Still A Dialogue of the Deaf – Pivot and Containment

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On the eve of the first summit between US President Obama and China’s new President Xi Jinping scheduled for the 7th and 8th at Sunnylands estate in Rancho Mirage, California,  Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel delivered an annual and important statement at the Shangri-La Dialogue.  The speech entitled “The US Approach to Regional Security”, is not markedly distinct fromrecent speeches by the new Secretary of Defense or speeches by the National Security Advisor Thomas E Donilon – except maybe the announcement that the USS Ponce would be acquiring a solid-state laser to combat missiles and small speed boats, etc., – but still the imbalance between security and military and broader Asia-Pacific initiatives remains stark.

Now he is the Secretary of Defense giving a speech at a military and intelligence conference but the focus on grand strategy, tactical improvements and the strengthening of US allies and alliances is evident. And it didn’t long at all for the Chinese to respond.  In the question and answer Major General Yao Yunzhu, the director of the Center for China – America Defense Relations at the Academy of Military Sciences in Beijing took the opportunity to criticize the speech arguing: (1) it was not at all clear to the Chinese that the US wanted a “comprehensive”  relationship with China; and (2) that the US rebalancing or pivot amounted to anything other than “containment” of China.

Now the “containment” refrain is a Chinese point of view that you cannot miss when discussing US-China relations with Chinese experts and officials.  Indeed at the most recent meeting of the Harvard – Peking University dialogue called “The Challenge and Cooperation”  held in Beijing in January 2013, the refrain of containment was persistent from our Chinese colleagues.  Now the repeated charge is a bit much – not everything is about China – (indeed as our colleague Joe Nye asserted , “only China can contain China”) but a speech like Chuck Hagel’s certainly might well be interpreted in such a way.

So the speech is strong on alliance renewal and/or development – Japan, Korea and then allies further out in the Asia-Pacific, Thailand, Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines and even Burma.  It says little about China other than efforts to improve military-to-military contacts – and that is not inconsequential.  But the speech is otherwise disappointing.

Secretary of Defense repeats some standard lines that warrant some reaction. First Hagel claims: “The Asia-Pacific rebalance is not a retreat from other regions of the world”.  Well it may not be a retreat but it sure seems like an escape from the Middle East.  I can’t imagine any US leadership not wishing a respite from the Middle East after Iraq and Afghanistan and the endless unproductive Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.  And with budget constraints, I would think that some form of zero sum game is being played out here.  The real dilemma for the US is that it may not be possible to disengage from the Middle East as it would like and the Middle east may require more resources than the US military currently wants to commit.

The second standard line is: “In support of this goal, America is implementing a rebalance – which is primarily a diplomatic, economic and cultural strategy.”  Now again this is a strategic speech by the Secretary of Defense but a one paragraph description in an entire speech of what is claimed repeatedly by officials to be a diplomatic, economic and cultural strategy – I got to say doesn’t really cut it. Moreover in that one paragraph the Secretary of Defense raises the Trans Pacific Partnership – a new trade and investment initiative –  which most Chinese analysts, in fact not even Chinese analysts will tell you is all about the exclusion of China.

In Asia, Secretary Hagel see a range of persistent and emerging threats, including:

  • North Korea’s nuclear weapons and missile programs, and its continued provocations;
  • Ongoing land and maritime disputes and conflicts over natural resources;
  • The continued threat of natural disaster, the curse of poverty and the threat of pandemic disease;
  • Environmental degradation;
  • Illicit trafficking in people, weapons, drugs, and other dangerous materials – including the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction;
  • And the growing threat of disruptive activities in space and cyberspace.

And these matters are exactly where a comprehensive US-China relationship can be built.  If there are rising tensions in the Asia-Pacific and in the China-US relationship, here is the starting point.

But you can’t look to this speech for any guide to a more positive or more comprehensive relationship.  Maybe such a relationship will become clearer at the upcoming Presidents’ meeting. Let’s watch!

Image Credit:  channelnewsasia.com

Are We Facing Diplomacy’s Enfeeblement?

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I was wandering through the pages of a volume on the approach to war in August 1914.  And the reason.  We are now closing in on 100 years since the outbreak of World War I.

A significant number of historians and international relations specialists are casting their gaze back to this conflict that opens major war in the 20th century.  My particular focus in examining these diplomatic volumes was an effort to cast a critical eye on the diplomacy of the period – or more precisely really the complex great power behavior – what was styled after the War as the ‘old diplomacy’.  This diplomatic behavior emerged, so it seems, with Germany’s Bismarck and his diplomatic contemporaries in the early 1870s and continued through the alliances and alignments of this largely European diplomatic period that continued right up to its fateful end in August 1914.

Now I look back and am struck by intricacies and balancing in this classical period of balance of power diplomacy.  My old LSE International History mentor James Joll, better than most, captured the complexity of this diplomacy in his co-edited volume with Gordon Martell:

The theory, if that is not too grand a term, by which contemporaries justified the alliance system was that it would maintain the balance of power.  This phrase, which had been common in diplomatic language since the eighteenth century, could be interpreted both as an objective assessment of the actual military and economic strength of the powers and as a subjective evaluation by statesmen of where their own national interest lay.  The idea was expressed by Sir Eyre Crowe of the British Foreign Office in a famous memorandum of 1907: “the only check on the abuse of political predominance has always consisted in the opposition of an equally formidable rival, or of a combination of several countries forming leagues of defence.  The equilibrium established by such groupings of forces is technically known as the balance of power.” …  Many statesmen and diplomats believed that the maintenance of the balance of power would itself prevent war by deterring an aggressor, either directly or by providing machinery by which, as Bismarck himself believed, one power could control its allies and stop them doing anything to upset the balance.

