Search

By Prof. Gulshan Sachdeva The G7 knows that global green transition and SDG targets cannot be achieved without India. For its ambitions, India needs G7 investment, technology, and green finance. The just-concluded G7 summit took place under the shadows of the Ukraine war, which has threatened economic recovery. Moreover, the COVID-19 pandemic is still not over, and there are many points of tension in the Indo-Pacific Region. To tackle these challenges, the group of rich industrialised nations resolved to “continue to impose severe and immediate economic costs on President Putin’s regime” along with stepping up efforts to “secure global energy and food security”, and stabilising post-pandemic economic recovery. The major outcomes included the Global Alliance on Food Security; Climate Club, and a $600 billion Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment. Besides, the G7 nations underscored their commitment to humanitarian aid and reconstruction in Ukraine. On foreign and security policy, the major focus was also on China. The G7 nations reiterated the “importance of maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific”, and reminded China to “abstain from threats, coercion, intimidation measures or use of force”. Prime Minister Narendra Modi, along with the leaders of Argentina, Indonesia, Senegal, and South Africa, also attended some of the sessions. Their participation strengthened the goal of the G7 German presidency — ‘Progress towards an equitable world’. India is going to take over the G20 presidency soon. It is also an important member of the BRICS grouping. Since most of the issues discussed at the summit have broader implications and need wider ownership, India can become an important link between the G7, G20, and BRICS. Practically, the G7 is not just seven rich countries, but a group of more than 30 Western nations. The European Union as a whole also participates in all meetings, and Europe has been very influential in setting the G7’s agenda. After all, it was Germany and France which launched the World Economic Summit in the 1970s, which later became the G7. Since India now has very strong economic and strategic ties with all of them, it does not see this group with distrust. It is negotiating an FTA with the United Kingdom and has re-started negotiations for trade and investment agreements with the EU. As the Indian economy is likely to be one of the fastest growing economies in the post-pandemic phase, partnership with India is attractive for the West. In fact, for its sustainable modernisation and energy transition, India is keen to attract investment, technology, and green finance from these very nations. So India will be pleased to be partnering with initiatives such as Just Energy Transition Partnership, and extra funding for global infrastructure. Most summit discussions were influenced by the Ukraine war. As India has different perceptions about this crisis, Modi rightly focused on strengths of the Indian economy, its ambitious climate targets and performance, and contribution to global food security. Through the Resilient Democracies Statement, India along with G7 has affirmed its commitment to “protecting the freedom of expression and opinion online and offline and ensuring a free and independent media landscape”. In addition, it has agreed to “promoting academic freedom” and “guarding the freedom, independence and diversity of civil society actors” as well as “protection of human rights defenders and all those exposing corruption”. This is an important development in the context of some criticism in Western media about Indian democracy which is seen under stress. The G7 relations with Russia are bad, and tensions with China have grown. The main focus of NATO’s Madrid summit which is taking place immediately after the G7 meeting is the direct security threat from Moscow, and challenges posed by China. In these circumstances, strengthening partnership with New Delhi is useful for the G7. Moreover, major global targets related to green transition and Sustainable Development Goals cannot be met without robust and equitable Indian economic growth. India also has the potential to scale up new emerging technologies, bringing costs down, and making it affordable to other developing countries. Some of the success stories of Indian development experiences can be replicated in other countries through triangular projects with the G7 nations. India has already developed such partnerships with Germany, the UK, and the US. In the current geopolitical situation, where the West is facing threats from the authoritarian states, partnering and strengthening other democracies like India is also an important G7 objective. #G7 #G20 #BRICS #India Originally published: Money Control, June 29, 2022. At: https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/opinion/india-is-an-important-link-between-g7-g20-and-brics-8754151.html Posted in SIS Blog with the authorization of the author. Gulshan Sachdeva is Professor at the Centre for European Studies and Coordinator, Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence, Jawaharlal Nehru University.

By Abhishek Khajuria There is a possibility that Johnson and Sunak are able to steer the country out of the present crisis and improve their political fortunes. But the mood at present is pessimistic. British PM Boris Johnson has survived the no-confidence motion brought against him by the lawmakers of his own Conservative party in the intra-party vote. However, it can be said that this success might not be a durable one for Johnson as the road till the next elections is a tough one (if stays at helm till then). Of the 359 Conservative MPs in the Commons, 211 voted in Johnson’s favour in the secret ballot while 148 were and remain in opposition. On the face of it, it might look like a comfortable victory for him. But we need to get into the finer details of it, and it will become clear how dire difficult the situation for Johnson is. One, only 59% of his Tories now support him. It is significantly less than what former PMs Theresa May and Margaret Thatcher got in their respective confidence votes. Even then, both resigned in the ensuing months. Two out of the 648 MPs in the Commons (total number is 650 with 2 up for bye-elections in the coming weeks where the Conservatives are projected to lose), Johnson is only supported by 32.5% of members. This is significantly less than the number he won in the election of 2019. The numbers outlined above indicate a clear question of moral dilemma for the leader to continue in office after the vote has weakened his authority. But as Johnson has clarified previously, he won’t be relinquishing office. This statement is further cemented by the fact that the PM refused to resign when the partygate scandal emerged. His assertion of ‘victory’ in the no-confidence vote further adds to the above statement. It is worth highlighting here that as per the Conservative party rules, he is now immune from a leadership challenge for the next 12 months. However, this rule is subject to a change, which means that the Prime Minister’s path is still difficult. All this adds to the already precarious condition in the UK, which has emerged as a divided country in the wake of Brexit with resurgent Scottish nationalism and fears of a re-emergence of a pre-1998 situation in Northern Ireland (a political deadlock at present); added to it the severely wounded economy due to the pandemic after which the UK now faces a cost-of-living crisis today. Inflationary pressures are on and household spending has squeezed. The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) has warned that the “UK economy will grind to a halt and then shrink”. The government is struggling to find responses to the crisis, and the situation remains precarious. Returning to the political scenario, two things need to be looked at. One, if Johnson resigns as has previously happened in the cases of Margaret Thatcher and Theresa May, the questions of succession would come up. Rishi Sunak, the head of the Treasury, was the favourite until recently, but partygate and his wife’s tax avoidance issues have harmed his chances. Others like Liz Truss and Sajid Javid are also seen as contenders. But there is no clear-cut alternative to the PM at the moment. His possible resignation might lead to an uncertain situation over the Irish question due to Brexit once again. Then, if the PM ultimately stays on till the next election scheduled in late 2024, what effect it has on the Conservatives remains to be seen. There is a possibility that he and Sunak are able to steer the country out of the present crisis and improve their political fortunes. But the mood at present is pessimistic. Two, how much of an alternative does the opposition provide. After a humiliating defeat in 2019, it still seems a long way back for Labour. In that election, it lost its traditional strongholds in the West Midlands, which it had not conceded for more than 30 years. It has also not completely recovered from the antisemitism issues (the party as a whole was accused of Antisemitism), which resulted in the suspension of the previous leader Jeremy Corbyn. Though there is some optimism in labour circles after victories in the recent local elections, nothing concrete can be predicted yet. A silver lining is for Labour though is leader Keir Starmer leading Johnson in opinion polls. In the ultimate analysis, it is safe to say that there are many possible scenarios. Johnson emerging winner is one. Others include a new leader curing the Tories or the party totally losing plot and Labour providing an alternative. But one thing is for sure, the future is a tough one for the UK with the political uncertainty coinciding with the cost-of-living crisis. Still, for the time being, it is upon Mr. Johnson to lead a divided country out of its travails which continue to be punctuated by his own. #UK #Politics #BorisJohnson Abhishek Khajuria is a PhD Candidate at the Centre for European Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University.

