How Can China Convince India to Sign Up for 'One Belt, One Road'?

New Delhi has its concerns with OBOR. Are they entirely insurmountable?

India, for various reasons, known and unknown, is reluctant to join China’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ (OBOR) Initiative. In the beginning, Chinese media and academics were advising India to join this ambitious project in re-connecting and sharing the benefits of China’s development with the world arguing that it can profoundly help India to transform its infrastructure and achieve domestic developmental goals.

Recently, Chinese academics and media, especially the English daily Global Times, have shifted their stance from attracting to petrifying India, insinuating that if it does not join the OBOR, it’s likely that New Delhi will be isolated as many countries around the world are supporting and joining the OBOR. The reasons put forward are that India’s friends, Russia and Iran are interested in joining the initiative; as are India’s neighbours, Nepal, and Sri Lanka which have enthusiastically supported the OBOR.

In the case of the Global Times, it’s worth recalling the Lowy Institute’s Peter Cai’s observation that “any discussion of editorial positions which in the end lack real substance and are not the voice of government.” Moreover, some Chinese scholars consider its nationalist strategy as nothing but gimmick to stay in the business. Global Times, nevertheless, read widely inside and outside mainland China, does reflect part of the range of the policy discourse in China....

Click here :https://thediplomat.com/2017/05/how-can-china-convince-india-to-sign-up-for-one-belt-one-road/

Paris Agreement: Triumph for Developed, Compromise for Developing Nations

The world gathered at Paris to protect the lives on the earth. The esteemed gathering was attended by the leaders of developed nations and small and developing nations, more prone to the ramifications of climate change. This was the 21^st meeting of Conference of Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) and France was confident to help the world to combat climate change. The governments of the world signed a historic agreement on climate change in Paris at COP21 by enacting a universal and binding agreement to reduce the green house gases (GHGs) in post Kyoto-space of 2020.

            The Kyoto Protocol[1] was signed on December 11, 1997 and ratified by all parties to UNFCCC except Andorra, Canada, South Sudan and the US. The most vocal and assertive advocates of climate change, the US and Canada[2] are not parties to the Kyoto Protocol. The US was assigned six per cent reduction relative to the 1990 level under the Kyoto regime. The Kyoto Protocol assigns ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’ to countries based on their economical growth categorized under non-annex parties without any targets to reduce GHGs. 

The tragedy of climate change politics was that though it necessitated common efforts to ensure reduction in GHGs; countries, both developed and developing, begin to engage bilaterally rather than committing multilaterally. Non-annex parties were not ready for reduction of GHGs, which is the historical responsibility of ‘stocked nations. Developed nations, less prone to impacts of climate change and better equipped to mitigate the ramifications, hold developing nations responsible for climate change.  

Since 1997 Kyoto protocol, the world has experienced tremendous transformations and so the conditions of countries have changed. Some have figured well in Human Development Report of United Nations Development Programme, a few are in a transition period and a few are still floating in the same condition. Countries transforming their economies and stepping up growth rate, mostly developing countries, eventually increased carbon emissions. China (22.3%) and India (5.1%) became the biggest emitter and the fourth biggest emitter of GHGs, respectively, in 2011. Nonetheless, in per capita emissions, India was the 10^th largest emitter while China was the seventh largest emitter of GHGS. But these two countries were targeted by developed nations to reduce emissions and compromise with their development – an antidote for ramifications of climate change. Eventually, both India and China formed an alliance together with South Africa and Brazil, BASIC, to secure the interests of developing countries in climate change negotiations at UNFCCC and preserve and maintain the ‘common but differentiated responsibility’ clause of UNFCCC. But developed nations constantly tried to weaken the alliance, and sometimes they succeeded too.    

  The second commitment period of Kyoto Protocol will expire in 2020.[3] The leaders sat again to formulate a legally binding agreement to curb the emission of GHGs in Paris in the post Kyoto-space. At the Paris Summit, leaders of the world agreed to ‘Nationally Determined Contributions’ (NDC) to ‘keep global temperature rise in this century well below 2 degrees Celsius and to drive efforts to limit temperature increase even further to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels’. This is the first time when all countries, irrespective of their contribution to ‘stocking the GHGs’, have been brought into the ambit of the global climate change regime to reduce emissions. This is a welcome step in combating climate change, and France, together with developed nations, succeeded in its approach to include all nations, which were left out in the Kyoto Protocol. The Paris agreement though accepted the ‘common but differentiated’ responsibilities of the nations, but diluted the original mandate of Kyoto whereby developed nations had legally assigned quota for emission reductions. Thus, developed nations will be at their will to fix the quota for reductions.

