Cold War 2.0: US and India work on a winning strategy ( Sunday Guardian)

 

The CCP has since 1949 regarded itself as being in a war with the US over primacy. The difference is that in the Chinese mind, ‘war’ need not be kinetic. War to the Chinese means the subordination to their interests of the other, and using this definition, China has been ‘at war’ with the US for a long while.

New Delhi: The drive by Jospeh Stalin for the expansion of territory and influence of the Soviet Union that was visible after the 1939-45 war convinced US policymakers that (what was subsequently called) the USSR-US Cold War was a reality. This swift acceptance of reality came about because both Russian as well as western tradition defines war in kinetic terms: guns, bombs, troops. The Chinese do not. They believe in achieving their objectives through chipping away and reducing the physical, psychological, economic and technological advantages of the adversary. Such “victory through stealth” suppresses the ability of the rival power to respond effectively, especially if that country is a democracy. This is what had been taking place with India since the PRC pace of establishing superiority accelerated in the 1990s. Territory has been lost, meta data got vacuumed up in copious quantities to feed the Artificial Intelligence capabilities of the PRC, and domestic enterprises were serially destroyed by crony businessmen importing substitutes flowing from China. Much of Beijing’s expansion of territory on land and water and industrial and technological capability has taken place outside the public radar. The first President of the US to seriously call out China for its primacy-seeking policies was Donald Trump in 2017. This had never been attempted in the past, and indeed several US Presidents (including Nixon, Carter and Clinton) showered benefits on Beijing while occasionally scolding the CCP in public.

Although the Covid-19 pandemic has in the US somewhat changed the public perception of China as less of a threat than Russia or even Iran, even in the foreign policy team of the Biden campaign there is widespread denial about the fact that a new Cold War has been taking place—this time between China and the US. In part, such a suspension of belief is because of a lack of comprehension about the ideological roots of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Although Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought was enshrined as the core ideology of the CCP in the 1950s, the reality is that the last strand dominates over the previous two. Adherence to Marxism is minimal, while it is Stalin rather than Lenin who is the role model for the CCP. Under Mao, the CCP championed a vision of the future where the Chinese people would “stand up”, not just in China but across the globe. The CCP considers itself the lodestar of ethnic Chinese, no matter the country to which they belong. After the stabilisation since 1949 of (vastly expanded) borders carried out under Mao, the task of Deng Xiaoping was to ensure economic success, and this was accomplished before the close of the last century. After Mao and Deng, the third foundational leader of the 99-year-old CCP is General Secretary Xi Jinping. He is as different from Deng as the latter was from Mao. The overt nature of Xi’s drive to replace the US with the PRC at the centre of global geopolitics has resulted in an increasing number of analysts even within the Democratic Party accepting that there is now a new Cold War, this time between the US and China.

Such a realisation has come a bit late.

The reality is that the CCP has since 1949 regarded itself as being in a war with the US over primacy. The difference is that in the Chinese mind, “war” need not be kinetic, and in fact, the ideal conflict would be non-kinetic. War to the Chinese means the subordination to their interests of the other and using this definition, Communist China has been “at war” with the US for a long time. The earliest expression of this was the essay of Lin Biao that “the villages of the world will overcome the cities”. “Cities” referred to the western world, “villages” to the rest. Of course, while the US led the “cities”, it would be China who led the “villages” to victory. Looking at the trajectory of its growth and influence since that period, it is evident that in this war (by the Chinese definition), it is the PRC that has prevailed over the US from the time President Richard M. Nixon sought Mao’s assistance in dealing with the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Even during the period of Japanese occupation in the 1930s, Chairman Mao skilfully leveraged the Japanese threat to ensure a steady flow of military and other assistance from the Roosevelt administration, a policy that has continued under his successors since the 1970s. The CCP achieved this by leveraging USSR-US rivalry during Cold War 1.0 in a manner that India has so far been unwilling or unable to do in the new era of PRC-US rivalry during Cold War 2.0. Even after the collapse of the USSR in 1992, massive US assistance to China continued. President William J. Clinton continued the bipartisan policy of opening wide the doors to US technology to China, even while denying the same to India. Much of the growth in the national power of China since the 1980s is due to Taiwan, Japan and the US, all three of whom are now at the receiving end of “Xi Jinping Thought”. This is a philosophical construct that remains faithful to Mao’s vision of a China-led global order. Added to this is the incorporation rather than rejection of several of the philosophies of the Imperial Age. In this, General Secretary Xi has chosen to differ from Mao, who had contempt for the ancien régime and its architectural, intellectual and cultural leftovers. In terms of geopolitical as distinct from economic boldness, Xi is much closer not to Deng Xiaoping or to his immediate predecessors than he is to Marshal Lin Biao (who provided the sinews  for Chairman Mao to launch and sustain the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution) in his willingness to take risks. Xi has fashioned a tapestry of Sinic excellence and capabilities that he expects will ensure the support of the Chinese people to both his methods as well as his objectives. It is therefore a surprise that several policymakers in Europe and the US, seem in denial of the extent of the makeover that Xi Jinping is seeking of the international order.

XI’S AMBITIOUS GOALS

The Belt and Road Initiative is among the signature policies of Xi Jinping, as are his digitalisation of Chinese currency and the harnessing of social media to create a “national will” such as would facilitate the CCP’s objectives. The BRI is intended to make China the hub of Eurasia, while the digital currency is designed to substantially replace the US dollar as the global reserve currency. In dealing with prospective and present allies, Xi has revived the Jimifuzhou or the Jimi system of Imperial China as the model that Beijing would like to follow in dealing with the countries it regards as allies. The system preserved the protocol privileges of foreign rulers while ensuring that they functioned in a manner that promoted Beijing’s objectives. The overall objectives would of course be decided in Beijing, and would be so designed as to achieve and subsequently protect the primacy of the PRC in the global order, displacing the US. The exception is Russia, which especially under Vladimir Putin is seen as a diminished but almost equal partner. Which is why the use of the term “Sino-Russian alliance” rather than “China-led alliance” is more appropriate. In the case of the US, the term “Indo-Pacific Alliance” would better describe the construct that is getting formed to take on the Sino-Russian alliance. While the US is the pre-eminent power in such a grouping, it would not be the “leader” in the manner of always having its way over India. This country in terms of geopolitical potential is as important during Cold War 2.0 to the US as Russia is to the PRC. Those in Washington who are still anchored to Atlanticist perceptions of “the former British colony” fail to understand this. An example of lack of sensitivity is the manner in which Joe Biden and Kamala Harris lectured India on Kashmir in the exact manner that was a staple of the Clinton presidency. However, after that lapse from understanding actual ground conditions in India, both have been silent on the subject despite the efforts of campaign staff close to the Pakistan embassy who are working to damage the US-India relationship for the benefit of Pakistan and China.

TEAM BIDEN IN DENIAL MODE

Xi Jinping has not been reticent about his goals nor secretive about many of his methods, which is why it is somewhat of a surprise that the Atlanticist lobby clustered around Joe Biden still does not seem to understand not only that Cold War 2.0 is a reality, but that it has been ongoing for decades. Or that India as a partner is essential to US success in overcoming the existential threat to US interests posed by the PRC. It is astonishing that there still remains doubt about this, given for example that the CCP’s Document Number Nine explicitly regards the ideology of freedom and democracy as the primary threat to the CCP. A hopeful sign is that lately the Biden campaign has brought into key slots individuals such as Ely Ratner, whose views are more anchored to the reality of the Indo-Pacific century than the long-standing opinions of the individual seen as a future Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken. This confidant of Joe Biden seems fixated on the (no longer existing) centrality of Europe and the US to the world as John Foster Dulles, the US Secretary of State, whose Euro-centric policies launched the US into the Vietnam War. It needs to be said that some of his recent statements indicate that Blinken appears to be edging closer to the coffee, if not yet managing to smell it. This is in contrast to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Defense Secretary Mike Esper and National Security Advisor Robert C. O’Brien, all three of whom understand that the US is already in a war with China that may at any time turn kinetic. The risk of this would be particularly high in the absence of alliance structures created to ensure that such an eventuality does not take place.

CCP GETS A REALITY CHECK

As stated by Chairman Mao, war is the continuation of politics by other means. When the party that runs China talks as it often does of Total War, what is meant is a conflict in which cyber, commerce, asymmetric methods, infowar and neutralisation of elites in target countries forms part of the “battles” needed to ensure that the CCP’s objectives are met by the other country. The preferred method is to avoid a significant kinetic conflict and instead chip away at territory and interests over an extended period of time. This is what was happening in India, including on the Line of Actual Control. When its troops moved into Indian territory in May, the Central Military Commission did not anticipate the strength of the resistance that the paramilitary and later Army forces put up once PLA intentions became clear. Nor was the swift and deadly response of the Indian Army expected when the Galwan incident was initiated. Now that he has studied the mindset and tactics of the Chinese, Prime Minister Narendra Modi resisted pressure from arms’ lobbies influential in India and finally gave sanction to the signing of BECA, the Basic Exchanger & Cooperation Agreement with the US. This completes the trio of foundation agreements together with LEMOA and COMCASA. An earlier enabling agreement on the protection of the exchange of military information was signed in 2002, while LEMOA was signed in 2016 and COMCASA in 2018 during Modi 1.0. The UPA did not sign any of these pacts, which are essential in dealing with the designs of the PLA on Indian territory, something that that party has good reason to be familiar with and it is to be seen if it will seek to please the CPI and the CPM by condemning the signing of BECA. Arms manufacturers from select countries have long been wary that the signing of the foundation agreements could give US companies a head start in the substantial weapons trade that India carries out. By signing BECA, PM Modi has shown that while he remains friendly with Russia, he is aware of the geopolitical shifts that have resulted in the formation of the Sino-Russian alliance and its implications for India. The speeches of the Prime Minister after the Chinese intrusion into additional Indian territory this May show that Modi is fully cognizant of the reality of Cold War 2.0 and which side New Delhi needs to be on. That confusion about the change that Cold War 2.0 has caused is not limited to the Opposition but includes elements of the government as well is apparent from statements from within the system recommending that Russia be asked to join the Indo-Pacific alliance. This when Moscow stands with Beijing in opposing the Indo-Pacific construct. What is needed next is for the Quadrilateral Alliance to be operationalised in a manner that would be useful in deterring the other alliance from entering into a kinetic conflict in the Himalayan massif, the South China Sea or the Taiwan straits. Substantially developing the existing operational military and remote sensing bases in the Andaman Islands is an essential component of a strategy designed to ensure that primacy over the Indo-Pacific remains in the hands of the Quad rather than the rival Sino-Russian alliance.

