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Rajeev Srinivasan

Dollars uber alles: Tibet falls by the wayside for 30 silver coins

There was once the dictum, "What's good for General Motors is good for America." It turns out that today, one must add Boeing, Westinghouse, General Electric, Microsoft, United Artists et al to that list. For after all, the US has demonstrated tellingly during Chinese strongman Jiang Zemin's visit that all the fine talk of human rights and democracy is just so much hot air. As in the recent hit film, Jerry Maguire, "Show me the money!" is the mantra that the US understands best.

Writing in The Times of India, Ramesh Chandran suggested that India needs to take with a pinch of salt the 'thaw' in relations with the US, and the 'strategic dialogue' (whatever that means) initiated by Thomas Pickering of the US state department who was recently in India. Richard Celeste's appointment as the new ambassador to India is a positive move; however, in the final analysis, the US is guided entirely (and quite properly) by self-interest.

Therefore, it is appropriate to keep a certain sense of proportion about the Americans. It's great that they are 'making nice' with India, but a word of caution is in order. If they are being less than antagonistic, that's delightful, but let's not delude ourselves this is any more than temporary. India should not now fawn over them, just as India should not go ballistic when they are hostile. The US is no more India's permanent ally than, say, Lebanon is.

Where our interests coincide, well and good; otherwise, we should treat them with the proper respect and distance a superpower deserves. Most of all, India should be in proactive mode, with a coherent and consistent foreign policy: we need some good Washington-watchers who can analyse American moves and predict what they will do, and propose India's response thereto. Neither knee-jerk, panicky reactions nor sanctimonious lecturing will do: we need coherent strategy.

US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is to visit India this week; there is no reason to foresee great breakthroughs. For one thing, when she was the US ambassador to the United Nations, the honorable secretary showed herself to be a hawk, perhaps even a jingoist.

Furthermore, Albright's views on India are perhaps coloured by her father's views on Kashmir. Her father, Josef Korbel, a Czech diplomat, wrote a tome entitled Danger in Kashmir, which, if I am not mistaken, suggested Pakistan should be given control of Kashmir.

In addition, Albright recently made the baffling statement that Sri Lanka's Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam are "Hindu separatists." This, I fear, shows the depth of her knowledge and interest in matters South Asian. The LTTE are just about the least religious bunch around; "Hindu separatists" must be very last thing they consider themselves to be, especially considering many of them are nominally Christian, anyway!

The disdain with which official US circles view India is in sharp contrast with their blind adoration of China. That is a pity; I hope they have good long-term strategic reasons. I cannot fathom what these might be, because a powerful China is certain to harm US interests in Asia.

There are two groups of people in the US who take an interest in China: the 'activists' and the 'experts'. The former talk of Tibet, and Tiananmen Square, political prisoners, and slave labour in prisons. The latter are the proponents of 'constructive engagement', that specious notion that by providing China with increased commercial and other contact with the West, they will somehow be infected with notions of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness, and that Americans and Chinese can then live as One Big Happy Family.

Oddly, the same notion does not seem to apply to Iran, Iraq, Cuba, Myanmar, etc. Why is that? Are the Chinese uniquely prone to being infected by the virus of democracy and capitalism and all things good? Or is it just that the Americans are having a hissy-fit over Fidel Castro and Saddam Hussein continuing to thumb their noses at them? The tremendous hardship caused to the common people of Iraq or Cuba -- disease, starvation -- by unreasonable American embargoes and outright economic warfare does not seem to concern the White House or Foggy Bottom.

As I write this, American bullying of Iraq has taken yet another step, with the UN Security Council as smoke-screen: more sanctions are being imposed on Iraq. Without in any way condoning Saddam Hussein's brutalities, what appears to be an American vendetta against the man should not be causing untold misery to innocent civilians. The US looks childish to persist in this jihad.

All of it comes down to pure geopolitics. The Tibetans don't matter at all (but West Asians do) in the US's strategic calculations: but this might change if someone discovers large oil or gas reserves in Tibet's high, arid plateau -- American might suddenly become tenderly concerned about the Tibetans's fate, or more accurately, about the fate of their natural resources.

In another instance of inconsistency, the US purports to be mightily concerned about 'the export of Islamic fundamentalism' by Iran and Libya; and has made life rather difficult for these two nations. But even when their own intelligence forces produce detailed evidence about Pakistan being the focal point for sustained Islamic terrorism, the US chooses to turn a blind eye. Chinese nuclear proliferation to Iran concerns them, but not Chinese proliferation to Pakistan?

I wonder if the murders of four American oil company executives in Lahore (in apparent retaliation for the conviction of a Pakistani who gunned down CIA operatives in the US) as well as the conviction of the Pakistani accused of bombing the World Trade Centre in New York, will finally cause the US to recognise that their largesse to Pakistan is coming home to roost? Probably not, I fear. Control of Afghanistan and access to Central Asia's oil and gas, the US apparently feels, is possible through sponsoring Pakistan's ISI.

