Speaker 1: Indra rolls out the red kopet for the G twenty
Speaker 1: summit to New Delhi and Mijawa leaders have started to
Speaker 1: arrive in the Indian capital.
Speaker 2: G twenty leaders are meeting in India this weekend amid
Speaker 2: considerable divisions over the war in Ukraine and other key
Speaker 2: global issues.
Speaker 3: World leaders who gathered at the Group of twenty meeting
Speaker 3: in New Delhi last week had plenty to discuss the
Speaker 3: war in Ukraine, of course, but also energy, climate change,
Speaker 3: and concerns about the health of the global economy. But
Speaker 3: arguably the real center of attention in India was India
Speaker 3: itself and the rising influence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi
Speaker 3: in global affairs. With the world's largest population one point
Speaker 3: four billion people and a fast growing economy, India under
Speaker 3: Modi is seeking to become a global power with friends
Speaker 3: in the developing and developed world, and one that doesn't
Speaker 3: have to take a clear side in the rivalry between
Speaker 3: East and West.
Speaker 4: What you did, I mean that was a much more
Speaker 4: confident India, particularly under Mody, that's very very self assured
Speaker 4: and very confident in the direction they're going in.
Speaker 1: If you look at India's foreign policy in the last
Speaker 1: fifty to sixty years, India's always tried to claim that
Speaker 1: it's a champion of the developing world.
Speaker 3: That's Bloomberg's Dan ten Kate and Sudi Rajhsen. They're here
Speaker 3: to talk about India's international clout and how Mody is
Speaker 3: solidifying his own power at home and abroad ahead of
Speaker 3: elections in India next year. I'm west Kasova today on
Speaker 3: the big take India puts itself front and center on
Speaker 3: the world stage. Sudi, this was a very big moment
Speaker 3: for India's leader, and he had really made this summit
Speaker 3: sort of a showcase for India itself.
Speaker 5: Not only for India itself. I mean, not only was
Speaker 5: he trying to project India abroad, but he was trying
Speaker 5: to project himself.
Speaker 1: Internally as well.
Speaker 5: And that is a big thing because India goes into
Speaker 5: elections next year. And the important thing to note oubt
Speaker 5: here is that the government or India's economy is not
Speaker 5: doing that great. There are issues about economy, the issues
Speaker 5: about inflation, about unemployment. But what we are getting to
Speaker 5: see of what we are you know, witnessing, is this
Speaker 5: entire foreign policy kind of trying to trump internal issues
Speaker 5: and that seems to be a very well thought out
Speaker 5: plan and method that the Prime Minister is trying to
Speaker 5: take as he goes into the elections next year.
Speaker 3: And Dan it seemed that all of the different world tensions,
Speaker 3: and there are so many of them, were on display
Speaker 3: at this meeting.
Speaker 4: It was quite an intense weekend. The build up to
Speaker 4: the G twenty was also interesting. It was very uncertain
Speaker 4: going into it whether Mody could actually reach a deal,
Speaker 4: and in fact, you know, we heard from many people
Speaker 4: that China was trying to thwart any sort of victory
Speaker 4: for Mody. Xiji Ping didn't even go to the meeting,
Speaker 4: kind of shunning Mody, and that was just seen as
Speaker 4: trying to take away from his big moment on the
Speaker 4: world stage. You know, China and India have sparred over
Speaker 4: lots of things, including a border dispute, but more broadly,
Speaker 4: you know, there's this question of who is the major
Speaker 4: spokesperson for the global South, and that turned into you know,
Speaker 4: a massive storyline at the G twenty over the weekend.
Speaker 4: Any G twenty normally has a community k that's hashed
Speaker 4: out for months ahead of time. There's people called chirpas
Speaker 4: from each country that get together separately and they figure
Speaker 4: out all the things they're going to say in this
Speaker 4: range is climate change and financing and how to deal
Speaker 4: with debt in the emerging world, the state of the economy,
Speaker 4: things like that. The last two years have really been
Speaker 4: focused on Ukraine and after Russia's invasion of Ukraine and
Speaker 4: how are we going to describe that? And that turned
Speaker 4: out to be the big sticking point on this one,
Speaker 4: And the result was also somewhat surprising in that regard.