BATTLE OF IDEOLOGIES

General Secretary Xi Jinping has sought to create a “will to primacy” among the people of China such as would ensure complete obedience to his vision and his methods. Hundreds of millions of Chinese believe that Covid-19 has been created by the US and brought into China. They believe that India is a shambles filled with chaos. That Japan is inherently evil, and is obsessively focused on helping the US to halt progress towards the China Dream. That the countries of Europe are no longer the technological powers they were just a few decades back and that their products can be replaced. Xi is emphatic in his messages to the population that the future belongs to China, if only the Chinese people act in a manner designed to bring forward the day when the epicentre of global power shifts from Washington to Beijing. In other words, follow the path recommended for them by the CCP. The narrative is that such an overtaking of the present top power in the world is steadily happening, and hence the blowback from those in the US and elsewhere who are hostile to the concept of justice for the Chinese people. The claim is that the US and India are in deep crisis, with unrest growing, and that this is because of the political system they have and the freedoms they allow. This narrative is constantly being disseminated across every possible platform, and it is being believed by hundreds of millions of Chinese. At the same time as the world is undergoing the pain of dealing with Covid-19, China itself is opening up domestically and expanding its economy. India and the US are essential partners in ensuring primacy over not only the Indo-Pacific but superiority in global logistics and technology chains of the future. The meeting on 27 October between Rajnath Singh, S. Jaishankar, Mark Esper and Mike Pompeo must be only the start of the long and difficult battle to secure a future where ideology and values common to the US and India do not get eclipsed by the rival philosophy developed and put into practice by the Chinese Communist Party.

 https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/cold-war-2-0-us-india-work-winning-strategy

Amy Barrett a vote loser for Trump ( Sunday Guardian)

 

Appointing Judge Lagoa would have helped Trump secure Florida, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, in view of the impact on the Latino community.

Should Donald Trump leave the White House on 20 January 2021, the primary reason would be an obsessive focus to what he sees as his base. Judge Amy Coney Barrett reflects the characteristics of this group more than Judge Barbara Lagoa does, which is probably why the Indiana jurist was chosen over the equally impressive Hispanic from Florida. The US President did not even deign to meet Judge Lagoa, and this came after floating reports that she was on his short list of candidates. It seems obvious in retrospect that there was just a single name on that list, and this was Amy Coney Barrett, a judge whose judicial philosophy is the polar opposite of the justice she is expected to replace, Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Although reticent to repeat before the Senate Judiciary Committee her views on abortion, healthcare and voting rights that had been articulated by Barrett several times in the past, “following the tracks” of her past record (as Senator Amy Klobuchar put it) made clear what her verdict would be in such matters, once she was sworn in. Her performance before the Senate committee was steely in the determination to remain fixated that the views she held were the only ones worth having. It was amusing to hear from Republican Senators words of praise for Justice Ginsburg now that she was no longer a threat to the conservative aims of the Federalist Society. There will be millions who are worried that access to affordable healthcare will be the casualty once Judge Barrett of the 7th Circuit becomes Associate Justice Barrett of the US Supreme Court. There will be more millions of women who would be anxious about the fact that the era when abortion was close to impossible may return courtesy the Supreme Court. Labour unions would discover that the gutting of the right to unionise that began with the Trump presidency would be carried further by the very court promised by Trump to his key backers in 2016. This is a court so skewed towards the Republicans that any pretence of equal justice would go out of the window.

Social bias of a different kind (not based on income but race) was legitimised when Chief Justice Robert Taney and six other Supreme Court justices ruled that black people were not entitled to the protections mandated in the Constitution. This was in 1857 in the case of a slave, Dred Scott, who was returned into captivity in a decision the odour of which lingers over the court to this day. Looking at the progress that President Trump is making in fashioning a court that looks backward for inspiration rather than ahead, it is clear that four more years of President Trump would result in a court that would generate verdicts that deny the existence of the 21st century. Given the cautious nature of Joe Biden, it is not clear if he would favour expanding the Supreme Court bench from 9 to 15, the step needed to restore the court to the liberal path that it first began to tread under Chief Justices such as Earl Warren. The present US Supreme Court Chief Justice was part of the legal team that succeeded in ensuring that the Court awarded the 2000 election to George W. Bush. Coincidentally, it was President Bush who appointed John G. Roberts, Jr. to the court. With the entry of Amy Barrett, three of the nine justices would have served on the Bush legal team during the SC hearing that flipped the election against Al Gore.

A court as skewed in favour of 1950s logic (masquerading as 1788 holy writ) as the US Supreme Court will be once Amy Coney Barrett enters would be a disaster for tens of millions underprivileged in the US. Unless wisdom prevails over prejudice among the Trump judges or the Democratic Party wins the US Senate as well as the White House. This would enable the court to be expanded, and should President Biden demur, he would have a revolt within the party on his hands. Whatever be his personal views, it is likely that Biden would have to agree to such an expansion, especially if marriage, abortion and healthcare rights get sharply curtailed by the conservative majority in the court. Much has been made of the manner in which President Franklin D. Roosevelt backtracked on his 5 February 1937 threat to increase the number of Justices to a total of 15. What is left unsaid is that the very judges who opposed everything that the US President did fell in line once the threat of expansion was made, so that Roosevelt had no reason to go ahead with his plan. It is unlikely that Associate Justices Gorsuch, Kavanaugh and Barrett would similarly change their views. The three are strong-minded individuals who would rather be right (in more senses than one) than change their opinions because of shifting political winds. Increasing the strength of the court to 15 would be an effective way to ensure that the US Supreme Court does not do precisely what those appointed by Trump say they will avoid, which is to make policy. There would be no need for the present Court to make policy as long as the White House remains Trumpian, but the situation would change were Biden to prevail over last minute reports about Hunter Biden that are being tossed around by the Trump campaign and its friends in the media, who are admittedly less in number than friends of Biden within a US media angered at President Trump’s sallies against any newspaper less than flattering about his performance.

Given that Biden has the advantage in the 3 November contest and the Republican base would anyway vote for Trump rather than switch to Biden, it would have been politically beneficial to appoint Judge Lagoa rather than Barrett. She would join Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor, an appointee of President Obama as the second Hispanic on the court. Trump’s brains trust obviously considered this too much of an innovation. As the election verdict may show, this may have been a mistake. Appointing Judge Lagoa (who has a sterling record, as does Justice Sotomayor) would have helped Trump secure Florida, Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, in view of the impact on the Latino community. This segment is not happy with the concentrated attention of the Democratic Party on African Americans, but are not enthusiastic about Trump. Passing over a Hispanic jurist in the manner just seen, may cost enough votes to make the difference between victory and defeat for President Trump, who needs every state and every vote he can get. The choice of a Hispanic would also have blunted the perception among many independent voters that Trump is racist, an image that is not an advantage across most of the US

Amy Coney Barrett may enter the US Supreme Court as an Associate Justice, but this will cost Donald Trump electoral votes lost as a consequence of her clearly expressed verdicts and views on the law and its application. Judge Lagoa would have been a safer choice for Donald Trump, if he is to do a 1948 and ensure re-election.

https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/amy-barrett-vote-loser-trump

Prof M D Nalapat on NGO influence in US, India, & Saudi Arabia and why Amnesty should not have quit (PGurus)

Some from the Al Saud royal family are unhappy with Mohammed Bin Salman for his progressive policies and hoping that Biden would win in the US and that they can unseat MBS. The needless criticism of CAA by Democrats, including some who were born in India shows the hand of an NGO intent on embarrassing India. If Amnesty’s records were clean, why did they not make it public and take their case in the courts of India? Why exit? A must watch!

