The US and China sent their Number Two personages to South Asia recently, seeking strategic partnership with both India and Pakistan in recent weeks. Both leaders received a yes answer from Islamabad as well as New Delhi. But the backdrop of strategic competition between the US and China is obvious enough. Will this Sino-US rivalry not create dilemmas for Pakistan as well as India?

The problem that may first occasion such dilemmas is predictable: There are two proposals of gas pipelines from Turkmenistan and Iran to Pakistan and India respectively. American oil company UNOCAL wants to transport gas from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Gawadar port in Pakistan. This is clearly an American-sponsored project and the names of such luminaries as Condoleezza Rice, Zalmay Khalilzad, and the current Afghan President Hamid Karzai were associated with UNOCAL for executing the project before they became a part of the American administration while Karzai has become Afghanistan’s President.

The other project of the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline has been approved by all the three parties. India’s Petroleum Minister would visit Pakistan next month. This project has made the US unhappy because it wants to isolate Iran and pressurise it on the nukes’ issue. So much so that Rice herself expressed opposition to this project on Indian soil.

Apropos the expected conflicting pulls of the US and China, there was a tripartite meeting in Islamabad just the other day comprising Ministers from Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan. These Ministers gave a strong push to the Turkmenistan project. Afghanistan gave an assurance of providing adequate security to the pipeline. Pakistan was always ame-nable to that idea. Since the US stands behind the project, it looks as if progress on this particular project is likely to be fast. The American and the Afghans are quite upbeat about the possibility of Afghanistan being tranquil enough to permit this project, though there are doubts.

What significance is to be attached to the Turkmenistan project? Doubtless Turkmenistan, and Afghanistan and the US are keen that this project be implemented and not the Iranian gas pipeline to India. That makes Pakistan’s role crucial: would it still go along with Iran and India against the US advice?

The US has reasons to oppose the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline because it would mean stable exports of Iranian hydrocarbons that will strengthen Iran economically. The fact that Pakistan was the host for this tripartite conference with Turkmenistan and Afghanistan sh-ows that Pakistan seems to be going along with the American wishes far more enthusiastically than the Iranian pipeline. Can it be said it is less than enthusiastic about the Iranian pipeline project? Pakistan has always opted for Americans, working closely with it on all significant issues for decades. Its image has been one of an US satellite.

Main questions arise about India. Indo-US relations are excellent and expanding fast and of course the Americans are going to give India dual-use technology, latest military hardware and reactors’ technology. The American intention of making India a great global military power is well-known. Would not Indian foreign policy be compatible with the American line? As it is, Americans are popular in India; the latter’s 350 million strong middle class loves America. So does the Indian business community. Indian businesses see their future in the emerging globalised world as an OECD like country.

But there is another side to it. Indian foreign policy has been fiercely independent. Jawaharlal Nehru had helped found the Afro-Asian and later the Non-Aligned Movement, and was a respected third world leader. He had refused to align himself either with the West or the Soviet Union in their titanic cold war. That tradition may still have life in it.

The Indian foreign policy’s second strand was to spread the anti-nuclear mov-ement globally. India was long a champion of a non-nuclear wo-rld. It was also the mainstay of the global anti-nuclear movements. Can the Congress Government follow enthusiastic pro-American policies as the BJP could? The Congress is certainly not anti-US. But to align itself uncritically with the US the way Pakistan did and as indeed is now so aligned, may not be easy for India. It is psychologically not easy for Congressmen to give up the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline.

Technically it is possible for both the pipelines to be laid. India can also buy gas or may be oil at Gawadar from UNOCAL. The Iranians can continue supplying gas to India directly while even more gas can be transported to India from Gawadar. The Indian demand is likely to be large enough to take in supplies from both sources.

But the real question is: Can India be as pro-American as America wants it to be? American diplomacy is making a mighty heave for dominating Central Asia. America needs India’s cooperation, with the two pooling their political resources in Central Asia. Can India go that far?

India has to think of its growing relations with China. The obvious effort is to cooperate with China comprehensively. India is unlikely to give up at least the appearances of non-alignment. The American thrust in Central Asia is to pre-empt the Chinese influence. India cannot simultaneously march with the US and China in Central Asia. Americans can be trusted to make demands that are incompatible with non-alignment before it delivers key goodies. Delivery generally follows compliance.

Doubtless, both India and Pakistan are happy to come closer to the US. But are they ready to pay the expected political price? This price can be in terms of domestic political difficulties, especially for Pakistan, and also in terms of the image abroad. Being closely aligned with America means running the risk of becoming isolated from what is the third world.