Speaker 6: Leaders at the G twenty summit in Delhi have issued
Speaker 6: a joint declaration despite why differences over the war in Ukraine.
Speaker 6: Unlike last year's Bali communicay, this year's document does not
Speaker 6: mention Russia by name.
Speaker 4: And this communicator that was eventually agreed upon, I mean,
Speaker 4: it was criticized by Ukraine in particular for weathering down
Speaker 4: the language, but I think it's also important to understand
Speaker 4: it in the context of trying to win over the
Speaker 4: global South. You saw the US and Joe Biden in
Speaker 4: particularly emphasize a just peace. And one of the criticisms
Speaker 4: of the Emerging World is that China has basically taken
Speaker 4: the narrative for peace with Chiju and Pink's Peace Blueprint
Speaker 4: earlier this year, and you see the G seven trying
Speaker 4: to take that back, saying we're not for perpetual war here,
Speaker 4: we actually want to solve this thing. And the other
Speaker 4: major theme was just agreeing to something that would give
Speaker 4: Mody a win, because the US very much sees India
Speaker 4: as a counterweight to China, and India is a willing
Speaker 4: sort of partner in trying to block Chinese interests in
Speaker 4: the Indo Pacific, and if this summit ended with a
Speaker 4: black eye for Modi, that would have been very damaging
Speaker 4: in that regard. So what they essentially did was they
Speaker 4: watered down the language on Ukraine in order to give
Speaker 4: India a win against China in kind of a bigger game.
Speaker 1: So to speak.
Speaker 4: There's certainly a lot of people who think the US
Speaker 4: and its allies folded, particularly on Ukraine, that this thing
Speaker 4: was a mess. The reality is that the Group of Twenty,
Speaker 4: the G twenty, is the only international body where you
Speaker 4: have the US sent it salities, the G seven, and
Speaker 4: other emerging world powers including China and Russia, sitting down
Speaker 4: in the same forum. If they didn't agree on this,
Speaker 4: if they couldn't find consensus then this body would fall
Speaker 4: apart and you wouldn't have a forum where countries could
Speaker 4: hash out and try and come to some sort of understanding.
Speaker 4: And I guess the question is, you know, is that
Speaker 4: even worth doing anymore? Is it worth having a body
Speaker 4: like this where they can do these things even if
Speaker 4: nobody gets what they want. I mean, you saw Russia
Speaker 4: thinking this was a good deal, and you saw the
Speaker 4: G seven thinking this was a good deal, and you know,
Speaker 4: that's pretty rare. That was one of the most interesting
Speaker 4: elements of this.
Speaker 3: SUDI. The uscs India as an important partner, and one
Speaker 3: of the things that you've written about is how India
Speaker 3: has managed to very carefully thread a lot of different
Speaker 3: needles by having other countries like Russia also see India
Speaker 3: as a partner and has managed to maintain good relationships
Speaker 3: with different countries where there are a lot of tensions
Speaker 3: between them.
Speaker 1: What we see as in this foreign policy is that
Speaker 1: it's trying to be friends with the US, with the West,
Speaker 1: in particular Germany, France, where it's looking for high end
Speaker 1: technology defense technology like submarines, fighter engines, and at the
Speaker 1: same point of time being friends with Russia, buying oil
Speaker 1: from Russia buying weapons from Russia, and in fact, we
Speaker 1: had the Russian Lavrov saying that Russia has going to
Speaker 1: honor all defense contracts with India. We haven't seen India
Speaker 1: saying that Russian defense contracts are being canceled. So yes,
Speaker 1: I mean, it's trying to play both sides.
Speaker 5: It's done well so far, but there are importables and
Speaker 5: there could be problems down the road.
