Category Archives: India

Troubles with Global Summitry

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We are definitely in the midst of Global Summitry gatherings. With the BRICS Summit just recently ended, we are deep into the G20 weekend gathering in New Delhi. So much commentary has accompanied these summitry gatherings. But I caution casual observers and readers: there are way too many assessments and conclusions drawn by all those folks that unfortunately barely pay attention to Global Summitry through much of the year. You can see this in the various ‘hair on fire’ commentaries in the assessments and consequences of the actions of key players in both the BRICS and now especially with the G20. Too many declarations of the G20 demise; firm conclusions that China and Russia would block any consensus statement that sought to condemn Russia’s aggression against Ukraine; the fragmentation of global summitry with the rise of the BRICS plus and the demise of the G20 with leaders from Russia and China choosing to absent themselves from summit.

Now don’t get me wrong, the geopolitical pressures, particularly rising US-China competition and opposition and condemnation of Russia for its unprovoked aggression on Ukraine are impactful. The geopolitics has seemingly hindered the G20 in advancing global governance policies. Yet the global governance agenda and goals remain. Look at the G20 agenda as described by Damien Cave in the NYT:

The agenda in New Delhi includes climate change, economic development and debt burdens in low-income countries, as well as inflation spurred by Russia’s war in Ukraine. If members can reach consensus on any or all of these subjects, they will produce an official joint declaration at the end.

In the ‘hair on  fire’ camp here is a piece by Alec Russell in the FT

The countdown to the talks was dominated by news that Xi was not going to attend. This was widely seen as a major blow to the G20, and an acceleration of the shift to a world in which a China-led bloc is facing off against a US-led one, with many countries hovering in the middle.

But the collective global governance effort has not been stymied. Indian efforts to reach consensus have proven successful. The G20, thanks to India, has released the Declaration a day early. Our good fortune. As described by the Indian Sherpa the Declaration was:

… a complete statement with 100% unanimity” that highlights India’s “great ability to bring all developing countries, all the emerging markets, China, Russia, everybody together at the same table and bring consensus.

He went on:

Urging adherence to the United Nations Charter, the New Delhi statement says: “All states must refrain from the threat or use of force to seek territorial acquisition against the territorial integrity and sovereignty or political independence of any state. The use or threat of use of nuclear weapons is inadmissible.

So there we are, a consensus statement has been issued. As often is the case, the document was not short, some 29 pages of declaration plus pages of annex.  Nevertheless it ended on a ‘high note’:

81. We reiterate our commitment to the G20 as the premier forum for global economic cooperation and its continued operation in the spirit of multilateralism, on the basis of consensus, with all members participating on an equal footing in all its events including Summits. We look forward to meeting again in Brazil in 2024 and in South Africa in 2025, as well as in the United States in 2026 at the beginning of the next cycle. We welcome Saudi Arabia’s ambition to advance its turn for hosting the G20 Presidency in the next cycle. We also look forward to the Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games in 2024 as a symbol of peace, dialogue amongst nations and inclusivity, with participation of all.

But a reading of the Declaration raises again the question: what success has in fact been achieved? As Caves points out:

But how much progress has the G20 made toward its ambitions? And what can be expected from this year’s meeting in India on Saturday and Sunday? … Then what? Often, not much, when it comes to real-world results. Most of the grouping’s joint statements since it formed in 1999 have been dominated by resolutions as solid as gas fumes, with no clear consequences when nations underperform.

‘Solid as gas fumes’. Well, in many respects the Declaration is no more than a statement of collective progress – what have we collectively identified as worthy of committing to and implementing. And, I did note, in an earlier Substack Post, Not Simply the Pace of Summitry that Leaders and their official are working toward commitment but:

So, let me at least raise in this Post, what I believe is the ‘continuum of action and commitment’ available to leaders in these various Leaders’ Summits. This continuum identifies the extent to which global governance policies have been secured. We move from the aspirational, often set out in the leaders’ declarations or communiques all the way to implementation by a country. What is evident from the continuum is that these folks are governmental leaders. And, as a result no matter what the communique announces, individual leaders’ may, or may not, actually implement a collective wish set out in a declaration.  This is well beyond just the aspirational.

The continuum, as I see it, is:  Consultation/ Cooperation/ Coordination/ Collaboration – the 4Cs of global governance progress, as I see it. Distinguishing between these concepts can be quite difficult. And of course, beyond this is, collectively achieving the actions, proposals and policies that are set out in the communiques, or announced at the Leaders’ gatherings.

