Obama's India trip -- what is expected to be accomplished ?
Saturday, 6 November 2010
Zaglul Ahmed Chowdhury
United States president Barack Obama is embarking on a ten-day Asian trip that brings him on the first leg of the sojourn to world's largest democracy, India.
He will spend four days in India, visiting capital New Delhi and country's commercial hub Mumbai, and obviously both political and economic issues will figure prominently during his talks with Indian political leaders and private sector businessmen. Obama is the third American president in a row to visit India after his immediate predecessor Republican president George Bush and before him fellow Democrat president Bill Clinton. This shows that three successive US presidents have chosen to visit India regardless of their national political platforms. India's democratic credentials and its success as an emerging economy must have weighed considerably when all these presidents chose to come to a country, which has enmity and bitterness with neighbour Pakistan, also a close ally to the Washington for decades.
Obama is not visiting Pakistan even though Islamabad is the closest ally of Washington in its "war against terror". But he has taken precautionary measure so that this the visit to traditionally rival India does not sour US ties with Pakistan and sought to ally such fears by announcing massive assistance to that country just a few days ago when Pakistan's foreign minister Mehmood Shah Quereshi was in the United States and held talks with his American counterpart Hillary Clinton.
Nevertheless, Islamabad is understood to be not feeling comfortable with the Obama visit to India and looking askance at the US president's itinerary in rival country.
Certainly, the political significance of the visit to India cannot be overlooked as the United States, the world's most powerful democracy and the largest democracy India have broad understanding for promotion of the essence of representative governance across the world. But clearly his visit to India carries a special concern over the covert rivalry between two Asian giants - democratic India and communist China, who are at loggerheads on a variety of reasons, primarily because of regional influence in political, economic and military fields.
It is assumed that Washington will like to see a stronger India face the growing clout of China and help New Delhi in that direction despite the fact that United States has cooperation with China in many areas.In fact, America's bilateral trade with China is larger than India.The fact that China and Pakistan are close friends is not a sour point for the US as such because Washington is believed to be pursing a policy where both New Delhi and Islamabad have their own priorities in dealing with the matters that suit their own bilateral interests.
The United States cannot afford to be oblivious to the Afghan scenario where Pakistan's role is singularly important for Washington. Hence, the massive aid promised to Islamabad is an indication by the US that the visit of
President Obama to India in no way will mar the cordial ties that exist between the two countries.
But for all practical purposes, the economic issues are of paramount importance of Obama's India visit and a number of decisions are expected to be taken in this field both with government and private sectors.The very fact that more than 200 top executives are accompanying President Obama to New Delhi and Mumbai underlines the significance of the as far the economic and commercials aspects are concerned. On the agenda is the lucrative defence cooperation. The United States has held more military exercise with India than with any other country in the past year and the American firms Boeing and Lockheed Martin cop are bidding for US dollar 11 billion deal for 126 fighter jets. Additionally, many other attractive deals are on the cards and it is expected that the visit of the US president will result in the successful culmination of most of these deals. Indian top businessmen like Mukesh Ambani, Azim Premji and Ratan Tata will meet the American president and the top US entrepreneurs are to strike the deals that will go a long way in further cementing the Indo-US economic ties. The visit of the US president to India can be seen essentially aimed at deriving economic benefits although the political ramifications are not less significant. It may be mentioned here that Washington has gone out of its way to extend India the rare civilian nuclear cooperation facilities during former President George Bush's visit to New Delhi in 2006 and the deal was supported by the then opposition Democrat.It was done mainly for bilateral economic cooperation as this would help the energy-starved India advance its developmental efforts.
However, Obama's visit to India and some other Asian countries is taking place at a time when the US president has been weakened by his party's reverses suffered in the midterm elections. It goes without saying that his foreign policy aggressiveness and priority may lose some clout as Obama would now expectedly give more attention to domestic issues.Nearly, halfway through his first four-year term, Barack Obama's setbacks in the midterm congressional elections will force him take care of the critically important national issues like the unemployment more intensely. But foreign policy cannot take a back seat and that too for world's only super power. The US president's trip to Asian countries highlighted by four-day stay in India falls within the purview of bilateral economic cooperation between world's number one economy and an emerging economic power in addition to the political cooperation of the important democracies.
