• Il
presidente cinese Hu Jintao ha compiuto una visita di 4 giorni in Cina
e di 3 in Pakistan.
• Nel ’62 Cina
e India hanno combattuto una breve guerra per una disputa sui
confini mai risolta. C’è stato un riavvicinamento nel 2003
ma spesso i loro
interessi sono in competizione su investimenti, risorse
energetiche estere e
influenza internazionale.
Il Pakistan, storico rivale dell’India, ha rapporti speciali
con la Cina
risalenti agli anni ’60.
• La Cina non
ostacolerà la ratifica, da parte dei 45 stati del Gruppo Fornitori Nucleari,
dell’accordo che Washington ha fatto con New Delhi di dare all’India
uno status unico nel regime regolatore del nucleare
mondiale; secondo questo
accordo, all’India verrà dato accesso al combustibile
nucleare e alle
tecnologie estere, sebbene abbia rifiutato di firmare
l’Accordo di Non
Proliferazione Nucleare (NPT).
• Tramite
l’accordo e i successivi accordi economici, di tecnologia
nucleare, militari e geopolitici, l’amministrazione Bush e
il personale
addetto alla politica estera degli Usa intendono vincolare
l’India alle
ambizioni degli Usa in Asia – particolarmente il contenimento
della Cina e
l’espansione dell’influenza nei paesi dell’Asia Centrale
ricchi di petrolio.
La campagna lanciata da Pechino per ingraziarsi l’India
indica che il
governo cinese ha concluso che il modo migliore di parare la
penetrazione strategica degli Usa nel Sud Asia, è il “corteggiamento
aggressivo” dell’India. Senza dubbio uno dei fattori che ha incoraggiato la
Cina è stato il naufragio della strategia
dell’amministrazione Bush di affermare l’egemonia globale
degli Stati Uniti
con la conquista dell’Irak.
• La speranza
dell’elite Indiana è quella di poter cavalcare l’onda delle
geopolitiche mondiali senza destare fastidi a una delle
grandi potenze.
• India e Cina
hanno annunciato una strategia per cui: verrà raddoppiato il
commercio tra i due paesi – la Cina è già il secondo partner
commerciale
dell’India- da 20 miliardi
a 40 miliardi $ all’anno entro il 2010, si
svolgeranno vertici di incontro regolari tra i capi del
governo dei 2 paesi,
ci sarà “prossima risoluzione” riguardo alla questione della
disputa sui confini, una
stretta cooperazione nella gestione dei fiumi che
attraversano il confine
tra Cina e India, iniziative comuni per assicurare riserve
energetiche
estere e un coordinamento nella strategia dei negoziati del
WTO e in
altre discussioni internazionali.
• La stampa
Indiana inoltre riporta che funzionari cinesi segnalano che
Pechino non sia neanche contraria al seggio permanente
dell’India nel
Consiglio di Sicurezza dell’Onu.
• Sembra che
Hu abbia detto ai dirigenti del Fronte di Sinistra, il Partito
Comunista indiano- che sta appoggiando l’Upa (Alleanza
Progressiva Unita)
nel Parlamento indiano- che devono essere più pragmatici
nelle loro riforme
socio-economiche neo-liberali.
• La Cina però
è anche il maggior fornitore di armi al Pakistan e,
attraverso la costruzione di un porto a Gwadar nella
provincia pakistana del
Baluchistan, sta cercando di stabilire una presenza navale
nel Mare Arabico
e nell’Oceano Indiano.
• Sia India
che Cina sono sempre più dipendenti dalle importazioni di
energia dall’estero e sono state coinvolte in guerre per
assicurare petrolio
e riserve naturali di gas.
• Mentre il
governo e l’industria indiani hanno accolto positivamente il
commercio tra Cina e India, sezioni della stampa indiana
hanno espresso
allarme per la crescente importanza economica della Cina
nell’ Asia Meridionale.
La Cina, per esempio ha recentemente soppiantato l’India
come maggior
partner commerciale del Bangladesh. Hu inoltre ha firmato un
accordo di
libero commercio col Pakistan. L’elite indiana ha promosso
un Accordo di
Libero Commercio in Sud Asia (SAFTA), come consolidamento
del suo dominio
economico e geopolitico sul subcontinente, ma a causa del
conflitto
Indo-Pakistano e altre rivalità statali lo sforzo dell’India
di creare una
zona economica guidata dall’India nel Sud Asia è passato in
secondo piano.
