Public policy-makers and academic analysts of western industrialised countries are grappling with the fast-changing political and economic reality of the 21st century because the old western-dominated economic and military world order is likely to be fundamentally challenged by the new centres of power of Emerging Asia. It is a well-known fact of modern history that global equilibrium is disturbed and undergoes a basic change when the centre of power shifts from one continent to the other, or to a group of countries that tries to establish new rules of the game. Brahma Chellaney in his book Asian Juggernaut has focused on the new issues which are likely to emerge in international relations with the rising economic power of Asian countries like Japan, China and India. Chellaney is not alone in trying to grapple with the implications of rising Asian powers for the existing global equilibrium established by America-led western hegemony over Asia, Africa and Latin America. Even Bob Zoelikc, the president of the World Bank, declared that “2009 saw the end of what was known as the third world”. A recent assessment by the International Monetary Fund suggests that “Asia will grow by 7 per cent this year, with its bigger economies, China and India, posting higher rates”. The analytical question is: Is Emerging Asia capable of making a shift from the existing centre of global power system for its own benefit? Is the world still not binary and divided into two poles? The harsh reality is that over one billion people live on $1.25 or less a day and Brazil and India seem to have joined the ranks of emerging economic powers with a large majority of the poorest of the poor living in these two countries.
Chellaney’s book, consisting of five chapters and extremely useful 11 appendices, is devoted to study the new emerging reality of three countries, and their areas of conflict, past and present. With these background chapters, the author dwells on the “equations in the strategic triangle” and attempts to suggest policies which can lead to “averting strategic conflict in Asia”. The author’s analysis is closely interwoven and linked with policies which are likely to be followed by India, China and Japan in pursuit of their strategic and security goals. The author maintains that national interest is the guiding principle and it can be effectively pursued by judiciously increasing and using national power. The triangular relationship between Japan and India, India and China, China and Japan, with Americans casting their powerful shadow over every development in Asia, cannot be “autonomously” determined by domestic policy-makers of these three countries because if national interest is the guide, conflicts are bound to arise because of different perception and interpretation of national interest by each and every country. The wall of suspicion divides India and China, hence it is difficult to agree with the starting point of Chellaney that “economically and politically, Asia appears poised to determine the new world order”. The author himself states that “the deteriorating geopolitical dynamics between Beijing and New Delhi and between Beijing and Tokyo, have taken attention away from the US-China competition for influence in Asia”.
Chellaney has a very hawkish position on China and it is reflected very clearly in his presentation. This becomes clear from his unsubstantiated assertion that “a major cause of strategic friction in Asia is that China brooks no peer competition from any other Asian power”. He asserts, “Concerned over dragon China’s lengthening shadow over Asia, Godzilla Japan and tiger India are bracing for a strategic challenge in the Asian heartland, not to gain pre-eminence but to thwart pre-eminence.”
If public policy-makers were to accept Chellaney’s analysis, India and Japan would be perpetually involved in conflict with China. Since Jawaharlal Nehru made every effort to avoid wars with neighbours and agreed to follow the Panchseel Agreement of 1954, Chellaney is extremely unhappy that “Nehru in 1954 traded in essence an explicit concession of a self-perceived implicit gain-sacrificing Tibet… .” Chellaney forgets that a developing country like India should always be involved in bilateral and multilateral negotiations with neighbouring countries to avoid the ultimate weapon of military warfare which pushes back economic growth. If war is the solution, diplomacy has no role to play in international relations. Hence for Chellaney, “for India, there is now just one credible option — a single-minded pursuit of comprehensive national power”. It is hoped that in the corridors of power, such an advice of the author would be completely rejected because any militarisation of nuclear India will have an adverse impact not only on our relations with Asean countries but also on domestic politics.
Chellaney forgets that every shift or transition in balance of power in the West was accompanied by extremely violent wars and destruction, and it will be suicidal for the emerging power centres in Asia to repeat the historical experience of the West and not build on a new model of peaceful coexistence for evolving a working relationship among Asian powers.
ASIAN JUGGERNAUT
The Rising of China, India, and Japan
Brahma Chellaney
Harper Business
350 pages; $15.99
