Читать книгу Fateful Triangle - Tanvi Madan - Страница 30

Why did the divergence on China policy from 1949 to 1956 not lead to a complete rupture between the US and India? For all their differences, both governments faced a dilemma then that they would continue to face over the next decade and a half: they may not have liked each other’s policies, but they needed each other. With China-India comparisons becoming commonplace and gaining strength in the early 1950s, US administrations could not see India fail or go communist like China. As Bowles put it in 1952, it was important to stop communists at the “front door,” but also crucial not to “leave [the] backdoor unlatched.”²³⁷ For India, the US was an essential component in its plans for development. Development, in turn, was seen as critical for India’s defense as well as its political stability. There was a broader political motivation as well—as Bajpai noted, “[The] Prime Minister made [a] great many promises and history may record it was Americans who made it possible for him to keep them.”²³⁸

From the Truman administration’s perspective, difficulties with India over China notwithstanding, the communist takeover of China in 1949 and successful military action against UN forces in Korea in winter 1950 made it crucial that India did not “go communist” like China had. A State Department policy review in December 1950 noted that “India has become the pivotal state in non-Communist Asia by virtue of its relative power, stability and influence.”²³⁹ An NSC reassessment of South Asia policy in January 1951 stated that if India was lost, “for all practical purposes all of Asia would [be] lost; this would constitute a most serious and threatening blow to the security of the United States.”²⁴⁰ The loss of India would also constitute a political blow to the Truman administration, still suffering from accusations that it had lost China. The loss could happen either through the lack of economic development, leading to political and socioeconomic instability, or through India turning elsewhere for aid because it had not been forthcoming from the US. Consequently, the US needed to aid India’s development.

Given Indian officials’ public statements, there was little point in the administration arguing to Congress that aid could win India over. Instead, as aid requests bluntly stated, the objective was to prevent India’s loss. This formulation was evident in Truman’s message to Congress supporting food aid legislation for India in 1951. As presidents after him would, he appealed for aid to India for strategic, symbolic, and humanitarian reasons. Acheson, on his part, replied in the affirmative when asked by Representative Jacob Javits (R-NY) if aid was to help “keep India in the column of the free people.” His special assistant, in turn, noted that there were some areas in the world where bread and butter rather than guns and bullets worked better to contain communism. And they would, moreover, also help strengthen the hand of those in the Indian government who were pro-US.²⁴¹

Administration officials worried about the adverse impact of Indian rhetoric and actions on congressional support for aid to India and for foreign aid more broadly. Making the case for India despite its seeming intransigence, US officials like Assistant Secretary George McGhee argued, “India is too important to us and Nehru too important to India for us to take the easy road of concluding that we cannot work with Nehru. We must work with him.”²⁴² Many in the US public agreed. In October 1951, two-thirds of respondents asserted that the US should continue to try to cooperate closely with India despite India’s disagreement with America’s China and Korea policies.²⁴³

India’s need for aid meant it had an interest in maintaining a working relationship with the US as well. Thus Nehru tried to minimize the impact of differences on his visit to the US in 1949.²⁴⁴ Later, in December 1950, the Indian finance minister acknowledged that India’s request for food aid indicated formal recognition that India needed the US for its major objective: peace and stability.²⁴⁵ The food minister bluntly noted to a US official, “We have got to have American help.”²⁴⁶ At the time, while the Soviet Union had offered food aid, only the US could provide the quantity that India needed, at the speed India wanted, and on terms India preferred. Policymakers were also cautious about accepting Beijing’s offers of assistance since promises of grain repeatedly fell short because of either China’s terms or its domestic needs. Furthermore, Beijing’s offers of grain were a double-edged sword for the Indian government: they helped to a limited degree, but they simultaneously constituted a propaganda coup for China’s alternate system.²⁴⁷ Finally, Indian policymakers realized that the acceptance of “red rice” might have an adverse impact on its position in the US—this contributed to India’s relative silence on its grain negotiations with China.²⁴⁸

Indian officials also understood that the broader narrative could affect aid policy. Thus, in spring 1951, as the food assistance bills worked their way through Congress, they tried to limit criticism of the US in India. The food minister urged patience in parliament, stressing that, as in India, the bill had to go through a democratic process.²⁴⁹ Officials also waited to inform the US about the Indian inability to provide troops in Korea until after the passage of the bill.²⁵⁰ Subsequently, when Washington reacted negatively to India’s position on the Japan Peace Treaty, Delhi moderated its response. It also helped temper Rangoon’s reaction to American silence about the presence of GMD troops on Burmese territory.²⁵¹