The 'experts' who run US foreign policy and trade are, and have always been, 100% dyed-in-the-wool mercantilists. One would expect them to cave in as soon as a few dollar signs were bandied about, and the 'one-billion-person-market' mantra was brandished a few times. The only thing that startles me is their apparent unconcern about the nexus between the Chinese economy and their military ambitions: After all, a large percentage of the public sector enterprises in China are owned and run by the (entertainingly named) People's Liberation Army.

From that perspective, I expected the 'activists' would gain a powerful and unlikely ally: the redoubtable ultra-nationalist, Senator Jesse Helms of North Carolina. Not exactly the most likeable of people, Helms is a powerful man, the head of the US Senate's Foreign Relations Committee. He used sheer bullying, for example, to deny William Weld ("too soft on drugs", judged Helms) the ambassador post to Mexico, although they are both Republicans.

Despite his obstreperousness, Helms seems to be one of the few influential US politicians who see the value of 'containing' China. And in the past, he has responded positively to Indian-American overtures (although he did address Benazir Bhutto as the "prime minister of India" once!). Indians ought to cultivate Helms, strange bedfellow though he may be. Scare the daylights out of him with the 'Red Menace' or something, if that will help.

Jesse Helms is part of a disparate crew who oppose China for a variety of reasons: from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch to actor Richard Gere, a Tibetan Buddhist and follower of the Dalai Lama. Obviously, their collective weight was not sufficient to overcome the combined forces of General Electric, General Motors, Boeing, Westinghouse, et al who have either invested huge sums in China or expect to sell a lot to China. These corporates have taken to lobbying intensively on behalf of China.

These MNCs have effectively become a fifth column for China; and it is particularly interesting to note that practically none of them is actually making any money in China. However, they have invested so much there, salivating over the potential market, that they are unable to pull out without substantial pain, loss of face and loss of assets. China has hoodwinked them beautifully. Surely, India can think of following in that path? Bring 'em in, take their money! As circus man PT Barnum said, "There's a sucker born every minute".

There was an extremely interesting case study in The Economist in September, relating to Matsushita's experiences with their investments in China. Japan's Matsushita, maker of National/Panasonic devices, and one of the largest trading companies in the world, was one of the first companies to invest huge sums in China (65 billion yen or $ 540 million). After ten years, they have made no money whatsoever, and are far from breaking even. They have to either take a huge write-off, or continue to throw good money away after bad: they are doing the latter.

It is pretty clear now what the price of American support is: $ 50 billion dollars. This is the amount of money American companies expect to make in sales of (potentially proliferatable) nuclear technology to China. Discarded, unmourned, were the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Chinese dissidents like Wang Dan, Taiwan's concerns about Chinese sabre-rattling, and the Dalai Lama.

Given the alleged campaign finance irregularities that the FBI is questioning Bill Clinton and Al Gore for -- it is said that China illegally funnelled funds through third parties -- one would have thought the Americans would be wary of appearing too cosy with the Chinese. But no: "Show me the money"; and all is forgiven.

American hypocrisy is a wonder to behold: remember the huge fuss they (and my favourite betes-noir, the Resident Non-Indians) made about the NPT a few months back? Sign the NPT, they said to India, and the millennium shall be yours. Or else, dire consequences, they said. Guess what, India didn't sign, and absolutely nothing happened. Just as nothing happened when Israel/South Africa exploded their atomic weapon in the Indian Ocean in 1979: the US was studiously silent.

Similarly, the US painted India as some kind of renegade-cum-bully for refusing to kow-tow to its NPT wishes; however, the selfsame Americans are now holding up the global ban on land-mines -- almost manifestly self-evident as desirable (just look at Cambodia's hundreds of thousands of limbless civilians injured by mines). And their reluctance does not make them renegade-cum-bullies?

As for the 30 silver coins that is the price of American acquiescence, India needs to flex its commercial/trade muscles too. Surely, we could persuade Boeing that Indian Airlines, Air India, Jet Airways, etc collectively need about $ 5 billion worth of planes? Surely, Jack Smith, CEO of General Motors, would be willing to invest, oh, $1 billion in India? And General Electric would bite if we dangled large power/infrastructure/railway projects in front of them (Enron notwithstanding)?

For $20 billion, I believe MNCs could be persuaded to lean on Bill Clinton a teeny-weeny bit. And what could we get out of that? Surely, the US could lean on friends in Pakistan a little to ease off on Kashmir? Or perhaps support India now and then in world fora? Who knows what else a little money can buy?

Rajeev Srinivasan