Now I am not suggesting that the classic balance of power diplomacy is what is needed today.  I am not looking for something equivalent to a twenty-first century balance of power diplomacy, but the current diplomatic void is all too apparent. And I say that in reflecting primarily on US diplomatic leadership, or the absence thereof.  So whether I am looking at global summitry, or Syria, Afghanistan or Pakistan, or the Asian pivot, I keep looking for US diplomatic leadership but find it largely missing.

Now that might be acceptable if others were stepping up to the plate – whether the large emerging market states, or others but there is faint evidence of that either. US leaders are quick to confirm that there is no substitute for US leadership – but the means and US efforts seem pretty hard to discern unless we are talking about US military actions.

I raise this in the context of having just read President Obama’s National Defense University speech on counterterrorism delivered on May 23, 2013.   I  also acknowledge what may prove to be rather too optimistic presumptions on my part in early posts (“Determining Who’s on First“) where I mused on the US Asian pivot and in particular then Secretary Clinton’s assertion that this pivot was more about economic diplomacy.  At the time I pressed the hope that we were likely to see a “more nuanced and sophisticated foreign policy”.  As I said then:

US policy has been so militarized over the last decades and in particular by the initiatives in Iraq and Afghanistan that many officials fail to recognize today the critical nature of economic diplomacy.

Whether US leadership does, or can do anything about it, is unclear.  The explosion of the national security state following 9/11 may have been slowed by Obama rethinking over counterterrorism strategy, but diplomacy remains the “90 pound weakling” to America’s military muscle-bound leadership.

The President acknowledges the insubstantial provision of just one foreign policy – foreign aid:

Moreover, foreign assistance is a tiny fraction of what we spend fighting wars that our assistance might ultimately prevent.  For what we spent in a month in Iraq at the height of the war, we could be training security forces in Libya, maintaining peace agreements between Israel and its neighbors, feeding the hungry in Yemen, building schools in Pakistan, and creating reservoirs of goodwill that marginalize extremists.  That has to be part of our strategy.

Well Obama is right but what is the likelihood of that? And as for greater diplomatic engagement, here is the sum total of the President’s thinking:

Targeted action against terrorists, effective partnerships, diplomatic engagement and assistance – through such a comprehensive strategy we can significantly reduce the chances of large-scale attacks on the the homeland and mitigate threats to American overseas.

There has been a fair discussion of the diffusion of power away from the United States and the rise of new leadership – creating the conditions for a “G-Zero World” according to Ian Bremmer or “No One’s World” by Charlie Kupchan.  But I’d say it’s far less the structural changes but the inordinate US focus on war and counterterrorism that is leaving international politics without leadership.

There is clearly a strategic gap.  Let’s see if Obama can shift to a more nimble strategic leadership.  The first test may well come when Obama sits down with China’s new President Xi Jinping in California at the Sunnylands Estate  on June 7th and 8th.  Let’s look closely.

Image Credit: NDU.edu

Caucuses, Counterweights or Leadership – The Evolution of the G20

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A quick trip to London enabled me to enjoy the valuable discussion at a small gathering brought together at Chatham House.  The conference sponsored by Chatham House and the Australian Lowy Institute spent the good part of a day examining “From the G8 to the G20 and Beyond: Setting a Course for Economic Global Governance.”  Presentations by officials, former officials and policy experts produced a rich context for informal discussion.

My own view was that the most intriguing discussion of the day was a back and forth over the evolving summitry structure. Now I know there will be an immediate chorus of sighs – oh geez architecture again – but the summitry structure has important implications for the global economy and the conduct and stability of international relations.  So back to the discussion.

I think there was a general consensus in the room that the large emerging market powers – frequently labelled  as the BRICS countries – were failing to take up leadership at the G20.  This view was aptly described recently by Harvard’s Dani Rodrik.  In a piece first posted at his blog and then slightly enlarged upon at Project Syndicate – my favorite economics blog site – Rodrik examined the recent efforts of the BRICS, most notably at the BRICS Leaders Summit at Durban.

Rodrik in these posts took the opportunity to first express disappointment in what is at the moment the signature initiative of the BRICS – the effort to launch a development bank, which Rodrik described rather disparagingly in the following terms:

This approach [infrastructure financing] represents a 1950’s view of economic development, which has long been superseded by a more variegated perspective that recognizes a multiplicity of constraints – …

But Rodrik did not stop there.  In a criticism that was reflected in various comments at the conference,  Rodrik argued:

What the world needs from the BRICS is not another development bank, but greater leadership on today’s great global issues.  … If the international community fails to confront its most serious challenges … they are the ones that will pay the highest price.  Yet these countries have so far played a rather unimaginative and timid role, in international forums such as the G-20  or the World Trade Organization.  When they have asserted themselves, it has been largely in pursuit of narrow national interests.  Do they really have nothing new to offer?

One of the conference participants took direct aim at this tepid leadership. He suggested that the premature death predicted for the G7 and now arguably countered by revival and renewed energy evidenced by the G8 or more precisely the G7, might conceivably pressure the large emerging market countries to step up to take greater leadership in the G20.  It might indeed be true that the G7 efforts especially on economic questions might give the BRICS the kind of fillip that might cause them to step up in the G20.  But equally possibly these countries, the BRICS especially, might view the G7 activism as isolating the BRICS  – not to mention the non-G7, non-BRICS countries like Australia, Korea or Turkey – and give impetus to those who see the BRICS as a conscious counterweight to G7 and its economic statements.

Certainly circumstances conspired to show the economic efforts of the G7.  For the day following the conference the G7 finance ministers and central bankers met outside London at Aylesbury. In a statement by the UK Chancellor George Osborne the Chancellor targeted the vital economic questions of the day, “monetary activism, fiscal responsibility and structural reforms.” There certainly wasn’t consensus on these difficult issues but you coud see the rising image of the established powers working on these key economic issues as they have for decades before the emergence of the G20.

