How nations shape their image

Book review of The Ultimate Goal: A Former R&AW Chief Deconstructs How Nations Construct Narratives

When a book comes from the pen of a top intelligence officer of the stature of Vikram Sood, it is natural to expect him to approach the narratives he analyses with a pinch of salt. A careful reading of the book is revealing. With all humility and modesty the author does not claim to break new ground, but what he does is no less praiseworthy. He connects the dots and scrutinises the optics of the narratives so assiduously constructed by states and reinforced by media and academia. The ambit of his analyses is the major countries, including US, China, Russia and India.

At a time when there is so much comment about the Indo-US strategic, security and defence cooperation to counter China’s belligerence and assertive behaviour, the author cites numerous instances of intertwined vested economic interests of top US leaders and their family members with Chinese business tycoons and  corporate houses. The narrative of the complex India-US-China triangular relations has acquired added traction after Joe Biden, a Democrat, assumed the presidency; the trajectory of India-US relations is yet unclear notwithstanding the much-touted Indian roots of Vice-President Kamala Harris.

Citing published sources, the author describes how Robert Hunter Biden, the son of the then vice-president, Joe Biden, travelled with his father on Air Force Two to China in December 2013, where he struck a private deal to establish a $1 billion investment fund with a company, Bohai Harvest RST, which had the support of the Chinese government. The Chinese in effect gave the American vice president’s son a “gift” of $1 billion dollar. Robert Spalding, author of the book How China Took over While America’s Elite Slept, pointed out that, given this deal, it is impossible to assume that Joe Biden would see anything remotely evil about China.

In another instance the author tells the story of James Si-Ching Chao, an enterprising young man who left his temporary home in Taiwan in 1958 to seek his fortune in the United States. He had studied at the Shanghai Jiao Tong University along with the future mayor of Shanghai and general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Jiang Zemin, who was later the president of China between 1993 and 2003. James Chao kept in touch with Mr Zemin after he left China and the two would meet frequently. After Mr Chao formed his Foremost Group, which dealt with shipping, among other things, in 1964, he ordered two ships to be built in Shanghai when Mr Zemin was the mayor of the city.

The Ultimate Goal: A Former R&AW Chief Deconstructs How Nations Construct Narratives 

Author: Vikram Sood

Publisher:  Harper Collins

Pages: 349; Price: Rs 699

Mr  Chao became an all-American philanthropist and, therefore, an eminently acceptable Chinese American within the elite establishment. Soon the Foremost Group chartered ships to Chinese giants such as Cosco and Sino-Trans. Elaine Chao, James Chao’s eldest daughter, married the Republican Senator Mitch McConnell in February 1993, who is now the US Senate minority leader. Shortly after their marriage, Mr McConnell and Elaine called on Mr Zemin in Beijing, accompanied by Mr Chao. Elaine became George W Bush’s labour secretary and later Donald Trump’s transport secretary. Citing a report published in The New York Times on September 16, 2019, the author mentions that the couple received between $5 million and  $25 million from Mr Chao. The report also disclosed that the Foremost Group had received hundreds of millions of dollars as loans from a Chinese government bank.

The chapter on India is equally insightful and fascinating. Mr Sood compresses the Indian narrative into 30 pages starting from the time Christopher Columbus sailed from Spain in 1492 to “discover India” till the most recent time traversing through the Mughal period, the British colonial era characterised by divide and annexe and divide and rule, the turbulence of Partition and the post-independent India. One striking observation he makes is that Indians’ behaviour outside the country or when dealing with foreigners are major contributions to creating narratives about the country externally. As he points out, like a good cover story in the intelligence world, a narrative must have elements of truth in it, otherwise it breaks down easily and loses credibility. How India is seen to behave at home determines the attitudes of governments abroad. He emphasises that extant and prevailing biases get influenced by media and academic circles and governments use this for their own strategic purposes.

The author bemoans the fact that a premeditated dislike for India’s governing Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance has added to a global narrative encouraged by negative perceptions that appear in the Indian press. The term “fascist” is bandied about, yet few critics of the government, however virulent, have been stifled. The book is insightful, but also thought provoking.

The reviewer is a senior fellow of Indian Council of Social Science Research at the Indian Institute of Public Administration, New Delhi. These views are personal