US has embraced India's rise as a partner: Donilon

Observing that America's relationship with India is rooted in history and in a shared democratic system, a top Obama advisor has said that the US has embraced India's rise as a strategic partner for the 21st century.

At the same time, he said US' relationship with China is complex.

"The relationship with India is obviously rooted in history and it's rooted in a shared system of democracy. And it is a unique relationship that we're building out. It has different aspects to it," National Security Advisor Tom Donilon said.
"The relationship with China is more complex," he said.

Donilon was responding to a questions from Dino Patti Djalal, the Indonesian Ambassador to the United States, after he delivered a speech on "President Obama's Asia Policy and Upcoming Trip to the Region" at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based eminent think tank.

In his remarks Donilon described India as America's strategic partner for the 21st century.

The Indonesian Ambassador asked Donilon, "(I am) very much interested in how you described your evolving relationship with India and China?"

"I noticed you described India as a strategic partner and a different term for China. My question is, what do you see as the qualitative -- I underline the term qualitative -- difference between India and China so that you describe India as a strategic partnership, but China as something else," he said.

"There's more of an element of competition when you described your relationship with China and there's nothing like that when you describe your relationship with India. Is it too much for us in Southeast Asia, for example, to expect that one day there will be a strategic partnership between US and China?" Djalal asked the top Obama advisor.

In response, Donilon said, "With respect to India, we have given a full embrace of India's rise. The President went to India on a three-day trip, as you know, and stood beneath the picture of Mahatma Gandhi, and called for India's membership in a reformed Security Council.

"It's a full embrace of India's rise as a partner. And again, as two of the most important democracies in the world, it's an important strategic thrust for us as well," Donilon said.
In his remarks, Donilon said the Obama Administration has deepened its relationship with India.

"We see India as a strategic partner for the 21st century, and as such, we welcome India's efforts to look east and play a larger role in Asia, including in the Indian Ocean," Donilon said.

At the same time, Donilon noted that the US' relationship with China is full of challenges.
"We're trying to build a relationship -- a stable, productive, constructive relationship between the United States and China where there are elements of competition,” he said."

"We're trying to build a relationship between China and the United States against a backdrop of theoreticians who say that this is not possible to do; that history would point you to the inevitability of conflict between a rising power and a status quo power.

"We don't believe that international relations is some subset of physics. here is human agency and leadership involved here, and that's what we're trying to do, to build this out in the most constructive and positive, productive relationship that we can," Donilon said.