While Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s meeting with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari in Russia captured all the attention,  Singh’s talks with Chinese President Hu Jintao may turn out to be just as important in easing off renewed pressure on the complex relationship between the world’s rising powers.

India said this month it will bolster its defences on the unsettled China border, deploying up to 50,000 troops and its most latest Su-30 fighter aircraft at a base in the northeast.

While upgrading the defences has been a long-running objective, the timing seemed to suggest New Delhi’s renewed fears of “strategic encirclement” by China by deepening ties with all of its neighbours, not just Pakistan but also Sri Lanka and Nepal.

The chief of the Indian air force, reflecting the anxieties in the security establishment, said China was a far bigger threat than Pakistan because so little was known about Beijing’s combat capabilities.

Predictably enough, the Indian military moves and statements drew a strong response from China’s official media warning that New Delhi’s tough new posture was dangerous if it thought it would compel China to cave in. Beijing was in a different league, both in terms of national power, economic scale and global influence, the media said.

On Monday, Hu and Singh met on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the BRIC meeting that followed in the Urals city of Yekaterinburg. Details from the meeting were sketchy, but the Press Trust of India said the two leaders supported an early meeting of a joint economic group to push trade ties. 

They also touched on the border dispute at the heart of the more than four decades of distrust, noting that top negotiators were due to meet in August. The People’s Daily said Hu stressed on expanding economic cooperation and investment flows and aims to take bilateral trade to $60 billion in 2010. It stood at $51.8 billion in 2008, the paper said.

India’s decision to attend the SCO, where it has observer status, was also a step forward. Since its inception the forum has been seen in India as China-centric with the main strategic objective of limiting U.S. dominance on China’s periphery and in that way prevent the hemming-in of both China and Russia.

By attending the summit is New Dehi signalling its intention to engage China on a broad front and not shy away?

And did Beijing shift ground a bit by acceding to the declaration by the BRIC - Brazil, Russia, India and China - calling for U.N. reform and saying that the grouping understood and supported India and Brazil’s aspirations to play a greater role in the United Nations.

Both Brazil and India are candidates for permanent members of the Security Council and Beijing has long been cold to the idea of at least its southern neighbour getting a place on the high table. It wasn’t a ringing endorsement at Yekaterinburg but perhaps the first shuffling of chairs?

[Manmohan Singh and Hu Jintao at the SCO summit and a Chinese soldier at the border]

Power play in South Asia is always a delicate dance and anything that happens between India and China will likely play itself out across the region, not the least in Pakistan, Beijing's all weather friend.

And things are starting to move on the India-China front. We carried a report this weekabout India's plan to increase troop levels and build more airstrips in the remote state of Arunachal Pradesh, a territory disputed by China.  New Delhi planned to deploy two army divisions, the report quoted Arunachal governor J.J. Singh as saying.

Other reports in the Indian media said the air force was beefing up its base in Tejpur in the northeast with Su-30 fighter planes, the newest in its armoury. The HIndustan Times said it was part of a decision to move advanced assets close to the Chinese  border.  The IAF base in Tejpur which is in the state of Assam is within striking distance of the border with China in Arunachal Pradesh.

Arunachal evokes especially painful memories for India - for this is where the Chinese advanced deep inside, inflicting heavy casualties on poorly-equipped Indian soldiers in the 1962 war. The Chinese retreated but have refused to recognise Arunachal as part of India, and that along with other disputed stretches of their 3,000 km border has remained at the heart of more than four decades of distrust.

Indeed the renewed Indian defence deployment comes days after the air force chief said China posed a bigger and more potent threat than Pakistan.

And what of the Chinese? What do they have to say to the noises coming out of India?  While official China hasn't appeared to react publicly,  the Chinese media has responded. The Global Times said in a hard-hitting editorial the Indian government's tough new posture "is dangerous if it is based on the anticipation China will cave in".

China is in a different league, it says, by way of international influence, overall national power and economic scale and India's politicians don't seem to have realised this. On the contrary, they seem to think that they would be doing China a huge favour simply by not joining the so-called  “ring around China” established by the United States and Japan, it says.

China is not going to compromise on its border dispute with India, and it was up to New Delhi to figure out why it can't have stable relations with many of its neighbours such as Pakistan, Nepal and Sri Lanka while Beijing can, the Global Times says.

The Global Times is a popular tabloid and has been taking a strident tone on foreign policy issues. But it is published by the Communist Party mouthpiece, the People's Daily, and can't really be ignored.

Are we seeing the beginning of a more open, declared rivalry  between the world's two most populous countries? Where does Pakistan fit in all this? Is New Delhi going to organise its energies and defences to meet the perceived threat from China and leave Pakistan to figure out its own troubles?

