EU Summit Focuses on COVID, But No Breakthrough on IPR Waiver

Beyond the nice words and solidarity for India’s COVID predicament expressed by the European Union leadership, the most significant outcome of the India-EU summit of Saturday was the decision to relaunch the talks on a trade and investment treaty.

The talks had been stalled since 2013 because of differences on issues such as market access for European products, mobility for Indian professionals and geographical indications protection.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi represented India at the summit, which was held in this format involving the entire EU leadership for the first time. The summit was hosted by Portugal, the EU was represented by the 27 EU leaders, as well as its apex leadership – Charles Michel, the President of the European Council and Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission.

According to Michel, the two sides have now agreed to launch negotiations on “mutually reinforcing agreements on trade, on investment protection, and on geographical indications.” Whether or not these succeed is another matter given the uncompromising attitude of both sides on some key issues.

Despite Prime Minister Modi’s appeal, no common ground was found on the issue of waiving Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) related to COVID treatments and vaccines.

Last week in a surprise move, President Biden had said that the US was willing to consider a waiver, but a day later German Chancellor Angela Merkel publicly opposed the waiver. Under WTO rules, such a move would require consensus that can only be worked out by extensive negotiations.

Even so, assuming the waiver is provided today, the facilities for making vaccines could easily take more than a year to be established. This would not be able to address the emergency the country confronts today.

Focus on Fight Against COVID

A major focus of the joint statement issued after the meeting was the fight against COVID-19 in the wake of the pandemic’s surge in India. Leaders expressed their solidarity with New Delhi and pledged cooperation.

Urgent shipments of oxygen, medicine and vital equipment worth 100 million  Euros had already been organised by 15 member states under the EU’s civil protection mechanism.

The two sides also took up the longer term issue of global cooperation on creating more resilient medical supply chains, vaccines and Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients, as well as ensuring universal and equitable access to vaccines.

Another area of interest was the importance of addressing the issue of climate change and fostering green growth. Both sides reiterated their commitments to the Paris Agreement and the need to strengthen the steps to mitigate climate change.

As part of this the two sides agreed to cooperate in deploying renewable energy, promoting energy efficiency and collaborating on smart grid and storage technology.

Widening EU’s Connectivity

Underlying the summit were the increased tensions between the EU and China. So, not surprisingly, a fourth major development was related to the connectivity partnership which will expand the EU’s connectivity initiative to enhance digital, energy, transport and people to people connectivity.

The initiative emphasized the importance of widening cooperation in third-world countries and regions, notably in Africa, Central Asia and the Indo-Pacific in the area of digital, energy, transport and people to people connectivity.

But so far, its connectivity activities have been focused nearer home in the Balkans and the Caucasus.  The EU already has a connectivity partnership with Japan and now it is seeking to expand to the Indo-Pacific

Last month, the EU announced its new Indo- Pacific strategy which seeks to promote ‘regional stability, security and sustainable development” in the region. It sought to address the increasing tensions on trade and supply chains, as well as political and security areas.

The strategy will be based on “upholding democracy, human rights, the rule of law and respect for international law.”

The very last paragraph of the Joint Statement issued after the meeting on Saturday is a long winded sentence which says that the two sides are committed “to a free, open, inclusive and rules-based Indo-Pacific space”. No one can doubt that the unstated target of the statement was the People’s Republic of China.

Equally significant is the reference to the new dialogue between the Indian Navy and the erstwhile European Union task force combating piracy in Somalia EUNAVFOR Atlanta in relation to the Indo-Pacific.

All this sounds nice in a terms of joint statements and declarations, but it should be clear that a significant gulf still separates India and the EU on many key issues. A trade and investment agreement will not come easily. Likewise, approaches to climate change will vary, IPR issues will not be easy to overcome.

Perhaps, the most important divide could be on the issue of human rights. Though India and the EU have committed themselves to resume their Human Rights dialogue, they will not find it easy to bridge their different perspectives on various issues ranging from religious freedom, to freedom of the press and democracy.

The India-EU meet has taken place when the regional and global situation is fluid and tense. Last December just after the US elections, the EU had arrived at a far-reaching trade and investment agreement with China.

But subsequently, the EU has been drawing closer to the US with both imposing sanctions against China for human rights abuses in Xinjiang, Beijing’s counter-sanctions have led to a suspension of the ratification process of the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) , which could have otherwise come into force in early 2022.

