Must India play second fiddle to China?

The Indians are jealous of China’s friendship with the U.S., said Kang Juan and Zhang Han in China’s People’s Daily. Last week in Beijing, President Barack Obama and Chinese President Hu Jintao issued a joint statement saying they would work together on issues of Asian security, specifically the disputes between India and Pakistan. India “bristled” at the statement, saying that, with regard to its relations with Pakistan, “a third-country role cannot be envisaged nor is it necessary.” That overreaction shows a “lack of confidence.” Evidently India has “a fear of being ignored” by the U.S. because of the growing U.S. ties to China.

We’re going to be charitable, said The Times of India in an editorial, and assume that Obama did not really mean to give the Chinese carte blanche to meddle in Indian affairs. Make no mistake: “India cannot, and will not, brook any outside interference.” Obama has given India the honor of inviting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh as guest of honor at his first official state dinner this week. Let’s hope the American president takes the opportunity to assure Singh that the statement in Beijing “does not give China, even tangentially, a monitoring role in South Asian affairs.” We all know that China has many “dubious complicities with Pakistan.” If Obama sees China as an arbiter in Indian-Pakistani relations, he is no friend of ours.

“There is no call to froth at the mouth,” said India’s The Asian Age. The Americans had to be “extra nice to the Chinese” at their recent summit because “they need the Chinese at this juncture.” There’s a global recession on, and China is the one country that can bail out “the debt-ridden U.S. economy.” That’s why Obama was “happy to flatter China’s vanity” by pretending that China is an equal partner to the U.S. But Obama will soon learn that China doesn’t have the diplomatic skill to make Pakistan—or Iran, or even North Korea—do its bidding.

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Maybe not alone, said Shobhan Saxena in The Times of India. But a U.S.-China axis would be a formidable power—and such an axis is emerging. “This may sound far-fetched because the only thing we hear about is the great rivalry between the U.S. and China.” But both countries “believe in one ideology: unbridled capitalism.” Their economies are so interdependent that it’s as if “they are caught in a mutual hostage situation.” More ominously for India, both countries have troops “encircling India.” Chinese troops are in Tibet and on the border with northern India, while the U.S. Army is already in Afghanistan and could “move into Pakistan soon.” India will have to face the distasteful facts. “The only option available to India is a junior partnership with both the U.S. and China.”