India must find its feet

MK Bhadrakumar

MUCH of the failings of India’s foreign policy through the past two-three years can be attributed to the failure of diplomacy to adjust with the shifts in the regional and international milieu. The international system is rapidly transforming and it is vital to be in sync with the times. The year 2017 presents a defining moment in regional and world politics. Processes that have been under way in recent years are either poised to accelerate or crystallise as new templates in the international system.

The three most dynamic templates of the contemporary world situation that affect our interests as an emerging power are: fate of the US’ pivot to Asia, US-led confrontation between the ‘West’ and Russia, and the Sino-Russian quasi-alliance. They are also overlapping templates. The US’ pivot strategy in Asia, aimed at containing China, never really gained traction, but a high noon was reached last year when the finalised proposal on the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement was signed in February involving 12 of the Pacific Rim Countries, and secondly, when an arbitration tribunal at The Hague ruled in July rejecting China’s claims of historic rights within the ‘nine-dash line’ in the South China Sea.

India was not party to either development. However, while remaining a curious observer of the TPP trade agreement, which India cannot and will not join given the limits to its globalisation but would nonetheless visualise as a welcome development to isolate China, New Delhi jumped into the fray excitedly when The Hague tribunal announced its ruling. This was of a piece with the notion that provided the intellectual construct to the US-Indian Joint Vision Statement of January 2015. India miscalculated. Today, the TPP is in limbo and US’ own willingness to ratify the document is in doubt. As for the ruling, Chinese diplomacy reduced it to a storm in a tea cup. The ruling may spur the finalisation of a ‘code of conduct’ between China and the ASEAN countries. The widening cracks in the US-Philippines alliance threaten to shake up US’ pivot strategy.

Without doubt, the downhill slide of the Sino-Indian ties began with Delhi’s trespass into such an area of core interest to China. China’s attitudes began hardening since the US-Indian Joint Vision Statement sailed into view. The UPA government had handled with sensitivity and foresight the cooperation-cum-competition paradigm in relations with China, and brilliantly succeeded in imparting a degree of predictability to the overall relationship, with accent on common interests, laying the ground work for a platform to address border dispute. Alas, the Modi government squandered away this inheritance.

The backdrop to the resultant adverse trends in regional politics must be understood. China today is promoting Pakistan’s integration with the international community and is by far the number one stakeholder in that country’s stability and prosperity. Meanwhile, the steady atrophy in the US-Pakistan relationship since 2011 (following the detention of ex-CIA operative Raymond Davis in Lahore, Abbottabad raid by US forces and US attack on Pakistani troops at Salala) led to the heightened interest on the part of China and Russia apropos Pakistan’s rethink of its role in regional politics. Pakistan’s induction into the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation as full member, China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and the recent trilateral Russia-China-Pakistan formation regional security can be seen from this perspective.

Having said that we should be careful about making facile assumptions. The prospect of an improvement in the climate of US-Russia relations will not mean that Russia will drift away from its quasi-alliance with China. Both Moscow and Beijing realise that their entente serves mutual interests by creating space to effectively negotiate with the US and push back at the US containment strategy. Again, any Pakistani hope of weaning Russia away from its time-tested relationship with India can only remain a pipedream. The Russian-Pakistani thaw is a pragmatic get-together with limited objectives and focused aims that are easily discernible. On India’s part, Russia ties once again assume centrality in the foreign policy in the new circumstances of that country’s resurgence on the world stage and its determination to preserve the global strategic balance.

Arguably, therefore, if China and Russia can act as a moderating influence on Pakistani policies and if that contributes to a settlement in Afghanistan, India ought to welcome it. These are hugely consequential relationships and they cannot be assessed in zero sum terms. Equally, China’s OBOR holds big attraction to the countries of South Asian region, and on the other hand, Sino-Indian tensions prompt them to regard ties with China as a means to ward off India’s perceived ‘hegemony’. Two years after the ouster of ‘pro-China’ Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, Colombo has only expanded and deepened the cooperation with China. India is fighting a losing battle to roll back the lengthening shadows of China’s presence as an economic partner. Smart thinking is needed here. An openness toward the OBOR would have served India’s interests optimally under the circumstances.

The Narasimha Rao government prioritised the relations with the US with the hope that the partnership would help transform India as a modern economic powerhouse. But the goal post has been shifted lately. The cumulative US investment in India works out to $28 billion. Now, in a single deal, Russia’s Rosneft in October made an outright purchase of Essar for $13 billion, and the related deals on the whole ‘have led to an FDI infusion of more than $30 billion into India’ — in the words of the Indian company’s director. So, isn’t it time to ask the deeply troubling question: What was the extravagant show in Madison Square Garden in September 2015 all about? What did it fetch for India? Did it generate jobs for our youth? Did it build highways and railway tracks in India? Did it help build up manufacturing industry? Indeed, the high probability is that Donald Trump may altogether scotch US participation in ‘Make in India’. His neo-mercantalist policies and plans to curb work visas and protect US pharmaceutical industry will hit Indian business interests. The main growth area seems to be purchase of US weaponry.

Taking note of the decline in India’s GDP, former PM Manmohan Singh has warned that worse is yet to come. The litmus test of a good foreign policy lies in assessing Indian diplomacy’s role in mitigating the looming economic crisis. At the very least, our foreign policy and diplomacy should not compound the crisis by generating new tensions in the external environment.

The writer is a former diplomat