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India-US Relations Blog

Gary Locke’s Missed Opportunity

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U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke traveled to India earlier this month for a six-day tour focused on enhancing bilateral high-tech trade and cooperation. The first U.S. Cabinet officer to come to India since President Obama’s state visit last November, he brought with him representatives from 24 U.S. companies, including Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Westinghouse.  The trip resulted in an agreement on closer collaboration in the area of energy technology as well as an announcement about the further easing of U.S. export controls on India. As one senior U.S. official accompanying Locke stated: “We have agreed to an unprecedented level of technology transfers to India and we can go even further.” Judged by the usual standards of such trade missions, the visit was not unproductive. Yet by the time Locke’s sojourn ended, one had the feeling that he nonetheless missed a good opportunity to significantly advance the bilateral economic agenda.

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Just how large a miss this was became clear a few days later, when Indian and Japanese Cabinet officials gathered in Tokyo to sign a comprehensive economic partnership agreement (CEPA). This accord provides a stark counterpoise to Locke’s visit, exemplifying the imaginative initiatives that should have been on his brief. The Indian-Japanese pact not only eases the movement of goods but also the flow of services, capital and labor.  It promises to increase the value of bilateral trade 150 percent over the next few years and has been received with great enthusiasm by the Indian business community. Indeed, the agreement is an apt economic expression of the growing partnership that the two countries are forging in the geopolitical realm.

Indian trade diplomacy is on a tear. Just days after the deal with Tokyo, New Delhi signed a similar arrangement with Kuala Lumpur, which will further deepen India’s involvement in Southeast Asia’s dynamic economy. And Commerce Minister Anand Sharma has raised expectations that trade negotiations with the 27-nation European Union will soon be concluded.  India has also concluded free trade accords with South Korea, Thailand and the ten-country Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in recent years, and has launched bilateral trade negotiations with China and Canada.

Suggestions have been floated about crafting a U.S.-India free trade agreement (FTA), an idea that would certainly result in significant economic gains for both countries. Despite dramatic increases over the past decade, the bilateral economic relationship is far from achieving critical mass and will require purposeful nurturing to reach its full potential.  Trade and investments flows between the two countries remain a small fraction of the U.S.-China level, and China recently eclipsed the United States as India’s top trading partner. Indeed, it is a telling indicator that President Obama’s visit to India netted trade deals worth some $10 billion, while Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao’s trip just a month later resulted in $16 billion in business deals – this despite the increased diplomatic tensions that color India-China relations. Moreover, the two countries used the Wen visit to announce an ambitious effort to nearly double their trade in the next five years to $100 billion annually. For all of the spectacular improvement in U.S-India ties, India is still only the 14th largest trading partner for the United States and India remains a comparatively minor destination for U.S. investment flows.

So a far-reaching multi-dimensional U.S.-India FTA deserves an important spot on the bilateral agenda, though one must also admit the difficulties in forging one. Given that Washington and New Delhi are at loggerheads in the Doha Round negotiations, as well as the unpromising political climate in the United States regarding trade policy, the prospects for a broad-based bilateral FTA are not strong in the foreseeable future.  Moreover, the agricultural access issues that will need to be included are highly problematic for both sides. Consider, for example, that India’s negotiations with the European Union have lasted nearly four years and since the EU is not a large exporter of farm products, agricultural issues have not been the major obstacle in the EU-India FTA talks that they would be in an U.S.-India negotiation. At best, Washington and New Delhi should announce a commitment to signing such an accord by 2015, even if it is one whose provisions take effect over an extended period. An excellent opportunity to make such an announcement is in early April, when the next round of the U.S.-India Strategic Dialogue convenes in New Delhi.

But even as Washington and New Delhi hash out the terms of a broad-based FTA, trade officials should focus the bulk of their energies on an accord that promises a large payoff in the immediate term. A sweeping initiative aimed at capitalizing on mutual synergies in the area of high-technology trade would do just that.