And that is paydirt. Collectively achieving the actions set out in all these Summit Declarations – implementing policy in other words – is global governance success. Such implementation lies generally at the national political level, although there are instances where international organizations do in fact implement.

Bottom line: it requires a lot more than a statement in a Leaders’ Declaration to achieve global governance progress. But a number of us are watching including my colleagues at the CWD process.

This Post was originally uploaded to my Substack – Alan’s Newsletter. Feel free to subscribe.

Image Credit: Al Jazeera

 

 

China-West Dialogue (CWD) Members Discuss the Global Debt Management Environment

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The CWD focused recent attention on the global management of debt and the growing threat of a sovereign debt crisis. After a number of virtual gatherings and much focused discussion, the CWD completed a Debt Management Proposal that CWD passed to folks in India as India scheduled the first G20 Finance Ministers and Central Bankers Ministerial at Bangalore, or its official name, Bengaluru.

The  CWD Debt Proposal Summary is currently posted at the Global Solutions Initiative. but we do anticipate that the full Proposal will be up at the Global Summitry Project shortly. Meanwhile, I also wanted give you a flavor for the intense discussions that went on among CWD principals working on the Proposal. First, I wanted to link you to the Debt Management analysis prepared by Deborah Brautigam at SAIS that was published as: “The Developing World’s Coming Debt Crisis: America and China Need to Cooperate on Relief” in Foreign Affairs published on February 20th.

And then I wanted to give you a flavor of the deep discussion that went on for several weeks. This is a short back and forth that took place with Deborah Brautigam, Johannes Linn and Richard Carey on February 21st. I have smoothed the discussion and elaborated on the many acronyms in the back and forth:

“Johannes Linn

If I had one wish, Deborah, after reading your excellent article in Foreign Affairs, it would have been that you had explained more fully the nature of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HPIC) process. In my view it was not “debt cancellation” by the IFIs, but the paydown of IFI debt with resources from bilateral donors and some International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) net income (which could otherwise have been contributed to International Development Association (IDA)). If I understood the [current] Chinese proposal for the establishment of a World Bank trust fund in parallel with an existing IMF trust fund to pay off IMF debt (as you mention), then that would in effect be parallel to the HPIC approach, and one wonders why the World Bank didn’t accept that. It  could be that World Bank did not want to risk having bilateral donors reduce their new IDA contributions in reaction, which would have meant less new IDA money for the poorest countries.

It appears that the issue with multilateral debt relief is the following: there is no free lunch — if the Multilateral Development Banks (MDBs) take a hit on their balance sheet and give up their long-established “preferred creditor status”, they risk a downgrading and higher risk exposure and thus more restricted prudent use of capital market funding. IDA will have fewer resources for new lending. In effect, other developing countries will pay the price for multilateral debt cancellation. If they go for a HPIC-like solution then bilateral donors will have to pay, burdening either donor countries’ tax payers (which, one could argue, is not unreasonable); this might risk that their contributions to IDA and other concessional multilateral windows will drop and thus concessional new money from MDBs for the poor countries will decline (in which case other developing countries would again pay the price).

By the way, a straightforward comparison of debt outstanding across creditor classes, while relatively easy to compile, tells only a partial story. One really should look at the net present value of debt service obligations across creditor classes, since that reflects the real cost of debt to countries, allowing for very different terms under which different classes of debt are contracted. Under this approach private debt will weigh much more heavily and MDB debt less so. It would be interesting to see what happens to Paris Club debt versus Chinese debt.

Deborah Brautigam

My own view is that the World Bank should have explored the establishment of a Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust (CCRT) – an IMF trust – equivalent more seriously. There was a view expressed that China wanted it to be funded in proportion to voting shares, which was deemed infeasible, but the IMF trust is, I believe, funded by voluntary contributions. This would have been a start.

As I recall during HIPC, since the debt relief was counted as “aid”, countries did reduce their non-relief funding. I remember that Japan warned that this would be the consequence.

Richard Carey

The decision to adopt and implement the “enhanced HIPC” was taken at the Cologne G8 Summit in 1999, after agreement at the previous Summit in Birmingham in 1998 that the following year the Summit would definitively deal with debt.

