Obama Courts China at Asia's Expense

The key reason why India ranks lower in the policy profile of the Barack Obama administration than it did under President George W Bush is that America's Asia policy is no longer guided by an overarching geopolitical framework. In fact, after five months in office, Obama's approach on Asia lacks a distinct strategic imprint and thus appears fragmented. His administration may have a policy approach towards each major Asian country and issue, but still lacks a strategy on how to build an enduring power equilibrium in Asia.

The result is that Washington is again looking at India primarily through the Pakistan prism. That translates into a US focus on India-Pakistan engagement, revived attention on the Kashmir issue and counter insurgency in the Af-Pak region, including implications for US homeland security. For instance, not content with making Islamabad the largest recipient of US aid in the world, Obama wants victim India to come to the aid of terror-exporting Pakistan, including by offering new "peace" talks and redeploying troops, even if it means more terrorist infiltration.

In a recent Asia-policy speech in Tokyo to a small group, of which this writer was a member, US deputy secretary of state James Steinberg did not mention India even in passing. Whether one agreed or differed with Bush's foreign policy, at least its Asia component was driven by a larger geopolitical blueprint. By contrast, the best that can be said about Obama's Asia policy is that it seeks to nurture key bilateral relationships with China at the core of Washington's present courtship and establish, where possible, trilateral relationships.

The upshot is that the Obama team has just unveiled a new trilateral security framework in Asia involving the US, China and Japan. While announcing this initiative, Washington failed to acknowledge another trilateral the one involving the US, India and Japan. It is as if that trilateral has fallen out of favour with the new US administration, just as the broader US-Australia-India-Japan "Quadrilateral Initiative" founded on the concept of democratic peace ran aground after the late-2007 election of Kevin Rudd as the Australian prime minister.

At a time when Asia is in transition, with the spectre of power disequilibrium looming large, it has become imperative to invest in institution-building to help underpin long-term stability. After all, Asia is not only becoming the pivot of global geopolitical change, but also Asian challenges are playing into international strategic challenges. But the Obama administration is fixated on the very country whose rapidly accumulating power and muscle-flexing threaten Asian stability.