The West’s notions of history and geography between Europe and Asia, are drenched in myriad cultural implications and can be traced back to ‘The Romance of Alexander’.
This is a collection of essays mixing truth, epic drama and mythology, composed between the death of Alexander The Great in 323 B.C., and the fourth century A.D, and attributed either to Callisthenes, Aristotle’s nephew or to Alexander’s tutor.
During a 10-year period, Alexander forged an empire encompassing Asia Minor and what the West later defined as the Middle East, annexing the current lands of Turkey, Syria, Israel and Palestine, Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, a slice of Pakistan and northwest India.
For more than two millennia, Alexander best embodied in the West the clash of these two lofty paradigms: East and West. Alexander’s conquests also helped India to enter the Western frame of mind in terms of geography and civilization.
We eventually learned that India was actually close to the Arab world – overland via Iran, and in naval terms via its direct connection to the Persian Gulf.
The exchange of goods, traditions and culture was always inbuilt in the Big Picture. Overland or seaborne, the ancient Silk Road – before arriving in China – went through India. Rome was already trading with India before learning about the Middle Kingdom, and vice-versa as the Chinese barely knew the Mediterranean existed.
Closer to the West
So, India was always closer to the Western mind than China.
In parallel, when Vasco da Gama reached southwest India in 1498, those ports for more than a millennium had been trading with China, Southeast Asia, the Arab world and the Mediterranean.
The historical case can be made that India’s royals, after trading for so long with Arab, Jewish and Chinese merchants, were fooled by the “peaceful” intention of the first European incursions, which eventually led to British domination of the subcontinent.
This background should be taken into account when we look at what happened during the latest international Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi. This was sponsored by the Indian Ministry of External Affairs and the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), an Indian think tank.
The theme of the Raisina Dialogue was “Managing Disruptive Transitions.” And the number one “disruptive transition” was identified as no less than China’s New Silk Road, otherwise known as the Belt and Road Initiative.
“The reality is that China is a disruptive transitional force in the Indo-Pacific, they are the owner of the trust deficit in the region.”
More than 200 million Indians are Muslims, which makes it the third largest Muslim nation in the world after Indonesia and Pakistan. So, it is no wonder that Premier Narendra Modi’s right-wing pro-Hindu BJP acts as the self-proclaimed defender of a multi-millennium civilization.
But when we dig deeper we find that modern Hindu nationalism – instead of worrying about the destiny of the Mahabharata – was actually born in the 1920s, infused with the theories of Mazzini, d’Annunzio and even one Benito Mussolini. Still, that was all about fear of the Hindu identity being swamped by Islam and Christendom.
Now, it is all about fear of China.
Belt and Road versus ‘Quad’
NATO was in full voice at the Raisina Dialogue in New Delhi via Admiral Harry Harris, commander of US Pacific Command and named recently as US Ambassador to Australia. According to Harris, “the reality is that China is a disruptive transitional force in the Indo-Pacific, they are the owner of the trust deficit in the region.”
Significantly, the navy chiefs from the Quad nations – US, India, Japan, Australia – all agree on it. So does retired General David Petraeus, the former CIA director and mastermind of the surges in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Neocon ideologue Zalmay Khalilzad, a former US Ambassador to Iraq and Afghanistan, also attended, and duly agreed that by trying to connect all of Eurasia via the Belt and Road, China would “change the international order.”
The Raisina Dialogue fully illustrated the scope of Washington’s terminological pivot from “Asia-Pacific” to “Indo-Pacific”, while detailing the prescription inbuilt in the new Pentagon Defense Strategy.
China – along with Russia – are “revisionist powers” bent on undermining the “international, rules-based order”, especially China with its “predatory economics” which will be fully developed through the Belt and Road program.
So, it was up to Quad to implement a new China containment strategy.
Geopolitically, in Beijing, China-India relations are regarded very seriously, second only in importance to China’s relations with the US. Lately, China-Russia relations have been in the ascendant – mutually exhorted as a “strategic partnership”.
China-Japan relations, meanwhile, may qualify as a distant fourth although vast swathes of the Chinese public appear to consider it the second biggest threat to President Xi Jinping’s “Chinese Dream”.
Yet once Beijing consolidates its influence over key maritime trade routes across East Asia, Japan will cease to be a problem. The real problem is if India ever decides to try to cut or at least interfere with China’s Belt and Road Initiative naval routes – and complex supply lines – across the Indian Ocean.