The agreement sets two time frames to set nationally determined contribution. First, a time frame up to 2025 to communicate by 2020 a new nationally determined contribution by agreed parties. Second, a time frame up to 2030 to communicate or update by 2020 these contributions.

The global climate change regime is moving backward from global regime to bilateral arrangements. The voluntary reduction target of ‘bilateral arrangement’ is echoing in the Paris agreement. Developed nations have tricked developing countries to enter into a universal legal agreement without defined targets of reductions for them. This serves two purposes for developed nations. First, they are without any legally binding reduction target. Secondly, the developed nations will compel developing countries to set a target for reductions and could deploy subtle means of coercion. The Paris agreement, for the time being, also served the interests of developing countries. Firstly, they are not assigned to any legally binding reduction target. Secondly, the agreement accepts that parties are free to set their targets in the ‘light of their national circumstances’. But the agreement makes crystal clear that Parties should “strive to include all categories of anthropogenic emissions or removals in their nationally determined contributions and, once a source, sink or activity is included, (they would) continue to include it (emphasis added).”

Both India and China were instrumental in including the provision of ‘common but differentiated’ responsibilities in the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) agreement and thwarted the attempt of developed countries to set ‘universal legal binding reduction targets’ of emissions. In fact, India and China are the torch bearers for “nationally determined contributions” by voluntarily announcing to reduce their carbon intensity ahead of Copenhagen Conference of UNFCCC, 2009. India announced 20-25 per cent carbon emission intensity cuts by 2020 on the 2005 levels, while China proposed to reduce by 40-45 per cent the intensity of carbon dioxide emissions per unit of GDP by 2020 compared to the level of 2005. Leaders of both countries, though, have welcomed the outcome at Paris and hailed it as a historic agreement, the developing countries have failed to set a legally binding reduction target for developed countries. The ‘nationally determined contributions’ are originally meant to bring the developing countries to commit for emission reductions based on their national circumstances. The US, which never conceded for reduction target set by Kyoto and even did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol, happily agreed for NDC provisions as the US doesn’t want to commit reduction target under the global climate regime.

The divisive climate politics of developed nations, engaged in favouring ‘bilateral commitment’, has already weakened the India-China climate alliance. The US-China Climate agreement sets bilateral target for combating the ramifications of climate change. At bilateral negations table, the US can easily convince the other party to enter into an agreement to reduce the emissions. India could not commit to high target of reduction as China because India has a young population and it will continue to grow till 2050 when its urban transition and industrialization will be almost complete and its annual emissions would stabilise. Unlike India, China is in the last leg of urbanization and at the height of industrialization. 

The Paris agreement, though hailed as a historic climate deal, fails to penalise the offenders of its provisions. The biggest beneficiaries of the agreement are developed nations, which have been set free from the provisions of the Kyoto protocol and, now, they are without any legal target of reductions. The agreement though includes the notion of ‘climate justice’, but only some aspects.  Another disappointing provision of the agreement is promoting non-market approaches to assist in the implementation of their nationally determined contributions. Kyoto Protocol’s market based approach supported developing nations to promote sustainable development, with the help of certified emission traded in carbon market. The agreement, though support sustainable development and poverty eradication and thereby calls to “continue their existing collective mobilization goal through 2025 in the context of meaningful mitigation actions, (which) shall set a new collective quantified goal from a floor of USD 100 billion per year, taking into account the needs and priorities of developing countries.”

Overall, the Paris agreement is a diplomatic triumph for developed nations’ climate diplomacy, and not a total defeat, but ‘compromised solutions’ for developing countries. It would have been a victory for developing countries, provided the agreement included ‘defined reduction targets’ for developed nations and ‘nationally defined contributions’ for developing countries. The post Paris-space definitely opts for ‘universal defined legal reduction targets’, thereby abolishing the ‘common but differentiated responsibility’ principle of UNFCCC.

