India has been fretting for months that it could be pushed into the background by the United States' economic dependence on China and by the renewed focus on Pakistan by President Barack Obama's administration.  That anxiety appears to have increased lately -- perhaps because the end of the country's lengthy election campaign has opened up space to think more about the external environment -- and is focusing on China.

In an interview with the Hindustan Times, Indian Air Chief Marshal Fali Homi Major said China posed a greater threat than Pakistan.  “China is a totally different ballgame compared to Pakistan,” he was quoted as saying. “We know very little about the actual capabilities of China, their combat edge or how professional their military is … they are certainly a greater threat.”

The Mint newspaper followed up with a editorial calling China "perhaps the gravest external threat" to India's security. "That India is in an unstable neighbourhood is clearer than ever this summer," it said. "But troubles from Pakistan, Sri Lanka or Nepal pale when compared with China."

The increased anxiety has been driven by the end of the war in Sri Lanka, where the government's victory was attributed partly to a supply of Chinese weapons, and where China has been building a new port on the island's southern coast.

"This is part of a broad move by China into the Indian Ocean, which India has traditionally considered its sphere of influence," said British newspaper The Times. Chinese engineers are building another port at Gwadar in Pakistan; roads are being cut or improved through Burma to help trade routes between Yunnan province in China and the Indian Ocean; ties are being improved with island nations such as the Seychelles; surveillance stations are being sited or upgraded on Burmese islands."

But even without the Sri Lankan trigger, Indian analysts have suggested that India may no longer enjoy the favoured position that developed under former president George W. Bush, when Washington forged close ties with Delhi, in part as a counterweight to China.  Facing the twin challenges of financial crisis and a military stalemate in Afghanistan, the Obama administration is dependent on India's two main rivals -- China to pay for American debt and Pakistan to help it defeat the Taliban.

"The crux of the matter lies in the US's relationship with China," retired Indian diplomat M.K. Bhadrakumar wrote in the Asia Times. "At first glance, it may appear there is hardly any ellipsis between George W Bush's policy of engaging China in 'constructive, candid and cooperative' ties and Obama's search for a 'positive, cooperative and comprehensive' US-China partnership. But the reality is that the US today has a much greater need of strategic engagement with China and arguably to 'upgrade' the partnership in the direction of an elevated dialogue on global political issues."

"To be sure, China's global influence has increased and a full-blown US-China strategic partnership - as evident from the mere talk of an exclusive 'G-2' matrix - will figure on the radars of countries such as India (or Japan) as a high probability if not an inevitability. The Obama administration will have to work hard to reassure India that it is not being relegated to a subordinate status."

India's loss does not automatically mean Pakistan's gain.

Pakistan has traditionally regarded China as its most reliable ally. In the past, Sino-Indian rivalry has helped it to win military supplies from China along with financial and diplomatic support. But rivalry between its two giant neighbours has not necessarily always played in its favour. India developed nuclear weapons to counter China's nuclear capability.  Pakistan, according to the Pakistan Army's official website, saw this as "coercive diplomacy" targetting not China, but Pakistan, and began its own nuclear weapons programme after India carried out its first nuclear test in 1974.

Nor did Pakistan necessarily gain from India's defeat by China in a border war in 1962, which left India with an enduring anxiety about its long, unmarked borders. When it feared Pakistan was planning to take control of the mountains beyond Kashmir -- an area so remote that it had never been demarcated -- India sent troops to occupy the heights above the Siachen glacier in 1984. Although India had been burned by what it saw as Chinese encroachment in its border areas before the 1962 war, its actions on Siachen were directed against Pakistan. (Twenty-five years later, the Indian and Pakistan armies are still deployed on the heights above Siachen, with India commanding the higher positions.)

Nor does Pakistan automatically gain from ever-closer ties between the United States and China.

According to this McClatchy report, the Obama administration has appealed to China to provide training and even military equipment to help Pakistanis counter the growing militant threat. "The proposal is part of a broad push by Washington to enlist key allies of Pakistan in an effort to persuade Islamabad to step up its efforts against militants while supporting the fragile civilian government and its tottering economy." it says. Richard Holbrooke, the administration’s special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, had visited China and Saudi Arabia, another ally, in recent weeks as part of the effort, it said.