Speaker 4: India is very reliant on Russia weapons and they have
Speaker 4: been just for decades. Essentially, if they don't have Russian weapons,
Speaker 4: they will not have weapons to fight against China. It's
Speaker 4: going to take years and years for India's military to
Speaker 4: wean off Russian weapons. If they take a really hard
Speaker 4: line on India, that will only hurt India's capacity to
Speaker 4: go after China and serve as a deterre to China.
Speaker 4: You know, the US is playing a bigger game here,
Speaker 4: India is playing a bigger game here, and that bigger
Speaker 4: game is essentially China. And you know, of course they
Speaker 4: want to stand up for you and principles, and I
Speaker 4: think that came across and they communicate. But at the
Speaker 4: same time, it's impossible to look at this outcome and
Speaker 4: not see that they have their eyes on China here.
Speaker 3: After the break, can India maintain this uneasy balance with China? Sudi.
Speaker 3: We've talked quite a bit about the relationship between India
Speaker 3: and China and the tension there. What exactly is the
Speaker 3: tension between those two countries.
Speaker 5: Well, I mean, if you look at the tensions that
Speaker 5: are several. One you have at the border, you know,
Speaker 5: along with the Humalayas. It's an unmarked border and it's
Speaker 5: been there for the last seventy audios ever since both
Speaker 5: countries became independent and came to be in their present shape.
Speaker 1: The other space that's playing out is the trade relationships.
Speaker 1: India is heavily heavily dependent on China. In fact, India
Speaker 1: claims itself to be the pharmacy of the world. But
Speaker 1: to be the pharmacy of the world, it does need
Speaker 1: a lot of stuff from China. It cannot be the
Speaker 1: pharmacy of the world if it doesn't get the raw
Speaker 1: materials from China. Or along with it comes the very
Speaker 1: high trade deficit that India has with China, and you know,
Speaker 1: cheap electronics that India kind of imports from China. Those
Speaker 1: things are playing out at the same point of time,
Speaker 1: which is leading the other So far, it has been
Speaker 1: the border dispute that's kind of been the lead in
Speaker 1: all this while the others are following. But they're very
Speaker 1: much there on the table and playing out very hard.
Speaker 3: Dan As Sudi says, there's tension with China and yet
Speaker 3: India needs China. How has Mody kept that relationship from
Speaker 3: boiling over.
Speaker 4: A lot of diplomacy. For sure, there's agreements along the border.
Speaker 4: The border has been relatively quiet of late. That's one
Speaker 4: part of it. We saw Moody meet with she ahead
Speaker 4: of the G twenty. A lot of people looked at
Speaker 4: that and said, well, maybe she will show up.
Speaker 2: Now China has confirmed that president's seating being will not
Speaker 2: attend the G twenty summit this weekend. Premiate Leedsiang will
Speaker 2: be going for the meeting in New Delhi instead.
Speaker 4: You know the fact that she shunned the meeting was
Speaker 4: definitely a sign that things are not very you know,
Speaker 4: it's hard to imagine she not showing up in Brazil,
Speaker 4: for instance, So it was definitely seen as something where
Speaker 4: he could have easily gone if he wanted to. It's
Speaker 4: a tricky relationship. It's the world's two most populous countries.
Speaker 4: India is trying to keep out Chinese investment that they
Speaker 4: view as a security threat, particularly with data and mobile
Speaker 4: phone apps, and trying to ban those, even going much
Speaker 4: harder than the US has gone in that regard. So
Speaker 4: the tensions exist, but yes, they certainly need a lot
Speaker 4: of stuff from China if India is going to realize
Speaker 4: its growth potential over the next ten twenty years.
Speaker 3: So do we hear a lot about how China has
Speaker 3: tried to court other countries, especially in the Global South,
Speaker 3: and bring them more toward China and away from the US.
Speaker 3: And Mody has been doing something similar, trying to make
Speaker 3: friends with many other countries. What is the strategy behind that.
