Bush's long standing love affair with India

By Aussiegirl

Let's reexamine our annoyance at those customer service calls that are taken in India. To his credit, President Bush seems to have recognized very early on the vital strategic importance of India as a counterweight to the dominance of China in Asia. As such, his visit there is extremely important. India must be wooed and won. The coming century will see Asia dominating the world stage. India is a strong democracy and with its roots firmly set in English law and even the English language, it is a natural ally to the United States and the free Western powers. An important and necessary trip.

The Washington Times

Bush seems to have had since the 1990s a gut sense about the importance of India and its economic dynamism, and its unique role as a developing country that is also a multi-ethnic democracy and a nuclear power. And it even speaks English. In his first campaign planning session in 1999 with Condoleezza Rice, his future national security adviser and secretary of State, to draft the main themes of what would become the foreign policy of Bush's presidential bid, it was the future president who would not let the meeting end until India had been discussed.
For Bush, the equation was simple. China was emerging as a serious strategic concern for the United States. Its breakneck economic growth was going hand in hand with an ambitious re-armament program and what looked like an ominous determination to re-absorb Taiwan, and to establish China as the dominant Asia power. For Bush, India was the obvious candidate to restore some balance to the prospect of Beijing's supremacy in Asia.
What Bush did not know at that meeting (but he heard it soon after) was that India's then Defense Minister George Fernandes, was on record saying that India's nuclear arsenal and its Agni missiles were aimed at deterring China, rather than focused on Pakistan.