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India Foresees a New Era in Global Affairs; Turbulent, but with Potential

Indian External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar. Credit: PIB of India

Indian External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar opened his Jan. 18 address to this year’s Nani Palkhivala Memorial Lecture in Mumbai, on the subject of “India and World,” with remarks on the potential impact of Donald Trump returning as President of the United States in the midst of world upheaval. He spoke two days before flying to Washington, D.C. to attend Trump’s inauguration.

As he sees it, the Presidential inauguration in the United States “is an event that is expected to have profound consequences for the global order. Rather than perceive it as a cause in itself, we should perhaps analyze it as a symptom of a churning that has now reached a critical point. That process has many dimensions, many issues, including a rebalancing of economic and political power over multiple decades. It has been accelerated by a particular model of globalization, which while creating greater prosperity, has also led to more insecurity…. On the one hand, the world is witnessing the weaponization of market shares and financial instruments. On the other, many are left to fend for themselves, be it on health, debt or on energy. And this integration and separateness actually co-exist in our times.

“Today, we may well be on the cusp of a new era. One where the United States departs from an established tradition of foreign policy and focuses on its own interests, rather than in shaping the world itself. Where the focus is more on the compulsions of competition rather than on observance of regimes,” he forecast. “Those most anxious right now are the nations and organizations who are deeply invested in the current order. For them, any significant departure raises risks and questions a long-standing model. For the countries who are less invested, it could very well be a time of opportunity. New openings and novel practices could create space that did not exist earlier. India falls in the latter category. Therefore, the relevance of India to global outcomes will be a subject of ever-increasing interest….

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