Tag Archives: Beijing

A Tough Week for Pakistani Diplomacy

Events lay bare just how strategically isolated Islamabad has become

As my last post noted, the events of the past week show that New Delhi is sitting pretty diplomatically, being courted ardently by both Washington and Beijing.  Conversely, they also laid bare just how strategically isolated Islamabad has become.

Pakistan’s most recent troubles began with President Obama giving President Asif Ali Zardari the cold shoulder at the NATO summit in Chicago three weeks ago.  Since then Washington has dramatically ramped up its campaign of drone attacks in the country’s tribal areas, which last week killed Al Qaeda’s second in command in North Warizistan.  Officials in Islamabad publicly denounce the strikes as violating the country’s sovereignty and they have helped drive a marked increase in anti-American sentiment.  Yet U.S. officials reportedly believe that they have very little to lose by defying Pakistani sensitivities.

While Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was in New Delhi last week making overtures for a strategic partnership with Pakistan’s arch-rival – including calls for greater Indian involvement in Afghanistan, a neuralgic issue for the Pakistanis – he was also telling Islamabad to stuff it.  Stoutly defending the drone campaign, he declared that “we have made it very clear that we are going to continue to defend ourselves” and “we are fighting a war” in the tribal badlands.

Adding insult to injury from Islamabad’s view was his public chuckle about the necessity of keeping Pakistani officials in the dark about the U.S. commando raid that killed Osama bin Laden – “They did not know about our operation.  That was the whole point.” – as well as his comparison of U.S.-Pakistan affairs with that of India’s own torturous relationship.  As the Associated Press wryly notes,

You know a friendship has gone sour when you start making mean jokes about your friend in front of his most bitter nemesis.

Panetta regularly traveled to Pakistan during his recent stint as CIA director but has purposively avoided going there in the year since he’s moved over to the Pentagon.  Although his eight-day tour of Asia took him to New Delhi and Kabul, among other places, Islamabad was conspicuously missing from his itinerary.  Indeed, showing up in the Afghan capital, he once again unloaded on the Pakistanis, warning them that U.S. leaders are reaching “the limits of our patience.”  General Martin Dempsey, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, followed up by telling reporters in Washington that he too is “extraordinarily dissatisfied” with Pakistani actions.

Further evidence of Islamabad’s deteriorating position came from the transit agreements NATO signed last week with several Central Asian countries in an attempt to bypass Pakistan’s blockade on supplies going into Afghanistan, as well as the multiplying calls in the U.S. Congress for reducing military and economic assistance.

Pakistanis like to believe that China is the trump card they can play against the Americans.  This tenet was once again expressed in a recent op-ed that called on Pakistanis to liberate themselves “from the hold of the West by embracing our friends in the East.”  But the real limits to this strategy were once again apparent over the last few weeks.  During a visit to Islamabad in late May, Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi publicly pledged Beijing’s firm commitment to “firmly support Pakistan in protecting its sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity and dignity.”  Privately, however, he was counseling Pakistani leaders to settle their differences with the Americans.

Zardari must have been shocked by Chinese actions when he showed up in Beijing for last week’s summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.  Executive Vice Premier Li Keqiang (who is widely expected to become the next head of government) made a special point of telling Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna, also attending the forum, that Sino-Indian ties were destined to become the century’s important bilateral relationship.  Li’s phrase is a virtual echo of the Obama administration’s regular formulation about Washington and New Delhi constituting “an indispensable partnership for the 21st century,” and it signals that the two most important external powers in South Asian security affairs are in competition for India’s strategic allegiances.  Underscoring this point is Beijing’s recent move upgrading its ambassador in New Delhi to vice-ministerial status.

Dawn, Pakistan’s largest English-language newspaper, advised the other week that links with China “should not become cause for complacency or reason to assume that a functional relationship with the U.S. is not critical and long overdue.”  If Pakistani leaders had yet to absorb this lesson, this week’s events should have driven it home.  Perhaps that explains Zardari’s conciliatory reaction to Panetta’s broadsides.

This commentary was originally posted on Chanakya’s Notebook.  I invite you to follow me on Twitter.

India Shining, At Least in Geopolitics

New Delhi is being wooed by both Washington and Beijing, though its ultimate choice is becoming increasingly clearer

A previous post focused on the unexpected improvement in India’s strategic position in its own neighborhood.  Events this week brought evidence of how New Delhi is emerging as an important pivot point on Asia’s broader geopolitical stage.  Indeed, for every global investor fleeing the country these days, there is a foreign statesman who wants to partner more closely with it.

The visit of U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta to New Delhi illustrates how the Obama administration has shaken off its disillusionment with India and is now resuming its predecessors’ practice of engaging the country on high-profile security initiatives.   Panetta stopped in India as part of an eight-day swing through Asia designed to fill in the details about Washington’s new military buildup in the Asia-Pacific region that is plainly directed against China even if no one in Washington cares to admit it publicly.  As part of the strategy, the United States will shift the bulk of its naval combat power to the Pacific in the coming years as well as deepen military ties with regional allies and friends.