It would be a terrible waste, not to mention a destabilizing step were the G20 to lose momentum and to fail to serve as the common setting for the established and rising economic powers.  Certainly the meeting of these groups at the margins of various G20 meetings can be seen to be helpful – indeed they already have – but the focus on separate coalitions is overall in my estimation unhealthy for global summitry.  The G7 needs to be sensitive, more sensitive then they appear to be currently, over their gatherings and the absence of colleagues from the rest of the G20.

Let’s not throw away the first and best setting for collaborative efforts between established and rising states.  Both form and substance are required.

Image Credit:  G7 Finance Ministers May 11, 2013 Alyesbury  – google.com

The Strategy of “Restoration” – “Foreign Policy Begins at Home”

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Richard Haass is one of the most well-known foreign policy experts today in the United States about the United States. He has been on the inside including the head of Policy Planning at the State Department.  Today he is on the outside – but in a critical position – president of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

The title here in this blog post is the title of a just released book by Haass.  In the CFR press release the Haass lens on the international system in this new book is described this way:

… Richard Haass describes a twenty-first century in which power is widely diffused, the result of globalization, revolutionary technologies, and power shifts.  It is a “nonpolar” world of American primacy but not domination.  Haass argues for a new foreign policy doctrine of Restoration, in which the United States limits its engagement in foreign wars and humanitarian interventions and instead focuses on restoring the economic foundations of its power.

Now I’ve not been able to complete the book – that’s coming –  but I have gotten a chance to read the CFR enticements, Haass’s own op-eds and the book introduction. But I come away feeling that there is something just not right with this picture, or at least not right given who is presenting the argument.

Haas himself believes that he will be attacked on two fronts. First he believes that he will be condemned as a “defeatist” – as he puts it “… just another apostle of American decline.”  He attempts to rebut that critique but does admit that: “Given its considerable endowments and advantages this country is clearly underperforming.”

But criticism will not just come from those who see the Haass options and foreign policy performance as “defeatist”.   He also anticipates that he will be attacked with the label “isolationist.”  Haass is unwilling to accept this label as well but argues that the domestic situation will, according to Haass, provide this possible situation:

shortcomings here at home directly [will] threaten America’s ability to project power and exert influence overseas, to compete in the global marketplace, to generate the resources needed to promote the full range of US interests abroad, and to set a compelling example that will influence the thinking and behavior of others.

Thus, in the end and at least for this latest version of Haass foreign policy:

The most critical threat facing the United States now and for the foreseeable future is not a rising China, a reckless North Korea, a nuclear Iran, modern terrorism, or climate change. Although all of these constitute potential or actual threats, the biggest challenges facing the US are its burgeoning debt, crumbling infrastructure, second-rate primary and secondary schools, outdated immigration system, and slow economic growth – in short, the domestic foundations of American power.

It just doesn’t ring true in my estimation.  Haass divides the book into three parts and the last, and I suspect the foundation for his restoration thesis and the admittedly most prescriptive part  of the book, is the last part where he focuses on the domestic challenges: budget, energy, education, infrastructure and immigration.

It is possible – but I have to say somewhat difficult to swallow in the end.  And honestly I think Haass has turned the foreign policy threat equation on its head – I would think he should be writing on just those things he identifies but declines to identify as the most critical threat, a rising China, a reckless North Korea, a nuclear Iran, modern terrorism and climate change.  How can the US handle these pressing threats?  Given his foreign policy reputation I am far more likely to dwell on his analysis of these challenges as opposed to his review of internal policy making.  It is not that a foreign policy analyst can’t examine these domestic factors but geez I got to believe that a detailed examination of US behavior and diplomacy including the use of force is what I am most likely to give time to when reading Haass.

And beyond what I’d anticipate I look to Haass to examine, Haass hints at one of the most difficult aspects of contemporary US foreign policy arising from his Haass’s admitted acknowledgement that the US is, or is about to enter a nonpolar world.  So, Richard Haass how will US foreign policy be able to achieve outcomes that advances US interets but also tackles the challenges of the global economy and stability in international relations.  And don’t tell me it is primarily US domestic policy.

Most US politicians today acknowledge the end of US hegemony – but are left bereft in describing US behavior and actions in this new architecture.  Look at former US Vice President Al Gore who this weekend in an interview (see the Globe and Mail, Saturday May 4, 2013 Globe Focus, at F3) expressed the following:

But there is absolutely no alternative to US leadership.  Maybe over time one will emerge, but it has to be values-based and it has to be connected to economic and political and military power, and the United States has been unique in possessing all those characteristics.

Now I am not trying to turn Richard Haass into Al Gore.  But I do think we need to hear more from Haass and others on the shape of US foreign policy in this new potentially more chaotic world.

Image Credit: global.unc.edu

 

 

The ‘Hare and the Tortoise’ – Global Media and their Continuing Harsh Assessment of the G20

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Now I think it was my colleague Dan Drezner over at Foreign Policy who spent some time – at the moment I am at a loss to remember the exact piece – defending the G20 against the dismissive attacks that members of the media are so fond of producing following a G20 meeting.

Well our friends – in this case Chris Giles and Robin Harding at FT – were hard at it at the G20 finance ministers’ and central bank governors’ meeting during the just recently concluded ‘Spring Meetings’.

Here is a gem of a comment from these two media souls:

Since 2010, it has turned from being a cohesive group of te world’s most important economies, ensuring they took collective decisions to solve difficult problems, into a body that spends hours negotiating the punctuation in a communiqué that adds little.  … Countries still value the G20 greatly as a forum for dialogue, but complain that too many nations sit round the table and make unnecessary interventions, with little genuine discussion.  It has turned into a talking shop without much bureaucracy or idea of its role.  Outside a crisis, when nations want to solve problems and are willing to make sacrifices, the G20s relevance to people and companies is diminishing rapidly.