Speaker 1: It's a strategy that we are watching, but Fia not
Speaker 1: from baby which way's headed. If you look at India's
Speaker 1: foreign policy in the last fifty to sixty years, Indias
Speaker 1: always tried to claim that it's a champion of the
Speaker 1: developing world, and there's a huge history between India and
Speaker 1: the non online movement and the developing world. We see
Speaker 1: Prime Minism Moody kind of pivoting back to that entire narrative.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons what one can understand from the
Speaker 1: ground is that the Prime Minisa is trying to reclaim
Speaker 1: India's old position, and that's because that gives India a
Speaker 1: lot of theft with the other nations. And also it's
Speaker 1: also a policy to counter China, because if we look
Speaker 1: at China the way that it's unfolded the Belton Road
Speaker 1: Initiative in Africa, in the developing world, it clearly outran
Speaker 1: the West and India, so it's an effort to kind
Speaker 1: of climb back to reclaim lost territory.
Speaker 3: Dan For several years, Jijenping has been pretty open about
Speaker 3: making China an alternative power center to the US. Does
Speaker 3: MODI have a similar goal with India to be its
Speaker 3: own power center.
Speaker 4: Not another power center per se? I think what China
Speaker 4: is trying to do is create different norms and values
Speaker 4: in the world that aren't US focused or US aligned.
Speaker 4: They often talk about the rules based order and they say,
Speaker 4: you know, well, who came up with these rules? These
Speaker 4: aren't our rules, These are your rules.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 4: They'll often try and isolate the G seven and say
Speaker 4: you're just seven countries. There's more than two hundred countries
Speaker 4: in the world, and most of them are with US,
Speaker 4: and that's really what the US was trying to counter
Speaker 4: and where they see India playing a major role. India
Speaker 4: and the US the values are much more aligned than
Speaker 4: the US and China, for instance. I mean, now India
Speaker 4: comes under a lot of criticism, justly for the treatment
Speaker 4: of religious minorities that we've seen under the Modi administration.
Speaker 4: There's definitely issues there, But all in all, India is
Speaker 4: a democracy. It does have, you know, a much more
Speaker 4: vibrant press than China and other very repressive countries, and
Speaker 4: all in all, they share very similar values. And if
Speaker 4: you look at the Quad in particular, which is one
Speaker 4: of the groups that the US and India are involved
Speaker 4: in with Australia and Japan, those are democracies in Asia
Speaker 4: that are designed to set down rules of the road
Speaker 4: and ensure stability in that regard. When the US looks
Speaker 4: at the world, they say, you know, do we want
Speaker 4: China as the main actor kind of convincing all these
Speaker 4: other countries in Africa and the rest of the so
Speaker 4: called Global South to align more closely with Chinese values,
Speaker 4: or do we want them aligning with India's values? And
Speaker 4: India is much closer to where the G seven is.
Speaker 4: And so if the US can prop up India as
Speaker 4: the champion of the global South, ultimately they see that
Speaker 4: leading to a more democratic world, more free speech, more
Speaker 4: of these things that ultimately are more aligned with the
Speaker 4: values of the US and its allies.
Speaker 3: When we come back, Modi looks to stay in power
Speaker 3: for years to come. So do We've talked a lot
Speaker 3: about India and China and India and the US, But
Speaker 3: what about India's relationship with the EU, because there's also
Speaker 3: a lot of tension there.
Speaker 1: Well, definitely, there is a lot of tension, and historically
Speaker 1: India is veryy, very so to say of the European Union.
Speaker 1: Going back into history, in a way, India has always
Speaker 1: been committing of walking into any one block wholeheartedly. Even
Speaker 1: during the seventeen and the eighties when India was, you know,
Speaker 1: much more closer to Russia, India did keep on saying that,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a non aligned country while it was
Speaker 1: dependent on Russia completely and went along happily. Today India
Speaker 1: depending on Europe, on America and of course Russia for weapons,
Speaker 1: from for oil. But at the same point of time
Speaker 1: kind of saying that you know this we need to
Speaker 1: do because of X, Y and Z reasons. It never
Speaker 1: doesn't want to kind of come out openly. So I
Speaker 1: guess that's that's the kind of foreign policy that India
Speaker 1: wants to follow.
