The Hindu Business Line : Is a multipolar world achievable?

A US National Intelligence Council report recognises that the emergence of India and China, as well as other new global players, will transform the geopolitical landscape in this century. But despite the greater trends towards multipolarity in the global order, the US will unquestionably remain the pre-eminent global power, provided it retains the present technological edge, says G. PARTHASARATHY.

When the Cold War ended with the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991, the US emerged as the world’s sole superpower. Even today, it remains the pre-eminent power on the world stage, but is increasingly conscious of the limitations of its military power. It realises that it has to act in concert with other influential powers to achieve common goals.

A crucial question for India is how it figures in the emerging equations of global power. Few analysts would disagree with some of the findings of the US National Intelligence Council (NIC) in its Report about emerging global power equations till the year 2020, entitled “Mapping the Global Future”.

The principal finding in the NIC Report is that even in the year 2020, the US will remain the most powerful actor in the world economically, militarily and technologically. US pre-eminence will, however, not be undisputed. Its position cannot be sustained if it loses its present technological edge. Studies by some of our economic experts tally with this assessment.

The power shift

The NIC report recognises that the emergence of India and China, as well as other new global players, will transform the geopolitical landscape in this century, with impacts similar to the rise of a United Germany in the 19th Century and the US in the 20th century.

Given rapid rates of economic growth in Asia, the balance of economic power will inevitably shift from Europe to Asia, which will become the world’s manufacturing hub in the coming decades.

The main challenges that countries in Asia will face to sustain their growth rates will arise from instability in the oil-rich Persian Gulf region, which could jeopardise security of energy supplies from terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

The Report notes that facilitated by global communications, radical Islamic ideology will spur terrorism globally in coming years.

While this may be true, the US will hopefully recognise that the use of force for effecting regime change, or selectively targeting countries for non-proliferation goals, can only exacerbate an already volatile situation in the Persian Gulf. Thus, we are going to see greater trends towards multipolarity in the global order, though the US will unquestionably remain the pre-eminent global power.

In these circumstances, we need to analyse how the US and China will view other players in coming years. While the Bush Administration has followed a dual policy of engagement and containment in dealing with both Russia and China, will such a policy continue under a new Democratic Party dispensation?

Senator Hillary Clinton (now a frontrunner in the US Presidential elections of 2008) recently stated: “Our relationship with China will be the most important relationship in the world in this century”.

While acknowledging differences with China on issues such as human rights, religious freedoms and Tibet, Senator Clinton noted: “There is much that the US and China can and must accomplish together”.

Senator Clinton, however warned the Russians against “regional interference”, evidently alluding to the ongoing rivalry between the US and Russia over the oil and gas resources of the Central Asian and Caspian Regions and in former Soviet Republics, neighbouring Russia.

Tensions in US-American relations have been exacerbated by the US plans to install Missile Defence Systems in Poland and the Czech Republic.

The Russians have retaliated with the suspension of implementation of the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty, stepping up missile development and reviving regular flights of strategic bombers.

Russian-Chinese bonhomie

Most American academics believe that with its declining population, outdated technologies and poor standards of governance, Russia’ role in world affairs can be marginalised, unlike the role of China. This could be a serous miscalculation, as it underestimates Russian resilience and ingenuity in the face of adversity.

The US also expects that the current phase of Russian-Chinese bonhomie will end, as differences grow on issues such as the movement of Chinese into the under-populated Siberian Region and over access to the energy and natural resources of Central Asia.

The expectation is that after benefiting from transfers of weapons and missile technologies from the Russians, the Chinese will gradually dump the Russians, as Mao did in the 1960s — culminating in the Mao-Nixon honeymoon in 1972.

Should a Democratic Party Administration assume office in the US in 2009, India will find the US making common cause with China, as it did in the 1990s, to compel India to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and ‘cap’ its nuclear weapons programme by ending production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons.

At the same time, however, the US will have an interest in engaging an economically resurgent India.

As Senator Clinton noted: “In Asia, India has a special significance, both as an emerging power and the world’s most populous democracy”…. “We must find additional ways for Australia, India, Japan and the US to cooperate on issues of mutual concern”.

Given the predominant role that former Clinton aides envisage for China — the role of a “benign hegemon” in East Asia, according to some — India will have to seek much closer relations with China’s neighbours such as Russia, Japan and Vietnam, if a healthy balance of power in Asia is to be ensured.

China’s distaste for ‘Look-East’ policy

Given the “compulsions of coalition politics,” New Delhi has downplayed the extent of Chinese efforts to contain India in recent days.

While China has no qualms about continuing its assistance to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and missile programmes and seeks to surround India with naval facilities in Sittwe, Hambantota, Gwadar and elsewhere in the Indian Ocean, it makes no secret of its distaste for our “Look East “ policies of seeking closer ties with Asean.

Commenting on India’s recent foreign policy initiatives, the influential “Renmin Ribao” noted in August 2007: “The US-India nuclear agreement has strong symbolic significance (for India) achieving its dream of a powerful nation…In recent years, it (India) implemented a “Look East” policy and joined most regional organisations in the East Asia Region”. Thus, the Chinese find India’s legitimate efforts to break out from the shackles of global nuclear sanctions, or to extend its influence in East Asia, unpalatable.

China’s recent bellicosity in laying claim to the entire State of Arunachal Pradesh and effectively repudiating the August 2005 Wen Jiabao-Manmohan Singh Agreement, which stated that “in reaching a border settlement the two sides shall safeguard populations in border areas,” is a signal that it will use its border claims in Arunachal Pradesh as a tool to compel India to go slow in developing relations with both the US and the countries of East and South-East Asia.

Reiterating China’s claims not merely to the monastery town of Tawang, but to the whole of Arunachal Pradesh, China’s Foreign Minister, Mr Yang Jiechi, proclaimed: “The mere presence of populated areas in Arunachal Pradesh would not affect China’s claims on the border”.

China will also unabashedly use its apologists and “political assets” in India to achieve this. While the Chinese may pay lip service to their love for a “multipolar world”, there should be no doubt that in coming years, their primary aim is to become the dominant power in Asia, while seeking to fashion a bipolar world order, with the tacit acquiescence of the Americans.

(The author is a former High Commissioner to Pakistan.)

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