By Jayati GHOSH

The unfolding pandemic horror in India has many causes. These include the complacency, inaction and irresponsibility of government leaders, even when it was evident for several months that a fresh wave of infections of new mutant variants threatened the population. Continued massive election rallies, many addressed by the prime minister, Narendra Modi, brought large numbers to congested gatherings and lulled many into underplaying the threat of infection.

The incomprehensible decision to allow a major Hindu religious festival — the Mahakumbh Mela, held every 12 years — to be brought forward by a full year, on the advice of some astrologers, brought millions from across India to one small area along the Ganges River and contributed to ‘super-spreading’ the disease.

The exponential explosion of Covid-19 cases — and it is likely much worse than officially reported, because of inadequate testing and undercounting of cases and deaths — has revealed not just official hubris and incompetence but lack of planning and major deficiencies in the public health system. The shortage of medical oxygen, for instance, has effectively become a proximate cause of death for many patients.

Failing Vaccination Program

But one significant — and entirely avoidable — reason for the catastrophe is the failing vaccination programme. Even given the global constraints posed by rich-country vaccine-grabbing and the limits on domestic production set by the TRIPS (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) agreement, this is unnecessary and unexpected.

India is home to the largest vaccine producer in the world and has several other companies capable of producing vaccines. Before the pandemic, 60 per cent of the vaccines used in the developing world for child immunisation were manufactured in India.

The country has a long tradition of successful vaccination campaigns, against polio and tuberculosis for infants and a range of other diseases. The available infrastructure for inoculation, urban and rural, could have been quickly mobilised.

In January, the government approved two candidates for domestic use: the Covishield (Oxford-AstraZeneca) vaccine, produced in India by the Serum Institute of India, and Covaxin, produced by Bharat Biotech under a manufacturing licence from the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) — other producers could have been similarly licenced to enhance supply.

The vaccination program officially started on Jan. 16 , with the initial target of covering 30 million healthcare and frontline workers by the end of March and 250 million people by July. By April 17 , however, only 37 percent of frontline workers had received both doses (of either vaccine); an additional 30 percent had received only the first.

Low uptake even among this vulnerable group could have resulted from concerns about the rapid regulatory approval granted to Covaxin, which had not completed Phase III trials. The Indian government also encouraged exports, partly to fulfil commitments by the Serum Institute of India to AstraZeneca and the global COVAX facility — partly to enhance its own standing among developing countries.

But very quickly thereafter, as vaccinations were extended to the over-60s and then those over 45, the shortage was felt and the pace slowed accordingly. By  April 24, only 8.5 per cent of the population had received even one dose — nowhere near what would be required to contain the spread. Even this limited coverage reflected the fact that private facilities had been allowed to administer the vaccine, at a charge of 250 rupees, around €2.76 (or $3.33) per dose.

Modi’s Unrealistic Plan

The Modi government had obviously made the unrealistic call that that existing domestic production of vaccines would be adequate. In fact, it would have taken the two producers on their own three years to meet the required demand. While the ban on exports of some essential ingredients by the Unites States is affecting production of the AstraZeneca vaccine, Bharat Biotech is constrained by its own finite capacity.

Shockingly, the government did not issue compulsory licences to other producers to increase supply, even though Covaxin had been developed by the public ICMR. It had also allowed several public-sector manufacturing units to languish without adequate investment.

Only on April 16, after the pandemic had reached crisis proportions across India and showed no signs of abatement, did the central government finally move to allow three public enterprises to make the vaccine — though three other public-run units, with greater expertise and capacity, were inexplicably left out. Even these new units will now need several months to gear up for production.

In the interim, in a uniquely cynical strategy, the Modi government has passed the buck on vaccination to the states, without providing any funding — indeed making them pay higher prices. It has agreed with the private producers a pricing system whereby state governments already desperately short of finances and facing hard budget constraints will have to pay up to four times what the central government pays for the same vaccines. They are now also being allowed to import vaccines from abroad — they will have to bid on their own for that. To create such a Hunger Games among state governments, without central funding and procurement of vaccines for every resident, can only have disastrous outcomes.

Disaster Capitalism 

The latest sign of this active encouragement of disaster capitalism by the Indian state is even more egregious. In the proposed opening up of vaccination to the 18-45 age group from May 1, access is to be limited to private hospitals and clinics, and only on payment — with prices ranging from 1,200 rupees to 2,400 rupees (€13.25-€26.5) per dose! Obviously, the poor will be unable to afford the vaccines, and so the pandemic will rage on, the massive human suffering will continue and countless lives will be lost.

If a novel had been written along these lines, it would be dismissed as too unrealistic and improbable to be taken seriously. Unfortunately, it is only too true — and the strategy of the Indian government is just an extreme example of the privileging of corporate profits over human lives which marks our still-neoliberal world.

consortiumnews.com

Sabria Chowdhury BALLAND

“Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” – Sun Tzu, Chinese military general and strategist, 5th century BC

On September 11, US Secretary of Defense Mark Esper spoke with Bangladeshi Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Sheikh Hasina over the phone. It is reported that during the call, Esper commended Sheikh Hasina on the manner in which she has handled the Covid-19 crisis.

They also discussed, according to the US Embassy in Bangladesh, “their shared commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific that ensures the sovereignty of all nations.” This commitment includes maritime and regional security, modernizing the Bangladesh military and global peacekeeping.

The embassy also said that “both leaders expressed their commitment to continue building closer bilateral defense relations in support of shared values and interests.”

The timing of the decision of the US Department of Defense to call Sheikh Hasina is interesting. The backdrop of the story lies in the US foreign policy, or its absence, toward Bangladesh in recent years.

Former president Barack Obama’s “pivot to Asia,” or “Asia-Pacific rebalancing,” did not work. Neither did it fortify ties with China, nor did it help the Middle East. It was, for the most part, mostly political rhetoric and little to no substance.

The Quad

Then came President Donald Trump’s Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, more commonly known as the Quad. This is an alliance of four nations, the United States, Australia, Japan and India. The essential philosophy behind the Quad is establishing a  tangible counterbalance to China’s remarkable growth and dynamism.

The Trump administration, for obvious reasons, did not like the idea of an Asia dominated by an ambitious China, pushing forward with its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and with its constructed South Asia islands. The US felt that trade with China was fine but there was always the looming threat that China’s ever growing presence would lead to domination of the region.

Thus a secure and safe Asia needed to have a counterbalance to China. Therefore, the Quad coordinated a security strategy, particularly in the maritime sphere.

The significance of Bangladesh

This is where Bangladesh comes into play. It is undeniable that India and Bangladesh have cultural ties. Furthermore, India helped Bangladesh in its Liberation War against Pakistan in 1971, a victory for which in realistic terms, Bangladesh has paid its due many times over.

