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America's pro-China stance blasted

Tara Shankar Sahay in New Delhi

US State Department spokesman James Rubin's outburst against Home Minister L K Advani's recent statements on Pakistan reflect Washington's unconcern about the endangered security environment in South Asia.

While deliberately turning a Nelson's eye to the China-Pak nexus in nuclear and missile technology, New Delhi's detractors in the Clinton administration have preferred to attack India, distorting facts to paint India as the villain of the peace while analysing the explosive security environment in the region.

Rubin in particular appears to talk special pleasure in coming to the defence of both China and Pakistan, at the expense of New Delhi.

Apart from the spirited defence of India by US Congressman Frank Pallone, Speaker of the US House of Representatives Newt Gingrich is yet another American politician who has criticised the Clinton administration's lop-sided perception of the security environment in South Asia.

Gingrich and others have lambasted the Clinton administration's 'China connection' -- a "grim reality which the American public finds difficult to ignore", according to an official of the ministry of external affairs.

It was pointed out that the Clinton administration's China connection had made its anti-India officials unleash acrimony against New Delhi, while Beijing was sought to be portrayed as a friend.

As more and more evidence surfaces about the Beijing-Islamabad link in South Asia, anti-India officials in the Clinton administration have been seen to adopt a harder stance against New Delhi, following the nuclear underground tests in Pokhran.

MEA officials have pointed out that Washington has even rejected the argument of US politicians that it is the soft US attitude towards China that had forced New Delhi to conduct the underground tests. Clinton administration officials like Rubin have preferred, indeed chosen, to see that New Delhi, by conducting the underground tests, has endangered the regional security environment, even as China and Pakistan continue their clandestine nuclear and missile programme.

It was also pointed out that despite calls for the cancellation of President Clinton's impending visit to China, US officials such as Rubin are seeking to divert attention by seeking to concentrate Washington's fire on New Delhi. That is why India's objection Rubin's anti-Advani statement was conveyed today.

In view of China's increasing naval presence in the Indian Ocean region, defence analysts here have attached much significance to the Russia-India naval exercises scheduled for the near future. While refusing to elaborate, a senior defence ministry official pointed out that the Russia-India naval exercises will be conducted mainly to signal that New Delhi still had reliable friends who will come to the rescue when the occasion demands.

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