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ON THE 13-hour flight next week from Washington to Delhi, George Bush
could do a lot worse than to put aside his briefing books and curl up
instead with E.M. Forster's best-known novel. "A Passage to India" is
a tale, above all, of misunderstanding: of wrong signals, exaggerated
expectations, offence unwittingly caused and taken, and inevitable
disappointment. It is a parable of the complications that arise when
eager Anglo-Saxons go travelling on the Indian subcontinent.
A degree of wide-eyed enthusiasm on Mr Bush's part is forgivable.
India is a rich and exotic prize. Its booming high-tech service sector
and tens of millions of affluent consumers have already convinced many
of the world's business people that India is on the brink of
replicating the astonishing burst of growth that transformed China
from poor-house to power-house in little more than two decades. Add in
the seductive fact that this "new China" is the world's largest
democracy, and the arguments for forging a much closer partnership
between India and America seem unassailable.
Rising India
It would not be before time, either. America has neglected India in
the past. When Bill Clinton went to Delhi in 2000, his was the first
presidential visit for 22 years, and it is surely not a good thing
that Mr Bush has waited quite so long to make his own inaugural trip
there. India is a nuclear power, home to more Muslims than any country
but Indonesia; and it borders China, which many American policymakers
see as at best a growing rival and at worst a future enemy. India is
seldom regarded in the same way, even though it favoured the Soviet
side in the cold war and even though Indian firms offer just as tough
competition for parts of America's service sector as Chinese factories
do to low-end manufacturing.
Despite all this, there are reasons (see article) to urge both sides
to tread as carefully as angels before they rush in to an
over-enthusiastic partnership. Mr Bush needs to avoid two kinds of
mistake. The first, and most serious, would be to shower America's new
friend with gifts that the United States can ill afford.
Unfortunately, this has already happened. In July, when India's prime
minister, Manmohan Singh, visited Washington, he came home with a
remarkable present: a promise from Mr Bush that he would aim to share
American civilian nuclear technology with India.
That was too generous. Under American and international law, such
technology can be given only to countries that have renounced nuclear
weapons and joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. India has
never joined the treaty, and it tested nuclear weapons in 1998. Mr
Bush, in effect, was driving a coach and horses through the treaty in
order to suit his own strategic ends, a move that invites the
accusation of hypocrisy from other nuclear states and wannabes not so
favoured. The idea was that India, in return, should take steps to
satisfy the Americans on a long list of nuclear-security concerns,
such as not exporting weapons technology and continuing to observe a
moratorium on testing. Most important, India was asked to separate its
civilian and military nuclear programmes, with the former subject to a
rigorous inspection regime.
So far, however, the proposals offered by the Indians actually to do
all this are far from adequate. As Mr Bush packs his bags, desperate
attempts are being made to bridge the gap. The obvious danger is that
in order to portray his summit as a success Mr Bush will be tempted to
accept even fewer safeguards from India. That would be a dangerous
mistake: nuclear proliferation matters too much to allow excessive
wiggle-room or create bad precedents. Fortunately, whatever deal is
agreed between Mr Bush and Mr Singh will also require the approval of
America's Congress, which has already taken a dim view of Mr Bush's
nuclear generosity to India.
Fearful China
Sending the wrong signal on nuclear weapons is not the only potential
pitfall in America's romance with India. Mr Bush should also be wary
of sending the wrong signal about America's intentions towards China.
Too often when Indian-American relations are discussed in Washington,
the notion is invoked that India might somehow turn out to be a
"counterweight" to China. Yet it is hard to see, in practical terms,
what sort of counterweight India could actually be. On the contrary,
that sort of talk is liable only to reinforce China's fear that
America's grand strategic design is to encircle it and block its rise
as a great power. That fear has already been strengthened by America's
recent transfer of some of its military might from the Atlantic to the
Pacific.
The United States should not base its Asian strategy on that sort of
balance-of-power diplomacy. Apart from anything else, India is far too
canny, and cares too much about its own China relationship, to be
drawn into such a game. Instead of encircling China, Mr Bush should
concentrate on putting the American relationship with it on the right
footing: deeper engagement, coupled with a determination to make China
play by the rules. Yet Mr Bush's approach to this rising superpower
has sometimes seemed almost casual: Hu Jintao, China's president, had
been made to wait far too long for his state visit to Washington even
before Hurricane Katrina forced him to cancel a visit last August. And
Mr Bush has not worked hard enough at home to make the free-trade case
against the protectionist hawks gunning for China (though, to be fair
to him, he has not given them much comfort either).
Mr Bush must also take care to ensure that friendship with India does
not damage his close ties to Pakistan, another American ally the
president intends to visit on this trip. Pakistan is infinitely more
fragile than India, but right now of much greater strategic
significance to America. It is central to the fight against the
remnants of al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. On top of that,
it has an awful record of selling (by unauthorised freelancers, claims
its government) nuclear-weapons technology on the open market.
Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, has lately shown signs of
flexibility towards his country's long and dangerous dispute with
India over Kashmir. But both countries need to show flexibility on
Kashmir, and Mr Bush must take care not to tilt so far India's way
that the Indians feel under no pressure to make concessions of their
own. That will merely weaken Mr Musharraf and enfeeble a valuable
American ally.
India itself has much to lose if its love-in with America goes wrong.
For Mr Singh personally, the stakes are quite high. By backing
American efforts to tackle Iran's nuclear ambitions, he has infuriated
the left-wing parties on whose support his minority government
depends, as well as some of his own party colleagues. If he cannot
pull off a decent nuclear deal of his own, he will suffer for it. He
is already learning that America's embrace is not the uncomplicated
affair he might have hoped for. A visionary Indian project would see
gas piped from Iran, via Pakistan. But as relations between America
and Iran rapidly deteriorate, America is ever more reluctant to see it
go ahead. Meanwhile, India's growing trade with America, whether in
textiles or software services, is starting to run into a new
generation of Asia-bashers in America. As E.M. Forster knew, no
passage to India is ever entirely smooth.
--
"Bart! With $10,000 we'd be millionaires! We could buy all kinds of
useful things... like love." -- Homer J. Simpson