United States president Barack Obama is embarking on a ten-day Asian trip that brings him on the first leg of the sojourn to world's largest democracy, India.
He will spend four days in India, visiting capital New Delhi and country's commercial hub Mumbai, and obviously both political and economic issues will figure prominently during his talks with Indian political leaders and private sector businessmen. Obama is the third American president in a row to visit India after his immediate predecessor Republican president George Bush and before him fellow Democrat president Bill Clinton. This shows that three successive US presidents have chosen to visit India regardless of their national political platforms. India's democratic credentials and its success as an emerging economy must have weighed considerably when all these presidents chose to come to a country, which has enmity and bitterness with neighbour Pakistan, also a close ally to the Washington for decades.
Obama is not visiting Pakistan even though Islamabad is the closest ally of Washington in its "war against terror". But he has taken precautionary measure so that this the visit to traditionally rival India does not sour US ties with Pakistan and sought to ally such fears by announcing massive assistance to that country just a few days ago when Pakistan's foreign minister Mehmood Shah Quereshi was in the United States and held talks with his American counterpart Hillary Clinton.
Nevertheless, Islamabad is understood to be not feeling comfortable with the Obama visit to India and looking askance at the US president's itinerary in rival country.
Certainly, the political significance of the visit to India cannot be overlooked as the United States, the world's most powerful democracy and the largest democracy India have broad understanding for promotion of the essence of representative governance across the world. But clearly his visit to India carries a special concern over the covert rivalry between two Asian giants - democratic India and communist China, who are at loggerheads on a variety of reasons, primarily because of regional influence in political, economic and military fields.
It is assumed that Washington will like to see a stronger India face the growing clout of China and help New Delhi in that direction despite the fact that United States has cooperation with China in many areas.In fact, America's bilateral trade with China is larger than India.The fact that China and Pakistan are close friends is not a sour point for the US as such because Washington is believed to be pursing a policy where both New Delhi and Islamabad have their own priorities in dealing with the matters that suit their own bilateral interests.
The United States cannot afford to be oblivious to the Afghan scenario where Pakistan's role is singularly important for Washington. Hence, the massive aid promised to Islamabad is an indication by the US that the visit of
President Obama to India in no way will mar the cordial ties that exist between the two countries.
But for all practical purposes, the economic issues are of paramount importance of Obama's India visit and a number of decisions are expected to be taken in this field both with government and private sectors.The very fact that more than 200 top executives are accompanying President Obama to New Delhi and Mumbai underlines the significance of the as far the economic and commercials aspects are concerned. On the agenda is the lucrative defence cooperation. The United States has held more military exercise with India than with any other country in the past year and the American firms Boeing and Lockheed Martin cop are bidding for US dollar 11 billion deal for 126 fighter jets. Additionally, many other attractive deals are on the cards and it is expected that the visit of the US president will result in the successful culmination of most of these deals. Indian top businessmen like Mukesh Ambani, Azim Premji and Ratan Tata will meet the American president and the top US entrepreneurs are to strike the deals that will go a long way in further cementing the Indo-US economic ties. The visit of the US president to India can be seen essentially aimed at deriving economic benefits although the political ramifications are not less significant. It may be mentioned here that Washington has gone out of its way to extend India the rare civilian nuclear cooperation facilities during former President George Bush's visit to New Delhi in 2006 and the deal was supported by the then opposition Democrat.It was done mainly for bilateral economic cooperation as this would help the energy-starved India advance its developmental efforts.
However, Obama's visit to India and some other Asian countries is taking place at a time when the US president has been weakened by his party's reverses suffered in the midterm elections. It goes without saying that his foreign policy aggressiveness and priority may lose some clout as Obama would now expectedly give more attention to domestic issues.Nearly, halfway through his first four-year term, Barack Obama's setbacks in the midterm congressional elections will force him take care of the critically important national issues like the unemployment more intensely. But foreign policy cannot take a back seat and that too for world's only super power. The US president's trip to Asian countries highlighted by four-day stay in India falls within the purview of bilateral economic cooperation between world's number one economy and an emerging economic power in addition to the political cooperation of the important democracies.