dastardly Pakistani terrorists' attack on Mumbai. The Obama administration only verbally urged Pakistan to take action against the perpetrators of this outrage and not allow the use of its territory for cross-border terrorism. Pakistan paid scant heed. Indeed, the prime suspect in organising the horrendous episode was released from house arrest by a Pakistani court.

Yet, the Obama administration went on pressing India to 'withdraw its troops from the Pakistan border' so that Islamabad could 'concentrate' on the Afghan border. As if this was not enough, the U.S. also told India to resume the 'peace process' with Pakistan with a view to solving the Kashmir issue 'in accordance with the wishes of the Kashmiri people'. This annoyed the Indian government and infuriated the Indian public opinion.

It was under Indian pressure that Washington restricted the remit of Richard Holbrooke, the newly appointed Special Representative for the region, to 'Af-Pak' — American shorthand for Afghanistan and Pakistan that America understandably considers 'inextricably intermixed'. Yet, whenever Holbrooke visits Kabul and Islamabad, he also arrives in Delhi.

On top of this, despite its expressed and unexpressed disappointments with Pakistan, the U.S. approved aid to Pakistan to the tune of $ 1.5 billion a year for the next 10 years. The India-specific conditions in the draft Bill before Congress were dropped or watered down. India felt that despite their 40-year experience, the Americans seemed happy to be 'blackmailed' by Pakistan.

However, rivalry between India and Pakistan is old hat, and the U.S. 'tilt' towards Pakistan is also old hat. What really angered India was a totally new factor — China — behind Obama's decision to lower India's position in America's scheme of things and conspicuously upgrade that of China. This was indeed a strange and ironic twist.

For, though Sino-U.S. relations during the earlier period were reasonably good, an unstated reason for the fast-expanding India-America strategic relationship during Bush's watch was the belief that a 'rising India' would be a counterpoise to mighty and expansionist China. The Chinese took due notice of this and acted accordingly. They ratcheted up their aggressive claim on the entire Indian province of Arunachal Pradesh that was the battleground in the 1962 border war. Beijing also tried, with varying success, to undercut Indian influence in Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh. Pakistan is, of course, an 'all-weather friend' of China and a big beneficiary of Chinese nuclear, missile, military and economic aid and diplomatic support.

Moreover, China has built a series of ports in India's neighbourhood from Myanmar (Burma) onwards that it calls a 'necklace of pearls'. The most important of these is the Chinese-built port of Gwadar in Pakistan. Indian naval strategists perceive in this a Chinese bid to enter the Indian Ocean.

It was against this backdrop that Hillary Clinton, Obama's Secretary of State, made China the centrepiece of her first official journey. In Beijing she declared that for the U.S. the relationship with China was the 'most important in the 21st century'. High-profile visits of the U.S. treasury secretary and other top civilian and military officials followed. Hillary had gone to Japan before reaching Beijing and from there went to South Korea and Indonesia. It never occurred to her to stop over in India.

How and why has a sudden change in the equation come about in recent days? The first of the two most important reasons was the re-election of the Manmohan Singh government with a much greater strength than before. Even if the U.S. did not want to return to the Bush policies, it felt comfortable with the good doctor in Delhi and wished to befriend him. Secondly, the Chinese chose to nudge the U.S. in the same direction. Aware of their enormous economic clout amidst the world economic recession and anxious to extend and expand the reach of their power, they behaved so arrogantly as to worry Washington. There was a clash between a U.S. naval ship and the Chinese Navy close to the coast of South China Sea. China accused the Americans of espionage. According to authoritative reports, there have been two other similar clashes that neither side had reported. On the other hand, a senior Chinese admiral told his American counterpart that the U.S. could take over the western Pacific in return for allowing China to be dominant in the Indian Ocean. The Americans refused to respond and felt that the Chinese were being too ambitious.

It was at this juncture that there was an Indo-U.S. Business Summit in Washington. Hillary Clinton took the opportunity to announce that President Obama and she were determined to see a 'dramatic expansion' of India-America relations. She described India as a very important power whose cooperation was essential to solve the problems no single country can solve. The U.S. National Security Adviser, General James Jones, the highest American dignitary to visit India so far, has reaffirmed this message. Hillary herself will be in New Delhi in the second half of July.

Seasoned observers have noted that while lauding China, American officials have started talking of 'rising India' and in the same breath. When this became obvious at a Track Two conference in the U.S. capital last month, the leader of the Chinese delegation got up gently to remind the audience that China's dollar reserves were just under two trillion, and that China had bought another 300-billion-dollar worth of American treasury bonds. The Americans got the message.

The Indo-U.S. civilian nuclear deal was the crowing achievement of the Bush era. For the first six months the Obama administration remained totally silent about it. On the contrary, it chose for all senior posts on nuclear affairs men and women known to be 'ayatollahs of nonproliferation' and opposed to the Indo-U.S. deal. Now Hillary and others have stated emphatically that they wish to implement the deal. Gen. Jones said in Delhi: 'We intend to continue where the previous administration left off'.

Similarly, military cooperation between the most powerful and most populous democracies has been on hold because there are two sticking points in an agreement the two sides must sign on the 'end use' of the weaponry. What India objects to is the U.S. insistence on 'on-the-spot inspection'. Secondly, India, for its part, does not want future American laws retrospectively to affect those cooperation agreements already in force, as had happened in the past.

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