Mean spirited at least.  But are the two right?  Their judgment seems to me to ignore again,  the “incremental” but necessary efforts of contemporary global summitry decision-making.  The contrasting views expressed are bit like a “hare and tortoise” assessment of the G20.  Media looks for the success of the hare and is continually disappointed; for some of us this is about the tortoise and we remain patient.

Look it would be great to have this grand bargain-style G20 – the kind these two media folk and other media types seem to crave but that is not what the G20 offers – nor indeed do many other global summitry settings.  These summits are iterative and depend on the hard work of working groups, ministerial gatherings, sherpa meetings, secretariat work and the work of developed transgovernmental regulatory networks.  The constant reference by media and experts to the actions of the G20 at the abyss in 2008 and 2009 hardly defines the manner in which the G20 acts.  The current efforts on financial reform and SSBG – strong sustainable and balanced growth – are difficult policy developments.  So a quick look at the boring communiqué is required.  Some takeaways:

  • advanced economies will develop medium-term fiscal strategies by the St. Petersburg G20;
  • setting a global standard for public debt management – the IMF and the World Bank will consult with members on implementation and review of “Guidelines for Public Debt Management.” A progress report will be made to the Leaders Summit;
  • The possibility of providing additional policy recommendations to the Leaders Summit on regional financing arrangements (RFAs) and strengthening cooperation between the IMF and RFAs;
  • The efforts to mobilize long-term financing that includes adoption of the Terms of Reference of the new new G20 Study Group with input from the IFIs, OECD, FSB UN and UNCTAD with possible recommendations for the finance ministers and central bank governors later in the year;
  • assessments from the Basel Committee on Bank Supervision (BCBS) on the compatibility of Basel III and the BCBS regulations including a report in July on risk-weighted assets;
  • the FSB will report to the Leaders Summit on the efforts to identify the policies on how resolve financial institutions in an orderly manner – the “too big to fail” issue;
  • FSB concluding the legislative and regulatory reforms for OTC derivatives reforms;
  • The FSB providing to finance ministers and central bank governors the macroeconomic impact study of OTC regulatory reforms;
  • Policy recommendations for the Leaders Summit on oversight and regulation of the shadow banking sector;
  • A call from the finance ministers and central bank governors to the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) and the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) US  to conclude by 2013 the work of achieving a single set of high-quality accounting standards;
  • Recommendations from the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) and the International Organization of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) on short-term interest rate benchmarks with recommendations for reform by July and in turn oversight and governance frameworks for financial benchmark reform to be presented to the Leaders Summit;
  • the launching by the FSB of a peer review of national authorities’ steps to reduce reliance on credit rating agencies’ ratings – with a status report to be provided to the Leaders Summit;
  • a report from the OECD on progress toward countries signing or expressing interest in signing the Multilateral Convention on Mutual Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters and a report back from the OECD -following work with the G20 – on new multilateral standard on automatic exchange of information; and
  • a July report from the OECD with comprehensive proposals to the finance ministers and central bank governors on tax base erosion and profit shifting.

Worthy of headlines from the media – probably not.  To the extent that these actions and reports don’t lead to key national commitments – meaning regulations and laws – then our media friends may be right.  But progress in some or all of these many initiatives warrant some attention.  And it is all this work that media folk are quick to just ignore.

I would also say that collective discussion – contentious though it may be – over Japan’s quantitative easing policies – is important.  For the moment,  it would appear that most of the G20 are prepared to accept that these Japanese actions are not steps in competitive devaluation, which might, if so described, lead to national responses that could harm many.   We will have to see, however,  the impacts on some of the large emerging market countries and then their responses.

Finally, on the economic growth front it is evident that the G20 believes that not enough is being done to counter global economic weakness.  Clearly a key culprit in this is the EU and in particular the eurozone, though the UK figures in as well.  This of course appears to be a continuing drama from the close to irresponsible actions in the eurozone.  I have consistently argued that the G20 has little role here – but  to urge a change of course which it appears now to be doing.  But the G20 is constantly being dragged into this European drama.

The bottom line is that the media misses the work in progress – and announces failure.  I think that is going too far at this point.

Image Credits:  logo – www.pnswb.org and picture – www.nannewsngr.com

Rising to a Summit – Australia’s Kevin Rudd and US-China Leaders

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Kevin Rudd, the former Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Australia has been on the “speechifying path” recently – I guess that’s what comes with others running the show.  He has been in North America and in the granddaddy of  foreign policy journals – Foreign Affairs – he has provided an interesting addition to the examination of US-China relations – “Beyond the Pivot: A New Road Map for US-Chinese Relations“.  But my suggestion is that rather than a road map his piece is more detour as he describes contemporary global summitry and how summitry today can be used to achieve both progress and stability in this most important of great power relations.

Now I must say I am a fan of Rudd – far more knowledgeable about, and interested in, international relations and international policy than most contemporary leaders. He has written a serious piece on US-China relations.  Shining a light on the new leaders and what this new leadership should examine probably would have been enough for me but in addition he has become a strong proponent for advancing the US-China relationship by a regular series of summits between the leaders – Xi Jinping and Barack Obama.  While I am never one to ‘pooh pooh’ summit advocacy, I think our former Australian leader has missed the contemporary structure of summitry and the effective means to influence contemporary regional and international stability.

So let’s drop back for a moment and examine global summitry.  Now at the global summitry project here at the Munk School of Global Affairs the working definition of global summitry is:

The   variety   of   actors – international   organizations, transgovernmental networks, states and select non-state entities – involved in the organization and execution of global politics and policy.   Global summitry is concerned with the architecture, the institutions and most critically the political and policy behavior and outcomes in global governance.