The high-tech sector plays a critical – and largely complementary – role in the economies of both nations, and the United States has been a prominent factor in the spectacular development of the Indian IT sector. Yet overall bilateral trade in advanced technology products is surprisingly low and important synergies remain untapped. And unlike a more comprehensive FTA – entailing prolonged negotiations, unwieldy bargaining tradeoffs and protracted coalition-building at home – an arrangement with a limited but sharp focus on the innovation economy could likely be formulated relatively quickly, and its self-evident “win-win” features would override bureaucratic timidity and domestic opposition.

A model for such an initiative exists in the 1997 Information Technology Agreement (ITA), which eliminated tariffs on a range of capital goods, intermediate inputs and final products in the information and communications technology sector. The agreement was negotiated by 29 original countries (then representing about 80 percent of the global IT trade). Although conducted under the auspices of the World Trade Organization, the agreement was formulated quickly outside of its normal (and cumbersome) negotiating process. The final agreement was quickly joined by other countries (including India) and currently has over 70 participants (collectively representing 97 percent of the global IT trade). The ITA is credited with spurring world trade in IT products, currently estimated at $4 trillion annually, and remains the only industry-specific comprehensive free trade agreement ever signed.

While the ITA is still in effect, its value has been significantly diluted by a series of technological developments in the period since its creation. Specifically, disputes have arisen among the signatories over how to apply the agreement to hundreds of new IT products that were not foreseen a decade ago and on addressing the issue of non-tariff barriers. Moreover, multi-party negotiations to update the ITA have been stalled for years.

In light of these problems, the United States and India should launch a bilateral effort to further liberalize trade and deepen engagement in the IT field or, even more one that covers the entire range of advanced technology products and services.  This agreement could then be opened to the participation of other like-minded countries.  Given the vital role of the high-tech sector in the American and Indian economies, not to mention the broader world economy, such an initiative would pay robust commercial dividends.  Additionally, with Washington and New Delhi at odds in the Doha Round talks, this initiative would have great political value, further solidifying the U.S.-India partnership and providing an important example of joint leadership in the global economy between developed and emerging nations.  Finally, it would be a good down payment on the Obama administration’s pledge to double U.S. exports over the next five years, as well as India’s effort to double its own trade levels.

An effort focused on crafting a bilateral free trade mechanism relevant to the advanced technology sectors would instill a level of momentum in bilateral ties that has been noticeably missing since George W. Bush left the White House. The Obama state visit succeeded in righting a relationship that had been adrift for the better part of two years.  But with the civilian nuclear accord now a done deal, officials in both governments are still searching for a bold, creative initiative capable of driving relations forward.  An exchange that occurred at the start of the Obama administration is instructive. In January 2009, Richard Boucher, then U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia, suggested to Shivshankar Menon, then India’s Foreign Secretary and now Prime Minister Singh’s National Security Advisor, that both capitals needed to find “the next big idea” to animate bilateral affairs. Menon concurred, noting that in the absence of something that captures the imagination “Indians were beginning to view the relationship with the U.S. as only about political-military and nuclear issues.”

Focusing on the high-tech agenda would be a very good way to stir imaginations in both countries. It would underscore the critical role that economic engagement has played in launching the new era in U.S.-India affairs.  Indeed, increased private-sector ties will be one key in securing the growth of broad-based, resilient relations over the long term, since they work to limit the risk that momentary political and diplomatic frictions could escalate and disrupt the overall bilateral partnership.

Defence And Strategic Affairs Blog

Dangerous Conspiracy behind Pak’s Indeterminate Nukes

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By Bhaskar Roy

Indian Review of Global Affairs


Recently, leaked reports from U.S. government sources said Pakistan’s deployed nuclear warheads may have crossed 100, surpassing India’s estimated 60 -70 warheads, with Pakistan emerging as the 5th nuclear weapon power in the world.

paknukesThe Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS), has claimed that the latest satellite imagery obtained by it shows that the fourth reactor at Khushab, Pakistan, is at an early stage of construction, and is nearly the same shape and size as the second and third reactors.

