Saturday, April 10, 2021
Saturday, March 27, 2021
SOUTH ASIA ANALYSIS GROUP
The Challenges Facing the World:
Paper No. 6769 Dated 26- Mar-2021
By Kazi Anwarul Masud:
When one reads V. S. Naipaul or more recent ones one is surprised by the irrelevance we feel about the poverty and inequity we see in the Indian Sub-continent. We feel as if we are born to the discomfort and the inequity by dint of birth( privileges which one gets through an accident) that can be ignored and the poor and hungry littered along the car we travel by is a matter of fact
. Naipaul in his Million Mutunities Now writes: Independence was worked for by people more or less at the top; the freedom it brought has worked its way down. In India: A wounded Civilization Naipaul writes: “India is old, and India continues. But all the disciplines and skills that India now seeks to exercise are borrowed. Even the ideas Indians have of the achievements of their civilization are essentially the ideas given them by European scholars in the nineteenth century. India by itself could not have rediscovered or assessed its past. Its past was too much with it, was still being lived out in the ritual, the laws, and the magic – the complex instinctive life that muffles response and buries even the idea of inquiry.” Later on his journey to find his roots Naipaul found:
India was the greater hurt. It was a subject country. It was also the place from whose very great poverty our grandfathers had had to run away in the late nineteenth century. The two India’s were separate. The political India, of the freedom movement, had its great names. The other, more personal India was quite hidden; it vanished when memories faded. It wasn’t an India we could read about. It wasn’t Kipling’s India, or E.M. Forster’s, or Somerset Maugham’s; and it was far from the somewhat stylish India of Nehru and Tagore. (There was an Indian writer, Premchand [1880-1936], whose stories in Hindi and Urdu would have made our Indian village past real to us. But we didn’t know about him; we were not reading people in that way.) It was to this personal India, and not the India of independence and its great names that I went when the time came. I was full of nerves. But nothing had prepared me for the dereliction I saw.
No other country I knew had so many layers of wretchedness, and few countries were as populous. I felt I was in a continent where, separate from the rest of the world, a mysterious calamity had occurred. Yet what was so overwhelming to me, so much in the foreground, was not to be found in the modern-day writing I knew Indian or English. In one Kipling story an Indian famine was a background to an English romance; but generally in both English and Indian writing the extraordinary distress of India, when acknowledged, was like something given, eternal, something to be read only as background. And there were, as always, those who thought they could find a special spiritual quality in the special Indian distress”. Different kind of pictures is printed on the success or otherwise of Modi government in the last year. Understandably rosy picture is painted by the government and supporters of Bharitya Janata Party( BJP) while the opposition and some critics paint a different picture. The Gross Domestic Product at constant (2011-12) prices for the year 2019 was at Rupees 140.78 lakh crore, as against Rupees 131.80 lakh crore for 2017-18, indicating growth of 6.8 percent during 2018-19. At current prices,
Read the Below Article to Get More Information About India Per Capital Income. Income Per Capita India The per capita real income, i.e. per capita net national income at constant (2011- 12) prices, for 2018-19 is at RS 92,565 as against RS 87,623 for 2017-18. This indicates a growth of per capita real income of 5.6 percent during 2018- 19. The per capita income at current prices during 2018-19 is at RS 1, 26,406 as compared to RS 1, 14,958 in 2017-18 showing a rise of 10.0 percent. (Yahoo). Modi government does not appear to have succeeded to take Indian economy to a greater plane as promised. Success if it can be termed as such has been in the political arena. BJP has absolute majority in the lower house of parliament (LOK SABHA). So the government could easily passed The Citizens Amendment Act, demolition of special status given to Kashmir since the then Maharaja decided to take Indian help to face the marauders from Pakistan occupied Kashmir. It may be recalled that the Maharajah was called Sadr-e-Riasat similar to the title of the President of Pakistan. In addition to the abolition of the special status of Kashmir Modi government changed the status of Ladakh that opened the door of Chinese incursion across the Line of Actual Control that had been agreed upon by both India and China.
As regards Kashmir the state is totally cut off from the rest of India. “Under Modi, India appears to have abandoned it’s potential to serve as a global democratic leader, elevating narrow Hindu nationalist interests at the expense of its founding values of inclusion and equal rights for all,” observed Freedom House. Critics have also pointed out that since the imposition of emergency rule by then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi never were so many people have been arrested and confined without trial as has been done by the present government. Confinement of the opposition has never been the answer as history has repeatedly proved. Nor has lack of true understanding of the opponent’s power and determination. Had it not been so then possibly the South Asians would have been speaking German and not English as the main alternate language.
On the economic front China has done well to say the least. China today is the second largest economy in the world. The Economist (How to deal with China March 20 2021) tells us that Mainland China attracted $163bn of fresh multinational investment last year, more than any other country. It is opening the mainland capital markets to foreigners, who have invested $900bn, in a landmark shift for global finance. Moreover, the pull China exerts is no longer just a matter of size—although, with 18% of world gdp, it has that too. The country is also where firms discover consumer trends and innovations. It is increasingly where commodity prices and the cost of capital are set, and is becoming a source of regulations. Business is betting that, in Hong Kong and the mainland, China’s thuggish government is capable of self-restraint in the commercial sphere, providing contractual certainty, despite the lack of fully independent courts and free speech.
China is struggling with the US for technological development. The Post-Pandemic world is largely believed to be a technological world where not only domestic economies would be guided by technology but spread of foreign influence as well would be bought and sold like commodities. The under developed economies used to foreign assistance (free distribution of covit vaccines may be cited as an example) and despite former US Vice President Mike Pence’s warning of Chinese “debt trap”, Sri Lankan and Laotian examples, and Malaysian Mahathir Mohammed’s refusal to take Chinese assistance South Asian developing nations may have little alternative. One may disagree with John Bolton and Robert Kagan’s uncompromising belief in American supremacy in global affairs the fight with China has to be based on values. India in this region being the super power has to set the example that democracy is the only weapon to fight Xi Jinping’s authoritarian style of governance.
We should remind ourselves that Joseph Stieglitz (The Great Divide 2012) had argued that inequality results from conscious political decisions which results in a world of super-rich, a vanishing middle class and growing poverty. Stieglitz also questioned the efficacy of a government that embraces political capitalism—a system where the rich and the powerful influences government choices that in Hobbesian terminology ends up as being “nasty brutish” and ultimately selfish and protects the interests of their own class. The growth rate, calculated by Wealth-X, a global financial intelligence and data company, stands at a solid 17.3 percent. If Bangladesh, taken as an example, had 100 super rich in 2012, for example, the number should have been 219-220 by 2017. In other words, the number of super-rich should have doubled in our country in just five years. At the same time defaulted loans despite easier payment terms accorded to the defaulters has not eased the problem of loan default. Billions of dollars are suspected to have been siphoned off to safe heavens abroad. According to Global Financial Integrity Report 2017, Bangladesh topped the list of least-developed countries in terms of “illicit financial flows”. In 2014 alone, Bangladeshis allegedly laundered USD 9.11 billion to foreign countries. At the end of 2016, the amount of money Bangladeshis deposited with Swiss Banks stood at USD 683 million—near equivalent to the amount deposited by Indians. (Daily Star 20-09-2018). Truly Joseph Stieglitz’s observation on “A banking system is supposed to serve society, not the other way around” appears to have fallen on deaf ears.
