India's Enemies

India, a leader in the region, also has enemies. The flash points are disputed territory with China to the east, and disputed territory with Pakistan in the (north-)west. Pakistan is a client state (if you can still call it a ‘state’) of China. This is not to say that, if India were to give up all disputed territories unilaterally, there would be peace. Much deeper problems - mostly unspoken - exist between China and India. These are primarily ideological.

China's leadership (as JB has often said) is an unelected tyranny. India is much closer to being a democracy. Looking even casually around the political world shows that these two systems of governance do not easily coexist. Even within our own country there has developed a split, an irreconcilable divide along similar lines.

China continually agitates India. It funds Maoist rebels to create havoc along border areas. It encourages Pakistan to keep up pressure on Kashmir. It releases policy statements saying that India is not a country and should be broken up into parts. And it has clearly used its influence to dissuade the U.S. from favoring India in any matter involving these two nations.

Obama clearly has shown to have greater affinity for tyrants than for the freely-elected leaders of a people. Notwithstanding the huge sums we owe China, our president personally finds far greater kinship with the Communist regime. That much has become obvious from the policy decisions Obama has made since assuming office. And this has not gone unnoticed in the region. It seems to have confounded and perplexed many Indians, though; especially since the roundly despised Bush administration – the demonization of which Indian media has gleefully participated in, not to mention the over-the-top deification of Barrack Hussein Obama – appears to have held India in far higher esteem.