Is it a post ideological world?

Gradually, in this post Cold War era, immediate national interests are overwhelmingly superseding commitment to creeds and declared faiths, which have defined one's identity for aeons.

Recently two important events, separate at the surface but with a common theme of global security running, took place within three days of each other. In both, China was a common factor. On March 10, China successfully brokered a détente between two estranged Islamic nations - Saudi Arabia and Iran, with ramifications on who would control the levers of the Islamic world.

The importance of the peace accord also lies in this bringing together of two hostile sects of Islam - Shia and Sunni, their blood feud dating back to over a thousand years. While China was the initiator in the Saudi-Iran détente, it was a target of another equally important development, which followed within days.

On March 13, the US, the UK and Australia announced the AUKUS deal aimed at countering the rapidly expanding Chinese military challenge in the Indo-Pacific with US-made 'Virginia' class nuclear-powered conventionally-armed submarines that have the Chinese mainland in their crosshairs while staying outside Beijing's strike range.

Though India seemingly doesn't figure in either of these two seemingly diverse events, they both have consequential implications for its defence, as it is at the centre of the Indo-Pacific.

The upside of the AUKUS deal for India is that China will be deterred, by the presence of powerful navies in the Indo-Pacific, from undertaking any hostile move. China obviously is upset over this development. Last week, it warned the AUKUS trio that they have taken a dangerous road. "The deal," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin told the media, "will stimulate an arms race, undermine the international nuclear nonproliferation system and damage regional peace and stability."

In September 2021, the three countries announced the AUKUS, described in the recent joint statement as "a new security partnership that will promote free and open Indo-Pacific that is secure and stable." China has repeatedly accused the AUKUS and the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) - of which India and Japan, besides the US and Australia, are members - as blocs designed to encircle it. Russia, which has sought to shore up its ties with China, also accused the West of fomenting "years of confrontation" in the Asia-Pacific region.

Are we moving to a post ideological world, where immediate national interests overwhelmingly supersede commitment to creeds and declared faiths, which have defined one's identity for aeons? With Mecca and Madina - the two holiest of Islamic places under its control, Saudi Arabia is considered to be a natural leader of Islamic world, and a global custodian of Islamic faith. Most of the Muslims all over the globe, particularly of Sunni persuasion, look up to Saudi Arabia for help and guidance in matters relating to spreading and defending the faith. Over 80 percent of the global Muslim population is Sunni.

Moreover, Saudi Arabia is a long-standing ally of the US. Still it had no compunctions in accepting and acknowledging publicly the mediatory role of China, which is locked in an all-round confrontation with the US, and has been persecuting its Muslim minority in an unabashed manner. The New York Times noted: "This is among the tipsiest and turviest of developments anyone could have imagined, a shift that led heads spinning in capitals around the globe."

Muslims, who constitute less than 2 percent of the Chinese population, are mostly found in its northwest provinces of Xinjiang, Gansu and Ningxia. Since 2014, the Chinese regime has incarcerated over a million Turkic Muslims in internment camps. Hundreds of thousands of children have been forcibly separated from their parents and sent to boarding schools to obliterate their ethnic and religious identity.

The Chinese government has frequently resorted to forced sterilisations and abortions of the locals in order to reduce their numbers. Birth rates in the mostly Uyghur regions of Hotan and Kashigar fell by 60 percent between 2015 and 2018. To ensure forced assimilation of Xinjiang, the Chinese government is resorting to ethnocide and cultural genocide.

In an assessment by the United Nation Human Right Office, the UN stated that China's policies and actions in the Xinjiang region may be a crime against humanity. Uyghurs are a Turkic ethnic group, native to Xinjiang and are distinct from Han Chinese, the predominant ethnic group in China.

Pakistan, born as an Islamic nation, that has been crying itself hoarse over the alleged "atrocities on Kashmiri Muslims by the Indian State", has not only been absolutely silent over the mayhem in Xinjiang but has reduced itself to a China's sidekick. China has leveraged its substantial economic, trade and lately military relations with both Iran and Saudi Arabia to broker a deal and this cannot but enhance its diplomatic credibility and international posture.

Is it safe to assume that the world is moving to a post ideological scenario? A difficult question to answer. But how one explains genuflection by three declared Islamic nations - Iran, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to a Marxist China, which is ruthlessly persecuting its Muslim citizens to completely subsume their Islamic identity. This development also gives a credence to the theory that Pakistan's overt and covert support to Jehadis in India has little to do with its commitment to Islam. It's just using gullible sections of Indian Muslims, particularly in Kashmir valley, as a fodder to promote its foreign policy interests.

The origin of the China-brokered Saudi Arabia and Iran détente goes back to Chinese President Xi Jinping's visit to Riyadh in December 2022 when he met leaders of 21 Arab League countries, with the support of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. While Iran was not represented, the foundations for the Saudi-Iran détente was laid during that visit. Jinping could pull it off this unthinkable agreement because Beijing has ties with all the players of the Islamic world including Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran and the Central Asian Republics, and, of course, its satellite Pakistan.

India has good reasons to feel disturbed over this development. China already has a naval base in Djibouti on the East African seaboard, a military post in Tajikistan, financial or strategic interests in Hambantota port in Sri Lanka, Gwadar port in Pakistan, Khalifa port in UAE and Duqm port in Oman. China is aiming to restrict India in its own region.

However, the geopolitical situation is not favourable to China. The confrontation with the US is escalating, with Taiwan becoming a dangerous fault line in China US relations. Its strategic partner, Russia, is bogged down in its war in Ukraine and relations with Europe have worsened.

China's signature Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has come to naught in various partner countries. The world is becoming alive to its debt-trap diplomacy. (Please see details in my column "China - A Shylock Of Our Times" posted on this portal on 18th March 2023.) Even the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has run into serious problems. There are obviously limits to Beijing's outreach.

However, whether the Iran-Saudi deal survives and China's new role sustains remains to be seen. China has now decided to strongly support Russia over Ukraine, in contrast to India's calibrated position. Will it lead to emergence of a new power calculus, in which the three Islamic nations, China and Russia would be one block, controlling a major part of global hydrocarbon reserves?

From India's perspective, AUKUS underlines a vital change in US regional strategy for the Indo-Pacific. Earlier, the US sought to promote regional security unilaterally through its own military capabilities. As it comes to terms with the enormous scale of the military challenges that China presents, Washington is now eager to boost the strategic capabilities of its allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific.

India is locked in a bitter border standoff with China for over half a century and has a hostile Pakistan breathing down its neck for long. It has no option but to step up its own international strategic outreach in tandem with countries like the US, the UK, Australia and Japan, and continue with its bonding with the Middle East and Russia, along with initiatives to strengthen defence ties with African nations.

(Mr. Balbir Punj is a Former Member of Parliament and a Columnist. He can be reached at: [email protected])

Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are the personal opinions of the author. The facts and opinions appearing in the article do not reflect the views of OneIndia and OneIndia does not assume any responsibility or liability for the same.