by Harish Gupta, National Editor, Lokmat Group
If the eighth summit in Goa of BRICS—the geography-defying grouping of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa—ended Sunday on a subdued note, it was because of the presence-in-absence of a non-member, Pakistan. The summit, inarguably, was timed rather awkwardly. The mind-space of India, host for the event, was preoccupied with the western neighbour ever since the attack by Pakistan-based terrorists on an Indian army brigade headquarters at Uri in Kashmir, leading to the death of 19 security personnel. It led India to make unanimity on "terror" its continuous refrain through the summit.
BRICS is a grouping focused on cooperation in trade, but two developments have lately got it derailed. First, the rise of China has changed the dynamic of trade. By 2013, China had grabbed a fifth of all manufacturing export worldwide, compared to only two per cent in 1991. In the first decade of this millennium, when BRICS got going, there was hope that China could be the engine to drive a trading bloc forward. But such optimism has now given way to the fear of being swamped by Chinese imports.
The other problem relates to the changing dynamic of strategic power. Of the five-nation group, the three leading military powers—Russia, China and India—have their individual strategic objectives. Russia under President Vladimir Putin is bent upon regaining the respect it commanded in the Cold War era as a formidable war machine. It is a growth trajectory that expectedly leaves the US uptight. It responded by extending NATO, the five-decades-old anti-Soviet strategic alliance, to Ukraine at Russia's doorstep. Russia has hit back in a complex bag of stratagem, from helping Syrian president Bashar al Assad, whom America regards as foe, to reportedly interfering with the US presidential elections by using its agents to hack the computers of the Democratic Party. The rapidly declining US-Russia relations have put India in a double bind as it needs both. The US is its life-line to technology, foreign capital and remittances whereas Russia is not only its sole supplier of basic military hardware but its only dependable 'big daddy' to extend help at international forums. The escalating conflict between the Cold War gladiators has left even the Western powers in a dilemma, not to speak of India, Brazil or South Africa.
Besides, China has Pakistan as it strategic partner, its "iron brother". To China, Pakistan is a trusted interlocutor to the Islamic world, and a useful guide to the US security establishment due to Pakistan's close links with the American army for decades. Unleashing Pakistan on India, or at least egging it on, is also China's way of acting tough on India without dirtying its own hand. This Chinese tactic has become rather obvious in its dogged Chinese persistence to protect Masood Azhar, the chief of Jaish-e-Mohammed. The JeM is a terror group reportedly responsible for the Uri attack as well as the 2001 attack on Indian Parliament. Its due to China that JeM couldn't be declared by the UN as a terrorist group. It points at the possibility of a substantial Chinese stake in the terror factory that Pakistan has nurtured.
In 2006, when BRIC (South Africa was yet to join) took shape, it was visualized as a club of large and fast-growing economies. But they have slowed down since then. South Africa, which came on board in 2010, grew at only 1% in 2015. Brazil is in its worst recession in the past 80 years. Russia is grappling with a slew of sanctions. The drop in oil and gas prices has combined with the global downturn in consumption of manufactured goods, Russia's forte, to make its condition worse. On the other hand, triggered by a wage spiral, China's slowdown is a drag on global growth. India's PPP GDP is 40% of China. It is growing reasonably fast but not fast enough to catch up with China in the foreseeable future. Besides, rather than giving India access to its market, it is demanding unhindered entry into the Indian market.
The BRICS talks reflected an uneasy and troubled relations between China and India and, in the process, turning the summit into an exchange of litany on terror. It is no wonder that, for India, the only concrete outcome is a costly shopping list from Russia of missile systems, stealth frigates, fighters and helicopters.
Significantly, the BRICS summit in Goa coincides with a meeting of the BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation), an avowedly economic partnership of seven nations: India, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand and Sri Lanka. The BIMSTEC outreach wants to keep away from big power rivalries, though there are temptations galore. Chinese president Xi Jinping’s next destination, after Goa, is Dhaka where he has a 24 billion dollar loan-and-aid package to offer. It is unlikely that China’s heart is melting for Bangladesh. China was on the aide of Pakistan in the 1971 Bangladesh war. It recognized Bangladesh as late as 1977, two years after the assassination of Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, architect of the new nation. Besides, most gifts from China prove costly to the recipient as they involve a cluster of Chinese private investments that are based in inflated revenue expectations. Failure to repay such debt become sovereign liability. It has happened with Chinese-financed Hambantota port in Sri Lanka which has negligible revenue but high cost.
BRIC is the brain wave of an executive in Goldman Sachas, an American bank, who used the acronym in 2001 to hype up the emerging economies. It is now a platform for power play of two ambitious global powers, Russia and China. It is BIMSTEC, on the other hand, which has the beginner’s simplicity. All it’s passionate about is a road from India to Myanmar and Thailand.
