meanwhile, more sucking up to the chinese

jan 13th

anantha minces no words.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: M

The Financial Express,  14 January 2006.
Edits & Columns
Saturday, January 14, 2006
Missing statecraft in the Chinese theatre

India's relationship with Beijing is marked by naivete and a singular lack
of coherence

V Anantha Nageswaran

  On a rain-swept holiday morning in Singapore on January 10, I woke up to
see two headlines on the Bloomberg news wire: 'India, China need to
cooperate on energy, Aiyar says' and 'Indian software companies risk edge by
training Chinese rivals.' To any Indian with vivid memories of Chinese
backstabbing in 1962, dealings with this nation, that has grand ambitions
and makes little effort to hide these, would be a matter of deliberation,
caution and circumspection. But, political parties—across the divide—have
bent over backwards to appease China in the incredibly naive hope that this
would make China reciprocate. China does reciprocate, and how?
• It has, together with Pakistan, worked systematically over the past two
years to block India's attempt to win a permanent seat at the UN Security
Council
• It has refused to unequivocally recognise the accession of Sikkim to India
• It has made inroads into South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation
while preventing India's entry into the East Asian Summit
• It has stirred the pot on India's nuclear deal with the US by attempting
to strike a similar deal with Pakistan so that non-proliferation zealots in
the US would drive a stake through the heart of the Indo-US nuclear deal.
Internationally, it has paid little heed to concerns about terrorism and
nuclear proliferation by continuously supplying nuclear and missile
technology to Pakistan and North Korea and by propping unsavoury regimes in
the world by purchasing their energy assets.

• Past experience points to incompetent handling of affairs involving China
• Mani Shankar Aiyar's China overtures appear to be the cry of the
vanquished
• The need of the hour is a coherent stra-tegy to deal with the middle
kingdom

In an article, 'A rise that is not so win-win', published in the
International Herald Tribune on November 15, 2005, the award-winning author
of the book, The River Runs Black, that shone a spotlight on China's
alarmingly rapid environmental deterioration, and the director of Asian
Studies at the Council of Foreign Relations in the US, had this to say about
China's peaceful rise: "...But if you look more carefully, here is what you
see: a rising power exploiting other countries' natural resources, spoiling
the global environment, making economic deals but looking away from serious
government mistreatment of its citizens and not delivering on promises."
Brazil has expressed regret, explicitly, for rushing to embrace China as a
market economy. It has seen dumping of Chinese manufactured goods in return
for export of precious raw materials from Brazil, while promised investments
from China have failed to materialise.
It is in this milieu and context that India's minister for petroleum is
calling for cooperation with China. It is not a gracious concession of the
victorious but a cry of the vanquished. China has been outbidding India in
most foreign countries where petroleum reserves are available to be
exploited. China has, therefore, no reason to collaborate with India. The
Indian minister has charged that Goldman Sachs, that managed the sale of
PetroKazakhstan assets, had changed the rules of bidding in Kazakhstan after
the bidding started, which led to India's bid being rejected.
Is it too much to expect his ministry to inform the honourable minister that
the country-head of Goldman Sachs China is the daughter of Jiang Zemin?
Fortune magazine, in its December 26, 2005 issue, profiles a Texas-based
billionaire, Richard Rainwater. This gentleman worries that "a coalition of
Communist and Islamic States might decide to stop selling their precious
crude to Americans any day now." It is this instinct for self-preservation
that has made them rich and it is this very instinct that India so willingly
barters away for nothing. In fact, India expects this very coalition of
communists and Islamic states to help meet its present and future energy
needs!
India needs a coherent China strategy. India's response to China has simply
ranged from fear to adulation to capitulation, tinged all the time with
naive hopes of a simpleton. Governance internally and statecraft externally
are the urgent need of the hour. Of course, it is not going to be easy for
the Prime Minister, who is running a coalition government whose constituents
fight battles with each other in states while co-existing at the Centre.
They are not accountable. Further, the previous government had set a bad
precedent for the Prime Minister. It gave away its trump card (Tibet) in
return for nothing and encouraged terrorism on Indian soil with its exchange
of terrorists for hostages in Kandahar. Consequently, terrorists strike at
will and at civilians everywhere and we celebrate our ability to wipe the
attacks off our memories faster.
His communist allies are not going to help either. Jerry Rao, a columnist in
this newspaper's sister publication, The Indian Express, alleges that Indian
communists are on the payrolls of Chinese capitalists ('Year of Inflexion',
IE, January 2, 2006). They return from a trip to China and start demanding
unionisation of IT-enabled services. Yet, if this Prime Minister cannot put
India first, both in domestic economic and in foreign policies, future Prime
Ministers are neither likely to be willing nor able to do anything about it.
The two major parties, by current reckoning, are unlikely to muster a
combined majority in the next Parliament. A government led by a motley crowd
of parties would be focused on self-preservation and self-aggrandisement,
more than the present one.
A safe and secure state is a minimum requirement for its citizens to pursue
gainful economic activity without insecurity. That is the least governments
in India could do for its citizens, who are probably the most resourceful on
earth. Otherwise, 8% growth rates would be unsustainable. It is what our
enemies are seeking and that is what our governments are busy delivering to
them, for now.
The writer is the founder-director of Libran Asset Management (Pte) Ltd,
Singapore. These are his personal views.

URL: http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=114412