WASHINGTON, Feb 6: China has come in for unusual praise by US Secretary of State Colin Powell for Beijing’s “constructive role” in helping to manage the India-Pakistan crisis that appeared to be coming dangerously to a head a few weeks ago.

In testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Tuesday, Secretary Powell said he had remained in touch with the Chinese foreign minister during the crisis and that this had “made for a more reasoned approach to what was a volatile situation between India and Pakistan”.

As a result, China supported the approach that the rest of the international community had taken. “Beijing was not trying to be a spoiler but, instead, was trying to help us alleviate tensions and convince the two parties to scale down their dangerous confrontation, which now appears they are trying very hard to do.”

But Mr Powell believed the standoff between India and Pakistan still constituted a “very dangerous situation”, with forces mobilized, in proximity to one another, and at something of a war footing with nearly a million soldiers deployed.

The secretary’s assessment was repeated by Central Intelligence Agency chief George Tenet in testimony before the Senate intelligence committee on Wednesday when he said chances of war between Pakistan and India were higher than ever before since 1971. Mr Tenet, who recently visited South Asia, said both countries had downplayed risks of a nuclear war, but the US remained deeply worried about a conventional war escalating into a nuclear conflict.

Mr Tenet, like Mr Powell on Tuesday, praised Gen Pervez Musharraf’s Jan 12 speech, saying it marked a fundamental shift in Pakistani politics and had opened a debate on the vision of Islam as a tolerant and inclusive religion as opposed to the version presented by forces of extremism.

Mr Powell had described the Musharraf speech as “a seminal event. It not only dealt with terrorism and extremism in a way that I believe New Delhi found constructive, it sent a clear message to Pakistanis that terrorism must end if Pakistan is to enter the 21st century with expectations of progress and a decent life for its people. President Musharraf showed great courage and foresight in sending such a decisive message to his country and, by extension, to the Islamic world at large. Now he must show equal courage in implementing his concepts in Pakistan.”

Mr Powell said both New Delhi and Islamabad had indicated that they wanted to avoid war, that they were desirous of solving the standoff through political and diplomatic means.

“Now, as we are seeing and as we are hoping, events seem to be progressing toward that end. We will continue monitoring the situation, urging restraint and dialogue, and helping where and when we can. We will encourage both India and Pakistan to refrain from provocative rhetoric and to move toward redeployment of their military forces. We need to continue carefully walking down from the very precarious position each country has created with respect to the other.”

The secretary also made the sweeping claim that, following the Sept 11 attacks and the campaign against ‘terrorism’, “we have re-shaped the whole region ... (there was) a new-US-Pakistan relationship, a reinvigorated US-India relationship, a new interim authority in Kabul, the Taliban were gone, and the terrorists dead, in jail, or on the run”.

In his testimony, Mr Tenet coupled praise for Gen Musharraf with concern that the general confronted “major vested interests” while establishing a moderate, tolerant Islamic state in Pakistan.