 

https://www.pgurus.com/prof-m-d-nalapat-on-ngo-influence-in-us-india-saudi-arabia-and-why-amnesty-should-not-have-quit/

Chaotic images and emotions surround the Biden-Trump contest ( Sunday Guardian)

 

Among the favourite movies of President Trump is “The Greatest Showman”, a story about P.T. Barnum, who transformed the circus into a staple of everyday entertainment. After his performance following the return to the White House from Walter Reed hospital, it is Trump who deserves that title. Leaving the safety of what is arguably the best hospital in the US for the White House, equipped though that residence may be for emergencies, was an act of reckless courage that may resonate with voters otherwise turned off by the 45th President of the US. By contrast, Joe Biden is staid almost to a fault, and is clearly an individual who believes in avoiding risk by hewing to the mainstream position, whatever this may be. While Senator J. William Fulbright was the originator of significant strands of US policy while heading the Foreign Relations Committee, Biden was the dependable facilitator of policies discussed and processed through the governance mechanism that has the White House at the apex. If he was opposed to any of the policies that were rubber stamped by the Foreign Relations Committee, evidence of that is missing. While Trump terrifies his staff and changes their policy suggestions on a whim, Biden relies on his team to give him the script to follow. For years, that tutorial was mildly hostile to India, a country once seen as too close to Moscow for the comfort of Atlanticists. In contrast, throughout his tenure in the US Senate, Biden was a backer of measures that helped China, several of which were carried out during the presidential terms of Bill Clinton. He also stayed close to the then State-Pentagon line of cosying up to the generals in Pakistan. Aware that he would be the Democratic frontrunner in the 2019 nomination process within that party, given the support he enjoys of both the Clintons as well as the Obamas, those around Donald Trump have sought to portray the Democratic challenger as a closet socialist, almost a communist. While this may be true of some of his staffers, it is an entirely fanciful description of Joe Biden, who is as much a part of the Washington establishment as Hillary and Bill Clinton. Had she wanted her party’s 2020 nomination, Hillary Clinton would have got it. The fact that Biden is the nominee indicates that the Clintons came to the conclusion that Trump would be likely to repeat his 2016 win over her, given the negativity (some of which is admittedly gender based) attached to her. Just as the Lyndon Johnson administration was studded with those who pined for a Kennedy in the White House, Biden’s team has more than a few in the upper rungs who would have preferred to see Hillary occupy the White House, but who accept Biden as a “safe” pair of hands. In the language of the bureaucracy, “safe” means a politician who will go by the advice he receives from staff rather than undertake the “unsound” politician who forms his own views about any consequential matter.

If elected, Kamala Harris would be the first woman to be the Vice-President of the US and a heartbeat away from herself being the occupant of the White House, as the saying goes. That such a prospect may scare away some voters seems to be behind the apparent decision of Biden’s staff about Harris. The Biden campaign seems to regard a nearly invisible Vice-Presidential nominee as being most advantageous to the chances of victory of the Biden-Harris ticket. In their view, now that the black and brown vote is in the bag, it is the white vote that needs to be courted, and in such a task, the calculation seems to be that the more of Joe Biden and the less of Kamala Harris there is on the campaign trail, the better. This perception may not be accurate, given that many white voters in the US are attuned to 21st century norms and values, and are far removed from the Weltanschauung of the 1950s of Trump advisor Stephen Miller, who has been working ferociously to ensure that the day when non-whites form the majority of the US population never comes. Fred Trump would have approved, but as for his son Donald Trump, it is difficult to judge what exactly the 45th President’s views are on such matters. Certainly Trump has adopted much of Miller’s policy, but this seems to be in the belief that by doing so, he would be assured of a second term in the White House, the objective that has consumed his mind and propelled his activities almost from the time he was sworn in on 20 January 2017. Trump would have been better served had he adopted more measures such as the belated effort to reform the hideous US penal system, a legacy of Richard Nixon and subsequently Bill Clinton. It is now too late to push the genie of a non-white majority back into the box, and the manner the Trump administration has sought to do so has caused dismay and disgust not just across the world but in the US as well, and not just among those not of European extraction. In suburbs across US cities that the Trump train believes reflects the 1950s, those whose ethnicity is Asian, Latino or African American share neighbourhoods cordially with those whose ancestors came from Europe, and inter-marriage has become so commonplace that it is no longer even noticed. Give credit to Joe Biden (or more probably to Jill Biden), he seems to have adjusted to the 21st century much better than President Trump. The attitudes drilled into the US President by his father Fred’s ideological twin Stephen Miller belong to the 1950s and are not only an anachronism but a handicap in the present. Theirs is a vision meant for those who blame their own lack of success on those of a different colour. Given their obsession with winning any which way, it is ironical that the Trump campaign believes that it can be propelled forward mainly by those who can only be described as losers.

Elections in the US have become less about policy and more about spectacle. A candidate retaining his feisty instincts despite being invaded and occupied by the virus that took shape in Wuhan in the final weeks of last year is a storyline that Hollywood as well as Bollywood will surely take advantage of in times ahead. Those shepherding Joe Biden believe that the more he shows himself to be bland and normal (in other words, the polar opposite of Trump), the more certain his chances of victory. While opinion polls indicate that they may be right, the colourful and chaotic interplay of emotions and images over the next few weeks is what President Trump hopes will turn things around. He is aiming for an upset similar to 1948, when Harry Truman prevailed over Thomas Dewey despite having been written off months before and indeed until the election was declared in his favour.

https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/chaotic-images-emotions-surround-biden-trump-contest

India and US on cusp of rescuing world from Covid- 19 ( Sunday Guardian)

 

 

The manner in which President Trump appears to be recovering from his bout with the novel coronavirus indicates that the treatment route should not be neglected by policymakers any longer. For India to become the global factory for Covid-19 drugs requires action by PM Modi.

New Delhi: Almost the same cast of characters who at great expense of money and time failed in the past to develop a vaccine for HIV/AIDS is now in the front line of the search for a Covid-19 vaccine. HIV/AIDS is a fast-mutating virus that defied efforts to create a vaccine that could generate antibodies to its ravages, and the novel coronavirus mutates at an even faster pace than its predecessor. Bill Clinton claims that the foundation named after him has done incalculable service in fighting the menace of AIDS. What he forgets to mention is that the disease has been brought under control by pharmaceuticals that are 90% manufactured in India. And that as President of the United States, Clinton did everything in his power to prevent Indian pharma companies from producing low cost alternatives to the drugs being churned out by Big Pharma donors to the Clinton campaign. Just as in the HIV pandemic, India can be the source of low-cost cocktails of drugs that can ensure that the fatality rate of Covid-19 patients falls from the present rate of around 1% to still lower levels. In contrast, 100% of those with AIDS died of the disease until medicines were discovered that slowed its impact. Much of the havoc caused by the Covid-19 pandemic has been because of initial confusion in treatment protocols, as well as in the draconian measures taken in efforts (usually futile) to stop the spread of the disease ever since WHO finally sounded the alarm in March 2020. After hitchhiking from Wuhan from the last quarter of 2019 in airline passenger flight after flight to cities across the world, Covid-19 has had a catastrophic effect on countries across the world. Several hundred million jobs have been erased, incomes have fallen and psychological states of mind of tens of millions have come to resemble those periods when the world was at war. Although Chinese Communist Party General Secretary Xi Jinping took the unprecedented step of shutting off Wuhan from the rest of the country in January, few countries understood the magnitude of the danger that was facing them and hence delayed by weeks in barring the entry of travellers from China into their shores. The WHO kept incorrectly repeating that (a) Covid-19 could not be transmitted from human to human and subsequently that (b) international air travel out of and into China was safe, nearly two months after researchers had found that both these propositions were false.

FOCUS ON TREATMENT, NOT JUST VACCINE

When the Gates Foundation and the US Government poured billions of dollars into trying without success to develop a vaccine for HIV, a few virologists had warned that this was a futile effort, given the manner in which the HIV/AIDS virus mutated. A vaccine effective against a particular strain would prove ineffective against a mutation of that strain. As it happened, no AIDS vaccine was discovered. HIV was tamed by the advent of drugs that prolonged life, thereby making the disease no longer a death sentence. During the failed effort at finding out a vaccine for HIV/AIDS, Deborah Birx (another acolyte of Dr Fauci and also a Trump appointee) conducted several vaccine experiments in poor countries. The impact on those experimented with is unknown, but experimental vaccines were injected into thousands of individuals as part of the effort to develop an AIDS vaccine. Had Bill Gates and Dr Fauci focused their undeniable and in many ways admirable energies on the treatment route rather than concentrating only on finding an effective vaccine, many lives could have been saved, as indeed has taken place after HIV medication began to be made in profusion by India. A similar effort by Prime Minister Narendra Modi involving the licensing of production of selected drugs can lead to mass production within India of drugs with a track record of success in battling the novel coronavirus. While the search for the “bird in the bush” (i.e. the vaccine) goes on, the “bird in the hand” (i.e. supply of medication) needs to be nurtured. Such HIV-style activism in India may annoy Big Pharma in the US or parts of the EU, even as it creates tension in Beijing and Moscow, which are focusing on the vaccine route as the solution to the pandemic. The manner in which President Donald J. Trump appears to be recovering from his bout with the novel coronavirus indicates that the treatment route should not be neglected by policymakers any longer, and must be given especially high priority in India. If President Trump comes out of the shadow of the virus in the manner that seems to be taking place, it means that Covid-19 may soon go the way of AIDS by being tamed through treatment protocols much before a vaccine effective against such a fast-mutating disease can be perfected.

