After playing Chinese checkers, Bert will be meeting Condi Rice

President GMA, who already saw him in Jakarta, will formally welcome China’s President Hu Jintao when he arrives early this evening for a three-day state visit. Tomorrow night President Hu and Madame Liu Yongging will be feted by La Presidenta and the First Gentleman at a state dinner in Malacañang Palace.

Of course, the coming visit of the leader of the world’s most populous nation, and now one of its most economically powerful, will be a huge "success". Distressful topics are never taken up during such happy opportunities. The nitty-gritty is discussed in the backroom, among the ministers and other implementors.

We welcome President Hu.

Having drunk enough toasts of mao tai and Confucius Family Wine (believe me, that’s another popular brew over in Beijing) to eternal Filipino-Chinese friendship to float a battleship, this writer won’t have to submit, I believe, any further bona fides of bonhomie and sincere regard. But we have our worries, too, about the growing might of China – for what inevitably goes with that is the temptation to be pushy.

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China is in the process of forming alliances in the region to establish itself as a growing Power in the diplomatic as well as in the economic field. Militarily, there can no longer be any doubt the People’s Republic is beefing up and modernizing its People’s Liberation Army and Navy – an upgrade fueled by its outstanding economic and financial success. Prime Minister Wen Jiabao in early April went to Islamabad (Pakistan) and New Delhi (India) to proclaim China’s peaceful intentions, declaring: "Some people are worried that a stronger and more developed China will pose a threat to other countries. Such a worry is completely misplaced… China will never seek hegemony."

These words were uttered at a 26-country forum called the Asia Cooperation Dialogue on April 6.

The following Saturday, April 9, Mr. Jiabao flew over to India where he quickly signed a series of agreements with India’s Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh who only a week earlier had been visited by the United States’ fairly-new Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice in a move by Washington DC to court India’s military cooperation, not merely economic ties. My reading of the dealmaking on the part of Prime Minister Jiabao is a desire on the part of Beijing to secure its southern borders by promising an end to long-festering territorial disputes.

Dr. Singh and the Indian government, naturally, welcomed Jiabao’s overtures with great enthusiasm, and the usual flowery pronouncements. But the undercurrent will inevitably be a continuing wariness between the two nascent Big Powers in Asia. Memories may be muted, but among some in India they remain keen, over India’s military humiliation in Ladakh in the Himalayas, when the Chinese crushed an Indian military outpost there claiming the Indians had intruded into their territory.

A few weeks after that debacle, in 1962, I had interviewed India’s late Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in his bungalow in Teen Murti, his official residence. I remember it had been the Pandit’s daughter, Indira Gandhi – then acting as his private secretary – who opened the door for my wife and myself. Nehru was grave of feature, but cordial in manner. I had been warned by the Cabinet minister who arranged my visit not to bring up the subject of Ladakh, or any painful political topic, since Nehru was reportedly nursing feelings of disappointment and repressed anger which should not be stoked. After fifteen minutes of polite but pointless conversation, during which I had admired his library and the flowers glimpsed outside the window, Nehru suddenly turned to me and impatiently snapped: "Aren’t you going to ask me about Ladakh?"

"Oh… yes… Ladakh," I blurted out.

And he was off on a monologue which I dared not interrupt, except by nodding. Prime Minister Nehru, who had been so close to China’s Premier Zhou Enlai – one had dazzled the other by his brilliance and charm – bitterly confessed to the abject failure of his policy of Hindi-Chini bai-bai ("Indians and Chinese are brothers!"). For years both during the Bandung conference of 1955 and for half a decade afterwards, Nehru had been the apostle of "peaceful co-existence," punctuated by all-out friendship for his big neighbor up north. He had scorned the West, America in particular, for its paranoia about Communist China. "I learned an unforgettable lesson from Ladakh," the great Pandit sadly concluded. Already I could see the shadow of his impending death on his face. "And the lesson was that to co-exist, one must first be strong."

