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Comparisons between China and India are informative sometimes, in some areas, though both are very different countries.
China got the Permanent Seat in the UNSC in the 1960's, in the Middle of the Wonderful Cultural Revolution, ongoing threats and disputes with Taiwan, no guarantees to the USA that China would not help the North Vietnamese fight the Americans, and hostile posturing against ALL in-sundry including the USA and Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union were so alarmed by Chairman Mao and his antics within and without his country that by the late 1960's they were contemplating a full scale conventional/nuclear attack against China, concentrated in the Manchurian area.
However the USSR was dissuaded from that idea eventually, through concerted American pressure.
China though a significant Third World power, had great limitations in the 1960's. The average Chinese were desperately poor, with millions starving due to Mao's economic policies.
There is however a historical linkage between the USA and China which has been missing between India and the USA, all of which affect relations between nations, great and small alike.
China is a natural country to admire given its ancient civilization, and its sheer size.
Napoleon Bonaparte once said of China, "Let her sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world."?
With the USA this was reinforced by American missionaries further romanticizing the nation, in a Dudley do-right WASP kind of way. I have come across a few of them all glazed eyed.
British Raj rule initially blocked out the USA from India along with British Fabian Socialism until 1991. American perceptions of India were thus not very clear, and heavily influenced by Anglophiles within the USA elite structure (the bald short nasty guy is a metaphor for Mahatma Gandhi.)
Since the 1960's and the "Flower Power era" Americans have become more familiar with India, especially now with 2 million Indians residing in the country. Since 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union along with India's reforms has moved the country further closer to the USA. Economic, cultural and security cooperation is increasing between the two nations. Indian students account for the largest foreign element in American universities. All good, both nations can fundamentally and mutually benefit.
I happen to think a permanent seat on the UNSC is India's natural right, nothing to strive for but a mere formality to be carried through, led and initiated by the USA within a few weeks or even months, just as the USA did with China in the 1960's. Rabid hard line Communist China.
I think putting Sisyphean conditionality's on what is India's natural right is biased and racist. The two are separate issues.
The Kashmir problem on-going for 63 years will take a couple more years to solve.
It is the height of impertinence for the USA to create benchmarks for India over an issue that has seen very little success lately, AND not for any want on India's part for making honest sincere efforts, consistently over many years. Such a peculiar benchmark suggests India hasn't tried hard enough, as per any cliche school masters reports to the parents. It absurdly even suggests that the USA cares more about India/Pakistan peace than India does and realizes.
The USA controls Pakistan. Zardari visits the American embassy, next door to his Presidential Palace every day to consult with his real master who through rigged elections put him in power in 2008.
The USA controls the ISI, which the USA bankrolls and manages most of its operations within Pakistan, if not without. The USA controls the Pakistan army, funding it, and training its top brass in the USA. The USA controls and has exclusive rights to military bases in Pakistan. The USA has the right to kill Pakistani civilians, within sovereign Pakistan territory in the pursuit of utter nonsense, with the aid of the Pakistani military. The USA has marshaled $25 billion over several years via USA direct aid civilian/military for Pakistan, and the IMF and WB, which are essential annexes to American power based in Washington to further reinforce the USA's control of the hapless failed state number 10.
It is the USA which could easily tomorrow order the Pakistani military to sign on any peace declaration with India over Kashmir, and the Pakistani generals would do so.
Certainly one hopes the Obama visit to India in November will produce productive agreements between the two nations which will substantively enhance relations between the two great nations and civilizations. Certainly the Pro-American lobby in India, significant as it is will be hoping for this.
At a minimum the Obama visit in November should not be a repetition of the Clinton visit of 2000 to India, at the very end of his second term. In that 5 day visit there was much fanfare, but NOTHING in the way of significantly upgrading of relations between the two countries....especially in the area of trade and commerce. For Clinton it was more of a State holiday and just another opportunity playing the world statesman role. Empty hollow platitudes, playing India for a sucker whereon much was anticipated in India, and certainly hinted before the visit, but in the end nothing realized.
Trade between China and the USA is worth $400 billion, but heavily in China's favor due to American government action solely ....(MFNs, tax breaks, tariffs, customs checks etc). China exports $340 billion to the USA, and the USA $60 billion to China. Although China is catching up and improving through experience and open competition, but still a lot of the Chinese goods are not of good quality. Astoundingly the USA is buying into Chinese debt at a rate of $300 billion a year, so that now China is the defacto banker to the USA, and American officials such as Geitner et al crawl and grovel to them to increase the currency value of the yuan to a more realistic level, which in turn gives American industry a level playing field.
I can understand the Dudley Do Rights in America and their rather childish puppy love for another nation, which may be subject to change given enough rational nuanced persuasion for the sake of self preservation.
Obviously what India needs is a massive bolstering of trade between the two nations (one tenth of China's....$40 billion India/USA trade 2010) India isn't looking for "free trade" of the USA/China type, but rather one that is more equitable. Mutually beneficial for both nations people, and businesses. It is suggested Obama marshal a small army of trade & commerce experts from the American Chamber of Commerce; India/American PAC and so forth to do a shortlist of the areas where there can be a MASSIVE BOLSTERING of trade between the two nations to say $300 billion by 2015. $150 billion Indian exports to the USA, AND $150 billion USA exports to India.