Going back a few years the Gross Domestic Product (
For instance, Covid-19 was identified at Wuhan but China's business was not that affected and recovered faster compared to that in other countries for the presence of special kinds of human resources who could manage the fallouts, he said. China was able to create a corporate culture with special human resources, he said while giving a virtual keynote presentation on "Human Capital - A Source of Competitive Advantage" organized by the American Chamber of Commerce in Bangladesh (AmCham). Bangladesh's universities churn out 22,000 computer science and engineering graduates every year, said Syed Almas Kabir, president of the Bangladesh Association of Software and Information Services. But not all are skilled, he said, adding that for that they need three to six months' training. This needs to be incorporated in the academic curriculum to save time, he said. Bangladesh's human resources cannot still be termed human capital because the education system is still traditional, he added. Almost 68 per cent of Bangladesh's population was between the ages of 15 and 64 years, which are considered the working age. Bangladesh sees some 98 per cent of its children get enrolled at the elementary level but there was still room for improving the education quality. The primary curriculum focuses some 14 per cent on technical education for the creation of skilled manpower (Daily Star 24 2021). 99,984,000 Internet users as of Mar, 2020;
60.7% of the population, according to Internet World Stats. India has the second highest number of internet users in the world.. The World Economic Forum (WEF) estimated that about 60% of Indian internet users viewed vernacular content and only about a quarter of internet users were over the age of 35 years in 2019. The WEF also estimated that 1.1 billion Indians would have access to the internet by 2030, with 80% of the subscriber base primarily accessing the internet on mobile devices.
The profile of India's internet user base was predicted to diversify by 2030 with 80% of users accessing vernacular content and with users over 25 years making up 45% of the total subscriber base. China replaced the U.S. in its global leadership in terms of installed telecommunication bandwidth in 2011. By 2014, China hosted more than twice as much national bandwidth potential than the U.S., the historical leader in terms of installed telecommunication bandwidth (China: 29% versus US:13% of the global total). As of March 2017, there were about 700 million Chinese internet users, and many of them have a high-speed internet connection. Most of the users live in urban areas but at least 178 million users reside in rural towns.
Yet it is useful to know the following facts: In China many websites and apps are blocked: Google, WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube are restricted in China. Internet in China is extremely slow: Because of the filters and the blocking system, when one goes to non-Chinese websites, browsing becomes tedious due to the slow speed. If you only want to visit Chinese websites most internet connections work. Accessing the internet in China is relatively cheap: Although a few years ago the internet in China was relatively expensive, nowadays prices have fallen, and for a basic connection of 50 Mb you won’t pay more than 100 Yuan per month. Most public Chinese connections are not safe: One should be sure to have a good antivirus before connecting laptop to a public Chinese network if one does not want to end up with his computer full of rubbish or hacked. Despite these shortcomings China remains a strong competitor of the US both in politico-economic and technological fields. One however is at a loss when one has to finds oneself at a debate whether despite Xi Jinping’s Communist style of government China appears to be moving from communism to capitalism. If the Marxists arguments for inequality as described by some critics “are an outcome of the ruling-class owning the means of production (the factories) who exploit their position when employing the working-class.
By owning the means of production the ruling-class capitalize on the profits generated by their working-class employees The ruling-classes exploit the working-classes by getting them to work as hard as possible for lowest wage possible. The ruling-class then invests their profits in more plant and machinery to generate even more profits. The outcome of such a process is social class inequality”. One then faces a quandary in describing China as a communist or a capitalist country. Beijing proudly displays Western brands of consumer goods. China has many billionaires and a few of them are counted among the richest in the world. A Chinese reporter wrote in October last year that China added 257 billionaires in US dollar terms adding to the existing 621, according to the annually released Hurun China Rich List on Tuesday (Oct. 20), which has been tracking the wealth of the ultra-rich for 22 years. Overall, China has 878 billionaires, the highest number the country has ever seen. As recently as 1999, there was not a single billionaire in China. In total, China has 2,398 individuals with a net worth of more than 2 billion yuan ($290 million), the cut-off for being on the list. The rich listers have a combined wealth of $4 trillion, which is similar to the
Jack Ma, the former founder and
China reported a 5% increase in
China will gain economic power from the sheer size of its market as well as its overseas investments and development assistance. China’s overall power relative to the US is likely to increase. Nonetheless, balances of power are hard to judge. The US will retain some long-term power advantages that contrast with areas of Chinese vulnerability. One is geography. The US is surrounded by oceans and neighbors that are likely to remain friendly. China has borders with 14 countries, and territorial disputes with India, Japan, and Vietnam set limits on its hard and soft power. Energy is another area where America has an advantage. President Joe Biden has already told his QUAD allies before the Alaska meeting that values shall remain the central theme of US-China differences. Chinese Foreign Minister’s 17 minutes bluster at Alaska replied by US Secretary of Defense was followed by Chinese actions. Oxford University historian Rana Mitter in an insightful analysis wrote that under Xi, China has displayed a growing appetite for global leadership. Xi has stated that “China will firmly uphold the international system” as “a founding member of the United Nations and the first country to put its signature on the UN Charter.” As Mitter notes, Xi conveniently elides that it was Chiang Kai-shek, the Nationalist leader, and not Chiang’s Communist rival, Mao, who sat next to U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill at the 1943 Cairo conference, which laid the groundwork for the postwar order. It was the Chinese Nationalists, not their Communist enemies, who helped establish the UN and the Bretton Woods institutions, including the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. In China today, “the ideological cupboard is relatively bare,” Mitter observed. Under Xi, he writes, China is “still having a hard time defining its economic and security vision as anything other than an increasingly authoritarian not-America.”
