Diplomatic daredevilry

Sir, - The Opposition parties and the media have rightly pulled up the Government for its unambiguous endorsement of the NMD plan and have offered a timely warning to the Government about unilaterally jumping the gun to please the sole, surviving superpower. The fact is with the hostile posture that the Bush administration has adopted against China and Russia, the international community has become increasingly apprehensive of the Republican Government reviving Cold War sentiments of yore.

India is a party to the U.S. rubbishing as ``a relic of the Cold War era'' the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty. With the Bush administration upping the ante against China in the ``spy plane row'' and its arms sale to Taiwan, China is wont to be suspicious of the U.S. using India as a strategic partner to contain it. Consequently, the current improved bilateral Sino-Indian ties will soon revert back to square one. In all, India can ill-afford this diplomatic daredevilry. With so much at stake, need we so recklessly flout our non-alignment policy and be needlessly drawn into the crossfire of the cold vibes, or worse still, even proxy wars - between the U.S. and China - or between the U.S. and Russia?

Nalini Vijayaraghavan,

Thiruvananthapuram

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