In an important address in New Delhi, Panetta made clear that the Obama administration sees India as a “linchpin” in this strategy.  Stating that the United States “views India as a net provider of security from the Indian Ocean to Afghanistan and beyond,” Panetta proposed the formation of a long-term strategic partnership, one that featured greater Indian access to the latest U.S. military technology and a defense trade relationship that went beyond a focus on one-off transactions to include joint research and co-production efforts.

The path from Washington to New Delhi has been busy in recent weeks.  In late March, Commerce Secretary John Bryson showed up at the head of a high-level trade mission.  In April, Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman stopped by to discuss preparations for the upcoming round of the U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue that will take place next week in Washington; Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia Kurt Campbell paid a visit to continue the on-going exchange of views on East Asia policy that has sprung up over the last few years; and Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs Andrew Shapiro arrived to resume a bilateral dialogue on non-proliferation and defense trade issues that has not convened in six years.  Last month, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton alighted to talk about Iran, followed by Peter R. Lavoy, the Pentagon’s point person on Asia, who wanted to encourage a greater Indian role in Afghanistan.

While Panetta was paying court in New Delhi, Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna was being serenaded by Chinese officials in Beijing.  In town to attend a summit meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization – a regional security grouping comprised of China, Russia and four Central Asian states – Krishna was told by Executive Vice Premier Li Keqiang (who is widely expected to become China’s head of government) that the Sino-Indian equation would be the important bilateral relationship in the 21st century.  Li’s phrase is a virtual echo of the Obama administration’s regular formulation about Washington and New Delhi constituting “an indispensable partnership for the 21st century.”  Beijing has also upgraded its ambassador in New Delhi to vice-ministerial status.

So India’s geopolitical dance card is filling up.  Officially it remains uncertain about who to take to the prom through its inclinations are becoming increasingly clearer.  Like Washington, New Delhi seeks deeper economic cooperation with Beijing and during his visit Krishna was keen to secure Chinese investment in much-needed infrastructure projects.  China is now the country’s top partner in merchandise trade and according to one estimate the two could form the world’s largest trading combination by 2030.  Moreover, a deep-seated desire for strategic autonomy will continue to limit just how close New Delhi aligns itself with Washington.

Yet Beijing’s expanding strategic reach has also become a cause of deep concern to New Delhi, leading it gradually to tighten security ties with Washington.  Over the past few years, India has moved to fortify its northeastern border areas where China has made renewed territorial claims; tested a nuclear missile capable of targeting China’s largest cities; laid down a conspicuous marker in the South China Sea dispute; ramped up its purchase of U.S. military systems and the number of exercises with U.S. forces; expanded defense relations with Japan; and begun to concert East Asia policy with Washington and Tokyo.

The cross-currents affecting New Delhi’s approach toward Beijing are on display in a report issued a few months ago by prominent members of the Indian foreign policy establishment.  Seeking to chart out a set of basic principles to guide national security policy over the next decade, the report emphasizes that strategic independence remains “the core of India’s global engagements even today.”  Yet it surprisingly had much more to say about China than about the United States.  On the former, it argued that:

China will, for the foreseeable future, remain a significant foreign policy and security challenge for India.  It is the one major power which impinges directly on India’s geopolitical space.  As its economic and military capabilities expand, its power differential with India is likely to widen….

….The challenge for Indian diplomacy will be to develop a diversified network of relations with several major powers to compel China to exercise restraint in its dealings with India, while simultaneously avoiding relationships that go beyond conveying a certain threat threshold in Chinese perceptions.

In a subsequent newspaper piece, Shyam Saran, a former foreign secretary who was involved in the report, elaborated on these themes.  He argued that it would be best, at least for the time being, to avoid the encumbrances of an alliance with Washington.  Yet he also acknowledged that:

Given the challenge that China’s apparently relentless rise poses to India, the pursuit of a “non-aligned” policy appears unwise.  The U.S. has greater affinity and empathy with India.  It supports India’s acquisition of economic and technological capabilities and has convergent concerns over Chinese hegemony.  But the U.S. has not yet determined whether, in its relative decline, its interests are better served by playing a balancing role in Asia among Asian powers including between China and India, or seeking to contain China through a network of allies. Neither precludes India and the U.S. pursuing closer partnership and both seeking a more cautious and nuanced relationship with China.

Panetta’s tour of Asia and his visit to New Delhi have addressed Saran’s concern: The Obama administration is committed to organizing a regional balance of power against China and desires India’s key assistance toward that goal.  New Delhi’s response to this overture will undoubtedly be halting, more than occasionally causing frustration in Washington.  But over time its strategic imperatives will ineluctably draw it into a closer geopolitical affiliation with the United States.