By Prof. Bharat H. Desai Sexual violence against women during conflicts has been used as a tactic and weapon of war. It is not just rape out of control, but rape under orders, as means of pursuing military, political or economic ends. On 19 June 2022, the world stood up to say ‘NO’ to sexual violence (SV) against women in conflicts and call for its elimination. Notwithstanding the worldwide reality of use of SV as a ‘weapon of war’, this International Day will witness powerful protest against SV. This write-up is a sequel to the 28 May 2022 article on “Use of Food as a Weapon of War” (https://sisblogjnu.wixsite.com/website/post/blog-exclusive-use-of-food-as-a-weapon-of-war-a-challenge-for-international-law ). The global humanitarian watchdog, the Geneva based International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) brought to the public on 19 June 2022 the two uprooted dead trees at the place du Rhône and in Palais des Nations. Instead of treetops, irritating, blood-red roots will invade the sky. It will be symbolic outcry for “all the persons whose human dignity and integrity have been torn down and violated by SV in conflicts” (ICRC campaign on the international day for the elimination of sexual violence in conflict | International Committee of the Red Cross). In most of the conflicts, SV in general and ‘rape’ in particular as predominant form of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) against women has been used with fatal consequences. The warring factions seek to hit the ‘soft belly’ where it hurts the most. Mass rapes have been used as cheaper and lethal weapons than even bullets. Brutality of Wars This author has, for years, taught the MA Winter Semester Core Course on Legal Controls of International Conflicts. The CILS course emanated from the 1959 treatise by the same name by Julius Stone, who visited predecessor of SIS, the Indian School of International Studies at its infancy. Notwithstanding teaching of the legal framework for control of international conflicts, one is always alive to the reality that wars have been as old as human existence and perceived as ‘extra-legal’ – neither legal no illegal. Yet there has always been a quest for ‘outlawry’ of war as seen in 1899 & 1907 Hague Peace Conferences, 1919 Treaty of Versailles and 1928 Pact of Paris. Even after the advent of the 1945 UN Charter with a ‘blueprint’ for prohibition of threat or use of force [Article 2 (4)], scores of conflicts have taken toll of “millions of people”, as warned by the US President Truman, at San Francisco Opera House on 26 June 1945, about consequences for not taking the UN seriously. In view of this reality, all right-thinking peoples and genuine scholars, have been left with the only option of ‘taming the beast’ of war, dubbed as a ‘scourge’ by Preamble to the UN Charter. It came out vividly in the award of 2018 Nobel Peace Prize to Congolese gynaecologist Denis Mukwege and Nadia Murad, the Yezidi victim of the IS brutality in Iraq. “If we want people to say ‘no more war’, we have to show how brutal it is”, Berit Reiss-Andersen, Chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee said. It was emphatic global call to end the use of SV as a weapon of war in the 21st century. Rape under Orders: A Neglected crime SV against women during conflicts has been used as a tactic and weapon of war. It is not just rape out of control, but rape under orders, as means of pursuing military, political or economic ends. SV against women has occurred and continues to occur before, during, and after most of the wars. The horrors of Pakistani army’s brutal efforts to crush 1971 Bangladeshi liberation movement are etched in collective memory. The systematic mass rapes in final days of Bangladesh war, the Tamil Eelam war in Sri Lanka, Maoist insurgency in Nepal and during partition of the Indian sub-continent are instances of large-scale SV against women. All have remained unaccounted for. It shows that SV in conflicts persists due to acceptance of brutalities and resultant trauma that remains frozen in ‘walls of silence’. Wars leave behind gory incidents, horrid stories, painful past and many wounds that refuse to heal with the passage of time. During the Second World War, the Japanese ‘comfort stations’ massively abused women drawn from its empire as sex slaves. It remains a festering wound in the Japan-Korea relations even after 2015 Japanese apology. It shows how wounds of the past refuse to heal. Big Challenge for the UN At the 68th UN General Assembly (2014), 122 Member States endorsed a Declaration of Commitment to End Sexual Violence in Conflict. It resolved to end pernicious culture of impunity by bringing perpetrators of SV in conflicts to justice. There have been appointments of special envoy by the UNSG, special rapporteurs by the HRC and the UN Women remains the focal point for SV against women. Similarly, the UN Security Council Resolutions 1325 (2000) and 1820 (2008) have brought the agenda item ‘women, peace and security’. The Statutes of the UNSC mandated international criminal tribunals (ICT) in Rwanda, Yugoslavia and Sierra Leone contain crimes of sexual violence. The 1998 Rome Statute of ICC became the first global treaty that recognized rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, and other forms of SV as distinct types of war crimes. These ICTs had limited capacity to provide justice to SV inflicted upon women during conflicts. They recognize only a small set of the SV against women, fell short of addressing gender-based harms and gender biases. The Sierra Leone civil war infamously gave birth to notorious tradition of ‘bush wife’ wherein abducted girls and women were forcibly assigned to rebel commanders and routinely tormented by their rapists. Survivors’ Right to Heal In view of such institutionalized practices, there is a tendency to dismiss SV as inevitable by-product of war, random acts of few renegades, or mere collateral damage! Nobel Laurate Desmond Tutu, Chairman of the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, once remarked that “we needed to look the beast in the eye, so that past wouldn’t hold us hostage anymore”. There has been persistent search for appropriate institutional designs that could deal with mass atrocities in conflict-ridden societies and foster justice in the post-conflict period. The scholarly discourses hover around the Transitional Justice (TJ). TJ processes deal with the aftermath of violent conflicts and systematic human rights abuses to create conditions for peaceful future for tormented societies. It comprises a number of instruments and mechanisms including criminal tribunals, truth commissions, memory work, reparation and institutional reforms. Cumulatively, these measures aim at uncovering the truth about past crimes, holding perpetrators accountable, vindicating the dignity of victims-survivors and contributing to reconciliation. Ironically, the post-war accountability jamboree, the quest for justice of women survivors is aggravated by shame, stigma, fear and futility. In the legal and political maze of ending or transmuting conflict, women survivors rarely find space to influence policies, laws and institutional structures adversely affect them. In a sign of new hope, gender-based approaches have gained significant attention in recent years in international criminal law, transitional justice mechanisms and peace building processes. SV not Inevitable Due to an overwhelming emphasis on sexual and penetrative violations of women’s bodies, there has been insensitivity towards emotional harm, harm to the homes, personal spaces, to children and to others with whom women are intimately connected. It calls for sovereign states, the UN and international relief and humanitarian agencies such as the ICRC as well as scholars to come out with urgent ideational solutions. The ICRC’s call that wartime SV is “not inevitable” is an emphatic declaration. This would, however, necessitate concrete inter-governmental legal framework of action under a global treaty, pre-emptive measures to end SV against women, socio-economic-psychological support structures for the survivors and mechanism to hold states and non-state actors accountable for violations of IHL and ICL. An in-depth study of conceptual, legal and institutional framework for the challenge of SGBV has been provided separately in the author’s just released 2022 work, with a foreword by Peter Maurer, the President of the ICRC (Geneva): Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in International Law: Making International Institutions Work (Singapore: Springer Nature, 2022); Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in International Law | SpringerLink #SexualViolence #War #ICRC #UN #InternationalLaw Professor Dr. Bharat H. Desai is Jawaharlal Nehru Chair and Professor of International Law at the Centre for International Legal Studies of SIS, JNU. He coordinated the Making SIS Visible initiative during 2008-2013 (Making SIS Visible | Welcome to Jawaharlal Nehru University (jnu.ac.in) as well as Inter-University Consortium (Partner Universities: JNU, Jammu, Kashmir and Sikkim) during 2012-2020 (www.iucccc.in/Contact us.htm).