In that intervening year, the details were hammered out in the contentious process as previously described. Funding of multilateral debt reduction came from the OECD’s Development Assistance Committee (DAC) concessional aid essentially (the IMF used some of its own resources for the Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative (MDRI), with a call for bilateral contributions to cover additional needs, and the MDRI was extended to all countries with less than $380 per capita, whether they had been in the HIPC program or not).

The key mover was Clare Short, then new Labour Government Secretary of State with a new Department of International Development (DFID) and a new White Paper which endorsed the 1996 DAC International Development Goals (IDGs). She flew to Washington to help Brian Atwood, then the Head of USAID, face down Treasury and State who held that the 1996 DAC Goals had not been endorsed. The position was that this initiative did represent US agreement for what eventually became the IDGs. The story of how the HIPC became linked to the goal for poverty reduction is told in Chapter 10 of the recent history of the DAC.

In 1998 the Jubilee 2000 Campaign for Debt Reduction was having a major impact on  public opinion. Short saw an opportunity to make debt relief conditional on poor countries drawing up poverty reduction strategies. To establish that link, Short had to fly to Washington to face down USAID Administrator Brian Atwood and objections from Treasury and State that the US had never agreed to the OECD’s DAC International Development Goals. With her position that Prime Minister Blair would publicly criticize President Clinton if he failed to support the IDGs (eventually to become the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the 1998 G8 Communique endorsed them in resounding terms. That is how the enhanced HIPC came to be based on Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers. (Note that CWD Common Framework proposal involves countries adopting medium term strategies based on the “new development narratives”…).

A subplot in this story was that the Comprehensive Development Framework (CDF), was lost to the Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers (PRSPs), although the 1999 Cologne G8 Communique had briefly welcomed the CDF. As Chapter 10 in the DAC History relates, a joint note circulated on April 5, 2000, by James Wolfensohn and Stanley Fischer sought to square the circle of the urgency of the PRSPs to deliver fast on debt relief and the more time-consuming task of bringing multiple stakeholders into a country-led long-term development platform:

For some time the formulation of “PRSPs incorporating the principles of the CDF” became a standard phrase. But eventually the battle for the CDF was lost and this formula faded away. And without the CDF, the HIPC PRSPs essentially left out agendas such as infrastructure, urbanisation  and rural development. The MDGs were essentially human development/wellbeing- based proxies  – these left-out agendas only came back with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in 2015.

In the present case of the CF, medium term country strategies based on the “new development narratives” can in principle be built on the basis of nationally owned SDGs and Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)  to the Paris Climate Change Agreement. But let us see what is emerging in Finance Ministers and Central Bankers meeting in India this week and beyond. And, with bond financing now a major part of the picture, impact investing by the private sector and asset managers on the basis of projects and programs that are green, social, sustainable and sustainability linked  (GSSS) seems to be in vogue.  Also, as mentioned, the article by the Lazard Sovereign Debt Unit has useful ideas  -e.g., on how bondholders can be brought into early agreements with special bonds that provide a payoff for “haircuts” if and when the economy is in much better shape.

Johannes Linn

By the way, one question we all seem to studiously avoid in this discussion about debt relief is how to prevent a new debt crisis a few years down the road, after we solve this one. In the mid 1990s I was involved in establishing the broad design of HPIC – moving from basic concept to decision in principle –  with President James Wolfensohn at the World Bank, so it is particularly frustrating to see the debt issues being replayed all over again, except that it may be an even more intractable problem now than it was then.”

Hope you like it.

Image Credit: IMF

Indonesia’s G20 Win: behind-the-scenes gatherings and unity in a time when global governance needs it most – and now to India

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Dominating our smartphone screens, televisions, and front pages were photos of Justin Trudeau, Xi Jinping, Joe Biden, and Giorgia Meloni in traditional Indonesian attire, participating in a ceremonial mangrove tree planting event and gathering late night to discuss the missiles that killed two Poles, contemplating potential next steps using NATO’s Article 4. These leaders are – whether they want to be or not – celebrities. They are simultaneously praised and critiqued depending on who is watching them. Yet, what is not seen by mainstream audiences, perhaps even those more politically astute, is the intricate machine of behind-the-scenes work taking place throughout 257 meetings between December 2021 and December 2022 under Indonesia’s presidency of the G20 Summit.

