A lot has been said about Chinese President Xi Jinping’s decision of not attending the G20 Summit in New Delhi. But there is hardly any discussion about why and how the Summit bore a strong stamp of its China-centricity throughout its deliberations and decisions. If analyzed minutely, one can’t miss the fact that a large majority of major decisions taken by the G20 in New Delhi are focused on challenging the arrogance, aggression and authoritarian conduct of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). More so of its outspoken ‘Paramount Leader’ Xi Jinping whose agenda is to make PRC the ‘Middle Kingdom’ and crown himself as the ‘Divine Power’ who has been sent by the heavens to rule the earth.
To start with, let us take the decision of launching the ‘India, Middle East, East-Europe Economic Corridor’ (IMEC) – which is the brainchild of US President Joe Biden and is the most obvious and a directly-fired salvo at President Xi who launched his favorite ‘Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)’ in 2013 – just a year after he took over the reins of China. The MoU on IMEEEC was signed by the USA, India, European Union, UAE and Saudi Arabia before the conclusion of G20. It involves integrating the already operative road, rail and sea links from India to Eastern Europe to establish a dedicated and a fast freight corridor for common use of all the countries along the route and the European Union. The corridor can be later extended to cover the African continent also.
The Game Changer
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on September 9, 2023, announced the launch of the India-Middle East-Europe mega economic corridor. The project includes India, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, the European Union, France, Italy, Germany and the US. The IMEC is expected to stimulate economic development through enhanced connectivity and economic integration between Asia, the Arabian Gulf, and Europe. The IMEC will be comprised of two separate corridors, the east corridor connecting India to the Arabian Gulf and the northern corridor connecting the Arabian Gulf to Europe. It will include a railway that, upon completion, will provide a reliable and cost-effective cross-border ship-to-rail transit network to supplement existing maritime and road transport routes – enabling goods and services to transit to, from, and between India, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Israel, and Europe. Along the railway route, Participants intend to enable the laying of cable for electricity and digital connectivity, as well as pipe for clean hydrogen export. This corridor will secure regional supply chains, increase trade accessibility, improve trade facilitation, and support an increased emphasis on environmental social, and government impacts. Participants intend that the corridor will increase efficiencies, reduce costs, enhance economic unity, generate jobs, and lower greenhouse gas emissions –resulting in a transformative integration of Asia, Europe and the Middle East. In support of this initiative, participants commit to work collectively and expeditiously to arrange and implement all elements of these new transit routes, and to establish coordinating entities to address the full range of technical, design, financing, legal and relevant regulatory standards.
When Xi launched his BRI, also known as ‘One Belt One Road’ initiative, he started with investing hundreds of billions of dollars in the development of infrastructure projects like roads, sea ports, railway lines and airports in nearly 150 countries. The idea attracted not only poor countries but even well to do countries like Italy, Austria, Brunei, Czech Republic, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, New Zealand, Oman, Qatar, Russia, Singapore and South Africa too. Thanks to the Chinese fine art of bribery, intimidation and corruption, most of the agreements on BRI projects are turning out to be too expensive to be viable for the partner host countries. As a result, China, as a cunning money lender, has started confiscating the projects in the name of settling accounts. Pakistan’s Gwadar port, which is part of China-Pakistan’s prestigious CPEC from Xinjiang to the Arabian Sea, and Sri Lanka’s Hambantota port and the Colombo Port City are some of the glaring examples. Despite multilayers of secrecy and camouflage, popular estimates say that Xi has already invested far above equivalent of USD one trillion and has the plans to touch 8 trillion if everything goes as per Xi’s dreams. With Chinese economy already nose-diving for many reasons beyond Xi or his Communist Party’s control, the IMEEEC can prove the last nail.
BRIDGE BETWEEN WEST & AFRICA
The inclusion of 55-member African Union has been rightly hailed as a positive step towards involving the African nations into the international system more intimately. But the impact which this step is going to have on freeing China’s suffocating grip over the United Nations and other international institutions is hardly being discussed. It is on the strength of votes of many of these African and other economically vulnerable small countries that China has been holding organizations like the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) and World Health Organization (WHO) to ransom. Records of voting in UNHRC over the years show that, leave aside discussing and reprimanding China for its appalling record on human rights in its colonies like Tibet and East Turkistan (Xinjiang), Beijing could use these votes every time to stop the world body from even taking up the matter for discussion. India’s emergence as a new bridge between the developed western block and Africa is further going to make it difficult for China to keeping dominating developing countries and grab the rich natural resources of these poor countries.
Similarly, the new approach adopted by G20 about the role and financial capacity of multilateral development banks is surely going to be a great relief for most developing countries. Presence of heads of leading financial institutions like the World Band (WB) and International Monitory Fund (IMF) at the G20 further made it reassuring. Higher allocation for funds on much easier terms as compared to the opaque Chinese system is bound to wean away the developing world from the Chinese financial and political influence.
NORTH-SOUTH RELATIONS
Another major achievement of the G20 summit at New Delhi is the fresh air brought into North-South relations which was yet another hallmark of this event. A good part of the credit goes to the personal efforts of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and an unprecedented helping hand from western leaders, especially US President Joe Biden. A world which had got used to seeing the North-South relations only through its bickering and confrontations since decades, can now hope for a new atmosphere dominated by cooperation and good will. This also underscores the realization, of the US-lead western block, that relations with a community of nations which, despite being economically weak, holds the levers of power balance both in terms of numbers as well as geographic spread cannot be ignored. This change is bound to inflict a serious blow to the ballooning arrogance and aggression of President Xi and establish a new power block of developing nations under the leadership of Modi. Moreover, Modi’s idea of shifting the international discourse from its GDP-centric values to Human-centric values too holds potential for a better and peaceful world where the role of rogue states like Xi’s China is bound to be limited.