In this situation, the EU is seeking to strengthen ties with India which it sees as a like-minded entity which is democratic, believes in multilateralism and is ready to work with its agenda on connectivity, Indo-Pacific, climate change and dealing with the COVID pandemic. India cannot replace the value of China as a trade partner, but can serve a useful function as a hedge of sorts.

The Quint, May 10, 2021

https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/eu-summit-focuses-on-covid-but-no-breakthrough-on-ipr-waiver#read-more#read-more

It’s complacency, not conspiracy: RSS general secy’s remarks will only encourage a culture of evading responsibility

The statement issued by RSS general secretary Dattatreya Hosabale cautioning that ‘destructive anti-Bharat forces’ could exploit the second Covid wave to ‘create an atmosphere of negativity and distrust’ is, to put it politely, tone-deaf. Just what he means about being ‘cautious of conspiracies of these destructive forces’ is not clear, unless he is pointing fingers at those who are criticising the handling of the pandemic by the government.

There is no doubt that we confront an extremely serious crisis that has bred an atmosphere, to use his own words, ‘negativity and distrust’. But what did he expect? People are right now running from pillar to post for oxygen cylinders, keeping relatives alive in makeshift gurneys outside hospitals and cremating their loved ones post-haste in makeshift crematoriums.

They are in a negative mood, and yes, they have begun to distrust the State which has let them down. Hosabale’s response to all this seems to focus more on what ‘anti-Bharat forces’ may be up to rather than the travails of the ‘Bharat vasis’. All this is even more remarkable because Hosabale (67) has an ABVP background and is well educated and was expected to be a modernising force in the outfit since he is one of the few in the higher echelons of the outfit to have worked in a front organisation like the ABVP.

Instead of worrying about destructive anti-Bharat forces that could take advantage of the situation, Hosabale would have done signal service if he had led the process of introspection as to where things went wrong. The RSS has a big equity in the BJP government. It is perhaps the only organisation which the government will listen to in the present circumstances. See how Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan fobbed off the advice offered by former PM Manmohan Singh.

Such an exercise would reveal that complacency, bred by overweening arrogance, was the major problem. Responsibility for this rests on both the Union and the state governments, but more on the former because it guides issues under the Disaster Management Act. There must be some explanation as to why the government ‘experts’ did not anticipate this second wave, since such waves were occurring around the world.

It would be evident, too, that there were spectacular acts of carelessness. Running a multi-phase election campaign which featured mass rallies was not the acme of common sense. Hosabale wants people to show ‘self-restraint and discipline’ but that advice could have been better directed to PM Modi and Home Minister Shah’s electioneering. As for the states, Uttarakhand took the prize in permitting the Kumbh mela. The erstwhile RSS pracharak and CM Tirath Singh Rawat made the extraordinary claim that ‘Ma Ganga’s blessings are there in the flow’ that would protect the devotees. Ganga Ma did not oblige either the devotees or Rawat himself.

Hosabale’s remarks will only encourage a culture of evading responsibility. Some of this extreme attitude can be seen, for example, in the response of UP CM Adityanath to reports that patients and hospitals are struggling to find and maintain oxygen supplies. Reportedly, Adityanath has asked officials to take action under the National Security Act, seize property of people who spread rumours. He has asserted that the problem is not shortage of oxygen, but black marketing and hoarding. All this has an echo to the 1970s when shortages of food and consumer items were ascribed to hoarding. The quality of policing in Adityanath’s bailiwick is evident from the fact that 94 of 120 orders on the NSA were quashed by the Allahabad High Court in the period between January 2018 and December 2020.

A more proactive government could have anticipated the second wave and unrolled a vaccination programme at the highest possible speed. Instead, the government dawdled and diverted the effort by boasting of their success and busying themselves exporting vaccines. The government experts could not have been unaware of the scale of the task the country would have had in vaccinating a country of 1.4 billion.

Yet, no effort was made to put down extra money to speed up things, create more lines for vaccine production and construct storage and distribution networks and oxygen plants. Indeed, Serum Institute CEO Adar Poonawalla was criticised for drawing the attention of the government to the issue of planning and guiding vaccine manufacturers for procurement and distribution of the vaccine. India also did not cater for the possibility that the AstraZeneca vaccine may develop problems and that would have left India high and dry. Ignore for a moment the fiasco about unrolling the indigenous vaccine on August 15.

The US government, for example, put down serious money in six different vaccine projects since early 2020. The sense of purpose has been evident from the fact that it has managed to fully vaccinate 29 per cent of its population so far, while India’s figure is just about 1.6 per cent. Given India’s well-known capacity as a vaccine producer, this should not have been the case. That it happened is an administrative failure.