The last 12 years, since the beginning of the Awami League government’s tenure led by Sheikh Hasina, India has become for its smaller neighbor an intrusive, hegemonic and opportunistic force, leading to a vastly unequal trade imbalance, water sharing, border killings of innocent Bangladeshis, and false-flag terrorist operations.

To add to this, Indian dominance and hegemony are hardly assets for Bangladesh. To the vast majority of Bangladeshis, the relationship with India is predominantly is a one-way street, with India taking much more than it gives, despite reserving the right to intervene and meddle in each and every policy decision in Bangladeshi governance.

China’s role

China’s investment plans for Bangladesh, which were announced in October 2016, were a game changer. China and Bangladesh signed 27 memoranda of understanding, valued at US$24 billion in investments for Bangladesh. Additionally, Chinese and Bangladeshi companies formed 13 joint ventures, valued at $13.6 billion.

In essence, Bangladesh has been suffering for years because the water levels of the Teesta in the country have drastically decreased due to India’s failure to implement its side of a water-sharing discussions. Successive governments in India have failed to honor their part in the discussions.

China has agreed to invest nearly $1 billion to build, among other things, a reservoir in Bangladesh, which will allow the country to store water for use in the dry season.

This is an example of the manner in which India has, over the years, consistently and intentionally undermined the interests, sovereignty and national integrity of Bangladesh. China thus shines in a very positive light for Bangladeshis because it does not interfere in political matters of a country while helping to construct its infrastructure.

The problems with India

While India is heavily involved in Bangladesh for its own benefit, it has its share of problems. These problems have come to the forefront within the last six years under the governance of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

In six years, Modi has managed to damage the economy of India severely, and unemployment is at a peak. India, while continually trying to lure Bangladesh away from China with warnings of “debt traps” set by Beijing, has itself signed a $750 million loan agreement from a bank in which China is the largest shareholder.

Furthermore, India’s intolerance of Muslims and the BJP’s insults of Bangladeshis such as calling them “termites” do not, needless to say, sit well with Bangladeshis.

The US

To come back to the phone call between Mark Esper and Sheikh Hasina, it seems evident that the US is now realizing that it has bet on the wrong horse and adopted the wrong strategies in South Asia. India is hardly the counterbalance to China. All the small nations in the region, whether Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka or Bangladesh, have significant ties with China.

Therefore, the US may be waking up to India’s failures and reassuring Bangladesh that both countries should be working toward the security of the region and mutual cooperation. This is simply political jargon for “don’t stray away and get too close to China.”

Thus Sun Tzu’s quote atop this article, as always, rings true even after 5,000 years. The US had utilized neither strategy nor tactics in South Asia, placing all its eggs in the India basket to manage smaller nations in the region, thinking very wrongly and rather foolishly that this could possibly be a counterbalancing maneuver to restrain China.

Clearly the US needs to understand its adversary, and not underestimate it.

asiatimes.com

MK BHADRAKUMAR

The common perception among Indian analysts, widely articulated in the country’s media, is that the government’s options to “hit back” at China for whatever has happened in eastern Ladakh during the past two months are very limited.

The reported erasure of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s “official page” on the Chinese social media website Weibo can only reinforce that impression. It simply doesn’t add up.

If reports are to be believed, Modi’s official page on Weibo “went blank” on Wednesday with the removal of the PM’s photograph and all 115 posts made over the past few years. However, some reports say the actual number is 113 and two posts are still remaining.

Why this happened remains incomprehensible – except, perhaps, for the optics it conveys in the domestic perceptions that the government is hanging tough on China. For a start, Modi might not have been a relatively popular figure in China – he only had 244,000 followers in a population of about 1.4 billion.

But such a following was not insignificant, either, in a country where there is no dearth of more attractive topics to engage public attention.

Arguably, therefore, Modi’s effort to communicate with “Chinese friends” through Weibo was not in vain during the period since 2015 when his “Weibo diplomacy” was launched and he wrote his first message, “Hello China! Looking forward to interacting with Chinese friends through Weibo.”

Communicating directly to the people in an authoritarian state is a rare opportunity. Weibo, which is state-controlled, extended to Modi such a privilege. And Modi, conceivably, was aware that every word he wrote would be carefully read by the movers and shakers in Beijing.

There is nothing indicating that the Chinese side ever censored his posts. Having lived as a diplomat in the former Soviet Union for many years, I can only conclude that the authorities in Beijing must have been quietly pleased with Modi’s attempt to build bridges of friendship with the Chinese people.

In diplomacy, the centrality of people-to-people relations in inter-state relations is often understated. Modi is a rare exception. His political persona is virtually nothing without his extraordinary ability to “connect” with people.

What a smashing hit his first major foray into international diplomacy was at Madison Square Garden in New York City in the autumn of 2014.

Without doubt, the event caught then-US president Barack Obama’s imagination – although the two statesmen are poles apart in their beliefs and politics. India-US relations, which were listless at that time, had a booster dose from Modi’s solo performance in New York. The ties never looked back.

Modi’s subsequent “hug diplomacy” with President Donald Trump also had an inherent logic insofar as it created a firewall to minimize collateral damage from the latter’s mercurial personality.

Modi managed to hold Trump captive to a dissimulated relationship of mutual affection and respect. Trump probably understood the game, but played along.

It was a delicate trapeze act, and, inevitably, Modi fumbled as time passed by becoming somewhat excessive, as evident from the raucous “Howdy Modi” and “Namaste Trump” events.

Modi tempted fate. Today, we keep our fingers crossed and hope there won’t be blowback if Joe Biden wins the November presidential election in the US.

In comparison, the “Weibo diplomacy” was a safe bet. The best part was that it cost nothing. Even if the bridge lost its sense of direction and was hanging in the air, it still would have served a purpose, as a constant reminder to the Chinese side of Modi’s intentions and commitment to the Sino-Indian relationship.

Arguably, Weibo’s administrators would have been put on the spot if Modi had just retained his account vowing not to write any further posts until enduring peace and tranquility reappeared in the rocky mountains and valleys of eastern Ladakh.

Having said that, what happened on Wednesday also underscored a maxim that Modi is just about learning – that the role of personalized diplomacy should not be exaggerated. Modi revelled in “hug diplomacy” in its various manifestations and probably had a false notion that India’s foreign policies depended heavily on his personal efforts.

The Chinese experience shows that life is real. It is the interests of countries that matter in international politics and any leader who fancies otherwise is bound to meet with disillusionment.

A famous instance comes to mind – then-US president George W Bush’s famous remark after his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the charming Brdo pri Kranju estate in northern Slovenia on June 16, 2001: “I looked the man in the eye. I found him very straightforward and trustworthy – I was able to get a sense of his soul.”