And what of the Chinese? Are they going to turn up the heat on India? As this analysis notes, New Delhi is already wary of China's role in Pakistan, and now reinforcing its fear of strategic encirclement are Beijing's expanding ties with India's smaller neighbours such as Sri Lanka and Nepal.

 [Indian troops at the Indian-China trade route at Nathu-La; an Indian and a Chinese soldier also in Nathu-La] 

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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)

Emerging market ministers, particularly those from the BRIC economies -- Brazil, Russia, India and China -- are painting this weekend's G20 meeting as a victory in dragging them out of the shadows of global policy-making.

The finance ministers' statement included the promise of more money for the International Monetary Fund and regional development banks, on whom struggling emerging economies rely for support.

It accelerated a review of IMF quotas by two years to 2011, which should give emerging economies more say in the running of the multilateral lender. It also suggested that the headship of IFIs -- international financial institutions -- would no longer be guaranteed to Americans or Europeans. 

BRIC countries even issued their own communique, ahead of the final statement. "There is a conclusion that has been reached in recent years, which is that the resolution to today's global problems is only possible with the participation of emerging countries," Brazil's central bank governor Henrique Meirelles told MacroScope.

 "There is a natural evolution of the decision-making process, which many important countries agree on, that decisions move from the G7 to the G20."

But were there actually any major concessions?  Tim Ash,  head of emerging Europe, Middle East and Africa research at RBS thinks not.

"Clearly they would like things to change, but I'm not sure that much has actually changed," he says.

India is piling on the diplomatic pressure to convince the international community to lean on Pakistan to crack down on Islamist militants blamed by New Delhi for the Mumbai attacks.

According to the Times of India, "India has made it clear to the U.S. and Iran as well as Pakistan's key allies, China and Saudi Arabia, that they need to do more to use their clout to pressure Pakistan into acting..." The Press Trust of India (PTI), quoted by The Hindu, said India had used a visit by Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal to Delhi to drive home the same message.

As discussed previously on this blog, in the immediate aftermath of the Mumbai attacks, India's response was to look to the United States to put pressure on Pakistan. It also appears to have won some support from Russia, whose officials said publicly that the attacks were funded by Dawood Ibrahim, an underworld don who India says lives in Pakistan. China, Pakistan's traditional ally, supported the United Nations Security Council in  blacklisting the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, the charity accused of being a front for the Lashkar-e-Taiba.  China's Foreign Minister has also telephoned his counterparts in India and Pakistan urging dialogue, according to Xinhua. 

And to complete the tour of the permanent members of the Security Council, Britain blamed Pakistan-based militants for the Mumbai attacks, while France has also called on Pakistan to take action.

That's a fairly broad consensus in favour of diplomatic pressure. There certainly seem to be more players more visibly involved than in 2001/2002 when India and Pakistan came to the brink of war over an attack on the Indian parliament that India blamed on Pakistan-based militants. You might therefore be tempted to argue that the diplomatic approach is working -- and as long as this stands a chance, the prospects of military escalation are slim.

So what is going wrong? Despite the flurry of diplomatic activity, the military tensions are rising.  Pakistan has cancelled army leave and redeployed troops.  The Washington Post said thousands of troops were being redeployed from the Afghan border to the border with India.

Are the two countries' armies simply making sure they are prepared, just in case the diplomatic efforts fail? Or is there more going on behind-the-scenes?

Chinese naval ships may soon be steaming into the Gulf of  Aden to join a growing fleet of international warships fighting  Somali pirates.

A first probably for a navy that has long confined itself to its own waters, the move is certain to stir interest in the strategic community stretching from New Delhi to Washington.

Chinese state media on Wednesday quoted Vice Foreign Minister He Yafei as telling a UN Security Council meeting that Beijing  was considering sending naval ships on escort duty in the troubled waters.

On the face of it, as Beijing would argue, too much should not be read into its naval deployment off the Somali waters. Theirs will be one of a number of navies patrolling the region such as
the United States, India, Greece, Saudi Arabia, France, Russia, Britain and Pakistan.

Besides, Chinese vessels have been attacked by the pirates in recent months giving them as much justification for escort duty as anyone else operating there. The latest was on Tuesday when a Chinese fishing vessel was seized in the Gulf of Aden, along with three other ships including a yacht.

But China's military has been the subject of relentless scrutiny and any move it makes will be closely watched especially in regional capitals such as Tokyo and New Delhi. India, one of the biggest navies in the Indian Ocean boasting of an aircraft carrier group, has long looked over its shoulder watching for signs of a creeping Chinese naval presence in the Indian Ocean.

