The Chinese Acting to Derail Budding U.S.-Indo Strategic Relationship

The Chinese are Acting Against Indian National Interest Again.

While the Marxist oil minister, Mr. Aiyar, cuddles with the Chinese, like the communist sympathizer and defense minister Krishna Menon in Nehru's Cabinet who put India in a losing position during Chinese attack on India in 1962, with the revived Panchsheel, the Chinese are working against Indian National interest again.

On Jan 2, 2006, Financial Times Farhan Bokhari reports that the Chinese have promised to provide Pakistan six to eight nuclear reactors worth about $10 billion. This promise would be against NPT that Chinese have signed and Pakistanis did not. It also goes against Washington's push back on Pakistanis repeated calls to treat it, a nuclear weapons and missile proliferator - a Walmart of WMD - to more than half a dozen countries, on par with India, which as an impeccable non-proliferation record. The Chinese actions provide a powerful weapon to American non-proliferation mullahs to attack and derail the nuclear engagement agreement President Bush signed with Prime Minister Singh in July of 2005. The Pakistanis have denied the deal, of course - because Pakistan never breaks any international rules.

So what are the Chinese up to? It is hard to believe the Chinese would willingly accept Indo-U.S. nuclear agreement. This agreement is a stepping-stone for a strong and more significant strategic cooperation between the two countries - only because Indian government treats this nuclear agreement as the key test of U.S. commitment to strategic relations with India. It is hard to find another agreement with any other country that India treats with more importance because with U.S. commitment to normalize nuclear relations, the rest of world would accept India as a full fledged nuclear power.

The Chinese are acting to prevent this from happening. And they are using the usual suspect in South Asia.

This weekend, Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran is visiting China ostensibly for friendly dialogue and to improve relationship and continue engagement with the Chinese. As Secular-Right and Acorn point out, at the present in India, it is hard to find a sensible person in power when it comes troubling foreign policy issues. At the moment, Foreign Secretary seems to be only sensible one. And he better have more than a dialogue with the Chinese. He needs to forcefully put forth the damage the China-Pakistan nuclear reactors deal would do to Indian national interest. And if the Chinese continue the path, India needs to rethink the relationship with China and go slow on any furthering of non-economic ties.

Update: While speaking at Shanghai Institute of International Studies, Mr. Shyam Saran briefly talked about India being a responsible nuclear power while claiming space for being an Asian power:

"Outlining India's growing stature as a responsible nuclear power, Saran stressed India's role as 'a partner against proliferation'.

'As a responsible nuclear power with impeccable credentials on non-proliferation, we have earned increasing international recognition as a partner against proliferation. We hope to work more closely with our Chinese friends on this front, too,' he said."

Looks like the Chinese gave an usual muddled response to India's concerns to Chinese actions in Pakistan.