The virtual meeting of the World Economic Forum was held from January 17 to 21. Gone are the times when billionaires and heads of government rubbed shoulders over wine and caviar to debate and influence global issues of trade and finance.
Major western powers are busy fighting the third surge of Covid, besides keeping a wary eye on what China-Russia do next. For Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the participation ended in a teleprompter malfunction which flummoxed him visibly.
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s remarks were heard by an attentive global audience, to decipher China’s mood. Meanwhile, Omicron broke through the Chinese defences when patients were found in Beijing, the political capital, Shanghai, the financial centre and Guangdong, the technology fulcrum. The Chinese economy’s growth in the last quarter at 4 per cent was the lowest since early 2020. Not seriously impacted by inflation, the Chinese central bank lowered interest rates.
This was contrary to signals from the US Federal Reserve hinting at rate hikes. Thus, it is a time when all major powers are wrestling with domestic issues, some linked to the resurging pandemic. The Indian government’s preoccupation currently is with critical state elections in February-March.
In play is the crucial state of Uttar Pradesh, from which Prime Minister Modi has been elected twice. It also provides over a quarter of the Bharatiya Janata Party’s total Lok Sabha seats. As is normal with today’s BJP, electoral politics takes precedence over all else. So, the new Pakistani paper on their perception of reducing tensions in the neighbourhood received just a cynical rejection from the Indian government.
The lack of progress in de-escalation in army to-army talks with China was generally ignored. The farmers’ protests having been called off, progress on the follow-up on promises made -has been tardy. The government has even ignored the opposition demand and the precedent that the Budget presentation should be delayed till after the last polling day in mid-March.
The argument that the exercise will have new schemes unfurled, with a likely impact on elections, has been rejected by the government. President Xi has his own worries as he readies to grab an unprecedented third term later this year. Speaking on January 17, he decried protectionism and polarisation. That this is due to China’s own conduct, resulting in the developed world circling their wagons, naturally does not figure in his arguments.
He warned the US and its allies that bullying and a hegemonic mindset is leading to unnecessary friction. He repeated an old argument, calling on the West to “discard the Cold War mentality and seek peaceful coexistence”. He demanded that yards with high walls and small blocs be discarded. In particular, he condemned the use of national security as the pretext to stymie economic and technological progress of other nations.
Amongst the blocs President Xi mentioned was the new strategic alignment of Australia, the UK and the US called the AUKUS. China is clearly concerned over the squeeze being applied, as its old method of technology transfer by hook or crook is becoming progressively difficult. China must also have got rattled by the popular uprising in Kazakhstan over energy disruptions.
Although the government there has survived for the time being, with Russian troops rushing in to help, such instability along its long Central Asian border and abutting the troubled Chinese province Xinjiang would be quite unwelcome. Hence the worry about US President Joe Biden-led marshalling of democracies.
That ideological issues can unnerve Chinese leadership and should not surprise, as an economic slowdown and demographic contraction will constrain President Xi’s attempt to gain hegemonic dominance.
Global Times, normally an English weathervane of Chinese fears and complexes, carried a piece criticising a New York Times piece titled ‘The Banality of Evil’, in which the draconian steps to contain Omicron were roundly condemned. Global Times especially criticised the Times’s use of phrase generally associated with the Nazi ‘final solution’, involving the genocide of Jews etc.
The Chinese columnist alleged that with 800,000 dead, the question that the US needs to answer is “how policies have been implemented and promoted because they are favourable to capitalists”. He ends the piece with a scathing remark: “Their consciences have been eaten by dogs”. The Oxfam report at Davos 2022 brings the focus on the Indian government’s conscience. It points out that between March 2020 and November 2022, Indian billionaires saw their net wealth grow from ₹ 23.14 lakh crores to ₹ 53.16 lakh crores. Meanwhile, 4.6 crore people fell into extreme poverty.
This may turn out to be the issue that concerns the Indian electorate in the coming months rather than the issues of mosques and temples. Nature has its own way of rectifying the balance. Pandemics historically have been known to leave a lasting impact on societies and a global pandemic even more so.
Conflated with geo-political stress caused by the contestation between a reigning hegemon like the US and a rising power like China, the plot thickens further. Therefore, as Omicron recedes, the coming months will show what geopolitical changes as indeed domestic political shifts occur in different nations. 2022 may turn out to be a defining year in this sense.
(The writer is former secretary, Ministry of External Affairs)
