Heard what Bush is going to do in India?

W. is about to travel to India, and The Economist urges him to read E.M. Forster's best-known novel "A passage to India" during the 13-hour flight. The reason? Just as in Forster's novel, "no passage to India is ever entirely smooth". One important subject to discuss with "New China" is, according to The Economist, nuclear weapons and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (that India never has joined).

I agree, and even more so when The Economist writes that Bush should not go to India in order to promote some kind of "India can be a counterweight to China policy". To make China play by the rules should not be done in a balance-of-power game, but through a combination of engagement and louder criticism of (for example) the human rights situation.

Anyway, I am sure we will have to read more about this trip soon, and until then we can always laugh at the cartoon above.