Moreover, in support of India’s case for US aid, some Indian commentators laid the groundwork for China-India comparisons. Westerners like Barbara Ward (and later Chester Bowles) had already outlined the idea of the two countries as “laboratories.”²⁵² Frank Moraes, editor of the Times of India, elaborated in Life magazine in 1951: “China and India are two testing grounds. If India … can assure her people of economic security and individual freedom, Asia will be won for democracy. But if India fails and China succeeds in proving that her present way of life offers food and employment for the millions, Asia will be lost to Communism.”²⁵³ Indian officials even employed the “loss” argument in the defense sphere. Officials negotiating for the purchase of tanks and aircraft from the US, for example, noted that it was not in US interest for India to become weak. Washington agreed, approving the sale of 200 Sherman tanks and 54 C-119 transport planes (though India did not eventually purchase that quantity).²⁵⁴

Some in the US used the China loss analogy instrumentally to garner support for India, but there were also true believers. Publisher John Cowles noted in Look magazine that if the US did not support the stability of the Nehru government in India—“the last important stronghold of democracy in Asia”—it would be a mistake “almost as calamitous as the one we made in China.”²⁵⁵ Spurred by the arguments of Paul Hoffman, director of the Ford Foundation, Bowles also took to making explicit China-India “economic competition” references to lobby for economic aid for India.²⁵⁶ In a US election year, he further asked legislators to think about the repercussions for the country (and for them) if the US lost India as it had lost China.²⁵⁷ The ambassador to India wrote to Truman that the loss of India strategically and politically would be even worse because then “Southeast Asia and the Middle East would be impossible to hold.”²⁵⁸

Electoral gains in 1952 by a coalition of communist and socialist parties in a southern Indian state made it clear that India was not immune to communism. American and Indian policymakers were apprehensive that communists could take advantage of disillusionment with the government’s ability to deliver.²⁵⁹ The danger of the loss of India seemed more real. This helped Delhi in one way— Dennis Merrill argues that the communist gains were “the decisive factor” in Acheson increasing the aid request for India for FY1953.²⁶⁰

A reappraisal of NSC-68 in summer/fall 1952 further highlighted the importance of the free world developing “greater stability in peripheral or other unstable areas.”²⁶¹ Traveling with Eisenhower on the campaign trail, a journalist called for less of the blame game and more attention to what a new administration could do: “China is gone, yes.… But there are perhaps four years in which we can help save India.”²⁶² Bowles also continued to link Indian economic development to US security interests.²⁶³ An intelligence estimate that October assisted his cause: “[C]oming on the heels of the Communist victory in China, [the loss of South Asia] would create the impression throughout non-Communist Asia, Africa, and Europe that the advance of Communism was inevitable.”²⁶⁴

In India, Nehru tried to do his part by pointedly acknowledging American aid publicly. He noted that the US had sent assistance with the “very best of motives and without strings of any kind.” While Nehru believed that the communists in India were weaker than six months before, he told Bowles of his government’s concern that directly and indirectly Beijing had “done a disturbingly effective job of selling China as a new land of milk and honey”—all achieved through communism, rather than democracy.²⁶⁵

In the US, by the time Eisenhower took office in 1953, there was no longer a debate on whether defense (of the US and the “free world”) and development (of India and other developing countries) were connected. Even though some continued to argue against aid for India, the key point of discussion became how much aid India should receive. The lame-duck Truman administration had left office suggesting that the new administration allocate over four times the amount of aid India had received the previous year. Acheson had argued that it would help keep India on the side of the “democratic free world” and serve as an example.²⁶⁶ The Eisenhower administration considered the proposals excessive. But the president worried about the vulnerability of newly independent states.²⁶⁷ Thus, while reducing the amount, Dulles elicited from Congress more aid for India for FY1954 than had ever been authorized, making the following case:

Whether you like India or not … there is a pretty important sort of competition going on between India and Communist China.… If the Indians fall and collapse it will be very difficult to prevent Communists from taking control in India and doing in India what they have demonstrated in China that they can do better, and on the other hand, if India proves they can do it better, then there might be a reverse effect.²⁶⁸