The Sangh Parivar will be the net loser in trying to push critics of the government’s ineptitude into the category of anti-nationals. It is this kind of attitude that probably led to this crisis in the first place. When you believe that everything that you do is right and all critics are motivated by some sinister desire to undermine you, you are unable to see the problems till they hit you in the face.

Tribune APril 27, 2021

https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/its-complacency-not-conspiracy-244671

US COVID Aid to India: What Lessons Can We Learn From This Crisis?

The issue of US medical assistance to India came to a dramatic end with everyone from President Biden downward issuing statements pledging immediate help to India which has been more than overwhelmed by a severe second COVID-19 wave. The US President  and Vice President Kamala Harris’s responses came through tweets on Sunday, 25 April, promising additional support and supplies to deal with India’s national emergency.

There should be no doubt that this was the handiwork of President Biden himself and a decision taken on national security grounds, based on US interests in maintaining close ties with India.

Why President Biden Came Into the Picture

The US policy till last Thursday, enunciated by the State Department spokesman Ned Price, was that no help could be expected at this time because “The United States first and foremost is engaged in an ambitious and effective… effort to vaccinate the American people.” American officials had at the time said that the US would “give the matter (of assistance to India) due consideration”.

Indeed, Price had gone on to say that it was not only in the interest of the American people that this happen, but also in the interest of the rest of the world to see Americans vaccinated.

The reason why the President came into the picture was because he is needed to waive the US Defense Production Act (DPA) which he himself invoked in February 2021. This prioritises American supplies of raw materials for vaccines for US buyers. Under the Defense Priorities and Allocation System Program of the DPA, there are restrictions on 35 categories of items which are needed by Indian manufacturers of the COVID-19 vaccine. These include reagents, plastic tubing material, nano-filters, bioreactor bags that were identified by the Serum Institute of India (SII) for use in making the Covishield and Novavax vaccines.

The backlash in India and among Indian-American politicians in the US forced the US to reconsider. US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan took up the task of untangling the issue that had been roiling Indo-US relations for the past month or so.

At the end of the day, the decision was taken on strategic grounds as well as humanitarian concerns.

The Aid US Will Provide to India in its COVID Fight

The operational details of the US decision were provided by National Security Council spokeswoman Emily Horne who said that the US National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, had spoken to his Indian counterpart Ajit Doval earlier on Sunday, 25 April, and the US was working “around the clock” to help India. The US had, first and foremost, identified the sources of specific raw materials urgently needed for the Indian manufacture of the Covishield vaccine, and these “will be immediately be made available for India.”

In addition, the US also announced that it would provide supplies of therapeutics, rapid diagnostic test kits, ventilators, and Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to treat COVID patients and help protect front-line health workers.

The NSC statement also noted that the US Development Finance Corporation(DFC) is also funding an expansion of the manufacturing capability of Bio E company, whose COVID vaccine developed with Baylor College of Medicine in Texas has just got the go-ahead for Phase III trials.

With the US’s help, BioE will be able to produce at least 1 billion doses of its vaccine by the end of 2022. In a move reminiscent of the days it assisted India’s public health programmes in the 1950s and 1960s, the USAID will work with public health advisers from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) to expedite the mobilisation of emergency resources for India through the Global Fund.

There have been calls by Indian American Congressman Ro Khanna to do more, such as give India the American stockpile of the AstraZeneca Covishield vaccine. As part of its strategy to combat the virus, the US has contracted for and stockpiled different vaccines. As of now, Covishield has not yet got approval in the US and so its stockpiles are idle. In the meantime, the US has enough stocks of other vaccines like the ones made by Moderna and Pfizer to vaccinate all its people.

Lessons for India

There are lessons India needs to learn from this episode. First, on the importance of being clear-headed about your goals. After its initial fumbles, the US clearly planned the path ahead beginning April 2020. It systematically funded as many as 7 vaccine programmes under its Operation Warp Speed and put up USD 8 billion or so on programmes which were taking different routes to make a vaccine. This was a deliberate move to promote redundancy and ensure that the Americans would get a vaccine in no time.

Experts have said that the speed with which a COVID vaccine has emerged is a wonder of modern science, since it usually takes years to get a vaccine working.

Contrast this with India’s dependence on the British-Swedish AstraZeneca vaccine, which fortunately for us, was to be manufactured by Serum India Ltd. The second Covaxin made by Bharat Biotech has announced its interim trial results last week and these of course, remain yet to be officially certified.

