Editorial 1 : A lack of ambition
Introduction: The Union Budget has received kudos for staying the course on fiscal consolidation, but has also been panned for being short on big ideas. A case in point is the farm sector. Despite Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman listing “productivity and resilience in agriculture” as the first of her nine priorities, there’s little in the proposals that captures the imagination.
The proposals on agriculture are old ideas in new script
- The plan to “initiate” one crore farmers into natural farming “in the next two years” is a virtual repetition of the budget promises of 2023-24 (to “facilitate” one crore farmers to adopt the same “over the next three years”) and 2022-23 (to “promote” chemical-free farming in 5-km wide corridors along the river Ganga).
- Building a digital public infrastructure for agriculture to upload the details of farmers and their lands found mention in last year’s budget too.
- Developing large-scale clusters and supply chains for vegetables was discussed in the 2018-19 budget with reference to an Operation Greens scheme specific to tomato, onion and potato.
The political consequences on any adventurism in farm sector hinder government from bring reforms
- The lack of novelty, detail and ambition is striking for a government that, in its previous term, had enacted three major agriculture reform laws.
- If protests by farmer unions led to their repeal then, the fear of political opposition seems to have precluded any substantive reform action now.
- There is no attempt at rationalisation of urea prices or redirecting government spending on fertiliser and food subsidies towards investment in farm research, extension, irrigation, market yards and other infrastructure.
- Sitharaman has stated that the government will undertake a “comprehensive review” of the agriculture research set-up “to bring the focus of raising productivity and developing climate resilient varieties”.
- But the budget for the department of agricultural research and education has been raised only marginally to Rs 9,941 crore, from Rs 9,877 crore in the revised estimates for 2023-24.
The neglect of R&D in agriculture will damage food security in India
- A country with a population expected to peak at 1.7 billion and growing incomes cannot import its food requirements beyond a point.
- If more has to be produced from less land and per unit of water, nutrients and labour, while coping with climate change, it calls for a long-term plan.
- The Green Revolution wouldn’t have happened without the investments in the ICAR and state agricultural universities, and irrigation dams, land reforms and consolidation of holdings, by the governments during the 1950s and 1960s.
- A similar vision is needed today.
- One would have expected at least some of it in this budget.
Conclusion: India is the most populous and most agriculture dependent (for employment) country of the world. Any form of empowerment of rural population will need raising farm income. This will require surge in productivity, which demand major R&D intervention. The union budget 2023-24 missed that opportunity.
Editorial 2 : Beijing, the mediator
Introduction: China is emerging as broker of peace. As China goes global, the world must brace for its dominance over the Global South. It poses threat to US concept of a rules-based order
The Chinese miracle of bridging gulf across “Persian Gulf”
- In March 2023, China stunned the world by brokering an agreement between arch-enemies, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
- At a meeting hosted in Beijing by Wang Yi, the Foreign Minister of China, representatives of both countries — Ali Shamkhani, then Secretary of the Supreme National Council of Iran, and Musaad bin Mohammed Al-Aliban, Minister of State and National Security Advisor of Saudi Arabia — issued a joint statement agreeing to re-establish diplomatic ties.
- The meeting was widely seen as a great success of the Chinese foreign policy to limit American influence in the Middle East.
Beijing is displaying its credential of being a benign mediator
- When Wang described his country as a “kind and trustworthy mediator” and boasted about “being a constructive player in promoting proper handling of global heated issues”, many in the West dismissed it as empty rhetoric.
- Global flash points, from Ukraine to Gaza, are not easy to resolve, many thought.
- But a year after the intervention in the Middle East, China achieved another coup.
- Wang Yi mobilised leaders of 14 different factions of the Palestinian movement, including Hamas and Fatah, in Beijing and released a unanimously approved statement called the “Beijing Declaration”.
- Signed earlier this week, the Declaration promised to end divisions within the movement and strengthen Palestinian national unity.
China’s proposal to end Palestinian conflict
- Wang proposed a three-step solution to end the Palestinian conflict.