By Prof. Bharat H. Desai In the third decade of the 21st century, the growing use of food as a weapon to starve civilians and others presents great challenge. It is used by the armed groups as ‘scorched earth’ strategy that works as a double-edge sword. The UN Security Council (UNSC) held an unprecedented ministerial level open debate on 19 May 2022 on conflict and food security. The widening of the ambit of the UNSC’s primary remit of maintenance of international peace and security underscores that the world is facing a different nature of the security threat. It took place amidst reports that conflicts have been the primary driver of hunger for 139 million people in 24 countries and territories. It grew from 99 million in 2020. The situation is expected to worsen in 2022 due the conflict in Ukraine. Both Russia and Ukraine are major exporters of agricultural commodities. The concept notes by the US Presidency of the UNSC (May) ominously stated: “a sharp increase in global food insecurity threatens to destabilize fragile societies and exacerbate armed conflicts and regional instability.” On 12 April 2021, the UN Secretary-General (UNSG) reported to the UN General Assembly (UNGA) on Implementation of the United Nations Decade of Action on Nutrition (2016–2025). The report, highlighted the underlying drivers of all forms of malnutrition. It called upon the states to act with urgency for elimination of “all forms of malnutrition and achieving the SDGs by 2030”. Similarly, the 2021 report on the State of Food Security and Nutrition by the five agencies (FAO, IFAD, UNICEF, WFP and WHO) also graphically noted that “The world has not been generally progressing either towards Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) Target 2.1, of ensuring access to safe, nutritious and sufficient food for all people all year round, or towards SDG Target 2.2, of eradicating all forms of malnutrition”. It ominously reported that “between 720 and 811 million people in the world faced hunger in 2020 (161 million more than in 2019)” and nearly “2.37 billion people did not have access to adequate food in 2020 (320 million more than 2019). Hunger as a Global Problematique The large part of the problematique on hunger, inadequacy of food and nutrition has been contributed by various kinds of armed conflicts that rage across the world. This is a harsh global reality notwithstanding the UN Charter [Article 2 (4) ‘blueprint’] prohibition (refrain) of “threat or use of force”. Similarly, another facet of global concern, as per 2021 Global Gender Gap report, shows the huge gender disparity that widened by a “generation from 99.5 years to 135.6 years” since there is no letup in the persistence of global inequality, discrimination and violence against women. Maybe it is now high time we need to work on measuring the Global Misery Index (instead of happiness or hunger) to assess as to how much of the 7.9 billion (2022) population on planet earth lives in misery in spite of all the riches, scientific and technical prowess and the advent of the Digital and Internet Age. It seems, the words of late Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, expressed poetically in Hindi, have come true that the “human being has reached the moon but does not know how to live on the earth”! Hunger as a Tool of Warfare It was the UNSC resolution 2417 of 24 May 2018 that expressed grave concern about the direct impact of armed conflicts on food security due to the “threat of famine presently facing millions of people in armed conflicts, as well as about the number of undernourished people in the world”. In the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic (2020-2022), the global food insecurity has only worsened. The Indian humanitarian supplies of wheat to save starvation in post-Taliban Afghanistan and rice for the Sri Lankan people are vivid reminder of the world we live in. According to FAO, vicious cycle of hunger is largely fueled by extreme climatic events, economic slowdowns and crises (such as Covid-19 pandemic). In the cocktail, the violent conflicts and wars exacerbate hunger, poverty and sexual violence against women around the world. Poverty and hunger are closely correlated. FAO estimates show 842 million people suffer from ‘chronic hunger’. With the world population expected to reach the staggering figure of 10 billion in 2050, it presents a monumental challenge to sustainably feed the population explosion. It will necessitate fundamental changes in the global food system even as there is very slow move towards attaining ‘zero hunger’ goal under the UN’s 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The 2021 Global Hunger Index forecast shows 47 countries with alarming levels of hunger and 47 others will fail to reach ‘zero hunger’ by 2030. India was placed at 101, just above Afghanistan. 2020 Nobel Prize for WFP The award of the 2020 Nobel Peace Prize for the World Food Program (WFP) became a landmark. The citation made the rationale for WFP choice amply clear: “for its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict." The recognition of WFP for “combating use of hunger as a weapon of war” came close on the heels of the 2019 Nobel Economics Prize on “alleviating poverty” (Abhijit Banerjee et al.) as well as the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize on “use of sexual violence as a weapon of war” (Danis Mukwege and Nadia Muard). Ironically, hunger, poverty and sexual violence against women all three have become endemic in the global armed conflicts and accentuate the human misery. “Until the day we have a medical vaccine, food is the best vaccine against chaos”, the WFP has strongly contended. The humanitarian task of WFP has been aptly termed as the “modern version of peace congresses” that the Nobel Peace Prize is intended to promote. The Norwegian Nobel Committee felt that it is this noble task of providing assistance to increase food security prevents hunger and in turn helps in improving prospects for stability and peace. “WFP gives significant contribution to combat hunger as such and to combat hunger used as a weapon in war and armed conflicts”, Berit Reiss-Andersen, Chair of the Norwegian Nobel Committee said on 9 October 2020. A Challenge for International Law In the third decade of the 21st century, the growing use of food as a weapon to starve civilians and others presents great challenge. It is used by the armed groups as ‘scorched earth’ strategy that works as a double-edge sword. It affects the rival armed groups, causes an exodus of refugees and starves the civilians trapped therein. Such aggressive method of warfare has been prohibited by International Humanitarian Law (IHL). All parties to an armed conflict have an obligation to comply with IHL, in particular their obligations under the 1949 Geneva Conventions as well as the 1977 Additional Protocols thereto. It also presents a challenge to the edifice of rules and principles of International Human Rights and Refugee Laws. However, with rising human greed, arrogance of power and primitive streak to subjugate others results in brutalities, death and destruction. It calls for empowering the only neutral humanitarian organ on the ground, the ICRC as the custodian of the IHL, to grapple with the challenge. One needs to admire the concern and courage of the ICRC President, Peter Maurer, as he moves to supervise work from one conflict zone to another (from Haiti to Syria to Ukraine). His prophetic words, shared in conversation with this author, provide us a beacon of hope: “These destructive forces are not invincible”. Still, the growing use of hunger (food) as a weapon of war presents a challenge to the global scholarship in the fields of International Law and International Relations. #War #Hunger #Food #UN #FAO #WFP #InternationalLaw Prof. Bharat H. Desai is Jawaharlal Nehru Chair and Professor of International Law at the Centre for International Legal Studies of SIS, JNU. He coordinated the Making SIS Visible initiative during 2008-2013 (Making SIS Visible | Welcome to Jawaharlal Nehru University (jnu.ac.in) as well as Inter-University Consortium (Partner Universities: JNU, Jammu, Kashmir and Sikkim) during 2012-2020 (www.iucccc.in/Contact us.htm).

By Prof. Srikanth Kondapalli Since early 2022, clear political signals are visible to Xi’s relative decline. Let's read tea leaves for portents. As the 20th communist party congress of China is round the corner this November, the continuation or otherwise of its leader Xi Jinping has been debated extensively. There is also his tumultuous legacy since coming to power in 2012. Last one decade had seen meteoric rise of Xi—with the dramatic arrest of his political rivals Bo Xilai and Zhou Yongkang and to his political consolidation. His anti-corruption drive nearly decimated the base of his political rivals like Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. Xi soon acquired the sobriquet of “Chairman of everything” by centralising all levers of power. At the last count, Xi was holding 13 crucial positions of the party, state and the armed forces. Xi Jinping's Military Might Against the World Although there is a decline in economy growth rates from over 10 percent before 2010 to 2.4 percent in 2020, Xi’s period coincided with massive military modernisation and breakthroughs in science and technology. This further wetted Xi’s “accomplishing something” philosophy and to his grandiose plans for “socialist modernisation” by 2050. Xi’s assertiveness also brought gains to China in South China Sea and other areas, although this led to an estrangement in relations with the neighbours. Xi’s identification of red lines with Taiwan has raised nationalist rhetoric. Xi decimated Hong Kong opposition through national security law. Instead of Deng Xiaoping’s restraint policies, Xi not only grabbed disputed reefs in South China Sea but also refurbished them with military assets. Xi also crafted a policy of occupying disputed lands with India, despite his rhetoric of “developmental partnership”. Xi also alienated Japan with aggressive transgressions in Senkaku islands administered by Japan. How Strong is Xi Jinping on Home Ground? At home, Xi rebooted the political spectrum by first filling crucial party-state posts with his “new Zhijiang Army” cadres and his home province Shaanxi leaders. Xi also ushered in a “new era” with ideological and political firmness. Everything seemed to be going Xi’s way. However, since early this year, clear political signalling is visible to Xi’s relative decline, although in the intensive cesspool of Chinese politics and its opaqueness, it is hard to predict the outcome of the 20th party congress. Let's read the tea leaves for portents. Even though the 6th plenary meeting of the central committee in November last year at its third “historical resolution” glorified Xi, putting him at par with Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping and thereby downgrading his predecessors Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, the 5 May party meeting this year skipped mentioning Xi as the “core of the leadership” – an ominous signal for Xi’s decline. Besides, Xi’s selective extension of his Presidential term at the March 2018 parliament session had alerted his detractors in the party. What Might Trouble Xi Jinping? Firstly, Xi’s pet Belt and Road Initiative project is under stress from several quarters: decline in investments and interest, with debts of several nations increasing and their assets seized such as Hambantota port in Sri Lanka and challenged by the United States-led Build Back Better World and others for lack of transparency, violation of sovereignty principles and environmental disasters. Secondly, Xi’s “dynamic zero Covid” policy is under attack given the massive impact on the welfare of the people, their livelihood, economic decline and the overall inconvenience to an estimate 400 million people in lockdown. China’s concerted narrative that its pandemic policies have been transparent and effective ignores the all-round debilitating effect these have had on the public. These were compounded by Xi’s “common prosperity” policies of curbing big businesses. Thirdly, political factional struggles have intensified given the relative economic decline and rise in unemployment. With at least five out of seven members of the core decision-making body, the politburo standing committee, expected to retire based on age limit, intense political jockeying for these posts have been unleashed. This is a do or die situation for rival factions in China as stakes are high. Will the 'Shanghai Gang' Beat Xi Jinping in His Own Game? The reform oriented “Shanghai gang” faction—still under Jiang Zemin, Zeng Qinghong and others' influence—is said to be concerned about the economic slowdown, restrictions on domestic businesses, decline in investments, gradual shift of manufacturing sector to other greener pastures in Vietnam and other countries, possible sanctions of western countries due to China’s position on the ongoing war in Ukraine. As the political stakes are high, the Shanghai gang is likely to step up multiple attacks on Xi. Already in January this year, an article traced to Jiang’s faction titled “An objective evaluation of Xi Jinping” emerged with full invectives on Xi. This trend is expected to increase. On the other hand, the conservative Communist Youth League—headed by Premier Li Keqiang and supported by a possible 6th generation of leader and vice premier Hu Chunhua—have been quietly working behind the scenes to checkmate Xi. In the coming weeks the relative publicity given in the official media to Xi’s close aides like Chen Min’er, Li Hongzhang, Chen Xi, Shen Haixiong and others on the one hand and Communist Youth League leaders like Hu Chunhua, Wang Yang and others will indicate the rising stock of these factions. It would be cataclysmic if Xi steps down at the next party congress. In such an unlikely scenario, the 6th generation of leaders would have to start afresh with its attendant political uncertainties. Despite all these set-backs, Xi may scrape through, possibly with his wings clipped with reduced majority support among the politburo members and ensuing compromises at all levels of governance. #China #XiJinping Originally published: The Quint, June 21, 2022. https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/chinas-chequered-games-are-president-xi-jinpings-days-of-glory-over-or-will-he-prevail#read-more Posted in SIS Blog with the authorization of the author. Prof. Srikanth Kondapalli is Professor in Chinese Studies and Dean of School of International Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University.

