China, India, Russia & Reality
Is there a new ‘superpower’ on the rise in Asia? One that will effectively counter US strategic aims in the coming decades? How about a triumvirate possessing together enough power (especially ‘soft’ power) to thwart the establishment of American hegemony in the Pacific (and, eventually, in a Europe increasingly restive under US dictates)? How would such a power affect economic and political developments not only in the far east, but virtually everywhere, even here in the US?
For some time now, much has been made of the growing alliance between China, Russia and India, especially relating to energy and security concerns. The three nations have much in common. Each is a former “command” economy embarking on a model of development based more or less upon open markets and foreign direct investment (while reserving a strong, even critical role for the state). Each has sizeable muslim and ethnic minorites that frequently prove troublesome, a stiuation that the US has not hesitated to exploit for its own ends. There is as well as a growing interdependcy among the three involving energy, manufacturing and services, Russia being increasingly well situated regarding the former, as China takes a global lead in manufacturing as India’s service sector strengthens. Too, all three have an abiding interest in a multi-polar world (“international democratization” is a phrase bandied about whenever their foreign ministers meet formally).
But, how real are the prospects of a “multi-polar” world with nearly half the world’s population arrayed against hegemony of the US? A lot depends I think on the weakest and most ambiguous of the trio; namely, India. Both China and Russia’s civilization is inseparable from the State. India’s is inseparable from its social structure, above all from the role of caste. China and Russia had successful modernizing revolutions, India has not. Russia and China violently threw off the yoke of class and foreign domination. India permitted its people to be turned into a craven and browbeaten mass of tumultuous populations by an England possessing only a tiny fraction of India’s population and resources. Standing up to the West has not been a consistent theme in modern Indian history.
Too, India is still largely agricultural (nearly 70% of its people live off the land, most in a subsistence capacity). Its manufacturing base is antediluvian, as are many of the superstitions attending its political and social institutions. It is chary of outside influences and remains suspicious of large enterprises (a law firm in India can have no more than 20 partners). Most troubling, however, is the history of its relationship with the US. As regards America, India has exhibited an almost heroic talent for assuming the role of subaltern or second-class citizen. Whether this is a reprise of its obsequious relations with the British empire, or whether it betrays a genuine desire to play the role, on behalf of US interests, of counterweight to China is still unclear. China and India still have territorial and political questions in acrimonious dispute.
Clearly, security and energy concerns (China needs Russian oil and could use India’s good offices in resolving border unrest; India is increasingly attracted by nearby China’s manufacturing muscle) will predominate among the three in the near future. If the conflict between the US and China grows substantially, could Russia and India resist the almost certain blandishments coming from America? I see a Russia drawing increasingly close to its eastern neighbor. India? I am not so sure.
Chandan
November 11, 2005 @ 8:55 am
What a piece of shit ! If you dont know anything about India, you shouldnt try to write about it. Maybe its time you started worrying the state of your own cunt’ry(oops!) especially in the wake of Katrina. Hehehe.
Louis Godena
November 11, 2005 @ 6:13 pm
Thanks for your comment! I’ve talked about Katrina on my blog, beginning with http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/MarxismInternational/2005/08/30#a143 Since you were not specific in your criticism (I wish you had been!), I cannot otherwise respond.
Thanks again for taking the time to comment.
Hitansh
November 16, 2005 @ 5:23 pm
HI Louis,
Your this blog has a compelling heading, which was the reason I chose to read it as I’m too eager to know if Russia, China and India have something in common and are they really working together to achieve international democratization…but unfortunately (or naively) you drifter away a devoted a whole paragraph which appears like India bashing.
Anyway, here are my two cents on this –
1) I do believe China and India are emerging powers which will change the equations and the state of the things to come.
2) I agree that China and Russia are more state powers and couldn’t agree more that in case of India it is the social structure and the state which is most important criteria for cohesion. I believe a society where state is prominent will have its ups and downs due to state policies and their successes and failures while society cohese by social structure will withstand shocks of state upheavals better. This is the prime reason why social fabric of India is unchanged for last 5000 years.