Mitter’s assessment that China is a “postsocialist state in reality if not in name” is a refreshingly sober alternative to the Trump administration’s hyperbolic assertions that the CCP was seeking to bring about a “socialist international order” and a “globe-spanning universal society.” Those accusations relied on the fact that official Chinese rhetoric still uses phrases and concepts rooted in Marxism-Leninism. RICHARD N. HAASS of the Council on Foreign Relations and. CHARLES A. KUPCHAN of Georgetown University is suggesting the formation of a Concert of Global Powers consisting of China, the European Union, India, Japan, Russia, and the United States. They argue that regular and open consultation between Moscow and Washington, for example, might have produced less friction over NATO enlargement. China and the United States are better off directly communicating with each other over Taiwan than sidestepping the issue and risking a military mishap in the Taiwan Strait or provocations that could escalate tensions. A global concert could also make unilateral moves less disruptive. Conflicts of interest would hardly disappear, but a new vehicle devoted exclusively to great-power diplomacy would help make those conflicts more manageable. Although members would, in principle, endorse a norm-governed international order, they would also embrace realistic expectations about the limits of cooperation and compartmentalize their differences. The duo harshly characterizes Joseph Nye Jr jubilation over the extinction of Soviet Union as the unipolar moment is over, and in hindsight, talk of the “end of history” was triumphalist, even if sophisticated, nonsense. They sadly reach the conclusion that the inadequacies of the current international architecture underscore the need for a global concert. The rivalry between the United States and China is heating up fast, the world is suffering through a devastating pandemic, climate change is advancing, and the evolution of cyberspace poses new threats. These and other challenges mean that clinging to the status quo and banking on existing international norms and institutions would be dangerously naive.
The Concert of Europe was formed in 1815 owing to the years of devastation wrought by the Napoleonic Wars. But the lack of great-power war today should not be cause for complacency. And even though the world has passed through previous eras of multipolarity, the advance of globalization increases the demand for and importance of new approaches to global governance. Globalization unfolded during Pax Britannica, with London overseeing it until World War I. After a dark interwar hiatus, the United States took up the mantle of global leadership from World War II into the twenty-first century. But Pax Americana is now running on fumes. The United States and its traditional democratic partners have neither the capability nor the will to anchor an interdependent international system and universalize the liberal order that they erected after World War II.
The absence of U.S. leadership during the covid-19 crisis was striking; each country was on its own. President Biden is guiding the United States back to being a team player, but the nation’s pressing domestic priorities and the onset of multipolarity will deny Washington the outsize influence it once enjoyed. Allowing the world to slide toward regional blocs or a two-bloc structure similar to that of the Cold War is a nonstarter. The United States, China, and the rest of the globe cannot fully uncouple when national economies, financial markets, and supply chains are irreversibly tethered together. A great-power steering group is the best option for managing an integrated world no longer overseen by a hegemon. A global concert fits the bill. It is amazing that at a time when the world is embroiled in internecine and extraneous struggles such a dream can be dreamt. They themselves agree that Pax Sinica is also a nonstarter.
For the foreseeable future, China will have neither the capability nor the ambition to anchor a global order . The world should be clear about its post-covit task. The struggle between democracy and illiberalism has to be fought on all fronts. Kim Jong ill cannot be allowed to play his game by frightening others. Those who can put pressure on him to stop his game and not be by stander. Other illiberal regimes in Europe and Africa have to change their course. All these tasks before the world should be done through pressure where necessary and discussions. Otherwise it will not be covit but the Third World War will see the end of mankind.
(The writer is a former Ambassador and secretary in Banglasdesh)
Tuesday, March 16, 2021
SOUTH ASIA ANALYSIS GROUP
Can China Ever Be an Alternative?
Paper No. 6765 Dated 14-Mar-2021
By Kazi Anwarul Masud
Decades back when the US reigned supreme in the aftermath of the Second World War, given both the political, moral and economic character that the world, many parts were yet under colonial rule, must follow, none had the courage including the European allies whose interests coincided with those of the US, to oppose the dictat.
The Americans had an easy acceptance of their views because these were based on democratic principles and consultations among the Europeans whose overseas colonies were not yet threatened. Indian politician Shashi Tharoor described Winston Churchill as having as much blood on his hands as the worst genocidal dictators. Dr Shashi Tharoor, whose book Inglorious Empire chronicles the atrocities Union, onslaught of pandemic with no clear sign of its abatement, turbulence in the of the British Empire, argued the former British Prime Minister’s reputation as a great wartime leader and protector of freedom as wholly miscast given his role in the Bengal famine which saw four million Bengalis starve to death. In 1943, up to four million Bengalis starved to death when Churchill diverted food to British soldiers and countries such as Greece while a deadly famine swept through Bengal.
India at that time was fighting for its independence, a peaceful non-cooperation movement under the leadership of Mahatma Gandhi( described by Churchill as “ alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious middle temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well known in the east, striding half-naked up the steps of the vice regal palace, while he is still organizing and conducting a defiant campaign of civil disobedience, to parley on equal terms with the representative of the king-emperor."
Despite many being imprisoned many times by the British, India won its independence in 1947. Why one may ask did the British and other colonial powers agree to relinquish their grip on the colonies which promoted their development with the colonies’ abundant resources? Perhaps the most compelling factor was Monroe Doctrine. In a speech to Congress in 1823, President James Monroe warned European powers not to attempt further colonization or otherwise interfere in the Western Hemisphere, stating that the United States would view any such interference as a potentially hostile act. Later known as the Monroe Doctrine, this policy principle would become a cornerstone of U.S. diplomacy for generations. From time to time later, US Presidents took refuge of the Monroe Doctrine.
Most importantly, President John Kennedy warned then Soviet Union to withdraw its nuclear weapons from Cuba. President John Kennedy ordered a naval and air quarantine of Cuba after the Soviet Union began building missile-launching sites there. In the 1980s, President Ronald Reagan similarly used the 1823 policy principle to justify U.S. intervention in El Salvador and Nicaragua, while his successor, George H.W. Bush, similarly sanctioned a U.S. invasion of Panama to oust Manuel Noriega.
But now changed definition of national security demise of Soviet global market, US China uneasy relationship Monroe Doctrine is no longer the defining criteria of national security. Rise of China as a political and economic power in the world has complicated the twin competition between the US and then Soviet Union for global influence. In simple term the fight centered on democratic and non-democratic forms of government. The US and her allies were democratic while the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence. A third force of newly freed colonies formed the Non-aligned Movement to register their independence from the two blocs.
1955 Non-aligned Movement held in Bandung Indonesia that brought together, U Nu, Gamal Abdul Nasser, Pandit Jawharlal Nehru, Marshall Tito, Kwame Nkruma, Ho Chi Minh, Zhou Enlai, as well as U Thant and Indira Gandhi was perhaps the largest assembly of world leaders who shaped the destiny of the world for many years to come. Bandung Conference adopted a "declaration on promotion of world peace and cooperation and a collective pledge to remain neutral in great power rivalry.