Speaker 4: I think it comes down to just strategic self interest
Speaker 4: on the part of all these countries, India as well. India.
Speaker 4: You know, we met a lot with ministers in Delhi
Speaker 4: over the last two days and other officials. But you know,
Speaker 4: if you're going to bring up to them China plus
Speaker 4: one strategies and how companies look at the world, you
Speaker 4: know that that is not a popular phrase in Delhi.
Speaker 4: They don't want to hear that. They want to say, like,
Speaker 4: India has its own value proposition, companies should come here
Speaker 4: because we have demographics on our side. We have a
Speaker 4: young population that's going to be young for a while.
Speaker 4: We've been emerging middle class. And you look at China,
Speaker 4: it's economy slowing, it's aging. India has its own independent
Speaker 4: foreign policy, and I think that's also what is very
Speaker 4: clear that India is saying, we're going to play by
Speaker 4: our rules here. Ultimately, if you're sitting in Europe, yes
Speaker 4: you have problems with India, but when you look at
Speaker 4: the world where it's going, who's going to have these
Speaker 4: big opportunities over the next ten twenty years, and who
Speaker 4: aligns more with your values. That's how they can do
Speaker 4: business with the other. So India is very very confident
Speaker 4: at the moment. I was in Delhi about a decade ago.
Speaker 4: Now it was not the case then, trust me, it was.
Speaker 4: What you're dealing with now is a much more confident India,
Speaker 4: particularly under Moodi, that's very very self assured and very
Speaker 4: confident in the direction they're going in. And Europe and
Speaker 4: the US they do have issues with India, but overall,
Speaker 4: you know, they really see an opportunity to align with
Speaker 4: India and bolster India as a counterway to China.
Speaker 3: Sudy. You mentioned domestic considerations earlier, and India has an
Speaker 3: election coming up next year. How much of Modi's strategy
Speaker 3: has to do with playing to his own voters at home, I.
Speaker 1: Would say a lot. If you look back, India was
Speaker 1: supposed to host the g twenty a year ago, and
Speaker 1: you know, India kind of went back and said that
Speaker 1: we will do it, not now, but a year later.
Speaker 1: It's very clever politics on part of crime in the cimolity.
Speaker 1: It is being done with a very specific motive that
Speaker 1: he wants the entire country to know, you know, our G.
Speaker 7: Twenty is happening, and in between kind of blow the
Speaker 7: fact that it is a rotating presidency while projecting himself
Speaker 7: as this leader who has been able to get the
Speaker 7: G twenty and therefore it's a very big thing for
Speaker 7: the country.
Speaker 4: Well, I'll just say, in Delhi you could not go
Speaker 4: basically twenty feet without seeing Mody's face on a poster.
Speaker 4: So there were clear undertones for the election. The opposition
Speaker 4: is trying to make the election close. They are uniting together,
Speaker 4: which is necessary given Mody's utter dominance of Indian politics
Speaker 4: over the past decade. You know, they are uniting and
Speaker 4: trying to houst him. But it's still going to be
Speaker 4: a toll order. It's very likely that Mody's party will
Speaker 4: win again, even if it has a reduced majority in Parliament.
Speaker 4: So much like Shishimping just extended his decade in power,
Speaker 4: Mody is likely to do that as well, and he
Speaker 4: could be in power even innother ten years. There's no
Speaker 4: obvious person to take over from him. Now for the world,
Speaker 4: what that means is there to be dealing with mody
Speaker 4: for a very long time.
Speaker 3: Dan Sudi, great talking with you, Thanks for taking the time,
Speaker 3: Thank you, Thanks for listening to us here at The
Speaker 3: Big Take. It's a daily podcast from Bloomberg and iHeartRadio.
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Speaker 3: I'm West Kasova. We'll be back on Monday with another
Speaker 3: Big Take. Have a great weekend.