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[1] The Kyoto Protocol was adopted in Kyoto, Japan, on 11 December 1997 and entered into force on 16 February 2005. The detailed rules for the implementation of the Protocol were adopted at COP 7 in Marrakesh, Morocco, in 2001, and are referred to as the "Marrakesh Accords." Its first commitment period started in 2008 and ended in 2012.

[2] Canada withdrew from Kyoto protocol in 2011.

[3] In Doha, Qatar, on 8 December 2012, the "Doha Amendment to the Kyoto Protocol" was adopted and agreed on the Second commitment period from 1 January 2013 to 31 December 2020. 

Indian Dream: Empowered Individual, Inclusive and Prosperous Society and World's Guru

The Annual General meeting of UN General Assembly in USA, this year is sparking an unequal comparison between NARENDRA MODI, Prime Minister of India and XI JINPING, President of China about who has got more media coverage and how success were their visits. One thing being clear, Xi was on state visit to USA and participate in UNGA while Modi only to participate in UNGA meeting. So no comparison of media coverage, as state guest should be covered by national media. Other things being equal, Xi had lady's luck, Peng Liyuan was commanding the another frontier of diplomacy. But among other participants at UNGA, Modi was truly a star. 

Now the facts, MODI was invited to FACEBOOK HQ, both Modi and Zuckerberg were giving 'jhappi' of digital India and internet.org respectively. Why not Xi at Facebook HQ then ? Laughable indeed. Facebook is ban in China. For good or bad. Good for Chinese to innovate indigenously. China has own MADE IN CHINA avatars of Facebook and Twitter. Interestingly, PM Modi is a member of weibo, Chinese version of Twitter. Chinese social media, such as We Chat, Weibo, QQ and  e-retail giant Alibaba are becoming global. Why not to Google ? We can proudly say that an Indian is a CEO of Google. Google has Chinese brothers, BAIDU and SINA, which both have Chinese CEOs and importantly are Chinese Companies. The fact of matter is India is craving for foreign companies to make in India. Chinese companies are going global. Weibo and We Chat are not restricted to Chinese only. To make in India in the truest sense, Sundar Pichai, Satya Dahl and others need to establish companies in INDIA. Make in India, Make for India. PM Modi went to bring business, promote make in India and digital India. The story of China's success can be emulated. CHINA also brought money and technology from USA, what is termed as reverse or stolen technology. The close market of China and language barrier invariably encouraged the home companies to invest and innovate. 

Chinese think differently. Chinese babus in Foreign Affairs Ministry, planned Xi's visit to USA as state visit. One visit serves two purposes. Xi as state guest enjoyed the delicacies of White House and then gave lecture to world leaders at UN. Xi announced to increase peacekeeping forces and pledge to build $1 billion UN Peace Fund. Xi also launched the China South-South Climate Cooperation Fund of $3.1 billion to help developing countries to fight climate change. Off course, India will get its due share from this. 

Ironically, departure of China from India-China Climate Alliance is a diplomatic failure of India Climate Diplomacy. USA together with other developed nations have successfully dent into Great Wall of Climate Alliance. Now China will sit together with 'stocked nations' on the other side of the table at Climate Negotiations  at UNCCC in Paris to formulate policies. The mounting pressure of developed nations on India and other developing nations to do away with 'common but differentiated' principle and accept 'common emission cut' undoubtedly hamper development ambitions of India. 

No doubt, China in the past decade, has taken a great leap both in economies and international politics. The structural differences between India and China have heightened. China is rising while India is developing. While China is acting, India is talking. China is dethroning America from Super Power, India is begging for United Nations Security Council membership. No one make you 'panch' (judge) even in villages, when you are weak and poor. When one-third of population is illiterate, farmers are committing suicide, poor are sleeping on pavements, children begging on traffic signals, claim to elite club of UN looks distant and unjustified. One can asserts that being largest democracy, we are entitled to be a member of the Security Council. Our own house is not in proper order. Women are not proportionally represented in Parliment or state legislative bodies. Members of lower strata of societies have not adequate share in executives, legislative and judiciary. How come we claim to be represented in world body when we have not provided representation to our own people. These facts are omnipresent. No hide and seek. 