Bush Jr was not a gifted speaker, but even by his standards, that remark was a bloomer. His top security aide, and later secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice wrote in her memoirs that Bush’s phrasing had been a serious mistake. As Rice put it: “We were never able to escape the perception that the president had naively trusted Putin and then been betrayed.”

Equally, it is a reasonable estimation today, in retrospect, that the Chinese side too went awfully wrong in believing that Modi was a “strong” leader with whom they could do business and even reach a border settlement to transform the Sino-Indian relationship historically.

The Chinese commentaries were noticeably partisan toward Modi in the run-up to the 2014 Indian election when he was storming the castle in Delhi to capture power.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi landed in Delhi on June 8, 2014, as the special envoy of President Xi Jinping within days of Modi assuming office as prime minister. While in Delhi, Wang publicly called Modi “an old friend of China” and paid fulsome praise that he would inject “new vitality into an ancient civilization.”

Even the Washington-based Diplomat magazine, which is usually hostile toward Beijing, admitted: “Rhetoric aside, the greater significance of Wang’s visit is that it reflects a desire in China to pivot the bilateral relationship with India away from tenuous and unproductive disputes and toward economic cooperation. China, and now India under Modi, see economic complementarities to be exploited for mutual gain.”

But the magazine was prescient to add a cautionary note, albeit in riddles: “Despite rhetoric on both sides favoring closer ties, India and China continue to have their share of problems. While Wang’s trip might be the first official interaction between the Chinese government and the Modi administration, the Chinese Foreign Ministry did protest Tibetan leader Lobgsang Sangay’s prominent place at Modi’s swearing-in ceremony on May 26.”

With the benefit of hindsight, if Modi’s China diplomacy is in a shambles today, we cannot but factor in the absence of a consensus within our ruling elite over the sort of trajectory to the Sino-Indian ties that he would have choreographed in the solitude of his mind as he set out to assume the levers of power in 2014.

At what point the Chinese side began sensing this Indian mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma, we may never exactly know. But the denouement to the present crisis also depends on our making a fair guess.

asiatimes.com

The summit scheduled for June 22 of the RIC (Russia-India-China) group was initiated weeks ago by Moscow. It will be held by teleconference between the foreign ministers. The event predates the flare-up in dangerous tensions between New Delhi and Beijing.

At least 20 Indian soldiers were killed earlier this week in hand-to-hand fighting with Chinese forces. It was the deadliest incident in more than half a century since the two Asian powers fought a brief war in 1962 over similar border dispute. There are dozens of casualties also reported on the Chinese side, but Beijing has not officially confirmed numbers.

New Delhi and Beijing immediately expressed willingness at the highest level to deescalate the tensions. There is mutual recognition that further clashes could spin disastrously out of control between the nuclear-armed states.

However, the acrimony will not be easy to contain. Both sides have blamed the other for aggression following the bloody incident on Monday-Tuesday night. There is popular anger in both nations with Indian protesters burning images of Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Reports say hundreds of soldiers were engaged in a pitched battle using rocks, clubs and knives after opposing units became involved in a brawl in the high-altitude Galwan Valley. Many soldiers were thrown to their deaths from treacherous slopes.

Indian and Chinese forces patrol the disputed 3,500-km Line of Actual Control between the two countries with competing territorial claims. A bilateral agreement stipulates that the rival units are unarmed in order to reduce risk of conflict.

Confrontations have increased in recent years with both sides accusing the other of encroachment. Following a border skirmish in May, Indian and Chinese army commanders negotiated a de-escalation deal earlier this month. Now both sides are accusing each other of bad faith.

The RIC summit may provide a path for New Delhi and Beijing to find a way out of escalation. One crucial factor is Russia’s respected standing with both powers. Russian President Vladimir Putin has cordial relations with both Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping. Moscow can be trusted to act as an honest broker to facilitate dialogue for resolving the long-running territorial dispute between India and China, a dispute which goes back to the legacy of the British Empire and the contested borders it bequeathed.

U.S. President Donald Trump has already offered to mediate between India and China. But that offer, made in May, was rebuffed at the time by New Delhi. It was perceived that Washington is not a credible broker, given its well-established alignment with India for strategic-military aims against China. Indian premier Modi may have felt the patronage of Washington would undermine his credibility as a strong leader in dealing with China on a one-to-one basis.

In any case, any pretensions of Trump acting as a mediator have been blown apart since his administration ratcheted up China-bashing over the Covid-19 pandemic. Trump and his aides have made incendiary claims blaming China for causing global spread of the disease and in particular huge economic damages and more than 112,000 deaths in the U.S. Beijing has dismissed Washington’s claims as a cynical cover-up of inherent failures on the part of the Trump administration.

The Cold War-like tensions between Washington and Beijing have also seen an increasing deployment of U.S. military forces in the Asia-Pacific region to counter what the Trump administration and Pentagon provocatively claims to be “Chinese aggression”.

Any involvement of the U.S. in the current India-China tensions can only make the already fraught situation even worse. Indeed, the Trump White House and anti-China hawks in Congress will try to exploit the tensions with a view to destabilize Beijing.

India should tread carefully to avoid being used by Washington as a proxy for its geopolitical confrontation with China.

In an editorial this week, China’s semi-official Global Times accused India of being misled by Washington as a “lever” for the latter’s own strategic goals.

If New Delhi and Beijing are genuinely motivated to find a negotiated settlement to their decades-old territorial dispute, they will have to work together to find a mutual compromise on defining a sovereign border, one that finally supplants the diffuse Line of Actual Control. The incoherence of the LAC is an-ever present source of contention and ultimately a tinderbox for war.

Russia is the only power with bona fides and credibility as an honest broker for resolving the India-China conflict.

New Delhi will have to decide if it wants to fully engage with the Eurasian multipolar vision of development espoused by China and Russia, among others, or will it allow Washington to interfere with its selfish imperialist agenda to the detriment of the entire region?

Of course many great patriots arose to powerful positions in India during the past seven decades bearing such names as Homi Babha (the father of Indian nuclear science), Prime Ministers Indira Gandhi and her son Rajiv Gandi (assassinated in 1984 and 1991 respectively)… but so too have British stooges more loyal to British intelligence agendas than their own nations’ well being.

Since Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power in 2014, the populist leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party has vacillated between those two extremes, occasionally breaking from Anglo-American pressure to treat China, Pakistan or the New Silk Road as enemies, but more often than not bending to the geopolitical demands of the empire.

Modi’s Green Response to the BRI

A recent case of the latter slavish behaviour can be seen with Modi’s renewed call to counter the spread of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) with a strange doppelganger known as the One Sun, One World, One Grid Plan (OSOWOG). This three-phased global plan was first announced in 2018 and promises to transition the world into a single international green energy grid by 2050 in order to meet the COP-21 demands for mass carbon dioxide reduction. Part of the plan also involves creating a ‘World Solar Bank’ to offset the China-dominated Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank and New Development Bank.