Representatives Vorys and Judd grudgingly admitted that while they did not like Nehru, it served American purposes to help India prevent communists from making gains. Others noted that if they cut aid to India even further, it might have negative repercussions on India’s stance in the NNRC.²⁶⁹

India, in turn, really needed foreign aid, and Nehru publicly acknowledged that it was “very important” to have a working relationship with the US: “What we do or do not do is powerfully affected by our relations with America.”²⁷⁰ The importance of aid was evident in India’s reaction to the American uproar over an Indian shipment of thorium nitrate to China in 1953. Before that, when there had been some US concern about Indian exports of another strategic material—rubber goods—to China, India had suspended such exports. But in July 1953 the US ambassador received reports that a state-owned Indian company was shipping thorium nitrate to China. The Battle Act of 1951 in the US made countries exporting strategic items to countries like China and the Soviet Union ineligible to receive US aid.

When Indian officials became aware that the shipments would result in a suspension of US aid, they argued that aid had to come with no strings attached.²⁷¹ Nehru told Allen that even if he could recall the shipment, the “political consequences, both internally and in relations between India and China, would be so serious as to render [such action] impossible.”²⁷² Nonetheless, the government—aware of the stakes—tried (unsuccessfully) to stop the shipment. It subsequently accepted a solution proposed by Dulles.²⁷³ Delhi declared that the thorium nitrate was for commercial purposes in China and that India did not expect any such future shipments to China or other countries in the Soviet orbit. Later, when China and the Soviet Union approached India for more thorium nitrate, Indian officials looked to the US to purchase it instead.²⁷⁴

For the rest of 1953 and through 1954, there continued to be debate about the necessity and benefits of aiding India. Under Secretary of State Walter Bedell Smith felt that the relationship with India would survive an aid stoppage.²⁷⁵ Dulles disagreed, however, noting that aid termination would leave the US no way of ensuring stability in India. Furthermore, along with the general negative impact on the US-India relationship, such a cutoff would have “unfortunate results which would likely take place in connection with discussions of Asian problems, UN debates and resolutions, and India’s work as chairman [of] NNRC.”²⁷⁶ In this way, at least, India’s international role helped its case.

Like its predecessor, the Eisenhower administration had little to no expectation that aid would lead India to jettison nonalignment and move closer to the US.²⁷⁷ The purpose of aid to the South Asian countries at the time, as Vice President Richard Nixon put it, was not primarily “a desire to gain credit or to buy friendship, but rather to build up these countries.”²⁷⁸

In early 1954, NSC 5409—United States Policy toward South Asia—emphasized the stakes involved given “the consolidation of communist control in China” and the setbacks in Indochina. It and supporting documents reinforced various themes: South Asia as “a major battleground in the cold war,” China-India competition, the threat posed by India’s internal economic and political vulnerability, the adverse impact if India—“potentially … the pivot of the whole area”—were lost. If democratic India did not progress, while communist China did, then South Asians might turn to communism. And China seemed to be delivering faster.²⁷⁹ Therefore, even though Nehru irked Eisenhower and Dulles, they saw the need to help India. Of the economic aid requested for underdeveloped countries for 1955—even though it paled in comparison to military assistance and aid to allies—the largest request was for India.

Dulles and other administration officials continued to advocate for this aid by highlighting the China-India economic competition. On Capitol Hill, he highlighted the “striking contrast” between communist China and India’s “notable experiment in free government.” Major General George C. Stewart, the director of the Defense Department’s Office of Military Assistance, stressed that from a military perspective, for US national security the loss of India would be “equally as great a disaster as the loss of China.” Appealing to the China bloc members on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Stassen, who oversaw foreign aid programs, highlighted India’s “relative strategic position” vis-à-vis China. He asserted that Washington had already once made the error of basing China policy on adverse perceptions of Jiang; it should not repeat that mistake by basing India policy on views of Nehru. Assistant Secretary of State Henry Alfred Byroade argued that any termination of aid would weaken the hands of those in India who were friendly to the US. And Allen stated that it was crucial to dispel the notion in Asia that the US had only “one string to our bow” (i.e., military means to solve problems). The US needed to help the democratic Indian government “deliver the goods.”²⁸⁰ The administration found support from senators like H. Alexander Smith and Hubert Humphrey. They also managed to convince skeptics like Senator J. William Fulbright, who came to believe that one of the most important questions was “whether or not India, with our assistance, is making greater progress than China with the Russian assistance.”²⁸¹