By Prof. Swaran Singh The coming BRICS Summit - to be hosted online by China on June 23 - is already drawing attention for becoming the first multilateral forum of this year where Russian President Vladimir Putin will be seen interacting directly with national leaders from China, India, Brazil, South Africa and several other invited nations. The summit likely would be read in the West as the BRICS countries' enhanced support and endorsement of Putin's policies. This is because they have been extremely uncomfortable with all BRICS members resisting the US-led campaign to denounce Russian actions and slap unbearable sanctions against Russia. The reality is that China stands out as the largest importer of Russian energy and India as the largest importer of Russian defense equipment. What adds to US discomfiture is that most of its own allies have also been and continued to be major importers of Russian energy. But while the Ukraine crisis has seen US allies reduce their Russian imports, China and India have increased theirs. This has been facilitated by the BRICS' shared policy stance on Ukraine: refusing to denounce Russia, urging both sides for immediate cessation of hostilities and for initiating direct talk to resolve this crisis. Second, the most novel proposition of this summit - BRICS expansion - also makes the presence of Putin and several new invitees open to various interpretations. The Ukraine crisis has seen fissures emerge in the G20 and adding new members to BRICS could make it an alternative minus US and its allies. This could also mean an expanded BRICS overtaking G7 earlier than imagined. BRICS has been shy of adding new members and South Africa was the last to be added in 2010. But a change in mood is in the making. Last year, BRICS added Bangladesh, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Uruguay to its New Development Bank. Last month, BRICS foreign ministers were joined by representatives from Argentina, Egypt, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Senegal and Thailand. National leaders of some of these countries are expected to join the summit and several others will join the BRICS usual leaders' outreach summit. Third, BRICS has always stood as a unique forum that holds dozens of pentagonal meetings that precede their annual summits. These include meetings of their think-tanks, academics, experts, corporates, journalists, followed by advisors, several officials and senior ministers including their foreign ministers. This building of an annual momentum and the resultant institutionalization with relatively lesser media glare have helped BRICS create favorable grassroots constituencies for building trust. Fourth, though they also deliberated on issues of geopolitics and security, BRICS nations are known for their technocratic focus. This has resulted in piecemeal building of credibility reflected in their debates on creating an independent Credit Rating Agency as also in their initiatives like the Currency Reserves Arrangement and now nine-member New Develop-ment Bank which has already disbursed more than $15 billion and completed and/or sanctioned support for hundreds of projects. The bank now has regional offices in South Africa and India and its style of functioning has pushed Bretton Woods institutions into structural reforms. Of course BRICS camaraderie has had its own share of challenges. Externally, BRICS has come to be compared with the US-led Quadrilateral Security Framework that includes Australia, Japan and India. Quad has had four summits in 14 months and precipitously expanded its agenda. At least US presents Quad as aimed at containing China though others vary in their engagement with Beijing. Internally, BRICS' members like Brazil or India are sometimes suspect for being closely aligned to the US. India is a member of both BRICS and the Quad. Comparisons get drawn on how India had walked out of China-led Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership but joined US President Joe Biden's Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity last month. India is not just the second-largest and the fastest growing economy in BRICS but has had issues with Beijing. Also members like India, Brazil, South Africa may not be just sensitive to some of the proposed names for new additions and changes but perhaps susceptible to Western criticism of BRICS' evolving dynamics. Moreover, most leaders attending the BRICS summit find themselves focused on their domestic challenges flowing from ongoing pandemic and Ukraine crisis and their economic and political fallouts like rising prices especially wheat and crude oil. The pandemic has seen China and India engaged in supplying healthcare to the Global South and more recently providing humanitarian assistance to countries from Ukraine to Sri Lanka. In view of these being unusual times, modest expectations like the BRICS Summit consolidating its extant initiatives and launching negotiations to build consensus on criteria for adding new members and other future initiatives should suffice. #BRICS #China #India #Quad Originally published: Global Times, June 19, 2022 https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202206/1268451.shtml Posted here with the authorization of the author. Prof. Swaran Singh is Professor of Diplomacy and Disarmament at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi; President of Association of Asia Scholars (asiascholars.in); Adjunct Senior Fellow at The Charhar Institute, Beijing; Senior Fellow, Institute for National Security Studies Sri Lanka, Colombo; and Visiting Professor, Research Institute for Indian Ocean Economies, Kunming (China).

