PM MODI SEEKS TO BRING G-20 IN SYNC WITH 21ST CENTURY

Instead of seeking to dominate a hierarchical order of nations, as has been the practice by several past and present Great Powers, Prime Minister Modi puts emphasis on the equality of nations.

Until 1 December 2022, the day India assumed the Presidency of the G-20, that role had not figured among the consequential pieces in the global diplomatic chessboard. In part, the reason was that the G-7 had visualized the G-20 as a vehicle for the proselytisation of its own views amongst countries that had begun to matter in global discourse and decision-making. Faster economic growth within many of the 12 other countries within the G-20 was steadily giving parity to the Global South. These days, the “South” as commonly defined has begun surpassing the “North” where overall economic indicators are concerned, so much so that it is no longer accurate to classify the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as part of the Global South. Now that it has joined the United States in the ranks of the superpowers, the tag of “developing country” that China holds on to has become incongruous, almost as though Microsoft’s Bill Gates or Infosys’ Narayana Murthy were to pass themselves off as middle class. Within Asia, there has been a significant expansion in the imprint of India consequent to the formation of a majority government in 2014 under Narendra Modi. So much so that the oftenused term “South Asia”, which denotes India and its immediate neighbours, needs to be replaced with the term “Southern Asia”. Such an arc would comprise the Middle East, Iran, India and its “South Asian” neighbours, as well as ASEAN. Within the arc of Southern Asia, India has emerged as the most consequential power, followed by Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, in that order.

Across this grouping, the policy of the PRC has been to position itself as still being in the Global South, and hence as the leader of this collective of nations. Principal attention is being paid by the PRC to the whole of Southern Asia, from the Middle East to ASEAN, where CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping has sought to assume a position of effective dominance camouflaged by honeyed expressions. The irony of the world’s second superpower seeking to promote itself as just another developing country has been deliberately ignored by the

CCP leadership. Another trait is to regard international and bilateral covenants as binding only on the other side and not on the PRC itself. An example is the manner in which the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) spokesperson claimed in Beijing that the latest (18th) iteration of the Yudh Abhyas military exercises between the US and India “violated the 1993 and 1996 border management agreements between Delhi