Had any or both of these projects failed, India would have been left high and dry and scrambling to import the vaccines from the Chinese or the Russians, since the Americans have been restrictive about exporting not just their vaccines, but the raw material that goes into making them.

It may be recalled that the first Quad summit on 12 March involving the leaders of US, India, Japan and Australia had announced a major partnership to boost the production of COVID vaccines. The plan is to produce upto 1 billion doses by 2022 and it envisages India being helped to ramp up its vaccine manufacturing capacity, with financing from the US and Japan, with Australia being involved in logistical issues.

The Quint APril 26, 2021

https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/india-united-states-president-biden-modi-govt-covid-19-emergency-crisis-aid-vaccines-raw-materials-ppe-diplomacy#read-more

A medieval society? Instead of coping as a coherent democracy, we have had to revert to family and jati networks

The resurgence of the Covid pandemic has been a bonfire of vanities. As 2021 began, the country’s narrative was relentlessly positive and even triumphal. The ruling party’s national office bearers’ meeting in February 2021 hailed the victory of the country over Covid “under the able, sensitive, committed and visionary leadership” of the prime minister. Since the home front was fine, the ministry of external affairs embarked on an ambitious programme to sell and give away Indian vaccines with a view of winning friends and influencing people.

In the face of this massive calamity, the political leadership has been leading from behind. It called off the Kumbh in Haridwar after the akharas walked out, and political rallies in West Bengal were curtailed only after the high court demanded that the Election Commission act.

Hubris will always extract a price. There are facts on the ground that no amount of the customary government spin can blind us to – the scramble to get oxygen cylinders, people dying in hospital parking lots, crematoria burning the dead through the night. Unlike the first round, the ill are around you in almost every locality and so are those who have passed away.

There is desperation in the air, as may have been felt by the populace of a plague-hit city in olden times – you are on your own. Instead of coping as a coherent, democratically governed society, we have had to revert to family and jati networks. States refuse to give other states oxygen and the Centre’s technique is spin and more spin.

Instead of managing the crisis, the effort seems to be on managing the news. Government spokespersons have patted themselves on the back for working to ensure increased beds and oxygen supply, attacked Maharashtra government’s misgovernance, and singled out the Gandhi family for spreading misinformation.

In March 2020 certain “experts” advised the government that a brutal lockdown would finish off the virus. Since then Clouseauesqe characters have been running the show in the country. Decisions have been fitful. The PM can be faulted for electioneering in the time of Covid, but the many decisions he took were presumably on the basis of the “expert” advice. These very advisers failed him and the country again by ignoring the possibility of a second wave.

Policy did not go wrong; there was no policy. There was no effort to forecast the path of the pandemic, to plan for contingencies like the one we confront now, no effort to create stockpiles of drugs, oxygen, a fool-proof testing regime, and an infrastructure for rapid mass immunisation. Ever wondered why countries like the US and Canada have purchased vaccines far in excess of their population? It is because they have planned for the contingency that some vaccines may flop and others hit production roadblocks.

After the fiasco over rolling out an indigenous vaccine on Independence Day 2020, the “experts” decided that we, the pharmacy of the world, would supply vaccines to all and sundry even before inoculating our own vulnerable population. Just as the second wave got underway around March 20, we had vaccinated some 44 million people and exported 60 million doses. In terms of our 1.4 billion population, we had provided a paltry 3.3 doses per 100 persons, compared to Brazil’s 6.4 or the EU’s 13.1.

The current situation tells us that our governmental system – whether it relates to public health or the police – is just a thin veneer on an otherwise medieval society. That veneer is now wearing thin, whether it relates to civil society, law and order, and now in the breakdown of the public health system. And this is in the national capital. The plight of the people in the remoter parts of the country or even mofussil towns can only be imagined. But for that we still have the spin.

The Times of India April 24, 2021

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/blogs/toi-edit-page/a-medieval-society-instead-of-coping-as-a-coherent-democracy-we-have-had-to-revert-to-family-and-jati-networks/

UNCLOS, an American Ship and India's Maritime Boundary

Earlier this month, the US announced that a warship of theirs, the John Paul Jones had sailed 130 nautical miles west of the Lakshadweep islands, within India’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) without India’s prior consent.

This was what the US terms a Freedom of Navigation Operation (FONOPS) aimed at challenging states like India who they say have gone beyond the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS) to assert  “excessive” maritime claims.