If nothing else, its role in helping Pakistan build its Gwadar port on the Baluchistan coast  is a matter of concern for Indian navy planners who worry that the deep water port is a key element of China's "String of Pearls" strategy of  extending its influence from the South China Sea through the Indian Ocean and on to the Arabian Gulf through  a chain of outposts.

The strategic message of the deployment in the Gulf of Aden is not lost on Chinese experts either. The state-run China Daily quoted a Chinese military strategist as saying it would be a good opportunity for the navy to get into the thick of action in waters far away from home.

"Apart from fighting pirates, another key goal is to register the presence of the Chinese navy," Prof Li Jie, a naval researcher, told the paper.

Is that partly what this is burst of activity in the region is about? Are navies flexing their muscles, stepping out of their comfort zones, running up alongside unlikely partners? Imagine Iranian and U.S. naval vessels operating in the same waters against the same enemy?

According to Pakistani newspaper the Daily Times, Pakistan's decision to crack down on the Jammat-ud-Dawa, the charity linked to the Laskhar-e-Taiba, came as the result of pressure from China. Jammat-ud-Dawa was blacklisted by a UN Security Council committee this week.

The Daily Times noted that earlier attempts to target the Jamaat-ud-Dawa at the Security Council had been vetoed by China. "It is the Chinese “message” that has changed our mind. The Chinese did not veto the banning of Dawa on Wednesday, and they had reportedly told Islamabad as much beforehand, compelling our permanent representative at the UN to assert that Pakistan would accept the ban if it came," the newspaper said. "One subliminal message was also given to Chief Minister Punjab, Mr Shehbaz Sharif, during his recent visit to China, and the message was that Pakistan had to seek peace with India or face change of policy in Beijing. Once again, it is our friend China whose advice has been well taken..."

This is intriguing, all the more so given how much attention has has been focused on what the United States has been doing to lean on Pakistan to curb militant groups blamed by India for the attacks on Mumbai.  So what has been going on? Has China, with its growing economic power, become a pivotal player in global diplomacy even as the United States continues to hog the limelight?

We've always known that China has had a major role in South Asia. But in the past it was a seen as the ultimate all-weather ally of Pakistan, to be used if necessary against India, with which it has vied for influence in Asia and against which it fought a border war in 1962.  Is this call for peace an example of it taking on a U.S.-style role of regional policeman, as I discussed in a post back in June about India, Pakistan and China?

The Times of India quotes Shashi Tharoor as saying that there was a feeling in China that its opposition to India on the issue of terrorism would "no longer be compatible with its being seen as a responsible player in the system''.

The Asia Times Online, in a report datelined Bangalore, put China's decision to support the crackdown on Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) in a more pragmatic context. "An official in India's Ministry of External Affairs (MEA), who spoke to Asia Times Online on condition of anonymity, said that in the wake of the international outrage triggered by the Mumbai attacks, the Pakistan government realized that whether or not the UN body designated JuD as terrorist, it would be compelled by the US to act against the group," it said. "In the circumstances, it felt it would be better to be seen to be acting under UN orders rather than pressure from India or the US. Hence the Pakistan-China decision to go along with the other Security Council members this time," it quoted the MEA official as saying.

Personally, I don't really understand what is going on in the India-Pakistan-China equation (largely because I don't know much about China). So instead, I've drawn up a list of questions on which I'd appreciate comments and which I aim to address in subsequent posts:

1) Has China decided that given its growing stake in the global economy, it has a greater interest in encouraging peace between India and Pakistan?

2) Has it become as important, or more important, a player in South Asia than the United States?

3) If it is aiming now to become an even-handed arbiter between India and Pakistan, why are there still so many problems along the Indian-Chinese border?

4) Why, if China was such a reliable friend of Pakistan, did it refuse to bail out its economy and leave the civilian government there with no option but to turn to the IMF?

5) What do we make of the fact that Pakistan Army chief General Ashfaq Kayani made his first visit to China, while President Asif Ali Zardari went to the United States?

6) What is the long-term gameplan? And what does this mean for South Asia and the rest of the world?

Are there other questions out there that need to be asked?

(Pictures: Reuters October file photo of Presidents Hu and Zardari in Beijing/David Gray)

You could be forgiven for thinking that the civilian nuclear deal with the United States is all about whether India holds early elections or not.

Every newspaper is speculating if Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who has staked his personal reputation on the deal, will resign to disassociate himself from an administration that failed to save a pact keenly watched by the world.

But are these the arguments India should be debating in the short-term or should we be discussing the real benefits and drawbacks of the deal?

The communists oppose the deal, in large part because they see it as a front for Washington’s strategic bulwark against a rising China and increasingly unstable Pakistan.