This is not your old style summitry.  It is not primarily about the “great man” theory of summit leadership – you know key leaders gazing intently across from each other determined to avoid conflict, or advance a new strategic direction – be they Chamberlain and Hitler or Kennedy and Khrushchev or a little closer to Rudd’s theme – Mao and Nixon .

I have pressed the case in this Rising BRICSAM blog and will again in the new ejournal Global Summitry we are about to launch at the Munk School of Global Affairs that to look at these leaders summits alone,  referring here particularly to the apex of such summitry today – the informal and now annual G20 Leaders Summit –  misses the better part of the structure of international governance.  Today a significant structure underpins and motivates summitry.  I call this view the ‘Iceberg Theory of Global Governance‘.   In the case of the G20 there are: the periodic meetings of the finance and central bank governors; the sherpa meetings – the personal representative of the leaders – where the agendas are put together, the meetings of the Working Groups – and there are more than a few, the meetings and reports from the traditional IFIs including, the IMF, World Bank, others, the transgovernmental regulatory organizations like the FSB, BCBS – you get the picture – a large largely unstructured structured institutional network that feeds the periodic meetings and moves the agenda forward to completion in many circumstances.

I think Rudd is rather too enamored with the old frame of global summitry.  Rudd urges that the United States choose the following course:

A third possibility would be to change gears in the relationship altogether by introducing a new framework for cooperation with China that recognizes the reality of the two countries’ strategic competition, defines key areas of shared interests to work and act on, and thereby begins to narrow the yawning trust gap between the two countries.  Executed properly, such a strategy would do no harm, run few risks, and deliver real results.  … A crucial element of such a policy would have to be the commitment to regular summitry.

As he points out there are many informal initiatives between the two great powers, “[b]ut none of these can have a major impact on the relationship, since in dealing with China, there is no substitute for direct leader-to-leader engagement.”  As a consequence Rudd urges:

The United States therefore has a profound interest in engaging  Xi personally, with a summit in each capital each year, together with other working group meetings of reasonable duration, held in conjunction with meetings of the G20, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, and the East Asia Summit.

But the governments also need authoritative point people working on behalf of the national leaders, managing the agenda between summits and handling issues as the need arises.  In other words, the United States needs someone to play the role that Henry Kissinger did in the early 1970s, and so does China.

Now Rudd suggests that for an agenda the leaders need to then take one or more issues that are currently bogged down and “work together to bring them to successful conclusions” and he suggets tackling the stalled Doha Round issues, climate-change negotiations, nuclear nonproliferation or specific outstanding items on the G20 agenda.  Rudd concludes:

Progress on any of these fronts would demonstrate that with sufficient political will all around, the existing global order can be made to work to everyone’s advantage, including China’s.

Now Rudd doesn’t end there but has suggestions for the regional dimension including obviously the island disputes and a protocol to address incidents at sea; and on the bilateral matters Rudd urges that military-to-military contact be upgraded and the talks should be insulated from the ups and downs of the US-China relationship.

Now there is value in urging bilateral summits.  But let’s not turn these current global summit efforts into a G2 – there is much suspicion already around the high table of an implicit bilateral power consortium. An explicit effort of this sort could only undermine collective summitry efforts.  So let’s avoid China and the US dealing as a central agenda with the global agenda of the G20 or the EAS Summit.  And let’s build this new summit network off of let’s say the bilateral S&ED (Strategic and Economic Dialogue).  Here groups tackle bilaterally through a vast network of national officials and ministries the bilateral issues that raise tensions and conflict in US-China relations.

I have heard that President Obama, following the G20 Toronto Summit, complained that he was meeting all the same leaders from one summit to another.  I hope his officials pointed out that that was exactly the point.  So for both Obama and Xi, the G20 or APEC or EAS remains part of global governance structure that is needed for collective discussions and decision-making – leave the bilateral to the bilaterals.

And as for the military-to-military discussions I suspect it still a vain hope to expect these meetings to be insulated from the competitiveness and rivalry that remains an element of the great power relationship. However, I would think the building of a more structured and regularized network dedicated to the S&ED – its tasking and summit meetings – could in the long run insulate the military discussions from the displays of political displeasure.

There is clearly a case for global summitry for the US-China relationship it is just not the model Rudd suggests.

Image Credit:  www.heraldsun.com.au

A Compelling Counterweight? – The Role of the BRICS in Global Summitry

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So the 5th BRICS Summit has come and gone in Durban South Africa.  The first BRICS Summit in Africa; the first hosted by the newest BRICS member South Africa; and the first to be attended by the new Chinese leader, Xi Jinping.  I am sure there are a number of other firsts but that will do for the moment.

For the world’s media there were these persistent questions –  what is this organization?  What does it represent?  Do we need to take any notice of it or is this a leader-made media opportunity?

For the experts the questions weren’t really all that much different.  It is not at all clear how to assess the impact and influence of this Leaders Summit?  And where are we to place this annual leaders gathering in the larger architecture of global summitry?

First, and barely mentioned by either the experts or the global media is the fact that all these BRICS countries are also members of the G20 Leaders Summit.  Indeed Russia is not just a member of this leaders gathering but is also a member of the G8 – extant since the late ’90s – and hosting the G20 this coming September in St. Petersburg.  Oh and it will shortly host the G8.

By now even the most casual observer knows the annual summit’s origin – at least with respect to the name.  Jim O’Neill of Goldman Sachs fame created the BRIC grouping – Brazil, Russia, India and China – as an investment monicker for these large emerging market countries  – only to see it appropriated by leaders from those very same countries first by ministers from these countries in 2008 and then in an annual leaders meeting beginning in 2009 at Yekaterinburg in Russia.  The original four were joined by South Africa in 2011 at the Summit in Sanya in China.

So what are we to make of this grouping?  Is it a developing country alliance – a magnet for developing country concerns; a caucus of large emerging market economies within the G20; or some kind of counterweight  – whether in the G20 or not – to the traditional and dominant states in the fashioning and future organization of the global economy.