The OSOWOG Plan targets a vast region encapsulating two broad zones which basically receive lots of sun light: 1) the Far East of Asia and Middle East and 2) North Africa. In essence, the plan calls for spreading green energy infrastructure across these sun-soaked regions and a generating a new integrated green grid as a way to counterbalance China’s BRI. The first phase calls for enmeshing the Middle East, South Asia and South East Asia into green grids followed soon thereafter by North Africa and then finally, the world. Indian secretary at the Ministry of Culture, Anand Kumar stated: “this would be the key to future renewable-based energy systems globally. Creation of regional and international interconnected green grids can enable sharing of renewable energy across international borders.”

Currently receiving start up capital from the World Bank, the OSOWOG Plan is managed by another entity created during the COP-19 Conference in 2015 and headquartered in New Delhi entitled the International Solar Alliance (an umbrella organization of 66 nations).

According to the project’s Request for Proposal of bids, “the vision behind the OSOWOG mantra is ‘The Sun Never Sets’ and is a constant at some geographical location, globally, at any given point of time”.

This may look nice on the surface, but when one looks at the partners of OSOWOG and the anti-BRI geopolitical dynamics underlying its deployment, it appears that the British Empire’s still-active controlling hand has more to do with the mantra than the presence of the sun’s rays on the earth.

In June 2019, Modi’s International Solar Alliance (ISA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the British Commonwealth of 52 nations of the “former British Empire” which is still headed by Queen Elizabeth herself and of which India is still a member. According to their press release, these nations “agreed to work in partnership to promote the development and scaling-up of solar power within member countries common to both organisations.” The head of the ISA stated: “Together, ISA and Commonwealth will be able to look at country-wide strategies to promote the Paris Agreement on climate change, and Sustainable Development Goals 7 and 13 on clean, affordable energy and climate action.”

Why China’s BRI Works

The fact is that under the ever-growing Belt and Road Initiative, nations which have suffered under decades of neocolonialism and abject poverty have now recognized a tangible hope for sustained growth and freedom from want.

China’s win-win paradigm is premised not on debt slavery as some of the BRI’s detractors maintain, but rather on long term, large scale infrastructure development which simply benefits all participants.

What makes this project so successful is that unlike 50 years of globalization promises that have only created a world of neocolonial debt slavery, China actually gets things done, as 800 million who have been lifted out of poverty in 25 years can attest to. Frustrating the armies of western mathematical economists sitting in their ivory towers, the BRI is not formulaic and uses practices that have some characteristics of “market-driven/capitalism” as well as others that are “socialist/protectionist”.

To put it simply, the BRI defies formalism because reality is not formal. If you care about helping nations become self-sufficient while uplifting the material/cognitive/cultural conditions of the people, then the path to attain those principled goals may take on many forms, but the substance is the same. I would characterize that substance in the simplest terms the following 3-fold way:

1) Have a plan for every nation state and city you wish to cooperate with.

2) Make sure these plans are in harmony with a larger unifying plan that organizes the local and regional parts from the top down.

3) Make sure that the fruits of building these plans are of a type that benefits all players- private, public, rich, poor, agricultural and industrial.

This is the essence of the Belt and Road Initiative.

By building the largest dams, high speed rail grids, electricity programs, ports and bridges in history, concrete, steel, aluminum, iron, tin and rare earths have been used and deployed in amounts far exceeding anything the USA has done in the past 60. These feats require energy. Lots of energy.

But not all energy is created equal.

The Imperial Fraud of ‘Green’ Energy

If we are simply measuring energy as calories, then from a purely mathematical standpoint one can say one calorie of nuclear power, one calorie of coal power and one calorie from a solar farm are equivalent. However, if we assess the quality of the organization of energy, then those three are no longer equal with one gram of nuclear fuel performing the equivalent amount of work as 3 million grams of coal (which itself is exponentially more efficient and cheap than solar power).

While it cannot be denied that China has become a world leader in “green” energy projects, and Xi Jinping speaks of “green power” a lot, the thrust of China’s international projects are not successful due to such forms of energy but rather vast investments into nuclear power, coal, hydro power and natural gas- all of which are considered verboten by the green technocrats in the west preaching a global decarbonization pipe dream for climate offending nations in the developing sector.

For those on the left still hanging onto the misinformed belief that windmills and solar panels can replace “dirty” fossil fuels and nuclear power, it is useful to review Michael Moore’s recent documentary Planet of the Humans which has thrown many an eco-activist in an existential funk since its April 2020 release. [Warning: Moore’s film excellently demonstrates the fraud of green energy, but still falls into the cynical Malthusian belief that ultimately humanity’s only chance for survival is to bite the bullet and wilfully depopulate ourselves].

In spite of its misanthropic narrative, Moore’s film does effectively capture the fact that while wind and solar look good on paper (or in the mathematical fantasy lands of technocrats), the reality is that such energy sources are the very opposite of “sustainable”… as windmills and solar panels cannot be even be created using windmill and solar energy!

Here is where the fraud of Modi’s “Sun Never Sets” Initiative comes in.

By attempting to create a green belt cutting across Mackinder’s World Island, from Asia through the Middle East to Africa, the OSOWOG plan promises to do essentially what the British Empire of yesteryear did to the world for centuries: Ensure no industrial growth, infrastructure or national sovereignty while keeping all nations foolish enough to jump on board in perpetual debt slavery with no means of production necessary to extinguish ever growing debts. This lesson was learned by the earlier Club of Rome promoters of Desertec which promised to convert the Sahara into a solar super hub to power all of Europe forever and which Siemans CEO Peter Loscher stated would be “the Apollo project of the 21st century” in 2009, but which turned out to be a failed boondoggle by 2013 as nations decided their future was best guaranteed by joining the New Silk Road instead.

With COVID-19 being used by the most powerful financial forces on the earth as an excuse to ram through a Green New Deal under the UN’s Global Compact (which has the support of the largest western corporations and banks in the world), it is obvious that OSOWOG is really just another lame attempt to revive the British Empire as an anti-development strategy for the 21st century.

The author can be reached at matt.ehret@tutamail.com

One thing about U.S. President Donald Trump is that he can be brutally frank. Trump recently picked up the phone and called British Prime Minister Boris Johnson to convey his displeasure over the latter’s decision to allow Huawei to operate in the United Kingdom despite Washington’s repeated urgings not to do business with the Chinese tech company.

Washington even threatened that London would be expelled from the Five Eyes (intelligence-sharing arrangement between the U.S., Canada, the UK, Australia, and New Zealand) if it had anything to do with 5G developed by the Chinese company.

But Johnson stuck to his guns—rightly so, since the post-Brexit British economy hopes to get substantial blood transfusion from China to sustain its future growth and prosperity.

After a “furious” call from Trump, which ended abruptly when the U.S. president “slammed down the phone,” Johnson has since postponed his planned visit next month to Washington.