By Prithvi Naresh Rathod Realism devalues the role of norms as a big constraint in the great-power behaviour, but in reality, norms have actually played a significant role in explaining the effective response to Russia’s invasion. Right after the escalation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, an old video of Prof. Mearsheimer has been doing rounds on social media which clearly justify Russian actions in Ukraine. The video got so popular that in fact, the Russian Foreign Ministry also reshared the video in order to justify their actions. This can be taken as a good example of how precisely ‘academia’ explains the ‘real world’. This has opened up a new discussion among the IR Theorists who are presenting their analysis of events based on some theory or the other. In my opinion, realism can explain the overall conflict very well, but still other aspects of the war can also be explained by Liberalism. The Russian invasion of Ukraine The Russian invasion of Ukraine can be explained well by Realism since it portrays a world without any central authority which can protect states from each other. This makes the states worry about a dangerous aggressor that might threaten them in the future. This forces the states, especially great powers, to be concerned about their security and leads to great power competition. This is the concept of classical realism called the ‘security dilemma’. To understand this concept, we need to go back to the US move for expansion of NATO in the 1990s by offering countries like Georgia and Ukraine a theoretical chance to join NATO. This triggered a security dilemma for Russia that led to the Russian invasions of Georgia in 2008 and Ukraine in 2014 and 2022. The security dilemma arises because the steps taken by one state to make itself more secure often makes other states less secure. In the end, both countries end up being poorer and less safer than they were before. This explains why Eastern European states wanted to get into NATO and why Russian leaders became insecure due to it. The Western response the Invasion The Western response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine can again be explained by Realism. The quick response by the west can be understood by the concept of ‘alliance politics’. Russia’s actions threatened the West which thus commanded a swift response by displaying a balancing behaviour. This alliance politics worked since shared values bring alliances closer and abiding; but serious commitments to collective defence security is possible only if there is perception of a common threat. The level of threat, in turn, depends on the power, proximity, and the enemy’s capabilities and intentions. I believe that Liberal institutionalism helps us understand the unified Western response more aptly. If an institution like NATO did not exist, the response couldn’t have been so effective. Even though International institutions cannot resolve conflicts of interest or stop great powers from acting as per their wishes, they still facilitate effective collective responses. The shortcomings of Liberal Institutionalism In the recent past, there have been instances when the international institutions and international law have proved to be weak when it comes to keeping the great powers in control. Even in 2022, economic interdependence did not stop Russia from launching its invasion of Ukraine, despite the costs that it will have to face as a result. Even the public opinion could not stop Russia. The General Assembly’s one-sided 141-5 vote (with 35 abstentions) condemning the Russian invasion didn't have much impact either. This war has thus demolished the liberal belief that war was no longer “thinkable” in Europe. The shortcomings of Realism Realism devalues the role of norms as a big constraint in the great-power behaviour, but in reality, norms have actually played a significant role in explaining the effective response to Russia’s invasion. Russia had trampled over most of the norms pertaining to the use of force and that partly explains why countries and corporations around the world have judged Russia so harshly and their rapid response. This shows that even if nothing can stop a country from violating global norms, obvious transgressions will customarily affect how its intentions are judged. This whole tragic war could have been avoided if the US and its NATO allies had not given way to liberal idealism. If they would have stuck to the core insights of realism, this crisis would not have occurred and Russia would have never invaded Crimea and Ukraine would have been safe. According to Realism, wars occur because the international system is anarchic and states compete for power and may use force to make themselves more secure or gain advantages. Also, since there is no way that the states can know exactly what other states may do in the future, this makes them more reluctant to trust each other and thus encourages them to sidestep against the possibility that another more powerful state may try to harm them at some point in the future. This is exactly what makes us understand the behaviour of Russia in response to the NATO expansion by the US and its allies. #Russia #Ukraine #War #NATO #Realism #Liberalism Prithvi Naresh Rathod is pursuing MA in Politics (with specialization in International Studies) at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

By Prof. Swaran Singh Three-day visit to Hanoi by Defense Minister Rajnath Singh underscored the evolving nature of their bilateral ties. Indian Defense Minister Rajnath Singh on Friday concluded a three-day visit to Hanoi. This not only reinforced but showcased how, other than the Quadrilateral Security Framework of Australia, Japan, India and the United States, Vietnam has come to be the most powerful pillar of India’s Indo-Pacific strategy. This rapidly strengthening bilateral partnership portends far-reaching implications for the larger Indo-Pacific region. Singh’s visit also marked one more instance of India’s assertive foreign policy in the making. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s last eight years have seen New Delhi becoming increasingly firm in pushing its own line and withstanding pressures from friends and foes alike. And observers in Vietnam see this change being most aptly appreciated in Hanoi, undergirding an enduring future for their strategic cooperation. For these last eight years, for instance, bilateral India-Vietnam trade has more than doubled, rising from US$7 billon for the 2015-16 fiscal year to $14.14 billion for 2021-22, with India’s exports to Vietnam last year marking impressive 34% growth over the preceding year. But what has brought India and Vietnam closer is also their increasing concerns about China’s expanding footprint in the South China Sea, where both have serious commercial and strategic interests. And here, the recent past has especially witnessed China being further emboldened by its expanding engagements with the larger littoral across the Indo-Pacific region. Apart from building known naval facilities from Djibouti in Africa to Solomon Islands in the Pacific, and leasing the ports of Gwadar and Hambantota or exploring naval access to ports in Bangladesh and Myanmar in South Asia, China has been secretly building naval facilities in Vietnam’s neighbor Cambodia, though officials both in Beijing and Phnom Penh have denied it. This is where New Delhi and Hanoi find their larger visions – like the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific and India’s Act East policy or Indo-Pacific Ocean’s Initiative – synergizing their rapidly transforming defense-centric partnership that promises to make this novel axis an influential factor in emerging Indo-Pacific dynamics. Defense-centric axis In short, India’s relationship with Vietnam has transformed from their millennia-old civilizational and cultural linkages and 20th-century camaraderie of anti-colonial struggles to the 21st-century geopolitics prodding a whole range of robust defense-centric partnerships. Today these partnerships involve a whole spectrum of regular high-level visits, military training and exchanges, joint naval exercises, defense supplies and co-production, intelligence sharing and cooperation in UN peace operations. The fact that their partnerships have lately begun to drift toward greater maritime and multilateral bonhomie makes their axis an interesting ingredient for prognosis on the evolving realignments in the Indo-Pacific region. Recent years have witnessed India’s arms exports leading this transformation. No other nation has received the kind of defense supplies that have been destined from India to Hanoi. In this three-day visit itself, India’s defense minister formally handed over 12 high-speed boats for Vietnam’s border guards. Underlining the move from defense exports to joint defense production, the first five boats were built in the Larsen & Toubro shipyard in India and the other seven at Vietnam’s Hong Ha shipyard. Rajnath Singh also announced a monetary grant for setting up language and IT labs for the Vietnamese armed forces. Plus India is expected to gift Vietnam a Khukri-class corvette, the INS Kirpan (“Dagger”), which is currently in service with the Indian Navy. All this is bound to be read in Beijing as aimed at constraining China in the South China Sea and beyond. Singh and Vietnam’s minister of national defense, General Phan Van Giang, also revived talks on India supplying its state-of-the-art BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles as well as Akash short-range ground-to-air missiles. This proposal was originally initiated way back during the 2016 visit of India’s then-defense minister Manohar Parrikar, who had also launched a $100 million line of credit facilitating India’s ongoing defense supplies. However, after India’s recent $375 million contract to supply of an anti-ship variant of the BrahMos cruise missile to the Philippines, which is also expected to sign another deal for India’s light combat aircraft and advanced light helicopter, Vietnam and Indonesia may also soon receive versions of India’s BrahMos missiles. Alluding to these trends in the making, India’s line of credit to Vietnam is now being expanded to $500 million, and the two defense ministers agreed for its “early finalization” as the two sides signed a slew of agreements signaling this changing nature of their future cooperation. Future roadmap outlined Without doubt, their shared China challenge remains the main driver guiding and accelerating future trajectories of this evolving India–Vietnam axis of the two fastest-growing economies of this region. This could not be more vividly underlined than this visit clinching a first-of-its-kind Memorandum of Understanding on Mutual Logistics Support. This will not only allow but both facilitate and simplify their administrative procedures to enable their militaries use of each other’s bases for repair and replenishment of supplies. These new arrangements should greatly enhance their operational outreach empowering their naval explorations across the South China Sea and also enable them to operate far away home: India around the Pacific and Vietnam in the Indian Ocean rim. This context was most aptly underlined by Rajnath Singh explaining how their “broader convergence of interests and common interest” and the resultant “close defense and security cooperation is an important factor of stability in the Indo-Pacific region.” What is most interesting is that Vietnam has been traditionally reluctant to allow such free access to its military facilities to foreign militaries. This in turn makes India the first to achieve this feat. India, on the other hand, has had similar arrangements with a whole range of countries including the United States, Australia, Japan, France, South Korea, Singapore and so on. The second groundbreaking clincher of this visit by India’s defense minister is their issuing of a Joint Vision Statement on India-Vietnam Defense Partnership toward 2030 that aims to “significantly enhance the scope and scale” to their defense partnership. This roadmap for coming eight years allows long-term planning and initiatives. Strategic partners on the go Vietnam remembers that when it comes to its national defense, India was the only non-communist nation to support Hanoi both during its prolonged war with France and then against the United States and later in its conflict with Cambodia. Of course structural factors like expansion of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and launch of India’s Look East policy in 1990s have also laid strong foundations. The two remain connected in regular bilateral and regional forums. India has since also come to be Vietnam’s major partner in the fields of oil exploration, agriculture and manufacturing, though focus has clearly since moved toward military supplies and co-production, intelligence sharing and joint military exercises and other maritime and multilateral cooperation. Over the years, their bilateral ties were consequently upgraded to a strategic partnership during then-prime minister Nguyen Tan Dung’s India visit of 2007 and then to a comprehensive strategic partnership during Modi’s Vietnam visit of 2016. Without playing down the autonomy of shared values and interest and mutual stakes and institutionalization of their cooperation, it is primarily China’s continued unprecedented rise during last few decades and especially its muscle-flexing in the South China Sea that has sustained the momentum of India-Vietnam cooperation. Given their shared territorial disputes and geopolitical contestations with rising China, this reflects their shared determination to ensure China’s compliance with international laws and norms, especially around the Indo-Pacific region. But what is important to underline is that unlike some Western powers, both India and Vietnam have kept engaging with a rising and assertive China. Guided by their civilizational values, both believe in socializing and restraining China’s behavior by engaging with it and not by confronting or alienating it altogether. This is what promises to see the India-Vietnam axis emerging as a novel alternative locomotive of change in evolving realignments in the Indo-Pacific region. #India #Vietnam #China #IndoPacific Originally published: Asia Times, June 10, 2022 https://asiatimes.com/2022/06/novel-india-vietnam-axis-emerging-in-indo-pacific/ Posted here with the authorization of the author. Prof. Swaran Singh is Professor of Diplomacy and Disarmament at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi; President of Association of Asia Scholars (asiascholars.in); Adjunct Senior Fellow at The Charhar Institute, Beijing; Senior Fellow, Institute for National Security Studies Sri Lanka, Colombo; and Visiting Professor, Research Institute for Indian Ocean Economies, Kunming (China).

