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Welcome to the foreign policy on South Asia.
Welcome to the South Asia Foreign Report.
This week’s highlights: India seeks to lead the Global South at the United Nations’ annual climate update conference, the U. S. accuses an Indian national of plotting to assassinate a prominent Sikh separatist on U. S. soil, and Russia and Bangladesh quietly engage in naval exercises. Bay of Bengal.
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This year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference, known as COP28, begins Thursday in Dubai. A big question is how emerging countries will manage to pressure richer states to do more to slow global warming. The summit provides a key opportunity for India to showcase its ability to serve as a bridge to the South, a major objective of New Delhi’s foreign policy.
India has long harbored leadership ambitions in the Global South, dating back to its leadership role in the Non-Aligned Movement soon after its independence. New Delhi has also supported a multipolar global order that would give countries in the Global South a greater voice on the global stage, adding advocacy for broad multilateral groupings.
As India’s global influence has grown, it has sought to act as a bridge between the Global South and wealthier countries. New Delhi is leveraging its club in primary groups, from the G-20 to the BRICS, to call for greater attention to the demanding situations that disproportionately affect countries in the Global South. For example, in 2020, India pressured the World Trade Organization to suspend intellectual asset rights coverage for COVID-19 vaccines and treatments.
India’s strategy in Russia’s war in Ukraine is also instructive. Its refusal to publicly take a corporate stance opposing Moscow’s invasion or prevent Russia’s rise to power in the face of Western tension has drawn praise from other countries, including rival Pakistan. The G20 has provided it with a leading platform to direct countries’ attention to the most pressing situations in the Global South, from debt to climate change.
India has also experienced setbacks in its leadership ambitions. Its strong support for Israel in the ongoing war in Gaza, which New Delhi sees as a mandatory counterterrorism crusade, puts it at sharp odds with the Global South, which is largely united in condemning the Israeli military’s operation. China’s own aspirations on the global stage, along with its heavy commitment and investment in emerging countries, are also problematic for India.
However, New Delhi is in a position to seize the opportunity presented through COP28. India defined its positions at the summit in a report it submitted to the UN assessing global progress in the fight against climate change. Citing the “expectations of emerging countries,” the report calls on richer nations to act faster and more responsibly on emissions rebates and to deliver on their past commitments to provide climate finance to emerging countries.
India has long seen climate as a factor where it can take the lead: at the 2021 UN climate summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi made one of the most ambitious commitments to date among any primary emitter, pledging to make India net-zero carbon emissions by 2070. New Delhi has used its G20 presidency to push for more climate finance and white energy investments. And despite its continued dependence on coal, India is taking steps at the local level to expand its renewable energy sector.
Formally, New Delhi will not be the leader of the South at COP28. That role falls to Cuba, current president of the G-77, the main bloc of emerging countries within the UN. Rich and emerging countries are at odds over climate finance and emissions relief obligations. But last year’s summit resulted in an agreement to create a loss and damage fund for countries vulnerable to climate change.
It is clear that rich and emerging countries will have to act together to mitigate climate change. Global warming is becoming an existential risk in South Asia and, more broadly, in the global south. With so many risks at stake, India has a vested interest in taking the lead in forging global cooperation in the face of this not unusual risk.
The U. S. accuses an Indian national of conspiracy to commit murder. On Wednesday, U. S. officials unsealed an indictment against an Indian national, Nikhil Gupta, who prosecutors say attempted to stage the assassination of a Sikh separatist on U. S. soil. An Indian government official led the plot to kill Gurpatwant Singh Pannun, according to the indictment.
Pannun is a lawyer affiliated with Sikhs for Justice, a banned organization in India, and has been designated a terrorist by New Delhi. The indictment says Gupta was arrested in the Czech Republic in June; The plot failed when Gupta unknowingly recruited an individual working for the U. S. Drug Enforcement Administration as an accomplice.
However, US-India relations have not yet plunged into a crisis. Senior US officials reportedly issued a warning to their Indian counterparts after uncovering the plot, but there is no indication of retaliation or consequences for the marriage. The Biden leadership sees India as a critical partner in countering Chinese power.
In the coming weeks, officials from both countries will likely proceed cautiously given the importance of their strategic relationship, writes FP’s Sumit Ganguly.
