Tensions in Sonth Asia While most "CAsia enjoyed aperiod of relative peace,slability, and economic growth dnring the

past decade, the three principal conntries on the Indian subcontinent-India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh-had to cope with a set of economic, demographic. and ethnic problems whose international significance was magnified by a troublesome conventional arms race and eventually, a nuclear anus race as well. Much of the tension 10 South Asia stemmed from the rancorouS rivalry be-

tween India ,;:tnd Pakistan that has persisted since their emergence as independent states after the Second World War. That antagonism may in turn be traced to the uneasy coexistence on the Indian subcontinent of two ancient religious faiths and their ardent devotees. The partition of the "crown jewel" of the British Empire into a predominantly Hindu (though ostensibly secular) India and a devoutly Muslim Pakistan, together with the exchange of almost two million refugees in the summer of 1947, had been undertaken for the purpose of forming as ethnically homogeneous new states as possible in order to minimize friction between

members of these historically antipathetic religious gronps. But the process of partition was accompanied by appalling atrocities that bequeathed a legacy of mntual bitterness, while the massive population transfers had left substantial discoritented minorities within the frontiers of each state. The Sikhs of the Punjab, embracing an eclectic faitp. that combines elements of both Hinduism and Islam, insistently challenged the authority of the Indian state. The Muslims who predominated in Iridia's northernmost state of Jammu and Kashmir displayed a conspicuously zealous spirit of defiance toward the Hindu-dominated government in - Delhi, for which they received strong encouragement and considerable financial support from the Islamic government of Pakistan. India's experimental schemes of autonomy for Kashmir, undertaken periodically in order to assuage the seceSsionist ardor' of the state's Muslim citizens and therefore deprive Pakistan of any pretext for interfering in Iridia's internal affairs, carne to naught. Two major wars, perennial border skirmishes, and fiery political rhetoric in Delhi and Islamabad poisqned relations between the two successor states of British India for decades to come. The most recent upsurge of Muslim secessionist insurgency in Kashmir, covertly supported by Pakistan, began in 1989 and continued through the I990s into the twenty-first century. India's relentless quarrel with Pakistan over Kashmir was rivaled in intensity by two long-standing controversies with the People's Republic of China. The first was a border dispute between Delhi and Beijing that had flared up sporadi-

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Asia at the Crossroads

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cally since the autnmn of 1962, when Indian and Chinese forces came to blows over the contested territory. The second concerned Tibet, an isolated, mountainous kingdom to India's north, which had been invaded and annexed by China in the autnmn of 1950 while the world's attention was distracted by the Korean War. Though the Communist regime in Beijing initially granted the Tibetans a

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From Cold War to New World Disorder (1985-2000)

modicum of autonomy and permitted them to retain their spiritual and political

leader, the Dalai Lama, clashes between the Buddhist population and the Communist police recurred throughout the fifties. In 1959 Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai dissolved the Tibetan regional government headed by the Dalai Lama, who promptly crossed the border into India where he was granted pOlitical asylum. Thereafter, as China strove to eradicate the Buddhist religion in its
rebellious province, India took the lead in mobilizing world opinion against Bei-

jing's repressive policy there. The combination of the Sino-Indian border dispute
and the controversy over Tibet caused a notable deterioration of relations between the two neighbors. While continuing to affirm its commitment to the nonaligned movement,

which Pandit Nehru himself had helped to found, India became increasingly apprehensive about the practical consequences of its isolated position in the Cold

War world and recognized the need for allies. After Nehru's death in 1964, India accelerated its orientation toward the Soviet Union, which had already begun to
furnish it with diplomatiC support and economic assistance in Nehru's final

years. The rapprochement between Delhi and Moscow was directly related to the
Sino-Soviet split, as each country came to regard China as its principal antago-

nist. In the meantime the United States sought to counter what some in the State Department decried as the embryonic Moscow-Delhi axis in South Asia by cultivating increasingly warm relations with India's regional rival, Pakistan. The Nixon administration openly sided with that country in its brief, ill-fated war with India in 197\.* In the aftermath of India's military victory Washington undertook to restore the military capability of Pakistan to counter that of what it increasingly regarded as the Kremlin's client state on the subcontinent. Islamabad reciprocated this solicitude by using its good offices to promote the emerging reconciliation between Washington and Beijing (with which Pakistan maintained cordial relations on the basis of their cornmon hostility to India). t This intimate Sino-Pakistani-American collaboration reached its height after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. These three powers jointly supported the Islamic resistance to the Russian military occupation forces and their Mghan allies in Kabul.; The end of the Cold War and the withdrawal of Soviet military forces from Afghanistan in 1990 set the stage for a major geopolitical realignment in South Asia. No longer obsessed with the putative menace of Soviet expansion toward the warm waters of the Indian Ocean, policy makers in Washington began to focus on two other threats to the stability of South Asia that paradoxically emanated from America's longtime ally in the region. The first of these was the

*Pakistan's defeat in 1971 resulted in the loss of East Pakistan, which became the independent state of Bangladesh. tHenry Kissinger's secret mission to Beijing in preparation for President Nixon's trip in 1972 was clandestinely arranged through the efforts of the government of Pakistan (see p. 378). tSee page 390.