By Prof. Bharat H. Desai The Stockholm 2022 at best remained a timid acknowledgement of things going terribly wrong and lacked the courage for a decisive course correction. The time seemed to stand still with the “world problematique” prophesized in the Limits to Growth (1972). The first week of June 2022 became a rare ‘environment week’ as it witnessed two back-to-back global environmental events prior to the World Environment Day (05 June): (i) 50th anniversary celebration of the 1972 Stockholm Conference (2-3 June) and (ii) 30th anniversary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (4 June). What does it portend for our common environmental future? In his opening remarks on 2 June in Stockholm, the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres lamented about the grim environmental scenario that the global “wellbeing is at risk” and “Earth’s natural systems cannot keep up with our demands”. “We haven’t kept our promises on the environment”, Guterres candidly admitted. As the UNSG pleaded to “lead us out of this mess”, his clarion call to address the “triple planetary crisis” caused by the climate emergency seemed alike a cry in the wilderness before the Stockholm audience. Similarly, the executive director of UN Environment Program, Inger Andersen asked as to what went wrong in the five decades (1972-2022). “If Indira Gandhi or Olof Palme were here today, what excuses would we offer up for our inadequate action? None that they would accept. They would tell us that further inaction is inexcusable”, Andersen unashamedly said. World Problematique The Stockholm+50 Conference remained a low-key affair. Ironically, the moral halo that ushered the world into global environmental consciousness at the Stockholm 1972 seemed to be missing at the Stockholm 2022 Conference. It ended with a listless statement jointly issued by Sweden and Kenya, the two host countries. Instead of the much-expected uplifting Stockholm+50 declaration, it took the shape of a strange ten point “Presidents’ Final Remarks to Plenary”. It didn’t cause any ripple as didn’t issue a clarion call to shake the conscience of peoples and nations for everting the existential planetary crisis. The Stockholm 2022 at best remained a timid acknowledgement of things going terribly wrong and lacked the courage for a decisive course correction. The time seemed to stand still with the “world problematique” prophesized in the Limits to Growth (1972). The Predicament The UN has put into practice the global conferencing technique. The Stockholm 1972 was followed by confabulations in Rio de Janeiro (1992), Johannesburg (2002), Rio de Janeiro (2012) and now Stockholm (2022). Notwithstanding all the global conferences, mega regulatory processes, creation of institutional maze and spending of a staggering amount of funds, the global environmental conditions have only worsened. Was it really worth it? The world seems to be in dire straits with Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 2030 set to go haywire, alarming situation of chronic hunger (2021 Global Hunger Index), 2.37 billion people without access to adequate food (2021 FAO), uncertainty of meeting the 1.5 C GHG targets (2022 IPCC) and climate change exacerbating SGBV against women. The graphic description of “two worlds, two planets, two humanities” for the North-South divide by the economist Mahbub ul Haq before the Stockholm 1972 still haunts the world. Gandhian (1908) warnings about choice between our needs and greed as well as lament of Tagore (1908) on “progress towards what and progress for whom” seems to have been left far behind. What went wrong? The Earth in the Balance The quagmire of global environmental crisis stares us in the face. This author’s 1992 audacious prediction [Social Science & Medicine (Oxford: Pergamon) 35. 4. 1992 at 593] came true when Covid-19 pandemic came: “if the current pace persists, people will be forced to move with gas masks in some of the mega-cities in the not-too-distant future”. With 7.9 billion (2022) world population expected to reach frightening levels of 10 billion (2050), one can only imagine the kind of life the future generations will inherit. Ironically, “human being has reached the moon but does not know how to live on the earth” (former Indian PM Vajpayee). As the world assembled again in the Swedish capital in 2022, the echo of prediction (6 June 1972) of the Swedish Prime Minister (PM) Olof Palme was recalled: “The decisive question is in which direction we will develop, by what means we will grow, which qualities we want to achieve,and what values we wish to guide our future…there is no individual future, neither for people nor for nations”. India was present at the ‘origin’ (Stockholm 1972) with the Indian Delegation led by the PM Indira Gandhi. She drew attention to the wisdom from the Atharva Veda, thus: “What of thee I dig out; Let that quickly grow over; Let me not hit thy vitals or thy heart.” “Indira Gandhi looked at the environment not from an elitist view point. She did it due to her genuine conviction”, Dr. Karan Singh, former JNU Chancellor, shared his recollections with this author on 27 April 2022. Envisioning Our Future After 50 years, it is pertinent to assess the trajectory hitherto followed, assess what went wrong and how we need to move forward. An ideational book curated by this author, Envisioning Our Environmental Future (IOS Press: Amsterdam, 2022) (Road to Stockholm+50 and Beyond | Environmental Policy and Law), has painstakingly brought together futuristic ideas of 22 outstanding scholars from the five continents to look beyond the Stockholm+50 (2022). It presents prognosis and prospects for extricating the world out of the global environmental morass for a better future in the 21st century and beyond. It is a sequel to another ideational work curated by the author with cutting-edge ideas of 21 outstanding scholars from around the world: Our Earth Matters (IOS Press: Amsterdam, 2021) (Our Earth Matters | IOS Press). The address of the Indian PM Narendra Modi, at the 75th anniversary of the UNGA (2020) that “we cannot fight today’s challenges with outdated structures” holds relevance for comprehensive UN reforms. An explicit reference to “trusteeship of the planet” in the Indian PM’s address at G-20 Riyadh virtual summit (2020) provides one such indication for a possible change (The Tribune, 02 December 2020). The 2021 report of the UNSG has alluded to such ‘repurposed’ Trusteeship Council, mooted in this author’s lecture (15 January 1999) at Legal Department of the World Bank DC. Will the UN member states embrace this idea to make the Trusteeship Council the principal instrumentality for the trusteeship of the planet? India can seize this opportunity to galvanize the world as a global solution provider. The ‘Stockholm moment’ of 2022 provided a unique opportunity to all the heads of government to go down in history. Ironically, no world leader stepped forward at Stockholm 2022 to don the mantle to lead the planet earth out of the crisis of survival. As 2020-2022 grueling spell of Covid-19 pandemic showed, Nature has her own ways of drawing the ‘limits’ to our existence. Maybe it has been a wakeup call. One only hopes, peoples and nations come to senses before it is too late. #Stockholm+50 #Environment #UN #India #IPCC #SDG Prof. Bharat H. Desai is Jawaharlal Nehru Chair and Professor of International Law at the Centre for International Legal Studies of SIS, JNU. He coordinated the initiatives on Making SIS Visible during 2008-2013 (Making SIS Visible | Welcome to Jawaharlal Nehru University (jnu.ac.in) as well as Inter-University Consortium (Partner Universities: JNU, Jammu, Kashmir and Sikkim) during 2012-2020 (www.iucccc.in/Contact us.htm).