Let’s start with their accomplishments.  At the end of the day analyzing their decisions is an important aspect of global summitry, and worthy of some attention.  Like the G7/8 and the G20, the BRICS leaders issue a declaration at the end of each gathering.  Now these communiques have been worked on by Sherpas, personal representatives of the leaders, and officials long before the conclusion of the meeting.  The current communique issued, the eThekwini Declaration – you can find it at the official BRICS website – or use the BRICS website at the University of Toronto – brought to you by my colleague, Professor John Kirton and the students at University of Toronto as well Marina Larionova of the Higher School of Economics in Moscow and her colleagues.

Well the communique is lengthy and I am afraid not terribly edifying.  I was asked by various media outlets what I thought the leaders had to accomplish to consider the Durban Summit a success.  I suggested two concluded policies were necessary:  the creation of the new BRICS Development Bank (see paragraph 9); and then the Contingent Reserve Arrangement (paragraph 10).  But neither was concluded notwithstanding that the Statement declared that both would be established.  All the critical detail for both projects still need to be worked out at this point and who knows when, and whether, the BRICS officials will be able to do so.

One other matter seemed to raise interest over the collective influence of the BRICS – this a possible the statement on Syria. Just before the Durban Summit began Bashar al-Assad appealed to the BRICS leaders to help end the two-year conflict in Syria.  The appeal raised all sorts of possibilities for involvement of these countries – especially given that Russia but also China – had resisted muscular international efforts, including at the UN, to end the Syrian civil war.  So here would be a collective effort in security cooperation among the 5 states.  It might bring influence.  Paragraph 26 speaks to the BRICS-Leaders’ concerns at the Syrian situation.  But other than a statement to permit “unimpeded access to humanitarian organizations” – possibly provision of assistance without notification to the current government, which would be a change in policy – the statement evidenced little in the way of a new initiative.

So a reading of the Declaration reveals little in the way of effective decision making.  In reading the experts and the more enthusiastic officials – read that at least as Jacob Zuma –  the pendulum swings in the direction of some kind of counterweight – to the traditional states especially the United States.   And this view pushes in the direction of suggesting that the global economy and the traditional institutions – World Bank and IMF have failed to adjust and accommodate the rise of these large emerging market economies and that the BRICS somehow can force the pace.  Now we all can agree that the reforms promised have failed to keep pace with the promises made at the time of the global financial crisis; but how the BRICS will bring about a more rapid change – I’m afraid I don’t see it though my colleague Oliver Stuenkel at Post Western World thinks it – or at least the BRICS bank possibly will:

The answer is that while emerging powers seek a larger role within the existing framework, they do not feel established powers are willing to provide them with the adequate power and responsibility – reforms at the World Bank and the IMF have been too slow, and not far-reaching enough. The World Bank remains, despite its name, essentially a Western-dominated institution in the eyes of emerging powers.  It is difficult to read the creation of the BRICS Development as anything other than that.

Oliver then swings in a very Brazilian direction – that is “state-led economic growth sustained by strong development banks.”  This is the possible BRICS consensus.  And while there is some attention in the Declaration, see paragraph 18, to what is called State Owned Companies (SOCs) and encouragement to explore cooperation among these companies, there is little substance you can point to to suggest that the development model is the foundation for the BRICS.

So while a counterweight remains possible motivation for the BRICS how is it shaped in the context of the BRICS?  Many experts have referred to the BRICS and the character of consensus, or lack thereof.  On the latter experts from the traditional countries have alluded repeatedly to the lack of consensus.  My friend and colleague from the WTO, John Hancock writing recently  in Canada’s Globe and Mail targeted this feature of the BRICS:  “But ironically as the BRICS grow more powerful, they also grow more fractious.”  Now John acknowledges that the lack of consensus is not restricted to the BRICS, but like-mindedness has always been overrated whether at the BRICS or the G8 or the G20.  What’s important, as I argued above, is what gets decided and as we can see from this current Summit there is a long way to go.  John suggests, however, that there may be substance to the notion of a counterweight:

The only thing the BRICS clearly share is a smouldering resentment of Western dominance, and a palpable desire for their own place in the sun. Russia is still smarting from its loss of superpower status.  China has not forgotten the humiliations of the 19th and early 20th centuries.  India still carries heavy colonial baggage, and the South Africa carries even heavier baggage from its grim apartheid past.  If your enemy’s enemy is your friend, then the BRICS at least have that in common.

Is it enough?  Well rhetorically, maybe but on a developmental level, its seems far fetched. And as John concludes, “But shared covetousness doe not a common agenda make.”

There is no obvious answer at this juncture as to what the BRICS represents but I’m willing to bet that in the medium and longer term. we are far more likely to see the BRICS acting as a caucus within the G20 than anything else. And we have seen it acting that way already.  For instance in building policy consensus for committing funds to the IMF, that could be used among other things for the eurozone crisis, the willingness to commit among all the BRICS was concluded after just such a caucus gathering persuading Brazil to commit though it had expressed doubts publicly.  Indeed it would be a sad outcome if the BRICS ended up as a counterweight when much hope has been expressed over the expansion of the G8 to the G20 exactly because it brings together at the global summitry level leaders from the large emerging market countries and the traditional states.

As a parting comment there was much idle discussion at the conclusion of the Summit over the name with some suggesting the BRICS should be renamed the BRICSI as there was much discussion about extending membership to include Indonesia.   But I and others took care of that long ago – so a sign off for now from Rising BRICSAM

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The ‘China Dream’ or ‘A New Type of Great Power Relationship’

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Experts are trying to puzzle through exactly what Chairman Xi Jinping has in store for US-China relations now that the power transfer has been completed in China and Xi has been named President. There appear to contending views from the US side on the future of the US-China relationship.  There is one school – attractive for the “China Threat” and grand strategy types – that focus on Xi’s reference to “The China Dream”.  For some others, myself included, less ‘exercised’ by the China Dream possibilities and intrigued – but aware of the empty content so far in Xi’s proposal – a reference to “a new type of major or great power relationship”.  It is worth exploring both to try and tease out Xi’s think, if we can.

