Transcription
In 400 years, the West has dominated the world, and for the first time in 400 years, the West has had to confront with a non-Caucasian state. India's political system is inherited by its colonial masters. And therefore, you have a political system that you could argue is not even akin to what sits comfortably with what needs to be done to address the scale of the issues.
Most consequential relationship of the 21st century, in my view, will be China-India. One of the things we need to understand is that the world is constantly being changing. When people talk about a new world order, it's not as if we will wake up one day and there's a new world order. There's a constant shift.
Let's be very clear, there was an old world order, which was the one of the imperial colonized world, where a handful of European nations dominated the world. Then a shift came when the countries of the developing world sought independence, and then became independent post the Second World War. Then in the last 10-15 years, things began to change.
The average person who is a rational human being looking at the actions of the United States and the European allies, these people talk about freedoms, these people talk about the need to prosper, but they are the ones who typically incite wars. One would have to be in extreme denial to refute the suggestion that many of the leaders in the United States today are white supremacists, evangelical Christians, who believe in their religious beliefs as extreme and almost a crusade against Muslims in Iran and Palestine, but against China.
I've said this many times, I believe that the Europeans and the Americans have found it very difficult to contend with the rise of a non-Caucasian state that they have had to confront for the first time in 400 years. There is no China trying to fight the United States. It's the United States trying to control China and contain it. And despite all the provocation, the Chinese have behaved with great calm and restraint.
Imperial hegemonic interests and colonization was essentially perpetuated by demeaning the other, the African, the Indian as subhuman, pagans. This is essentially how colonization was justified and people lived with it.
The United States has two weapons today, which is the military power that has been exposed by the Iranian war. The ability of asymmetric wars actors to engage now with technology in ways that you can't push your weight around. And the second is the exorbitant privilege of the dollar, which has allowed the US to punish everybody and anybody else. And that too, I think, is coming to an end as we saw with India buying Russian oils and Russian oil without using the US dollar.
A wise leader in the United States would have prepared America for the rise of China, prepared Americans for the understanding that the exorbitant privilege is not something they can continue to abuse. And prepared America for understanding that they can't go around the world killing people, which they have done. The Americans and Israelis killed 160 children in Iran. There was no outrage. But imagine if 150 children were killed somewhere in the United States or Europe, we would still be hearing about it. Nobody wants to see children of any country, any race killed. But it does show us how duplicitous and immoral the society itself has become. And that society has to wake up.
I've had the privilege of arriving in China at the early later part of 1989 and 1990. At that time China was poor, it was very polluted, and it was very chaotic. When we look back now, it's only about 35 years ago. But then I started to see how China dramatically changed over 15-20 years. What was very clear to me was the sense of governance through stability. And governance by getting everybody onto the same page. And more importantly, putting the notion of collective welfare before individual rights. That's how China began to change. And the results are now here for us all to see.
Now, then I began to wonder, why is it that mainstream Western media and also those who bought into that narrative, including people in my part of the world, and then I say India, was so anti-China. After all, if you looked at the world data on human progress, the indexes on human development, China was the major contributor to uplifting human condition. If you looked at all the World Bank data, I would say it's partly that civilizational state, the doctrine of meritocracy in the system, and then it's also its institutions freed from the curse of liberal democratic elections to be able to think long-term. The most important thing I I think is the political system that allowed only the best people to come through. That was Deng Xiaoping, who essentially said, "We are going to modernize, we are going to reform, and we're going to embrace the markets, but in the Chinese way." Following him, there was Jiang Zemin, and then there was Hu Jintao, and the current president, President Xi. What you saw was a continuation of the same models of development and focus on people. And that is, I think, the difference. That is very different from a multi-party state. And President Xi came and and took on a very dangerous and massive task of purging of the most corrupt people, and took down with some of the most powerful people in the Chinese system, so that the fight against corruption was major. To the extent where the people were essentially imprisoned.
In the space of 25 years, China has built the largest high-speed railway network in the whole world. And the Chinese mantra is really harmony and stabilization. And then Chinese people would do great things. I can go to a small town in China, which, like India, would typically be 2 to 3 million people. And we would meet the mayor, and the mayor would be a 40-year-old woman with a PhD in economics and a first degree in linguistics. And the deputy mayor would be a 38-year-old engineer with a PhD in chemical engineering and a master's in economics. No fools. And they work 24/7. They all have KPIs as if they work for a big company, and they're 100% committed to the community. And that's how they are measured, that's how they are promoted, and if they don't perform, they're out.
