The rules of engagement

Vivek Katju
Ex-Secretary, Ministry of External Affairs

The 14th BRICS Summit was held virtually on June 23 under the chairmanship of Chinese President Xi Jinping. The leaders of the other four member states — PM Narendra Modi, Russian President Vladimir Putin, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro — took part in it. The summit was convened at a truly extraordinary time for the group on account of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The statements of the leaders of the member states and the summit declaration revealed the new alignments that are impacting current global geopolitics as well as the dilemmas confronting major countries, such as South Africa, Brazil and India that wish to pursue independent approaches to protect their interests.

China’s preoccupation is shaping the current world order, and in that pursuit it is willing to ignore the interests of what it considers are merely regional states.

Xi Jinping is pushing China’s ruthlessly aggressive rise and is willing to bend or, where required, break the rules of global engagement which undergird the present world order. Predictably though, he is constantly seeking to blame other states that are, either singly or through forming or strengthening groups, resisting Chinese unilateralism masquerading as multilateralism. In his statement at the summit, he said, inter alia, ‘Our world today is overshadowed by the dark cloud of Cold War mentality and power politics...Some countries attempt to expand military alliances to seek absolute security, stoke bloc-based confrontation by coercing other states into picking sides and pursue unilateral dominance at the expense of others’ rights and interests’. He went on to warn, ‘If such dangerous trends are allowed to continue, the world will witness even more turbulence and insecurity.’

The Chinese President’s targets were not difficult to discern, even if he did not name any country or group. China perceives itself and wishes other countries to acknowledge that it is the equal of the US, the world’s pre-eminent power. The reference in ‘some countries’ is to the US even if he has used the plural. He has obviously the expansion of NATO, which is likely to include Finland and Sweden, and the consolidation of Quad in mind. Even after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China has continued to focus on NATO’s eastward expansion in its statements on the crisis. China has signalled that Russia was provoked and hence its invasion of Ukraine was somewhat justified.

The fact is whatever the provocation, the Russian invasion is unpardonable. This is especially because it is a permanent member of the UN Security Council, which is mandated to maintain international peace and security. The UN General Assembly session of March 2, which was convened under the ‘uniting for peace’ mechanism, illustrated the international community’s great unhappiness with the Russian action. As many as 141 countries voted in favour of a resolution condemning Russia, five countries voted against it while 35 abstained. Many countries which voted for the resolution or abstained acknowledge that NATO’s expansion has given rise to Russian anxieties and may even have been provocative, but that cannot condone its invasion which has devasted Ukraine. It has also exacerbated the difficult global economic situation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, particularly hitting the food and energy security of poor countries.

Four months have passed since Russian troops crossed into Ukraine. Russian ambitions have got limited to securing Ukrainian territory in the east and south and severely denying, if not eliminating, Ukraine’s access to the sea. However, this does not mean that its consequences to the European security order or impact on world order itself will be any less. It has sharpened the contradictions between China and Russia, on the one hand, and the western powers on the other. It has accentuated the difficulties of the other important powers, including India, that need to manoeuvre between them. An indication of the new problems can be witnessed in parts of the summit declaration. Paragraph 21 of the document states, ‘We commit to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all states, stress our commitment to the peaceful resolution of differences and disputes between countries through dialogue and consultation, support all efforts conducive to the peaceful settlement of crises.’

Russia has joined the other four countries in emphasising their commitment to these basic principles of inter-state relations. Yet, through its invasion it has violated these principles. The irony and hypocrisy of paragraph 21 would not have escaped diplomats formulating the declaration or the leaders who accepted it. However, a wise diplomatic colleague recently reminded me that sometimes circumstances compel the objective of a diplomatic negotiation which becomes not to ‘maximalise outcomes but to try

for the least damage to interests’. That leads to logically infirm positions but such is the way of diplomacy, especially when deep interests are at stake, such as those India has in the Russian relationship currently. It may be mentioned that diplomatic formulations matter for they impact diplomatic, and sometimes, even popular discourse over a long period of time.

The only BRICS member of Quad is India, which Xi Jinping focused on, though not by name. With Modi attending the summit that would have been a grave diplomatic provocation. Besides, Xi Jinping would be aware that China’s actions along the LAC in Ladakh and its challenge to India’s interests in its immediate neighbourhood is compelling it to join hands with those states who are deeply concerned by Chinese policies in the Indo-Pacific Region and worldwide. Yet, he is pursuing an assertive policy towards India. This indicates China’s preoccupation is shaping the current world order, and in that pursuit it is willing to ignore the interests of what it considers are merely regional states.