On Delhi’s part, as US intelligence had predicted, the need for that American assistance helped prevent a “clear-cut break” with the US after the announcement of military aid to Pakistan.²⁸² Nehru warned against any knee-jerk Indian rejection of US aid in retaliation or any statement about forsaking such aid.²⁸³ The need for aid also caused Indian officials to express deep concern about the deterioration in US-India relations in March–April 1954.²⁸⁴ Furthermore, later that year, it partly led to Nehru advising against public ranting against SEATO.²⁸⁵

As the internal Eisenhower administration debate about aid broadly and to nonaligned India specifically continued in summer and fall 1954, China remained part of the discussion. The Far East bureau’s economic coordinator contradicted his boss, contending that the US could not wait for countries like India to come to their senses; they needed immediate strengthening so they could resist communism.²⁸⁶ A working group considering large-scale, long-term economic assistance for Asia advised that neutral countries be included.²⁸⁷ This was important given, as an intelligence estimated outlined, Chinese economic progress, especially on the industrial front.²⁸⁸

The NSC planning board proposed that in response the US should “develop the basic stability and strength of non-Communist countries, especially Japan and India.”²⁸⁹ The State Department and most other members of the board believed that since there was little prospect of reducing absolute Chinese power—as the Defense Department and the Joint Chiefs of Staff desired—by building up these other countries, they could reduce relative Chinese power.²⁹⁰

Not everyone on the NSC agreed that India was important. Treasury Secretary Humphrey argued that the US was better off focusing on building up Indonesia and Japan as counterbalances to China. Eisenhower disagreed: India’s size and its “very good military material” made it significant, and if it fell to the communists, it might “cost us the entire Middle East” too. The US “could not afford to lose such great areas as India.” Defense Secretary Wilson concurred, asserting “every effort should be made to hold” that country.²⁹¹ Dulles’s special assistant for foreign aid separately noted that even Congress realized that Indian failure could “be disastrous to US security interests,” which is why they eventually always appropriated some funds for it.²⁹²

By 1955, the Soviet economic offensive in the nonaligned world, military setbacks in Indochina, and increased India-Soviet engagement caused the re-emergence of American concern that the West was losing ground in India.²⁹³ This led to discussions of an expanded foreign assistance program, which Eisenhower called “the cheapest insurance in the world.”²⁹⁴ And for the president, India had “special status.”²⁹⁵ Admitting that he did not trust Nehru, Eisenhower nonetheless told the head of a media conglomerate visiting Asia that spring, “Don’t go slamming the Indians in any stories.” After all, if that country was lost to communism, “the free world will be up against it, not only in the East but throughout the world … We have got to keep them at least on the neutral side if we can.”²⁹⁶ This echoed Acheson’s remark that even though Nehru was “one of the most difficult men with whom I have ever had to deal,” he “was so important to India and India’s survival to all of us” that the US had little choice.²⁹⁷

In congressional testimony in support of aid to India that summer, Dulles also echoed his predecessor, identifying Japan and India as the “keystones” of security in Asia. He noted that in both countries the most urgent problem was economic rather than military. Former ambassador Bowles talked of “competitive co-existence,” with Stassen highlighting the beginning of Soviet “economic warfare.”²⁹⁸ A foreign aid official elaborated to a key House subcommittee, “With Russia intensifying its efforts to get a foothold in India … and with China developing the show window,” it did set up a “competition” and made “the task of India and ourselves perhaps, as hard during the coming year as it has been so far.” When Rep. Judd raised concerns about aiding a “socialize[d]” India, the official suggested that, like Asian countries, the US should focus on the contrast between China and India rather than between the more similar American and Indian systems. Judd grudgingly acknowledged, “It is the philosophy of the lesser evil.”²⁹⁹

Escalating India-Soviet interaction in 1955 only heightened US anxiety. So did intelligence assessments in early 1956 that indicated that China’s power and prestige had grown in Asia and that with Soviet assistance, Beijing’s military programs were charging ahead.³⁰⁰ Soviet efforts changed what Dulles called “the scene of the battle” in a way that would eventually come to benefit India.³⁰¹