In 2011, the Director of the Global Summitry Project, Alan Alexandroff, wrote about the notion of the G20 not being solely about its leaders, but rather surrounding the Leaders’ Summit an array of complementary “personal representatives, ministers, other officials, IFIs, IOs, [and] global regulators that make the G[20] system work – or not”. Whether the G20 is successful (a subjective term, in any case), is a different conversation.

Alexandroff’s Iceberg Theory of Global Governance positions the G20 Leaders’ Summit at its tip, but the vast bulk of the iceberg is situated below the surface, and often goes unnoticed by the majority of observers and experts.

This underwater all-encompassing mass is formed by numerous assemblies: from Ministerial meetings regarding health, environment and climate, women’s empowerment, trade investment and industry, the energy transition, development, labor, research and innovation, and tourism; to Finance Ministers and Central Bank Governor meetings, Finance-Health Deputies meetings, joint Sherpa and Finance Deputies meetings, individual Sherpa meetings, Foreign Ministers meetings, G20 Digital Ministers meetings, and Education Ministers meetings; and lastly, engagement group gatherings (including the U20, B20 on climate/energy, integrity, compliance, and business leaders; the T20, with numerous recommendations from think tanks around the world, the Y20, with priority areas on digital transformation and youth empowerment, and the L20 Employment Summit).

It would be hard to contest that the G20 indeed has been a platform that has developed and advanced key collaborative actions toward policies and priorities, from the Leader Declaration identifying the Pandemic Fund, the Financial Intermediary Funds for Pandemic Prevention, which employs the World Bank and World Health Organization.

The incoming G20 Troika – Indonesia, India and Brazil – will mark a unique shift in global governance deliberations. It will be led by three Global South countries with emerging large market economies hosting the year-long activities. The hosting will pass from India in 2023, Brazil in 2024, and South Africa in 2025.

We anticipate this three-year spread of Global South presidencies will tackle issues that have been brushed to the side or missed in other G20 Summits. This is certainly a significant step in the effort to construct a multilateral network to seek mutually beneficial responses to growing challenges impacting all countries.

The Financial Times released an article following Indonesia’s Leaders’ Summit, deeming its outcomes “remarkable”. Russia, represented by its Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sergei Lavrov, seemed isolated on the world stage as China put forth a more neutral stance in its support towards Moscow. Xi commented that his administration “resolutely opposes attempt[s] to politicize food and energy issues or use them as tools and weapons”.

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The Shanghai Cooperation Organization: “Symbolically significant”, for now

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The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) leader-led summit was held in Samarkand in this September. It brought global attention to the group first established by Beijing at the start of the 21st century. Not only was it Xi Jinping’s first trip outside the country since January 2020, with the ongoing war in Ukraine, but the meeting was also an opportunity for a sit down between Xi and Putin on the margins of the summit. That meeting was the immediate point of interest for the global media. In Samarkand, India’s PM Modi was openly critical of Russia as he tried to carve out a leadership position for the South Asian republic. While commentators noted that PM Modi did not hold a bilateral with President Xi indicating that the warmth of 2018’s Wuhan Summit between the two has not yet been rekindled.  Iran participated for the first time with the group now representing 40 percent of the world’s population and nearly a third of global GDP and all of which, barring India, are decidedly illiberal regimes.

While the SCO has more than two decades of existence, the summit is of interest not just because of the high-level leader diplomacy but on the peculiar qualities of a multilateral institution that is often neglected by Western scholars and analysts.

The SCO was established in 2001 by the People’s Republic of China (PRC) with the intention of providing stability to the former Soviet Central Asian spaces with a particular focus on cooperation to combat what the members called the ‘three evils’ of terrorism, separatism and religious extremism. This initial motivation reflected China’s broader concerns about counterterrorism and Islamic extremism in the early 2000s as well as long term anxieties Beijing has had about the threat to the Communist Party of China (CPC) rule at the peripheries of the China.

The initial work of the SCO focused on coordinating the members’ security policies and sharing information, as well as conducting regular military exercises. The group added narcotic trafficking to its counterterrorism agenda and began to talk about economic collaboration and had periodic rhetorical flourishes about global governance and international order. From its initial membership of: Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, the SCO has expanded to include India and Pakistan in 2017and now Iran.

While the SCOs public diplomacy has been wide ranging, the group was, and remains at its heart, interested primarily on matters of international and transnational security. Yet as many analysts point out, Beijing and the members often appear disinterested in many quite obvious regional security matters, the most immediate example of which is the deadly clash between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan taking place barely 200 km from the current Summit which elicited neither comment nor action from individual leaders or the group as a whole.

