As their own relationship is tested, two powers court the world's largest democracy. At the height of the two-week standoff with China over a US reconnaissance plane, President Bush took time to give a visitor a tour of the White House Oval Office. The visitor was Jaswant Singh, foreign minister and defense minister of India, China's longtime rival that three years ago joined the Nuclear Club. Sure, it could have been a coincidence. The USS Cowpens stood off the coast of Bombay in February.
China considers India's own growing naval power a potential threat.
India knew they were being used, but they milked it for what it's worth. Call it the politics of balance. Simultaneously, China has been making moves of its own toward India, offering further talks on longtime border disputes. It may not be time to predict a full strategic alliance with either the US or China, but the sudden attractiveness of India appears certain to slowly but radically shift the power balance in an area of influence shared by all three countries that stretches from the Persian Gulf to the Pacific Ocean. In an interview in the Hindu, a prominent Indian newspaper, departing US Ambassador Richard Celeste indicated that the Bush administration seemed eager to work more closely with India not just on trade issues, but on strategic ones as well.