Besides, they say there are many holes in the deal that Washington will use to manipulate India’s foreign and strategic programmes, and that nuclear energy is not a solution to the shortage of electricity in the country or rising oil prices.

Why? Because nuclear energy can not meet India’s huge oil consumption in the transport sector, is expensive to produce and will expose India to manipulations by a small international cartel of uranium suppliers.

But most Indians feel, if straw polls by newspaper and television channels are to be believed the nuclear deal is good for India: The agreement is meant to provide India with the means to produce clean energy — a key constraint to economic growth. And the rise in crude prices underlines need for diversified sources of energy (even if nuclear will take ages to fill the gap).

Internationally, the accord represents a long overdue acceptance of India as a responsible nuclear power.

From the pro-deal camp here are a few points to ponder:

* Even if relations sour with the United States, India can turn to France, Russia, Australia or other uranium producers for supplies, courtesy the waiver from the Nuclear Suppliers Group which is independent of the deal with Washington?

* Why should India not use the deal to get a waiver from NSG and the opportunity to clear its name as a nuclear pariah state?

If the deal falls through, it is unlikely Washington — or any other nuclear nation — will broach the idea of selling nuclear fuel to India anytime soon.

But will that outcome make India more dependent on outside sources for energy, and weaken its own economic prospects against the growing clout of China?

This is the kind of debate that India would benefit from. Focusing on elections may only reap short term political benefits.

India’s opposition Bharatiya Janata Party has accused the government of a “craven” and “slavish” attitude to China.

The BJP and others argue that the coalition government has failed to prevent repeated Chinese incursions along the disputed border, from Ladakh in the northwest to Arunachal Pradesh in the northeast.

And by trying to muzzle the Dalai Lama and close down Delhi during the Olympic torch relay, it has shown weakness, which will only encourage China to throw its weight around more.

There is also concern about the modernisation of the Chinese army, and the steady improvement of road and rail links in Tibet which are altering the military balance of power. Then there is talk of fresh Chinese claims to the northern tip of Sikkim.

“Given the growing perception that the UPA government lacks resolve… it is no surprise that Beijing has put the historically undisputed border with Sikkim back into
contestation,” the Indian Express wrote in an editorial.

Bharat Bhushan in the Mail Today said India had bent over backwards to China without any apparent dividend, while Brahma Chellaney argues China is trying to tie India down in the Himalayas “in order to avert the rise of a peer rival in Asia”.

But does India have any choice but quiet diplomacy? Should India swallow its pride and keep China happy over the Tibet question, even put up with a bit of border wrangling, and concentrate on the bigger picture?

Trade ties are booming and India stands to gain from a closer relationship with China, after all.

Or are the critics right?

What message should Pranab Mukherjee be taking to Beijing this week? Hindi-Chini bhai, bhai (Indians and Chinese are brothers)? Or India is not to be messed with?

Another Himalayan kingdom is falling, a chapter closing on an ancient historical tradition. But will the modern system of democracy do a better job?

Sikkim’s monarchs, the Chogyals, retreated into history when India annexed their territory in 1975. Tibet’s “priest-king”, the Dalai Lama, was forced in exile when China invaded his land in the 1950s.

Now, after 239 years of the Shah dynasty, Nepal is set to become a secular republic on Wednesday .

In the Himalayas, only in Bhutan does a monarchy still play a significant role, and even there it voluntarily surrendered power this year to a new democratically elected parliament.

Many of these kings were once revered as incarnations of Buddha or Vishnu, some still are.

But the Himalayan monarchies have come under pressure from he north and south, from their giant neighbours China and India. Pressure has come from below as well, from subjects demanding democracy on the roof the world. One by one, they are succumbing to that pressure.

The Buddhist majority in Bhutan seemed sad to see their king stand aside and democracy enter their largely peaceful land, fearing that conflict and corruption would surely follow.

But few Nepalis seem unhappy to see Gyanendra or his son Paras pushed aside, even if many liked the idea of a constitutional monarchy.

Some people wonder if will Nepal one day regret the passing of its monarchy. Or are its people right to celebrate the advent of secular democracy and an end to feudalism?

In 1990, street protests forced King Birendra to relinquish power and introduce democracy. The palace was openly reviled at the time, but over the ensuing decade it gradually rebuilt its reputation. While politicians squabbled and stole, the king stayed firmly above the fray.

The palace massacre, and Gyanendra’s seizure of power, changed all that, and left the monarchy fatally wounded.

It now looks likely as though Maoist chief Prachanda will be prime minister, leaving the post of president a largely symbolic one.

But who will Nepal find to be its new, unifying figurehead? Does anyone mourn the death of an ancient tradition? And will its politicians finally live up to the promises they have made?