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Saturday, April 30, 2005
Coffee, tea or strategic partnership?
Ashok Malik takes a look at the spin manufactured by the ministry of external affairs:
Later in the piece he asks, "Does the MEA have a strategic world view (as things stand, even a strategic Nepal view would be fine)? Perhaps it simply has a menu of strategic world views, one of which is pulled out to suit the visitor of the week."
Read the full thing.
Begin with end March and the visit of the American secretary of state. It left India with the offer of a “strategic partnership”. Shortly afterwards, the Chinese prime minister came along and offered India another “strategic partnership”. Now the Japanese prime minister is here with a third “strategic partnership”.
Next month, the Indian prime minister visits Russia to, no doubt, celebrate an old “strategic partnership”. In 2005, India and Australia could exchange prime ministerial visits and upgrade their “strategic dialogue” to — what else? — a “strategic partnership”.
That aside, a familiar bunch of Cold War nostalgics speaks of a trilateral India-Russia-China “strategic partnership” — as opposed to bilateral strategic partnerships between these countries. Finally, this week, one analyst came close to advocating a strategic partnership with an “European Union seeking to cut its apron strings to America”, a happy occurrence Europhilic Indians have been waiting for since the D-Day landings.
Even if Venezuela and all of Africa have not been strategically partnered yet, that is a whole lot of strategic partnerships to cope with.
Later in the piece he asks, "Does the MEA have a strategic world view (as things stand, even a strategic Nepal view would be fine)? Perhaps it simply has a menu of strategic world views, one of which is pulled out to suit the visitor of the week."
Read the full thing.