India has since then embarked on a slow, but sure process of strengthening itself in the military field – after all, its next-door rival, Muslim Pakistan had never allowed the Indians to grow complacent on this score. It was left to Nehru’s grandson, the late Rajiv Gandhi (husband of Sonia Gandhi) to push, when he served his turn as Prime Minister, to push forward the arming of its forces, particularly the development of a "blue-water" Navy. A former commercial airline pilot himself, Rajiv had striven to modernize the Indian Air Force, too.

Having spent two weeks in India last February, I can attest to the impressive upsurge of India as Asia’s second most populous and potentially puissant nation – with one billion Indians bursting into the IT century, at a breakneck rate of population growth which threatens to surpass that of China in the year 2010.

India will soon begin building its own aircraft carrier, a 37,500-ton warship in the government-owned shipyard in Kerala, capable of launching 30 fighter jets and an "operating endurance" of 7,500 nautical miles in 45 days. This was confirmed by the definitive Jane’s Defence Weekly which asserted India would then have the only carrier navy in the Indian ocean. India, however, imports 70 percent of its military needs. Indeed, the new carrier will still have to import its major components – i.e. weapons systems, aircraft and electronics – although jet warplanes are being manufactured in such cities as Bangalore.

The target is a three to five carrier fleet within the next 30 years. India already has an aircraft carrier it acquired from Russia, the 44,000-ton Gorshkev, now being refitted to replace the much-older aircraft carrier, Veerat in 2008.

The US is pushing for India to procure US-made jet fighters. Just as he announced he would sell two dozen F-16s to Pakistan, US President George W. Bush rang up Prime Minister Singh in New Delhi and personally offered him, in a 15-minute phone call, his pick of American military aircraft, too. The Americans know that India has a military fleet of 800 jets, but all of them are aging – and none of them are of American manufacture. Lockheed Martin and Boeing are smacking their lips over the prospect of Indian business. The chance to sell, say, 126 fighter jets (at $35 million apiece and upwards) to India is just too tempting. On offer could be the F-16, the F/A-18 Super Hornet (popular with aircraft carrier commanders) and the F-15 Strike Eagle.

India, eager for technology transfer, may counter-offer to purchase 18 F-16s outright, then build the rest of the 108 in India under a licensing agreement. Lockheed is interested, near as it is to striking a deal on P-3 Orion patrol planes (like the one which located our four lost fishermen from Zambales) and C-130J Hercules cargo planes.

These moves are not lost on the Chinese. They know that an Indian military build-up injects a new factor into the region, faced as Beijing believes it is today with a "threat" from a Japanese-American alliance. After all, there are still 50,000 US servicemen in Japan, with airbases and naval stations, mostly in Okinawa.

In the light of such power-balances, Beijing is eager to make friends.

By the way, President Hu Jintao and his wife will be met this evening at the airport by our Foreign Affairs Secretary Alberto G. Romulo. Bert will be accompanied by former Vice-President Teofisto "Tito" Guingona, our Ambassador-designate to China, and Undersecretary Toto Zaide, protocol chief of the DFA.

Also on the list of official greeters, will be all our service chiefs of the Armed Forces of the Philippines – General Efren Abu, AFP Chief of Staff; Vice-Admiral Ernesto de Leon, FOIC (Flag officer in command) of the Philippine Navy; General Gene Senga, Commanding General of the Philippine Army; Lt. General Jose Reyes, Chief of the Philippine Air Force, and General Art Lomibao, PNP Director General and Police Chief.

The Chinese President, after meeting with President GMA in Malacañang in the morning, will address a joint session of Philippine Congress in the afternoon.

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Foreign Affairs Secretary Bert Romulo will, after all that, be consulting with our American "friends".

He’s scheduled to fly to Washington DC on May 15 (Sunday two weeks from now) and meet on May 17 with US Secretary of State Condi Rice and US National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.