Therefore, Trump’s frank remarks about his forthcoming India visit on February 24-25 to Ahmedabad, Gujarat, should not come as a surprise. In response to a query from the media, he said on February 18:

“Well, we can have a trade deal with India, but I’m really saving the big deal for later on. We’re doing a very big trade deal with India. We’ll have it. I don’t know if it’ll be done before the election, but we’ll have a very big trade deal with India.

“We’re not treated very well by India, but I happen to like Prime Minister Modi a lot. And he told me we’ll have 7 million people between the airport and the event. And the stadium, I understand, is sort of semi under construction, but it’s going to be the largest stadium in the world. So it’s going to be very exciting. But he says between the stadium and the airport, we’ll have about 7 million people. So it’s going to be very exciting. I hope you all enjoy it.”

There is virtual certainty now that Trump won’t cancel the visit, as he’s wont to doing at the last minute if his attention wanders away to something more exciting.

Prime Minister Modi did a smart thing indeed by enticing Trump with the alluring prospect of 7 million people lining up the streets from the Ahmedabad airport to the newly built Motera Stadium in the city.

What can be more seductive to lure a populist politician than a mass rally? Modi understands Trump well like few people can.

Trump treats politics like a reality show. He is the very antithesis of a cerebral, erudite politician. Ideas don’t matter; words and showmanship are all that matter to him.

Trump derides intellectuality, has a flair for fake news, speaks untruths freely (even in his State of the Union speech), and is a living example of what Abraham Lincoln once said, “Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man’s character, give him power.”

But how come such a hugely successful businessman like Trump can be so naive as to believe that Modi will produce a human chain of 7 million Gujaratis?

Some Indian analysts estimate that something like 300,000 Gujaratis might actually line up to witness the nearly 14-mile-long Trump-Modi roadshow on February 24 from the airport to Motera Stadium.

Trump would have calculated that even if just about 10 percent of the people Modi promised actually show up for the roadshow, that would present a breathtaking image to be broadcast back to American TVs.

The overpowering impression that the spectacle would create in the American public will be that Trump is an immensely popular leader among mankind, contrary to how half of Americans speak of him.

To be sure, the Modi government is leaving no stone unturned. The government hopes to arrange 120,000 people to attend the rally at Motera Stadium. Three thousand buses will be deployed to ferry people from the districts to the stadium.

The state government is expected to spend nearly US$15 million on road renovation, security cover, cultural shows, decorations, etc., alone to give a fresh look to the Gujarat model of development.

Trump didn’t waffle on the reason why he is coming. He hinted that a trade deal remains elusive. His remarks also belied some annoyance with Delhi—presumably, for not being more helpful for his America First project or his family’s business interests in India.

But then, he happens to like Modi himself “a lot.” Suffice it to say, this visit needs to be seen as a favor he’s doing for Modi, whose invitation once as chief guest on Republic Day he’d turned down.

Trump sounded like the badshah (king) out to enjoy himself on an exciting hunting trip and is looking forward to much self-gratification, all arranged at no personal cost to himself.

What can the lowly subjects expect in return? In ancient times, the badshah would have thrown gold coins at the poor people lining the streets.

counterpunch.org

One of the most ridiculous contentions of the extreme right is that Adolf Hitler and his National Socialists, or Nazis, were left-wingers. These confabulators of history would have the world believe that Hitler and Franklin Delano Roosevelt were engaged in a war between leftist leaders and that Italy’s Benito Mussolini and Imperial Japan’s Hideki Tojo were mere leftist allies of Hitler.

In April 2019, after having paid a visit to Israel’s Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial and museum in Jerusalem, Brazil’s off-kilter President Bolsonaro confidently declared “there is no doubt” that Nazism was a leftist movement. Bolsonaro is not the only Brazilian leader to utter such inaccuracies about history. Brazilian Foreign Minister Ernesto Araujo is also on record as stating that Nazis represented a leftist political viewpoint. Both Bolsonaro and Araujo assume that because the word “socialist” was contained in the official title of the Nazi Party in Germany – the “National Socialist German Workers’ Party” – that means the Nazis were leftwing socialists.

Using the “logic” of Bolsonaro’s and Araujo’s political party, the Social Liberal Party (PSL) of Brazil, one should believe that the party consists of socialist-inclined liberals. In fact, that PSL is a neo-fascist party championed by Bolsonaro, someone who said the following about Hitler: “He was a great strategist: annihilated his enemies as everyone does when at war; I would have enlisted in Hitler’s army.” Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro understood what Bolsonaro represents when, during his state of the nation speech in Caracas in January 2019, said, “Over there we’ve got Brazil in the hands of a fascist – Bolsonaro is a Hitler of the modern era!”

Bolsonaro and Araujo are unfazed by the fact that Nazis and their allies in Europe and Asia were committed fascists who were intent on stamping out socialism and communism around the world. They and their fascist ilk in Brazil, the United States, and elsewhere are ignorant of the basics of history and political science. In the United States, far-right pundits like Dinesh D’Souza – fully pardoned by Trump in 2018 for his previous criminal conviction for campaign finance law violations – and Jonah Goldberg, have erroneously argued that Nazis were leftists. Bolsonaro, a champion of the fascist and murderous military dictatorship that ruled Brazil with an iron fist between 1964 and 1985, was not a dictatorship. In Bolsonaro’s warped mind, as well as those of his supporters, up is down, Nazis were and remain leftists, and military dictatorships are democracies.

In 1944, President Roosevelt pointed out the fact that the Republicans of his era were using the “big lie” propaganda tactics refined in and practiced by the Nazi German leadership. FDR said, “The opposition has imported the propaganda technique invented by the dictators abroad. Remember a number of years ago, there was book, “Mein Kampf,” written by Hitler himself. The technique was all set out in Hitler’s book and was copied by all the aggressors of Italy and Japan. According to that technique, you should never use a small falsehood; always a big one, for its very fantastic nature would make it more credible, if only you keep repeating it over and over and over again.”

FDR’s warning was prophetic. Well over seven decades since the end of World War II and Nazi and fascist rule in Europe and Asia, Trump and his acolytes, as well as neo-fascists in Brazil, Italy, Britain, and elsewhere, rely on what Roosevelt called the “big falsehood” to confuse the electorate and obscure their own fascist policies. Trump’s domestic policy adviser, the white nationalist Stephen Miller, claims that criticism of his racist policies constitutes a form of “antisemitism,” merely because he is Jewish. Of course, history shows us that being of Jewish descent does not mean that one cannot be both antisemitic, as well as a Nazi. Frank Collin, the leader of the American Nazi Party, had a Jewish father: Max Frank Collin, born Max Simon Cohn in Munich, and a survivor, in contrast to his parents, of the Dachau extermination camp. Frank Collin’s predecessor as American Nazi Führer, George Lincoln Rockwell, was the son of vaudevillian performers, who counted among their closest friends such Jewish performers as George Burns, Jack Benny, and Groucho Marx, all of whom attended Rockwell’s christening. Stephen Miller’s pro-fascist and Nazi-like racial views should be seen through the same historical prism that resulted in the fanatical Nazi views of Collin and Rockwell. Miller has incorrectly stated that the immigrant-welcoming poem by Emma Lazarus, “The New Colossus,” situated at the base of the Statue of Liberty, was meant only for white Europeans. Borrowing from Joseph Goebbels’s “Big Lie” propaganda device, Miller hoped that his falsehood would become a historical fact.

