The Fractured World

Pravin Sawhney

Explaining India’s worldview at the Asia Society in New York on September 24, India’s external affairs minister, S. Jaishankar showed remarkable ignorance of two key factors at the heart of re-balancing of global order. One, the global geopolitics is being re-shaped by two global visions which are as different as chalk and cheese. And two, the unabating technology war between the US and China will compel nations soon to choose between the technologies of the two global visions for cost-effective and secure digitisation and network-based services to transformation to Artificial Intelligence (AI) in economics, development, social sectors and everything connected with human activity. Not doing so will create compatibility problems for consumers.

If Jaishankar had understood the above factors, he would not have responded to the moderator’s question of how India could be in the QUAD and BRICS/ SCO at the same time by saying ‘India can chew gum and walk at the same time.’ The minister added that India, like the UAE, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, had the ability to operate in different spaces. Pushed further by the moderator, Jaishankar admitted that he saw QUAD as the future for India.

Let’s understand the two factors to assess whether India’s foreign policy is making most of the once-in-century opportunity of global geopolitics transformation to help development and prosperity for its 1.4 billion people. Now, it is universally agreed that the rise of China is the most important factor which has brought global geopolitics from Europe to Asia Pacific. It is also known that the US has identified China as its biggest challenge in this century. What is little known is that the two global visions which have been shaped by US’ and China’s history, experiences and strengths are dissimilar.

The US’ vision rests on its three strengths: unmatched military power, allies and strategic partners which add to its military power, and supremacy of the US dollar and US dollar payment system. The US won the Cold War; enjoyed unparalleled global supremacy during the unipolar years from 1991 to 2017 when it arrogantly declared the end of history (unaware that history never ends); and now believes that the world has entered the second Cold War which it is determined to win the way it won the first Cold War based on balance of power politics. Since balance of power politics does not work in the present multipolar world with numerous independent decision-making centres, the US hopes to bring stability by plurilateral blocks like QUAD, AUKUS and so on. The key features of this vision are that it is US-led, based on zero sum game, rests on the belief that US’ rule-based order and its ideology of liberal democracy are best for global stability and is supported by US’ allies (industrialised nations) which constitute 20 per cent of global population. India, a developing nation, too supports this vision since it assesses QUAD as its future and Indo Pacific (name given to Asia Pacific by the Trump administration in May 2018) as, according to Jaishankar, the vindication of Act East policy.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi
with US President Joe Biden during former’s State Visit to the US in 2023

While the US had no experience of partnership with nations, in 2009, it had offered G-2 (Group of Two) partnership to China hoping that it could be integrated into the US crafted global system. That China politely spurned the US offer was evidence that it, as a civilisational state, had an entirely different global vision in mind.

What is the endgame that the US is seeking in the second Cold War?

While it has not been officially stated, US’ China policy suggests two objectives: One, disallow China to get ahead of the US in the fourth industrial revolution through denial of hardware and software technology by ‘small yard and high fence’ strategy. This is because the US fears that technology will make China richer than it thus replacing it as the global hegemon.

And two, to constraint, if not contain, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) in west Pacific Ocean to prevent it from acquiring power projection capabilities across the Indo Pacific region straddling two Oceans, west Pacific and Indian Ocean.

The other global vision is about connectivity, trade and development where two major powers—China and Russia—have aligned visions of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) further expanded to Greater Eurasia. Of the two major powers, China has the economic heft, technology ecosystem, manufacturing base, comprehensive mechanism and civil-military integration to match and even leapfrog the US in the fourth industrial revolution and modern war since the software driven new technologies are dual-use. Unlike the US led vision, this vision believes in a win-win game, instead of zero-sum game; it seeks relative or indivisible security instead of absolute security; this vision talks of equal and cooperative partnership rather than being led by the US in balance of policy politics; and it believes in the UN-based order and the UN-based international law, instead of rules-based order c