When you are creating a military alliance aimed at a third party, it’s always best to swear that you are doing no such thing, and that you simply share common values with your prospective allies. So Japan’s prime minister, Shinzo Abe, addressing the Indian parliament recently said: “This partnership is an association in which we share fundamental values such as freedom, democracy and respect for basic human rights as well as strategic interests.”

You notice how “strategic interests” was just tacked on at the end there. Sort of “Oh, yeah, and that too, if anybody cares.” That’s how the game is played, and Abe didn’t mention China at all. But by defining this new partnership as an association of democracies, he neatly excluded China from the list of possible members: “By Japan and India coming together in this way, this ‘broader Asia’ will evolve into an immense network spanning the entirety of the Pacific Ocean, incorporating the United States of America and Australia.”

But not China. And it is not at all a coincidence that all the major members of this evolving alliance see China as a potential military threat. Shinzo Abe is the most militaristic Japanese leader since World War II, but this grand alliance is not his idea. It is an American initiative that was gestating even under President Clinton in the late Nineties, but it really took off after President George W. Bush took office in early 2001. Since Japan and Australia were already US allies, the main task was to bring India, the emerging Asian giant with the potential to rival China, into the same alliance structure. That was not an easy task, since India had been non-aligned ever since its independence in 1947.

New friend

The US imposed sanctions against India in response to the latter’s nuclear weapons tests in 1998, and American legislation banned any trade in nuclear fuel or equipment with countries that refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. It took a huge American diplomatic effort abroad and the expenditure of a lot of the Bush administration’s political credit at home to get around those obstacles, but by this year the job was done.

In 2005, the US agreed to lift the ban on US nuclear exports to India, and India signed up to a military cooperation agreement that gives it access to the next generation of American weapons and commits it to joint military exercises with US forces. India gets US ballistic missile defence, and there are presumably secret clauses about cooperation on intelligence matters and, maybe, even on strategic planning.

Last year, the US Congress obediently changed the law to give India access to American nuclear exports. It may not technically be an alliance, but it’s definitely not just a sewing circle.If you need proof, just look at the White House’s reaction when opponents of the alliance in Indian parliament tried to kill it.

Washington wants this alliance so much that it has tied itself in knots to meet the objections of Indian politicians. Last month, President Bush went well beyond what the US Congress had authorized, offering to help India to set up a nuclear fuel repository so it can stockpile Uranium against any interruption in the American supply, and even promising to help India find other sources of nuclear fuel if Congress does cut off the supply.

These are not the actions of an administration that is lukewarm about the alliance with India. In fact, India is the keystone of the new US strategy in Asia, and Washington will do almost anything to keep it in place. As for Shinzo Abe’s visit, it is part of the tidying-up process where America’s existing allies in the region also expand their direct defence ties with India.

These people are not nearly as clever as they think they are. If they go on like this, they will end up with a new Cold War in Asia.