This commentary was originally posted on Chanakya’s Notebook.  I invite you to follow me on Twitter.

Missed Opportunities, Promising Trends

The year was filled with missed opportunities but also promising developments in U.S.-India relations.  2012 is shaping up to be the same.

 

President Obama’s state visit to India in early November 2010 appeared to impart new dynamism to a bilateral relationship that had been listless since his inauguration. The trip offered an effective tonic for Indian concerns that he had forsaken New Delhi in pursuit of G-2 collaboration with Beijing. The president spoke of India as “an indispensable partner of the 21st century” and dramatically endorsed its long-standing bid for permanent membership on the United Nations Security Council. Reporting on his giddily-received address to a joint session of the Indian Parliament, the Times of India noted that the “audience lapped it up, with no less than 25 rounds of applause in a barely 45-minute speech. The cherry on the cake, of course, was the ‘Jai Hind’ [Hail India] with which he concluded.”

But the promise of re-energized partnership quickly dissolved as leadership capacity in Washington and New Delhi dramatically waned. In retrospect, the trip’s maladroit timing and messaging should have been a tip-off. That the president’s Democratic Party received an electoral “shellacking” just days earlier meant that he arrived in India a much diminished political figure – a condition that became increasingly evident as time progressed. The White House also put out the word that the trip was essentially a jobs-hunting mission rather than one connected to grand strategy, telegraphing how domestic economic anxieties would continue to take attention away from the foreign policy agenda.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh also was about to undergo his own political declension. A week after the state visit, the multi-billion dollar 2G telecommunications scandal exploded, igniting a crisis of governance and corruption that continues to engulf Mr. Singh’s administration. For the past year, Singh has been forced to deny that he is a lame duck even as his Congress Party colleagues openly pine for his replacement by Rahul Gandhi and his coalition partners – especially Mamata Banerjee’s Trinamool Congress – feel increasingly free to defy him. As 2011 unfolded, it became more and more clear that Singh’s government was adrift and ineffectual.

The leadership void has contributed to the “Delhi disillusionment” that is now a staple of Washington’s foreign policy conversation as well as the transactional approach some advocate vis-à-vis India. Experts now debate just how steadfast this “indispensable partner” really is. Deputy Secretary of State William J. Burns even felt it necessary to make a rhetorical nod to this discussion with this title to a recent address: “Is There a Future for the U.S.-India Partnership?”

Whatever its technical merits, New Delhi’s rejection of Boeing and Lockheed Martin’s bids in its lucrative fighter aircraft competition – an issue on the Obama administration lobbied aggressively – was handled so ineptly that it reportedly hastened Ambassador Timothy Roemer’s departure from New Delhi. Indeed, many discerned a deliberate snub of Washington. Ditto for the stringent nuclear liability law that is so divergent from international norms that it effectively locks out U.S. participation in India’s nuclear power sector – something that the nuclear cooperation agreement was suppose to bring about. Last week’s debacle on retail sector liberalization underscored U.S. concerns that New Delhi has permitted domestic political concerns to impede closer economic interactions, while the WikiLeaks revelations about the Indian debate over the nuclear accord further undermined confidence in New Delhi’s credibility as a serious strategic partner.

All of these episodes only sharpened questions in Washington about whether New Delhi is as compelling a geopolitical collaborator as the Bush administration had envisioned. They also help explain why the Obama administration has yet to bother nominating Roemer’s successor.

To be sure, the Indians have valid reasons to complain about the paucity of American leadership. President Obama’s announcement of an accelerated disengagement from Afghanistan – a decision driven more by the exigencies of domestic politics than by a careful assessment of U.S. security objectives in South and Central Asia – affects India’s security interests in unpalatable ways. Looking towards the exits, Washington does not seem overly concerned about the exact details of a possible political settlement while New Delhi is all too focused on how the strategic terrain in its neighborhood is shifting to its detriment. This lack of solicitude explains why, according to one analysis, “few tears are being shed in the top levels of the Indian establishment over the state of ties with the US.”

Yet beyond the top-level ructions, the past year also witnessed the growing density of bilateral affairs, especially the accelerating pace of economic interactions. Even with the global economy in the doldrums, 2010 was a banner year for the trade relationship, with two-way goods exports surging nearly 30 percent to $48.8 billion. Merchandise exports were also up significantly in the first half of 2011 compared to the same period last year. All told, India is now America’s 12th largest goods trading partner and one of the fastest-growing destinations for U.S. exports. This is a welcome trend, as increased private-sector linkages are key to limiting the risks that today’s political and diplomatic frictions could escalate and disrupt the overall partnership.