Multilateral institutions often serve both symbolic and substantive functions. With the former, symbolic functions provide the opportunity to signal intent, represent collaboration and more broadly to perform statecraft. But substantive functions can provide the means to advance actual policy coordination and, in their more advanced forms, bind members into strict policy commitments, most famously exemplified by the EU and WTO. Most initiatives provide a blend of performance and policy as well as offering a platform at which ad hoc diplomacy can take place, such as the China-Russia meeting this year.

The SCO today is, however, a grouping that is long on symbolism and short on substance. At first glance it appears to be a good example of institutional balancing, that is when states use international institutions to balance against the influence of major powers. In this case the intention is to use the SCO to ensure that the US and its allies’ influence on the geopolitical dynamics in the Eurasian heartland is blunted. From this perspective bringing India into the fold was intended to hedge against Delhi’s growing alignment with Washington.

More broadly, it also represents a desire for a more multipolar and multimodal international order in which the North Atlantic powers have less influence; and liberal values are diluted as well.

While the symbolism is strong, and in the current moment it has particular salience given the Ukraine war illustrating starkly the clash between authoritarianism and democratic systems, there is little sign of the SCO making any meaningful progress on the substantive side of the ledger. One might be tempted to view the SCO as a nascent Central Asian NATO, yet the preferences of the key SCO powers remain low on concrete commitments as well as exhibiting not inconsiderable tensions between various members. At least for now, it is unlikely that the SCO will take any steps to move beyond the symbolic.

It is tempting, therefore, to write off the SCO as another example of shallow diplomacy in which grand statements of intent and photo opportunities are confused for actual statecraft. That is certainly true right now, but in the building of the foundations for collaboration among  influential and illiberal states in a geopolitically crucial zone of world politics, the members in general, and China in particular, have established a solid platform from which members may ultimately make good on their very real ambitions to transform the principles and practice of the regional order and possibly the international order.

Image Credit: YouTube

Democracy and Economic Development in India

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Well once again I must apologize for a prolonged silence. These past two weeks I have been travelling through parts of India most particularly Delhi and Agra and then through Rajasthan – Jaipur, Udaipur, Jodhpur and Jesilmar – etc.  This trip was deliberately far from the more rarified halls of global governance discourse.  It is always good to step away from the conference schedules and think tank encounters. Such action is an effort to get some tangible feel for the country.  But I always find it is well worth it – no more so than India.  India from the palaces and forts and bazaars is, as I found, an endlessly fascinating place.  The colors, smells and busy human activities are enticing and suggest possibilities for the future for this ancient/new land.

One of the continuing discussions I had with one of our Indian hosts was the state of progress for economic development in India.  This discussion emerged in a generally jocular discussion over the state of India’s roads.  But there was also a serious discussion as well.  It was an experience travelling on the roads through Rajasthan and Utter Pradesh.  They were, however, from a North American perspective – but for one road/expressway – quite dreadful.  The expressway was terrible for another reason that I shall relate in a moment.

These roads were filled with an enormous variety of vehicles from camel-pulled or buffalo-pulled carts, to the famous tuk tuks, to large trucks and small, bicycles and the ever-present motorbikes, all crowded on to generally badly paved and far too small carriageways.  But enough of the description.  The roads in fact are emblematic of a much larger societal issue – the tension between democracy in India – which as best as I could tell is alive and well – and the demands of development, market growth and prosperity more generally.  The ongoing discourse went something like this: the roads are inadequate for the demands of commerce, the market and people.  Their inefficiency burdens the movement of people and goods throughout the nation.  On the other side a strong Indian push back.  You, meaning me, see the roads from a “western perspective”.  These roads are satisfactory for Indian needs; Indians don’t crave what the system in North America provides.

Now it is not to say there are aren’t some expressways – I travelled on one – the Yamuna Expressway from Agra to Noida – about 10 km outside Delhi.  It is an amazing – amazing especially in the context of highways in India – but it was largely empty.  Most notably absent were the trucks – the big colorful loaded trucks.   There were some evident features that explained this rather haunting emptiness.  First there were almost no exits from Agra to Noida.  Truckers I was told prefer to connect from one community to another – offloading and taking on goods. That is impossible on this super expressway and in addition the stops really don’t accommodate trucker lifestyle, which includes stops conversation and sleep.  The end result is a magnificent highway for the tourists and individual vehicle occupants – that’s it.  Thus the critical goods and services transport is assigned to secondary hugely overcrowded roads.  Indeed in our travel from Delhi to Jaipur we ended up in a several hour delay surrounded by trucks in a very narrow stretch of this so-called main road.

