A Different View of the World

The Indian Express 1st September 2020 Save

Context: In dealing with Chinese power, India needs an internationalism that is rooted in realism and tied to India's economic and national security priorities.

Evidence of clash between Grandiose Internationalism and the Intractable nationalism

India's decision to pull out of this month's military exercise of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which was to herald a new era of Eurasian unity, being trumped by contradiction between India-China.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's claim to leadership of the Muslim world that has run into resistance from a large section of the Arab rulers who have not forgotten the Ottoman imperial rule.

The tension between the Globalism of the United States foreign policy establishment and the President's America First nationalism.

Oppositions to Globalism and their inherent failures: Internationalism has survived many challenges throughout history, leading to the failure of its opposition.

Communist Challenge:

"Congress of the Peoples of the East" in Baku: under the garb of Communist International was minted in 1920 to spread the revolution to Asia amidst setback to imperialism.

However, it remained elusive as the Soviet agreed to scale down its jihad against the British empire once the prospects of trade opened up.

Nationalistic Challenge: National purpose may well be baked into the framing of a universal ideology.

For E.g. Some scholars argue Moscow's internationalism is very much part of Russian religious tradition and its self-perception as a redeemer of both the West and the East.
Critics of liberalism have long pointed to the difficulty of separating the geopolitical interests of the West and its internationalist ideology.
China's claim that the Belt and Road Initiative is about "international public goods" reflects its own interest in universalistic terms.

Islamic Nationalism: The Islamic world has long been vulnerable to sweeping ideas of internationalism.

For E.g. The Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamic revolution in Iran, al Qaeda, and the Islamic State have all sought to liberate the Islamic world.

However, none of them has been able to transcend the nation-state system of the Middle East.

Failure of Liberal internationalism:

The liberal internationalist effort at constructing supra-national institutions that seek to rearrange the political and economic structures of other societies now faces big setbacks.
The greatest resistance to the liberal internationalist vision has not come from Iraq or Afghanistan, but from within the US.
For E.g. It was Trump who channelled the American resentments against the globalist excesses of the Wall Street, Washington and the Silicon Valley.

India specific challenges: India was inevitably influenced by liberal internationalism, socialism, communism, pan-Islamism, pan-Asianism and Third-Worldism.

Failure of Asianism: The Asian Relations Conference (Delhi 1947) and the Afro-Asian Conference (Bandung 1955) showed up the deep differences among the Asian elites.
Failure of Economic Regionalism: India has finally walked out of the ASEAN - the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) -- that sought Asia-wide economic integration.
Serious underestimation of China: Pursuit of economic regionalism in East Asia and a multi-polar world in partnership with China and Russia had underestimated China's rise

For, E.g. As in the 1950s, so in the 1990s, India took a benign view of Chinese power and has been shocked to discover otherwise in 1962 and in 2020.

Conclusion: India today needs more internationalism, than less, in dealing with the Chinese power, and it must be an internationalism that is rooted in realism and tethered to India's economic and national security priorities.