Banyan: So near, and yet…

Nguồn tin: nguontinviet.com

THE plot comes from a romantic novel. The protagonists will end up together—but only after hundreds of pages of bickering, misunderstandings, infidelities and tantrums. America and India will, in the words of Barack Obama, form “one of the defining partnerships” of the 21st century. Yet when their statesmen meet, as they did this week in Delhi for their fourth annual “strategic dialogue”, tomorrow’s soft-focus happy ending is obscured by today’s litany of disagreements. Both sides feel let down. But perhaps this is as good as it gets.

John Kerry, America’s secretary of state, and Salman Khurshid, his Indian counterpart, were fresh as leaders of the dialogue, set up to formalise what is supposed to be a new era in bilateral relations. In 2005 America, under George W. Bush, flouted the international non-proliferation regime to acknowledge India as a nuclear power. In 2008 India’s prime minister, Manmohan Singh, took the biggest political risk of an otherwise timid tenure to win ratification for the resulting deal on civil nuclear co-operation. The agreement seemed a tacit recognition by both countries of two truths: that, as liberal democracies, they share what Mr Khurshid this week called an “intrinsic bond”; and that China does not. As China rises, America and India might need each other’s friendship.

Since then, however, the friendship has, it is widely noted, reached a plateau. Even in the market where the breakthrough came, India’s civil-nuclear programme, American involvement has been precluded by Indian legislation about liability for accidents. This week Mr Kerry and Mr Khurshid set September as “a possible timeline” for solving the problem, just before another visit to America by Mr Singh. Elsewhere their talks were still bogged down in the many squabbles inherited from their predecessors. Indeed, from both countries’ perspectives, things have probably got worse since the dialogue a year ago.

Each had at least three new causes for concern. India’s strategists have long worried about Afghanistan after the withdrawal of most foreign troops in 2014. A year ago those worries were eased by the poor state of America’s relations with Pakistan, India’s old rival. But these have been patched up, and Pakistan claims credit for persuading the Afghan Taliban to talk to America. In India this raises the threat of a future Afghan government that is aligned with Pakistan. India also notices that Mr Kerry’s own name is attached to legislation passed when he was a senator, promising Pakistan lavish aid. Scrambling to ease India’s worries, America sent its “AfPak” envoy, James Dobbins, to Delhi this week, just after a visit to Qatar, where the Taliban’s negotiating team now strut their stuff.

Second, the spectacle of Barack Obama being chummy with China’s new leader, Xi Jinping, in California in early June recalls in India early Obama-administration talk about a “G2” between the incumbent and the rising superpower. This stokes Indian feelings of inferiority. It may share values with America; China shares power. After Chinese soldiers in April staged an unusually long incursion over the disputed Himalayan border with India, the long-term strategic threat seems more unsettling than ever.

Third, India is worried about American policies threatening two of its most successful industries: information technology and pharmaceuticals. Its software engineers need visas if they are to work in America, but the number of visas is limited, harming India’s IT firms. And the generic-medicine industry is under attack from American firms guarding their intellectual property.

On his side too, Mr Kerry has been conscious of the growling of disgruntled American exporters. On June 13th the leading members of the Senate finance committee wrote to Mr Kerry to complain that Indian policies are “directly harming US business and threaten the millions of jobs supported by trade in innovative products”. It cited the use of Indian law to favour the domestic drugs industry over American patent-holders, and policies in IT, clean technology and other industries that block sales of American products and coerce the transfer of technology.

Beyond these grouses is a second, broader concern: that Indian economic reform, and, with it, rapid growth, have run into the sand (see article). Part of the enthusiasm for India in America a few years ago was as a market. India was easier in terms of language, culture, politics and the law than China, yet was growing almost as fast and had almost as many people. Today the language barrier still tends to be lower and the population is even bigger. Otherwise, India has been a disappointment.

A soap opera, not an epic

Perhaps because the nitty-gritty of trade is so painful, Mr Kerry devoted much time in India to lifting eyes to the horizon and a future disaster that the whole world has an interest in averting: climate change. By promising that India will be able to import shale gas, America may have done a bit to reduce its future carbon emissions. But Mr Kerry acknowledged “India’s paramount commitment to development and eradicating poverty”. At a time of slow economic growth, that tends to shove long-term environmental worries even further down the list of priorities.

The many differences conceal a fundamental transformation of bilateral relations. India and America are now intertwined in so many different co-operative and competitive ways—military, commercial, cultural, educational, scientific—that they may have outgrown a “strategic dialogue”, where governments chart the course. Those on both sides hankering after a “next level” in relations would probably abhor what such a level might look like: an anti-China strategic alliance. America’s interest has always been less in such a pact than in a strong, friendly India that is a counterweight to China. And it has pursued that interest in the full knowledge that a strong India would be even less likely than a weak one to be friendly on every issue.

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