The Khushab complex planned to have four reactors.  The first was a heavy water reactor built in the 1990s and known as the Khushab Nuclear Complex-I or KNC-I.  The KNC-II, a plutonium producing reactor became operational in 1996.  It is estimated to produce 22 Kgs of plutonium per year.  The KNC-III, another plutonium reactor is scheduled to become operational this year, 2011.  The KNC-IV is now on the way, and construction work is going on well.  An expert on nuclear weapons proliferation was quoted recently as saying that the KNC-IV reiterates the point that Pakistan was determined to produce a lot of plutonium to make nuclear weapons far exceeding its need.

In addition, Pakistan has a reprocessing facility at the Pakistan Institute of Science and Technology (PINSTECH), and reports suggest other such facilities exist elsewhere in the country.

The Khushab complex also has a tritium production facility, an element that boosts the yield of a nuclear weapon.  Pakistan’s original fissile material facility remains at Kahuta.  This is a gas centrifuge, producing highly enriched uranium (HEU), estimated to produce 100 Kgs of fissile material a year.  Several other uranium enrichment facilities reportedly exist, including one at Golra Sharif, 15 Kms from Islamabad.

Kahuta was the traditional center of Pakistan’s nuclear programme.  Such centers have reportedly spread, to ensure that targeting one does not cripple Pakistan’s capabilities.

Pakistan has two types of delivery vehicles – the F-16 aircraft earlier provided by the US, and a variety of surface-to-surface missiles acquired from China and North Korea initially, and later developed in Pakistan using these designs and components.

The first nuclear weapon capable missile, the M-II with a range of 290 Kms, was acquired from China in 1991-92.  This was followed by the Nadong acquired from North Korea.  The main missiles ready are the Hatf-III (Gaznavi) with a range of 300-400 Kms; the solid fuel-IV (Shaheen), with a range over 450 Kms; and the liquid fuel Hatf-V  (Ghauri) with an approximate range of 1,300 Kms.  The solid fuel Hatf-VI (Shaheen-2), with a range of 2,000 Kms may have already been deployed or soon to be deployed.  The ground based cruise missile (Babur), and the air launched Ra’ad, with ranges around  320 Kms are under development. (see Congressional Research  Service Report, of January 13, 2011).

The above gives a glimpse of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and delivery system.  From the available information, Pakistan’s declaration of maintaining a minimum credible deterrence against India becomes questionable.  How much is still not minimum with more than 100 deployed warheads and ballistic missiles with upto a range of 2000 Kms covering most of India?  Pakistan’s current weapons stockpile is more than is required for its stated deterrence, and a doctrine which includes “first use”, as against India’s 60 to 70 warheads and declared doctrine of ‘no first use”.  Its nuclear weapons build up activities and development of long range ballistic missiles and airborne cruise missiles, suggests an ambition much beyond India.  So, what is Pakistan’s ambition that its burgeoning nuclear arsenal is going to serve?

It is well known that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons achievement is not indigenous.  It had, on the one hand, active foreign assistance which is still continuing.  It also acquired technology and know-how through its own efforts and that of a friendly country.  On the other hand, the United States and several western countries winked and looked away while blatant proliferation was indulged in by Pakistan, China and North Korea.  That is how Pakistan has emerged as the 5th largest nuclear weapons state in the world, and its activities suggest that it may surpass the U.K. and France in another decade.  Operationalization of KNC-III and KNC-IV will ensure that.

The West or NATO led by the U.S. failed to recognize those activities because of narrow geopolitical objectives.  During the cold war, the US-Pakistan-China axis evolved to counter the Soviet Union, and India was perceived as a Soviet ally.  Post cold war, the deep antipathy towards India remained for quite some time in Washington.  One cannot say with full confidence that the whole of Washington has moved away from the Pakistan appeasing line because of its current engagement in the region.