India, to re-establish as World's Guru needs to enlighten its own people, as Buddha did, before going abroad. The enlightenment of education, equality and employment. Unless the dream of common man is not fulfilled, India's dream will be hard to realise. India's dream is not inclusive of dreams of its people. The inclusiveness of society would succeed the arrival of India as super power.

Prime Minster Modi in China: What Beijing can Offer

Mr. Narendra Modi, Prime Minister of India is visiting China from May 14-16,  2015. After astonishing and spirited visit of Mr. Xi Jinping to India in last year September, this again is a golden opportunity for both leaders to exploit their personal chemistry to coagulate and deepen the mutual trust and postulate an era of strategic partnership.          

Charismatic personality and cordial environment at home, Mr. Modi’s China visit is set to herald an new era of engagement with China, provided Beijing stimulate the process by diplomatic and political pliability. Bhartiaya Janta Party (BJP) hitherto objected to previous government’s policy toward engaging with China. Now at Centre with absolute majority in lower house of the parliament, BJP led by Mr. Modi has determination to change existing foreign policies as evident from his proactive and fast diplomacy. 

Therefore, when Modi visits China, India has certain expectations from China which if fulfilled will go long way in defining China-India relations in the history.

First, China being a permanent member of United Nations Security Council should explicitly and enthusiastically support India’s membership to UNSC. It will not only boost the trust level between the two countries but gives an honourable gesture in Indian masses about Chinese support. The reason is with the re-structuring of UNSC, India is bound to become a permanent member and if China could not come openly in support of India’s claim to UNSC permanent membership sooner, China will lose a golden opportunity to win the hearts of millions of Indians and illustrate, thereby a major failure of Chinese diplomacy. 

Second, China should not use territory claims as deterrence to India’s policy toward China. Let special representative for boundary disputes peacefully functions and suggests some measures to settle the disputes. Frequent territory claims by China only hamper its credibility and intentions to solve the boundary disputes. The claims are only exploited by hawkish strategic thinkers in both countries and ‘news crazy media’-jeopardising any engagement with China. Chinese ancient strategies choice of creating something out of nothing is not appropriate when two countriesare normalising   bilateral relations and progressing toward strategic partnership.

Third, China should take India into confidence and alleviate India’s hesitations toward Xi’s ambitious plan ‘One Belt One Road’. Taken into confidence India can be a good partner in China’s efforts in building Asia and Asian century. As for instance, India is a founding member of Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). China could not afford to let India a major player in the region to opt out from ‘One Belt One Road’ initiative.

Fourth, China has signed a climate change deal with USA in November last year. Although, the agreement has no binding clause but does weaken the existing Sino-India alliance on climate change. India could not afford to sign such agreement with USA and its developmental goal has yet to be achieved. China, though has realised the full industrialisation and expected to fully urbanized by 2020, Chinese economy still has not migrated fully to green economy. Therefore, it’s inevitable for China to align with India at COP21 at Paris to secure the interests of developing nations. China, thus explicitly state that Beijing will not bandwagon with developed nations to compromise the interests of developing nations at Paris when the world leaders sit to discuss the climate change.

Last, China being an upper riparian country in the case of Brahmaputra River, can propose the establishment of a Brahmaputra River Commission with India and Bangladesh as members for sustainable and inclusive development of the river basin. The Brahmaputra River Commission among other things will share data about flow of water and any constructions on the river by any country to demonstrate the transparency. In addition, the BRC will alleviate the anxieties of lower riparian countries about damming the Brahmaputra but also illustrates the responsible image of rising China. Apparently, China has to act as a rising power to reduce the apprehensions of her neighbors and confided with other major powers of the regions if Beijing wants its path to be SILK(y) in accomplishing the status of great power.    

Talking Points: Indian and Chinese Way of Interactions

In China, people discuses everything under the sky except politics. Social gathering is meant to eat, drink and talk anything but politics. The common topic for discussion is food, TV Serials, Novels, Movies, etc. People travel to distant places to eat the specialty of the region. And the standard Chinese language Putong Hua 普通话 ensures the smooth dialogue with local peoples. Being an Indian, feel awkward when no body talk politics in train journey. It can be rightly inferred that Beijing has engaged or provided people other avenues to divert attention from politics.