So why are the roads the way they are?  And do the state of the roads threaten economic development?  Let’s look at the first issue – the terrible state of the highway network.  Here the tension with democratic wishes is evident.  Voters in the rural areas – a powerful influence in India – don’t set a high priority in enlarging and improving the road system.  This is especially the case where enlargement and improvement requires the confiscation and compensation of rural folk principally farmers.  Most farmers – with little enough land as it is – want nothing to do with shaving off portions of precious land.  Opposition abounds.  Politicians in India are not blind to the opposition and the voter impact.  So roads aren’t built, or they are built without reference to need.  Now obviously there are alternatives especially rail.  But don’t get me started on that.  My experience tells me that the rail system suffers from serious infrastructure underfunding, but I’ll need to explore further on that.

Now I don’t have the numbers on cost and time delivery but I have to assume that what I saw really suggests an inefficient costly system.  It is why many experts have come to believe that in the contest for economic growth and prosperity China and no India will achieve the better results in raising the poor from poverty.  Steven Rattner, a long time Wall Street financier and some time public policy participant has recently drawn that conclusion in a January piece in the New York Times entitled “India is Losing the Race”:

Many Westerners fervently hoped that a democratic country would triumph economically over an autocratic regime.  Now the contest is emphatically over. China has lunged into the 21st century, while India is still lurching toward it.  That’s evident not just in columns of dry statistics but in the rhythm and sensibility of each country. While China often seems to eradicate its past as it single-mindedly constructs its future, India nibbles more judiciously at its complex history. … Democratic it may be, but India’s ability to govern is compromised by suffocating bureaucracy, regular arm-wrestling with states over prerogatives like taxation and deeply embedded property rights that make implementing China-scale development projects impossible.

Maybe we “westerners” do not have the right frame of reference, as suggested by my Indian colleague, but I am willing to commit to a standard of economic growth, opportunity and increasing prosperity for India’s poor.  And right now India’s politics are failing India’s economic development needs.

What do you think?

Image Credit:  ithappensinIndia.com

 

The Inflation Tiger – Rising

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The announced inflation rate for China signaled again the emergence of inflation as a serious global economic issue.  At the moment it lies principally with large emerging market countries notably in China, India and Brazil.

The Chinese government has targeted 4 percent.  But China’s consumer prices rose at 5.4 percent on a year-on-year basis in March.  This level represents the biggest inflation jump since July 2008.

Meanwhile in India inflation rose at almost 9 percent in March after rising 8.3 percent in February.

Finally, in Brazil the consumer price benchmark rose to 6.44 percent, which is the fastest rate in 2 years.

These major emerging economies are responding with increases in interest rates.  Thus, China’s central bank announced recently its fourth increase in cash reserves for the large banks in China.  These banks must now set aside 20.5 percent  of their cash reserves representing an increase of half percent.  It is then hoped that banks in will reduce their loans to take account of the need to retain larger cash reserves.

Brazil raised its central bank rate to 12 percent representing a quarter point increase – this after two previous increases of a half percentage each.  This interest rate is the highest of any major economy.

All these emerging markets, and others, plus developing countries are experiencing significant increases in food prices as well as energy prices.  The interest rates and inflation rates appear to contrast with the traditional economies – the US core rate rose at 1.2 percent, though the CPI is at 2.7 percent and Europe with a 2.7 percent increase though this represents the highest rate in two years. This increase though significantly lower than the large emerging markets has prompted an interest rate rise by the European Central Bank.

The rising emerging market rates – have helped fuel the appreciation of their currency – the Real has risen some 40 percent since early 2009.  Yet this interest rate efforts  – to deal with inflation – have had the perverse effect of only further encouraging capita inflows precisely what the the Brazilian government, for example, has been trying to staunch since it only causes the currency to further appreciate.  China does not suffer from this vicious cycle only because its currency is managed – indeed presumably significantly undervalued – as argued by US officials and others.