Altre questioni riguardano la competizione fra Cina e India
circa l’energia
proveniente dalla Birmania e la paura dell’India che la Cina
le impedisca di
partecipare ad un blocco commerciale allargato est-asiatico.
Poco prima della visita di Hu, inoltre, un ambasciatore
cinese in India ha
riaffermato la rivendicazione della Cina su territori
nell’est indiano di
Arunachal Pradesh, a cui è seguita una reazione di rabbia.
• Washington
non è insensibile alla situazione, oltre ad aver fatto
pressione sull’India per un allineamento nei confronti della
politica estera
degli Usa riguardo all’Iran, Washington esige un prezzo
considerevole per
l’accordo nucleare fra India e Usa.
Se l’India dovesse rifiutare la Cina come partner o si
trovasse costretta a
eseguire l’ordine di Washington, la Cina potrebbe rispondere
stringendo
l’alleanza col suo rivale, il Pakistan.
• I governi di
Cina e Pakistan hanno annunciato inoltre altri progetti per
promuovere integrazioni economiche e militari, inclusa la
creazione di una
zona economica speciale per le compagnie tessili cinese a
Faisalabad e
lo sviluppo in comune aerei radar a lungo raggio per
avvistamento anticipato.
La Cina è inoltre coinvolta in una serie di progetti di
costruzioni nucleari
civili in Pakistan. Ma Hu e Musharraf non hanno annunciato,
come era stato
supposto che facessero, un accordo cino-pachistano per il
nucleare civile
come quello negoziato tra India e Usa. Un accordo simile non
avrebbe
permesso a Pechino di corteggiare l’India, e la stampa
indiana l’ha notato.
China woos India to parry US containment strategy
By Keith
Jones
28 November 2006
Chinese
President Hu Jintao made a four-day visit to India last week, then
spent three
days in Pakistan.
Sino-Indian
relations have long been strained. In 1962 the two countries
fought a
brief war over a border dispute that still remains unresolved. In
June 2003,
in the immediate aftermath of the illegal US invasion of Iraq,
China and India initiated a rapprochement. But Asia’s two aspirant world
powers have
frequently found themselves competing for investment, foreign
energy
resources, and international influence.
Pakistan, India’s historic rival, has a special
relationship with China
dating back
to the mid-1960s. The Pakistani elite often refers to China as
Pakistan’s “all-weather friend,” a snipe at
the US, which it contends has
repeatedly
responded to shifts in world geo-politics by leaving Pakistan in
the lurch.
Hu’s South Asia trip demonstrated that China’s leadership is anxious to
redefine
Sino-Indian relations and that India is seeking to straddle the
growing
geo-political fault-line between China and the US.
To India, Hu offered a dramatic increase in
bilateral relations, including a
greatly
enhanced economic partnership, military exchanges, and civilian
nuclear
cooperation
Hu and his
aides also reportedly signaled that China will not stand in the
way of the
45-state Nuclear Supplier Group endorsing the agreement
Washington has made with New Delhi to give India a unique status within the
world
nuclear regulatory regime. Under this agreement, India will be given
access to
foreign nuclear fuel and technology even though it has refused to
sign the
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The Indo-US
nuclear accord
The Bush
administration has touted the Indo-US nuclear accord as a major
diplomatic
coup, arguing that it will cement an Indo-US strategic
partnership
that will have a transformative impact on world geo-politics in
the
twenty-first century.
Through the
accord and subsequent increased Indo-US economic,
nuclear-technological,
military, and geo-political ties, the Bush
administration
and US foreign policy establishment intend to harness
India
to US
ambitions in Asia—particularly US attempts to contain
China and expand
American
influence in oil-rich Central Asia.
Till last
week, China, without categorically opposing the Indo-US
nuclear
accord, had
signaled wariness and suspicion of it. In an October 30
commentary,
the People’s Daily said of the Indo-US nuclear accord, “It is
clear that
the United States’s deliberate violation of the NPT is a move to
contain
other nations. US assistance to India is a kind of nuclear
proliferation.”
