Emerging economies must take leadership role: Jaishankar

With the West looking inwards, India and peers must take charge, says the foreign secretary

Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar on Wednesday said India, and other emerging economies, should step up to take a leadership role in global geopolitics at a time when the western World was becoming more inward looking and turning away from its international responsibilities, including meeting the challenge of terrorism. 

Calling for democratisation of global institutions, the foreign secretary said the big dangers confronting the world can only be addressed through multilateralism and greater number of players in an increasingly multi-polar world would need agreed formats to reach common outcomes.

Speaking at the second day of the Raisina Dialogue, an international conference on geopolitics jointly organised by the Ministry of External Affairs and New Delhi-based think tank Observer Research Foundation, Jaishankar said India is a natural exponent of multilateralism, and this reflects India’s own domestic traditions of pluralism and diversity.

The foreign secretary said India believed in the desirability and inevitability of a multi-polar world. “It was inconceivable for us that a world as vast and diverse as ours could be run by a small set of powers through alliances. Over the years, other countries including China came around to this point of view,” he said. Jaishankar said India is confident that with the passage of time and the economic revival of Asia, Africa and Latin America, the dispersal of power in the world would become more equitable.

Jaishankar, who has led India’s negotiations to become a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), said entrenched powers rarely give up privileges easily, even if they pay lip service to the deserving. “Such tasks require patience, perseverance and determination and I can say with some assurance that we have them in full measure,” he said. 

On the issue of the long pending reforms to the UN Security Council, the Foreign Secretary said that the “absurdity of the main multilateral decision-making body being more than 70 years old – and due for retirement anywhere in the world – is obvious to all except those with a vested interest.” He said the pressures to reform the UN will grow with each passing day since the myriad of global challenges will eventually require a credible multilateral response. 

Jaishankar said that global politics and economy were currently in a state of flux, but the Western world and Asia presented different landscapes and divergent narratives. He said the mood in Asia, despite its challenges, a reference to Chinese assertiveness in the region, was more optimistic compared to Europe. 

Jaishankar said that while “globalisation has not stopped — indeed cannot stop, just because someone somewhere has called ‘time out”, the voices advocating inter-dependence and globalisation have become more muted in the Western world. He said that part of the world has also betrayed “a lack of purpose in confronting global challenges like terrorism” and has become “more inward looking” and, in some ways, “more tired.”

The foreign secretary said the change in mood was from the impact of developments in US and Europe. He said that after decades of American internationalism, the world is “finally face to face with its nationalism”, and Russia and Europe, too, have become less internationalist in their outlook. 

“Emerging powers, including regional ones, have shown little inclinations in that direction. India is actually an exception,” he said. Jaishankar asked whether nationalism is “the new normal and can India make a difference — by being different?” The Foreign Secretary said that India understands that there is a global stock-taking going on and that emerging economies must approach this trend with empathy, rather than anxiety.

The Foreign Secretary said that an immediate precursor to the current global situation was in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. He said that crisis, in many ways, laid the basis for a more multipolar world with the Western-led G8 giving way to the more representative G20. But, Jaishankar said, “the more diverse UNSC remained as resistant to change as before.” 

Jaishankar said the 2008 crisis led to redistribution of power, opened up spaces for economic activity and political collaboration that were not there earlier. He said that for a number of emerging powers, including India, the period from 2008 onwards has been one of opportunity. He said New Delhi broadened its footprint and intensified its investment, trade and technical activities in an unprecedented manner.

The Foreign Secretary also had a note of caution. He said a parallel debate pertains to observing the broad rules of the game, which will have its own backlash if these are seen to have manifestly worked for some and not others.

Jaishankar said the global calculus was a complex one, where an entrenched US seems ready to change the terms of its engagement with the world, the rapid growth of Chinese power, the strengthening of India’s position, the sharper role of Russia, the activity of Japan, the divisions in the Gulf and the interests of Europe. “This is not a competition of absolute or even relative strength,” the Foreign Secretary said.