Indians were rightly upset by this. Former navy chief Admiral Arun Prakash termed it an “act of breathtaking inanity” considering the atmosphere of rapidly warming Indo-US ties and “within weeks of the US-led Quad leaders virtual  meetings and on the heels of a major Indo-US naval exercise”.

Though this generated many headlines, this was certainly not the first time this has happened. By its own count , the US has conducted such operations in Indian waters 19 times in the past 30 or so years since 1991. The only difference is, that for reasons best known to itself, the US decided to immediately publicise it. Usually, such operations around the world, affecting various countries, would form a long list which would be issued by the US Department of Defence annually.

While countries like India which are close to the US are baffled, those like China see a sinister motive behind this. They say the US uses the provisions in UNCLOS that do not explicitly prohibit military activity in its Exclusive Economic Zone to keep a close deployment off China’s coast. The US has, famously, used FONOPS to challenge Beijing’s over-the-top maritime claims in the South China Sea where a UNCLOS tribunal has ruled Chinese artificial islands do not merit the maritime claims Beijing is makingThere is also a benign explanation for this is. The US has not ratified the UNCLOS, but says it observes it as customary international law. One of  its principles, as a Belfer Center explainer notes, is the US does this is to prevent the law itself from changing over time. According to the explainer, “states must persistently object to actions by other states that seek to change those rules.” As a maritime power, it is usually the US which ends up sailing into other state’s territorial waters or conducting military activity in their Exclusive Economic Zone. So, it needs to ensure that the current rules stay.

Under UNCLOS, states have the right to conduct military manoeuvres and movements within the 200 nm EEZ of a state. Indeed, they have the right of “innocent passage” where they can come into the territorial waters within just 12 nm of the country, if they sail straight through without turning on their weapons-related sensors.

At the time of signing and ratifying the UNCLOS, India had made a declaration that in its view, the Convention does not authorise other states to carry out “military exercises or manoeuvres… without the consent of the coastal state.” Later this was incorporated into domestic legislation.

But this was merely an expression of India’s “understanding” of the spirit of UNCLOS, not its letter. The US says it conducts FONOPS to challenge the claims in excess to those provided by the letter of the treaty.

So, the US has for the past 30 years challenged India’s claim that you need to notify us before you conduct military manoeuvres in our EEZ. We have been able to live with it; indeed, short of taking on the US Navy, we had little alternative.

But there is another problem in the Lakshadweep islands. They are some 200 nautical miles from the Kerala coast which puts them at the edge of the EEZ. But because of them, we can extend the EEZ another 200 nm or so out to a part of the high seas which have huge strategic importance. This is the Nine-Degree Channel through which a vast amount of shipping goes.

Lakshadweep’s strategic location. Photo: marinetraffic.com as of April 16, 2021

Maritime boundaries follow a simple principle. Twelve nautical miles out from your shore are territorial waters where the laws of the land are in force. Some laws can be applied for the next 24 nm of waters called the contiguous zone. Thereafter comes another 200 nm of what is called the Exclusive Economic Zone, which are technically the high seas where your laws do not hold, only that you have the right to exploit its fisheries and seabed resources.

Maritime boundaries lead off from what is called a baseline point on your shore – it is the low-tide point from which the count 12+24+200nm outward to the sea is measured. So, usually, your territorial waters, contiguous zone and EEZ mimic your land boundary.

Islands like the Lakshadweep and Andaman and Nicobar also follow the same principle of 12+24+200; in addition, if there are outlying rocks, they generate contiguous zones of 24 nm (and low tide elevations fetch nothing).

Now in an option given to archipelagic states like Indonesia, Fiji and the Philippines, instead of landing up with  a polka dot pattern maritime boundary, they are allowed to define a boundary by creating straight baselines by joining the baseline points of their outermost rocks/islands and enclosing the area within as their internal sea.

In Lakshadweep, India has, through a 2009 notification, claimed a boundary using straight baselines drawn with nine or so baseline turning points, though this is a provision not available to India or any other continental state till now under the UNCLOS. So far, barring Pakistan, no one has protested this move. And though the USS John Paul Jones was 130 nm away from the Lakshadweep, there is no indication that the 2009 Indian straight baseline claim was challenged. In fact, there is no indicator in a check list of the US State Department whether Lakshadweep is on their target list. But they do have issues with the Indian claims in the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Bay.

At the end of the day, challenges close to India’s shores are likely to come only from states which have the ability to mount it. So far, there is only the US which can do it. But China is rising and there are worries that it may take the path of the US. That would be ironic, since China itself has drawn straight baselines around the Paracel Islands which the US has challenged by sending a ship through them. But in power politics, you should be prepared for all kinds of surprises.

