ABSTRACT
Two events – some would say one – have prompted a debate in South and East Asia on whether a new Cold War is starting, with its theatre in Southeast and East Asia rather than in Europe.1 These two events are the recent blossoming of India-US relations, as seen in the record-setting civil nuclear agreement, and growing military cooperation between the US, India, Japan, Singapore and Australia. The latter flowed from the former, and the question being asked is whether they are intended to contain China. Though these two events launched the debate, its context derives from an
influential paper written in 2003 by Professor Madhav Nalapat, UNESCO Peace Chair and director of the School of Geopolitics at the Manipal Academy. Nalapat argued that Washington should take the initiative in creating a formal US-led security system for the Asia-Pacific region, which could be called NAATO, the North America-Asia Treaty Organization. The criteria for membership, he added, should be ‘whether people of all faiths are given equal rights under the law, and whether they enjoy the democratic freedoms NAATO is intended to defend.’2