Where does this leave the large emerging markets.  For China the rising inflation may encourage a more rapid appreciation of its currency. Wage and product price increases may likely follow and the virtual circle where China growth and lower pricing may come to an end.  China may well export inflation as well as goods.  India may do the same.

For Brazil there are strong voices urging that the Brazilians need to shift to their own form of managed currency (see Roberto Luis Troster’s  Feature of the Week at the Munk School Portal) to constrain the vicious cycle of inflation and interest rate hikes leading to further currency appreciation.

The Inflation Tiger is indeed dangerous.

The Lure of Bollywood – Another Celebrity Front

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The global reach of Bollywood is increasing apparent. As just one illustration, Toronto Canada has been full of buzz this week due to the visit of Slumdog Millionaire star Anil Kapoor and the announcement that the City will host the International Indian Film Academy conference and awards this upcoming June.

The question is whether or not the power of Bollywood could (or even should) be mobilized as a component of celebrity diplomacy.

When I visited India in early 2008 after my book on Celebrity Diplomacy came out I considered this a good idea and wrote about it at the time.

Struck by the “soft power potential” of the Indian film industry across South Asia, West Asia and Africa, I suggested, “If [film stars] can go through some training by the government, they can be a huge asset for the country.”

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in June 2008 publically endorsed such an approach, noting India’s ‘soft power’, especially the film industry, can be put to use as “a very important instrument of foreign policy”.

Yet, what has been revealed by WikiLeaks is not a concerted effort by India to mobilize the influence of Bollywood star power. Rather the push came from the US as part of a wider campaign of public diplomacy with regard to two sensitive and interconnected domains.

On one front the US attempted to mobilize Bollywood film directors to fight militancy within the UK’s Muslim community. According to the reports from WikiLeaks the US sent two senior diplomats to London in October 2007 amid growing concern about the rise of radicalism among Muslim youths in Britain. The diplomats met Foreign Office officials, the International Development minister (the UK’s first Muslim MP), and a number of leading British Asian film-makers. The US diplomats reported that “Bollywood actors and executives agreed to work with the USG to promote anti-extremist messages through third party actors and were excited about the idea of possibly partnering with Hollywood as well.”

On another front WikiLeaks cables reveal that US diplomats made a proposal to India that it send Bollywood stars to tour Afghanistan to help international efforts to stabilize the country. In a confidential March 2007 cable a request was apparently made from Washington for “specific, concrete ideas for opportunities for India to use soft power in helping Afghanistan’s reconstruction”.

Although there is no apparent sign that either of these proposals were acted upon in a concerted fashion, such strategic thinking is indicative that state-based diplomats have an appreciation of the power of popular culture. At the same time, however, initiatives along these lines also showcase the need to debate not only the composition of the actors who animate celebrity diplomacy but the motivations for, and the focus of, those activities.

Prevailing Winds and India

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I had the great pleasure of attending a presentation at the C.D. Howe Institute here in Toronto by Montek Singh Ahluwalia, currently the Deputy Chairman Planning Commission of India.  Unfortunately these sessions, probably wisely, are undertaken as off-the-record discussions.  So, I cannot comment directly on what was said.

Mr. Ahluwalia has had a very distinguished public career spanning the World Bank, the IMF, the Ministry of Commerce and the Ministry of Finance in India as well as a special secretary to the Prime Minister in the latter eighties. His appointments, writings and research point to what can only be described as a thoroughly erudite public servant.

Not surprisingly the focus of questions centred on the state of India’s economy in the midst of the global financial Continue reading →

India’s Dilemma I

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I had the pleasure recently of reading two very valuable papers on India.  Both examine the challenge for this emerging great power, and the challenge for the traditional great powers, in India gaining great power leadership in global governance.  The first piece is written by Barbara Crossette, formerly of the New York Times and George Perkovich, Vice President for Studies and Director of the Nonproliferation Program at Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.  In addition there is a commentator, C. Raja Mohan, a Professor of South Asian Studies at the S. Rajaratram School of International Studies at Nanyang Technical University, Singapore.

The article and the accompanying commentator article are entitled “India: The Ultimate Test of Free-Market Democracy.” This piece is one in the series “Power & Principles: International Leadership in a Shrinking World,” commissioned by the Stanley Foundation.   For anyone concerned with the emergence of the great powers in global governance, this series is well worth tackling.  As the Stanley Foundation describes it, this series “is designed to identify plausible actions and trends Continue reading →