The key geopolitical question of the 21st century is how the ascension of China will “disrupt” American hegemony and arguably enable a Chinese – actually Eurasian – century.
China and India would have all it takes to be complementary. Both are members of BRICS, the group also comprising Brazil, Russia and South Africa. They are also part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), as well as top nations in the G-20. And yet New Delhi persists on treating Beijing not as a partner but as a threat.
Fear of the rising power
Xi Jinping, for his part, seems to take the Thucydides Trap seriously: when a rising power causes fear in an established power which escalates toward war. Xi has referred to it many times in his speeches.
So, closing the historical circle that started with Alexander, we now have an informed reader from the Middle Kingdom showing respect toward the most eminent historian of Ancient Greece
Xi is, in fact, warning the US, and by proxy, India, not to fall into the mistake that generated the Peloponnesian War, where every player lost.
The fear instilled in Sparta by the ascent of Athens rendered the war inevitable (replace Sparta by Washington/Delhi and Athens by Beijing). Athens was defeated as well as its model of democracy. In fact, the whole of Greece was defeated, its decline acting as a prelude for being conquered by Philip of Macedonia.
Inspired by the maritime expeditions of Admiral Zheng He, Xi’s point is that China is a benevolent power, with the New Silk Road – a massive trade route and a potential multiplier of wealth – developed as the archetypal globalization 2.0 “win-win”.
But, don’t count on India and the Quad to play along.
When we speak of ‘Delhi’ remember we speak of the current administration, at odds with most of India’s other parties, certainly the Congress I party. The mosque-burning BJP is an extremist sectarian party to boot, with a history of devious trouble-making bordering on social vandalism.
But India was still a democracy — the world’s largest — the last time I looked, and Modi’s Zionist tendencies, his fomenting of strife, will not augur for a persistence of the BJP’s disastrous impacts. When India turns back to Ghandian/Nehruan moderation and dumps Modi, the Atlanticist-Zionist-imperialists will have to find another misfit to delay their inevitable decline.
Indias mars expedition was a success where as the chinese failed miserably. ????????????????
Rupesh Nandy Less competation.
As expected, Asia times anti-BJP anti Modi stance comes through. The line are delusions of teh editors of the Asia times. Not worth th epiece of paper it is written on. Todays Hindu is much more aware of Idi’s deep past and it does not rest on few white men writting about us. That delusion falls in teh share of city bread english educated.
The US is using India to disrupt the BRI.
It’s the same moronic thinking in the US that engineered the war on Iraq.
It is sad to see India fall into the US trap.
I believe your source of information is very limited
Бозе Турбан
Guess you are referring to pictures downloaded by Commenters in Forums? They are commenters so I have no idea. The point is that all what you point is true and so are the pictures.
India’s slums, pollution, lack of infrastructure (sewage/tolets/electricity/ water/ housing etc) is not due to poverty but corruption. I know that. Most commenters do not. They assume that India fits the description of that vulgar term Trump used on African nations and for good reason.
China does not fit that picture for Americans.
who uploaded it??? i never seen that?? ? sone saw it but mostly from pakustan…. photoshop picture…..Do y know tye fact Both Google and Microsoft CEO are Indian. ..just go to wiki and check Indian American earn more or Chinies American….. do y know India is first country in world which complete Mars mission in single attempt… forget chinies and o
There is only one way for the USA and India and Japan to go – perhaps taking Vietnam along : and that is an alliance to withstand China. That is underway and inevitable like the alliance against Nazi Germany.
Richard Truong : No! Our interests and those of the USA are not those of twins and I never said that they were. We have certainly made our own destiny in forging mutually benefical ties with our nAsian neighbours to the point where approximately two thirds of our external trade are with our Asian neighbours. One third of our exports go to China alone with Japan, South Korea and India respectively in 2nd, 3rd and 4rh positions. The USA our biggest Western trading partner accounts for only about one eighth of total. There is no other country of Western derivation I know of as "Asia exposed" as this country.
But being a prudent people we do not believe in "stacking all of our eggs in one basket." To balance economic ties with our region with alternative ties with other western lands is not immaturaty but an exercise in "spreading the risk".
Maturity? When any of our Asia-Pacific neighbours can match my country in terms of a long history of incorporating a stability of political rights, civil liberties and rule of law then you can come back and talk to me about "immaturity" then. Until that time comes them I contend that our Asia-Pacific neighbours still have a lot to learn.