People in India talk nothing under the sky but politics, whether they are on tea stall or any social gathering. Common peoples have not traveled out of their village except now in the search of jobs. Youth at most travel from their home town to the city of school or University. Domestic travel is negligible and so our understanding of cultures of different regions. The only  thing that links different regions and peoples in India is Politics, common topic for chat.

Thus, people in India have engrossed themselves so much in politics or its politics to engross people in politics that they forgot everything.

In both the cases, peoples have been deprived of , either hard way or soft way, a healthy society.

Make for India: Learn from China

My Chinese friends always praise that  Indian IT is very good but also ask do you have 'we chat 微信', 微博 Wei Bo' , ren ren 人人，QQ”， like this in India. And the reply,  we have " Facebook , Whatsapp, Skype and Twitter". But these are American social sites, surprised Chinese friends ask again.

Well, though IT in India had progressed a lot we have not built indigenous social sites. We Indians trust American, built software program for a fee and rely on them. Even Koreans have 'kakao talk' for calling. Former  Soviet Union territories uses VK.

In China, every university has it's own presence on we chat and other social sites, even the departments have their own. In India many universities still don't have working websites, presence on social sites are still far away.

Payment services like Alipay  支付宝、 微信钱包 We chat Wallet  is easy and convenient. They are in the process of going global and challenging western payment services like PayPal,  etc.

And we still say, Indian IT is superb. Yes, it is but we work for America. Hope 'Make in India' also begins the era for 'Make for India'.

A Brief Content Analysis of the Sunday Edition (14th December 2014) of The Hindu (Delhi Edition) and People’s Daily (人民日报, Chinese Version).

Cover page of both the Hindu and People’s Daily highlights the important national news. Where terrorism related news draw attention in today’s Hindu, the Nanjing Massacre is the focus of People Daily. A sensitive issue in China-Japan relations, Nanjing Massacre and a visit to Yasukuni Shrine by any Japanese politicians, is repeatedly written and telecast by Chinese Print and Television.

If one carefully assesses the distribution of news in the Hindu, will be surprised to see that there is no coverage of North-East region under any heading. People’s Daily consider to be mouth piece of Communist Party of China, have edge over the Hindu in the sense that it does not divide news in region-wise and ignore some regions in the news covering.

It also strikes to mind that the Hindu being a left and poor oriented newspaper in India has no exclusive page on rural life. A very impressive feature of People’s Daily is coverage of social and agricultural transformation and environmental awareness in the villages. The Hindu ironically, has four pages covering City only.

Another striking feature of People’s Daily is weekly page on defence which brings forth the various aspects of the life and work of defence personnel, thereby educating civilians on these issues.

Both the newspapers are left oriented.  However, it is argued that the Hindu has more editorial freedom over news selection than the People’s Daily. Nevertheless,   it can be contended as this freedom is not reflected in its news coverage.

1.      The Hindu has 18 pages with extra 4 pages of Sunday Magazine while People’s Daily has altogether 12 pages.

2.      Besides the cover page, The Hindu dedicates three pages to city news ‘City’ (p.2 and 3), City/NCR (p.4) focusing on Delhi and NCR.  The fifth page covers ‘State’ where again focus is on Delhi exclusively. Subsequent pages bring news region-wise: Northern (p.8), Southern (p.9) National (p. 11) and again mix news under ‘News’ (p.10) heading. International News (p.14) is regular feature.  Whereas People’s Daily covers news under Important News (要闻) (page 2,3,4) and International News (p.7).

3.      The Hindu has regular pages on Business (15) and Sports (p. 16-17).

4.      The Hindu has special ‘Sunday Anchor’ (p.12), Open Page (p. 13), Variety (p. 18) and also have special ‘Sunday Magazine’(4 pages) : covering different perspectives like art and culture, talking points on everyday lives and food. People’s Daily has special features on (Party) Theory (p.5), Defence (p.6), Holiday Life/Travel (p.8), New Village Weekly (p.9) , New Village (p.10-11), and one regular page  ‘Supplement’ (p.12).

5.      The Hindu has Classified Pages (p.7-8) for Matrimonial and other advertisements; People’s Daily prints no such page.

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