A chance for India to act responsibly
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold an informal summit with President Xi Jinping of China in Wuhan at the weekend. He is expected to visit China again for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Qing Dao in June.
The Wuhan meeting has been very well prepared with ministerial visits by both sides. China attaches a lot of importance to this meeting. Although no outcome document is expected, the conversations in Wuhan will be important for the greater Asian region and the world.
For India, some sort of rapprochement with China is a compelling necessity. As it would presage India’s ability to play a versatile role as a balancer of power in Eurasia. This paraphrases the term “strategic autonomy”, which is favored by many Indian strategists.
The big question is whether India will rise to the occasion and act responsibly in its own interests and not succumb to domestic political considerations and the rage of media anchors, who see every event as a sport with victory or defeat. Of course, Pakistan would be watching closely. Any improvement in India-China relations is good for Pakistan.
The test is whether there would be any evolution in the Indian position on the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (the huge project to build a new Silk Road) and consequentially on the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. But more importantly for the rest of the world, Chinese-Indian rapprochement would go some way toward dispelling the dark scenario of another cold war descending on the international scene, especially in Eurasia.
There is no finality to history. Today’s transitions shape our tomorrow. In the history of mankind, power, ideology or religion have played a dominant role. Conceptual constructs are often devised to understand, explain or expound policies in geopolitical games, played for ascendancy or purely in defense.
The first two decades of the 21st century have witnessed momentous happenings. In Eurasia, economic and demographic factors have propelled the rise of Asian powers. Japan, South Korea, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and China. Their collective economic weight necessitated the recalibration of geopolitics, with the center of gravity shifting to Asia-Pacific.
The Wuhan meeting with the Chinese president is a big test for India — will it be able to change tack and cooperate over the huge new Silk Road project — and prioritize cooperation over power play?
Salman Bashir
This explained President Barack Obama’s Asia pivot strategy, with its closer focus on the eastern shores of Eurasia. It was underscored, however, with a cooperative rather than a combative outlook on China. This has changed with the advent of the Trump administration, which in multiple policy and strategy documents has declared China and Russia to be rivals. The China and Russia containment strategy has warranted revamping US military, naval and political presence and influence in what is now described as the Indo-Pacific. This signifies extending active interest in the Indian Ocean. Thus, the US strategy confers on India a special role in this regard.
China has been exercising strategic patience and avoiding entanglement in power games. China’s economic rise gives it the potential to have a beneficial impact on the world. To a large extent, the global economy depends on the way relations between major powers are steered. The triggering of a trade war by imposition of tariffs and rising calls for protectionism have not yet provoked strong reactions from China. The international community, by and large, would view this as mature and responsible behavior. China, along with Russia, has been working the Eurasian project, essentially the revival of the ancient overland links for economic, trade and cultural interactions.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is an important vehicle for improving the Eurasian landscape. So far, India has played an extremely negative role in the SCO and is seen as trying to wreck the Europe-Asia enterprise. The Wuhan summit thus becomes a touchstone of the direction Indian strategists will take for the future. Sitting on the wall and playing all sides is an option. China will understand India’s inclination to paraphrase strategic autonomy in that sense. But what it will not countenance is India becoming the bulwark of China containment in Eurasia or more specifically in the Indian Ocean region.
It is to be hoped that the current disturbing trends of prioritizing power play over cooperation in global affairs will not be accentuated. Both China and the US are great powers and both need to adopt a cooperative approach. Versatile world players would be much better off having good relations with both. It is time that medium-sized states such as India and Pakistan focused on their own development and worked on regional cooperation schemes in the larger interests of all.
• Salman Bashir is a Pakistani diplomat who served as the Foreign Secretary of Pakistan and as the High Commissioner of Pakistan to India. Twitter: @SalmanB_Isb