Jo Snow
I could not have put it any better.
As Putin once said, there are only three independent countries in the World. And you know who they are. I would say the rest is just fooling themselves thinking they have a game to play.
James Greaves
Treated more as equal if sided with the US? When was the last time Australia made her own strategy over Asia? I doubt its interests coincide with those of the US like twins…
IMHO, Australia is simply not mature and independent enough to be qualified as a nation since its independence from the British Empire. In the long run, Australia will be treated as such and be marginalized in the Pacific. Japan is getting there, even though it used to be a completely independent nation.
John Greene Most developed country got rich by enslave and steal from others. Now no one to enslave or steal from, they are not doing so hot.
You are wrong when you say democracy is a failure since most of the developed countries are democratic. India killed Jinnah? And by your logic if Indian democracy is a failure then how come jinnah’s islamic republic pakistan does economically far worse than the democratic India?
This cheap stereotypical analogy doesn’t hold good since India has reached Mars and china is yet to colonize Mars. Leaving these cheap potshots aside realistically speaking India and china have border issues and china supporting India’s arch nemesis pakistan to protect its terrorists in UN is one of the main reasons for mistrust. Talking of jealousy china is no saint either and can be said china is jealous of rising India which is the the why china is implementing its string of pearls strategy of encircling India in Indian ocean with ith naval bases and using pakistan to keep India embroiled with Terrorists attack in the west flanks and blocking India’s membership in mulilateral groups like NSG and basically opposing India wherever possible From the economic perspective also china has a lot of advantage in keeping India contained just like US likes to keep Russia down with sanctions There is always two sides to geo politics of any region. This article highlights India being closer to the west and paints India and western countries as the bad guys but will never dare to analyze as to what were the reasons which pushed or is pushing India and the western countries closer which is where china belligerence will be exposed.
Luca Taramelli
..and Eon Musk with his space X corporation have overtaken China.
Michael Wang There is no reason to fight Indian head on. There pleanty of them willing to fight them to death already.
Michael Wang
Hindu/ Buddhist India traded wih the Roman Empire and had diplomats in Rome. To have a diplomat means he had to know Latin or had an interpretor. Some examples:
Roman Senate often complained that India is draining Rome of her Gold because Indian merchants would only trade for Gold and refused Roman products as an exchange.
In Pompei a Hindu ivory comb was found. In South India remains of Roman colonies to literature that in some South Indian palaces Roman guards were employed.
When Caligula was assassinated a troupe of Sri Lankan male dancers witnessed it. There are other similar examples.
Ptolemy’s map of the Subcontinent shows Sri Lanka much larger than India due to the importance of her ports.
Emperor Ashoka sent Buddhist emissaries to Egypt in order to spread Buddhism (300 BC)
Then there is the Greco (Hellenistic) influence due to Alexander the Great. Hellenism along with local Indian art gave birth to the face of the Buddha under the Gandharan School. before that there was no image of the Buddha., only symbols ( bo tree, palm lotus, throne, etc). Much more.
As for wars Yashad is right. Ancient Hindu and Buddhist India had vast armies and Hindu India perfected steel. She gave steel to the world. Damascus Steel came from Hindu India. over 100 thousand recorded weapons.
Michael Wang
Hindu/ Buddhist India traded wih the Roman Empire and had diplomats in Rome. To have a diplomat means he had to know Latin or had an interpretor. Some examples:
Roman Senate often complained that India is draining Rome of her Gold because Indian merchants would only trade for Gold and refused Roman products as an exchange.
In Pompei a Hindu ivory comb was found. In South India remains of Roman colonies to literature that in some South Indian palaces Roman guards were employed.
When Caligula was assassinated a troupe of Sri Lankan male dancers witnessed it. There are other similar examples.
Ptolemy’s map of the Subcontinent shows Sri Lanka much larger than India due to the importance of her ports.
Emperor Ashoka sent Buddhist emissaries to Egypt in order to spread Buddhism (300 BC)
Then there is the Greco (Hellenistic) influence due to Alexander the Great. Hellenism along with local Indian art gave birth to the face of the Buddha under the Gandharan School. before that there was no image of the Buddha., only symbols ( bo tree, palm lotus, throne, etc). Much more.
As for wars Yashad is right. Ancient Hindu and Buddhist India had vast armies and Hindu India perfected steel. She gave steel to the world. Damascus Steel came from Hindu India. over 100 thousand recorded weapons.