Non-aligned Movement (NAM) lost much of its relevance with the demise of the Soviet Union. More emphasis was given to economic development of member states and national security started getting new meaning. One such meaning is given by emphasis on economic development sometimes putting democracy at risk. To understand alliances today, we need first to understand how we got here. Thucydides tells us that alliances have been an enduring feature of war and conflict for thousands of years. Multilateral military arrangements allow states (and their historical analogues) to aggregate their capabilities and collaborate on common security challenges…. security challenges; multilateral military organizations like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance itself; (Kathleen Mclnnis - Nonresident Senior Fellow of Atlantic Council).
Ryan Haas tells his readers that China is not ten feet tall. It is becoming China and Russia challenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity. They are determined to make economies less free and less fair, to grow their militaries, and to control information and data to repress their societies and expand their influence. At the same time, the dictatorships of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the Islamic Republic of Iran are determined to destabilize regions, threaten Americans and our allies, and brutalize their own people. Transnational threat groups, from jihadist terrorists to transnational criminal organizations, are actively trying to harm Americans.
While these challenges differ in nature and magnitude, they are fundamentally contests between those who value human dignity and freedom and those who oppress individuals and enforce uniformity….. Contemporary international organizations and alliances are often formed without the specific goal of collaboratively conducting military operations, and when international organizations or other institutions do decide to undertake multilateral military operations, they often do so utilizing a subset of their membership. Not all NATO members have participated in all of NATO’s post–Cold War operations. Today, this U.S.-led hub-and-spoke system includes a variety of different strategic arrangements, most of which do not fit commonly accepted definitions of alliances.
These arrangements include: International institutions, such as the United Nations Security Council and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), to contend with a military and economic force because of the system of governance. Arthur Schelenger Jr explains : contrary to the conventional wisdom, India stagnated historically not because it was a democracy, but because, in the 1970s and 1980s, it was less democratic than it appeared. The economic consequences of this period of illiberalism were long lasting.
Many contrast India’s experience with that of China, implying that its economic success is derived from “an efficient, massive, and rapid embrace of the global economy” by a closed communist regime. But…the idea that China grew because of its one-party rule stems from a mistaken focus on a single snapshot in time at the expense of an understanding of shifting trends. China did not take off because it was authoritarian. Rather, it took off because the liberal political reforms of the 1980s made the country less authoritarian. As scholar Minxin Pei has noted, every single important political reform—such as the mandatory retirement of government officials, the strengthening of the National People’s Congress, legal reforms, experiments in rural self-government, and loosening control of civil society groups—was instituted in the 1980s. As happens with all autocracy cracks start within the ranks of the highest body though everyone has to be member of the Communist Party. Thus a plutocracy is born and tussles for power begins within.
An expert whose knowledge is regarded by many (The Party That Failed: An Insider Breaks With Beijing By Cai Xia January/February 2021) has observed that “Over the course of his tenure, the regime has degenerated further into a political oligarchy bent on holding on to power through brutality and ruthlessness. It has grown even more repressive and dictatorial.
A personality cult now surrounds Xi, who has tightened the party’s grip on ideology and eliminated what little space there was for political speech and civil society. People who haven’t lived in mainland China for the past eight years can hardly understand how brutal the regime has become, how many quiet tragedies it has authored. After speaking out against the system, I learned it was no longer safe for me to live in China”. Going back from the period Xi Jingpin when Deng Ziaoping was in power he declared: - The party had to represent three aspects of China: “the development requirements of advanced productive forces,” cultural progress, and the interests of the majority.
This was regarded as a significant shift in CCP ideology. In particular, the first of the Three Represents implied that Jiang was abandoning the core Marxist belief that capitalists were an exploitative social group. The emergence of Xi Jinping as the supreme leader of China despite reports of internal power struggle does not appear to harm Chinese rise as a super power. A lifelong communist and an important functionary has observed “Over the course of his tenure, the regime has degenerated further into a political oligarchy bent on holding on to power through brutality and ruthlessness. It has grown even more repressive and dictatorial. A personality cult now surrounds Xi, who has tightened the party’s grip on ideology and eliminated what little space there was for political speech and civil society.
One wonders how far the character of the absolute leader contributes to national and international events. Did Kaiser Wilhelm II cause the First World War (assassination of Arch Duke Ferdinand aside)? Did Adolf Hitler’s unbending attitude prolonged the Second Great War? Did the 9/11 attack on New York goaded George W Bush’s determination to take revenge influence his Middle East policy? Did Donald Trump’s declaration at his inauguration to make “America First” contribute to US-China trade war which President Joe Biden would have difficulty to contain?
Character does play an important role in international affairs. The international community however may remain edgy watching the Great Powers tussle lest they fall into Thucydides Trap that caused Peloponnesian war due to Sparta’s fear of a rising Athens. Such an eventuality is remote in democracy but may be a possibility in total autocracy. One may recall the words of then Secretary of Defense from 1973 to 1975 under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford
James Schlesinger during the cold war warned that Soviet Union should not be seen through “Ten Foot Tall Syndrome’. Schlesinger believed that the theory and practice of the 1950s and 1960s had been overtaken by events, particularly the rise of the Soviet Union to virtual nuclear parity with the United States. Schlesinger believed that "deterrence is not a substitute for defense; but the potential for effective counteraction, are the essential condition of deterrence.''
The demise of the Soviet Union has not ended the struggle for supremacy of global affairs. On the contrary the rise of China has thwarted the aspiration of the US to remain supreme in global affairs. Many analysts think growth could be as high as 9% in 2021, up from last year’s 2.3%. But the government is, publicly at least, setting its sights lower. Barring any major setbacks, that should be achievable. China would still reach 6% year-on-year growth for 2021 as a whole. The target of 6% growth is conservative. China’s rise is enviable but not without thorns for Xi Jinping on his way to be the emulated successor of Mao Zedong.
As an analyst pointed out although the Chinese economy has grown almost twelvefold over the past two decades, there have been repeated threats of a cascading debt crisis since he rose to power in 2012. In this context, Trump’s declaration of a trade war affected not only the Chinese economy but also Xi’s political standing. It also helped Donald Trump secure the Presidency as the slogan Trade Wars Are Class Wars, made a direct connection between international confrontation and rising domestic inequality within the world’s largest economies. Specifically, the critics argued that because Communist Party of China (CPC) elites chose to constrain domestic consumption and boost exports, US manufacturers suffered, and their displaced and disaffected workers then mobilized to deliver Trump the presidency in 2016.
Ironically China which is now a plutocracy Chinese Revolution came about as a revolt against foreign domination and feudalism. In 1978, almost 100 percent of China’s economic output came from the public sector; that figure has now dropped to less than 20 percent. China’s astronomical growth has produced massive increase in inequality. From 1985 to 2010, the country’s Gini coefficient leapt from 0.30 to around 0.50—higher than that of the United States and closer to the levels found in Latin America. Inequality in China has risen starkly within both rural and urban areas, and it has risen even more so in the country as a whole because of the increasing gap between those areas.