In the past, Pakistan prided itself as a go-between, facilitating the Cold War thaw in relations between the United States and communist China in the early 1970s.  That may seem like a long time ago, but in a region with a fierce attachment to history, is Pakistan really ready to have Washington and Beijing talk over its head about what is best for it?

(Photos: President Obama meets President Hu in London; and Indian soldiers in Siachen)

By Niu Shuping and Ken Wills

Nevermind that the H1N1 “swine” flu, which has killed more than 150 people in Mexico, is not directly caused by pigs and has so far not led to any outbreaks among pigs.

Nevermind that the World Health Organization has ruled out any risk of infection to humans from eating pork.

Nevermind that the influenza-A virus contains DNA from avian and human as well as swine H1N1 viruses, but unfortunately (for the pork industry) has been tagged as “swine flu” by global health authorities and therefore by the media. 

The net result is that, amid the confusion and potential risks of appearing unprepared, at least six countries have decided to panic over pigs, imposing import bans on live pigs and pork products from Mexico and the United States.

Indeed, the country with the largest pig population in the world — China — is going full-bore on a perceived threat to the domestic pig industry.

China’s quaratine authority took immediate action by banning pork imports from Mexico as well as 3 states in the United States, vowing to destroy any pigs that arrived at its borders. On Tuesday, in a meeting hosted by Premier Wen Jiabao, China’s cabinet worked out an 8-point flu prevention strategy, including one to strengthen inspection to detect any outbreaks of swine flu among pigs and to strictly supervise trade of live pigs as well as some pig breeding areas.

Why all this attention to pigs?

Agriculture Minister Sun Zhengcai said the possibility of the virus spreading to pigs cannot be ruled out, although there was no mention that the avian portion of the virus’s DNA might also lead to an outbreak among poultry.

To be fair, screening of people arriving at China’s airports has also been stepped up, though so far no human cases of the flu have been announced in the country.

What is clear is that when the world’s most populous nation raises concerns about a staple food in the country’s diet, it most certainly will affect prices. Early signs are that consumers have begun to avoid pork, much to the dismay of breeders and others in the industry. In fact many farmers want to avoid publicity at all costs for fear that any further news coverage – even to correct the misimpressions — will hurt business.

The Beijing News on Wednesday reported that pork prices in the capital have dropped significantly. It cited a pig breeder in a Beijing suburb, Li Wei, as saying he worries that consumers might shift to mutton or beef  if the “swine” flu scare keeps spreading.

Two years ago, China’s pork industry was racked by blue ear disease, which decimated pig numbers and caused prices to spike skyward. Since the start of the year, prices have been falling in response to subsidies Beijing offered to replenish supplies. Now they’re dipping faster, this time in part due to government efforts to protect the sector.

Hopefully, when we look back, the sudden recent dip in pork prices will turn out to have been the worst of China’s casualties from the global flu scare.

Photo captions: Top: A labourer feeds piglets at a farm on the outskirts of Suining, Sichuan province April 27, 2009. REUTERS/Stringer. Bottom: Piglets suckle milk from their mother at a farm in Ganyu County, Jiangsu province April 27, 2009. REUTERS/China Daily

                                              By Jon Herskovitz

North Korea says somewhere up in the sky, a satellite it launched at the weekend is beaming to earth two revolutionary paeans: "Song of General Kim Il-sung" for the founder of the reclusive state and "Song of General Kim Jong-il," for the son who succeeded him when he died.

U.S. and South Korean officials said the North Korean rockets did not send anything into space and all pieces of the rocket crashed into the sea, including the claimed satellite, which might have been North Korea's oversized attempt to replicate an iPod.

The North Korean report was a a bit of a blast from the past because North Korea made a similar claim in 1998 that it had sent a satellite into orbit playing the exact same two songs.

There is far more to North Korea's hit parade of songs than the two homilies it said were aboard its rocket. This is a country where soldiers sing, farmers sing, the hundreds of thousand gather in the centre of the capital Pyongyang to dance in special days and a refined teenage girl always has her accordion ready to play a tune.