Conversely, there are fundamentalist Christians like Bolsonaro; his son, Brazilian federal deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro; and Foreign Minister Araujo who agree with fanatical rightwing American Jews like Trump’s billionaire campaign financier Sheldon Adelson, U.S. ambassador to Israel David Friedman, and Trump adviser Miller, as well as former Republican U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich, on the status of Palestine. They believe Palestinians are a “made up people” or “invented people” out to “destroy Israel.” This represents yet another falsification of history, a technique known as revisionist negationism.

The Palestinians are referred to as Philistines and their nation as Philistia in the biblical Old Testament. The classical Greek historian Herodotus referred to Palestine as Palaistínē in the 5^th century BC. Modern Palestinian nationalism is traced to the end of World War I and the collapse of Ottoman control over the region then known as Palestine. The subsequent British League of Nations mandate was over the territory of Palestine. The insistence by historical revisionists that Palestine was created in the 1960s is without any professional merit among authentic historians. Today, 138 nations recognize the State of Palestine, even though much of its territory is under Israeli military occupation. No amount of historical revisionism from Israeli racist expansionists and Christian fundamentalists can change that fact of modern international relations.

The Conservative parliamentary super-majority government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson has launched a wave of fake history not recently seen in the British Isles. Because Johnson is being compared to pre-World War II British Union of Fascists leader Oswald Mosley, history is being altered on the man who would have become Britain’s führer had Hitler launched Operation Sea Lion, the invasion and occupation of the British Isles. For example, a statue was recently unveiled of Britain’s first female Member of Parliament, Lady Nancy Astor, a member of the Conservative Party. It mattered not to those honoring Astor that she was a vocal supporter of Mosley and his fascist movement. Under Johnson, the Tories merely “reassess” Mosley in order to gloss over Astor’s sordid background of making excuses for Mosley, Hitler, Mussolini, and other fascists of her day. More shocking was the presence of former Prime Minister Theresa May at the dedication of the Astor statue in Plymouth. Will statues to Mosley and Radio Berlin’s British wartime propagandist William Joyce, also known as “Lord Haw Haw,” be next?

Indian Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi has renamed Ross Island in the Andaman Island chain after Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose, the wartime Indian nationalist leader allied with Hitler and Tojo.

If honest historians, scholars, and writers permit the neo-fascists around the world to alter history, future generations might find themselves sitting in parks next to statues of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Hideki Tojo, while reading books praising the extermination of the native peoples of the Western Hemisphere, the virtues of the American Confederacy and the slave culture, and the statesmanship of Donald Trump.

Two of the world’s most important powers, India and Pakistan, are locked into an extremely dangerous confrontation over the bitterly disputed Himalayan mountain state of Kashmir. Both are nuclear armed.

Kashmir has been a flashpoint since Imperial Britain divided India in 1947. India and Pakistan have fought numerous wars and conflicts over majority Muslim Kashmir. China controls a big chunk of northern Kashmir known as Aksai Chin.

In 1949, the UN mandated a referendum to determine if Kashmiris wanted to join Pakistan or India. Not surprisingly, India refused to hold the vote. But there are some Kashmiris who want an independent state, though a majority seek to join Pakistan.

India claims that most of northern Pakistan is actually part of Kashmir, which it claims in full. India rules the largest part of Kashmir, formerly a princely state. Pakistan holds a smaller portion, known as Azad Kashmir. In my book on Kashmir, ‘War at the Top of the World,’ I called it ‘the globe’s most dangerous conflict.’ It remains so today.

I’ve been under fire twice on the Indo-Pak border in Kashmir, known as the ‘Line of Control,’ and once at 15,000 feet atop the Siachen Glacier on China’s border. India has over 500,000 soldiers and paramilitary police garrisoning its portion of Kashmir, whose 12 million people bitterly oppose often corrupt and brutal Indian rule – except for local minority Hindus and Sikhs who support it. A bloody, bitter uprising has flared on against Indian rule since 1989 in which some 42,000 people, mostly civilians, have died.

About 250,000 Pakistani troops are dug in on the other side of the ceasefire line.

What makes this confrontation so dangerous is that both sides have important tactical and nuclear forces arrayed against one another. These are mostly short/medium-ranged nuclear tipped missiles, and air-delivered nuclear bombs. Strategic nuclear weapons back up these tactical forces. A nuclear exchange, even a limited one, could kill millions, pollute much of Asia’s ground water, and spread radioactive dust around the globe – including to North America.

India’s new Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, is a Hindu hardliner who is willing to confront Pakistan and India’s 200 million Muslims, who make up over 14% of the population. In February, Modi sent warplanes to attack Pakistan after Kashmir insurgents ambushed Indian forces. Pakistan shot down an Indian MiG-21 fighter. China, Pakistan’s closest ally, warned India to back off.

Modi is very close to President Donald Trump and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, both noted for anti-Muslim sentiments. Modi just revoked article 370 of India’s constitution that bars non-Kashmiris from buying land in the mountain state, and shut down its phone and internet systems.

The revocation means that non-Kashmiris can now buy land there. Modi is clearly copying Israel’s Netanyahu by encouraging non-Muslims to buy up land and squeeze the local Muslim population. Welcome to the Mideast conflict East. China is also doing similar ethnic inundation in its far western, largely Muslim, Xinjiang (Sinkiang) region.

In an ominous sign, Delhi says it will separate the high altitude Ladakh region (aka ‘Little Tibet’) from its portion of Kashmir. This move suggests India plans to chop up Indian Kashmir into two or three states, a move sure to further enrage Pakistan and thwart any future peace settlement.

There’s little Pakistan can do to block India’s actions.

India’s huge armed forces outnumber those of Pakistan by 4 or 5 to one. Without nuclear weapons, Pakistan would be quickly overrun by Indian forces. Only massive Chinese intervention would save Pakistan.

Meanwhile, Kashmir, the world’s longest-running major dispute, continues, threatening a terrible nuclear conflict. Making matters worse, both India and Pakistan’s nuclear forces are on a hair-trigger alert, with a warning time of only minutes. This is a region where electronics often become scrambled. A false alert or a flock of birds could trigger a massive nuclear war in South Asia.

