Global Courant 2023-05-22 11:19:59
Indian Foreign Minister Vinay Kwatra’s Foreign Minister special information on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Asia-Pacific tour (May 19-24) skilfully tied in with three summits and is reminiscent of a medieval institution known as the “wandering minstrels.”
Wealthy people used minstrels to entertain them at home. These itinerant minstrels told stories, recited poems, sang ballads and played musical instruments. Their ballads used simple rhymes and told interesting stories and sometimes even dealt with the problems of the poor.
Modi’s first stop was Hiroshima, Japan, where he was specially invited to a meeting of the club of wealthy nations, the Group of Seven, which was born as a result of mounting economic problems, especially the oil shock and the collapse of the Bretton Woods midway through the seventies.
According to Kwatra, the G7’s contact with India would be “structured around three formal sessions”, covering food, health, development, gender equality, climate, energy, environment and a “peaceful, stable and prosperous world”.
Japan, as the holder of the G7 presidency, also received Australia, Brazil, the Comoros, the Cook Islands, Indonesia, the Republic of Korea and Vietnam as “special invitees”. It was a motley crowd that made little sense as movers and shakers of world order.
But the Western media was inundated with reports that the West’s concerns about China and Russia would be the leitmotif of the G7 summit. Therefore, the decision at the last minute by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to attend the summit in person, the skies in Hiroshima electrified, giving the goings-on there over the weekend the appearance of a foreplay that would lead to the making of an endgame in Ukraine’s war, if and when that happens.
In such a scenario, there are, of course, essential roles that the US could assign to Brazil and India – both BRICS members – and to South Korea, which has effectively experienced a ‘frozen conflict’.
But that’s all speculation for now, as it will be a far-fetched assumption that a frozen conflict “somewhere between an active war and a chilled standoff” will suit Russia, although that “could be a politically acceptable decision”. long-term outcome for the United States and other countries that support Ukraine” to gently end the war in Eurasia – to borrow from a major article in Politics on May 18 with the caption “Ukraine could join the ‘frozen’ conflicts, US officials say,” as Biden headed for Hiroshima.
Be that as it may, India’s enthusiasm was on two counts: first, the opportunity for Modi to have extensive interactions with US President Joe Biden at various locations across an entire week, in Hiroshima, Papua New Guinea and Sydney . Second, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue was to hold a summit in Sydney, Australia, where India saw an opportunity to present itself as a “counterweight” to China.
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, US President Joe Biden, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attend an event at the Quad Leaders Summit in Tokyo, Japan, on May 24, 2022. Photo: Pool
However, fate intervened. The slow-motion implosion of the US economy is disturbing Biden, and he cut his Asia tour into a weekend fling to rush back to Washington on Sunday and resume work in the Oval Office to continue the “steady progress” achieved so far. to support. in the grueling debt ceiling talks between the administration and the legislators.
But breaking the planned Quad Summit in Sydney next week would also send the wrong signal. That’s why diplomats found a way to squeeze a replacement Quad photo-op in Hiroshima itself.
After all, as Secretary of State Kwatra pointed out, the Quad is a movable party – “Look, the structure and nature of (the) Quad is such that … (although) the Quad Leaders’ Meeting is not taking place in Sydney and is now taking place in Hiroshima is a change of location, there has been no change in the specific aspects of cooperation in (the) Quad.
But Chinese commentators are already scoffing at the fact that the cancellation of the Sydney summit is “an omen of the Quad’s fate”. And the Guardian newspaper wrote that the cancellation of the Quad Summit in Sydney would spark stories that “the US is beset by increasingly intense domestic unrest and is an unreliable partner, quickly abandoning allies.”
The Guardian lamented that the US should be concerned about its crumbling credibility. In addition, the cancellation of the Sydney event is mainly a blow to the Australian hosts. It appears Australian officials spent months planning the massive logistical and security operation of a Biden visit to Sydney, and last October’s budget even earmarked A$23 million (US$15.25 million) for the cost of hosting the Quad top.
The bottom line is: isn’t this one too many buds? For what purpose exactly? Control China? The G7 itself has become a relic of the past. In fact, we could be witnessing the last rites of the old order as Donald Trump’s theater looms over the Pacific. It is also becoming increasingly difficult to put on a show of concerted effort at the G7. The G7 summit this year had an end-of-the-era feel.
Again, take the third meeting of the Forum for India-Pacific Cooperation (FIPIC Summit), which Modi co-chairs in Papua New Guinea on Monday. Modi launched this forum during his “historic visit” to Fiji in November 2014, when he hosted the first FIPIC summit. The second FIPIC Summit followed within 10 months in Jaipur, India, in August 2015. Now, almost ten years later, FIPIC is coming back to life after a deep sleep.
Yet statistics show that India’s trade with all those 14 PIC countries combined – the Cook Islands, Fiji, the Republic of Kiribati, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia, Niue, the Republic of Nauru, the Republic of Palau, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu – fluctuates around $250 million.
Simply put, while Chinese diplomacy is proactive in the strategically important Western Pacific, the US seems to be encouraging India to mark the lampposts there. But from an Indian perspective, this is classic imperial overstretching and is highly avoidable. This is what Pakistan used to do, copying Indian diplomacy anywhere and anytime to catch up – until it got exhausted and gave up.
Biden’s original intention was to jump to Papua New Guinea with a specific agenda: the signing of a maritime security pact and a defense pact with Papua New Guinea that would allow American troops access to the ports and airports of the Pacific nation.
Biden’s trip to the Pacific Islands was expected to turn into a power play in the showdown between Washington and China. It will also have been a sentimental journey for Biden personally, as his uncle in Papua New Guinea was killed in World War II.
The Lombrum naval base in Papua New Guinea is of strategic importance to the US. Image: Facebook
But India has no remnants of the day in the Western Pacific. Does it not have its hands full with the complex issues of maritime security in the Indian Ocean, which it can barely handle?
Look at Biden. He coolly decided that with a challenging re-election bid looming in 2024, D.C. domestic debt ceiling talks should be his top priority, and instructed Secretary of State Antony Blinken to replace him at the summit with Pacific leaders in Port Moresby on Monday.
Indian diplomacy has something to learn here about the art of prioritizing objectives rather than indulging in shadow boxing and exhausting oneself.
This article was created in collaboration with Indian clue And Globe trotterwhich it provided to Global Courant.
MK Bhadrakumar is a former Indian diplomat. Follow him on Twitter @BhadraPunchline.
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