ENSURE COVID-19 MEDICATION

Prime Minister Narendra Modi needs to convert India into the global factory for manufacturing medicines fighting the novel coronavirus. For this to happen, the Government of India needs to defy policymakers such as US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer (who would prefer to have hundreds of thousands of patients die of disease than permit India to manufacture drugs curing them at affordable cost). The Health Minister needs to switch focus from inexplicably trying to change the leadership of the Sri Chitra Institute in Trivandrum. He should instead get licensed domestic manufacturers to make low-cost Covid-19 medication for the world. This would be a lifesaving step that would have an effect far in excess of the efforts of Presidents Putin and Xi to globally market the vaccines they have developed. As most of those who have been infected with Covid-19 are unaware of the disease unless tested later for antibodies, claims of the efficacy of a vaccine against a virus that mutates even faster than HIV are difficult to either affirm or refute. What is possible to prove is the efficacy of medicines and treatment protocols that have already begun to save lives during the pandemic. Regeneron Pharmaceuticals has developed REGN-10987 and REGN-10933 that overcome SARS Cov-2. President Trump was given REGN-COV2 and other medications designed to eliminate the disease. These have been declared as “less than safe” by some vaccine hunters, but it defies logic that medication that carry risks as substantial as those claimed by the “Vaccine Only” lobby would have been administered to the US President in a hospital run by the military. Once the Prime Minister ensures that Remdesivir, Favipiravir and other drugs found to be effective in bringing down the mortality of Covid-19 patients are mandated for production, these could be produced in bulk in India for supply to the poorest countries in the world. Improved treatment protocols and the requisite cocktails of medication would ensure that Covid-19 cease to be the scourge of everyday life that it has become thanks not only to its potential for harm but the fear and panic that the mere mention of the disease causes in people. Once the pharmaceutical and medical professions get liberated from corrupt officials and the big money interests who walk hand in hand with them, India would be able to rescue society and the economy across the world from the present hell into which it has been consigned by the pandemic. India becoming the global factory for Covid-19 drugs requires action by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for activation.

BIG PHARMA COSTS LIVES

While Covid-19 can be a killer, the overall death rate during the pandemic is 1%, which is why Trump is correct in saying that (fear of) Covid-19 should not dominate our lives. Unlike HIV/AIDS, which kills every individual it infects, Covid-19 is fatal in a far lower proportion. For reasons that remain unclear, mass hysteria was whipped up by the WHO, followed by different governments over the pandemic from March 2020 onwards, presumably to justify the extreme lockdowns that were imposed on the recommendation of WHO. India, whose population co-exists with the prevalence of a battery of diseases, should not allow the novel coronavirus to upend society and the economy in the manner that it has. The bold manner in which President Trump has reacted to getting infected may be ridiculed by his opponents, but is in fact the correct attitude to adopt in a situation where fear of the disease is wreaking far more economic and psychological damage than the actual incidence of the disease in populations. The WHO estimates that 10% of the world’s population has been infected, and considering that the number of SARS Cov-2 deaths is about a million so far, there was no reason for the frenzy and panic in several countries that followed the overnight change in tone by the WHO from insouciance to alarm and its repeated calls to lock down countries completely. Given the density of habitation in India, neither working from home nor a complete lockdown is possible in this country, something that Prime Minister Narendra Modi understood in the course of the pandemic and as a consequence ordered the “unlockdown” phase.

While President Bill Clinton sought to gut the Indian pharmaceutical industry on behalf of Big Pharma, it was President George W. Bush who actually saved millions of lives by launching the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief in 2003. Nearly $90 billion was spent to save lives across the world, and much of the medication got supplied by companies in India. President George W. Bush ensured that the FDA approved products from manufacturing plants in India. In contrast, under President Barack Obama, the FDA sought to shut down several Indian drug manufacturing plants and joined China and parts of the EU in giving Indian pharma a bad name. Should Donald Trump recover from the disease and secure a second term, he needs to team up with Narendra Modi in making India and the US work together to ensure that medication gets made and distributed across the world, so that much of the dislocation caused by Covid-19 disappears. Should the next occupant of the White House be Joe Biden, the 46th President of the US needs to step out of the Clinton-Obama shadow and ignore the siren calls of Big Pharma. The White House should follow the example of George W. Bush who teamed up with India to save the world from a scourge that was once a death sentence but which has now become manageable over decades of lifespan. The hysterical reaction to Covid-19 by a plethora of agencies and governments has resulted not only in economic disaster but in fear and stigmatization of the disease. This is greater than that faced by sufferers of leprosy. Societies were not locked down and economies shut down by governments in any past pandemic in the manner in which they have been in so many countries since WHO sounded the alarm bells over Covid-19. Unfortunately, this was weeks after it ought to have warned the globe about the severity of the disease. Its cure for the disease (complete and indefinite lockdown) had effects on livelihoods that was worse than the impact of the disease. Just as happened in the case of HIV/AIDS, it is time for Delhi and Washington to link hands to rescue the world from the ditch into Covid-19 has pushed it.

https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/india-us-cusp-rescuing-world-covid-19

Minorities support Hindus' right to three holy sites ( Sunday Guardian)

 

 

So deep is the belief that Hindus do not deserve to get their three holy sites restored to them that opinion continues to grow that regards such a desire as evil.

Why is it that only those against the desire of Hindus to get back the three holy sites that had been despoiled in the past get called upon to write or declaim on television? The overwhelming majority of Muslims and other minorities will support such a move for justice to a billion citizens of India. Given the length of time that has elapsed between the 6 December 1992 event and the present verdict exonerating all those charged with the destruction of the Babri Masjid, it is possible that lack of surviving evidence linking those charged with the destruction of the structure was the reason why the balance of advantage was given to every accused. To claim as some do that photographs of happy faces were sufficient proof of wrongdoing seems an inference too far. The worldwide reaction to the event has been as though the entire edifice of justice towards a particular faith was torn down with the Babri Masjid. The reality is that India’s 200 million Muslims are an example to the world for their moderation. Barring the locations where Wahhabism was permitted to run riot. From 1989 onwards, almost every month temples were being vandalised in the northernmost tip of India, without any media or other blowback, whether within the country or outside. Such lack of reaction is no surprise, as the period following the horrific assassination of Mahatma Gandhi was seemingly marked by an effort to efface through the governance mechanism any of the rights associated with belonging to a majority community anywhere in the world. In effect, the majority community in India was treated by policymakers in the manner minorities have been across several parts of the world. The majority community has been subject to discriminatory laws that have continued to be enacted. There was a period in India when civil servants who visited temples every week or who wore a mark on their foreheads were considered to be “Hindu fanatics”. In case of many, such a classification had significant effects on their careers in a manner not seen in the case of those of other faiths who regularly went to their places of worship. The adherence to some of the rituals of the faith of the majority were de-legitimised and portrayed as evidence of fanaticism, whereas political parties and groups that explicitly championed only what they perceived to be the interests of a “minority” faith were accepted as secular. The justice—indeed, the right—to places of worship that are at the core of a given faith is difficult to dispute. Yet the fact was that in a country that was explicitly divided on the basis of faith by those in a community who fell into the colonial trap of “Divide and Leave” no action was taken to restore to longstanding tradition just the three sites that are considered to be at the heart of the Hindu faith. After decades, one of the three sites is on track to being returned to ancient traditions. Yet across the world, not to mention within the very country partitioned on the basis of religion and which is the home of a billion Hindus, this is seen as an act of gross injustice to a faith that has the privilege of its own holy sites being nurtured and protected in the manner that Mecca and Medina are. Or Jerusalem is for Jews or Bethlehem or the Vatican for Christians. So deep is the belief that Hindus do not deserve to get their three traditional holy sites restored to them that opinion continues to grow that regards such a desire as wholly unacceptable and indeed evil. Partition was seen by the British colonials as being the method of preventing bloodshed. Instead, it caused a massacre. Coming to the present, the return to ancient traditions of Ayodhya, Mathura and Kashi will ensure rather than damage harmony between faiths.

Better effort by those prosecuting the Babri Masjid case may have resulted in at least some individuals being found culpable and made to pay the penalty for their actions nearly three decades back. However, this does not take away the lack of justice in the “intolerant tolerant” regarding as wrong and evil the return of the Ram Mandir to the traditions that were rudely interrupted by the destruction wreaked by excesses that finally caused the collapse of Mughal rule. Not just at Ayodhya but at Mathura and Kashi as well, the existing structures were razed and replaced with structures that are still extant. Aurangzeb was one with present critics of the Ram Mandir that Hindus had no right to their holy sites. What is extraordinary is that so many commentators across the world agree with him. Whether during the period of Mughal rule or during the period of the British empire, it would be fanciful to argue that Muslims or Christians were disadvantaged and discriminated against by the Hindus. As for the period before that, there were hardly any Muslims or Christians in the subcontinent at the time, and no record exists of persecution against them. This being the case, the anger within sections of the commentariat at the suggestion that Hindus be given the right to the restoration of their three holy sites shows the persistence of a past syndrome that considered this community to be unworthy of equal treatment, the very treatment that is the foundation of secularism. Whether it be in cities in India or outside, the innate justice of such a claim by a community that has seen its land vivisected seems to be a concept alien to the thought processes of several policymakers, scholars and commentators who exhibit Zero Tolerance to this fundamental right of Hindus to their three holy sites.

Words such as “genocide” or “extermination” are frequently heard in conferences across the world that purport to describe the situation in India. But where are the mass graves and the sites where such mass killings have taken place? Certainly there have been isolated instances of the killing of individuals by majority community bigots angered by the diet or lifestyles of their minority victims. Each such action needs to be condemned and punished. Zero Tolerance for bigotry and injustice should extend to situations such as what took place at Hathras, where the police seemed to have been less interested in punishing the perpetrators than in usurping the rights of the family of the victim in the matter of last rites. As Prime Minister Narendra Modi indicated, such an outrage needs to be severely punished. However, the conflation of isolated acts of vengeance and cruelty into a narrative of pan-Indian genocide does no credit to those retailing such falsehood. India needs to stand together with other democracies in protecting each other against the threats they severally and jointly face, and only enemies of democracy will welcome a drumbeat that demonizes Hindus and their right to what Christians and Muslims have.

https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/minorities-support-hindus-right-three-holy-sites

After Covid-19 strikes, President Trump, the Vish Purush ( Sunday Guardian)

 

The version retailed by a few White House watchers is that Hope Hicks recently became ‘good friends’ with a man who made no secret of his disdain for her boss, and who ensured a lengthy meeting between himself and her in a private setting as soon as was discovered that he was an asymptomatic carrier of Covid-19.