The North Korea songbook is diverse. It has the dance number "Let's Dash Forward to Build a Great Prosperous and Powerful Nation". It has a tune for choral groups called "May the Song of a Happy Soldier Reverberate Far and Wide," and it has a children's song called Generalissimo Kim Il-sung Danced With Us." Here are the lyrics as translated into English by the North:
On the New Year's,
We danced together hand in hand
We danced out of our wish for his pleasure
The Generalissimo danced with us
Out of his wish for our happy future.
His parental love for us
Moved us to tears.
Our respect and filial devotion are growing.
The Generalissimo danced with us.

I saw this song performed about a year ago at the Mangyongdae Schoolchildren's Palace when I went to Pyongyang for the New York Philharmonic concert. The school is dedicated to the performing arts and the children, many still of primary school age, sang and danced their way through songs such as "Jingle Bells" and "We are Faithful Only to Kim Jong-il."

When they grow older, the North Korean song book awaits them. Here is a top 10 list in no particular order of North Korea's greatest hits:

* "Song of Defending Homeland"
* "The Ten-point Programme of the Association for the Restoration of the Fatherland"
* Let's Dash Forward to Build a Great Prosperous and Powerful Nation"
* Let's Hold Higher Rifle of Working Class"
* "Hopeful Is the Future of Us under the Care of the General"
* "May the Playing of My Accordion Resound Forth"
* "Song of the Coastal Artillery Women"
* "We Will Defend the Headquarters of Revolution with Our Lives"
* "Our General is Best"
* "We Have Planted Apple Trees on Mountains"

Perhaps, the next time North Korea attempts to launch a satellite, it might want to load a few of these tunes in order to expand its repertoire.

{Photos of Kim Jong-il with  with scientists and engineers involved in a rocket launch and a protest in Seoul against the launch]

Afghanistan sits on one of the largest mineral deposits in the region, the country's mines minister told Reuters in an interview this month.

And the Chinese are already there, braving the Taliban upsurge and a slowing economy at home to invest in the vast Aynak copper field south of Kabul, reputed to hold one of the largest deposits of the metal in the world.

In what is the biggest foreign investment in Afghanistan, China  last year committed  nearly $2.9 billion to develop the Aynak field including the infrastructure  that must be built with it such as a power station to run the operation and a railroad to haul the tons of copper it hopes to extract.

Despite Afghanistan's deteriorating security including in Logar province which is where the Aynak reserves are located and which serves as one of the gateways  to Kabul,  China has said it will carry out the project, the Afghan mines minister Mohammad Ibrahim Adel said.

China Metallurgical Group,  the state-run firm which won the 30-year concesssion along with Jiangxi Copper Co, has already begun paving a dirt road near the mine, according to a report by McClatchy Newspapers this month. Interestingly, the report notes that the U.S. military, which has set up bases in the Logar area to strangle Taliban infiltration into Kabul, has ended up indirectly "providing security that will enable China to exploit one of the world's largest unexploited deposits of copper, earn tens of billions of dollars and feed its voracious appetite for raw materials."

China has operated in the shadows in Afghanistan, compared with Pakistan, India and Iran which  are engaged in a much more public battle for influence there.

The Chinese decision to invest in the copper reserves which were discovered back in 1974 could make a real difference to ordinary people. The government estimates the mine will directly employ 10,000 Afghans and indirectly employ 20,000 more. Further, the contract obliges the Chinese firm to build new living areas for workers and provide much needed infrastructure like roads, hospitals, schools, and electricity, along with the railroad.

Besides building influence in Afghanistan, the Chinese have long been suspected of playing a bigger game of securing cross-brder connections in Central Asia, Iran and South Asia to the warm waters of the Indian Ocean. The freight railroad that they envison will run through its western provinces to Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and then Pakistan.

One part of this grid may already be falling into place after Tajikistan announced last week that it had begun building a railroad to connect its capital Dushanbe to a bridge on the Afghan border. The immediate trigger for building the Afghan-Tajik link is because NATO is looking for a route through the former Soviet Union to move supplies to Afghanistan as an alternative to Pakistan.

But again, it also fits in nicely with China's own plans for connectivity in the region. Is it a  case of heads America loses, tails China wins ?

[Photo of women in Logar and Presidents Hu Jintao and Hamid Karzai]

There’s been a lively discussion, here and elsewhere, about which version of the medals table is a better way of ranking countries’ achievements at the Olympics.

