Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh (Mario Tama/Getty Images)

A post on November 9th asked if the US still cared about India because of all the attention paid toward Afghanistan and relatively little toward India.

On November 24th, President Obama met with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and pledged to visit India next year. In fact, the Obama White House's first state dinner will be in honor of Singh. Hopefully, the china, food and guests will be A-list and Singh will feel properly feted.

On his four-nation November 2009 visit to Asia, President Obama met with President Hu Jintao of China and opined that the US and China were not destined to be adversaries. Obama held a town hall meeting in Shanghai and expressed his belief that the US and China can work together on issues such as climate change and nuclear proliferation.

If you poll US citizens, they believe otherwise. Only 51% viewed China as a military threat in a recent CNN poll but 71% percent of Americans viewed China as an economic threat to the United States. Economist Albert Keidel of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace says that the Chinese economy will surpass the US's and become the world's largest in 2035. The United States' debt to China, global competition for markets and energy, influence in the developing world and the struggle for superpower status must doom the US and China to chronic conflict. Right?

Despite wars in Korea and Vietnam, years of tension over the status of Taiwan, and occasional harassment of US ships and airplanes by Chinese armed forces, there has been no significant threat of direct US-Chinese military conflict in decades.

In the economic sphere, the US and China need each other. The US needs Chinese financing, commodities at a sufficiently low price to keep inflation in check and markets for American high-value goods and services. Likewise, China does not want the US to default on its debts nor lose its biggest export market. Looking into the future, if China is to become a global power, it needs better technology, productivity and education - which the US has in vast supply.

There are more reasons for the US and China to cooperate rather than to start a new Cold War. In fact, the US is pushing for Chinese leadership in international bodies like the G-20 because it wants China to shoulder global economic responsibility befitting its economic status. Young people in China as they gain economic independence and greater exposure to Western ideas and culture should gravitate toward a more democratic and open way of thinking.

So, President Obama's appeal for cooperation and collaboration is on the right track ... Well, at least today it is.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (State Department)

Who would want Hillary Clinton's job? Broker a Middle East peace accord? Not me.

Since the Sadat-Begin Agreement of 1977, the Israelis and Palestinians, like a commitment-shy bride and groom, talk of a peaceful, happy life together but cannot seem to make it to the altar. But to her credit, like a good matchmaker, Secretary of State Clinton keeps working to bring the parties together even if they seem to have lost the desire for peace. Her predecessor, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice didn't seem to have the stomach for it.

Just in November 2009, Secretary Clinton and her envoy Senator George Mitchell have had to contend with the following.

• A bland meeting between President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that produced no substantive results.

• The only Palestinian official whom the Israelis will deal with, Mahmoud Abbas, announces he is quitting as President of the Palestinian Authority.

• Hamas being accused of preventing Palestinian elections in Gaza.

• A rebuke of Clinton for giving the Israelis credit for limiting the construction of new settlements in the West Bank, and subsequently pressure to state that the Israelis should cease building all settlements.

• Palestinians refusal to negotiate with the Israelis until they agree to stop building settlements.

• Israeli Government refusal to assist the UN with its ongoing probe of the Israeli incursion in Gaza in late 2008 and to recognize the findings of the Goldstone Report on the Gaza conflict.

• The Israeli military intercepted a ship carrying cargo believed to be Iranian weapons being shipped to Syria for later transport to Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Combine all this with Hamas' refusal to recognize Israel, Netanyahu's lack of enthusiasm for a two-state solution, lack of consensus on the status of Jerusalem, and the thousands of years of animosity and you have a no-win situation. Despite the United States' earnest intentions, real Mideast peace still seems distant.

If Secretary Clinton manages to get an agreement within the next 3 years, then she definitely deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.

Do you hear much about India in the news these days? You don't even hear much about American jobs being outsourced to India these days - a US Presidential election issue in 2004.

Before 9/11, the US was careful to act evenhanded toward both India and Pakistan as not to upset their delicate relationship. Earlier in the 1970s and 1980s, staunchly anti-communist Pakistan was the traditional US ally. India's geniality toward the Soviet Union offended US policymakers. Since the fall of the Soviet Union, India has remained one of South Asia's region's most stable democracies despite outbursts of civil unrest and political assassination.

With a growing economy and increasing economic links to the US, it appears that the American Government no longer needs to "manage the India situation" and instead, is focusing on the problems in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

For the US economy to climb out of the recession, it may need more to pay more attention to India, one of the world's most rapidly growing economies.