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India and a tale of two U.S. allies

— FILE PHOTO: AP

Australian Prime Minister John Howard (left), with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Australia’s urgency to support India’s civilian nuclear energy sector and Japan’s political overtures to New Delhi, seen as a fellow-democracy, reveal how these two old allies of the United States are acting in self-interest. If, however, Canberra and Tokyo share a new sense of strategic affinity with New Delhi, the sentiment is well guarded.

The current political climate in India, marked by a ‘crisis’ over its civilian nuclear energy accord with the U.S., does not suit its allies to look upon New Delhi as a state-player in their own league. Moreover, the China factor in the independent foreign policies of Japan and Australia drives their dissimilar engagement with India.

Even as India and the U.S. finalised the new pact, Canberra announced its willingness to sell uranium to New Delhi for electricity production.

In contrast, Japan has now emphasised how it will first study the possible impact of this deal, whose finality is uncertain, on the issue of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.

So, while Australia has dropped no hint of serious reservations about the U.S.-India accord, Japan is biding time to judge the new issues at stake. One of these new elements, with possible impact on global politics, is the likelihood of India being virtually accepted as a state-player in rightful possession of an atomic arsenal outside the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).

Asked by this correspondent about the dilemma of NPT-gurus, Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said the U.S.-India pact was “the second best” course open to the global community.

And, Mr. Downer reinforced this argument a few days ago by declaring that Canberra would not impose its own set of “nuclear safeguards” on India while selling it Australian uranium. Because, India is expected to negotiate “safeguards” with the International Atomic Energy Agency and also try and win the approval of the Nuclear Suppliers Group for importing know-how and materials.

Why is the Australian Government, a high priest of NPT and the Comprehensive [Nuclear] Test Ban Treaty, singing a different tune now, even in the face of stiff opposition at home? And, why is Japan lukewarm towards India over its latest deal with the U.S.?

Shorn of the niceties of arguments, Australia has little or no difficulty in toeing the U.S. line quickly and without causing doubts, while Japan cannot easily come to terms with a nuclear-armed India in perpetuity.

Nestling comfortably under the U.S. nuclear umbrella, Australia has so far felt no internal or external pressures to become a nuclear-armed state in its own right. Australian Prime Minister John Howard, who prides himself on being a realist, has no problems in offering his country’s bountiful uranium to both India and China in an almost even-handed fashion.

Unlike today’s politically resurgent Japan, Australia is not competing with China for global-power status. Yet, as emphasised by an Australian defence expert, Sam Bateman, a new “globalist school” believes that the new trends and events on the world stage should influence Canberra’s posture. Australia’s uranium offers are compatible with this thinking.

Importantly, “globalist” calculations also shape Canberra’s increasingly dim view of Tokyo’s proposal that the U.S., India, Japan itself, and Australia form a school of democracies, if not a strategic forum.

Unwelcome to Australia is the possibility that such a forum will be seen as being directed against China, which recently has, with an anti-satellite test, showcased capabilities as a potential space-age superpower.

For Japan, though, its own proposal can, at this stage, help keep a rapidly modernising China guessing about the emerging power equations in the Asia Pacific region. Unsurprisingly, Mr. Abe advocated a school of democracies during his latest visit to India.

Equally unsurprisingly, but in a different perspective, Singapore, which will join the proposed U.S.-India-Japan-Australia naval exercise in September, does not see it as a power game at all. It “participates in a number of exercises each year with friends from around the world.” And, the City-State is slated to join a submarine rescue exercise in November, involving the U.S., Pakistan, and China among others.

In this broad context, defined by Mr. Abe’s “proactive diplomacy” of engaging Asia Pacific powers, including China, his reluctance to endorse the U.S.-India civil nuclear energy deal stands out. Post-imperial Japan’s nuclear pacifism, still very much a policy, does restrain him. However, Mr. Abe cannot ignore the big picture of Tokyo’s own long-term options in a “nuclearised” neighbourhood. A view in diplomatic circles is that he first wants to see whether India can pull a dove, the peace mascot, out of a hat of thorns.

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