Reuters goes with the “gold standard”, if you like, which has put China out in front almost from the start. Other, mainly American outlets go with the “total number of medals” tally that puts the U.S. on top.

It’s been interesting to hear so many different points of view, and suggestions for different, weighted systems of formatting the table (see the original piece here).

A lot of people like the idea of different points for gold, silver and bronze, while I’ve enjoyed the notion of combining that weighting system with a per capita bias. That was suggested to me by Greg Stutchbury, a colleague from New Zealand, and it worked out that top of the medals table would be New Zealand. Strange, that.

Still, we’re sticking with the gold standard and on that basis I can tell you that China are now assured of first place. Greg has done the maths and as of this morning the U.S. can no longer catch the hosts. There are still enough medals up for grabs, but the U.S. are not in contention in enough of the events to make up the ground (see the table to the right of this page for the up-to-date tally).

So congratulations China. It is a mighty achievement, given that they did not win a single Olympic gold medal until 1984. It just shows what a massive population and absolute dedication to a goal can achieve.

PHOTO: Zhang Yining of China kisses her gold medal after defeating compatriot Wang Nan in the women’s singles table tennis final at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games August 22, 2008. REUTERS/Joe Chan

If anyone at this Games could be forgiven for being a little bit conceited, a touch arrogant or slightly dismissive of his opponents then it surely would be Michael Phelps. Six races, six gold medals, six world records — it must be hard to keep your feet on the ground.

The reality is that having watched Phelps close-up this week, both poolside and in the press conference room, there isn’t the slightest whiff of arrogance about him. Even when provoked, by a reporter’s question about doping for example, he remains calm and respectful giving a sensible answer.

More importantly he remains respectful to his fellow athletes, in his own, rather reserved way.

I asked Hungarian Laszlo Cseh, who has finished behind Phelps on three occasions in these Games, what Phelps had said to him after the race and he smiled, “He just said ‘good race’.”

The 12-time gold medallist has celebrated his triumphs in a restrained manner — no whooping, no tears, no dancing poolside — just that one, genuine, roar of delight after the thrilling 4×100 relay win.

Asked about becoming the most decorated Olympian of all time, Phelps said that sounded “pretty neat”. That was refreshing because it managed to avoid sounding arrogant or falsely modest.

Phelps’s demeanour does reflect a culture of swimming that tends to discourage excessive bravado. The competitors spend a lot of time in training camps together and compete against each other in the annual world championships and the familiarity breeds respect.

Likewise they know that each one of them has to go through the same gruelling and often monotonous routine of training, watching your diet and living in a disciplined lifestyle.

Not many people live that way and so there is a mutual understanding. Also, as several podium finishers have pointed out this week, in a sport where a fraction of a second is all that separates a gold medal from a silver, it is very easy to be toppled and only a fool would look down on their competitors because they could very easily be the one being pipped next time.

Having dominated as much as he has, though, Phelps could have broken the mould and been forgiven. He could have chosen to behave like a swimming superstar; he could have said or done anything he wanted and most of us would have accepted it.

That he chose not to, illustrates not only the pleasant atmosphere around top class swimming but also reflects on Phelps, the man.

In an era where Phelps’s nation is suffering a bit of an image problem abroad, Phelps represents America at its best — excellence, courtesy, ambition and dedication, all delivered in an under-stated manner.

He beats everyone but you never hear a bad word about him — and that takes some doing.

PHOTO: Michael Phelps listens to the national anthem during the medal presentation ceremony for the men’s 200m individual medley swimming final at the National Aquatics Center during the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games August 15, 2008. REUTERS/David Gray

Michael Phelps smashed his own world record in the 400m individual medley to set off on what could be a record-breaking gold medal trail on day two of real action at the 2008 Olympics.

That was early in the morning and it took until late at night before we had a story that even came close to matching it, with the United States overcoming a slightly unconvincing start to beat China by an emphatic 101-70.

Along the way we had Stephanie Rice, one half of Australian swimming’s glam couple, matching Phelps with a world record and a gold medal in the women’s 400m individual medley.