The campaign
Beijing has now launched to woo India indicates that the
Chinese
government has concluded it can best parry the US strategic thrust
in South Asia, by aggressively courting India. Undoubtedly one of the
factors
emboldening China is the shipwreck of the Bush
administration’s
strategy to
assert US global hegemony through the conquest of Iraq.
India, meanwhile, is acutely aware that
the US is hoping to ensnare it in a
dependent
relationship and use it as a counterweight to China. In the
seventeen
months since Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President
George W.
Bush first reached a tentative nuclear accord—the deal was
finalized
last March—the US has repeatedly brought heavy
pressure to bear on
India to support US foreign policy, especially Washington’s attempts to
bully Iran over its nuclear program.
There are a
number of reasons why the Congress Party-led United Progressive
Alliance
(UPA) government and Indian big business have clutched at the
nuclear
accord offered by Washington. Under the accord India would gain
access to
foreign nuclear fuel and technology enabling it to concentrate the
resources
of its own nuclear program on weapons development. The accord
constitutes
de facto recognition of India as a nuclear-weapons state and
thus
represents a significant step toward winning the status of world power
that India’s elite has long-coveted. The
accord would place India’s
relations
with the US on a new plane, paving the way for
substantially
increased
investment and a potentially greater role for India in world
affairs
where US and Indian interests coincide, as in propping up the Karzai
government
in Afghanistan.
But even as
India under the UPA government has tilted toward the
US, voting
with it
against Iran at meetings of the International
Atomic Energy Agency
and voicing
only the meekest of criticisms of last summer’s Israeli invasion
of Lebanon, it has pursued closer relations
with other major world powers,
most
notably China and Russia. The hope of India’s elite is that it will be
able to
navigate the quickening currents of world geo-politics without
getting
caught in the wake of one of the bigger powers; that it will be able
to exploit
its position as, what a CIA document called, the most important
“potential
swing state” in the world geo-political order.
“Not
rivals, but partners”
A central
theme of the speeches given by Hu and Manmohan Singh during the
Chinese
president’s visit, as well as the “Joint declaration issued by the
Republic of India and the People’s Republic of China,” was that India and
China are partners and that the rise of
one can and should facilitate—not
hamper or
frustrate—the rise of the other.
“Both sides
agree,” said the joint statement, “that the relationship between
India and China … is of global and strategic
significance. … Both sides
hold that
view that there exist bright prospects for their common
development,
that they are not rivals or competitors but are partners for
mutual
benefit. … As two major countries in the emerging multi-polar
global
order, the simultaneous development of India and China will have a
positive
influence on the future international system.”
Said
Manmohan Singh, “There is enough space for the two countries to develop
together in
a mutually supportive manner while remaining sensitive to each
other’s
concerns and aspirations, as befits good neighbors and partners for
mutual
benefit.”
Chinese
President Hu, for his part, declared “India’s growth is an
opportunity
not a threat.”
With the
aim of making the improvement in Sino-Indian relations
“irreversible,”
India and China signed 13 protocols, agreements,
and
memorandums
of understanding during Hu’s visit. The two states also
announced a
10-progned strategy to enhance and diversify their bi-lateral
relations.
The strategy calls for: the doubling of Sino-Indian trade—China
is already India’s second largest trading—from $20
billion to $40 billion
per year by
2010; regular summit meetings between the two countries’ heads
of
government; “early settlement” of the boundary dispute; closer
cooperation
in the management of the rivers that cross the Sino-Indian
border;
joint initiatives to secure foreign energy resources; and
coordination
as co-“leaders of the developing world” of strategy at the WTO
negotiations
and in other international forums.
Claiming
that “China does not seek any selfish gains in South Asia,”
President
Hu affirmed China’s full support for the
Indo-Pakistani peace
process
that was initiated at the beginning of 2003. He added that if asked,
China would be ready to help facilitate India’s reconciliation with
Pakistan.
Some Indian
press reports say that Chinese officials also signaled that
Beijing is not opposed to India obtaining a permanent seat on the
UN
Security
Council. But the joint statement only committed China to supporting
“India’s aspirations to play a greater
role in the United Nations.”