The tone in India had also changed. US assessments in the second half of 1955 indicated that there was a greater appreciation of American aid in India. There were also suggestions of cooperation in countries like Nepal to counter Chinese influence.³⁰² Nehru worked to limit public censure of the US, for example, by trying to restrict any official criticism of the Baghdad Pact to private channels.³⁰³ His efforts at message discipline hit a bump in the road with the Dulles statement on Goa. Nehru told senior officials of his concern that, without damage control, the negative reaction in the country would escalate, adversely affecting India-US relations and “indirectly … the question of our receiving any help from the US for our developmental programme.” He lamented to Pandit, “Everything that the US might have done to India is likely to be forgotten in the anger caused by this.”³⁰⁴

For the Indian government, improved India-Soviet and Sino-Indian relationships only made it more important to maintain India’s relationship with the US. Nehru’s policy called for balance: between defense and development, but also between the Soviet Union and the United States. For one, this would allow India to play one off against the other. But more than that, Nehru hoped this would allow India to maintain its freedom of action by diversifying its dependence. Diversification would allow India to reduce dependence on any one country or bloc, as well as to cope with the questionable reliability of benefactors. Finally, it was necessary to maintain the US option because of continuing Indian concerns about the Soviet Union’s support of Indian communists and its lack of support for UN membership for a number of decolonized states.

Thus, to maintain balance, even as Khrushchev and Bulganin were due to visit India, Nehru extended an invitation to Eisenhower. Worried about the American reaction to the Soviet leaders’ trip, he also tried to eliminate or limit their public criticism of the US.³⁰⁵ Then, in March 1956, India rejected a Soviet offer of aircraft, partly because Dulles had made clear that India was unlikely to receive economic aid from the US if it was spending money on Soviet aircraft.³⁰⁶

It helped India’s case that, by spring 1956, China-India comparisons were being heard on Capitol Hill. China bloc members like Judd noted the importance of not jettisoning India, whose five-year plans were “succeeding due in no small degree to American assistance.” Another argument started to gain traction as well—not necessarily that the US should try to win India over, but that it should, at the very least, try to maintain the very Indian nonalignment that had previously created trouble in the US-India relationship. Representative Clement J. Zablocki (D-WI), who had led a congressional study mission to India, vocalized this sentiment, adding, “Discontinuing or stopping future assistance will only drive India further into the Soviet and Communist orbit.”³⁰⁷

There was also some improvement in the interactions of policymakers on both sides. Dulles traveled to India in March 1956. While differences over issues like recognition of China remained, signs of change were evident. Nehru reiterated the need to resolve the offshore islands problem as soon as possible, but he admitted that the issue of Taiwan could be “deferred” for years. Furthermore, he acknowledged that though China was “inherently less aggressive than the Russians,” given that its experience with revolution was more recent, Beijing might be “more aggressive.” The tone of the Dulles-Nehru meeting also seemed less trenchant than three years before. Dulles described the conversations as “intimate and animated and informal”; the Indian prime minister called them “long and frank.” Both policymakers offered assurances and explanations on key subjects of concern to the other (Goa, Pakistan, the Soviet Union). Dulles also passed on Eisenhower’s invitation for Nehru to visit the US, which the prime minister seemed inclined to accept.³⁰⁸ Before that visit would take place in December, a number of changes would occur, including in how the two countries perceived and sought to deal with China and each other.

Mutual need and the reality that neither could ignore the other had kept the US-India relationship from deteriorating into hostility or total indifference. But between 1949 and 1956, that need had not been sufficient to overcome their major differences in attitudes and approaches toward key issues, including China. Moreover, the two countries had not developed the habits of cooperation that allowed the US, for example, to overcome policy differences—especially, but not solely, on China—with countries like Britain. American and Indian policymakers had limited historical experience interacting with each other. And as Dulles told Pandit, “Trust is built up over a period of time.”³⁰⁹ At times, the governments were willing, albeit grudgingly, to give the other the benefit of the doubt, but this was not common. Simultaneously, however, in each country expectations of the other were—perhaps unrealistically—high. Many in the US expected India to play a role in their Cold War script. After all, it was a noncommunist democracy faced with a communist threat at its doorstep. On the other hand, many in India expected the US to understand India’s perspective. After all, it was a fellow postcolonial democracy that had advocated for India’s independence and had itself experienced the desire not to become entangled in power politics.³¹⁰ But when these expectations went unfulfilled, it had only increased the disillusionment.