I have come very late to the field of South Asian studies in my college career (prior to Prof. Haqqani's arrival at the university, I don't believe anyone was really teaching any courses specifically related to either India or Pakistan, which is kind of unbelievable when you think about it.. I think European and Russian studies are still a little over-represented in our IR department right now, but hey, to each his own turf).

The more I learn the more interested I am in the region, so it's interesting when my studies to date, which have mostly focused on China and East Asia, overlap — as they did in my Uyghur paper and as they do in these articles about recently increased Sino-Pakistani cooperation here, here, and here (all coinciding with a visit by Pakistani PM Shaukat Aziz to Beijing and Shanghai) which recieved little attention in the U.S. press (even though Hu's diplomatic efforts in Latin America, East Asia, and Africa have caught a good bit of notice as China becomes increasingly assertive) but which look to have been a big deal in Dawn, the establishment newspaper of Pakistan.

It's my understanding that the military alliance between Pakistan and China actually dates back several decades — I think Steven Cohen's The Idea of Pakistan may cover it somewhat, but does anyone have a recommendation for a book specifically on Sino-Pakistani relations, military or otherwise? — since you have the whole border war between India and China from the 60s as well as the Sino-Soviet split playing out there. I believe Cohen makes the point that in the absence of real committed American support, Pakistan has frequently turned towards other regional powers such as China, especially after the Bangladesh crisis and when we departed after the Afghan jihad in the 1980s. Since Pakistan under Musharaff post-9/11 has been shedding most of its overt support for the training of Islamic guerrillas in the Kashmir region (which China had previously complained was bleeding over into Xinjiang and riling up the Uyghurs) and since China is content to participate in the war on terror to the extent that it legitimizes its own moves in Central Asia, increased cooperation between the two countries is not surprising now.

With that in mind, Timothy Dunlop's relating of the reaction of Indian officials (via Drum and Pandagon) to a visiting U.S. Congressional delegation — "We consider ourselves as in competition with China for leadership in the new century. That's our focus and frankly, you have made it very difficult for us to deal with you." — strikes me as very interesting indeed. TJ in Pandagon comments has CIA factbook figures for India, China, and the US that suggest to him India may actually be the most dynamic of the three major powers for the future. I don't know anything about the Indian economy to judge whether that's true or not, but China certainly has its share of structural problems yet to be confronted for the future. Right now the U.S. is engaging both the Chinese and the Pakistani regimes, but it's not clear to me to what extent (since the Bush administration hasn't made much of a priority of anything besides a professed commitment to counter-terrorism) or how long that will last (since American relations with Pakistan have generally been utilitarian and limited, and its as yet unclear how deep our cooperation is outside the current hunt for Al Qaeda — one reason Pakistan should be in no rush to deliver, by the way). I really don't think we want to see some sort of Sino-Pakistani vs. India-American face-off in South Asia at any point in the future, but India's dismissal of American efforts is not a particularly encouraging sign either, since with its current political and economic ties (of varying degrees of strength) to all major parties in the region the U.S. would presumably be in the best position to uphold a peaceful status quo between them.

And to conclude this bout of semi-informed speculation, let me just add that if I were an apocalyptic science fiction writer these days, I would totally start it all off with Kashmir.

Oh the weather outside is frightful
But to be done with finals is so delightful
It'll suck when tomorrow on my way home over Chicago O'Hare I go,
Let it snow let it snow let it snow

As of thirty minutes ago, I am done with my last final for the semester. As of fifteen minutes ago, I have signed into Professor Charles Dunbar's American Foreign Policy Processes course (replacing the North-South Relations economic development class I had been thinking about earlier), which should be good since my knowledge of the actual D.C. policymaking process is only marginal, and depending on how my job search goes, I may be playing some small part of it in another three to six months or so. As of tomorrow, I'm back home in Indiana, with a huge stack of vacation reading ahead of me, so happy holidays one and all.