India and Pakistan, where people starve in the streets, waste billions on military spending because of the Kashmir dispute. Now some of India’s extreme Hindu nationalists warn they want to reabsorb Pakistan, Bangladesh, and even Sri Lanka into Mother India.

Previous Indian leaders have been cautious. But not PM Modi. He is showing signs of power intoxication.

ericmargolis.com

The maxim of the three wise monkeys in the ancient Indian folklore stems from the elite’s ‘unipolar predicament’ — a notion that to be on the right side of history in the 21st century means India might as well jump on the US bandwagon.

Delhi’s strategic patience under Prime Minister Modi’s rule has been somewhat stretched to the limits during the Donald Trump presidency. Modi tried everything in the Indian rope trick to pacify the mercurial American president. But with Trump, no one can be quite sure. Where golf-playing statesmen oozing charm — such as Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe — failed, India should have drawn conclusions.

Delhi instead chose to ignore the taunting — at times insulting — Trumpean tweets poking at Modi. Trump even cavalierly turned down the ultimate honour that Modi could bestow on him — an invite to be the chief guest at India’s National Day parade in Delhi.

Then, on July 22, all hell broke loose with Trump disclosing to the media that Modi has asked him to play the role of a mediator on Kashmir issue — India’s Achilles’ heel — and that he is rolling up the sleeves. And, rubbing salt into the Indian wound, Trump made this sensational disclosure in the presence of the Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan.

Doesn’t Trump know that India publicly disavows third party mediation on Kashmir? Without doubt, he knows. And that’s the whole point. Within hours, the Indian foreign ministry reacted evasively that ‘no such request has been made’ by Modi. The Indian spokesman rolled out the mantra regarding India’s ‘consistent position that all outstanding issues with Pakistan are discussed only bilaterally.’ Delhi added, ‘Any engagement with Pakistan would require an end to cross border terrorism’.

In the present context, Pakistan’s help to end the Afghan war can mean a big foreign policy achievement for Trump that would have mileage for his campaign for the presidential election next year in the US. Therefore, the probability is that Trump was being boastful by ‘declassifying’ fully or partly what must have been a highly sensitive exchange between him and Modi in Osaka without any aides present.

Suffice to say, Trump’s mediatory offer on Kashmir and the salience of Imran Khan’s visit to the US hold serious implications for Indian policies.

First and foremost, the Modi government recoiled from the backlash of Indian public opinion regarding Trump’s mediatory offer. In reality, though, India has selectively accepted US mediation in the past, the best known example being the Kargil War in 1990. Therefore, even if Modi had sought Trump’s mediation, it would have been nothing extraordinary.

In fact, tactically, it would have been a clever ploy to pin down Trump to the neutral ground as regards India-Pakistan tensions even as Imran Khan was to shortly undertake a momentous visit to the US.

Indeed, Imran Khan’s visit will cause disquiet in the Indian mind insofar as Trump is promising to Pakistan a seamless alliance. This is happening at an awkward moment for India when the guns have fallen silent on the India-Pakistan border and the cross-border infiltration of militants to J&K has dried up lately.

The Modi government is just about to roll out a new strategy toward the J&K situation. The Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh publicly announced only last week that a final solution to the J&K situation is ‘imminent’.

A reasonable guess is that the Modi government plans to integrate J&K by divesting or eroding some of its so-called ‘special status’, taking advantage of the perceived Pakistani capitulation on cross-border terrorism. That plan may now have to be put on the back burner.

One of the basic assumptions behind that plan is that there isn’t going to be any international repercussions if Delhi robustly pushed the project forward, with coercion if need be, to integrate J&K. But Trump may have now shaken up the Indian confidence. Trump drew attention to the security situation in the Indian state of Jammu & Kashmir, the longstanding character of the Kashmir problem and the singular inability of India and Pakistan to resolve the dispute bilaterally.

The way things are developing in the equations between Washington and Islamabad at the highest level of leaderships, Pakistan has succeeded in getting the US to accept a linkage between any Afghan settlement and a resolution of the Kashmir dispute. Trump’s remarks in their totality implicitly seems to acknowledge such a linkage.

At any rate, for the big hand that Pakistan is holding out to Trump to help end the Afghan war and claim a foreign-policy trophy in 2020, it will expect far greater US sensitivity toward Pakistan’s legitimate interests in regional security and stability, where its longstanding demand is for ‘strategic balance’ in South Asia. In the Pakistani estimation, ‘strategic balance’ requires a rest of the US’ South Asia policy compass, which tilts in favour of India.

Trump’s remarks suggest that he accepts in principle that goodwill and cooperation makes a two-way street. Therefore, Trump’s explosive disclosure will also have resonance with the Kashmiri people who are already alienated from the Indian state. Trump may have unwittingly given hope to the Kashmiris.

J&K’s planned ‘integration’ now becomes an uphill task for the Modi government. Nonetheless, Delhi is not going to be deterred from integrating J&K on terms that Bharathiya Janata Party, India’s ruling party, has unwaveringly set as its goal. From Delhi’s mild reaction to Trump’s remarks, it seems Modi government hopes to continue to tackle POTUS by making concessions elsewhere — such as, more lucrative arms deals.

The Indian analysts often speak of foreign policy under Modi as one of ‘multi-alignment’. But in practice, Indian policies operate on the ground as if the world community is an animal farm where the US remains more equal than others. Simply put, the Indian elites desire it that way, the bureaucrats are au fait with it and the Diaspora in North America, which roots for Hindu nationalism, demands it.

This is where the fundamental contradiction lies. When Trump says he is raring to mediate on Kashmir and help normalise India-Pakistan relations, he has unceremoniously trespassed on India’s core interests. Hopefully, this will trigger an Indian rethink in a longer term perspective rather than as a storm in the tea cup, given the high probability that Trump will remain in power for a second term as well.

Such poignant moments underscore that India’s strategic ambivalence in the contemporary world order, characterised by growing multipolarity, is becoming increasingly untenable. Modi’s forthcoming visit to Russia in September and the visit by Chinese President Xi Jinping to India in October will provide significant pointers to the Indian policies in the changing regional and international milieu.

With the dogs of war on full alert, something extraordinary happened at the 19th summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) late last week in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

Virtually unknown across the West, the SCO is the foremost Eurasian political, economic and security alliance. It’s not a Eurasian NATO. It’s not planning any humanitarian imperialist adventures. A single picture in Bishkek tells a quite significant story, as we see China’s Xi, Russia’s Putin, India’s Modi and Pakistan’s Imran Khan aligned with the leaders of four Central Asian “stans”.

These leaders represent the current eight members of the SCO. Then there are four observer states – Afghanistan, Belarus, Mongolia and, crucially, Iran – plus six dialogue partners: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and, crucially, Turkey.