In between the usual serving of platitudes, pulpit African American style sermonizing and visits to the Taj Mahal blah blah blah....... Obama needs to sign serious significant trade agreements between the two nations which PERMANENTLY jacks up trade, and thus increases the transnational interdependence between the two nations which fundamentally brings them closer in the real sense. We can still love China, it is not at the cost of going against China.
_____________________________
China got the Permanent Seat in the UNSC in the 1960's, in the Middle of the Wonderful Cultural Revolution, ongoing threats and disputes with Taiwan, no guarantees to the USA that China would not help the North Vietnamese fight the Americans, and hostile posturing against ALL in-sundry including the USA and Soviet Union.
The Soviet Union were so alarmed by Chairman Mao and his antics within and without his country that by the late 1960's they were contemplating a full scale conventional/nuclear attack against China, concentrated in the Manchurian area.
However the USSR was dissuaded from that idea eventually, through concerted American pressure.
China though a significant Third World power, had great limitations in the 1960's. The average Chinese were desperately poor, with millions starving due to Mao's economic policies.
There is however a historical linkage between the USA and China which has been missing between India and the USA, all of which affect relations between nations, great and small alike.
China is a natural country to admire given its ancient civilization, and its sheer size.
Napoleon Bonaparte once said of China, "Let her sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world."?
With the USA this was reinforced by American missionaries further romanticizing the nation, in a Dudley do-right WASP kind of way. I have come across a few of them all glazed eyed.
British Raj rule initially blocked out the USA from India along with British Fabian Socialism until 1991. American perceptions of India were thus not very clear, and heavily influenced by Anglophiles within the USA elite structure (the bald short nasty guy is a metaphor for Mahatma Gandhi.)
Since the 1960's and the "Flower Power era" Americans have become more familiar with India, especially now with 2 million Indians residing in the country. Since 1991, with the collapse of the Soviet Union along with India's reforms has moved the country further closer to the USA. Economic, cultural and security cooperation is increasing between the two nations. Indian students account for the largest foreign element in American universities. All good, both nations can fundamentally and mutually benefit.
I happen to think a permanent seat on the UNSC is India's natural right, nothing to strive for but a mere formality to be carried through, led and initiated by the USA within a few weeks or even months, just as the USA did with China in the 1960's. Rabid hard line Communist China.
I think putting Sisyphean conditionality's on what is India's natural right is biased and racist. The two are separate issues.
The Kashmir problem on-going for 63 years will take a couple more years to solve.
It is the height of impertinence for the USA to create benchmarks for India over an issue that has seen very little success lately, AND not for any want on India's part for making honest sincere efforts, consistently over many years. Such a peculiar benchmark suggests India hasn't tried hard enough, as per any cliche school masters reports to the parents. It absurdly even suggests that the USA cares more about India/Pakistan peace than India does and realizes.
The USA controls Pakistan. Zardari visits the American embassy, next door to his Presidential Palace every day to consult with his real master who through rigged elections put him in power in 2008.
The USA controls the ISI, which the USA bankrolls and manages most of its operations within Pakistan, if not without. The USA controls the Pakistan army, funding it, and training its top brass in the USA. The USA controls and has exclusive rights to military bases in Pakistan. The USA has the right to kill Pakistani civilians, within sovereign Pakistan territory in the pursuit of utter nonsense, with the aid of the Pakistani military. The USA has marshaled $25 billion over several years via USA direct aid civilian/military for Pakistan, and the IMF and WB, which are essential annexes to American power based in Washington to further reinforce the USA's control of the hapless failed state number 10.
It is the USA which could easily tomorrow order the Pakistani military to sign on any peace declaration with India over Kashmir, and the Pakistani generals would do so.
Certainly one hopes the Obama visit to India in November will produce productive agreements between the two nations which will substantively enhance relations between the two great nations and civilizations. Certainly the Pro-American lobby in India, significant as it is will be hoping for this.
At a minimum the Obama visit in November should not be a repetition of the Clinton visit of 2000 to India, at the very end of his second term. In that 5 day visit there was much fanfare, but NOTHING in the way of significantly upgrading of relations between the two countries....especially in the area of trade and commerce. For Clinton it was more of a State holiday and just another opportunity playing the world statesman role. Empty hollow platitudes, playing India for a sucker whereon much was anticipated in India, and certainly hinted before the visit, but in the end nothing realized.
Trade between China and the USA is worth $400 billion, but heavily in China's favor due to American government action solely ....(MFNs, tax breaks, tariffs, customs checks etc). China exports $340 billion to the USA, and the USA $60 billion to China. Although China is catching up and improving through experience and open competition, but still a lot of the Chinese goods are not of good quality. Astoundingly the USA is buying into Chinese debt at a rate of $300 billion a year, so that now China is the defacto banker to the USA, and American officials such as Geitner et al crawl and grovel to them to increase the currency value of the yuan to a more realistic level, which in turn gives American industry a level playing field.
