The Indian Express | 1 week ago | 24-05-2023 | 11:45 am
The political outcomes from the G7 summit that concluded on Sunday raise questions about the Indian thinking on a multipolar world. The summit signalled Western unity against the simultaneous challenges presented by Russia and China. More deeply, it reflected the resilience of the Western alliance despite the many differences among the US and its partners.But the myth of multipolarity endures in Indian foreign policy discourse even as a bipolar world takes shape. While official Delhi is nimbly adapting to the realities of a bipolar world, the Indian foreign policy discourse continues to be tied down by multipolar confusion. But first, to the G7 summit in Hiroshima.The G7 leaders reaffirmed their solidarity with Ukraine in its battle to end Russian occupation of its territory while intensifying sanctions against Moscow. They also sought to narrow the differences within the group on how to deal with China. The G7 declaration finessed the differences on China between the US and Europe by stating that they do not seek to “decouple” from the Chinese economy and that they are not against Beijing’s economic growth.They agreed on “de-risking” commercial ties with China by standing up against Beijing’s non-market policies and economic coercion. The G7 also called for peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait and opposed unilateral attempts by Beijing to change the territorial status quo in the South and East China Seas.The unfolding cohesion within the West is matched by the growing alignment between Russia and China. As the battle lines between the two sides get drawn, we are heading towards a bipolar framework. What does it mean for India’s discourse on a multipolar world?The word is used in at least three different ways in the Indian debate. For one, the talk of a multipolar world for many is about political resentment against the power of the US or more broadly the “collective West”. This rhetoric tells us a lot about the entrenched anti-Western emotion in the Indian elite, but it offers little help in understanding the geopolitical dynamic of the world. It is wishful thinking about how the world ought to be rather than how it is.Second, the term multipolar is often used far more analytically to describe the international power structure. But no analysis of global distribution of power today can prove the claim that a multipolar world is upon us. In most cases, the claim is about the weakening of American power since the heyday of the “unipolar moment” that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union.The consolidation of the EU, the reassertion of Russia, the rapid rise of China, the substantive weight of Japan and the slower emergence of India is offered as evidence for the existence of a multipolar world. The conclusion, however, is inaccurate since power is not distributed evenly between major powers.Integration has made the EU a powerful entity, but it is a long way from becoming a political, let alone a credible, geopolitical actor. Russia is reasserting itself politically and militarily, but it is a weak economic actor with a GDP barely one-tenth of the EU. Japan is the world’s third largest economy but has little military power and even less political will to consider the use of force.It is only China that is developing comprehensive national power that is comparable to the US. Beijing is increasingly a peer competitor to the US on the economic front. It is beginning to challenge the liberal ideology of the West by offering an alternative political and economic model. China, however, is yet to catch up with the sophistication of US technological power or match Washington’s military muscle. China never had an expansive network of alliances of the kind the US has. Beijing’s recent effort to build an alliance with Russia is an important step in that direction.India and a number of other countries like Brazil, Indonesia, and Saudi Arabia are rising in the global power hierarchy, but have serious limitations. None of them can be expected to measure up to the capabilities of the US or China in the near future.A multipolar world presupposes the existence of a few great powers of similar size and capabilities. The academic argument today is between those who insist that the world remains unipolar, albeit with reduced US power, and those who argue that the world is becoming bipolar, dominated by the US and China.A third usage of “multipolar world” is with reference to strategies seeking to balance against the dominant power. This has gained ground in the 1990s as a number of powers including India sought to develop political and institutional strategies against the dangers from unconstrained US power.India’s decision to join the RIC forum with Russia and China and the BRICS that also brought in Brazil and South Africa were in response to twin threats from the US. One was the Clinton Administration’s policy on rolling back India’s nuclear and missile programmes; the other was US activism on the Kashmir question.During the 1990s and early 2000s, Delhi believed the US was the main challenge and China and Russia were part of the answer to that challenge. Three decades later, the geopolitical context and the nature of the threats to India have altered significantly.In the 21st century it was the US that took the lead to end India’s isolation from the global nuclear order while Beijing has sought to block India’s membership of the nuclear suppliers group. While the US no longer meddles in the Kashmir question, it is China that mucks around in many ways — seizing territory, backing Pakistan, and raising the issue in international forums.Beyond Kashmir and the territorial threat, China presents challenges on the economic front, undercuts Delhi in the region and counters India’s global aspirations. Russia, which helped India balance China in the past, is today moving ever closer to Beijing. That has made the US and its Asian allies an important part of India’s strategic calculus.While academics can debate endlessly about the nature of polarity in the world, governments must respond to the threats at hand. As the challenges from China mounted in the second decade of the 21st century, Delhi made significant adjustments to its worldview. It added a wrinkle to the rhetoric by underlining the importance of promoting a “multipolar Asia” and embraced the Indo-Pacific construct.India’s “multipolar world” of the 1990s was about hedging against US power through the RIC and BRICS; India’s “multipolar Asia” today focuses on balancing China through the Quad and partnerships with the US and its allies. As a bipolar framework envelops Asia, official Delhi will continue to adapt; but the Indian foreign policy discourse lags behind.The writer is a senior fellow with the Asia Society Policy Institute and a contributing editor on international affairs for The Indian Express
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