NEW DELHI: Chanakya elaborated on the concept of the “Vish Kanya” (Poison Girl), a girl weaned on poison who killed with a kiss those who succumbed to her charms. There could also have been a “Vish Purush” (Poison Man), who kills a target through the poison he carried with him or within him. It was no female “Vish Kanya”, but males (“Vish Purush”) who attempted to take away the lives of Sergei and Yulia Skripal and Alexei Navalny in the UK and Russia through the nerve agent Novichok. In contrast, the fugitive half-brother of DPRK Supreme Commander Kim Jong Un was felled inside Kuala Lumpur airport by a pair of women armed with a poisonous substance disguised as cosmetic cream. Now that  the 45th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump, has been reported as having fallen prey to the novel coronavirus courtesy his assistant Hope Hicks, conspiracy theories are raining down with the intensity of a monsoon downpour. The version retailed by a few White House watchers is that Hope Hicks recently became “good friends” with a man who made no secret of his disdain for her boss, and who ensured a lengthy meeting between himself and her in a private setting as soon as he discovered that he was an asymptomatic carrier of Covid-19. This unverified theory concerns the manner in which White House staffer and Presidential favourite Hope Hicks acquired the novel coronavirus, which subsequently got transferred to the individual working in close proximity to her, the US President. Did the socially gregarious Hicks acquire a “close friend” who was open to her about his view that Trump is a disaster for the country he leads, and did she have a longish meeting with him days before symptoms of Covid-19 manifested itself? Even Sherlock Holmes would be hard put to prove malign intent in the unlikely event of the propositions mentioned by the “Vish Purush” theorists being true. In any event, what is clear is that Hope Hicks needed to be monitored 24/7, for she is socially gregarious, and could well have picked up more than conversation from some of such meetings, which could subsequently have been passed on to the First Citizen . Questions arise about why her socially liberal ways were not pointed out to the President as a possible security risk. The reply is that Trump was fully aware of the lifestyle of Hope Hicks and gave no signs of disapproval. Why was he not warned about the possible consequences, including to himself? Because President Trump reacts violently and unfavourably to any criticism or warnings about those he considers to practically be family, as Hicks has been for a while. Staffers would therefore hesitate to warn in and leave the matter in the hands of the 45th President himself, as they did many other matters where a second opinion (to Trump’s) may have been needed. Why Hicks accompanied President Trump to Ohio when she was starting to feel unwell, and why she herself was not being more carefully monitored for her contacts and her symptoms remain questions that need transparent answers. Those in the intimate retinue of leaders of a consequential country—in this case the most consequential—cannot expect the privilege of an unsupervised private life. If they insist on such a lifestyle, they should retire from the high voltage service that is bound up in being close to those working in close proximity with the US President. Allowing an individual known to have an active social life to be within the confines of a helicopter with the President was itself a breach of security explainable only by the pervasive atmosphere of fear that President Trump engenders among so many staffers, fear that prevents them from insisting that necessary security protocols be adhered to rather than ignored. Fear is no substitute for respect. The first breeds bad solutions while the latter promotes the opposite.

ADVANTAGE BIDEN

The explanation offered within some in his team is that President Trump looks askance at any effort by minions (which is what he regards White House staff as being) to limit the access his family and close associates such as Hope Hicks have to him, and hence he is in several instances his own Chief of Staff and National Security Advisor. Any individual who disputed this would soon find himself or herself out of the White House. If Trump wanted his favourite, “Hopey”, on Marine One on the day of the debate with Biden, there was no way she was going to be kept out, unless she herself acted with prudence and declined the invite in view of her unsupervised personal life and symptoms of poor health. Because of the atmosphere within the Trump White House, there was a palpable inability of medical security staff to create a complete bubble around the President, including by keeping out those favoured by him who were mingling with individuals not certain to be free of Covid-19. This gap in the bubble protecting Trump from the novel coronavirus has caused the hospitalisation of the President and very likely his chance at winning a second term. An individual who cannot protect himself despite access to the best security matrix available on the planet may find it difficult to convince voters that he can protect them. Should the novel coronavirus wreak havoc with President Trump, he may need to hand over the baton in the 3 November contest to Vice President Mike Pence. Given the circumstances, the obviously confident and able Vice President would as rival start with the disadvantage of the circumstances that propelled him to be the Republican Party standard bearer. It is very much Advantage Biden, although this may still change, given that what is driving the contest in Biden’s direction is less his qualities than the drawbacks of his opponent. If Biden cuts loose from the constricting circle of advisors around him and shows that he is as much of a pugilist as Trump or Pence, he would coast to an easy win over either Trump or Pence. Biden needs to show that he is as much of a fighter for the causes he believes in as Kamala Harris, who seems to have been tucked away into a corner since her nomination as the Vice Presidential candidate and almost forgotten by the Biden campaign. The Biden-Harris ticket is attractive. So far as the individual who aspires to be the 46th President of the US is concerned, Joe Biden is known for his integrity and his simplicity of demeanour, so unlike other VIPs. The former Vice President’s devotion to family values is visible, and is a contrast to some others in politics. It helps that in Jill Biden the Democratic nominee has a brilliant and dedicated helpmate, who can serve as both a goad to a more assertive Biden and a conscience blocking those within the campaign who seek to cut ethical corners.

HUNTER BIDEN AS TRUMP CARD

The Trump campaign was expecting a very different October surprise, this involving Hunter Biden. Reports abound (which may of course be untrue) of videos in the possession of security establishments in both the traditional as well as the newly identified “threat” countries to the US. These purport to show Hunter Biden in a relaxed mood during visits to an East European and an East Asian country, enjoying quality time with pleasant company. In case such images exist and should they get released during a Biden presidency, it would not be a catastrophe, but a welcome sign that fears of the possible 46th President of the US being soft on the primary 21st century threat to the US are untrue. It is certainly a fact that key elements in Biden’s Atlanticist team of foreign policy advisors hew closely to what they have been tutored to think by policy makers in countries in the European Union that they regard as their intellectual mentors, and have in essence kept away from the Obama pivot towards the Indo-Pacific in favour of the Clinton obsession with focusing singularly on the Atlantic alliance, a bias visible during the Clinton presidency as well as during the Hillary-heavy first term of Barack Obama. Were Joe Biden to show that he can be as tough in the defence of US interests and primacy as in many respects Trump has been, his victory on 3 November would be certain. The meek may some day inherit the earth, but are unlikely to win the hearts and minds of voters. What won the election for John F. Kennedy over Richard Nixon in 1960 was the fiction of a “missile gap” with the USSR under Eisenhower and Nixon, and what cost Jimmy Carter the 1980 contest with Ronald Reagan was the dispiriting image of US hostages remaining prisoners in Teheran despite a year and more of incarceration. Throughout the US, hostility towards China has grown to a level that was impossible to conceive of just a year ago, and it is this wave that Donald Trump has been hoping will lead him to a second term, especially given the adherence of key Biden counsellors to the European line, which is that Russia is the enemy and China the opportunity. In reality, the two are locked into an alliance in which Moscow is only nominally co-equal.

PRIVATE LIFE VERSUS PUBLIC OFFICE

Contrary to the theory being floated of deliberate intent, it may well be that whoever transmitted the novel coronavirus to Hope Hicks did so without realising that it was in residence in his body. That it was not the intention of the hitherto unknown “good friend” of Hope Hicks to incapacitate the President through her. So far as the period before the election is concerned, much depends on how soon Donald Trump expels the novel coronavirus from his system. If he were to succeed in this with his energy and spirit intact and still have a little over ten days left for campaigning, there would still be hope of his prevailing over Joe Biden, despite what the polls presently say. What is clear from this episode (as indeed from the Hunter Biden saga) is that an unsupervised private life by any individual in close working or personal proximity is a significant risk to the leader of any consequential country. Once such an “insider” position is secured, there can no longer be the freedom of a personal life that represents the risk of either contagion or blackmail. During the 1950s, Senator John F. Kennedy had a relationship with a woman who was also close to Mafia boss Sam Giancana, as reportedly was Kennedy himself. The risks this represented to his brother’s presidency motivated Robert Kennedy to launch a crusade against the Mafia that may have cost him not just a stint at the White House but his life in 1968. President Trump, should he bounce back and do the impossible by winning a second term, will need to be protected from his worst instincts in a manner that has clearly not been the case in a White House where every staffer knows that each day could be his or her last in the job. Richard Nixon was forced out in disgrace because those around him failed in protecting the 37th President of the US. Those around President Trump may have cost their boss his job and worse by a similar act of negligence caused by their fear of annoying a boss who hates to be told that he is wrong, no matter by whom and about what. Echo chambers cause the decay of sound policies and practices, as Donald J. Trump may finally have come to realise in his battle for health within the military hospital where his treatment is being supervised.

https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/covid-strikes-president-trump-vish-purush-theory-surfaces

Biden’s lack of boldness emboldens Trump ( Sunday Guardian)

 

 

Biden seems to lack the intensity of Trump, and is giving an appearance of being micro-managed by smug and know-it-all staffers.