That growing inequality is evident in every divide—between rich and poor provinces, high-skilled workers and low-skilled workers, men and women, and the private sector and the state sector. Notably, there has also been an increase in China in the share of income from privately owned capital, which seems to be as concentrated there as in the advanced market economies of the West. A new capitalist elite has formed in China (Jerrry Z Muller-Catholic University of America-Washington D.C.). Is Chinese threat new or its style of governance is not the product of thousands of years of autocratic rule?
A recent example can be found in, the evidence of the atrocities that China has committed against Uyghurs. Over one million Uyghurs and other Muslim peoples in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang are in mass internment camps, prisons, and other penal institutions where they are subjected to psychological stress, torture, and, as recently reported of systematic rape. China was least worried about such reports and Chinese Foreign Minister dismissed it as propaganda against China’s success in economic sphere. At the National People’s Congress, an annual rubber-stamp parliament Chinese Prime Minister announced that China would target a fiscal deficit of 3.2% of GDP this year, down from last year’s 3.6%. China’s true fiscal deficit will be about 12% of GDP, compared with a record high of 15% last year. That is a retrenchment, but still higher than its deficit in 2019, of roughly 10% of GDP. Many analysts believed that growth could be as high as 9% and therefore the government’s estimate of 6% growth was conservative.
To the Chinese, President Bill Clinton turned out to be better than his other predecessors. In his second term, Congress granted China permanent trading privileges, and Clinton began the process of negotiating for China’s admission to the World Trade Organization, which happened in 2001. Throughout successive Administrations, the U.S. mostly followed a strategy of engagement with China. Even President Obama’s “Pivot to Asia” policy, which was intended to counter China’s growing influence in the region, seemed to have little real effect.
Donald Trump’s China bashing infuriated the Chinese particularly his accusation of Chinese concealment of covet in Wuhan province from the WHO and the world. USA till today is the worst affected country in the world in terms of death, people infected by the disease and in all other criteria. During Trump his Deputy National Security Advisor Mathew Pottinger and National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien advised President Trump that it was the greatest national security threat to Trump Presidency and far more serious than SARS that killed 50 million people worldwide and advised complete travel ban from and to China.
After Trump’s chaotic foreign policy pursuit President Joe Biden in addressing the State Department said: America’s alliances are our greatest asset, and leading with diplomacy means standing shoulder-to-shoulder with our allies and key partners once again. By leading with diplomacy, we must also mean engaging our adversaries and our competitors diplomatically, where it’s in our interest, and advance the security of the American people. He pointedly mentioned China and said: American leadership must meet this new moment of advancing authoritarianism, including the growing ambitions of China to rival the United States and the determination of Russia to damage and disrupt our democracy.
Undoubtedly China’s power is growing. Today, writes Harvard’s Joseph Nye Jr, nearly 100 countries count China as their largest trading partner, compared to 57 for the US. China plans to lend more than $1 trillion for infrastructure projects with its Belt and Road Initiative over the next decade, while the US has cut back aid. China will gain economic power from the sheer size of its market as well as its overseas investments and development assistance. China’s overall power relative to the US is likely to increase. Yet the US has no reason to believe in Ten Feet Syndrome for China. It will take many tears for China to catch up with the US both militarily, US military expenditure is four times that of China,
Economically, by the end of 2020, IMF forecasts that China GDP will reach $15.5 trillion, whereas the US GDP will reach $22.3 trillion. IMF forecasts China GDP per capita to reach $10,971 in 2020. This will still be less than that of the US GDP per capita in 1980, which was $12,553. Despite Sino-US rivalry the possibility of a conflict between the two is remote. Even though China is ahead of US in GDP Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), China GDP PPP per capita is still one-third of that of the US. The problem however remains as pointed out by Singaporean Prime Minister (The Endangered Asian Century America, China, and the Perils of Confrontation By Lee Hsien Loong July/August 2020) relates to the troubled U.S.-Chinese relationship that raises profound questions about Asia’s future and the shape of the emerging international order. Southeast Asian countries, including Singapore, are especially concerned, as they live at the intersection of the interests of various major powers and must avoid being caught in the middle or forced into invidious choices. Lee Hsien Loong advises the two powers “must work out a modus vivendi that will be competitive in some areas without allowing rivalry to poison cooperation in others.
Asian countries see the United States as a resident power that has vital interests in the region. At the same time, China is a reality on the doorstep. Asian countries do not want to be forced to choose between the two. And if either attempts to force such a choice—if Washington tries to contain China’s rise or Beijing seeks to build an exclusive sphere of influence in Asia—they will begin a course of confrontation that will last decades and put the long-heralded Asian century in jeopardy”. Lee Hsien Loong added the obvious that the prime driver of the prosperity of the free world has been the US open market, its rule based economic system, and its practice of democracy.
It is inconceivable that Xi Jinping’s autocracy can ever be an alternative.
(The author is a former Ambassador and Secretary in the Foreign Ministry of Bangadesh)
Friday, February 19, 2021
SOUTH ASIA ANALYSIS GROUP
Surging Inequality and possible Social disharmony- in Asian Context
Paper No. 6754 Dated 18-Feb-2021
By Kazi Anwarul Masud
Karl Schwab of World Economic Forum (February 9th 2021) praised China’s Xi Jinxing’s speech that came at an historic time for the global economy.
For the first time in 200 years, Asia is the world economy’s dominant region, set to account for more than half of global
To be sure, the news is not all bad. Globally, income inequality has decreased in recent decades, thanks largely to economic progress in countries like China and India. Though full participation in the global economy has reduced inequality it has not offset the sharp and deeply worrying rise in inequality within countries, including the US and much of Europe, as well as China and India. Schwab’ however, admits the fundamental difference between Xi Jinping’s authoritarianism with democratic values of other countries where peoples’ voice are heard and makes a difference in the ultimate decision made.
As Arvind Subramanian argues (After Capital A Radical Agenda to Tame Inequality By Arvind Subramanian July/August 2020) giving the example of the USA whose economy faces taxi metered ambulance where profit making is the business of the business it is necessary to raise the voice of dissenters “those who want to raise minimum wages and change antimonopoly laws, or to reform corporate governance and socialize medicine. Referring to French economist Thomas Piketty, who wants to overhaul capitalism beyond the point of recognition by abolishing permanent private property altogether. Subramanian adds that Picketty’s Capital and Ideology “was premised on the idea that an iron law of capitalism, captured in the expression r > g—meaning that the returns on capital would exceed overall economic growth—has doomed societies to ever-greater degrees of inequality. Essentially, r captures the income made by capitalists, and g, that made by society as a whole; if the expression holds, inequality will rise in favor of the former group.