In parallel, in spite of several run-ins with China last year, the U.S. may not be keen to further antagonise China because of huge economic interests.  Militarily, the US, especially the Pentagon, is looking at Beijing more in bilateral terms (which includes the Asia Pacific region).

The history of China-Pakistan nuclear and missile cooperation is well known and needs no repetition.  The Pakistan establishment, especially the military is elated with China’s power and assistance.  It believes that it now stands toe-to-toe with India.

China created nuclear Pakistan to counter India, but the Pakistanis are unable to understand that China has used Pakistan all along.  Neither Islamabad nor the GHQ in Rawalpindi have ever stopped to objectively assess how little economic assistance they have received from China over the years.  Today China, with $2.8 trillion foreign exchange reserve, is not doing anything for Pakistan to extricate it from its economic hole.  When Pakistan suffered its worst ever floods, China did pathetically little, given its economic power.  Its investment in Pakistan is basically in the mining area which is to its own interest and in infrastructure like the Gwadar port which will serve China’s interest.  The trade imbalance between the two tells the story.  Pakistan’s economy is kept  afloat  by the U.S. and  the west.  Pakistan hardly realises that China is driving it to become a military nation, a fact which is beginning to worry most countries.  The Pakistani people will ignore this at their own peril.

Although China is a signatory to all non-proliferation regimes, it has been contravening them with impunity.  With its new found economic and military power it believes that it can do very much what it likes.
It is no secret that Pakistan continues to receive active assistance from China for its plutonium route.  It has also received technology to reduce the size of its nuclear warheads, and plutonium is, therefore, important.  The China-Pak alliance mainly targets India.  In the last two years or so China has made several assertive and aggressive moves against India.  Beijing is being extremely irresponsible, because Pakistan ultimately may not follow exactly the script written by China.  That is the emerging threat to the entire international community.
How secure is Pakistan’s nuclear asset?   The US, at the very highest level, have periodically certified that those are secure.  True, after the revelations of the A.Q. Khan Proliferation network, steps were taken to establish multi-layer security.  But the Americans agree that vulnerabilities exist, as stated by former Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) Director Maples in March, 2009.

How secure is secure in a volatile state like Pakistan with rising radical Islamism, with several factions fighting against the state?  The former IAEA Director General Mohammad EL Baradei had also expressed the fear that a radical regime could take over power in Pakistan, thereby acquiring control of the nuclear weapons.
It  must not be forgotten that A.Q. Khan and at least two of his nuclear scientist colleagues were in touch with Ossama Bin Laden and his Al Qaeda group between 1988 and 2001/2.  Intelligence reports say the Khan-Ossama meeting was facilitated by the ISI in a safe-house of the organization, and Khan was also flown to Afghanistan in an ISI helicopter.  Recent reports suggest that the Al Qaeda has been seeking fissile material and technology.

One can never be too sure that more A.Q. Khans are not sleeping inside Pakistan’s nuclear establishment.  Even the real brain behind Pakistan’s nuclear weapons programme, the low profile Dr. Samar Mubarakmand, had close friends among Islamists.  One cannot help but ask the question why Pakistan refused steadfastly to given access to the USA and the IAEA to question Khan.  Could Khan reveal names of his kind still inside the nuclear establishment and the involvement of the army in   the net-work?

The international community must ponder on the recent developments in Pakistan.  Take the case of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer.  He was killed by his own body guard because of his anti-Islamist and secular disposition.  Most  lawyers and the public declined to protest against Taseer’s killer, save a few in the media who are waging a lonely battle against the Islamists.

Fearless, liberal member of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Sherry Rehman, had to withdraw her bill on Blasphemy Amendment law under pressure from the party and Prime Minister Yusaf Raja Gilani.  The government succumbed to the threat from the Islamists.  The banned terrorist organization, the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) can gather  20,000 people on the streets with a click of their fingers.  The LET remains banned in Pakistan in name only.

