Another thing that complicates the scenario of the “Rise of the Rest” or the birth of a “BRIC identity” is that many of the emerging powers are as much strategic rivals as they are tactical partners. Just yesterday, for instance, India successfully tested a nuclear-capable ballistic missile with a range of 3500 km. That’s a range that’s designed more for catching Peking’s attention than Islamabad’s. Similarly, India recently announced plans to reinforce and modernize its military presence along the Sino-Indian border. As much as trans-Atlantic relations can get bumpy from time to time, that’s one area where the West has [...]
It didn’t get much notice, but the first India-Africa Summit just wrapped up in Delhi today with the adoption of the Delhi Declaration and the Africa-India Framework for Cooperation. The biggest news to come out of the summit, which included delegations from 14 African countries, was India PM Manmohan Singh’s announcement of tariff-free market access for products comprising 92.5% of Least Developed Countries’ exports (34 of 50 LCD’s are in Africa), but the Framework is also noteworthy for the ambitious agenda it lays out for Indian economic and political involvement on the continent. Among other things, it includes a Post [...]
In the aftermath of the Tibet uprisings, India’s External Affairs Minister called on the Dalai Lama, whose government-in-exile India hosts, to refrain from “. . . any political activity in this country that harms India-China ties.” Meanwhile, there’s news out of Xinjiang that Uighur “extremists” were arrested as they attempted to incite an uprising. I’ve argued before that this is a great advantage America has in the globalized age over multicultural countries that either, a) inherited their minority populations from arbitrary colonial maps (India); or else b) absorbed them through expansion (China). There’s still racism and xenophobia in the States, [...]