President Donald J. Trump refers to his opponent as “Sleepy Joe”, while others in his entourage use another epithet to describe the Democratic challenger, “wimp”. They say that the only time Joe Biden showed genuine emotion was when he reacted to Trump mocking soldiers in wartime as “losers and suckers”. From all accounts, Biden’s son and former soldier Beau was an outstanding human being, and not just his family but his country has been diminished by his loss. The former Vice-President is himself known to be a person of faith who has preserved family values and his own integrity, together with wife Jill, who is known for her steadfastness. Both are unlike younger son Hunter, who seems fixated on making money, no matter where or how. This has made Hunter the second-weakest link in the chain of events that could catapult the Bidens into the White House on 20 January 2021. The weakest link is Joe Biden’s staff, several of whom are not even Barack Obama vintage, but are unrepentant Clinton groupies. They are uncomfortable with (and uncomprehending of) the immense changes that have taken place in the world and in the US in particular since the 1990s. While there are a few outstanding talents within the Biden campaign, many of the key staffers are of the same vintage and mindset as lost the 2016 election for Hillary Clinton, by misinterpreting the mind of the very voters needed for victory. The same excess of confidence seen in Team Clinton during the 2016 campaign has been present in Team Biden, the latter sharing the earlier belief of the former that it was “impossible to lose” against a candidate as riddled with contradictions as Donald J. Trump.

While the 45th President of the US has his flaws, and multiple books have been pointing this out coincidentally close to election night, he cannot be accused of being anything other than his own man. The volley of barbs directed by President Trump at China during this year’s UNGA speech went against the obsession of diplomats everywhere to substitute plain speaking with opaque language capable of multiple interpretations. Donald Trump likes those who are “less educated”, and what he said about China in that very consequential UNGA speech would have been understood even by a 12-year old. Several in the inner recesses of power in Beijing fondly remember Vice-President Biden (as well as Hunter), and expect that the US will go back to the Clinton-Obama era where the PRC is concerned. This was a time of occasional symbolic gestures designed for television audiences camouflaging a welter of concessions. It was President Clinton who opened the doors wide to the WTO as well as to technology imports from the US to China, even while keeping the door barred to India. In contrast, Joe Biden seems to lack the intensity of Donald Trump, and is giving an appearance of being micro-managed by smug and know-it-all staffers in the way Hillary Clinton allowed herself to be. On China, Biden has stuck to the State Department handbook, which is to talk in language that is subject to different meanings and which conceals the intent, if any, of the speaker. If Trump can succeed in making the 3 November contest a referendum on who can best take on China, he would win, as Joe Biden in his hyper-scripted establishment avatar seems diffident about facing the challenge to US global primacy that China under Xi Jinping represents. Astonishingly, 17 Congresspersons from the Democratic Party in the House of Representatives (including the youthful hope of the Kennedy family, who shamed the memory of John F. Kennedy by this action) demanded that “arms sales to India stop”. The beneficiaries of such a move would be Pakistan and China, clearly countries closer to the hearts and minds (if not the pocketbooks) of these members of the House of Representatives than the world’s most populous democracy. Or the need to defend it against a Wahhabi military that breeds terror organisations and an authoritarian expansionist state intent on driving the US out of the Indo-Pacific and from the pinnacle of world leadership. Neither Joe Biden nor Kamala Harris has reacted to an initiative designed to advantage China and Pakistan over India. Not to mention benefit the military sales entities of Russia, who would step in to fill the vacuum left by the US blocking weapons sales to India. Biden campaign managers seem to have muzzled even Kamala Harris—for the few events in which she is allowed to participate are lacklustre—with poor choice of background together with boilerplate introductory speeches. It is a surprise that Joe Biden does not show some boldness in using his Vice-Presidential pick’s charisma and speaking skills. Both Harris and her partner Doug Emhoff are attractive campaigners with an appeal far beyond considerations of ethnicity, but neither seems to be in favour with Biden’s handlers, hence the sparing way in which they are being used in the 2020 campaign. Much of this consists of scripted meetings addressed by Biden with the help of a teleprompter, thereby forcing voters to contrast diffident delivery with the easy confidence of President Trump. An election is the compound of intellect and emotion, and in the latter department, thus far the Biden campaign is much lower down the scale than events involving Donald Trump and the formidable Mike Pence.

Voters in the US are looking for the candidate who can face down the Xi-Putin combo. Trump is vulnerable in view of his softness towards Vladimir Putin, but Biden is less than convincing in attempting to show that he can take on Moscow, while where Beijing is concerned, all that is visible from the Democratic standard bearer are either platitudes or silence. Such reticence could act as fodder for the expected Republican volley against Hunter Biden next month. Joe Biden would have done well to support some of Trump’s initiatives against China rather than reflexively oppose whatever the 45th President has been doing. Given the trouble that geopolitical shifts mixed with Covid-19 is causing, only a bolder Biden can win the contest for the White House, not a candidate constrained by his staff, many of whom are operating in the belief that the 1990s can return. Of course, several in the Trump train believe and act as though the 1950s can return, and hence the 2020 race for the White House is developing into a battle between two different revivalist visions. The more Joe Biden goes by the dictates of some of his key minders rather than listen to his own conscience and hark to the example set by Beau, the closer Donald Trump is to securing a second term in the White House.

https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/opinion/bidens-lack-boldness-emboldens-trump

Stock market mayhem key weapon of anti-Modi alliance ( Sunday Guardian)

 

 

A key calculation of the global alliance of groups that have coalesced to oppose Prime Minister Narendra Modi is that the decline in economic performance caused by Covid-19 and other factors will result in a steady intensification of public discontent.

New Delhi: A collapse in commerce, reversal at the hands of China and continued corona havoc are regarded as the keys that would bring down the popularity of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and by implication, the credibility of a government headed by him. While millions of Covid-19 cases may have been avoided as a consequence of the Great Indian Lockdown ordered by Modi on 24 March, the phobia about the novel coronavirus caused by doomsday warnings about its effects is continuing to affect business sentiment and economic prospects in India, a situation expected to continue into 2021. About China, the assessment of those eager to see a weakened Modi is that Beijing will continue to nibble away at territory in a manner that would affect the confidence of the public in his ability to protect the borders of India. A key calculation of the global alliance of groups that have coalesced to oppose Prime Minister Narendra Modi is that the decline in economic performance caused by Covid-19 and other factors will result in a steady intensification of public discontent. The assessment is that by the close of 2020, such a change in mood and public support would ensure the beginnings of a repeat of 2012, when Baba Ramdev became the face of a mass movement against UPA 2.0. This was before then Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi took hold of the public imagination as a possible saviour against governmental corruption and sluggish income growth. It is unclear who the face of the planned movement against the Modi government is expected to be this time around, except that it will not be Rahul Gandhi. Having bossed over the Manmohan Singh government as Heir Apparent of the Congress Party throughout the UPA decade, it would have taken the skills of a Houdini for Rahul Gandhi as inheritor of the UPA legacy to escape the charge of corruption that he flings with alacrity against Modi. The results of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections were decided from the moment Rahul Gandhi embraced the suggestion made by seniors within his party that he be the party’s 2019 candidate for the Prime Ministership of India. The decision by him to enter the PM sweepstakes converted the 2019 electoral contest into a choice between Rahul Gandhi and Narendra Modi as PM. The consequence was that the BJP tally crossed 300 Lok Sabha seats in that poll, while the Congress Party strength in the Lok Sabha fell in an unprecedented manner. There must be glee within the NDA that neither Sonia Gandhi nor her designated successor Rahul seems to be in any hurry to surrender control of the Congress Party to any of the capable non-family individuals present in an organisation that still has support within elements of the public. Such backing is based on sentiment rather than on more tangible factors, but sentiment and emotion have long been drivers of political choices in India.

Although this has yet to happen, there is anxiety in Beijing as well as among those opposed to Modi that he may soon take advantage of the geopolitical opportunities created by the anti-China mood in the wake of Wuhan being the epicentre of the pandemic. The government has the strength to hold a Special Session of Parliament to put through measures designed to push through fiscal and monetary policy that frees itself of the Milton Friedman nostrums that are designed to keep the poor in poverty, squeeze the middle class and reduce its numbers while at the same time leaving the wealthy unscathed.

TRANSFORMATIONAL CHANGE INITIATED

A start at substantive structural reforms has been made during Modi 2.0 in Education and Agriculture, although in both fields additional fine tuning is needed of the reforms undertaken. The government’s policy options have to be secured from a much larger pool of talent than the limited group comprising the higher bureaucracy and their long-term contacts. Innovations which include substantial horizontal recruitment and the resulting embedding of domain specialists need to be introduced. Corrupt officials have to be identified continuously and removed from responsibility rather than continue to do their dirty work undisturbed. Several within the IAS, IFS, IRS, IPS and other services entered through the ancient Chinese system of a single set of examinations are motivated by a genuine desire to work for a better country, and such reforms would be welcomed by the honest majority of officials. Indeed, several officials have even before retirement migrated from the administrative services to the private sector, and are doing very well there. Only a minority within the administrative services have succumbed to the lure of lucre and thereby betrayed the trust of the people, but the harm done by such corrupt officials is often much more than the good done by officials who belong to the honest majority within the administrative services. This is especially the case when the political interface becomes a force multiplier for corruption and its effects, as has been repeatedly witnessed in India to the detriment of the country. Corrupt officials form a network that protects each other, so that accountability for past misdeeds has almost entirely been eliminated from a system that prides itself on being inbred and resistant to outside ideas and influence. In particular, any suggestion which reduces the grip of the administration from the colonial-era levels it still enjoys is thrown away without a second look. Central officials with a vested interest in retaining discretionary powers well beyond what is desirable in the interests of public policy seek to constantly expand such powers at the national level, while their like-minded colleagues work for the same expansion of discretion at the state level. Every crisis is used by them for the purpose, including the reverberations to public policy caused by the novel coronavirus. Since the 1950s, policymakers in India have been talking of decentralised Panchayati Raj, without taking the steps needed to devolve sufficient finances and authority down the line of administrative jurisdiction. These are matters requiring urgent attention during Modi 2.0, and the worry of those opposed to Narendra Modi is that he will finally ensure such changes, hence the intensifying effort to destroy his goodwill and credibility especially within the middle class. This group is the link between the poor and the wealthy, and forms the keystone of the economic arch. By word of mouth and by other means, capsules of misinformation are being disseminated about Prime Minister Modi that have been expertly compiled to discredit him in the eyes of those who have long supported him. The strength of the NDA government that has been in power since 2014 is that PM Modi is seen by millions as the protector of India from chaos and the PM who can rescue India from the misery of low growth rates. Unfortunately, thus far standard police methods have been used against the tactics used by predators, such as the filing of multiple FIRs and other methods relying on state power. Most such actions become an exercise in futility. An example is the manner in which Vijay Mallya is still living in comfort in the UK after officials in India turned down his public offer to repay the principal and interest he owes to the public banking system. Nirav Modi and his high-priced lawyers are still smiling even as the exchequer bleeds as a consequence of the manner in which banks have been drained of funds by him and by others too numerous to mention. The list of those who have clandestinely secured a passport of convenience as a prelude to escape overseas is growing. What is needed urgently is a transformational change in the matrix of policy that is designed to enhance the capability of the economy to begin growing at an annual minimum of 9%. This floor rate is needed to enable social stability to be maintained so as to create the conditions for double digit growth rates spread over a generation. If Beijing could do it, why not Delhi?