Piketty raises a fundamental question: Why have all the revolutions and upheavals of history, which were intended to overthrow an unfair social order, ended up changing so little for those at the bottom of the pyramid? Inequality in France on the eve of World War I was much greater than it was before the French Revolution: in Paris, for example, the share of total private property of the top one percent was about ten percentage points greater in 1910 than in 1780. Whatever may have happened to liberté and fraternité, it is clear that égalité ended up serving more as a rousing call to arms than as a realized outcome. Piketty explains this puzzle through historical examples drawn from the aftermath of upheavals in Brazil, France, Haiti, India, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In all those cases, societies were keen to compensate owners of property—land, capital, and slaves—but never the peasants or the slaves themselves…. Why have history's revolutions ended up changing so little for those at the bottom?”
The impulse Piketty describes stems from the sacralization of property. Those in powers, even if they had gotten there by means of a revolutionary overthrow of the previous political order, feared that if property rights were seriously violated, the economic and social order would collapse. And so the contest between justice and property rights was never really a contest: around the mid-1800s, the British preferred to pay wealthy slaveholders in the Caribbean about five percent of the United Kingdom’s
In his Leviathan Thomas Picketty gives credit to India for reducing the disparity in the ratio of lower-caste to upper-caste incomes which is higher in India than the ratio of black people’s incomes to white people’s incomes in the USA and South Africa and India has posted stronger improvements over time, as well. That achievement elicits a positive assessment from Piketty of India’s attempt to redress caste inequality via affirmative action or “reservations”: a euphemism for strict, constitutionally enshrined quotas for certain castes in public-sector jobs, government, and educational institutions. At the country’s independence, such quotas were set at about 22.5 percent for “scheduled castes” (the so-called Untouchables) and “scheduled tribes” (indigenous communities). Over time, they have been extended to different social groups, such as “Other Backward Classes,” and they now reach as high as 60 percent in some sectors.
Among Indians, especially those from upper castes, such reservations have become increasingly controversial as their reach has expanded”. How far can the already disbelieving world continue to bank on Chinese speeches? In the Davos meeting, pointed out by Eli Friedman (Why China Is Capitalist Toward an Anti-Nationalist Anti-Imperialism Eli Friedman July 15, 2020), “ China’s rapid evolution from one of the most economically equal countries in the world to one of the most unequal is suggestive of major structural shifts”. China’s membership in the WTO, Friedman adds, the government’s continued insistence that it is in fact a market economy, or Xi Jinxing defending globalization in Davos and advocating for the market to play a “decisive role” in resource allocation, as signs that the state is embracing capitalism.
Similarly, one can find widespread cultural expressions that suggest an underlying capitalist orientation, including the valorization of hard work, a crass consumerism, and worship of the unique genius of corporate heroes from Steve Jobs to Jack Ma. It would, however, be a mistake to confound such effects of capitalism with capitalism itself”. China, a vast country of 1.3 billion people is heterogeneous with consequent inequality of income despite the surge of rural people rushing towards cities where jobs can be found but at a cost that has to be borne. Change of residence from village to cities deprive those leaving their place where they are originally registered would deprive them of the facilities, they were entitled had they not shifted from the village. One may ask the reason of the exodus of rural people to crowded cities where increasingly technical works are difficult to come by and in any case unfit for the rushing rural people with little or no knowledge of rudimentary technology. Such a situation results not only in increasing income inequality but at the same time demand push increase in the price of commodities.
Could one opt for Thomas Picketty’s revolutionary proposal of “Patek Philippe Custodialism” which contains a proposal of giving certain amount of money to each individual at the age of 25 or there about to start a business thus ensuring his future. Such a proposal even if affordable to developed economies would not be acceptable to a rich country like China or much poorer third world countries either because they do not have the resources or would push up price of consumer goods to an already impoverished people. There is also the possibility of financial repression if people find price of commodities being too high that it would be preferable to keep the money in the bank, many banks are offering advantages to clients,
Bangladesh may be cited as an example, assuming that these people have money to spare. This writer had in the past expressed his opinion that India’s economic and political health are of crucial importance to her neighbors. China as an alternative is not acceptable to India’s neighbors for historical and economic reasons. But for Bangladesh as a Muslim nation other countries-Nepal, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Bhutan have more similarity with India. Branco Milanovic (China’s Inequality Will Lead It to a Stark Choice a New Oligarchy Can Be Restrained Only by the Government That Made It February 11, 2021) considers stark inequality as the Achilles for China. He thinks “China’s inequality looks at first glance like the predictable product of rapid growth and urbanization. But aspects of the country’s distribution of wealth and income are more particular. They rise from the nexus of economic and political power within the Chinese system, and they suggest that the country’s leadership faces a difficult choice as to how, and whether, to restrain the growing power of new elite.”
The level of income inequality in China today is very high. According to the official data China’s Gini coefficient (a measure of inequality that ranges from 0 to 1) is around 0.47. By comparison, that of the United States is around 0.41. Chinese leaders have insisted a number of times that inequality above 0.40 is potentially destabilizing. Milanovic adds: A person with the median urban income in China is in the 70th global percentile (meaning that he or she is richer than 70 percent of humankind), while a person with the median rural income is in the 52nd global percentile. Differently put, the average urban person in China is as rich as the average person in Hungary, whereas the average rural person in China is as poor as the average person in Vietnam.
One study comparing Chinese and American inequality has shown that 22 percent of Chinese inequality is due to these two “structural” features—inequality among provinces and between urban and rural areas. According to the UN and World Bank indices (2020) the ratio of the average income of the richest 10% to the poorest 10%. and the ratio of the average income of the richest 20% to the poorest 20% and Gini coeffient is:-21.6,10.2, 38.5 and 2016 while that of India are 8.6, 55, 37.8 and 2011. The world’s richest 1% has more than twice as much wealth as 6.9 billion people. Only 4 cents in every dollar of tax revenue comes from taxes on wealth. It is generally reported that in both India and China, income inequality substantially grew after the economic liberalization of the 1980s. In India, the top 10% income share grew from 30% in the 1980s to over 56% in 2019, while in China; the top 10% share grew from 28% in 1980 to 41% in 2019.
In Asia, within-country inequality has been rising significantly since the 1990s. In India, the top 10% income share grew from 30% in the 1980s to over 56% today, following deregulation and liberalization reforms. In contrast, the top 10% share in China grew from 28% to 41% in 2019. The lower rise of inequality in China was associated with stronger growth rates and much faster poverty eradication than in India, showing that more economic growth need not necessarily mean increased inequality.