3)Now, allow me to throw light on some of the misconception about India which manifested in your paragraph on India.
– Negative effects of role of caste in Indian society is fading fast due to increase in education, urbanization
– It is kiddish to think that India permitted its people to be turned into craven and browbeaten mass of tumultous populations. India was a fractured state with more than 600 kings ruling over entire subcontinent. It was easier for England to divide and rule such a fractured state and as I mentioned before state didn’t mattered much to Indian populace until it affects their social and economic interest.
– Your statement that ‘Manufacturing base of India is antidiluvian’ makes my laugh. A country with indigenous nuke capacity, array of space technologies (to let you know India is top 5 country in thw world to have its own space program and capacity to build and launch its satellites, even mighty Europe had to pool its resources to achieve something like this), indian car manufacturers giving run for their money to Fords and GMs, largest generic drug manufactuerer in the world, has a second largest forging company in the world, …the list is endless…
– Second class citizen to America -yeah true..that is the reason we didn’t send troops to Iraq, voted against numerous UN resolutions, took permissions to do what we chose to do in terms of nuke testing, even outsourcing. Come on…are you taking your medication regularly!!
I would be happy to get any replies from you.
Louis Godena
November 16, 2005 @ 6:59 pm
Hello Hitansh;
Well, what you say about India’s technological capacities may be true, but it is far from the whole story. A friend of mine was recently in a Delhi hospital which had the latest cat-scan, but patients on a lower floor were attacked almost nightly by rats. New hotels open in the heart of the downtown with Wi-Fi, but water has to be hauled in via large plastic containers. India will not catch up to China in manufacturing capacity for many, many years. It will be at best a robust service economy, with a dependency relationship that will translate into politics and foreign relations. It already has; there is in the Indian press an overweening attitude of “America wannabes”; the idea of national service for the good of all the people is non-existent compared to China. I could go further and compare India today with the American South after 1865, and the types of attitudes that prevailed among blacks, poor whites and the planter class. Now, imagine a huge and sudden infusion of outside capital for industrial development into this situation. The main beneficiary would be the planter class and its affiliates (large merchants, high civil officials, urban professionals, etc). The rest of the population would be destitute of most of the favors bestowed by this state of affairs. In time, some among the poor and “middle” whites (yeoman farmers and their progeny) would find an increase in employment and education opportunities, but the society would be mired in the baleful effects of its superstitious pre-war experience. This, to me, is not exactly what’s happening in India, but it is a useful starting point. I hint at this when I remark about how India is innocent of revolution; it is still enslaved to the superstitions of its social structure and culture. For this reason, I don’t see India as an effective counterweight to the U.S., more like a poor relation. And I don’t take medication, except, occasionally, aspirin. Thanks for writing.
Louis Godena
November 17, 2005 @ 4:46 pm
further comments by Hitansh;
Hello Louis,
I agree that India is not yet there as we Indians would like it to…but we are getting there and probably at a clip much faster to take western economies by surprise.
I can perfectly identify with the experience of your friend in Indian hospital where it had latest cat-scan but were attacked by rats or a Wi-Fi but have to remove water using plastic buckets. The positive side of the contrast is due to entrepreneurial capabilities of the populace where they excel in doing where individual effort can make a difference. The negative part of the same contrast is due to near ineffectual governance.
Anyway, but still this does not mean that our manufacturing capabilities are anti diluivian. I don’t think it is fair term when it has cutting edge technology is some sectors while it is catching up on others.
Secondly, your comparison to American south of 1865 and capital infusion in such conditions also is not correct comparison. There is hardly any external capital infusion. Annual capital infusion of 3-4 billion hardly trickles down to masses as you would like to believe.
Also, I’m not sure from which newspaper in India do you get the idea of ‘America wannabes’ in fact US and India are at loggerheads on trade related issues, ideas of democracy, security threats and perceptions and these are openly discussed in the media. So your idea looks more based on imagination than reality.
Your statement that idea of national service is non-existent. This is a sweeping and a general statement. I dont even want to discuss this.
