The Bush Effect

With George W. Bush only a month away from stepping into the White House, the sense of relief among South Block mandarins is apparent. No longer will they have to counter the pressure on India for signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (ctbt), an issue which had initially bogged down relations between the Clinton administration and New Delhi post-Pokhran. Bush's proposed move to abandon the ctbt could provide a new impetus to Indo-US relations.

The ctbt may die a natural death but the issue of non-proliferation could continue to haunt New Delhi. For, it is erroneously believed that with the ctbt out of the way, sanctions against India would also go automatically. The fact is that only the President has the authority to waive the sanctions that come into force when a country goes nuclear. But since sanctions as a regime is not an obsession with the Republicans, Bush might use his waiver authority to lift them.

Much will obviously depend on New Delhi's response to the Republican's demand for transparency on nuclear matters. At the Wharton global business forum in Philadelphia, Condoleezza Rice, who's expected to be Bush's national security advisor, said that sanctions against India could possibly be lifted if New Delhi is forthcoming about its plan for nuclear development and promises it wouldn't weaponise.

But the nuclear issue is not expected to freeze Indo-US relations. Laying out the contours for the future, Rice attacked the Clinton administration for starting dialogue with India only on contentious issues like nuclear weapons, Pakistan or Kashmir. Her party, she said, would attempt to broadbase the relationship, taking into account India's potential as a democratic stabilising force in South Asia and its role in economic development in the region.

The Republican campaign often described India as the US' strategic partner, a position given to communist China by the Clinton administration. As a political theory, the Republicans construe China as a strategic competitor whose hegemony in Asia has to be controlled. Rice has been on record saying that China is a security concern for Washington because Beijing sends technology for potential weapons of mass destruction to several countries including Iran and Pakistan. Describing China as a rising power that has unresolved vital interest in the region, she feels the country could be dangerous to the US, its allies and the countries in the region.

However, such theories evaporate once they are in power, says a senior state department official. He points out that President Clinton too had made similar noises before he assumed power and expressed concern over human rights violations in China. But he softened his stance once the ground realities were brought to his notice. Trade with China is around $40 billion, with the US importing cheap consumer goods. These, and not any academic theories, would weigh in evolving foreign policies, he points out, arguing that relations with China would be maintained irrespective of the party in power.

Also, things could sour were Bush to go ahead with the nuclear missile shield, a system aimed at protecting the US from long-range ballistic missiles. This could damage relations with Beijing and goad him into turning to New Delhi to counterbalance Beijing.

But not everything is expected to be hunky-dory. With the Pakistani American community helping the Republican campaign in a major way, and also the fact that it has a large population in the Texas-Houston area where Bush holds office as governor, the Pakistani lobby will try to undermine any effort by the Bush administration to achieve a higher degree of compatibility with India. In contrast, the large Indian American community had extended support to the Gore campaign in a big way. This might just haunt Indo-US relations.

Meanwhile, President Clin-

ton has written to all his political appointees, totalling around 3,000, to tender their resignations before January 20, the day Bush assumes office. This means the US ambassador to India, Richard Celeste, faces the prospect of an early end to his tenure in New Delhi. Reminding that it took the Clinton administration over a year to appoint Frank Wisner as ambassador after Thomas Pickering demitted office, state department sources say filling the ambassadorial post in New Delhi isn't the immediate concern of the new administration. Would that attitude be reflected in its foreign policy too?

Sadiq Ahmad in Washington