The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is extolling Prime Minister Narendra Modi for his efforts to position India as a key player on the international stage through the use of diplomatic fora, particularly the G20 and Raisina Dialogue.
On March 1-2, 2023, India hosted a G20 foreign ministers conference where topics included COVID-19, the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and its limited progress due to the corona pandemic.
Discussions also centered on issues like global economic slowdown, debt distress, uneven pandemic recovery, rising poverty and inequality, food and energy insecurity, and disruptions to the global supply chain, all of which are exacerbated by geopolitical tensions and conflicts. Other topics included climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss.
Major issues in outcome documents
The Chair’s Summary and Outcome document’s paragraphs 3 and 4, which China and Russia refused to recognize, describe the aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine and call for its unconditional and total departure from Ukrainian land.
In return, Russia and China condemned the conflict because they saw it as an assault on the sovereignty of Russia and viewed it as a ‘Special Military Mobilization’ rather than a Russian invasion of Ukraine as well as liberating Ukraine from Natonization.
Underscoring this reality, the Morning Consult Survey found that 43% of Indians believed China to be the largest threat to their nation, followed by the US (22%) and Pakistan and Russia, each at 13%. In contrast, Pakistan was one of India’s top threats a few years ago.
The majority of the members discuss how the crisis in Ukraine has affected the global economy, boosting prices, disrupting supply chains, heightening risks to financial stability, and worsening energy and food poverty.
The majority of foreign ministers stated that although the G20 is not the ideal forum for handling security matters, the security difficulties brought about by the Russia-Ukraine conflict have a significant global impact.
The finest events right now are the Shangri-La Dialogue and the Munich Security Conference to discuss security challenges but the consensus enclosed in the G20 meetings matters a lot because the members of G20 possess a powerful military compared to the rest of the world.
As always Climate Change is second in line to the agenda at every political meeting and this G20 Foreign Ministers meeting is no exception.
All the foreign ministers made clear their steadfast commitment to combating climate change through the full implementation of the Paris Agreement and its temperature objective, as well as the Sharm el-Sheikh Implementation Plan and the Glasgow Climate Pact.
In order to bring their NDCs into line with the Paris Agreement, this calls on the parties that haven’t yet to review and reinforce the 2030 targets in their plans.
In addition to this, the COP 27 agreement on financial structures for responding to loss and damage is something to be commended, according to the Chair’s Summary and Outcome document.
In light of the IPCC, the ministers pledged to make efforts to reduce the temperature from 2°C to 1.5°C as well as the net zero greenhouse gas emission or carbon neutrality by the middle of this century—while taking into account the diverse national situations and the most recent scientific developments.
Moving ahead
This year’s G20 summit in India turns out to be the most eagerly awaited one– as Prime Minister Modi serves as its host.
When any foreign dignitaries visit the nation on an official basis, to Nepal or India, it is customary to clean the roads and public spaces.
Also, it has been viewed as a national need to put the prime minister’s picture on billboards around the country. In the instance of Nepal, billboards with the image of the then-prime minister KP Oli have been spotted all over Kathmandu during the 4th BIMSTEC Summit in 2018.
The G20 meeting is the most anticipated conference that will take place in India, and the BJP—the ruling party—has a major strategy to position India as an emerging global force. Informally,
India has further planned to hold one of the G20 events in Kashmir to support the Indian-administered Kashmir in order to bring the Kashmir problem to the public front and restrain Pakistan.
In fact, India has been deftly balancing itself in the middle of the Russia-US conflict radar circling around the Russia-Ukraine war with getting Russian oil at extremely discounted rates and seeking and securing US business deals despite not being pursued by the US’s CAATSA.
India is currently sandwiched between Chinese aggression in its land border to the US’s global political, strategic, and economic objectives.
With its extensive coastline and powerful Indian diasporas in the West, India has a crucial role in relations with China, the US, Russia, and the Indian Pacific area, limiting US and EU action against it.
Consequently, Jaishankar, the Indian foreign minister, is performing effectively based on this extra advantage. While in the West, strategy makers are disintegrating to permanently divide the friendship between China and Russia as well as within China and Russia, the worldwide engagement to containment strategy towards US-China and Russia-US relations has been ineffective.
A few months ago, the BJP published a book titled “Modi Shaping a World Order in Flux” that provides amazing examples of Prime Minister Modi, how India has changed significantly under his leadership, and the responsibilities that India has played in the international arenas.
