US-India Deal to Counter Growing China

The US hopes to supply India with a quarter of it's military hardware in the following years. The US sees India as a natural ally against an burgeoning communist China.

India can also be a natural ally against the rising tide of Islamism.

America is attempting to forge a strategic alliance with India with a series of arms deals as the South Asian nation bolsters its defences against China.

Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, will arrive in New Delhi to strike a common position on Beijing with the Indian government.

His arrival comes as New Delhi decides whether the US firms Lockheed Martin and Boeing, or Russian and European rivals, will win a contract to supply the Indian air force with 126 combat aircraft in a £5 billion deal.

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But the wider battle is for influence in Asia, with America seeking to shore up a tentative and controversial alliance with what it sees as a democratic counterweight to China.

One senior Indian military official said Washington was hoping to supply up to a quarter of India's military hardware over the next decade as its current stocks, predominantly originating in Russia or the former Soviet Union, become obsolete.

"Washington views Delhi as representing a strategic asset in the Asian region," the official said.

America has already agreed to help India develop civilian-use nuclear power despite New Delhi's failure to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty and its insistence on retaining its nuclear weapons arsenal.

That deal has met an impasse due to opposition from the Indian Communist Party, which sustains the coalition government of Manmohan Singh, the prime minister.

The Communists regard it as a "hegemonic" ploy to "enslave" India.

But many analysts see growing ties as inevitable as a post-Cold War realignment of strategic interests continues.

As the United States and China, which once saw themselves as informal allies against the Soviet Union, eye each other warily, Beijing has aligned itself diplomatically with Moscow.

The US, by contrast, regards India, which used to receive support from Moscow, as a natural ally.