Will the Rise of India And China Spell Trouble for U.S.?

Bangalore: Will the rise of India and China spell double trouble for the U.S.? A newly published book called “Chinese and Indian Strategic Behavior” by George Gilboy, the chief representative of an international energy firm in China and Eric Heginbotham, a senior political scientist at the RAND Corporation, argues that the gentle view of India in Washington policy-making circles may be an illusion and rooted more in U.S. insecurity about China than a rigid assessment of India, reports the Wall Street Journal.

Further, the recent visit of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to China has been a success. With a view to seal new initiatives to expand trade, connectivity and energy cooperation the PM’s visit has already received a positive response. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Liu Weimin told The Hindu “China is happy to see the development of friendly relations between India and Myanmar, and we hope such development of friendly relations will be conducive to the stability and prosperity of the whole region.”

When the PM met Myanmar's iconic pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi, she said “I am very happy at the prospect of closer ties with India because I think we have much to learn from each other and we have much to contribute to peace and stability in this region, because our goals — our democratic goals — work on the basis of peace and stability, and these are what we shall aim towards,” as reported by The Hindu.

She added “I hope that there will be greater exchanges between our two peoples. As I said to the Prime Minister, true friendship between the countries can be based only on friendship between our peoples, and this is what I hope we will be able to achieve.”

The authors of “Chinese and Indian Strategic Behavior” have concluded that the rise of both China and India is not a good thing for the U.S.  In an interview WSJ’s Deborah Kan speaks to China Editor Andrew Browne that highlights the following issues. “Is U.S. foreign policy embracing India as a counter to China?” The authors are of the opinion that this would be a wakeup call to policy makers of Washington.