When sheer might is the key order of the region courtesy the Chinese intransigence, every civilised and diplomatic space needs to be cannily cleaved by nations such as the United States and India, while sticking to the larger dictum of cooperation
It is an interesting facet of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) that in the aftermath of the Wuhan and the Qingdao Summit, the Asian preponderance has come to rule the roost in the context of the specificities and the generalness of the larger international system.
This Asian preponderance rests upon the larger idiom of the India-China relationship along with the Russo-Chinese exchanges which are perched atop a much more balanced and equilibrated balance of power and largely cooperation now.
The United States of America has to pitch in smartly and expediently in a fast-changing global context if the American clout has to sustain itself in the Asian and the largely global world politics marked by a multipolar world populated by nations such as India and the ubiquitous Han. The Asian arc may as well be incorporated inside the larger matrix of the Clash of Civilizations in the context of the Asian society being a truncatedly transient Risk Society par excellence.
Sans regional organisations such as SCO and others, the Asian space will regress into a background if the international system has to be earmarked anew in the light of a regime. The present day international relations are precariously perched upon the balancing capacity of Washington with India being benefited in the context of the containment complex of the United States and New Delhi. New Delhi akin to other Asiatic economic giants and geo-powers cannot negate the principal factor of the American factor despite the uncertainty behind the Trump 2020 electoral campaign.
Washington can leave a diplomatic leaf or two for New Delhi, wherein India too can take up geo-economic cudgels against the expansionist People’s Republic of China. Also, the Americans can have a look at the visa norms and the new business sanctions against nations such as India if true allyhood with a true blue inroad in the Asiatic space has to be attempted and practicalised in the true sense of the term.
The question and the pertinent poser with the Capitol Hill is that how can the India-China and the Sino-Russian detente be utilised in the light of strategic altercations with Putin’s Moscow economic spats with Beijing. It is that middle-road which needs to be the strategic challenge before both Washington and New Delhi.
As reported in a national daily, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has embarked on an “unison oriented healthy world” wherein comprehensive regimes are being attempted as a new in the regional context in the steady but not yet affluent and persuasive Asian firmament barring aside a few hyper powers such as India, China and Japan. The national daily reports that “health” is the policy paradigm of the external denomination of India for larger global and regional cooperation. The national daily contends, “Our vision is to strengthen the healthy cooperation among us. Using the letters of HEALTH, we can make a good template for cooperation. ‘H’ for healthcare cooperation, ‘E’ for economic cooperation, ‘A’ for alternate energy, ‘L’ for literature and culture, ‘T’ for terrorism-free society and ‘H’ for humanitarian cooperation.” The United States will do good to pick up anew wherein complete and persistent cataloguing and active policy against the policy of jehad and global terrorism can conveniently become the mainstreamed dictum of the contemporary international affairs with the larger battle being fought through geo-economic means.
These objectives are all ideally peacenik objectives which can be further mulled over and implemented by the American establishment.
The alternate voice of the Asiatic space in the realm of climate change, solar alliance and the long felt need of the WTO wrangles need to be adroitly revisited by Washington in order to emerge as a true blue regulator nation with an adequately evinced and evidences philanthropic zeal. One American contribution can be what Modi beatifically voiced in Sri Lanka and Maldives in relation to a comprehensive global conference on terrorism. This is one such specialised instrumentality wherein the SCO nations can benefit from American know how and its experience in the Asian continent.
The counter-terror rostrum should not be relegated to the backburner in the presence of other softer concerns of routine chatter of diplomacy.
Still, in the chatter of a much awaited bonhomie with the Han, the Chinese standpoint of dwelling upon India not to target Pakistan on terror can readily serve as a fly in the ointment in the larger brass-tacks of global polity.
Everything on the regional platter is not a peach and a sweet as rankling themes still subsume the histrionics of the Shanghai Cooperation Council at Bishkek. As SCO is a China-led economic and security block, New Delhi must pitch in with a rider and strategic caution keeping in view the larger perspective and the American equation in the region as PRC remains a central shibboleth of an empire in the larger regional sphere and serves as a randomising tour de force despite the light at the end of the tunnel. The fact that Beijing is gradually upping the ante through instrumentalities such as the CPEC and BRI in the region needs to be a cause of worry as both New Delhi and Washington are playing a key role in the twilight zone of Af-Pak and with the Pakistan’s economy going for a nosedive, the American clamour needs to become more balanced as the presence of an unstable neighborhood can cause instability and pandemonium in the region as mere cooperation might not be the panacea which the doctor asked for.
Security and development are the key relays which US needs to take on from Bishkek which it has done intelligently by propping up the Doha talks in the context of Afghanistan and goading New Delhi on to the “central mover perch” in the Afghanistan quandary. The United States can have a tete-a-tete with the quintessentially Asian SCO through nobody else but the presaged allyhood with Modi. This is not a lesson but a balancing option other than playing out in other regional associations in Asia. Also, the key theme of the SCO as a diplomatic driver need not target any nation. The US should not be vilified beyond a point in the larger international context and the ramifications of the US China trade stand-off. It has been reported by a national daily that, “Since the admission of India and Pakistan into the SCO, Chinese officials have been expressing hope that both the countries would make use of the organisation to improve relations and not to make it a platform to highlight their differences. The summit could also discuss issues like multilateralism and protectionism in the context of US trade tensions China besides several other countries including India. As for the ongoing unilateral protectionism and bullying practices in the world, they are close to the hearts of all countries.” Still, when sheer might is the key order of the region courtesy the Chinese intransigence, every civilised and diplomatic space needs to be cannily cleaved by nations such as the United States and India, while sticking to the larger dictum of cooperation.
Still, as a trendy reality check, the geo economic difficulties need not be brushed aside while attention being given that no egos are bruised.
(The writer teaches International Relations at Indian Institute of Public Administration, Delhi)
