India a natural friend, rising economic power: Rice

Saturday May 28 2005 00:00 IST

PTI

WASHINGTON: India is a rising economic power, a multi-ethnic democracy and a natural friend of the US, which is spending a lot of time on the "key relationship," secretary of state Condoleezza Rice has said.

"India is a rising economic influence of power in the international system. It's a great multiethnic democracy. I think it's a natural friend for the United States," she said in an interview on Thursday. She said the Indians are emerging from a philosophy of heavy State involvement in the economy.

"They are emerging similarly from policies that were not aligned, but had a strong - I won't call it anti-America, but tended to juxtapose India to the United States in most of its policies."

India, she said was emerging as a potentially very stabilising and positive force in international politics, which is "why we're spending a lot of time on that relationship. We're spending a lot of time on South Asia," she told Bloomberg News Wire Service.

She repeated the promise she made in New Delhi that the US would help India as she becomes a global power.

"When you are dealing with big, complicated places like China, Russia or India," she said, "you are building along multiple fronts and there will be puts and takes in the relationship."

"So India is a very key relationship here and we're spending a lot of time on it," she said.

Recalling her recent visit to India, she said "When I went out there, we talked about a stronger economic relationship, stronger energy co-operation, stronger defence co-operation and becoming a reliable partner for India as it makes its move as a global power.

"And we used the words that we're fully willing and ready to buttist in that growth of India's global power and the implications of that, which we see as largely positive."

Asked whether China's growth as a global power is also largely positive, Rice said, "It could be", adding, the advantage in India is its democracy.

Contrasting China and India, she said China is in transition in terms of its domestic systems. "And we will continue to make clear," she said, "that democratisation, human rights issues, religious freedom issues, transparency and openness in politics--these are issues concerning China."

Questioned on the outsourcing issue, Rice told the news agency that "The answer that rings truest is that in order for the US to be compebreastive and to make certain that jobs are here, you have to have an environment in which this is the very best place to do business."