Preoccupation with China shaping global politics

For small states claiming Non-aligned status it’s the worst of times. While putting their economies in shape will alone prove a gruelling challenge at present, their difficulties will likely be compounded by a growing need to give the impression to their constituencies and the world of being truly Non-aligned and independent in their foreign policy formulation and thinking.

The latter need is bound to intensify in the face of increasing polarizations among the principal powers in their scramble for establishing spheres of influence and power globally. In the days ahead, financial need will prove a major embarrassment for the smaller states of the South in particular and Non-alignment will emerge as a luxury they could ill-afford.

Sri Lanka at present is a case in point. It cannot risk falling out with neither the US nor China. They are both badly needed by Sri Lanka. On the regional plane, Sri Lanka cannot afford to cosy-up to China, so to speak, at the expense of India. Both countries are needed in equal measure by Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka would be compelled to opt for a considerable degree of tight rope walking in its relations with these major countries if it is to survive in economic terms in particular. The same goes for most small Indian Ocean countries. For instance, the Maldives has chosen to deepen its defence and security ties with the US.

This development occurs at a time of stepped-up big power activity in the Indian Ocean coupled with shrinking economic prospects for the majority of countries in this part of the world. The US-Maldives security pact is widely seen as an attempt at containing a perceived heightening of the Chinese presence in the Northern Indian Ocean.

But the likelihood is great that China will emerge as more willing to provide financial assistance and investment to Sri Lanka, in the latter’s current financial crunch, rather than India, although the latter will continue to stand by Sri Lanka, constraints notwithstanding. Nothing new will be said by stating that India-Sri Lanka cordiality took a blow in the recent Colombo Port East Container terminal fiasco which played out in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka will be up against the difficult dilemma of ‘getting closer’ to China at the cost of antagonizing India. What are Sri Lanka’s options in this unenviable situation? This is the question Sri Lanka’s foreign policy pundits would need to intelligibly answer.

It is all too plain that it is in the area of foreign policy that the developing countries in general and the small states in particular would come up against some of the most uphill challenges. They would need to take strong note of the fact that the US and India are now the firmest of allies. And it is the democratic system that is proving a principal driving factor in the cementing of US-India relations.

Making telephonic contact with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently for the first time since coming to power, US President Joe Biden told Modi, among other things, that ‘India-US ties are held together by a shared commitment to democratic values.’

At first blush, these sentiments may seem to be more rhetorical in nature than expressive of the substantive issues that underlie US-India ties but it needs to be recognized that current developments in global politics have served to emphasize the democratic dimension in the ties between the US and India than perhaps ever before.

The US and India, it could be argued, have a common interest in containing the power and influence of China in particularly the ‘Indo-Pacific’ region and that this is the sole cementing element in their ties, but India’s strong tilt towards economic liberalization or ‘economic freedom’ over the past 30 years or more has served to bolster its relations with the US in a particularly significant fashion. This reality is inescapable.

That is, ‘market economics’ and the resultant economic dynamism that has swept India since the collapse of the Cold War has contributed immensely towards strengthening Indo-US ties. This development clinches the point that ‘socio-economic condition determines consciousness’ and in this context the ‘consciousness’ concerned is democracy. However, whether the cause of equity has been served to the desired degree in India and for that matter in the US is another matter deserving a separate discussion.

However, there’s no disputing the point that big power rivalry, or ‘geopolitics’, to use a threadbare cliché, is playing its part as well in bringing the US and India together, besides shared democratic values. China’s influence is seen as rising in the Asia-Pacific and outside and the magnitude of this perceived rise is such that it has prompted the formation of a new US-led security bloc: ‘The Quad’. The latter comprises, besides the US; Japan, India and Australia. In fact, the need to strengthen this bloc was another subject that was discussed between President Biden and Prime Minister Modi in their recent telephone conversation.

There is no ‘cold war’ mentality as such on the part of the majority of ‘Quad’ members by thus coming together. They are powers in their own right and it is their aim to be untrammelled regional heavyweights in the Asia-Pacific that is motivating them in the main to target the perceived spreading influence of China. From the point of view of a major regional power a ‘Quad’ type alliance is justified since power balancing is part of the substance of international politics. It is a ‘given’ in global politics.

However, it is not the case that China and India are ‘natural enemies’, so to speak. They do have their differences and some of these are long-standing, such as their border dispute. But China and India, although not the warmest of neighbours, have been engaged in bridge-building over the years and these efforts have very often borne fruit. In fact, their commonalities are numerous and there are scores of meetings between the two civilizations where their minds meet. The observer would be naive to base his assessments of Indo-China ties on entirely Western media reports and comments. There’s very much more than meets the eye in the India-China ‘equation’.