By Prof. Srikanth Kondapalli In terms of leadership succession, Xi prefers his “new Zhijiang Army” to take over the sixth generation of leadership, while Li is grooming fellow-communist youth league colleague and Vice Premier Hu Chunhua to take over the mantle. The battles lines are drawn. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang is a worried man these days. He is now at the forefront of the “people’s war” to counter the pandemic but also to restore the economy battered by Communist Party chief and Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “zero-Covid” lockdowns and curbs on booming economic powerhouses. This is in sharp contrast to how Li was feeling when I, as part of a group of scholars and think-tankers, met him only a few years ago. In a 90-minute extempore presentation to us, Li was upbeat about the “medium-high growth” targets and the economic pivoting to domestic consumption and services. He was only concerned about the falling purchasing power in the rural areas and to the growing income disparities. Li’s confidence seems eroded now with the massive fall in the economy in the past two years, triggered by mass lockdowns, stringent border controls and quarantine procedures. These were aggravated by a sudden crackdown last year on big businesses such as Alibaba, Tencent and Meituan, while allowing the free fall of real-estate giants like Evergrande and others. Alibaba chief Jack Ma went into hiding after he made comments on the country’s banking system. Its shares tumbled. Xi defended these radical policies under the rubric of “common prosperity”, essentially the same old idea of “robbing the rich to help the poor.” In reality, all it did was to lead to economic disruption and slowing growth. Two distinct economic policies have emerged: Xi’s policy of Communist Party control over businesses versus Li’s “street vendor” economy. Xi bulldozed through a model that allowed big State-owned and private enterprises to flourish under his absolute control. His ‘anti-corruption drive’ targeted only the political and economic base of rival factional leaders Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. Jiang’s “Shanghai gang” and Hu’s communist youth league (to which Li also belonged) suffered the most, while Xi consolidated his control. While Xi had grandiose plans for China’s “rejuvenation” and the “Chinese dream” till 2050, Li’s down-to-earth policies were trying to address the economic problems afflicting the country. While Xi declared victory over poverty alleviation and the ushering in of a “well-off society” last year, Li pointed out to the extensive work needed to alleviate poverty in urban areas, with the per capita income of over 600 million Chinese still under $140 a month. Li addressed 100,000 officers and cadre on May 25 on the restoration of the economy. This is unprecedented. The last time such a meeting was held – though on half the scale of Li’s meeting -- was in the aftermath of Mao’s disastrous Great Leap Forward in the late 1950s. Li admitted to a fall in the value added by Chinese industry and thus to a fall in revenues. Li’s biographers have noted the studious upbringing he had. In fact, then party supremo Deng Xiaoping had noticed Li’s talent on a visit to Henan province and notified his intent to promote Li to the top post in the State Council. In the run-up to the crucial 20th Communist Party congress this November, the Xi-Li tussle is expected to intensify as the stakes for each faction are high. There is, of course, play around the age limit criterion, as well. Li, born 1955, is approaching the age limit for a Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) member – 68 years. Xi, born 1953, has already crossed this limit, but at the parliament session in March 2019, he had his term as President, if not the General Secretary’s post, extended, for possibly an unlimited number of terms. By factional strength, though Xi has absolute majority in the PSC, his mishandling of the pandemic and the economy, the deleterious effects of the tussle with the US, the negative effects of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, etc., have dented his control. While the recent May 5 Politburo meeting drowned any criticism of the “dynamic zero-Covid” handling, interestingly it did not mention the “core” position of Xi in the party. In terms of leadership succession, Xi prefers his “new Zhijiang Army” to take over the sixth generation of leadership, while Li is grooming fellow-communist youth league colleague and Vice Premier Hu Chunhua to take over the mantle. The battles lines are drawn. In China’s political structure, the top political leader and the Premier are by design at loggerheads with each other. In reality, Premiers have generally played a balancing role, if not second fiddle to the top leader. Recall Premier Zhou Enlai vis-à-vis Mao, or General Secretaries Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang during Deng Xiaoping’s reign, or more recently, Zhu Rongji under Jiang Zemin or Wen Jiabao under Hu Jintao. Will the personality and ideas clash in the Xi-Li equation trump the political structure? Will Li, then, break the mould and live to tell the tale? #China #LiKeqiang #XiJinping #Covid #Economy Originally published: Deccan Herald, June 05, 2022. https://www.deccanherald.com/amp/opinion/trouble-in-middle-kingdom-xi-li-tussle-comes-to-the-fore-1115381.html Posted in SIS Blog with the authorization of the author. Prof. Srikanth Kondapalli is Professor in Chinese Studies and Dean of School of International Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University.

By Prof. Swaran Singh The two nations’ friendship has often been sorely tested, but common interests regarding the US and China may strengthen ties The prime ministers of Canada and India are expected to meet either next weekend on the sidelines of the Group of Seven summit at Schloss Elmau in Upper Bavaria, Germany, or toward the end of this month at the Commonwealth Heads of Government conference in Kigali, Rwanda. In the view of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who is to visit India next year to attend the G20 summit, this earlier meeting could not only be groundbreaking for Canada-India bilateral relations, but could carry deeper implications for the evolving Indo-Pacific realignments. These reports are sourced to Wednesday’s phone conversation of two countries’ foreign ministers, Mélanie Joly and Subrahmanyam Jaishankar. Though their official briefs make no mention of a prime-minister-level summit and both underlined their (varying) perspectives about building consensus against “Russia’s invasion of Ukraine” and “misuse of freedoms and the dangers of extremism,” they both reiterated their unity on building a “free and open Indo-Pacific,” which has lately come to be a point of convergence in their flip-flop relations. As recorded in the Canadian readout, the two ministers “affirmed the importance of a free and open Indo-Pacific region.” In the wake of India’s growing recognition as the region’s net security provider and rising regional leader, while Canada seeks new partners in the face of its growing marginalization in this region, this could well become their new glue to stabilize their historically mercurial yet special relations. The roller coaster Independent India got off to a good start, with Jawaharlal Nehru’s October 1949 visit to Ottawa opening doors for Canada’s development assistance leading to supply of the CIRUS (Canada-India Reactor Utility Services) nuclear research reactor in 1954 laying the foundations of India’s nuclear program. But soon, Cold War dynamics were to push them into opposite camps and, in 1974, prime minister Pierre Trudeau, father of current prime minister, was to describe India’s peaceful nuclear explosion as “betrayal,” suspending all cooperation. The early 1980s saw Sikh militancy in India emerge as an added, though sporadic, irritant, the lingering effects of which were seen in Justin Trudeau’s last India visit in February 2018. A few uncanny events were to make this visit the second low point in Canada-India relations. It was on the last day of the Trudeau family’s week-long visit that Prime Minister Narendra Modi met with him briefly. When contrasted with Modi having personally accompanied foreign leaders to multiple Indian cities and holding joint public rallies and roadshows with them, this diplomatic distancing was not lost on anyone. The first friendly follow-up gesture came in October 2018 when Canada, defying strong Sikh lobbies at home, announced that it “would not recognize” Referendum 2020, a campaign that was being promoted by US-based “Sikhs for Justice” for holding a plebiscite on the secession of Punjab province from India. But again, Trudeau’s December 2020 remarks on the farmers protest in India were to unleash public outrage, including India’s Ministry of External Affairs calling it “unwarranted” and telling a Canadian envoy of such remarks having “potential to ‘seriously’ damage bilateral ties.” Soon, Trudeau’s use of emergency provisions in the wake of February’s truckers’ protests in Canada were again to trigger a spate of commentaries calling out his hypocrisy in dealing with protests. However, the two leaders have continued meeting at such forums as the G20 and G7 summits and held online conversations marking rituals of mutual engagement. Last September, Modi congratulated Trudeau on getting elected as prime minister for a third time and tweeted that he looked forward to “strengthening India-Canada relations, as well as our cooperation on global and multilateral issues.” As a sign of positive momentum, their negotiations from 2021 for a full-fledged Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) hoped to achieve “an interim trade deal” before the end of this year. Yet it remains unclear if CEPA can boost their bilateral trade, which slipped during the pandemic. The US disconnect This is where these two friends of the United States – feeling at variance with US Indo-Pacific strategy – may reconnect in building post-pandemic resilience that has become inordinately China-centric, even anti-China. This is because, unlike the US, both Canada and India wish to restrain China by building mutually beneficial engagements with it, and not by alienating it. China’s unprecedented economic rise and resultant political influence remain at the core of Indo-Pacific geopolitical imaginations. The past two decades have seen the Indo-Pacific region, led by China, emerge as the global growth engine and therefore the new global center of gravity. Chinese President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative has accelerated debate on the United States’ relative decline, causing the US to band together its allies to redress their so-called “shared” China challenge. Canada, as a Pacific nation, has always aligned its policies with the US, becoming an ASEAN Dialogue Partner in 1977 and staying part of US-led Five