Roiling Asia: U.S. Coziness with China Upsets the Neighbors

Ted Galen Carpenter

From Foreign Affairs, November/December 1998

Article preview: first 500 of 2,294 words total.

Summary:  The Clinton administration's new coziness with China has left India feeling insecure, Taiwan betrayed, and Japan ignored.

Ted Galen Carpenter is Vice President for Defense and Foreign Policy Studies at the Cato Institute.

In trying to defrost its chilly relationship with China, the Clinton administration has overshot the mark. Its rapprochement with Beijing has sent political tremors through East and South Asia. The increasingly cozy U.S.-Chinese relationship -- described by President Clinton and Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright in terms like "strategic cooperation" and "strategic partnership" -- has alarmed Taiwan, unsettled longtime U.S. allies Japan and South Korea, and prodded India to unveil its nuclear weapons program. Such reactions will have long-term repercussions for Washington's political and military roles in Asia.

INDIA ALIENATED

Attributing New Delhi's decision to conduct nuclear tests and move toward "weaponizing" its atomic program solely to the evolving U.S.-Chinese relationship is an oversimplification. The five-decade-old feud with Pakistan, as well as domestic politics, clearly played a role. Nevertheless, Indian officials and opinion leaders vehemently stressed not only the alleged security threat posed by China but Washington's apparent tilt toward Beijing. India's defense minister, George Fernandes, reacted bluntly to U.S. criticism of the tests. "I would ask Bill Clinton only one question. And it would be this: Why is it that you feel yourself so close to China that you can trust China with nuclear weapons ellipse but you cannot trust India?" The strategy editor of The Hindu newspaper reflected the same sense of irritation and betrayal: "We were being told to stay in a small box while the U.S. gave South Asia to China." Even a prominent critic of the tests, former Prime Minister I. K. Gujral, asked, "If you have decided that this side of Suez is an area of influence of China, what should an Indian policymaker do?"

American officials further alienated the Indian government by contemptuously dismissing protests about growing U.S.-Chinese ties. The scorn over Delhi's objections to Clinton and Chinese President Jiang Zemin's joint declaration in June pledging cooperation to stem nuclear weapon and ballistic missile proliferation and promote peace and stability in South Asia was typical. The Indian government noted that it was "ironical that two countries that have directly and indirectly contributed to the unabated proliferation of nuclear weapons and delivery systems in our neighborhood are presuming to prescribe the norms for nonproliferation."

Such rebukes understandably irked Clinton and Albright, but Albright's reaction betrayed a complete unwillingness to accord Delhi's concerns even a modicum of respect. She accused the Indians of acting as though a call for a halt to proliferation "doesn't apply to them, that everybody is out of step with them." She added ominously, "They had better stop dismissing statements like this." The secretary acted as if India had no right to object to a coordinated U.S.-Chinese policy on key issues -- including Kashmir -- in India's backyard. From India's perspective, the declaration looked like the product of a U.S.-Chinese condominium to dictate outcomes in South Asia. No major power could accept such a development placidly. Indeed, Washington's insensitivity may intensify, rather than reduce, Delhi's determination to build a nuclear deterrent and adopt a more assertive foreign policy.

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