The Wire April 19, 2021

https://thewire.in/security/unclos-an-american-ship-and-indias-maritime-boundary

The world in 20 years:Global Trends report puts forth likely scenarios, some alarming

The US National Intelligence Council’s 20-year forecast, released last month, makes for disquieting reading. Issued once in four years, the seventh edition of the Global Trends Report is coming out at a time when the world, and especially, the US is reeling from the consequences of the Covid pandemic, as well as deep social and political divisions in its society, something not very different from what we are experiencing back home in India.

Global Trends 2040 talks of scenarios that will shape the global environment in the next two decades and their implications for US national security. The NIC supports the Director of US National Intelligence and its focus is on longer-term strategic analysis. It relies on expert opinion in the US and abroad and is aimed at alerting policy makers and the broad policy community of the emerging developments. The report is not a simple prediction of what will happen in 20 years, but an examination of past and future trends, working out of scenarios of evolving developments, their dynamics and the key uncertainties ahead.

The experience of 2020 tells us that even the best forecasts can be upended by the black swans and grey rhinos on the path ahead. The former refers to highly improbable and unexpected events like the Covid pandemic, which impact on the unfolding of social and political trends. The latter are obvious and foreseeable events which we sometimes willfully ignore till they hit us, such as the global financial crisis of 2008 or climate change.

The report has identified four structural forces that are likely to shape the world — demographics, environment, economics and technology. Demographic trends are the easiest to predict and we know that the populations of well-off countries will age and even shrink in size. But areas like Sub Saharan Africa and South Asia will continue to show younger population profiles and their numbers will continue to grow.

There is an obvious challenge for countries like India which need to ensure that these young are provided adequate nutrition, healthcare and education. A failure to do so would result in large-scale social breakdowns. As it is, the World Bank has estimated that as many as 75 million people have slipped back into extreme poverty in India because of the pandemic.

An equally easy prediction is the impact of climate change whose burdens will be unevenly distributed around the world and result in social and political unrest. This is a classic grey rhino standing on the middle of the road ahead of us, and yet, we don’t seem to care as we drive on. Just three months ago, we had a President in the US who did not believe that there was any such thing as climate change.

India’s population, likely to overtake that of China by 2027, its geography, nuclear weapons and economic prospects make it a potential global power, but, says the report, ‘it remains to be seen whether New Delhi will achieve domestic development goals to allow it to project influence beyond South Asia.’ It says that India faces ‘serious governance, societal, environmental and defense challenges’ that will constrain how much it can invest in developing military and diplomatic capabilities for playing a larger global role.

Incidentally, whatever the high-flying rhetoric about India and the US being the world’s largest democracies, as far as the report is concerned, there are no ‘liberal democracies’ in South Asia as of 2020. India is presumably one of four ‘electoral autocracies’ in the region which hold free and fair multiparty elections, and guarantee freedom of speech and expression, ‘but do not uphold the rule of law and/or do not have constraints on the executive.’

The biggest black swan ahead is technology. This is also the fuzziest area to forecast. The next two decades will see increased global competition for ‘core elements of technological supremacy’ such as talent, knowledge, markets which could lead to a new crop of tech leaders and hegemons. The US has long used it as a tool of national power, but the next two decades will see increasing competition for the core elements and the competitor here is China.

Technology can help us mitigate climate change and disease, but it can also aggravate societal disruption as it is doing today by manipulating information on a large scale or through job displacement. The report forecasts that some technologies that are already showing their hand such as AI, biotechnology, smart materials and manufacturing, and ‘hyper connectivity’ could, in the next 20 years, have a transformative effect on the world.

As for the international system, the report forecasts that it will be ‘more contested, uncertain, and conflict prone.’ The US and China will have the greatest influence on global dynamics and their rivalry ‘will affect most domains’, reshaping today’s alliances, international organisations and the norms and rules that we call the international order. This competitive environment makes the risk of conflict more likely and deterrence more difficult.

Looking at the future, the report rolls out five alternative scenarios — a renaissance of democracies with the US in the lead, a world which is adrift where China is a leading, but not the dominant state, competitive coexistence where China and the US compete for leadership, separate silos where globalisation and countries are divided into ‘aatmanirbhar’ security and economic blocs. And finally, the possibility of ‘tragedy and mobilisation’ where a devastating global environmental crises and collapse leads to a bottom-up change.

The Tribune  April 13, 2021

https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/comment/the-world-in-20-years-238284