In all this, the Pakistan army remained silent.  It is well known that the government cannot move one inch in issues related to security and foreign policy without the army’s clearance.  So, what was the army’s role in the government giving way to the Islamists?  It may be recalled that radical Islamism was brought to the fore by the Pakistani army, especially Gen. and President Zia-ul-Haq.  The Islamist groups remain assets of the army in Afghanistan and in the operations against India.

The silence of the international community over Pakistan’s rapid accumulation of nuclear weapons, and China’s assistance, is confounding.  The obvious answer is Pakistan’s importance in combating extremists and militants in Afghanistan and Pakistan, though it is evident whatever Pakistan has done in fighting terrorism has been done under pressure.

Imagine a man like Zia-ul-Haq, becoming the Chief of the army and, in a coup, takes over the government. With such a huge nuclear arsenal which is still growing, Pakistan will not remain India-centric.  It will move against the Christian west with the U.S. as the central target. 9/11 may look like a school play compared to what they can do.  This may be an extreme scenario.  More likely is the possibility of fissile material with dirty bomb technology falling in the hands of the jehadis across the region. Jehadis have among them highly educated technology savvy members.

The U.S. and the west remain short sighted and narrowly focussed, refusing to acknowledge and address a growing threat of dimensions never seen before.  The U.S. must accept that the billions of dollars it is pumping into Pakistan for development is not feeding the hungry but fattening the war machine of Pakistan.

(The article originally appeared at www.irgamag.com. USINPAC and IRGA are content partners.)

Defence And Strategic Affairs Blog

FMCT Negotiations: Games Pakistan Plays

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By P R Chari
Indian Review of Global Affairs

Pakistan is at it again. Whenever it is in trouble, Pakistan turns up the volume of its anti-India rhetoric. Suicide terrorism is taking a daily toll of lives in Pakistan. Its Afghanistan policy is going nowhere. The Pakistan army is obsessed with gaining ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan, and has drafted the Taliban to achieve this objective. But, elements of the Taliban have turned against Pakistan, and are indulging in sustained, uncontrollable violence within the country. The assassination of Salman Taseer – a voice of reason raised against Pakistan’s medieval blasphemy laws – highlights the growing Islamization and chaos in Pakistan. Taseer’s murder was condemnable, but the horrifying fact is that his assassin has become a national hero. Rose petals were showered on him when he was produced in court. Lawyers are flocking to defend him. Liberal opinion in Pakistan, on the other hand, has been marginalized.

In true Nero-fashion Pakistan has now blocked negotiations on the Fissile Materials Cutoff Treaty (FMCT) in Geneva. Its Ambassador, Zamir Akram, has argued that by ceasing fissile materials production, Pakistan would concede a ‘strategic advantage’ to India. The WikiLeaks inform that Pakistan is currently manufacturing nuclear weapons faster than any other country, according to a cable sent by the U.S. embassy in Islamabad to Washington. A recent study by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists also informs that Pakistan possesses more nuclear weapons than India, but is feverishly manufacturing fissile materials to further enlarge its inventory. Nuclear weapons are not comparable to conventional weapons, and adding to their numbers beyond a point makes no sense. But, this logic is unlikely to impress Pakistan, whose defense and foreign policy is basically driven by the obsessions of the Pakistan Army. Zamir Akram had another grouse. President Obama had pledged to assist India’s admission into the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Missile Technology Control Regime, the Australia Group and the Waasenaar Arrangement during his visit to New Delhi last November. Delivering on that promise the United States has very recently removed export controls on several Indian space and defense-related organizations, signaling a new era in U.S.-India nonproliferation cooperation. Zamir argued that this represented a “paradigm shift in strategic terms.”