Eyes Intelligence Sharing Network of World War II vintage. But when Five Eyes was revived by US president Donald Trump as part of his anti-China rhetoric, Canada refused to “share metadata with its Five Eyes allies,” respecting the privacy of its citizens. Last month, Canada also became the last to join Five Eyes’ US-led campaign against accessing China’s fifth-generation (5G) technologies. No doubt, Canada was neither included in the Quadrilateral Security Framework of Indo-Pacific democracies nor added to the AUKUS (Australia, United Kingdom, United States) security mechanism launched in September 2021; the UK was added in the latter though it is not even a Pacific nation. Canada has also so far failed to join the East Asia Summit except once as a special invitee. Now, US President Joe Biden has not included Canada in his Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF), though it also excludes Mexico, Chile and Peru, which defies logic as all four nations already have free-trade agreements (FTAs) with the US. Also, all four were part of US-led Trans-Pacific Partnership, which, after the US departure, has been revived as the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). Besides the US, seven of the 12 IPEF members also have an FTA with Canada as part of CPTPP. Moreover, unlike IPEF, the CPTPP has been in force since 2018 and offers concrete tariff reductions, market access and dispute settlement provisions. The proposed IPEF, just beginning negotiations, aims to create some open-ended modules for flexible alignments, and it remains open to other aspirants like Canada or even China, which has already applied for inclusion in the CPTPP. One explanation for Biden’s distancing from his close Pacific allies is that he wants to project IPEF as an exclusive US initiative for Asia and “didn’t want to share the stage and photo ops with non-Asian countries.” But others put the blame on Trudeau, saying “the current government is unfocused on the Indo-Pacific.” Exploring alternative alignments Both Canada and India continue to explore autonomous partnerships across the Indo-Pacific region. Both are averse to jumping on the bandwagon of the US Indo-Pacific Strategy, which they feel remains too China-centric. India continues to engage China, which is its largest trading partner. With the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, as its fourth-largest trading partner, India this year celebrates the 30th anniversary of their Dialogue Partnership. Likewise, facing exclusion from US-led Indo-Pacific initiatives, Canada has also been exploring alternative partners and paradigms. But does their growing clash over US Indo-Pacific strategies bring Canada and India closer? Canada has already initiated negotiations for partial FTAs with India and ASEAN that promise to be far more substantive than IPEF. As well, there are good reasons to believe that IPEF is unlikely to win congressional approval in the US. This should open up avenues for Canadian and Indian negotiators. Canada has already applied to join the Digital Economic Partnership Agreement (DEPA) of Chile, New Zealand and Singapore – three Indo-Pacific nations that are already with Canada in the CPTPP. In fact Canada would be better placed in DEPA, which unlike IPEF is a traditional trade agreement with provisions for tariff reductions, rules of origin for market access and dispute settlement mechanisms. This past Tuesday, Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong welcomed Canada’s application to join the DEPA, which aims to explore innovative realignments for post-pandemic resilience by building infrastructure, smart cities and cybersecurity and address other issues of digitization. Likewise, the coming Monday will see Gabriel Boric, the president of Chile – another member of DEPA – arrive in Ottawa to take their relationship forward. Google plans to lay its first sub-sea cable carrying 16 pairs of fiber-optic wires from Vancouver to Japan. Called Topaz, this project will provide faster access to Google services – including its search engine, Gmail, YouTube and Google Cloud – and will be ready by next year. Can all this open new possibilities for middle powers like Canada and India coming together to balance the US anti-China preoccupation? Will the much-awaited Canadian Indo-Pacific Strategy reveal such a rethink and reconnect Canada and India? Since early this year Joly has been reported saying that in spite of the all-consuming Ukraine crisis, she has been “activity working to deliver on a key marching order given her by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: to create a comprehensive new Indo-Pacific Strategy.” This January saw the India and Canadian navies join the six-nation anti-submarine-warfare drill called Sea Dragon 22 in the Indo-Pacific waters. Their gradual coming together may work to make the US Indo-Pacific strategy more balanced and to their comfort. Alternatively, they could begin to explore alignments in spite of the US. Either way their reconnect in the Indo-Pacific region promises to bring enduring stability to Canada-India relations. #India #Canada #Indo-Pacific #US #IPEF #CPTPP #China #Quad Originally published: Asia Times, June 3, 2022 https://asiatimes.com/2022/06/will-indo-pacific-policies-reconnect-canada-and-india/ Posted here with the authorization of the author. Prof. Swaran Singh is Professor of Diplomacy and Disarmament at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi; President of Association of Asia Scholars (asiascholars.in); Adjunct Senior Fellow at The Charhar Institute, Beijing; Senior Fellow, Institute for National Security Studies Sri Lanka, Colombo; and Visiting Professor, Research Institute for Indian Ocean Economies, Kunming (China).

By Prof. Srikanth Kondapalli The IPEF intends to strengthen digital trade, resilience in supply chain mechanism, green economy and rules- based order although a road map for tariff reductions has not been outlined, and hence cannot be termed as a free trade area. On the other hand, the IPEF intends to accommodate new changes ushered by China’s rise. In a major development last week, the United States President Joseph R Biden announced the formation of a 13-member Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) a day before the Quad Leader’s in-person meeting at Tokyo on May 24. It has 13 members including, the US, India, Japan, Australia, Brunei, Indonesia, Republic of Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi welcomed the formation of IPEF and attended it's opening ceremony. In late 2021, the US began preparations for the IPEF by despatching commerce and trade secretaries to various countries in the Indo-Pacific for informal discussions, given the mounting economic challenges. These visits came in the wake of the US announcement at the East Asian Summit in October last year expressing its intent to usher in the IPEF. The US-China tariff wars posed the background for this alternative move, as with the unprecedented pandemic related supply-chain disruptions. Currently the IPEF constitutes 40 percent of global production and 60 percent of the population. Interestingly more than half of the IPEF members are from Southeast Asia and an overwhelming majority of them are also part of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) arrangement that came into being in November 2020. The RCEP is seen as China-dominated grouping and the IPEF therefore provides an alternative for many of its members outside China’s pressures. The IPEF intends to strengthen digital trade, resilience in supply chain mechanism, green economy and rules- based order although a road map for tariff reductions has not been outlined, and hence cannot be termed as a free trade area. On the other hand, the IPEF intends to accommodate new changes ushered by China’s rise. The IPEF adds to the Quad’s economic angle and expands the interactions with other countries as well in near future. The revived Quad since 2021 had four Summit meetings and focused on non-traditional security challenges like vaccine production and distribution, critical technologies and maritime order. By including several other “friendly” countries, the IPEF is signalling its expansion and outreach. IPEF appears to challenge China’s unilateral Belt and Road Initiative. Although China had joined the globalisation process, it has claimed leadership and began weaponing global and regional trade, investments, markets and tourism. China became the centre of trade value chain in the world and the problems surfaced as the Covid-19 pandemic worsened the global economy. Russian military action on Ukraine further led to the deterioration of global economy with high inflation and rise in food and energy prices. IPEF intends to wriggle out of this situation. The Quad and the IPEF are seen contributing positively to the Indian economic and technological growth as well as for its security. As a “major developing country” with the fastest growing economy (estimated above 8 percent in 2022), the IPEF provides an opportunity for India to expand its economic cooperation with the Indo-Pacific region. By joining the IPEF, India could explore and be transformed by the economic potential associated with digital economy. In early 2021, India singed an agreement with Japan and Australia for supply chain resilience. With the IPEF, this move will be further strengthened. India also has an ambitious target for “green economy” as reiterated at Paris in December 2015 and recently at COP-26 in Glasgow last year. Joining IPEF further strengthens this process. While IPEF is not a free trade area, New Delhi’s comprehensive economic partnerships with Japan, South Korea and Singapore or its free trade agreement with the Southeast Asian grouping, the recent trade agreement with Australia and similar negotiations with United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, Israel and the European Union members–all fit into the framework of linking up and integrating with hi-tech partners and to hence to the elevation of the Indian economy. Also, the emphasis in IPEF on preparing for the economic crisis, strengthens Indian crisis management skills and this is expected to cushion Indian economy. Covid pandemic had disrupted many sectors of the Indian economy and hence working with like-minded countries in a rules-based order strengthens Indian competitiveness. For long, India was denied access to the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation grouping, which projected China. However, with China posing existential challenges to many a country, IPEF is seen as a robust and resilient alternative. #IndoPacific #India #US #IPEF #RCEP #APEC #China #Quad Originally aired: External Services Division, AIR, June 01, 2022. Posted in SIS Blog with the authorization of the author. Prof. Srikanth Kondapalli is Professor in Chinese Studies and Dean of School of International Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University.