It was suggested by the CCP leadership that ‘the elephant (India) and the dragon (China) should dance together’ against the US tariff policies. Prime Minister Modi avoided falling into the trap.
NEW DELHI: President Trump of the US, as does Prime Minister Modi of India, understands that the world is witnessing a seismic shift that will have grave consequences. Which is why they are the target of the lead protagonist of the new situation, China under the CCP. Few took seriously the few who pointed out that a new Cold War pitting system against system, had begun, this one principally pitting China against the United States. Cold War 2.0 is as existential a battle as was Cold War 1.0, which pitted the US against the Soviet Union. As in the previous Cold War, both sides are competing in winning over other countries. Cold War 1.0 ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and in the 21st century, the centre of gravity has shifted from the US and Europe to the US and Asia. Not surprisingly, European countries have sought to deny such a shift, and to keep their focus on what since the Soviet collapse is the depleted country known as the Russian Federation. They are seeking to keep the global focus fixated on Moscow, rather than accept that it needs to be on Beijing. Several of the battlegrounds of Cold War 2.0 are the same as what they were in Cold War 1.0, with several in Asia, Africa and South America. Prime Minister Modi has quietly built bridges with several countries crucial to the eventual outcome of the new situation. So has President Trump, but with much greater fanfare. From the second term of President Hu Jintao, China under the CCP has engaged in a battle for supremacy with the US, although only during the Trump Presidency has the US seriously engaged China in a battle that both sides know will be existential.
Sometime ago, it had been pointed out in the pages of The Sunday Guardian that Trump, Modi, Ishiba and Yoon of the US, India, Japan and South Korea, respectively, are in the crosshairs of Beijing as each understands the existential threat they face in their contest with Xi Jinping. Of the four, Yoon has been toppled from power, but the other three continue. Despite the unprecedented level of abuse and disinformation peddled against him, Prime Minister Modi is firmly in power, as is Trump, while Ishiba is shaky. Trump is aware that it is economic performance that will make the difference between success and failure, which is why he has launched a trade war against China designed to weaken the economy of that country. Should Xi be seen as caving in to US tactics, he would lose the strongman image he has within the CCP and be closer to losing power by the close of his third term. Several are betting on that happening. However, until now, each raise in tariffs by the US has been met by a raise in tariffs by China, but the betting is that it is the Chinese side that will finally cave in and not make a response to a US tariff raise. The calculation is that opposition to Xi is building up within the CCP, and that after a point, he will blink in the test of wills that he is having with President Trump.
Xi is wielding the weapon that has over decades been perfected by the CCP, the art of disinfowar. Waves of abuse directed at President Trump are rising up in countries across the world, and is having an effect on public perception of his tariff policies. The objective is to get large sections of the US population get riled up against Trump to the extent that mass protests break out in the US and affect his support base within the US Congress so that he shifts to reverse gear in his trade war on China. Several news channels across the world have presented his tariff pauses as his reversing course. The fact is that the selectively applied pauses are part of a well thought strategy designed to separate friends from foes in the tariff tirade of Trump. Simultaneously, the screws have been tightened where China is concerned, causing deep concern in Beijing. Which is why the crescendo of abuse against the policies of Trump has been rising, driven by the disinfo machinery of a special task force of the CCP. Another objective of online trolls is to instil the belief that the US is in irreversible decline and that it was now inevitable that China would prevail. The effort is to slow down and speedily stop resistance to CCP actions designed to make China superior to the US in all fields of technology. Trump has not fallen for that story and is determined that it is the US which will prevail. It was suggested by the CCP leadership that “the elephant (India) and the dragon (China) should dance together” against the US tariff policies. Prime Minister Modi avoided falling into the trap. The intention behind the invite to “dance together” was to sharply dilute the attractiveness of India as an alternative investment destination to foreign companies having to relocate from China as a consequence of the tariff wall erected by President Trump against that country. Vietnam and other locations across Southeast Asia lack the abundance of trained and easily trainable manpower present in India. No other country in the world can boast of such an abundance of potential talent as India. US tech companies in particular are already shifting to India, where changes are being made in the regulatory and tax structure to facilitate such a change. As a consequence of his friendship with President Trump, Prime Minister Modi is likely to succeed in a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) being signed between India and the US. The main sticking point is the visa policy of the US. The reality is that a flow of trained and easily trainable manpower from India, comprising both women and men, would be of immense benefit to the US, as is known to President Trump.
Should Trump 2.0 succeed in its mission of degrading the Chinese system through his tariffs, sufficiently, President Trump would enter the pages of history as among the most consequential of US Presidents, and would merit his image being carved into the rock of Mount Rushmore. Next to the US, India would be the biggest beneficiary of such a shift in global dynamics. History is being made in the White House, and so far, the abuse against him has not deterred President Trump from carrying his tariff war to a Chinese climbdown. Each countermove of Xi is being met by a new move by Trump. It is probably the highest stakes game ever between two superpowers that is being played. India under PM Modi has not gone the way some political parties are demanding, which is to distance New Delhi from Washington. Just as Cold War 1.0 resulted inter alia in the ascent of China to superpower status, so too can Cold War 2.0 alter the status of India. The difference is that India is a benign country, which will not seek to melt down a fellow democracy such as the US, for democracy is the foundation of both. Such a situation is unlike authoritarian China, which is involved in an existential battle of systems with the US in which Beijing seeks to change the dominant world order from being democratic to authoritarian.