Prime Minister Narendra Modi has visited China for the first time since 2018, and President Xi Jinping has given him star billing along with President Vladimir Putin of the Russian Federation. The CCP top leadership has always believed in the power of symbolism to get the other side to return with a flourish from a visit.
It needs to be added that symbolism appears to be working very well with President Trump, as witnessed by the warmth seen during his dinner with Asim Munir, the facilitator-in-chief of several terror attacks not just in India but in other countries as well. Munir was the prime mover of the nomination of President Trump for the Nobel Peace Prize, something which President Trump appears to fervently desire. By April 10 we will know whether the nomination is successful in securing him the Peace Prize.
Hence his effort at taking responsibility for several “peace” outcomes, such as between India and Pakistan, and why he is in a hurry to get a Peace Agreement in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, the way he (incorrectly) claimed that he did in the case of the latest kinetic clash which took place between India and Pakistan. A pause between kinetic episodes does not constitute anything other than a temporary cessation of hostilities between Pakistan and India.
As for ending the Ukraine war, President Putin is not obsessed with getting a Nobel Peace Prize, and will end the conflict only after his war aims are secured. That stage is still some distance away, but he is getting closer to this objective as the conflict rages. Small wonder that President Zelenskyy is eager for an immediate cessation of hostilities for about six months so that he could try and replenish his depleted forces.
Given the impact of the war, added to the movement of Ukrainian citizens to other countries, mostly European, replacement of battlefield casualties is an impossible task. In Tianjin, a city linked by a fast train to Beijing, Narendra Modi, Vladimir Putin, and Xi Jinping meeting jointly and bilaterally is symbolic, but of the failure of US foreign policy. Diplomacy, the economy, and national security are bound together, and successive US Presidents have failed the US in ensuring a seamless meshing of the three.
President Biden, through his pursuit of the will-o’-the-wisp of defeating Russia at the expense of US treasure and Ukrainian lives, ensured a close fit between Russia and China. Now President Trump is, through his hostility to India, ensuring that after a lapse of several years, China and India are engaging in summit diplomacy.
Fortunately, neither the European partners of the US nor Japan have made the same error, and are getting closer to India even while the US is becoming more distant thanks entirely to the White House. Reports abound that Trump covets the mineral wealth of Balochistan and hence has snuggled up to Asim Munir, the terror planner. He will discover that the securing of such wealth is an impossible task as long as Balochistan does not win its freedom from the Pakistan army.
This has little to do with India but is the consequence of the growing disaffection of the Baloch at the exploitation of their wealth by the Pakistan army and its foreign patrons. Ultimately, the US will require, in its own interest, to pivot back to India, which has weathered several crises and is poised to prevail in the tariff war launched by President Trump on the country that is an essential security and economic partner of his own.