In such a situation where does Bangladesh go? Due to historical and geographic reasons Bangladesh must remain in Indian orbit. India is already in the top table in the world (G 20 and other organizations). Most importantly India is a democracy while China is not. Till the British left in 1947 most of the South Asian countries, barring Nepal and Afghanistan, were one entity. Even looking at recent history but for Indian assistance Bangladesh war of liberation could not have been achieved so quickly. Despite recent interpretation of few hundred years of Muslim rule of India by a section firmly rooting themselves in the concept of Hindutva’s articulated by Vinayak Damodar Savarkar as foreign rule, Hindutva is the main inspirational theology of the ruling political party. According to Association of Asian Studies “The exploration of the relationship between Hinduism as a religion and Hindutva as a political philosophy has become a virtual academic cottage industry that shows no signs of slowing down. In popular writings on the subject, Hindutva has been variously described as “Hinduism on steroids,” as “Hinduism which resists.”
A preliminary way of understanding the difference between Hinduism and Hindutva would be to recognize that Hinduism is a religion (however defined) while Hindu nationalism, or Hindutva, is a political ideology, whose relation to the religion of Hinduism could be considered analogous to the relationship between Christianity and Christian fundamentalism or Islam and Islamic fundamentalism. There is, however, one key difference. Hinduism is a plural tradition, as compared to Christianity and Islam which possess well defined universal creedal formulations that are largely absent in Hinduism according to most observers. Therefore, Hindu “fundamentalism” is remarkably thin in terms of religious content as compared to Christianity and Islam. What follows is an attempt to analyze the differences between Hinduism and Hindutva by identifying the points that separate or divide them”.
It therefore appears that difference in religion alone cannot and should not divide our two countries. Bangladesh shall continue to have friendly relations with China more so because of the benefits expected from China’s Road and Belt Initiative. Bangladesh officially became a partner member of BRI project when the Chinese President visited Bangladesh in 2016 when several deals between the 2 countries were signed. Under the deal, Bangladesh will receive $26 billion for BRI and $14 billion for joint venture project (totaling $40 billion). The big Chinese loan is expected to be invested in power / infrastructure/manufacturing industries.
Geographically, writes Dr Jashimuddin of Bangladesh Bank, Bangladesh holds a strategically important position blessed with the easy access to the Bay of Bengal and the Indian Ocean. Out of 2 maritime and 6 economic corridors under BRI initiative, one will pass through Bangladesh (the corridor that starts at Kunming city in China, passes through Myanmar and then enters the North East part of India. The corridor finally ends up to Kolkata via Bangladesh). To all intents and purposes, Bangladesh can be a suitable connecting corridor between the semi-industrialized ASEAN (Association of South East Asian countries) and the highly populated fast growing Indian sub-continent. Despite considerable Bangladesh-China trade. the amount of foreign trade between Bangladesh and China is about 10 billion dollars. Bangladesh import about 8 billion dollars of goods from China while it exports 2 billion dollar of goods. Bangladesh Balance of Trade Bangladesh recorded a trade deficit of 98.20 BDT Billion in June of 2019. Balance of Trade in Bangladesh averaged -29.24 BDT Billion from 1976 until 2019, reaching an all time high in April of 1977 and a record low of -209.80 BDT Billion in May of 2018.
An Indian critique( Economic Times-July 11 2020) cautions Bangladesh that China’s decision to offer duty free access to Bangladesh is merely a promise on paper as Beijing has very stringent Rules of Origin criteria and lot of concessions remain on paper. This so called “diplomatic victory” by China involving duty free access taking advantage of the pandemic can only push a promising economy into distress and despair. Chinese trade concessions can push Bangladesh into a 'dual-deficit and debt trap'. China’s decision to offer duty free access to Bangladesh is merely a promise on paper as Beijing has very stringent Rules of Origin criteria and lot of concessions remain on paper. This so called “diplomatic victory” by China involving duty free access taking advantage of the pandemic can only push a promising economy into distress and despair. This could force Dhaka to accept stringent terms and conditions .Beijing’s moves come as BRI projects get delayed ever since Covid outbreak. “While BRI projects may not be shelved, they will most certainly be plagued by delays. China is already facing requests for debt relief. In South Asia, the Maldives has sought to renegotiate its debt to China while Bangladesh has reportedly requested China to consider deferring payments. In October 2018 then Vice President of the USA in a speech at the Hudson Institute accused China of militarization of South and South East Asia and of practicing “debt diplomacy” in developing countries. Cases of Sri Lanka and Laos need no reiteration.
Bangladesh is India's biggest trade partner in South Asia. Bilateral trade between India and Bangladesh has grown steadily over the last decade. India's exports to Bangladesh in FY 2018-19 stood at $9.21 billion and imports during the same period was at $1.04 billion. Despite occasional problems, particularly in land based connectivity, political desire to cement bilateral relationship overcomes difficulties mentioned above. China will remain as a gargantuan in the area and all South Asian countries will have to deal with it in accordance with their national interests. Relations between China and India does not have to be a zero one sum of the game theory.
In our case relations with India has to remain a mathematical constant if it always assumes the same value independent of how its parameters are varied.
(The writer is a former Ambassador and Secretary in Bangladesh Foreign Service)
Monday, January 25, 2021
SOUTH ASIA ANALYSIS GROUP
Indo-Bangladesh Relation in Post Trump Era
Paper No. 6741 Dated 25-Jan-2021
By Kazi Anwarul Masud
Now that Donald Trump has finally gone the damning of his administration by Francis Fukuyama (Rotten to the Core), Stephen Walt( Hell of Good Intentions: America’s Foreign Policy Elites), John Mearshiemer’s ( The Great Delusion: Liberal Dreams and International Realities) and many others have not only joined force for the deliberate slide of American international standing, but many like NYT’s Jennifer Rubin’s eulogy of January 21st 2021 (Joe Biden delivers one of the best inaugural addresses in memory) hopes for a better America more inclusive like a middle class foreign policy bringing anew democracies still reluctant to join forces with the US fearing that the country may not again elect an authoritarian President more at home with Capitol burning mob reminiscent of Hitler’s burning of Bundestag than democracies more at home with peaceful transfer of power.
Fukuyama exhorted the world to look at the Universal Declaration of Human Rights based on the principle of universal human dignity, “without distinction of any kind, such as race, color, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth, or other status” as the lodestar. Thomas Carothers and Andrew O!Donahue( of Carnegie Endowment of International Peace) have described political polarization in South and South East Asia as with entrenched political divides and limiting liberalization of taking faltering steps towards democracy.
