MAY 4, 2010
By G. PARTHASARATHY
The Wall Street Journal
India has tried to prod the U.S. into taking a more active role in shaping Asia's security architecture.
After meeting the leaders of China, India, Brazil and South Africa at the Copenhagen climate conference in December, U.S. President Barack Obama hailed the deal struck on climate change: "Today we have made a meaningful and unprecedented breakthrough. " What he evidently failed to realize was that the summit exposed how flip flops in American foreign policy in Asia had moved India and China into an unexpected embrace at Copenhagen, and beyond.
President Obama appears to be intensely focused on developing a better relationship with China, at almost any cost. During his visit to Beijing in November, he virtually conceded the role of an external security guarantor in South Asia to his hosts. Special Representative Richard Holbrooke thereafter reportedly advised the Chinese to play a more proactive role in expanding their arms transfers to Pakistan. The Obama administration's interest in "reconciliation" with the Taliban and possibilities of a precipitate U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan leading to a return to Taliban control, raised concerns in India about the possibility of a U.S.-China-Pakistan nexus emerging in India's neighborhood.
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