Pakistan is actually hoping to somehow revive the debate on the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal that was generated in 2008 when that deal was under process. The Bush administration had hammered that deal through the U.S. Congress, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), despite reservations voiced in some countries, collectively named the White Knights. Pakistan is seeking a similar dispensation, and China is working hard to provide Pakistan a comparable nuclear deal by supplying two more 300 MW atomic power reactors for its Chashma complex. Without going into the legal complexities involved, it should be noticed that China needs to place this matter before the Nuclear Suppliers Group for getting its prior approval. A similar approval had been obtained by the United States before finalizing the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal. China is reluctant to pursue this route in the knowledge that the NSG may not endorse this deal between two blatant proliferators in the international system.

Reverting back to the collaterally damaged and stalled FMCT negotiations Rose Gottemoeller, Assistant Secretary of State, has unequivocally declared, “Let me just place full emphasis and priority today on my main message, which is to launch the negotiations this year on a fissile material cutoff treaty in the Conference on Disarmament.” She added, “That is a kind of general time frame,” though 2011 was not a “specific deadline.” In diplomatic language these words amount to expressing extreme displeasure with Pakistan, and with good reason. The 65-nation Conference on Disarmament transcended a ten-year deadlock in 2009 by agreeing to address four issues: nuclear disarmament, a fissile material cut-off pact, the prohibition of space-based weapons, and an agreement on non-use of nuclear weapons by nuclear-armed countries against non-nuclear weapon states. Pakistan has reneged now after endorsing this plan, which derails President Obama’s hopes to operationalize his disarmament agenda; hence, Gottemoeller’s subsequent threat, “If we cannot find a way to begin these negotiations in the Conference on Disarmament, then we will need to consider options.”

And, what could be these options? Most effectively, by stopping financial assistance to keep a bankrupt Pakistan afloat. And, cutting off arms transfers, which includes spares and ancillaries, would heighten pressure on Pakistan’s armed forces who are its real rulers. Can the United States afford to ignore Pakistan’s logistics support to sustain the American and ISAF operations in Afghanistan? Will China bail out its distressed ally by defying the international community in this effort, and promoting a further closing of ranks by its neighbours? The United States and China will, no doubt, weigh all their options carefully. Pakistan seems likely to witness interesting times.

(The article originally appeared at www.irgamag.com. USINPAC and IRGA are content partners.)

Defence And Strategic Affairs Blog

Invading the strategic space: the Dragon fires another salvo at India

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By A Adityanjee
Indian Review of Global Affairs

The Chinese have fired yet another salvo in its cloak and dagger strategic games directed at India. It has gone totally unnoticed in the Indian media but for the last few days, both the Peoples’ Daily of China and the China Daily along with their Indian Sinophile minions have been crowing about the latest Chinese “smart” success in invading India’s international strategic space. By itself, the current Chinese salvo seems pretty innocuous but it has far reaching consequences. The stapled visa issue also started as an innocuous action by low level visa officers in the Chinese embassy. One has to read in between the tea leaves to ascertain Chinese motives. By these aggressive containment efforts, China has proved once again that it is not a friend or an ally of India but at worst a determined and hostile strategic adversary and at best a peer competitor.

There is a very clear cut pattern to Chinese geo-political endeavours. China is behaving as a classical hegemon that is determined to prevent emergence of a rival power by any means. Despite India’s serious reservations, a few years ago, China manipulated the SAARC process to enter as an observer, on an  Invitation from Nepal, Pakistan and Bangladesh When India wanted to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the full membership was frozen and India was again hyphenated with Pakistan and Iran as an observer. China is the only country among the P5 nations that has yet to endorse India’s candidature for the permanent membership of the UNSC. This, even though China has been making noises about harmony, democracy and consensus building in the UNSC reform process. This will help the Coffee Group (so-called United for Consensus group) orchestrated by Pakistan.

