To make sense of the unraveling global order and the crisis in India-China relations is a challenging task. The best way forward is to identify the movements of the critical tectonic plates that have given rise to the deepening turbulence we see around us. Barely a week ago, Sino-Indian relations appeared to have reached a dangerous impasse: the irresistible force confronting the immovable object at Doklam, the tri-junction of Bhutan, Sikkim and Tibet. The incendiary threats emanating from Beijing pointed to the choice of an Indian surrender, or a war that a medley of snarling Chinese voices said, China could not lose, China being China, and India being India – weak, chaotic and punching ineffectively above its scripted weight would taught a lesson reminiscent of the debacle of 1962.
At that moment the gloom of military conflict appears to be relieved by a glimmer of hope. The Chinese chattering class, as gauged from the country’s social media, showed little concern about Sino-Indian ties descending into the abyss. Japan aroused greater anxieties – understandable in the context of Imperial Japan’s blood-stained record in China and Korea in the decades leading to the Second World War and during the war itself. In contrast, Chinese and Indians viewed each other generally through the prism of commerce and anti-colonial politics; there was little comprehension of their respective cultures or histories and cultures. That was curiosity, not hostility of the other. The latter come later in the post-war era of China’s rise.
China and India are members of BRICS, the association of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Their combined weight in population – 43 of the world’s total, and 30 per cent of its GDP – was not an association not be disdained. The principal participants, Russia, China , India have a set of complex inter-relationships covering economics, politics and strategy. Sino-Indian trade and investment are thriving, as are those between China and Russia, witn India and Russia bonding in a privileged strategic partnership in defence and security. China will be hosting the next BRICS summit in September. Why upset the apple cart for no real tangible gain?
President Xi Jinping’s friendly reference to Prime Minister Narendra Modi has gone some way in lifting the gloom; India’s National Security Advisor Ajit Doval’s visit to Beijing for talks with his Chinese counterpart, following previous trips to Moscow, may bring some cheer. He will also be consulting with his Russian colleague.
Farther afield is the Russia-baiting pantomime in Washington. The US Congress, despite the cautionary advice of the largest American companies such as ExonMobile, Boeing, Ford et al has passed further sanctions against Russia for alleged interference in the American Presidential election of November 2016. A US opinion poll across the country reveals that 75 per cent of Americans put health care on top of their concerns, and a mere 6 per cent on Russia, yet 75 per cent of the US media were fixated on Russia and barely reported widespread anxieties about individual health care. The vaunted integrity of the Fourth Estate, now fourth-rate, is seriously fake.
Having endured a farrago of barbs, insults, expulsions of Russian diplomats and confiscation of diplomatic property, the Russian government was goaded into responding with similar measures of its own. America’s unilateral sanctions against Russia, with an additional package of restrictions targeting Iran and North Korea, have upset the European Union leadership, since Europe depends a great deal on Russian oil and liquefied gas.
North Korea is in its best shape for almost two decades, says South Korea’s central bank. Sanctions have had minimal effect on Iran, and virtually none on Russia. According to Mahmodabad Salameh, a respected oil economist, sanctions have energized Russia’s economic reforms, the main beneficiary being its thriving agricultural sector. The idea that a country of Russia’s size and power, with its abundant natural resources can be browbeaten by self-appointed policemen on Capitol Hill is laughable, its lunacy staggering. Congress and President Trump are engaged in a bitter turf war, reflected in the unpredictable swings of US foreign policy.
No respect is shown to history. Napoleon, in his time, imposed sanctions against Russia and paid horrendously for the ensuing misadventure. Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham, their ilk and the discredited mainstream media represent the swansong of the Pax Americana.
Returning to the Chinese calculus: Why should China tempt fate by embarking on a military conflict with India, with so much at stake in the present turbulence in global and the strategic Korean peninsula on the boil? Coupled with this is Pakistan Prime Minister Sharif ‘s enforced exit by the Supreme Court on corruption charges. The succession stakes could sunder the country. Beijing’s ‘all-weather friend’ will need more bailouts from its proven benefactor.
Hazarding a guess, the Sino-Indian relationship is unlikely to have a hard landing – at least for now. We can mull over its future direction.
Closer India-UK ties in automobile sector
India and Britain could look to deepening their ties in the automobile sector in the post-Brexit order, said Mike Hawes, Chief Executive of the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders. Exports of British cars to India rose by 8.3 per cent in the first half this year, while those from India to Britain nearly doubled. British cars in India were mainly restricted to luxury brands. However, there were opportunities for growth in areas such as the development of autonomous connected vehicles, as well as the Indian post-market segment, he said.
‘The UK currently has a negligible part of that market in India but we have a lot of expertise and there are a lot of products that could be developed,’ in his judgment.
He said that rising sales of British cars – for which there was the greatest Indian demand – remained constricted by high tariff regimes. Even with a possible free trade agreement between the countries breaking down the tariff walls would be difficult anytime soon.
‘We are totally integrated with the European automotive industry, as the future relationship we have is fundamental to our continued success. We need to maintain the free trade we currently enjoy,’ Mr Hawes concluded. It is the best of times, it is worst of times – for transnational businesses.
Man who has reached the sunlit uplands
The Indian aviation industry is among the fastest growing across continents. The quantum of passengers travelling by air on domestic flights increases by the day. In a country of well over as billion souls, this surely means that the travel and hospitality sectoris booming. It wasn’t so a few decades ago when state-owned Air India (on international routes) and the domestic Indian Airlines ruled and abused the roost.
Private companies made their initial appearance in the early 1990s following the liberalization of the Indian economy by Finance Minister Manmohan Singh under the overall stewardship of Prime Minister Narasimha Rao.
A number of private companies entered the race and collapsed. In the struggle of the survival of the fittest the best survived and prospered and are now the big hitters of the aviation industry.
Spicejet is one of that elite. Its beginnings were far from propitious. It was on the brink of collapse. Desperate situations demand desperate remedies, hence the company’s founder Ajay Singh in a hands-on experiment took over its operational functions. The management structure was overhauled, inefficiencies were eliminated, expenditure disciplined and waste binned.
Resolution, enterprise, dedication and simple hard work brought about a magical transformation in Spicejet’s performance. Passenger numbers surged exponentially as fares were pruned and service improved. This low-cost budget airline together with its principal competitor, IndiGo, dominate the domestic market and have ambitious plans to spread their wings with flights to international destinations.
It was the consumer market that reduced the behemoth Air India to a prehistoric monstrosity and the pauper’s grave. The original sin was its nationalization in the early 1950s when Air India was well administered by the Tata Group.
For political parties across the political spectrum Air India bore the sacred talisman of ‘national prestige.’ Six decades later loot and corruption on a scale reminiscent of the East India Company in its earliest days in the mid-eighteenth century, raddled Air India.
The brazen scale of priming the pump of the nation’s fragile exchequer to keep the decaying airline alive forced the present Modi government to bite the bullet and put the blighted enterprise up for sale: Better late than never. Air India has formidable assets in aircraft and protected routes, hence its sale, though arduous, will surely become reality.
Will Spicejet bid for Air India? Improbable as this may sound, stranger things have happened in the world of business. Whatever the result a toast is in order to Ajay Singh for taking his company to the top of the pyramid.