Notwithstanding the disappointments over the fighter competition, the United States has also become a critical player in the ambitious military buildup India is undertaking. New Delhi was the third largest buyer of U.S. weapons this year, with purchases amounting to $4.5 billion – a level ahead of such long-time American allies as Australia, Saudi Arabia, Israel and Japan. Indeed, over the past year or so the Indian government has either purchased or taken possession of a number of key weapons systems: the AH-64D Apache attack helicopter, the C-130J Super Hercules transport aircraft, and the C-17 Globemaster III strategic transport aircraft.

Finally, as the constant parade of Cabinet officers and senior officials between the two capitals attests, bilateral relations have acquired a scope and depth that were unimaginable less than a decade ago. Among other things, Washington and New Delhi now hold regular consultations on policy vis-à-vis China, Deputy Secretary Burns has just concluded talks in New Delhi about strategic and economic cooperation, and a trilateral U.S.-India-Japan security dialogue will meet for the first time next week. Indian foreign policy elites are growing more comfortable with the notion of strategic intimacy with the United States. And the expansion of Chinese strength will undoubtedly push New Delhi to tighten its security relations with Washington in the years ahead, though the process will neither be as smooth nor as speedy as many Americans would like.

All of these factors are contributing to the steady accumulation of bilateral bonds. The key question for the approaching year is whether Washington and New Delhi will exhibit the constancy of leadership needed to capitalize on these favorable developments. Alas, the prospects do not appear promising. With 2012 shaping up to be one filled with turbulent politics in both countries, the focus of President Obama and Prime Minister Singh will continue to remain inward.

Change of Helm in Washington; Nirupama Rao to be the Ambassador

The road to becoming the Indian Foreign Secretary most certainly runs through the ambassadorships in Beijing, Islamabad and probably Kathmandu and Colombo. Nirupama did Beijing and Colombo and now after a successful stint as Foreign Secretary, is slated to become India’s most high profile ambassador – in Washington. It is customary to say that appointments like these take place at a critical or crucial juncture.  Is it a crucial time? Not more than at any other time.

credit: theindiaexperts.comAlthough a number of reasons can be found to explain why the Indo-US relationship is currently in a parlous condition. The biggest blow comes undoubtedly from the elimination of the U.S. from the MRCA competition, quite probably for purely technical reasons. But there is another side to the Nirupama story. That is the story of the U.S. ambassador in New Delhi. After the performance of absolute cracker – Jacks like Robert Blackwill, Frank Wisner, Dick Celeste and many others, the performance of the current US ambassador in Delhi has been entirely forgettable. If it meant much to the U.S. to get short listed in the MRCA competition, one wouldn’t have guessed so from the activities or the lack of them at Roosevelt House. The U.S. ambassador’s office and residence was constantly buzzing during the time of the U.S. nuclear deal, but that was probably a stunning one – off performance – when the U.S. embassy mustered a huge public relations campaign on behalf of the deal, and followed it up with a command performance at the NSG waiver at Geneva.

Since then it’s all been downhill. No visiting congressmen in Delhi – or if there were, they kept a low profile. The result of all this is that Nirupama Rao has a job in hand- putting some heat into the relationship. As the PR blurbs say, the Indo- U.S. relationship is so multi-faceted that many parts of it run on automatic. So if the U.S. didn’t get the MRCA, it did get the torpedo deal, the C -17 deal and will probably get the howitzer deal. Institutionally the Indo-US relationship is incredibly strong, running as it does through 13 forums or dialogues. These include the Strategic Dialogue, Foreign Office Consultation, Defence Planning Group, Joint Working Group on Counter Terrorism, the US-India Economic Dialogue, the CEO Forum, The Trade Policy Forum, The Energy Dialogue, Global Climate Change Dialogue, Information & Communication Dialogue, Science and Technology Forum, Education Dialogue and Health Cooperation Framework. That list should knock anyone out – but more importantly demonstrates how many joint bodies can be set up to produce very pedestrian results. In the entire run-up to the Obama visit probably one or two of these forums actually produced tangible agreements for the heads of state to sign.

The question also arises rather sharply, that if the state to state relationship runs through 13 standing forums, what can one ambassador do? Actually, she can do a lot. Because if even one or two of these forums actually click, the results can be spectacular. But this raises the important issue, of how much of the relationship is ‘managing’ and how much is old fashioned ‘diplomacy’? It probably is still a mixture, with more and more work between the two countries being conducted ‘outside’ the embassies and through the forums and through communities. Actually it was a US congressman (unnamed) who came to Delhi may years ago and said that U.S. foreign policy is controlled more through congress. According to him, other countries need to imitate China, in building up lobbies within congress rather than running formal diplomacy through the Embassy. This may or may not be true, but Nirupama has very little time to find out as she heads West to represent India in Washington. We certainly don’t want to repeat the NRI ambassador fiasco but if Nirupama can yet go beyond Foggy Bottom to get to grips with her job it would be worth watching.