The recent Asia-Pacific summit contains strategic seeds of United States President Barack

The recent Asia-Pacific summit contains strategic seeds of United States President Barack Obama’s proactive policy for the region. S D Muni, an Indian strategic analyst has even termed it as having potential ”elements to trigger a subtle and sophisticated new Cold War in Asia between the US and China”.

While in American domestic discourse, Obama’s Asia distraction is being perceived as the trump card for winning the presidential elections in 2012, strategic analysts have hailed it as a containment strategy directed towards China. For instance, Walter Russell Mead has called it a ”diplomatic blitzkrieg, aimed at reversing a decade of chit-chat about America’s decline, also nipping the myth of China rise in the bud.” Stephen Walt has argued that the Sino-American competition in the years ahead will primarily be a competition for allies. The Asian game, he points out, would be more about sustaining Asian allies, a challenge, which the United States will have to manage well.

Some strategic thinkers have traced Obama’s recent Asia-Pacific overture as a continuation of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) which was initiated by the United States and eight Pacific countries (Australia, Brunei, Chile, Malaysia, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam) in November 2009. TPP is a regional agreement aimed at enhancing trade, innovation, economic growth and development between the concerned parties. In fact, Sanjaya Baru termed it recently as ”the economics of containment”, aimed at blunting the edge of China’s non-transparent trade competitiveness. Noting the increasing political and economic weight that China is often identified with, Fareed Zakaria in the latest edition of the Time magazine, (November 28, 2011) urges for a new China policy. He writes, ”Beijing needs to understand its new position in the world and act in ways commensurate with its power.”

While these arguments suggest that the contours of the international structure are being reordered, India’s role and place within the changing political and security equations perhaps need to be reckoned with. Common sense would dictate that ‘hedging’ and ‘balancing’ is perhaps the safety net and best bet for India in the changing political environment. While such an approach is more prescriptive than instructive, it is important that India revisits the fundamentals of its foreign policy before moving into the grand Asian chess board.

The primary policy concern for India should be to distance itself from the emerging discourse of ‘containing’ or ‘balancing’ China. Instead, engaging China in a proactive way should be the primary driver dictating its foreign policy choices. There are number of issue areas, where China and India need to cooperate and perhaps Obama’s Asia-Pacific policy has in it a spill over effect in redefining the framework of Sino-India engagement. It could be argued that with the presence of United States in Asia, China could be most susceptible towards narrowing conflict issues and might look for spaces to leverage its influence with its neighbors in East Asia and South Asia.

The most pressing issues confronting China and India are related to border demarcation and institutionalizing water cooperation. While institutional frameworks on border issues are in place, they need to be picked up on periodic basis by both sides. Confidence building measures are most needed to allay misperceptions in order to avoid risk and uncertainties.

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