Amid closer ties with US, don’t ignore other links…

with exaggerated Chinese demands after its seizure of Tibet have led to a stalemate until Beijing feels it’s strong enough to extract a high price.

These crosses remain with us although Washington’s policies on Pakistan and the military and economic assistance it has got over decades have vastly complicated New Delhi’s task of containing Islamabad’s adventurist policies. The one change the Trump administration brought about is the bluntness with which it warned Pakistan to turn over a new leaf in giving up terrorism as a state policy.

Here again, US consistency remains in doubt. Pakistani troops helped free a US-Canadian couple from Afghan extremists’ five-year captivity on the basis of US information, to be greeted by an effusive pro-Pakistan tweet by President Trump. According to the CIA, the couple and their children born in captivity were held in Pakistani territory.

Some of these problems Mr Tillerson can’t resolve, given the nature of the Trump presidency. Indeed, Mr Trump’s tendency publicly to snub and contradict his secretary of state is well known. But given the limitations the visiting head of America’s foreign office suffers from, he can elucidate the US projection of India’s role in the Indo-Pacific.

Perhaps Mr Tillerson’s Pakistan visit before reaching India will give New Delhi a better idea of the state of play between the two countries. However, it cannot escape US policymakers

The question New Delhi can’t avoid is that it’s reaching a fork in ties with the US. The closeness of the relationship can’t be doubted, but the longevity of an unpredictable Trump era is an open question... that Washington is playing a weak hand in projecting its policies to the world, given the tenets of President Trump’s faith. President Trump has touted the “America First” philosophy and has signalled in various ways his desire to follow a circumscribed international policy. He withdrew from the TransPacific Partnership, so elaborately built up by his predecessor, gave notice to leave the Paris climate agreement as well as Unesco, and is shaking his fists at the tripartite trade agreement with Canada and Mexico.

These moves have enabled China to take a leadership role in freeing it of a potential antiChina trade alliance, and President Xi took pleasure in wearing the cloak of world leadership on warding off climate change. The new US thrust against China comes in the wake of the realisation that Beijing will look after its own interests, rather than pander to Mr Trump’s priorities.

There was a time not long ago when Mr Trump hosted Mr Xi at his Florida resort more as a pupil learning the game of geopolitics than a meeting of equals. The US President’s foolish hope was that, given the nature of the BeijingPyongyang relationship, Mr Xi would help Washington with disciplining North Korea on its nuclear programme. Mr Trump was to be deeply disappointed and resorted to the extravagant rhetoric of “sound and fury” against North Korea. China did in the end make symbolic gestures, that have not reduced the American dilemma of there being few viable alternatives to North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s determination to perfect nuclear weapons and their missile launchers.

Given these circumstances, it is still useful for India and the US to hold a strategic dialogue with Mr Tillerson in New Delhi.