Mr Obama is committed to the partnership with India as part of which New Delhi has placed arms-purchase orders worth $3.5bn last year alone. But he has also signalled that any relationship will not be at the expense of fast-growing ties with Beijing.
Washington now intends to abandon elements in its ties with New Delhi that could rile China, including a joint military drill in Arunachal or a 2007-style naval exercise involving the US, India, Australia, Japan and Singapore. Even US naval manoeuvres with India and Japan are out. Washington is charting a course of tacit neutrality on the Arunachal issue.
As his secretary of state did in February, Mr Obama has started his Asia tour in Japan and will end in China – the high spot – while skipping India.
For India this must be so confusing. How can so-called nuanced, smart diplomacy put the democracy India behind autocratic China in our State Department's pecking order?
It's a mystery until your throw away your English-Hindu dictionary and understand that our policies are now just old fashioned appeasement of China dressed up as hope, change, and foreign policy realism.
Better luck with the next administration, India.
