The launch of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) at the ASEAN summit in Cambodia was one of promise – a free trade bloc stretching from ASEAN [South East Asia], Australia, New Zealand, China, South Korea, Japan, India – 16 countries in all - would have constituted the world’s largest free trade bloc with impressive numbers: 39 per cent of global GDP, 30 per cent of global trade,26 per cent of global foreign direct investment, 45 per cent of the global population.
This appeared to gel with India’s Look East policy. The devil, however, lay in the detail. Having subjected the terms anf provisions to close critical scrutiny, Prime Minister Modi decided that it was not in India’s best interest to join the RCEP, at least not for now - a view endorsed by the captains of Indian industry, by the country’s farmers and by India’s mainstream opposition parties. The first key sticking point was the deep cut of almost 90 per cent or elimination of duties on imports. India feared a surge of Chinese imports, including the re-routing of Chinese goods via other RCEP countries. The absence of safeguards to check this import surge, the lack of credible commitment on non-tariff barriers; plus the inadequate attention to the services sector, provided the sum of Indian objections.
Addressing the Summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said: ‘Our farmers, traders, professionals and industries have stakes in such decisions. Equally important are workers and consumers, who make India a huge market and the third biggest economy in terms of purchasing power parity. When I measure the RCEP agreement with respect to the interests of all Indians I do not get a positive answer. Therefore without the talisman of Gandhiji, nor my own conscience permit me to join RCEP.’
The Indian refusal brings to an end negotiations initiated way back in 2012. The Chinese state media were clearly miffed at the Indian decision, so too were the other major players, hoping for easier access to the buoyant Indian market. The door may not have shut permanently. It would be premature to rule out further talks.
Geopolitics, in a nutshell, provides hope that this may not be the endgame. ASEAN, coupled with the broader ASIA Pacific neighbourhood have long been pressing for a more active Indian presence to counter China’s heft (See Media Watch, P12) is the crux of India’s East Policy. The India-ASEAN partnership is grounded in the templates of geography, abiding trust and enduring suspicions of China’s regional and global goals. The US strategic thinker, Edward N. Luttwak, in his book, China’s Rise versus the Logic of Strategy, is dismissive of Henry Kissinger’s awe of Chinese diplomatic skills, which Luttwak, with India and Vietnam in mind, labels quixotic. Andrew Small, in his book, The China-Pakistan Axis: Asia’s New Geopolitics, is equally sceptical of China’s vaunted diplomatic prowess. The pride of the Chinese mandarin trascends human understanding.
Supreme Court dispenses justice for all
It was refreshing, even exhilarating, to bear witness s to concord amidst the accustomed cacophonies of discord. Mainstream political parties of every hue welcomed the verdict that a Hindu temple be constructed at the disputed site in Ayodhya, with five acres of land nearby reserved for a new mosque. There was understandable mix of jubilation and measured approval at the verdict. Senior Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said: ‘ While respecting the court’s decision, we all have to maintain mutual harmony This is the time for bonding , faith and love among all of us Indians.’ Following the announcement of the court’s judgement, Sunni spokesman Zufar Faruqi explained: ‘We want to make it clear that the UP Sunni Central Waqf Board will not go in for any review of the apex court’s order or file any curative petition.’ However, there were discordant Muslim voices too, the loudest that of Asaduddin Owasi, who said the court was ‘supreme but not fallible.’
The five members of the bench, Chief Justice Rasnjan Gogoi, Justice Arvind Bohde, Justice D.Y. Chandrachud , Justice Ashok Bhushan and Justice Abdul Nazeer, who pronounced an unanimous verdict, would undoubtedly agree.. No human court or body, however eminent or distinguished can lay claim to infallibility. Indeed, the judges declared clearly that no court could judge or evaluate events in the distant past. Common sense, opined the late great the Lord Denning, among the giant jurists of the last century, is two-thirds of the law applied. Compromise is its essence. The past cannot be brushed aside, but neither can current ground realities be ignored.
The Supreme Court’s 1,000-page verdict is surely eloquent testimony to the labour and dedication of the judges. They performed admirably in a difficult and volatile situation. Their verdict may not have risen to heights of immaculate conception or perfection but it is the next best thing.
An emollient Prime Minister Modi declared that there were no winners and losers in the case. Indian democracy stood vindicated and peace and social harmony assured. Riding the swell of optimism, he thanked Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan and Pakistani workers for their untiring efforts to get the Kartarpur Corridor ready on time for Sikh pilgrims from India travel to the Kartarpur Sahib Gurdwara in Pakistan, linked to the other Sikh shrine, Dera Baba Nanak in Gurdaspur in India. The commemoration of the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak, the founder of the Sikh faith, was canvas to the venture.
Mr Modi flagged of the first party of 500 Sikh pilgrims, which included Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amerinder Singh, former Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, Union Cabinet Minister Harsimrat Kaur Badal and Housing Minister Hardeep Singh Puri.
Wrote John Milton centuries ago: ‘...peace hath her victories/ No less renowned than war...’
Cold war triumphalism at Berlin Wall
The 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall on 9 November 1989, was the prelude to the disappearance of the Soviet Union, described by Russian President Vladimir Putin as ‘the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the twentieth century,’ perhaps of the twenty-first century too. There were the usual homilies on democracy, human rights, European values and much else from German Chancellor Angela Merkel and huge economies of the truth peddled dutifully by preening western TV channels. Tales of German derring-do as Germans from East and West tore down the infamous structure brick by brick to the lofty strains of Beethoven’s immortal Ninth Symphony.
Critical facts were artfully concealed. At the time there were 300,000 Soviet troops in East Germany armed with a formidable array of conventional and nuclear weaponry, whose intervention would have put paid to heroics described. Then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev decided on measures to end the Cold War, ushering in a peaceful, stable global order underwritten by deep cuts in nuclear weapons and missiles on land, sea and air in partnership with the Reagan administration in the United States. The unilateral withdrawal of Soviet troops from Germany under the Gorbachev dispensation, and the undertaking to then German Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Soviedt support for German unification and possible membership of Nato has, in the fullness of time, turned out to be a false, even an unmitigated disaster. The wiser course would surely have been a phased, mutually agreed withdrawal of Soviet bases and forces across Eastern Europe with cast iron treaty guarantees against unilateral reversal. The Gorby mania in the aftermath of the Soviet withdrawal was an inebriating experience for Gorbachev but its unforeseen consequences of broken Western promises and Nato expansion to Russia’s borders led to the Soviet leader’s fall from grace back home in Russia. He doesn’t even rate passing mention in the Western media. Cold War stalwarts, the late George Kennan and Paul Nitze had beseeched their successors to refrain from the folly of needless procation to Russia..
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo - a brutish lookalike of Hitler’s closest aide Martin Bormann was free with jibes and insults at President Putin and Russia at the Berlin celebrations, lying through his teeth on America’s fable commitment to human rights and freedom across the world. Atom bombing the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, carpet bombing and chemical defoliation of Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, followed by the desolation visited upon on the peoples of Greater Middle East and North Africa. In the hallowed words of the American ‘in pursuit of happiness,’ to quote the hallowed American Constitution beggars belief. The past should give pause to American triumphalism. A traveller in a desert came across ruined hulk ruin of a once eminent ruler with an inscription that read: ‘My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:/ Look upon my works ye Mighty and despair.’ (Shelley, Ozymandias).
All is not well with Germany. The East is now the seedbed of Nazi xenophobia and anti-Semitic terrorism, the West undecided on the best way forward.