- The first step is to implement a comprehensive ceasefire in the Gaza Strip as soon as possible and provide humanitarian assistance.
- The second is upholding the principle of “Palestinians governing Palestine”.
- And the third was the two-state solution.
The declaration is ambitious but won’t see the light of the day
- The declaration may remain on paper for several reasons.
- First, keeping all the factions under the umbrella of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) is not easy, although Wang claimed that “the PLO is the sole legitimate representative of all the Palestinian people”.
- Second, the US and Israel consider Hamas a terrorist organisation and reject any proposal to legitimise it.
- Third, the most difficult part of the declaration is the creation of a “truly independent Palestinian state in accordance with relevant UN resolutions,” as claimed by Wang.
- Israel swiftly rejected the Beijing Declaration, insisting that “Hamas’s rule will be crushed.”
- Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz also dismissed any proposals to allow the Palestinian Authority to take control of Gaza.
Ukraine too expects something similar from China
- A day after the Beijing Declaration, Wang got busy holding talks with the visiting foreign minister of Ukraine, Dmytro Kuleba, about resolving the Ukraine conflict.
- He insisted that China believes in bringing warring parties to the negotiation table.
- Kuleba, on his first visit to China since the war broke out, responded positively by saying that Beijing can play a significant role in the pursuit of a just and stable resolution of the Ukraine crisis, and Kyiv was prepared to conduct negotiations with Moscow.
The Cold War 2.0 has begun
- Irrespective of the outcome, these proactive moves by China indicate an important shift in its foreign policy.
- As the world enters a phase in which Cold War 2.0 is escalating, the Chinese leadership is demonstrating renewed confidence in its ability to displace the US as the hegemon.
- This shift became conspicuous after Xi Jinping attained full control of the party organisation in 2018.
- His predecessors, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, strictly adhered to Deng Xiaoping’s dictum — “hide your strength, bide your time”.
- But under Xi, words like “regional” and “neighbourhood” have been replaced by “global” and “connectivity” in the Chinese lexicon.
- There is a renewed urgency to introduce CCP’s terminologies, such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), “shared future of mankind”, and “inclusive multilateralism”, on the world stage.
China has replaced its regional ambitions from global ambitions
- Xi has upgraded his regional vision to introduce global initiatives with far-reaching and ambitious targets.
- In the last three years, he had come up with three major new initiatives, all described as “global initiatives” — Global Development Initiative (GDI), Global Security Initiative (GSI) and Global Civilisation Initiative (GCI).
1. Global Security Initiative (GSI)
- Xi first talked about the Global Security Initiative (GSI) in April 2022, further expanding it through a concept paper in February 2023.
- China pitches GSI as an alternative to the US-led concept of “rules-based order”.
- Its core principles include the importance of state sovereignty and territorial integrity, non-interference in the internal affairs of states, and opposition to unilateral sanctions and power bloc confrontations.
- Xi’s intent behind articulating these principles was to catapult China into the leader’s role in global governance and build a new world order with Chinese characteristics.
2. Global Development Initiative (GDI)
- A year earlier, at the UN General Assembly in 2021, Xi outlined his proposal for the Global Development Initiative (GDI) “to help revive global efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)” by 2030.
- Like the GSI, the Chinese leadership’s larger agenda behind this benign-sounding proposal was to usurp the international dialogue on the global development agenda, infuse it with Chinese principles and place it under their tutelage.
3. Global Civilisation Initiative (GCI)
- Then came the Global Civilisation Initiative (GCI), proposed by Xi in March 2023, “for respecting the diversity of civilisations, advocating the common values of humanity, valuing the inheritance and innovation of civilisations, and strengthening international people-to-people exchanges and cooperation”.
- In a veiled rejection of Western efforts at building a global civilisation based on their value system, the GCI argued that “a single flower does not make spring, while one hundred flowers in full blossom bring spring to the garden”.
Conclusion: As China goes global, the world must brace for its dominance over the Global South and the imposition of its worldview on a number of countries. Cold War 2.0 is heating up.