India's political system is essentially one inherited by its colonial masters. And therefore, you have a political system that you could argue is not even akin to what sits comfortably with what needs to be done to address the scale of the issues. But I think the elites in India have been desensitized to the misery and suffering of lots of Indians. I go to India a lot because I love it. I get immersed in everything. But then I think why can't they solve the problem of basic sanitation, water, and all of that. And I think it's a governance issue. How does a nation with some of the brightest people in the world? They all run the IT companies in the USA and the banks. How does that nation transition to what I think is the obligation of any system of governance, which is to uplift the majority from the drudgery of day-to-day life. But the truth be told in some parts of India the poverty I've seen I haven't even seen in Africa.
Comparing my experience in China was a big difference in the time it took for China to move from things don't work to everything will work. And today things work in China to Japanese standards and better. And I just don't see that yet happening in India unless India has the Chinese system, which is tough no nonsense 25-year old plan and nobody has to worry about the next election cycle. And I would like to see that happen.
Should India have said yes to the one belt one road? I think absolutely. I think it was a good message for the world. And I think it would have helped India and China to start laying the foundations for what I believe with the most consequential partnership for the world. The Chinese view was for them to develop. Other countries need to develop. And that's where the one road, one belt uh scheme comes in. It was an understanding that having fought imperialism, [clears throat] colonialism, and supported liberation struggles in Africa, Latin America, China wants to trade with the rest of the world. And therefore, it wants to have good relations. There's a lot of stuff about the debt trap, but this has been debunked by some of the best economists in the world from Africa. The debts imposed on nations by the IMF, the World Bank, they pale in comparison. The world's best economists have all shown this. So, again, this is propaganda.
The messaging from India is these people we don't want to partner with them, but we will partner with the Americans. I I think the time has come for India to understand that the world has changed, and it doesn't have to show its allegiance to the West as opposed to others in Asia, especially China. My belief is that the United States will continue to be an irritant and a rogue state for a while. And I think great nations like India need to disconnect from that subservient relationship and looking to the USA as an ally. India is too important, too big, has too much going for itself that it needs to essentially shake hands with the rogue state. And thereby sending geopolitical signals that are in the interest of India's respect, then also not good for the world. Dare I say that Prime Minister Modi's visit to Israel a few days before they attacked Iran and do a bear hug, I think sent shockwaves around the world to those of us who see India as a great nation that is non-aligned, stands for the majority of us. I couldn't see why on earth the leader of India would see it necessary to go and shake hands with a man who's already been charged with war crimes that's confusing the world, especially because it is India.
Most consequential relationship of the 21st century, in my view, will be China-India. Who cares about what happens in Europe? Until the United States weans itself of its white supremacist attitude and gets a good leader, we will all have to contend with it. China, India, Africa. So, we should not be looking to appease the rogue. We should be looking to sort of ignore. Don't pick a fight, but find our own and 3 billion people, 1/3 of humanity. I would say China-India will change the world if they can come together. Immediately things start to change in Pakistan. Immediately things start to change in Bangladesh. That's a game changer. Asia will be prosperous. And we start to redefine what multipolar means. We start to redefine the course of history for the next 100 years. China and India have not gone and fought terrible wars. So, I think there's great wisdom on both sides. Now they just have to come together and and change the world.
The environment in India, if I could say this, seems to be very anti-China, especially when you watch TV. And I think it doesn't have to be pro-China, but I think it needs to understand China. Because China and India together will change the course of human history for the next 2-300 years. And and this requires a very different way of thinking. We do not want the next generation of young Indians to see a China as a bad country and then to see Pakistan as an enemy. We want a different world. And the Americans are not going to make that work for us, not the Europeans. They don't even understand.
When I go to China, they give me meat and then I say, "Born as a Hindu and I don't eat meat." Immediately, they will go like this. The respect for Hinduism, Indians is huge. And then they will bow because they understand the connections. This is why my hope that the China-India partnership will be the most consequential. But the most tricky thing that the Indian government will have to any Indian government will have to do, which is to curb the expression of deep beliefs which in the public domain can disrupt disrupt the social order and hinder collective progress. And that becomes very difficult if the leading politicians themselves are religious activists. And the Chinese leaders are not religious activists. They're the complete opposite. You have to show that you can improve quality of life. I think on that, the delivery mechanism of the Chinese government in the most remote places I've gone has really not 100% bought the one over the communities that even still have some resentments, of course. But the delivery of the infrastructure places where there was no heating ever getting heating, water, toilets, roads, trains then people think, "Hey, I can trade off some restrictions on maybe my belief because the upside is so vast. I think this is good for us. I think that's the trick. You have to bundle it together. You have to provide development goods."