The management skills of the RSS+BJP within India and Jaishankar’s diplomatic methods outside are prospering, and they were modeled after Manmohan Singh’s successful economic tale, which is considered to be the principal architect of India’s contemporary economic development.
The key takeaways from it—How could Nepal learn from the personality charisma of leaders to showcase his/her country in the global arena for securing national interest? This is important as Nepali leaders are failing in securing their national interest.
India’s image is changing despite the fact that India still has to do a lot of internal work to lift millions out of poverty and advance gender equality, the fight against corruption, and food security—remains the crux task.
Meanwhile, Pakistan is experiencing a severe economic crisis and is being infiltrated by domestic sectarian and religious interests, the “Pakistan” factor in Indian politics appears to be waning as India’s Prime Minister Modi continues to serve a second term. In 2022, Pakistan’s gross debt to GDP ratio was 77.8%, and as of January 2023, the country’s foreign exchange reserves were barely $4.34 billion, or about three weeks’ worth of imports.
Nonetheless, these countries still desired to participate in the G20 forum and hope for common global solutions and also use this platform for promoting and protecting their own national interest—-Ultimately, respecting and showing commitment to Multilateralism.
According to Financial Post, this decrease was brought on by the Pakistani government’s obligation to repay two UAE-based banks for commercial loans totaling USD 1 billion.
Underscoring this reality, the Morning Consult Survey found that 43% of Indians believed China to be the largest threat to their nation, followed by the US (22%) and Pakistan and Russia, each at 13%. In contrast, Pakistan was one of India’s top threats a few years ago.
The G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governors meeting in Bengaluru in February 2023 and the current G20 Foreign Ministers meeting were both adjourned by India without issuing a joint communiqué.
The document that came out of the meetings’ discussions was one in which Indian Foreign Affairs Minister Jaishankar said that India had failed to convince the other 2 out of 20 members on issues related to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Similar to; when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, the G20 summits were ‘hijacked’ by Crimea annexation issues and this time by the conflict in Ukraine.
When US Foreign Secretary Blinken urged members of the G20 that, 18 out of 20 members agreed on the Russian aggression over Ukraine and rejection by 2 nations doesn’t make any sense while Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov had indicated that one-sided blaming to Moscow regarding the war in Ukraine is not conceivable.
This ‘word-of-war’ ultimately resulted in producing no joint communiqué on the India-hosted G20 Foreign Ministers meeting.
Reading between the lines also enables us to reconsider the fact that, India is still unable to handle significant supranational ideological impasse with either China, Russia, or the US. For supervisory capacity, India’s 3.1 trillion dollar GDP has to be at least double-digit.
Following the Russian takeover of Crimea in 2014, the G20 conference has also started to emerge as a hotbed for rivalries rather than a place to find common solutions.
It’s interesting to note that the G20 forum comprises a couple of friends like the US-Canada, US-UK, China-Russia, or contenders like US-China, and US-Russia.
Last but not the least, events like the G20 or the Raisina Dialogue are all designed to advance a nation’s interests through discussion and writing among a worldwide audience. In diplomacy, living in the headline is necessary rather than aloofness.
Nonetheless, these countries still desired to participate in the G20 forum and hope for common global solutions and also use this platform for promoting and protecting their own national interest—-Ultimately, respecting and showing commitment to Multilateralism.
The G20 Foreign Ministers meeting this year in New Delhi came to an agreement on paragraphs 1 and 2 as well as from paragraphs 5 to 14.
China and Russia showed hesitation in paragraphs 3 and 4, which cover Russia’s aggression over Ukraine and intervention in Ukrainian sovereignty. Although India’s G20 diplomacy was successful, reaching a consensus remained a key challenge.
One of our immediate neighbors with so much common historical proximity—Nepal should able to tap the vast diplomatic leverage that India is achieving for the last few years.
New Delhi is emerging as a global diplomatic hub and theoretically speaking Nepal could use this ‘hub’ to develop an influential Himalayan strategy that can able to balance China, India, the US and European powers in Nepal—which is of utmost necessary these days due to growing US-China clout in Nepal.
Last but not the least, events like the G20 or the Raisina Dialogue are all designed to advance a nation’s interests through discussion and writing among a worldwide audience. In diplomacy, living in the headline is necessary rather than aloofness.
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