The China Dream 中国 之梦 －zhong guo zhi meng

Many of the China Threat types have raised concern over Xi Jinping’s reference to the ‘China Dream’.  Though it is officially described as the ‘rejuvenation of the nation’, the focus for most is President Xi’s series of talks to the military on the ‘China Dream’.

This title, as has been described by a number of sources, also reflects a book that was written some 3 years ago by Colonel Liu Mingfu of the PLA and a professor at National Defense University.  As described by Jeremy Page, a Beijing reporter for the WSJ in a recent article entitled “For Xi, a ‘China Dream’ of Military Power”,  the book by Liu Mingfu predicted a “marathon contest for global domination”.  Though suppressed soon after the publication – it was viewed apparently, as likely to cause damage to US-China relations – a new edition was approved just shortly after President Xi gave the China Dream speech.  And in the run up to the final leadership transition Xi Jinping has made it a point to speak to various groups of the military.  Chairman Xi, for instance,  told a group of sailors late last year aboard a guided-missile destroyer that had patrolled in the hotly disputed South China Sea that “To achieve the great revival of the China nation, we must ensure there is a unison between a prosperous country and strong military.”

All this has led many in US diplomatic, strategic beltway and analyst circles to believe, according to Jeremy Page that:

… Mr. Xi is casting himself as a strong military leaders at home and embracing a more hawkish worldview long outlined by the generals who think the US is in decline and China will become the dominant military power in Asia by midcentury”.

So those attracted to this view and Xi’s efforts to woo the military see:

… Mr. Xi is setting the stage for a prolonged period of tension between China and neighbors, as well as for a potentially dangerous tussle for influence with a US that is intent on reasserting its role as the dominant Pacific power.

In setting out apparently on this more military and aggressive policy, Xi appears to be setting aside the doctrine expressed by Deng Xiaoping: 韬光养晦 (taoguang yanghui) – concealing one’s capabilities; biding one’s time; to have an achievement.  Many have identified the more assertive behavior of the former leadership since about 2010 – in the South China Sea and more recently in the East China Sea, as a product of greater national aspiration and great power determination.  According to Xinhua news, President Xi expressed the following to the Politburo

… but we will absolutely not abandon our legitimate rights and interests and absolutely  cannot sacrifice core national interests.

The closeness to the military and the reflections on a more aggressive approach has led President Xi to issue orders to focus on “real combat” and “fighting and winning wars.” It certainly appears an evident contrast to the previous leadership of Hu Jintao who seemed to keep a very low military profile. But President Xi may well have adopted various territorial and nationalist perspectives that were seen to be confined before to largely military hawks to secure strong military loyalty.  Why, is still unclear.  It may be to secure the loyalty of the military as Xi prepares, perhaps. for serious economic reform.  We really don’t know, though there is much speculation.  Time will tell.

But then on reflection while the policy shift may be now, military capabilities are quite another.   What China can bring to this “party” are not anywhere near what the US currently possesses and deploys in the Asia-Pacific.  And the China Dream at least as expressed by Liu Mingfu is decades away.  And the desire to build the military resources of the Chinese military – aircraft carriers and stealth fighter jets – are costly weapons systems that may yet prove to be yesterdays war tools.  As today’s platforms become increasingly vulnerable, serious military spending on today’s costly weapons systems may prove to be a serious and not very effective weapons path.  And I always look at the official weapons expenditures and double the amount. Why?  Well at least in the recent past China – state and party – have spent about as much on internal security as they have spent on the military.   This is not a Party operating from strength, but perhaps, fatal weakness.

In the final analysis the China Dream is founded on US decline.  Today the military gap between China and the US remains demonstrably large (for 2013 China is proposing – at least officially – a budget of $119 billion while the US budget calls for $553 billion) .  The key player in this relationship is surely the United States – as much as it is China.  While there are voices that seek the US to lower its profile in the international system or that the US can shift to some notion of offshore balancing to get others to do what is necessary, reduce defense costs and maintain US influence, the reality appears to be that the US is moving in the opposite direction in the Asia-Pacific.  And while the Defense Department will be required to participate in the ‘right-sizing’ of the US budget, including weapons procurement, US decline does not appear to be evident – or on the horizon.  There is however, one policy change that could alter the strategic equation and nudge US-China relations toward a “New Type of Great Power Relationship”.

新型大国 关系 – (Xin xing daguo guanxi) – new type of great power relationship

So alert to the potential turn in relations, yet not entranced by the China Dream perspectives, what then of a new type of great power relationship.  As I mentioned earlier there is nothing at the moment that fills this particular diplomatic and strategic vessel.  But in reflecting back on the conversations that a number of colleagues and I had in January in Beijing at the Harvard-Beida conference I came away with one overwhelming conclusion – China experts – possibly not officials  but maybe – believe that the Obama pivot is a policy targeting China and indeed a strategy all about China and US determination to contain China and remain the hegemon in the region and beyond.  Moreover the China experts suggest that the US pivot will give comfort to Vietnam, the Philippines and most especially Japan to advance more aggressive stances with China in the continuing “Island Disputes.”   Especially with the latter, US diplomacy can be effective in alerting allies quietly, especially Japan that the US has little appetite for crisis and no appetite for conflict, intended or not.  The same needs to be conveyed quietly to China.  Publicly the US needs to avoid some of the more pointed language that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton publicly prone to express, though she claimed to be advancing a neutral stance.  This even-handedness is obviously most difficult with the Japanese, where security guarantees tilt US statements.  Overall the US needs to frame the Pivot in a wider frame of diplomatic and economic engagement – and away from a military focus.