China had initially put up a number of conditions at the time of approval of the India-US civil nuclear energy deal by the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG). Ultimately, the U.S. forced China to support the deal in the NSG. Now, China wants a similar deal in the NSG for its all-weather friend and client state Pakistan. Turning to the ASEAN, China has, for last several years prevented India’s entry by stringently opposing the ASEAN plus six formula that includes India (ASEAN, Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea and US) while supporting the ASEAN plus three formula (ASEAN, China, U.S. and Japan). We also see continued exclusion of India from the APEC (Asia-Pacific Economic Conference). Primarily as a result of Chinese machinations, the APEC is not ready to enlarge itself. If we carefully analyse the Chinese behaviour towards India, not only has China tried to confine India to the sub-continent as a mere regional player, but also China has made no secret of its efforts to contain India’s rising profile in other international fora to suit its narrow mercantile and hegemonic purposes.

At the same time, China has been seconding the Manmohan Singh mantra about the world having enough space for both China and India to rise peacefully at the same time. Similar to Nehru’s endorsement of “Panchsheel”, the current Indian PM has fallen in the same trap laid by China for India in the international organizations. Nehru was privately characterised as a “useful idiot” by the Chinese leadership. One wonders what Hu Jintao is saying about Dr. Singh privately. A few years ago, India’s then petroleum minister Mani Shankar Aiyar was naively talking about developing hydrocarbon resources jointly with China, while China successfully outbid India for every hydrocarbon asset internationally whether in Africa or closer to home in Myanmar. Indian politicians have failed to learn from the previous treacherous behaviour on part of China, and regularly succumb to Chinese bullying. The lack of proactive strategic planning has always been missing from India’s leadership’s mindset and time and again we are left to react to geo-political situations by fire-fighting each avoidable crisis.

Although India and China have tangoed at the G20, RIC, BRIC, BASIC and SCO groupings for a few years now, China has been keen to neutralise India’s influence in the IBSA, a grouping that excludes China specifically. India has been lukewarm to the idea of China joining the IBSA because China is not a democracy while all the three countries of IBSA are thriving democracies in three separate continents. China has been working very hard with Brazil and South Africa for the last couple of years to achieve its stated purpose. The next BRIC meeting is scheduled in April 2011 in Beijing. And, lo and behold, China has had the chutzpah to foist South Africa on to the BRIC. Enlarging the economic grouping to BRICS tremendously helps China’s foreign policy objectives of containing Indian economic, strategic, political and diplomatic influence. China has effectively managed to collapse BRIC and IBSA into one single grouping (BRICS). Currently China is South Africa’s largest trading partner and South Africa is the largest destination in Africa for China’s direct investment. South Africa’s small population, the size of its economy and the relatively slow growth rate did not meet the original BRIC standards. By inviting South Africa to BRIC(S), China has deftly dented India’s economic outreach in Africa. China has also quickly out-manoeuvred the proposed India-US collaboration and cooperation in Africa as suggested by President Barack Obama during his November 2010 India trip recently.

By this master-stroke, China has shown the audacity to adopt the colonial and imperialistic policy of “Divide and Rule” vis-a-vis the G4 countries (Brazil, India, Germany and Japan) who are aspiring to be members of the UNSC as permanent members. Brazil has been torn asunder from the G4 in toto and firmly aligned with China in the now enlarged BRICS. By claiming the leadership of BRICS and harping on its political role in the developing world, China has tried to marginalise India’s rise as an emerging pole in the emerging oligo-polar geo-political balance of power hierarchy. For all practical purposes, we can say goodbye to IBSA as an economic vehicle for India to access increasingly lucrative African and Latin American markets. Chinese efforts are ostensibly geared towards strengthening South Africa’s and Brazil’s claims for the UNSC permanent membership while simultaneously over-looking and demeaning India’s global role. People’s Daily Online ominously notes that “In 2011, all the members of the BRICS countries will serve as members of the UN security council, permanent or non-permanent. Their active roles deserve people’s attention in the year to come”. China Daily, while neglecting India focuses on the role of China, Russia and Brazil have played in the international arena.