On your statement that India is not counterweight to US. The very fact that you even had to think and dismiss this thought in a sweep…means that India is grabbing that critical mind space in american psychology.
Thanks for replying,
Hitansh
Louis Godena
November 17, 2005 @ 4:56 pm
Hitansh;
Thanks for your note; I have a few additional comments which I hope you will entertain while abandoning the notion that I am dismissing India out of some personal animus. Too, before I forget it, would you mind my posting your rejoinder to the blog?
I should have mentioned on the plus side that India enjoys a greater demographic dividend, with the working age population expected to rise as a share of the total until 2050. And the private savings rate continues to rise, though at an unacceptably slow rate, and the quality of the labor force is also improving in terms of skill and productivity. At the same time, public sector dis-saving imposes a significant limit on capital formation. The political and legal systems are cumbersome and inefficient. Political culture lacks a focus on development. Too, the growing supply of labor has not been met by a rise in demand. As a result, overall employment has risen at only one per cent per year over the past decade. Literacy remains low. Trend growth has slowed since the mid-1990s to below six per cent per year.
The situation is not due to some innate failings within your countrymen. It is your system of democracy and its concomitant culture of craven acquiescence to the West that present the problem. It is a culture of indecisiveness and peripetic self-doubt which makes India a subaltern entity in a way that China is not. If the threatened Soviet coup had occurred and had been successful, India would have faced a new set of problems, but in my opinion it would have been far better poised going into the 21 Century.
Best,
Louis
Louis Godena
November 17, 2005 @ 4:59 pm
Further remarks by Hitansh;
Louis,
Okay, I abandon the notion that you are dismissing India out of some personal animus. In my experience in staying in US for last 2 years, I know that most of the western public listen to self appointed experts from within their system and form opinions to suit their own agendas.
Some time back I heard some film critic by last name Ebert talking about film Born in Brothel which is based in Calcutta. Now, his job should be restricted to give opinions about the movie but instead he started out how poor and illiterate Indians are and even went on to say that they will remain so for next 500 years. He said this in a major TV show in ABC or NBC I don’t remember. But my point is western public opines on very flimsy grounds.
Now coming back to the discussion on hand, here are some of my points –
Saving rate in India is currently about 22% of national income. Even great Peter Drucker mentioned in his treatise that optimal saving rate should be about 25%. Anything more than that which will hurt the populace in the long run and he also gave example of economic meltdown in Japan in 1980s precisely due to this reason. Now this savings get channelised as investment activity and returns on investment are the barometer to judge how good or bad the investments are…right? Now in terms of return on investment India does a better job than China and even US.
Now, I agree that public sector actually dis-saves and India is doing course correction in this regard but compared to China we are in a much better shape as we allow, to a large extent, markets to decide where, who, how and when the capital should be allocated unlike China where the state decides and more often than not, it is the public sector which is the beneficiary.
Now, coming to question on illiteracy. India has made huge strides on this front with public and government participation and now about 65% of the population is literate…and now the focus is on improving the quality of learning.
I whole heartedly agree that political focus is not on development but there are some powerful undercurrents in Indian society which will forcefully change the political focus to development in may be 5-10 years.
Again, I keep seeing some or the other sentence like in this note ‘concomitant culture of craven acquiescence to the West that present the problem.’ A couple of examples from your experience will probably give me better idea of what makes you think so. I’ll hold of my comments till then.
Lastly, India is India and is not a China. We are a democracy (a better one than US I believe) while China is an iron clad one party rule. India has several other challenges like its neighbours, diverse population, political focus and issues of governance and corruption.
The biggest difference is of the preception and attitudes towards life. India thinks in terms of generations while western world thinks in terms of decades. India thinks in terms of spiritual gains while western world thinks in terms of material gains. How do you force a farmer to earn 3 dollars instead of 2 when he question what will he do with the third? Indians thinks in terms of cycle where their is no beginning and no end and therefore no race to reach the end first while western world thinks in linear dimension where their is a beginning and an end
Let me know your thoughts.
Regards,
Hitansh