Hu is
reputed to have told the leaders of the Left Front, the Communist
Party of India (Marxist)-led coalition that is
propping up the UPA in
India’s parliament, that they should be
“more pragmatic” in their attitude
to further
neo-liberal socio-economic reform. The Left Front, which has
implemented
pro-investor polices in the states where it forms the government
citing the
example of China’s Stalinist regime, has hotly
contested the
reports of
what happened at its closed door meeting with the Chinese
president.
If Hu did in fact urge the Left Front to be even more
accommodating
to Indian and foreign capital, it would only underscore the
extent to
which Hu and the Chinese leadership are intent on wooing the India
government
and big business.
A minefield
of conflicting interests
While Hu’s
visit represents a potential new point of departure in
Sino-Indian
relations, the two states have a long history of strained
relations
and a minefield of conflicting economic and geo-political
interests,
even if one leaves aside the fact that China is the most
important
supplier of arms to Pakistan and, through the building of a port
at Gwadar
in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan, is seeking to establish
a naval
presence in the Arabian Sea and Indian
Ocean.
Both India and China are increasingly dependent on
foreign energy imports
and have
been involved in bidding wars to secure oil and natural gas
reserves.
While the India government and business has
welcomed the growth in
Sino-Indian
trade, sections of the Indian press have expressed alarm at
China’s growing economic importance in South Asia as a whole. China, for
example,
recently supplanted India as Bangladesh’s most important trading
partner.
Hu, on completing his India visit, flew to Pakistan and signed a
Sino-Pakistani
free trade agreement. The Indian elite has promoted a South
Asian Free
Trade Agreement (SAFTA) as a means of consolidating its economic
and
geo-political dominance over the subcontinent, but because of the
Indo-Pakistani
conflict and other state rivalries India’s efforts to create
an
Indian-led South Asian economic zone have gone little beyond the drawing
board.
India and China have also been involved in an
economic and geo-political
rivalry in
south-east Asia, with India and China competing for energy from
Burma and India fearful that China will prevent it from participating
in an
enlarged
East Asian trading bloc.
Just days
before Hu’s visit, the Chinese ambassador to India reasserted
China’s claim to territory in the east
Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. It
has been
suggested that this statement was scripted by Beijing so as to stir
up
controversy and thereby prod New Delhi into taking greater interest in a
speedy
resolution of the border dispute. But even if true, the angry
reaction to
the ambassador’s remarks underscores that there will be no easy
resolution
to the conflicting territorial claims.
Last but
not least, the US will not stand idly by. There has
been virtually
no public
reaction from the US political establishment to Hu’s
visit and
China’s courting of India, but as has already been seen with
the demands
from the
Bush administration and US congressional leaders that India toe the
US line on Iran, Washington intends to exact a hefty price for
the Indo-US
nuclear
accord.
The
second-leg of Hu’s South Asia tour also had a message for India. Should
India spurn China’s offer of a partnership or find
itself bullied into doing
Washington’s bidding, China can respond by tightening its
already close
alliance
with India’s arch-rival Pakistan.
The free
trade agreement Hu and Pakistani dictator General Pervez Musharraf
initialed
during the former’s visit to Islamabad is only the second free
trade
agreement that China has entered into. The Chinese and
Pakistani
governments
also announced numerous other projects to promote closer
economic
and military integration, including the establishment of a special
economic
zone for Chinese textile companies in Faisalabad and joint
development
of long-range early-warning radar aircraft.
China is presently involved in several
civilian nuclear power construction
projects in
Pakistan. But Hu and Musharraf did not announce, as it
had been
rumored
they would, a Sino-Pakistani civilian nuclear accord comparable to
that India and the US have negotiated. Such an agreement
would have cut
across Beijing efforts to court India, and the lack of any such agreement
was duly
noted by the Indian press.
But China has not ruled out such an accord in
the future.
It merits
noting that the author of the aforementioned People’s Daily
comment
that roundly attacked the Indo-US nuclear accord argued that given
the huge gap
between the size of India’s and Pakistan’s conventional forces.
“It is
Pakistan that needs nuclear weapons.”