India has now very hard strategic choices. It should insist that BRICS in its latest avatar must remain primarily an economic block without any scope for creeping politicisation of the economic group into a geo-political formation. India cannot be seen to be opposing South Africa’s entry into the BRICS for historical, diplomatic and geo-political reasons, though it remains lukewarm to the proposal. India should take a serious note of China’s audacious move in the international chess game and counteract it by joining the ASEAN formally, resurrecting the BIMSTEC and vigorously strengthening the IBSA as a trade block. India should use her current membership of the UNSC to catapult into the NSG as a full-fledged member. India should make determined efforts to join the proposed East Asian Economic Community and prevent her further exclusion from any economic or trade group in order to balance China’s growing influence in international economic diplomacy.

(Dr Adityanjee is President, Council for Strategic Affairs, New Delhi)


(The article originally appeared at www.irgamag.com. USINPAC and IRGA are content partners.)

Defence And Strategic Affairs Blog

‘Ugly Stability’ in Southern Asia

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The key geo-strategic challenges in Southern Asia emanate from the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan and on the AfPak border; unresolved territorial disputes between India and China, and India-Pakistan; and, the almost unbridled scourge of radical extremism that is sweeping across the strategic landscape.

In May 1998, India and Pakistan had crossed the nuclear Rubicon and declared themselves states armed with nuclear weapons. Tensions are inherent in the possession of nuclear weapons by neighbours with a long history of conflict. The latest manifestation of this long-drawn conflict is the 20-year old state-sponsored ‘proxy war’ waged by Pakistan’s ISI-controlled mercenary terrorists against the Indian state.

While there was some nuclear sabre-rattling between India and Pakistan, particularly during the Kargil conflict, the two nations have never come close to a situation of deterrence breakdown. The “ugly stability” that is prevailing can be attributed primarily to India’s unwavering strategic restraint in the face of grave provocation, democratic checks and balances in its policy processes and tight civilian control over its nuclear forces. However, the Pakistan army, which also controls the country’s nuclear arsenal, has lost India’s trust after the Kargil conflict and the terrorist strikes at Mumbai. It is capable of once again stepping up trans-LoC terrorism or even engendering a Kargil-like situation that could escalate to a major war.

India’s border with China has been relatively more stable than that with Pakistan. However, China is in physical occupation of 38,000 sq km of Indian territory in Ladakh, J&K, and China claims the entire Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh (96,000 sq km) in the north-east. Even the Line of Actual Control (LAC) has not been demarcated on the ground and on military maps. Recently China has exhibited unprecedented assertiveness in its diplomacy and military posture. Until the territorial dispute between the two countries is resolved satisfactorily, another border conflict cannot be ruled out even though the probability is quite low.

China does not recognise India as a state armed with nuclear weapons and demands that India should go back to a non-nuclear status in terms of UNSC Resolution 1172 and, hence, refuses to discuss nuclear confidence building measures (CBMs) and nuclear risk reduction measures (NRRMs) with India. There is also a collusive nexus between China and Pakistan for nuclear weapons, nuclear-capable missiles and military hardware. Most analysts in India believe that this nexus will lead to India having to face a two-front situation during any future conflict.

The prevailing security environment in Southern Asia is not conducive to long-term strategic stability even though in the short-term there is no cause for major concern. India is developing robust military capabilities and is in the process of upgrading its military strategy against China from dissuasion to deterrence. In the nuclear weapons field, India is moving towards the deployment of the third leg of its triad, i.e. a nuclear-powered submarine armed with a submarine launched nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles (SSBN with SLBMs). This will give India genuine nuclear deterrence capability so as to prevent deterrence breakdown and reduce the risk of nuclear exchanges in any future conflict.

(Gurmeet Kanwal is Director, Centre for Land Warfare Studies (CLAWS), New Delhi.)