I can understand the Dudley Do Rights in America and their rather childish puppy love for another nation, which may be subject to change given enough rational nuanced persuasion for the sake of self preservation.
Obviously what India needs is a massive bolstering of trade between the two nations (one tenth of China's....$40 billion India/USA trade 2010) India isn't looking for "free trade" of the USA/China type, but rather one that is more equitable. Mutually beneficial for both nations people, and businesses. It is suggested Obama marshal a small army of trade & commerce experts from the American Chamber of Commerce; India/American PAC and so forth to do a shortlist of the areas where there can be a MASSIVE BOLSTERING of trade between the two nations to say $300 billion by 2015. $150 billion Indian exports to the USA, AND $150 billion USA exports to India.
In between the usual serving of platitudes, pulpit African American style sermonizing and visits to the Taj Mahal blah blah blah....... Obama needs to sign serious significant trade agreements between the two nations which PERMANENTLY jacks up trade, and thus increases the transnational interdependence between the two nations which fundamentally brings them closer in the real sense. We can still love China, it is not at the cost of going against China.
_____________________________
Obama's pitch: Fix Kashmir for UN Security Council seat
By Chidanand Rajghatta of the Times of India.
Go for a Kashmir solution and help bring stability to the region for a ticket to UN Security Council membership and fulfilling your big power aspirations. That's the broad message President Barack Obama will be bringing to New Delhi during his upcoming November visit to India, preparation for which are in full swing in Washington DC.
The Kashmir settlement-for-seat at high table idea (euphemism for UNSC membership) is being discussed animatedly in the highest levels of the US administration, according to a various sources. President Obama himself has decided to revive the process of a US push in this direction, albeit discreetly, because of New Delhi's sensitivities.
Key administration officials are confirming that the UNSC issue will be on Obama's agenda when he visits New Delhi. The US President is expected to announce an incremental American support to India's candidature during his address to the joint session of India's parliament, depending on New Delhi's receptiveness to resolving the Kashmir tangle.
"[UNSC reforms] is something that is under discussion as we prepare for the President's important visit," US Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake confirmed on Monday during a read-out of the meeting between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her Indian counterpart S.M.Krishna, saying the two had agreed the "President's visit will be a defining moment in the history of our bilateral relations."
The clearest insight into Obama's thinking on the matter comes from Bob Woodward's latest book "Obama's War" in which top US policy makers are shown mulling on defusing the Kashmir situation as part of an exit strategy for US from the AfPak theater.
"Why can't we have straightforward talks with India on why a stable Pakistan is crucial?" Obama is reported as musing at one meeting. "India is moving toward a higher place in its global posture. A stable Pakistan would help." Implicit in the rumination is the idea that settling Kashmir would mollify Pakistan, where, US officials say, hardliners are using the unresolved issue as an excuse to breed an army of terrorists aimed at bleeding India.
But that is easier said than done, according to Bruce Riedel, author of the Obama administration's Af-Pak strategy, who has canvassed the centrality of the Kashmir issue to peace and stability in the region. The spoiler to any settlement is the hardline Pakistani military and its jihadist proxies for whom attrition and confrontation with India is an article of faith.
In fact, the solution Washington has in mind (also proposed by Riedel) is likely more palatable to New Delhi than to Islamabad. It's on the same lines of what Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistan's deposed military leader Pervez Musharraf broadly agreed on before the latter was turfed out of office: The Line of Control would become the international border, but it would be a soft, permeable border, allowing Kashmiris on both sides to move back and forth. The rest – safeguards, procedures etc – is a matter of detail.
"President Obama's strategy for dealing with Afghanistan and Pakistan always needed a Kashmir component to succeed; that need is becoming more urgent and obvious now. His trip to India in November will be a key to addressing it," Riedel said in a commentary this week.
"India cannot become a global power with a prosperous economy if its neighbor is a constant source of terror armed with the bomb. A sick Pakistan is not a good neighbor," he added, echoing Obama's words (Woodward's book also suggests he influenced Obama's thinking).
Virtually setting the agenda for Obama's India visit, Riedel says Obama's challenge is to quietly help Islamabad and New Delhi work behind the scenes to get back to the deal Musharraf and Singh negotiated. "He will have a chance to work this subtly when he visits India in November," he writes.
But Riedel and other US policy makers portrayed in Woodward's book also recognize that the biggest hurdle to a settlement is a hardline Pakistani military. While the civilian leadership in Pakistan would like to embrace the deal "it is unclear if the army chief, General Kayani, is on board."
Woodward's book shows that most top US officials, save Admiral Mike Mullen, believe Kayani to be a closet jihadi and a two-faced "liar" intent on perpetuating war with India. "I'll be the first to admit it, I'm India-centric," Kayani is quoted as telling US officials in one exchange.
Although three top cabinet principals from India -- S.M.Krishna, A.K.Antony, and Pranab Mukherjee -- are in the US this week and next, exchanges on the UNSC and Kashmir are said to be taking place directly between President Obama and Prime Minister Singh through trusted interlocutors such as National Security Advisor Shiv Shankar Menon, who is also in Washington DC this week.
