A recent series of unfortunate events have cast a red shadow on the South Asian waters, and has many newspapers columnists and opinion makers running articles ranging from sceptical to hysterical. Two of these events which remain most important are firstly, Chinese expansion that most recently resulted in friction with the Philippines. The atmosphere became so hot that Chinese state television actually warned the population of the Philippines to prepare, and possibly evacuate, for a month long war. The second, and most recent, was the downgrading of Standard and Poor’s credit rating for India, to BBB-, the lowest possible credit rating. On their own, these two events would only have affected the regional power balance. But given the size of the aspirations of the two regional superpowers in question, and the hopes the United States had pinned on hedging between the two, the effects, most people believe, will be more widespread.
In an attempt to cope with the rise of China, and the realization of its own decline in relative power, the United States had adopted a number of different strategies to simultaneously befriend and keep in check the growing ambition of China. The policies ranged from co-operation in trade with China, to strengthening and significantly broadening relations with India. The most recent of which was the United States proposing (at least in rhetoric) that China, India and America act as financial regulators and leaders for South Asia. The attempts to befriend China have made little headway. Even though the United States claims that relations with China are better than ever, that’s not saying a lot considering that up until the last decade the Chinese were shooting down American spy planes hovering over China and unearthing bugging devices in their premier’s private plane. China itself, confident as ever in its rise, seems to be in no hurry to forgive anyone. But the sad part is that now plan-BBB- seems to be in jeopardy too. Or is it?
No comments:
Post a Comment