10 October 2000 Byliner: Under Secretary Inderfurth on U.S.-India Relations (This column by Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs Karl Inderfurth first appeared in The Baltimore Sun October 10 and is in the public domain. No republication restrictions.) New Indian Ties Worth Betting On By Karl F. Inderfurth (The author is Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs) Washington -- The mid-September visit to Washington by Indian Prime Minster Vajpayee highlights the fundamental change underway in the ties between our two countries, toward what he and President Clinton aptly have termed a "closer and qualitatively new relationship." This change is a significant part of redefining our overall foreign policy for the 21st century. And because this change is so much in line with our larger national interests, and enjoys such broad support across the political spectrum in both countries, I am confident that it will endure long beyond this administration. Suffice it to note that the bipartisan India Caucus in Congress has well over 100 members, more than any other such group. India and the United States, as two great democracies, have always had the potential to be, in Mr. Vajpayee's words, "natural allies." What is new is that both governments are now acting to fulfill that potential -- and also that India is today an emerging economic and political player on the world stage, as well as its largest democracy. As such, India is an increasingly important partner for the United States on a whole range of crucial issues: from cutting-edge technological cooperation to common cause against the age-old ills of disease and poverty or the new scourges of international terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. The exchange of two visits between our national leaders over just six months -- itself unprecedented -- has helped to institutionalize this new partnership in ways that will keep paying valuable dividends over the long term. Some of the progress in Indo-U.S. relations is spearheaded, as it should be, not by our governments but by our private sectors and by the thriving Indian-American community. Symbolic of this was the coincidence that during the very week Mr. Vajpayee was in the U.S., Bill Gates of Microsoft and Jack Welch of General Electric were in India, on software and energy business. And some of our most successful entrepreneurs of Indian origin were putting the finishing touches on a major new private initiative to sponsor more high-tech institutes in their former homeland, which already boasts some of the finest such schools anywhere. The ties we are creating in all these different ways reinforce each other. Concrete examples of the benefits of Indian and American economic officials working together include: creating better global regimes for e-commerce and biotechnology and pushing oil prices down to more reasonable levels while our technicians explore clean energy options to help preserve our shared environment. Our doctors and scientists are collaborating in government-supported projects to fight AIDS and other killer diseases, with public health programs and research on new preventive vaccines. Our diplomats are working to narrow our differences on nonproliferation issues, helping make the world safer, and the same overarching objective is served by other new forms of security consultation. For the first time, Indian and American experts are teaming up to counter threats from international terrorism. And our senior officials are discussing India's major contribution to international peacekeeping, to keep today's trouble spots from becoming tomorrow's crises. Unfortunately, some have mislabeled our expanding ties to India as a "tilt" away from other countries, as if the U.S. could have but a single partner. But nations, rather like people, can have more than one friend at a time. The notion of tilt has had no real application to our policy in Asia at least since the end of the Cold War. Our relations with India are not determined by our relations with Pakistan or China or any other country -- and vice versa. In Pakistan, we are keeping open high-level channels of communication to Islamabad. Our policy is to urge both Pakistan and India to observe the "four R's" articulated by President Clinton in both countries in March: restraint, respect for the Line of Control in Kashmir, rejection of violence, and renewal of dialogue. We will continue working to ease tensions and reduce the nuclear threat in this vital part of the world. And we will continue looking for opportunities, as our common interests and values suggest, to strengthen our ties with every nation in the region. In short, in Asia as elsewhere, we pursue our relationship with each country based on its own merits. And on those merits, we have great expectations for our new relationship with India, which promises to take its rightful place high on the scale of American foreign policy priorities in the years ahead. (Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov) Return to the Washington File