South Asia at COP28. Confirmed participants at the UN meteorological summit in Dubai are Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Pakistan’s Acting Prime Minister Anwaar ul Haq Kakar, Nepalese Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe, and the newly elected representative President of the Maldives, Mohamed Muizzu. Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is on the list of participants; Dhaka has not publicly shown its attendance.
Bhutan has not announced who will lead its delegation. For the third year in a row, Afghanistan will not be officially represented at the summit due to UN sanctions against the Taliban regime. Some practitioners argue that Afghanistan still deserves to be represented at COP28 because of its increased vulnerability to climate change. Instead, U. N. officials allowed an Afghan climate activist, Abdulhadi Achakzai, to practice and interact with participants at the site.
Rescue from an Indian tunnel. On Tuesday, rescuers safely evacuated 41 staff from a collapsed tunnel structure in the mountains of the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand, where they were trapped for 17 days. After heavy machinery failed to accomplish the task, rescuers cleared a path to the stranded personnel. Obsolete tactics, adding manual digging.
Authorities have not given any explanation for the collapse of the tunnel, which is part of a task to strengthen Hindu pilgrimage sites. But the threat of severe floods, earthquakes and landslides in Uttarakhand has made the tunnel controversial. give a quick boost to India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, which controls the state government.
However, the government may also face some tough questions in the coming days: An initial investigation ordered through New Delhi found that the tunnel had no emergency exit and ran along a geological fault, which officials say researchers, may also be the cause of the collapse. .
Since last week, thousands of protesters have taken to the streets of Kathmandu to call for the restoration of the monarchy, which was ousted in 2008 as part of a deal to end a long-running Maoist insurgency in Nepal. Many protesters also called for Nepal’s exit to return to its former prestige as a Hindu state; It is now a secular republic.
Police used tear gas and batons to disperse protests last Thursday. The protests are unlikely to turn into a mass movement, but they reflect the discontent of many Nepalis with the country’s political system. Critics say Nepal’s political leaders have no interest in addressing the country’s long-running crisis. -They endure demanding situations and allow themselves to be fed by small fights.
Perhaps not unexpectedly, Nepal’s past 15 years have been marked by divided ruling coalitions that collapsed, and that voter turnout in recent elections has been low.
This month, three Russian warships quietly docked at the port of Chattogram in southeastern Bangladesh. According to a statement from the Bangladesh military, the ships spent three days in port, while Russian naval officers met their Bangladeshi counterparts and participated in exercises with Bangladeshi ships in the Bay of Bengal. Russian state media said the port call would be the first by a Russian naval fleet in nearly 50 years.
From one point of view, the scale in Bangladesh is not surprising: Dhaka and Moscow have maintained friendly relations and the Soviet Union supported the Bangladesh War of Independence in 1971. Today, Russia is a key investor in the nuclear power sector in Bangladesh. Last year, it refrained from passing several UN resolutions condemning Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. However, Bangladesh is also seeking to balance its ties, specifically with the United States and Russia.
Last December, following pressure from the United States, Bangladesh refused to allow a Russian shipment of spent parts for a Russian-funded nuclear plant to dock at its ports. This is possibly due in part to the recent naval stoppage in – to counter the previous decision, which did not please Moscow.
And while a Russian show of force in the Bay of Bengal would possibly not please the United States, it would most likely be welcomed by India, a key partner of Bangladesh and Russia that needs other navies to allocate their force in the Indian Ocean to counterbalance China.
In The Print, journalist Jyoti Malhotra explains why the Indian government supports Bangladesh’s Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina. “For all its other peculiarities, there is one thing about Hasina that will gladden any subcontinental heart: it is entirely secular and constitutes our own country. “
Farid Malik, a mining and energy expert, argues in the Express Tribune that untapped coal reserves in Pakistan’s Thar Desert can increase the country’s energy security. “Thar Coal lends itself to gasification, which is the way forward for the use of coal,” he writes. “With this huge energy resource situated at a surface intensity of about 150 meters, Pakistan is well placed to meet all its energy needs. “
An editorial in the Kathmandu Post denounces the recent protests in Nepal calling for the restoration of the monarchy. “Even the concept of hereditary monarchy is contrary to the democratic spirit of the 21st century. In today’s Nepal, you can rule if you are elected from among the people, because you have an imaginary, God-given right to rule over others,” he says.
Michael Kugelman is responsible for Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief. He is director of the South Asia Institute at the Wilson Center in Washington, D. C. Twitter: @michaelkugelman
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