They were fantastic tales, and there were many others, but I think my favourite today came in the shooting, where despite the ongoing strife between their two countries, Georgian Nino Salukvadze hugged Russian rival Natalia Paderina after they took bronze and silver respectively in the 10-metre air pistol.

There was also a classic bright about a name change that brought a great deal of good fortune for Thailand weightlifter Prapawadee Jaroenrattanatarakoon. What’s in a name? 31 letters and a whole lot of luck, in this case. 

I didn’t spot any golden quotes today but there was a decent piece of trivia. Did you know that South Korea’s women have won every women’s Olympic archery gold medal since 1984? They secured their sixth consecutive one on Sunday, beating China 224-215.

I’ll be back on the blog after a short break for sleep. In the mean time, please check out the latest edition of our podcast. I promise you, it’s by far the best yet and well worth checking out. That Linden bloke is a star. Here it is.

The Olympic basketball match between China and the United States just ended with the U.S. pulling away to win 101-70 in what they say was the most-watched event sporting event in China’s history.

It’ll be no surprise if the estimates are right and a billion or so people around the world were tuned in to watch what was after all an irresistible contest – a meeting between the “Reds” and the “Red-White-and-Blues” and one laden with symbols. 

Given the circumstances it was truly more than just a game — and I found myself wondering what James Naismith, who invented basketball in 1891 by putting up two peach baskets, would have thought had he been here too.

I had a great seat, not all that far from where U.S. President George W. Bush was watching, and a few rows over from actress Glenn Close, and even though I’m an American — and an avid follower of Olympic basketball ever since the United States got robbed by the Soviet Union in the electrifying final of the 1972 Munich Olympics — I found myself “oohing” and “aahing” like everyone else.

I even found myself cheering for the scintillating team play of China and the sheer joy that erupted in the seats around me when China scored.

At the same time the Chinese fans were out of the seats cheering every great American pass or basket — especially the spectacular, gravity-defying dunks form a U.S. team who seemed to be true to their promise of a new attitude after the humbling experience of Athens in 2004.

Basketball is a huge sport in China and many of the Chinese people I’ve talked say they watch the NBA all the time on television. It’s still much better, they confide, than their CBA. But, like everything else in Beijing, China is catching up.

And who knows what will happen in another 117 years?

PHOTO: Kobe Bryant of the U.S. slam dunks against China during their Group B men’s basketball game at the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games August 10, 2008. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

When militiamen swept into their villages on horseback in the early 1990s, shooting, burning and raping as they went, tens of thousands of young Sudanese boys were forced to flee for their lives.

They walked for hundreds of miles, many dying on the way of starvation and illness. Others were eaten by lions. But many survived, ending up in refugee camps in the near-desert plains of northern Kenya.

In 2001, nearly 4,000 of the “Lost Boys” were resettled in the United States. On Friday, one of them will have the honour of carrying the U.S. flag at the opening ceremony for the Summer Olympics in Beijing.

Lopez Lomong, who left his home in the southern Sudan in 1991 as a six-year-old boy, is now a successful middle-distance runner. Chosen by his own team mates for the honour, he says Friday will be “the most exciting day ever in my life“.

Lomong left home and lost contact with his parents at the height of Sudan’s civil war between its mainly Arab north and its largely Christian south. It was a devastating conflict, which left around two million people dead.

That conflict is now over, but the Sudanese government continues to arm tribes to do their dirty work, human rights groups say, spreading death and misery in the western region of Darfur.

China, a major investor in Sudan’s oil industry and supplier of arms, stands accused of not doing enough to press Khartoum to end the crisis in Darfur.

Beijing decided to revoke the visa of Olympic gold medallist Joey Cheek this week, who is now an activist for Darfur. But it seems it cannot silence discussion of its role in Sudan.

Lomong’s story is an inspiring one and perhaps U.S. athletes will say that is why they chose him for the honour of carrying the flag. But it could also be interpreted as a political choice, a statement to the governments of Sudan and China.

What do you think? Was it the right choice? Is it a case of crossing the line between sport and politics? If so, does it matter?

PHOTO: Lopez Lomong celebrates winning the 1500 meters at the Reebok Grand Prix athletics meet in New York May 31, 2008. REUTERS/Gary Hershorn