So a tuning of US policy toward greater diplomatic and economic policy in the Asia-Pacific is the bedrock for a new type of great power relationship.  In addition while greater competitiveness is evident in the US-China relationship, there are possibilities of collaboration.  In a recent assessment of the US-China relationship at the China US Focus David Shambaugh, from George Washington University,  and long time observer of China and the US-China relationship acknowledges  the deep interdependence of the two in what he sees as a ” … predominantly competitive relationship with a major power with which it is simultaneously deeply interdependent.”  He characterizes the need for a new relationship as:

For all these reasons, President Xi Jinping and the new Chinese leadership is wise to put forward the desire for a “new type of major power relationship.”  It is definitely needed – because the “old type” of competitive and suspicious relations is now predominant in the bilateral relationship.  … While establishing such a “new type of major power relations” is a desirable aspiration, this observer believes that “managing competition” is the more feasible reality. To establish a relationship of “competitive coexistence”  is more realistic.

It would appear that David has bowed – at least a little – to a more contemporary framing of the US-China relationship – it is primarily competitive.  It leans in the direction of the characterizations expressed by the IR China scholar Yuan Xuetong, the Director of the Institute if International Studies at Tsinghua University, accepting the current enmity and rejecting superficial friendship, extending the meaning of the traditional Chinese perspective –  (非敌 非友)  (fei di fei you) – “neither friend nor foe”.

亦敌 亦友－ (yi di, yi you) –  both friend and foe

The traditional expression it seems to me to leans too far in the direction of a competitive relationship.  The slight turn of the traditional phrase, above, which I have commented on in earlier blog posts appears to me to better situate the two – highly interdependent powers in a periodically competitive relationship.  So unlike earlier competitive power transitions, this relationship is defined as much by high economic interdependence and various potential global or near global collaborative leadership settings, e.g. APEC, EAS and the G20. This doesn’t suggest that the road map to a new type of great power relationship is self evident or inevitable but  it does set off this competitive relationship from the host of earlier power transitions – whether US-Soviet or Germany and Great Britain before World War I.

It leaves me to suggest that there are a number policy steps that the US – and for sure China can take – that  can help build a new type of great power relationship:

  1. As noted above the US needs to widen its “Pivot” and underscore that it is as much diplomatic and economic as it is political and security.  And I would think that the advice from Harvard’s Stephen Walt at the Harvard-Beida Conference, and then on  his return to the blogosphere, warrants policy exploration. He urged policy efforts of both positive and negative cooperation.  On the positive side the evident possibility is the DPRK and there has been some sanction cooperation between the two.  There needs to be more and that requires – I suspect President Xi – to press the PLA to bring greater reality to the DPRK military;
  2. President Xi also needs to take note of Harvard’s Joe Nye’s realistic strategic framing – only China can contain China – and that its “assertive behavior” has accomplished exactly that in the region;
  3. President Xi can take a giant leap – and I suspect this is more in the realm of wishful thinking – and put to the test the US position that the TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) is not designed as an anti-China economic initiative, by signalling its interest in joining the talks  now that Japan appears to have signaled the same; and
  4. Then in the realm of perception and policy followup both the Chinese and US leadership and the cognoscenti circling the leadership need to avoid framing the relationship in “Cold War” terms.  It is all too comfortable for policy makers and the military to see the relationship in growing competitive even growing rivalrous terms.  Perceiving it may in fact hasten it.  Now that is really a bad idea!

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Cold Reality – Economic Growth Among the BRICS

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I was caught by the recent FT article chronicling a report from Goldman Sachs that concluded “that the global economy will expand at a faster rate this decade than in any of the previous three.”  What powers this enhanced growth, according to Goldman Sachs and its celebrity economist, Jim O’Neill, are the original BRICs – excluding therefore South Africa.

With the economic growth of the BRICS in mind I decided to look a bit more closely at the economic growth.  My inquiry produced the table below on economic growth.

Economic Growth for the BRICS

Country Current Estimate 2013 Recent – 2012 Previous -2011
China 7.5% (Premier Wen) 7.8% 8.0 -9.2%
India 6.1% to 6.7% (Finance) 5% 6.5%
Brazil 3.26% (Finance) .98% 2.7%
Russia 3.3% (World Bank) 3.4% (Federal Statistics) 4.3%
South Africa 2.6% (Reserve Bank) 2.5% 3.5%

A couple things are apparent.  First of course O’Neill would strongly object to an examination of what I call the “Political BRICS”.  The Political BRICS is the global summit leadership that has met annually now from 2009 – though ministers met before that.  For O’Neill, and publicly stated, he argued that South Africa should not be included in his conception of the BRICS.  All of his original members rank  within the top ten of GDP growth.  South Africa in contrast is ranked only 26th (all this according to the CIA’s World Facts Handbook).

It is also apparent from this cursory examination that China still stands out from the rest for rapid growth – well beyond any of the other BRICS.

And finally it would appear that current estimates of economic growth are decidedly moderated from recent years.  Moreover, if you follow the estimations of economic growth mixed signals appear to be the ‘order of the day’.  India is struggling with inflation; Brazil has generally healthy growth, but not any way the “China growth rates” at least in recent years.  And of course South African growth has been sputtering along and there are estimates that South Africa will lose its place as the largest African economy to Nigeria.

Now I suppose it is all relative.  The article I alluded to was written in part to raise concerns over European growth and in particular Eurozone growth. In that light the projected growth from the BRICS looks solid in comparison to the Eurozone.  But still it does seem to me that the economic growth – with the exception of China – seems rather modest.  And there is a constant mixed bag of reporting that raises the capacity of China to continue to grow at an above 7 percent rate.

Am I wrong?

 

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?

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