The SCO is bound to significantly expand by 2020, with possible full membership for both Turkey and Iran. It will then feature all major players of Eurasia integration. Considering the current incandescence in the geopolitical chessboard, it’s hardly an accident a crucial protagonist in Bishkek was the ‘observer’ state Iran.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani played his cards masterfully. Rouhani speaking directly to Putin, Xi, Modi and Imran, at the same table, is something to be taken very seriously. He blasted the US under Trump as “a serious risk to stability in the region and the world”. Then he diplomatically offered preferential treatment for all companies and entrepreneurs from SCO member nations committed to investing in the Iranian market.

The Trump administration has claimed – without any hard evidence – that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which Washington brands as a “terrorist organization” – was behind the attacks on two tankers in the Gulf of Oman last week. As the SCO summit developed, the narrative had already collapsed, as Yutaka Katada, president of Japanese cargo company Kokuka Sangyo, owner of one of the tankers, said: “The crew is saying that it was hit by a flying object.”

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif had accused the White House of “sabotage diplomacy” but that did not derail Rouhani’s actual diplomacy in Bishkek.

Xi was adamant; Beijing will keep developing ties with Tehran “no matter how the situation changes”. Iran is a key node of the New Silk Roads, or Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). It’s clear for the leadership in Tehran that the way forward is full integration into the vast, Eurasia-wide economic ecosystem. European nations that signed the nuclear deal with Tehran – France, Britain and Germany – can’t save Iran economically.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets with Kyrgyz President Sooronbay Jeenbekov, right, in Bishkek at the SCO summit on June 14. Photo: Nezir Aliyev / Anadolu / AFP

The Indian hedge

But then Modi canceled a bilateral with Rouhani at the last minute, with the lame excuse of “scheduling issues”.

That’s not exactly a clever diplomatic gambit. India was Iran’s second largest oil customer before the Trump administration dumped the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, over a year ago. Modi and Rouhani have discussed the possibility of India paying for Iranian oil in rupees, bypassing the US dollar and US sanctions.

Yet unlike Beijing and Moscow, New Delhi refuses to unconditionally support Tehran in its do-or-die fight against the Trump administration’s economic war and de facto blockade.

Modi faces a stark existential choice. He’s tempted to channel his visceral anti-Belt-and-Road stance into the siren call of a fuzzy, US-concocted Indo-Pacific alliance – a de facto containment mechanism against “China, China, China” as the Pentagon leadership openly admits it.

Or he could dig deeper into a SCO/RIC (Russia-India-China) alliance focused on Eurasia integration and multipolarity.

Aware of the high stakes, a concerted charm offensive by the leading BRICS and SCO duo is in effect. Putin invited Modi to be the main guest of the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok in early September. And Xi Jinping told Modi in their bilateral get together he’s aiming at a “closer partnership”, from investment and industrial capacity to pick up speed on the stalled Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) Economic Corridor, another BRI stalwart.

Imran Khan, for his part, seems to be very much aware how Pakistan may profit from becoming the ultimate Eurasia pivot – as Islamabad offers a privileged gateway to the Arabian Sea, side by side with SCO observer Iran. Gwadar port in the Arabian Sea is the key hub of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), much better positioned than Chabahar in Iran, which is being developed as the key hub of India’s mini-New Silk Road version to Afghanistan and Central Asia.

On the Russian front, a charm offensive on Pakistan is paying dividends, with Imran openly acknowledging Pakistan is moving “closer” to Russia in a “changing” world, and has expressed keen interest in buying Sukhoi Su-35 fighter jets and Mi-35M attack helicopters.

Iran is at the heart of the BRI-SCO-EAEU integration road map – the nuts and bolts of Eurasian integration. Russia and China cannot allow Iran to be strangled. Iran boasts fabulous energy reserves, a huge internal market, and is a frontline state fighting complex networks of opium, weapons and jihadi smuggling – all key concerns for SCO member states.

There’s no question that in southwest Asia, Russia and Iran have interests that clash. What matters most for Moscow is to prevent jihadis from migrating to the Caucasus and Central Asia to plot attacks against the Russian Federation; to keep their navy and air force bases in Syria; and to keep oil and gas trading in full flow.

Tehran, for its part, cannot possibly support the sort of informal agreement Moscow established with Tel Aviv in Syria – where alleged Hezbollah and IRGC targets are bombed by Israel, but never Russian assets.

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani smiles during a meeting with his Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the SCO summit in Bishkek on June 14, 2019. Photo: Alexey Druzhinin / Sputnik / AFP

But still, there are margins of maneuver for bilateral diplomacy, even if they now seem not that wide. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has issued the new rules of the game; reduce imports to a minimum; aim for less reliance on oil and gas exports; ease domestic political pressure (after all everyone agrees Iranians must unite to face a mortal threat); and stick to the notion that Iran has no established all-weather friends, even Russia and China.

St Petersburg, Bishkek, Dushanbe

Iran is under a state of siege. Internal regimentation must be the priority. But that does not preclude abandoning the drive towards Eurasian integration.

The pan-Eurasian interconnection became even more glaring at what immediately happened after Bishkek; the summit of the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Dushanbe, Tajikistan.

Bishkek and Dushanbe expanded what had already been extensively discussed at the St Petersburg forum, as I previously reported. Putin himself stressed that all vectors should be integrated: BRI, EAEU, SCO, CICA and ASEAN.

The Bishkek Declaration, adopted by SCO members, may not have been a headline-grabbing document, but it emphasized the security guarantees of the Central Asian Nuclear-Weapons-Free Zone Treaty, the “unacceptability of attempts to ensure one country’s security at the expense of other countries’ security, and condemning “the unilateral and unlimited buildup of missile defense systems by certain countries or groups of states”.

Yet the document is a faithful product of the drive towards a multilateral, multipolar world.

Among 21 signed agreements, the SCO also advanced a road map for the crucial SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group, driving deeper the Russia-China strategic partnership’s imperative that the Afghan drama must be decided by Eurasian powers.

And what Putin, Xi and Modi discussed in detail, in private in Bishkek will be developed by their mini-BRICS gathering, the RIC (Russia-India-China) in the upcoming G20 summit in Osaka in late June.

Meanwhile, the US industrial-military-security complex will continue to be obsessed with Russia as a “revitalized malign actor” (in Pentagonese) alongside the all-encompassing China “threat”.

The US Navy is obsessed with the asymmetrical know-how of “our Russian, Chinese and Iranian rivals” in “contested waterways” from the South China Sea to the Persian Gulf.

With US conservatives ratcheting up “maximum pressure” trying to frame the alleged weak node of Eurasia integration, which is already under total economic war because, among other issues, is bypassing the US dollar, no one can predict how the chessboard will look like when the 2020 SCO and BRICS summits take place in Russia.

asiatimes.com