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The Washington Quarterly 25.2 (2002) 31-44



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Building a New Partnership with India

Teresita C. Schaffer


India watchers these days are suffering from a bad case of whiplash. The "buzz" of President Bill Clinton's last year in office--with his dramatic trip to India and Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's return engagement in Washington--has been followed since September 11 by an intense U.S. reengagement with Pakistan. At the same time, the rapid pace of high-level contacts that was established early in President George W. Bush's administration has, if anything, accelerated. High-level Indian visitors to Washington in the last quarter of 2001 included Vajpayee, Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh, and National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra. Senior U.S. government officials who spent time in New Delhi include Secretary of State Colin Powell, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Admiral Dennis Blair, commander in chief of U.S. forces in the Pacific. Expectations are high for a Bush trip to New Delhi in 2002. Longtime students of Indo-U.S. relations marvel at the change of pace and the shift in attitude compared with most of the past 50 years but wonder how this development will mesh with the intensified U.S. interest in Pakistan.

Washington's increased interest in India since the late 1990s reflects India's economic expansion and position as Asia's newest rising power. New Delhi, for its part, is adjusting to the end of the Cold War. As a result, both giant democracies see that they can benefit by closer cooperation. For Washington, the advantages include a wider network of friends in Asia at a time when the region is changing rapidly, as well as a stronger position from which to help calm possible future nuclear tensions in the region. Enhanced trade and investment benefit both countries and are a prerequisite for improved U.S. relations with India. For India, the country's ambition to assume [End Page 31] a stronger leadership role in the world and to maintain an economy that lifts its people out of poverty depends critically on good relations with the United States.

For all their increased interest in each other, however, India and the United States still view the world differently. The United States, already very conscious of its standing as the world's sole remaining superpower, has a newly heightened sense of mission about world leadership since September 11. India remains uncomfortable with the very high profile of the United States as the arbiter of world security and hopes to see a more multipolar world emerge, with India recognized as one of the poles.

The model for the emerging relationship is not an alliance, virtual or otherwise, but a selective partnership based on specific, common goals and an expansion of the U.S. network of strong, friendly relations in Asia. Both countries need to approach their dialogue with candor, imagination, steady nerves, and--above all--realism.

A Changing India and a Changing Asia

The current U.S. focus on New Delhi emerges against a background of four major transformations in India. The first, and the one that has driven the change in U.S.-Indo relations the most thus far, is economic. The first stage of market-oriented reforms in 1991 brought about a marked increase in both domestic and foreign investment. Since then, the annual growth in India's gross domestic product (GDP) has averaged 6.4 percent, one of the highest rates in the world. In addition, during the same period, the services sector expanded from 6 percent to 8 percent of the economy. The dramatic development of the information technology industry has made India a power in a sector that is transforming the world economy; indeed, the large, prosperous, and prominent Indian-American community is now joined at the hip with "Silicon Valleys" in the United States and in India. Despite its low per capita income, India's economy--with a GDP of $442 billion in 1999--ranks eleventh in the world. On the basis of purchasing power parity, India has the world...

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