That is the assessment of Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew at the end of a five-day trip to India.

'The relationship with the United States will take some time to develop. Their civilian nuclear cooperation deal has already been checkmated by communist parties. It will be a gradual process,' Mr Lee said.

'There is no immediate strategic partnership to encircle China and even when the relationship grows, India will remain an independent player,' he predicted.

Mr Lee was addressing Singapore reporters last Friday after meetings in the Indian capital with Premier Manmohan Singh and Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

The previous day, he had called on Mrs Sonia Gandhi, Congress party president and chair of the ruling United Progressive Alliance.

All three Indian leaders had sought Mr Lee's assessment of regional and global issues.

Mr Lee noted that the US did not want to see India grow in opposition to China. Rather, it wanted another major weight in the Asian region so that China is not the overwhelming weight.

'That itself will bring certain balance and perspective to the policies of each country,' he said, referring to other Asian nations that are doing their own calculations as they watch the rise of the two Asian giants.

Mr Lee said that with the Cold War over and its strategic pact with the Soviet Union defunct, India wanted closer ties with the US. Eventually, that could lead to the US giving India higher-end military technology.

But even as that relationship matured, India would still maintain an independent foreign policy, Mr Lee predicted.

'Right from independence, India had its own separate policy. It created the Afro-Asian Solidarity Movement in Bandung, it formed the Non-aligned Movement to distance itself from the two power blocs. I don't see them being co-opted in one camp or the other.

'They will have their own camp and will strike common interest deals with one or the other as the case may be. That is my sense of the Indian position,' he added.

Meanwhile, China-India ties are developing, particularly on the economic front. China is set to surpass every other nation as India's largest trading partner. Two-way trade has already topped US$20 billion (S$29 billion) annually and is set to grow exponentially.

The Minister Mentor, who attended the JP Morgan Chase International Board meeting in New Delhi, will make a second visit to India when he returns for the Citigroup Business Leaders Summit next month.

Having talked extensively to businessmen in Mumbai and New Delhi, he also said India's long-term economic prospects looked good, a reason why there was so much international interest in the country.

He had himself never seen a bigger JP Morgan meeting than last week's conference in New Delhi that brought together the bank's New York, European and international boards.

For faster growth, however, India would need to do two things immediately. It must fix its infrastructure and open up the economy faster. And it would also need to upgrade its education system to cater to its economy's requirements.

Singapore companies could clearly do more to tap into this market of a billion people.

'Our cumulative investments have already become fairly substantial and more is flowing. Because we have been in China since the 1970s, we have invested much more in China than in India, but it will catch up,' he said.

velloor@sph.com.sg