It is surprising that the largest democracy in the world—India—has been bracketed in the group of taking ‘faltering steps” if one were to, constitutional legality aside, India since liberation from British rule in 1947 has been practicing unbroken democratic rule. The recent constitutional changes regarding status of Kashmir and persecution of a minority have blighted the Image India had created for decades. This polarization based on religious differences, one hopes, would not only be confined within definable geographical area but also would be temporary in a country that houses people of different ethnic, religious, an identity thus avoiding polarization which India can ill afford.
Carothers and O!Donohue observed utilizing “ a common definition of severe polarization developed by Jennifer McCoy and Murat Somer. In their path-breaking recent work, these scholars define severe or “pernicious” polarization as “a process whereby the normal multiplicity of differences in the society increasingly align[s] along a single dimension, cross-cutting differences become reinforcing, and people increasingly perceive and describe politics and society in terms of ‘us’ versus ‘them”. The authors added the comments by Niranjan Sahoo that the divide between secular and Hindu nationalist visions of Indian identity forms the crux of polarization.
Although country’s political tensions have been simmering since the 1980s, the Hindu right’s landslide electoral victories in 2014 and 2019 brought polarization to a boil. In the current context of toxic partisanship, attacks on independent institutions have increased, violence against minority communities has flared up, and the electoral success of Hindu nationalist parties has rendered the opposition reluctant to defend pluralism and minority rights. In a panel discussion (Constitution, Democracy, and Citizenship - Circa 2020) Niranjan Sahoo expressed his opinion for a need to protect and safeguard the Constitution which remained the mother of not just Indian democracy but also seen as the bible to understand the working of democracy worldwide. He explained how CAA and NRC have become a serious threat to the citizen and the idea of citizenship. He argued, “The citizenship idea will not wither away or be deleted from Constitution but the very notion of its day to day affairs of the Republic is witnessing a sort of systematic erosion. And it is not largely through the constitutional changes but through the politics on street. Sahoo appealed for the need for more collective action and mobilization as happened in the case of farmer’s agitation and anti-CAA protests.
These unprecedented ideological transformations and unprecedented mobilization can challenge the majoritarian state not just in terms of ideas but also in terms of politics on the streets. As the Indians themselves are critical of the Central government’s policies so it is natural for the immediate neighbors to be alert as developments in India affect their internal and external policies. Some of Indian neighbors are more affected than others. Bangladesh is the most prominent among them. Muslim population is estimated to be 165 million with a density of 1265 per sq kilometer. Hindu population is estimated to be 13 million or about 9% of the total population. It used to be 30% in 1947. Partition of India and Pakistan was the major reason for the exodus of Hindus from then East Pakistan. It is surmised that the representation of Hindus in government service and in law enforcement agencies is more than in proportion to the Hindu population in Bangladesh.
Besides the imposition of Citizenship Amendment Act in Assam and cross border killing of Bangladeshi citizens by BSF is increasingly becoming an issue of concern to Bangladesh authorities. Yet relations between the two neighbors are and have to be as friendly as possible. India has promised to provide covid vaccine to Bangladesh at the same time as is provided to Indian nationals. The effect of temporary stoppage of the export of onions from India to Bangladesh is of recent memory. Inter-country relations are determined by several factors of which geographical proximity is an important factor.
India and Bangladesh share a common border of 4096 km running through five Indian states, West Bengal, Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram. India’s relations with Bangladesh are traditionally, cultural, social and economic. There is a much that brings them together-a shared history and common heritage linguistic and cultural ties, passion for music, literature and the arts. India shares not only a common history of struggle for freedom and liberation but also enduring feeling of both fraternal as well as familial ties (Javid Ahmad Mir, Research Scholar at School of Social Sciences, Devi Ahlya Viswavidalya , Indore, India). Many opine that Indian help to Bangladesh in 1971 was more dictated by her resolve to dismember Pakistan than to see an immediate neighbor in distress. Hosting about a million refugees from then East Pakistan had put immense pressure on India. If Bangabandhu
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman was the Father of Bangladesh in whose name millions of Bangladeshis fought and won the war of independence then the undeterred resolve and untiring efforts of then Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi brought the war of independence to fruition. But for Henry Kissinger’s Machiavellian policy of creating a front with China Indian forces were within striking distance of capturing Lahore the second most important city of Pakistan. BBC termed a report by Anthony Mascarehas, then a Pakistani journalist on genocide committed on unarmed Bengalis as a first hand report exposing to the world yet unaware of the extent of brutality committed in the “civilized” society of twentieth century. Similarly Christopher Hitchens in his book Trial of Henry Kissinger named Bangladesh as one of those countries indicting Henry Kissinger for authorizing in “Indochina, Bangladesh, Chile, Cyprus, East Timor, and in the plight of the Iraqi Kurds, "including conspiracy to commit murder, kidnap, and torture. "With the precision and tenacity of a prosecutor, Hitchens offers an unrepentant portrait of a felonious diplomat who "maintained that laws were like cobwebs," and implores governments around the world, including our own, to bring him swiftly to justice”.
Many books and articles have been written on genocide in Bangladesh and should continue to be written so that the world jumping from crisis to crisis do not forget those who laid down their lives for freedom. No less important, perhaps more in many cases, is the economic relations between neighbors. Bangladesh’s dependence on India is considerable given the fact that bilateral trade between India and Bangladesh has grown steadily over the last decade. India’s exports to Bangladesh in FY 2018-19 stood at $9.21 billion and imports during the same period was at $1.04 billion. In comparison, Bangladesh’s trade deficit with China is hugely tilted in Beijing’s favour. Bangladesh being hemmed on three sides by India land related trade is logical option. Besides India’s economy being one of the largest in the world and growing fast ( less than that of China due to its democratic way of decision making compared to Xi Jiping’s dictatorial way) the opportunity of discussion before decisions are taken is favorable to India’s neighbors used to the practice since the British left Indian subcontinent. In May last year Britain proposed formation of D10—that would include existing G 7 and include India, South Korea and Australia to create a wall of democracies against external threats from China and other non-democracies admitting at the same time fractures within democracies caused mainly during the Trump years.
As Hal Brands (John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies) pointed out “Most important, Trump’s recognition that the great gamble of post–Cold War foreign policy—the effort to pacify China through integration and, eventually, liberalization—had failed, freed the Pentagon and other agencies to begin crafting a more competitive approach. It took an illiberal president to identify the distortions and illusions that had accumulated within the liberal order—Last Chance for American Internationalism).
Trump has already made history by becoming the first President of the US to be impeached twine for his foolhardy domestic and foreign policies. Whether Joe Biden’s Presidency would be able to fully weather the fallout of Trump’s legacy remains to be seen. For South Asia India’s domestic and foreign policies would remain to have immediate impact. Bangladesh in particular as the only Muslim majority country in India’s vicinity would need to remain alert.
The writer is a former Secretary and Ambassador in the Foreign Service of Bangladesh.