China does not consider India to be a relevant party on an issue that concerns it and “other littoral states” of the ASEAN. Perhaps, India should be pleased with this Chinese stance, which is akin to our own approach to resolving bilateral disputes with neighboring countries.
Indeed, is it wise or necessary for India to poke its nose into the South China Sea situation? The plain truth is that the freedom of navigation and overflight freedom in that part of the world has never been affected. So, why is India getting excited every now and then? The answer seems to be that India wants to be a pillion rider in the US’ rebalance in Asia, no matter where the rider is taking us or whether the motorbike is roadworthy — or has enough fuel to keep going.
Under the Narendra Modi government, India’s policy toward China has abandoned the previous policy of differentiating itself from the US’ pivot to Asia and of pursuing an independent course. Today India is visibly hitchhiking in the American bandwagon. Why is this happening? Of course, full credit for this must be given to the principal ‘China hand’ in the Indian foreign policy establishment today (someone who once figured in the Wikileaks cables as an overzealous informant/confidante of the American embassy in New Delhi and who on another occasion even publicly espoused a US-Indian alliance in Asia to transform China as a liberal democracy.)
Obviously, Parrikar himself was on a learning curve in international diplomacy, and would have taken note that the ASEAN defence ministers meet as such refrained from taking sidesin the US-China dispute in the South China. The European Union also chose a calibrated linecalling on all sides to exercise restraint. The point is, the US has a need to keep stoking the regional tensions over the territorial disputes in the South China Sea, while China’sdiplomacy is on overdrive to win friends and make bridges with the ASEAN countries as well as to calm the troubled waters.
India should have the foresight to figure out that in such a big-power contestation, the advantage in the longer run always lies with the party that wants to douse tensions, because the other party faces a dilemma as to how far to queer the pitch of the tensions in a contrived fashion without taking matters to a flashpoint. This acute dilemma on the part of the rabble rouser surfaced during the recent voyage of the US warship through the waters that China claims as its territorial waters. The Pentagon is in a quandary whether it was asserting ‘freedom of navigation’ or the ‘right of innocent passage’. The conduct of the warship was, to say the least, highly ambivalent – showing the flag to the US’ regional partners (which have disputes with China) while also being discreet so as not to unduly provoke China. The sailors on board the American warship since made light of the entire affair, too.
Interestingly, Beijing understands that it is entangled in ‘tough love’, as a commentary in the government-owned China Daily flagged on Saturday, underscoring the need for a “wise response” on the part of China that is imbued with “some new thinking… to protect its legal interests and ensure freedom of navigation without undermining the two sides’ shared pursuit of non-confrontation”. Quintessentially, as the noted Australian scholar Hugh White noted, “The United States has to decide how serious it really is about preserving primacy in Asia and how much cost and risk it is willing to accept to do so. If it is not willing to do more than a few [freedom of navigation] operations, the outlook is not bright for America in Asia over the longer term.” (Read the Foreign Policy magazine’s commentary entitled Washington’s Muddled Message in the South China Sea.)
What actually causes the “muddled message” is that that there is a growing interdependency between the two countries – and also between China and the US’ European allies. (By the way, it has just been disclosed that China is seeking membership of the European Bank of Reconstruction and Development.) Therefore, the Indian leadership needs to tread softly on this issue. Prime Minister Narendra Modi may or may not have heard the proverb from his guests sometime during last week through the Africa Summit he hosted in New Delhi, ‘When elephants mate, it’s the grass that suffers’. He should not allow himself to be misled by a solitary ‘China hand’ counseling him.
Simply put, in a longer term perspective in a post-Modi era, India wouldn’t even qualify to be a ‘poodle’. Prime Minister Modi should have sensed by now after his last meeting with US President Barack Obama in New York in September that the latter lacks any real enthusiasm for the famous document ‘India-US Joint Strategic Vision for the Asia-Pacific’, which we imposed on him in January when he was our state guest in New Delhi.
Suffice it to say, one solitary ‘China hand’ in South Block — not more than a bird of passage in the ultimate analysis — cannot change eternal India’s DNA. Now, wouldn’t an erudite mind like Obama understand that much? But then, if the Modi government still insists on behaving like a poodle, Washington sees no reason to discourage it.
By M K Bhadrakumar – November 8, 2015
US gets an Indian poodle – Indian Punchline
