Sino-US issues may crash India's Washington party
- Source: Global Times
- [23:49 November 29 2009]
- Comments
By Swaran Singh
To look back at the just concluded November 24 Indo-US summit, three Ps can best describe the four days of interactions in expensive and highly bureaucratic Washington DC.
These three Ps include oversized platitudes, highly promising attitudes and a new partying style that underlined Obama'sway of entertaining guests.
To begin with the platitudes,Obama described Indian PrimeMinister Marmohan Singh asa "wise man" known for "honesty and integrity" and said "Irespect him and I trust him." Obama's body language washighly proper and respectful, topped by his now world-famousgrin.
Not just that, he also described India as "indispensable", and a "rising and responsiblepower" and even called India and US "two nuclear powers."
In addition to their promise to work together in consolidating their strategic partnership, Obama's opening remarks to their post-summit joint press conference appeared promising. He said, "The US welcomes and encourages India's leadership role in helping the rise of a stable, peaceful and prosperous Asia."
To the surprise of many, he even talked of India and US "eliminating terrorist safe heaven and sanctuaries in India's neighborhood," interpreted as a reference to Pakistan.
Obama has been feared inIndia for his focus on arms control and disarmament issues and his Nobel Peace Prize was only expected to reinforce his idealistic visions.
But there was no mention offeared terms like "nuclear proliferation," let alone Kashmir or human rights.
Instead, it was the big-time partying that made the papers. Heralding a revolution of sorts, Obama organized a White House dinner for 320 guests that included Hollywood stars.
This required setting up special tents on the south lawns of the White House.
Great photo-ops! But what does it hold for Indo-US relations?
If anything, this was moreto do with US domestic politicsthan with India. Obama chose to highlight India's democracy and that this was the first state visit that he had hosted.
However, critics slated all these platitudes, promises and partying as extremely futureoriented,and worse, patronizing and it leaves little of substance to take away from this apparently widely covered summit.
Singh described the benefits in four Es, namely economy, energy, environment, and empowerment, which he said would be the core of the "next phase" of Indo-US relations.
For the present phase, however, the summit clearly failed to even keep the shine of much glamorized Indo-US nuclear deal.