TERMITES IN THE STOCK MARKET

An institution affecting tens of millions of the middle class that is vulnerable to attack by the anti-Modi coalition is the stock market. It is here that “termites” have been at work undisturbed by multiple regulatory agencies. Even before Covid-19 was released upon the world in January 2020 by the WHO failing to warn countries in time to block visitors from Hubei, there has been a succession of what agencies have identified as market manipulations that have in their reckoning caused immense financial harm to investors. Entities needing forensic examination for their practices are listed by honest officials in monitoring and regulatory agencies as including BMA Wealth Advisors, Karvy Stockbroking, India Nivesh Securities, Allied Financial Services, V Rise Securities, Anugrah Stockbroking and Modex Securities. Such entities may deny that anything other than “routine errors” have been made and that not wilful actions but “market changes” were the culprit in the destruction of investor value. What is impossible to deny are losses amounting to thousands of crores of rupees suffered by Indian investors through their trust in entities indulging in questionable activity in plain sight of somnolent (and seemingly complicit) regulators. The losses made as a consequence of market mischief get distributed amongst hundreds of thousands of investors, who almost always lack the unity and political and financial reach and resources necessary to secure justice through a legal system not always known for speed in decisions. As a consequence, the perpetrators of such frauds have thus far mostly escaped not merely penalties or prosecution, but even detection. Their cabals enjoy official as well as political protection. While some brokerage entities have been directly involved in actions that have reduced hundreds of thousands of investors to penury, greater effort needs to be made by North Block to bring to account the entities responsible for the cheating of investors. These cabals include the “PC Network”, who lead in their predatory behaviour. These also include certain stock exchanges, depositories, clearing corporations and professional clearing members. Ending the somnolence of regulators and monitors such as the Economic Offences Wing in different states and SEBI needs urgent attention by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. International investor confidence in stock markets in India is in danger of ebbing away as a consequence of market manipulators functioning with the help of accomplices in levels of authority. Confidence in the integrity of markets is essential if genuine investors rather than vulture funds and arbitrageurs with insider accomplices are to be motivated to invest substantially in the Indian market. SEBI seems clueless about what is taking place, and as for the EOWs, the less said the better. Police Constable (PC) methods can never succeed in thwarting the sophisticated frauds and manipulations that are taking place almost with impunity in certain exchanges in India. All they do is create an illusion of accountability that television anchors can declaim over until public attention moves on to another subject and the inactivity of the agencies gets ignored in the thrill of a fresh diet of “breaking news”.

MISUSE OF MARKET MECHANISM

A few brokerage houses can bring about a shock to the economic system as would severely retard its prospects. Among the ways in which this can be done (and gets done) include:

(a) transfer of client securities without authority (from the client);

(b) trading without authority (from the client);

(c) diversion of client funds and securities for covering losses incurred in trading by brokers. This common and fraudulent practice results in Ponzi schemes that eventually go bust at huge cost to innocent investors who operate on the basis that regulatory and monitoring agencies are watchful rather than sleeping at the wheel;

(d) utilisation of client funds and securities for proprietary trading by broker;

(e) diversion of client funds for other business such as real estate or lending to cronies.

While SEBI sleeps and the EOWs chase after diversions, such misuse of the market mechanism takes place daily in a country where even something as major as the co-location imbroglio has been swept under the carpet as the matter involves an exchange that has long been favoured by elements in North Block. Litigation does get resorted to by those who have been affected by such frauds. However, such processes take years if not decades to conclude, and are therefore hardly a disincentive. As for the police, their lack of knowledge of the market gets added to the propensity of corrupt elements to look the other way. This is once “goodwill” gets distributed to corrupt officers and officials by brokers who gladly hand over a small share of the moneys they have made at the expense of the investor. Small wonder that even efforts at accountability result in cases that drag on for years with no result and which are initiated by charge sheets that are so riddled with inconsistencies and inaccuracies that they get dismissed in court. It was during the UPA period that such issues multiplied, with Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram not hiding his partiality towards certain exchanges. This combined with an open display of hostility to the business rivals of favoured entities. Thus far, Chidambaram has been held to account only for pocket change rather than the substantial amounts of money that flow from stock market manipulations. The PC Network is making sure that the light shines on only a small patch. This is in order to avoid a situation where the culpability in frauds and sabotage of competing entities of those still in high positions gets exposed.

The PC network ensures that its members be protected from discovery or penalties in case any gets discovered, usually by accident. The widespread dissemination of the PC Network within the financial bureaucracy (including some regulatory agencies) has led to a sense of invincibility amongst stockbrokers favoured by the network. These get used in financial transactions which are not always ethical or even lawful, of course with a blind eye turned towards them by somnolent regulators. Such brokers are confident that the exchange & clearing corporation (which would have to bail them out in case of defaults) has a near perfect record of not discovering frauds until the last paisa has been squeezed out of the unwary investor and diverted to the clearing corporation. The record will show that this has happened in a miscellany of cases, many involving a particular exchange that inspected such trades only after the clearing corporation had received and used the money that investors were persuaded to hand over in good faith. The process ends with the clearing corporation walking away with the money and securities of investors who run after a broker only to discover that he has closed shop. The specific exchange that members of the PC Network normally utilise will then declare the broker to be a defaulter, so that no further arbitration is possible under the by-laws. The exchange and clearing corporation gobbles up the fruits of the stolen property of the investor. The existence of such trades, which were given a boost during the Manmohan Singh years, is among the reasons why genuine investors are wary of Indian markets, even the few unaffected by practices which would ensure hefty fines and possible jail time in the US but which escape with either no or negligible penalties in India. This needs to change during Modi 2.0.

PROTECT GENUINE INVESTORS

PM Modi can protect investors by passing a law that would make the clearing corporation repay funds to defrauded investors without the latter having to go through the judicial mechanism. An amendment needs to be incorporated into the SCRA which provides that in cases where client funds and securities have been used to settle another client or broker trades, the settlement will be void. The clearing corporation being the central counter party should be obliged to return the funds or securities to the affected clients. This is possible as the properties lost through fraud vest with the clearing corporation, which is the central counter party. Of course, exchanges and the clearing corporation will resist such a move in favour of innocent investors. Once Prime Minister Modi goes ahead with a necessary reform of the stock market, the effect will be to force the exchanges to take up inspections properly rather than simply for show. It will act as a disincentive to exchanges to turn a Nelson’s eye to frauds being committed by unscrupulous brokers and clearing members who are giving exchanges in India a bad name by retaining the practices they perfected during the UPA era. Of course, the clearing corporation would be entitled to recover its dues through the processes of law. What is needed is to avoid the protracted litigation that has become a commonplace, with cases lingering on while defrauded investors suffer helplessly. Many simply give up, as they lack the money needed to hire the expensive lawyers needed for challenging the pricey advocates hired by the other side. Stock market scams wiped out the urban Lok Sabha seats held by the Congress regime under Narasimha Rao and the same happened to the BJP government headed by A.B. Vajpayee. The effort is to ensure a similar situation of political fallout in India, once again involving an unscrupulous section of brokers together with lax oversight by regulators. The present laws, regulations and administrative practices have not kept pace with the way markets have evolved and the newer ways of cheating the investor. This is the reason why cleansing and making transparent the functioning of stock exchanges and ancillary trades should be given high priority during Modi 2.0. Among the steps that could be taken is to avoid cartels and monopolies by permitting investors to access the market in ways more freely than at present. Trust the citizen while keeping an eye out for the very few who betray that confidence in the integrity of citizens of the world’s most populous democracy. Change is needed in a situation where fraud has become rampant and punishment of the perpetrator almost non-existent. Every investor cheated of his or her money is a family ruined, something that should be eliminated through discovery and punishment of offenders in a manner that is the opposite of the past.

https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/stock-market-mayhem-key-weapon-anti-modi-alliance

Xi Jinping gambles on Mission Meltdown in U.S. and India (Sunday Guardian)

Xi Jinping is aiming at China taking on the mantle of the world’s pre-eminent power, displacing the United States, before he completes a third five-year term.