Asia at the Crossroads

501

looming phenomenon of Islamic fundamentalism that will be discussed at greater length in subsequent chapters on the Middle East and North Africa* Islamabad, capital of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, whose citizens were subjected to the legal provisions of the Sharia,t began in the early 1990s to cultivate close relations with other Muslim states including Iran, Afghanistan, and the newly independent republics of Soviet Central Asia. l Pakistan's shift from an anti-Soviet to what might be called a pro-Islamic foreign policy coincided with another development that caused additional strains in the U.S.-Pakistani partnership. As noted above, ever since India tested an atomic weapon in 1974, Pakistan had been suspected of undertaking a clandestine nuclear program of its own to match its regional rival. Alarmed at the prospect of nuclear proliferation on the Indian subcontinent, the U.S. Senate passed a resolution in 1986 requiring the termina.tion of Washington's generous economic and military assistance program to Pakistan unless the State Department could certify that the recipient of that largess was not engaged in the development of nuclear weapons. When the State Department acknowledged in 1990 that it could no longer give such assurances, the U.S. aid program abruptly came to an end. The cutoff of U.S. military support obliged Pakistan to shop for its hardware and spare parts on the international arms market, while the removal of whatever restraining influence Washington may have exercised may have strengthened Islamabad's determination to join the nuclear club. The loosening of U.S. ties with Pakistan coincided with an improvement of Washington's relations with Delhi, whose traditional foreign policy had been thrown into disarray by the demise of its patron and benefactor in Moscow. Pleased by the termination of U.S. aid to Pakistan and sharing America's concern about the prospect of Pakistan's "Islamic bomb," India proved receptive to U.S. initiatives in 1991-92 for closer military and naval cooperation between the two countries. This Indo-American rapprochement had been facilitated by an ideological evolution within India in the form of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi's campaign to liberalize the state-controlled economic system at the end of the 1980s. By terminating government subsidies, reducing protective tariffs, and abolishing restrictions on foreign investment, India seemed prepared to join the international economic system from which it had long sought to insulate itself. By the middle of the 1990s the hopes of closer cooperation between the United States and India in the post-Cold War era had fallen short of expectations. Repressive measures undertaken by the Indian government in 1993 to cope with a resnrgence of unrest in Kashmir provoked criticism from the Clinton administration on human rights grounds. The conventional arms race between India and Pakistan continued to escalate, while both sides failed to reach agreement on a long-planned affirmation of the subcontinent's status as a nuclear-free zone.
*See pages 515, 525. tThe Islamic code of religious law based on the teachings of the Koran and the traditional sayings of Mohammed. :t:See page 463.

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Frof!l Cold War to New World Disorder (1985-2000)

The sale sign of progress in the reduction of regional tensions in South Asia was

an understanding between India and China providing for the gradual demilitarization of their frontier, which had been the site of sporadic clashes in the past. Here was yet another case of the demise of the Soviet Union facilitating an improvement in relations between two fanner antagonists: The loss of its support-

ers in the Kremlin left India isolated and therefore more tractable; the disappearance of its Soviet antagonist rendered China more secure and therefore more amenable to compromise.

The stakes in the Indo-Pakistani conflict were raised by the progress of nuclear weapons programs in both countries. India exploded a nuclear device in 1974
but since that time continually denied possessing atomic bombs, insisting on the

peaceful commercial intent of its research and development efforts. But India steadfastly refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) unless it became universal (that is, all countries signed) and nondiscriminatory (that is, the five powers with nuclear weapons agreed to dispose of them). Pakistan also refused to sign the NPT in light of the refnsal of its regional rival. Both countries began to develop delivery systems in the form of short- and medium-range missiles, raising the specter of a competitive nuclear arms race on the subcontinent.

The covert Indo-Pakistani nuclear competition suddenly became overt in May 1998, when India announced that it had conducted five underground nuclear tests. The purpose of the tests was twofold: first, to counter the formidable nuclear arsenal of its other archtival, China; second, to match the embryonic nuclear capability that Pakistan had been developing (with Chinese assistance) for more than two decades. Jolted into action by the Indian tests, Pakistan withstood intense pressure from the United States and defiantly conducted two underground tests of its own toward the end of the month. The United States, Japan, and other countries promptly imposed sanctions on the two countries, but when financially strapped Pakistan was about to default on its foreign debt the Clinton administration rescinded most of the sanctions as the IMF rushed in with a rescne package. The nuclearization of the Indian subcontinent therefore became an accomplished fact. It dealt a serions blow to the canse of non-proliferation, prompting other non-nuclear states to reconsider their willingness to forego membership in a club of states possessing weapons of mass destruction that had been expanded from five to seven.