Round The World
New
Delhi, 7 December 2018
G-20 Summit
JAI HO INDIA!!
By Dr. D. K. Giri
(Prof. International Politics, JMI)
The biggest take-away for India from the 13th
G-20 Summit in Buenos Aires was what happened in a fringe meeting of Prime
Minister Narendra Modi, US President Donald Trump, and the Japanese Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe. In fact, this was the first trilateral meeting between the
three leaders who are bringing their countries as close as never before as
strategic allies. They are three members of the ‘Quad’ that includes Australia
too. All the three leaders sang the same tune on the future of this significant
alliance mainly for Indo-Pacific region where China has aggressive military
designs.
Prime Minister Modi, known for coining new
names and slogans acronymed the triumvirate as JAI, comprising the first
alphabet of their names – Japan, Australia and India – which in Hindi means
victory. He affirmed that the alliance would be victorious in contributing to
‘world peace, stability and prosperity’. President Trump declared the US
relations with India and Japan have never been closer before than they are now.
He predicted lots of trade and military ties of US with India and Japan. Abe,
the Japanese Prime Minister underlined the fundamental values and strategic
interests shared between the three countries. All the three leaders reaffirmed
the importance of a free and open Indo-Pacific region and pledged to deepen the
trilateral cooperation in maintaining a free Indo-Pacific region.
The second gain for India was to be able to
insert a nine-point active programme on fugitive economic offenders; to devise
a mechanism that denies entry and safe haven to all economic offenders. This
was a successive diplomatic achievement for India after it managed, against stiff
opposition from some countries to introduce an 11-point agenda on terrorism as
a part of Hamburgh Declaration, in the previous G-20 Summit last year. This had
activated the UN counter-terrorism network, Financial Action Task Force (FATF)
that disallows countries charged with supporting cross-border terrorism from
accessing international finances. Following this Declaration, Pakistan was brought
back to the grey-list of FATF, for financing global terror.
In the Summit, India sought to activise the
UN regulatory bodies on economic offenders, like the UN Convention against
Corruption (UNCAC) and UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime
(UNTOC) 2000. India stressed on the process of identification, extradition, and
judicial proceedings against fugitive economic offenders.
Interestingly, as I write this column a few
hours ago Christian Michel, a fugitive offender accused of receiving and
disbursing kickbacks in the Augusta Westland Helicopter deal has been
extradited to New Delhi from United Arab Emirates. This is a shot in India’s
diplomatic arm although New Delhi is accused of being selective and partisan in
pursuing the economic offenders who have fled the country. This is of course
tough for internal party political debate, but the success in bringing back the
accused to the country cannot be undermined.
The third achievement is that of India
securing the consent of the Italians to host the G-20 Summit in 2022, the year
coinciding with 75th anniversary of India’s independence. Italy agreed
to swap it for 2021 when it will hold the Summit followed by the 14th
in Japan in 2019 and 15th in Saudi Arabia in 2020. NaMo has invited
the world leaders to India to experience its growth and immense diversities
which signify the intrinsic pluralism in Indian life and culture.
The G-20 group, created in 1999, is by far,
the most powerful economic block accounting for 85 per cent of the world GDP,
2/3 rd of world population and about ½ of the area. It started in 1970s as G-7
comprising Canada, France, West Germany, Italy, Japan, UK, and USA. It became
G-8 when Russia joined in 1996. In the late 1990s, when the financial crises
affected a number of growing economies in Latin America and Asia and threatened
to spill over to G-8 countries, it was decided to include other emerging
economies. Now, it consists of 19 countries plus the European Union, which is represented
by the President of the Council. Spain is a permanent invitee.
The tasks of G-20 include managing global
trade, the trade tensions, imbalances and disputes plus any other emerging
issue that can upset global peace and prosperity. In this Summit too, global
trade tensions, the labour market, the oil price stability and the reforms of
WTO constituted the agenda. The latter was dealt with carefully without
touching on the WTO ‘taboos’ such as protectionism, IPR, taxation, etc.
However, the Summit was overshadowed by the
ongoing trade war between US and China. It is no secret that Beijing is being
criticised by the US, Europe and Japan for dumping, industrial subsidies, abuse
of IPR, technology transfers etc. Donald Trump has been accusing China of
stealing US technology worth billions and taking away jobs from America etc.
China has been wary of US tariffs on its exports. In a one-on-one meeting with
Xi Jinping around the Summit, Trump agreed not to impose higher tariffs from
first of January 2019, as apparently, the $250 billion tariff has hit China
already.
Understandably, Donald Trump’s supporters at
home and Allies abroad would be glad to see him standing up to China and
seeking to stop the expansionist approach of the latter. But his critics in his
country accuse him of lack of leadership and displaying exceptionalism. They
would like Trump to lead the ‘pack’ not withdraw and stand away from it. They
consider the temporary truce in trade war with China a pyrrhic victory, not a
long term viable strategy.
Undoubtedly, any political or diplomatic
action is subject to interpretation and criticism. Donald Trump, Shinzo Abe and
NaMo, all are under scrutiny of the people as the three of them represent open
societies and political democracies. Nonetheless, it is fair to contend that
India’s diplomacy in the last two G-20 Summits came out in flying colours but
the steps to watch are – NaMo had the second trilateral meeting with Putin and
Xi Jinping.
Is New Delhi back to its old approach of
balancing both the blocks? One just wished that it does not have the worst of
both the worlds in its penchant for a balancing act, which was euphemistically
called non-alignment. It was nebulous and non-workable. One has friends and
enemies in international politics though axiomatically not permanent. To be
sure none could be non-aligned. One again hopes our diplomats do not have a
blast from the past in our foreign economic policy.---INFA
(Copyright, India
News & Feature Alliance)
New Delhi
5 December 2018
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