New Delhi: Xi Jinping comes from a privileged family that has seen both rough as well as good times. Unlike the assertive and brash children of some of the Chinese Communist Party leaders lower down the leadership ladder, Xi’s daughter Mingxe is quiet and courteous, refusing to partake 24/7 of the pomp and privilege of her father’s high office, while his wife Peng Liyuan is herself a well-known singer of motivational and patriotic songs, which are usually sung by her in a military setting. From his early years close to high authority, such as his affinity with China’s longest serving Defence Minister, Lin Biao, the current General Secretary of the CCP has placed the military at the centre of his statecraft. This distinguishes him from Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin, who put commerce above everything else, or Hu Jintao, who placed a high value (and spent lavishly) on securing goodwill across the world. Soft power was given priority by Hu, even as he took steps to increase the domestic component of hi-tech fields of endeavour, a task enthusiastically embraced by his successor, Xi. Since 2012, “soft power booster budgets” have been cut and those cadres engaged in “goodwill” missions and tasks have been downgraded. In the time of Xi, an ounce of hard power is worth a pound of soft power. For Xi, as for his idol Mao Zedong, what counts is raw power and its exercise. He is clearly a believer in the adage that if an opponent is in a weaker position, it is irrelevant where that person’s heart and mind is, for he will be forced into doing what is wanted of him. This goes for groups and countries as well.

Even the “friendly face” of the PRC, Foreign Minister Wang Yi, is voluble during conversations that his country is 100% right in whatever its leadership says or does, and so discussions need to centre around the sole point of how quickly and smoothly the other side acknowledges such an obvious fact. What counts in the Xi model of governance is facts on the ground, not talks about talks or meetings about meetings. While Indian public opinion saw the Moscow meeting of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh with his PRC counterpart as routine diplomatic courtesy, the Chinese side saw it as a sign of weakness, and promptly stiffened their stance. Such an approach is the opposite of the situation in India, where international talks are given high priority and even visible failures (in terms of getting more than was given away) such as Tashkent or Shimla or the Tibet talks (from Nehru to Vajpayee) are seen as successes, a judgement made purely on the basis of optics. Indeed, optics seems to be the only result that policymakers in India have taken seriously in several situations.

The removal of the two-term limit by PRC President Xi Jinping has been taken as an indication that the CCP General Secretary would like to remain in office until the close of his life. However, the fact is different: Xi Jinping is aiming at China taking on the mantle of the world’s pre-eminent power, displacing the United States, before he completes a third five-year term. This would act as a force multiplier accelerating China’s lead over the US, the way its pivotal role in global commerce and geopolitics has assisted the US in maintaining its position within the global order. Once the milestone of global primacy is crossed, and it is regarded as axiomatic by his team that Xi’s leadership is crucial to such a success, it is likely that the current General Secretary, President and Chairman of the Central Military Commission will follow the example of Deng Xiaoping and take on an honorific title, such as Chairman of the CCP, handing over the General Secretaryship and other posts to trusted associates, although not to the same individual. India and the US are the two countries which figure prominently in the calculations of the team that has been gathered around Xi, individuals seen as the “best and the brightest” that the CCP has to offer. The question is whether they will ensure the success of Xi’s plans, or be responsible for a failure, much as the “best and the brightest” US policymakers in the Lyndon Johnson Cabinet were over Vietnam. The projections of Team Xi for both the big democracies are less than rosy.

EXPLOITING FAULTLINES

The US is seen as having potentially irreversible fault lines based on race, religion and income, which is expected to consume that country in internal strife on an increasing scale. While Joe Biden is preferred by Beijing to Donald Trump in the 3 November 2020 Presidential polls, the latter too is seen as vulnerable because of a “Two-Front” situation. The two fronts are (a) duels with the PRC combined with tensions with multiple countries, and (b) internal fissures created by those around President Trump seeking to impose on the US the same societal structure as was prevalent in the 1950s and in finance as was prevalent towards the close of the 19th century. The Supreme Court in particular is regarded as promising from the viewpoint of engendering chaos, in view of the fact that several of the justices are in effect charter members of the revivalist wing of the Republican Party and are visibly loyal in their verdicts to its tenets. Such a display of judicial partisanship is in the service of an effort to reverse the course of history, most importantly the effort by Stephen Miller and others filled with nostalgia for the segregationist past. The main objective of immigration and “justice” policies is to reverse the steady increase in the non-white population, which is a factor that is deeply upsetting to such individuals. The selection of Kamala Harris as the running mate of Joe Biden has given oxygen to the efforts of such elements out of fear that Biden may, for reasons of health, have to hand over the keys to the White House to a non-white and this not long after the first non-white President of the US was sworn in for two terms. Should the Democratic Party prevail in the 3 November contest, including in the House of Representatives and the Senate, there is likely to be a growing conflict between the Executive and a Judicial branch honeycombed with closet revivalists by the Trump administration. Their power would increase with the likely nomination of another Republican ideologue to replace Associate Justice Ruth Ginsburg on the Supreme Court before the team chosen by the 3 November election gets sworn in. An intensive effort is under way within the US to map for the CCP leadership the faultlines in US society and how they are developing. Or can be developed, a task in which China’s key ally Russia has been assigned to play the lead role on behalf of the common interests of the Sino-Russian alliance. At the same time, packages of misinformation that claim to show that Moscow and Beijing are working not seamlessly together (as is the case) but at cross purposes are being constantly tossed out to credulous policymakers in countries that are identified as hostile to a situation where China replaces the US as the centre of gravity of the international order. As a consequence, there are several policymakers in the US, the EU and India who believe that there is substantial daylight between the strategic ambitions and actions of Putin and Xi. The reality is that both wish to see the end of US primacy, ensure a fissured EU, and a weak congeries of South Asian and Southeast Asian states. Both Moscow and Beijing give an appearance of acting separately and on different sides, when in reality they are synchronising policy (often covertly) to bring about the geopolitical shifts desired by both.

SEPARATING THE U.S. AND INDIA

Both Beijing and Moscow regard it as crucial to keep the US and India strategically separate from each other, and the manner in which pro-Pakistan elements have embedded themselves within the Biden campaign has given Putin and Xi hope that a Biden White House would adopt a hectoring and unfriendly tone towards the Modi government. What is causing anxiety is the fact that Barack Obama, who seems close to Joe Biden, tossed away earlier US policy towards Narendra Modi within minutes of the latter winning the 2014 polls and becoming the second BJP Prime Minister of India. A Washington-Delhi pairing as close as the Moscow-Beijing partnership would present an immense obstacle to the global designs of the Sino-Russian alliance, and extraordinary effort is being made by both capitals to ensure that this not take place. This campaign is active in Washington as well, where a whispering campaign has been launched even through improbable channels that India wants to be a “free rider” and is moreover “unreliable and quirky” as a partner. Thus far, this campaign has prevented the US Congress from going ahead with additional legislation designed to make India in law an ally of the US on par with any other country, including treaty allies. A bevy of voices are opposing this on the Hill, most of whom are unaware of the foreign link to their advocacy. At the same time, several channels are being used in Delhi to convey a similar impression of unreliability about the US. Thus far, neither has Australia been invited to the Malabar exercises by India nor has BECA been signed. Keeping the US and India apart is a high priority and thus far, the strategy seems to have delivered results. Within the Biden camp in particular are several individuals who are in close contact with the Pakistan embassy, and during such visits, they “accidentally” meet diplomats from the country that is acknowledged as the single biggest threat to US interests by the Pentagon and the national security system. The close coordination between the Chinese and Pakistan embassies in numerous capitals is no secret. The usefulness of Pakistan in ensuring a covert bridge between Beijing and Washington, this time mostly in matters relating to the US Congress and to elements of the Republican and Democratic parties, is far from over.

MODI’S CREDIBILITY CORE TO STABILITY

Just as the US is regarded as being close to getting tipped into a societal war on a scale that will dwarf the unrest of the 1960s whoever wins on 3 November, India is calculated as being potentially vulnerable to a similar meltdown of public confidence and order. It has been factored in that the continuing credibility of Prime Minister Narendra Modi is key to ensuring a popular level of hope in the future as would prevent mass civil unrest across India. Efforts are ongoing to damage this credibility, and a military setback on the border is seen as the most effective way of bringing down the level of confidence of his people in the leadership of PM Modi. This would be on top of the economic hardship of the recent past. More than in the South China Sea or across the Taiwan Straits, it is the Himalayan massif that is likely to witness a kinetic effort by the PLA. This would be designed to shatter the image and confidence of India. The calculation is that such a setback would discredit those in the US and within the EU who are pushing for a more robust alliance with India. It would also eliminate any confidence within ASEAN that they can rely on India as a counterforce to an expansionist China. Clearly, interesting times are planned for the world’s largest democracy in terms of population.

The nightmare for President Xi Jinping is a military defeat at the hands of a country that is being constantly derided in state media as a paper tiger. Should the General Secretary’s Himalayan adventure end in catastrophe for the PLA, the impact on his leadership would be immediate. Given the governance structure of China, such a meltdown at the core would have a Chernobyl-style impact on the Chinese Communist Party, and a consequent weakening of the CCP’s hold on the people. This would lead to unrest in the PRC (and subsequently in Russia) on a scale that would dwarf whatever takes place in the US and India, even assuming some success in the Sino-Russian “Mission Meltdown” of the world’s two most consequential democracies. Those in the US and India who seek to “prevent war” seem to be unaware that the conflict has already started, and will end only with the defeat of one side over the other.

https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/news/xi-jinping-gambles-mission-meltdown-u-s-india