How the world is shaping up

Narendra Modi had an exceptional state visit to the US a few months back. He was only the third head of state or government to be given the honour during the Biden years. He spoke to the Congress, a unique recognition, and mixed well his rustic self and the ancient Hindu civilisational references to a modernist, futurist India around technology and science. He has turned his unrefined and uncouth exterior into an Indian charm that the world has slowly warmed to.

When Congressmen rise repeatedly in ovation — even when they follow only a translation of Modi’s spoken English — it is how the US intends to pan its policy. India and Modi were given oversized importance and there was a purpose to this enactment. Modi had earlier visited the US in 2016 when Obama hosted him at the White House. Then too he had spoken to the Congress. This visit was only a reinforcement of what had already been in works. In 1979, China began changing under Deng Xiaoping, and hasn’t looked back since. It is now a global economic giant and a world power challenging the US position of the sole superpower of last three decades.

The US has raised its threat level against China calling it an existential danger in economic and military terms. India began changing in 1989 under Rajiv Gandhi who opened India up from its Nehruvian model of subsistence economy to a market driven western model. It gained real momentum under Manmohan Singh, first as India’s Finance Minister and then as a twice-elected Prime Minister. Modi has carried that momentum, built on it, and has India progressed to its standing as the fifth largest economy in the world in GDP-terms. It must be said that India has broken off the shackles of low-to-middle income emerging economy and is on a rapid rise to make its place fast among the top economies.

The world has taken note. Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump and now Biden have all indulged India in a bipartisan consensus. Before Clinton the US had only looked at India with scepticism: a Soviet lackey, closet socialists, even if they outwardly swore to non-Alignment. It is only when India let a free-market reign that the West began to change its approach and consideration of India. Trump, during his presidency, propounded the doctrine of outsourcing security of US and Western interests to nations which had enjoyed US patronage over decades. NATO against Russia, Israel in the Middle East, and Japan against Russia and China were already the outposts keeping a watch on American interests. India has now been inducted with the sole objective of harrying China on its southern front.

Latest arms delivery announcements by the US to Japan and Taiwan are meant to reinforce respective militaries to act against what is propounded an imminent Chinese assertion in East Pacific around Taiwan. China denies that assessment, as do most Taiwanese, but Japan is far too deeply endowed to the US to think or act otherwise. Most Taiwanese believe that the US-China stand-off on Taiwan is just that, a US-China thing only which Taiwanese watch in silence but will end up being crushed under in this war for supremacy of the titans. The US though is spoiling for a conflict in the South China Sea with an aim to suck China into a war adversely impacting China’s economic growth and development.

The US hopes that Japan, South Korea, Philippines and Taiwan together will take on the envisioned gauntlet with the US in very close support in what shall be a mirror image of the ongoing war in Europe which Ukraine leads, Europe supports and America funds, as Russian polity, society and economy languish. In comes Modi’s India finding favour from interested quarters. For the granted honour of a state visit there will be ‘things to do’ in return. India’s growing economic heft means there is money to be made and nothing sells better than American weapons, though a lot will need to be signed in as ‘conditions’ before those ever arrive on Indian shores.

An unwilling and unreliable India is an unsure partner to war China when willed — India has her own détente established with China through frequent summitry and functional level interactions. It continues to dodge the dragnet for what is likely to be a full-blown, intense war in India’s north when and if the bigger and primary theater in South China Sea activates. India must submit to American conditions before it can receive what can propel it militarily; even for what is touted to be in the pipeline. More likely, India will continue to dither even as it plays the US up as its potential partner. It is meant to keep the US interested without letting it wander away and without being entrapped in an imposed war.

China has its own détente in works with the US. A disengagement between the two propels the specter of war closer which given the gravity soon finds diplomatic reengagement. The US has tried to stifle the supply of technology, especially semiconductors, to China while China in response has barred export of rare earth metals and critical materials for manufacturing semiconductors. This has hurried the two back into resolving the impasse. The US has also initiated moves in the Middle East to expand Abraham Accords to include Saudi Arabia and counter China’s rising influence. Pakistan’s strategic closeness to China and the Middle East and China’s strategic interest to extend BRI through the Middle East into Africa keeps alive China’s vibrant interests in the region.

The US has offered to desist Israel from annexing West Bank in return and keeping the Two-Nation solution alive, sweetening the deal with the offer of a nuclear reactor were Saudi Arabia to recognise Israel. It feels nations like Pakistan and Indonesia will follow suit. In consequence thus threats to Israel can mitigate while she finds a more active presence in the region to mind American interests in the Gulf. China and the US are also in a competing spree in Afghanistan to excavate as much of lithium and other precious metals from under its mineral-rich mountains. China already has a robust presence there in heavy investments while the US, late in the game having exited the region, is scurrying back in the shape of non-governmental presence.

Pakistan, in the meanwhile deprived of its traditional heft because of nose-diving economic and stability indicators, is embroiled in its own recovery and cannot be the geographical pivot as the great game heats up. It must thus keep secure its anchor with China to keep an even keel as the region around buffets under dynamic changes. A balance in relations between global powers will help. India will be kept in check with the two-front war possibility which remains India’s Achille’s heel. Three contiguous nuclear powers must move gingerly thus even if the maze enchants.