74 8 { China’s Quest
BMD system in 2011. Joint research and development efforts in space and a
range of other high-tech areas began. The two militaries began joint train-
ing exercises in a range of areas: high altitude operations, air defense, com-
mand post, and naval maneuvers. The two navies began coordinating their
patrolling activities in the Indian Ocean, including the Strait of Malacca. India
began to purchase US arms. The two sides coordinated efforts in Afghanistan,
though quietly so as to minimize Pakistani unease. In June 2005, India and
the United States signed a New Framework for Defense Relations laying out a
ten-year program of expanded cooperation. Washington also offered India an
exception to NPT requirements that would allow the United States to begin
civilian nuclear cooperation with India. Talk on such an exception began in
2005 and culminated in a March 2006 agreement on India-US civilian nuclear
cooperation.
The India-US security partnership was a truly revolutionary develop-
ment in the international system. As noted earlier, the USSR had been
India’s major security backer during the Cold War, while China had been
the US partner since 1971. In the 2000s, international alignments shifted
on the fulcrum of common US and Indian concern about China’s grow-
ing power. India was delighted to find the United States a new and pow-
erful backer of Indian security. Beijing, however, watched with dismay as
the United States and India forged an entirely new military and strategic
partnership. Washington and New Delhi were careful, of course, to deny
that the new relationship was aimed in any way against China. But China’s
representatives knew that it was.^25 In April 2002, when US Chairman of the
Joint Chief of Staff visited India to expand military relations, a commentary
in Renmin ribao charged that the purpose of the visit was to send “a clear
message to China ... The United States is expanding its sphere of influ-
ence in Asia [into] China’s back yard.” Yet it was hard to predict, the paper
said, whether India would “become a strategic ally of the United States or
a strategic ally of China.” The US goal, however, was clear: “establishing
a bastion for containing China; checking and containing the Islamic fun-
damentalists in Central Asia; and promoting democratic politics in South
Asia.”^26 Another Renmin ribao article said regarding the New Framework
for Defense Relations that it was “partly intended to diminish China’s influ-
ence in this region and to safeguard and expand US strategic interest in
Asia.” It continued:
Although both sides say the agreement has nothing to do with
China ... The China factor is only too obvious. ... [the US and India]
felt keenly uneasy about China’s development, though neither of them
mentioned it. US neo-cons have long been insisting that the long-term
threat is from China, while India apparently senses that China is a
neighbor stronger than itself in both economic and military strength.^27