The veteran US diplomat and former US National Security Adviser John Bolton throws light on the various international issues which the world faces today.
“The Indo-US bilateral relations are going to be one most important for the US in the 21st century. China I think from the US perspective is an existential threat potentially of the 21st century. The other main player in the world scene for the rest of the century will be India. The relations between the two democracies India and the US are based on many common values” tells Bolton.
He adds that attention to India would inevitably grow in the future which is critical geopolitically. There are lot of many issues that need to be discussed between India and the USA. Whoever is elected President in November whether Trump is reelected or Biden the new administration would have to spend lot more time on India.
According to him, we live in a world with challenges where there is strategic threat from Russia and China, proliferation threat from Iran, the nuclear and biological threat from North Korea, and terrorism. The cold war was a very dangerous period but it was static because of the nuclear standoff between the Soviet Union and the USA. Its a more chaotic world that we live in today with many more challenges.
He noted that the much of the rest of the world has made two mistakes about China in the last 30 or 40 years; we believed first that the economic growth and freedom that took place in China would make it abide by the international rules which turned out not to be true. Secondly, we thought if China becomes more prosperous then their representative government would spread from village election to provincial election to national election which also turned out not to be true.
He adds Xi Xingping is the most powerful leader after Mao Tse Tung and there is no sign of the spread of representative government. So on the basis of these two mistakes, a lot of policy has been made which needs to be reexamined. I think the idea that China engages in the peaceful rise and becoming a responsible stakeholder in the world affairs were based on the analysis that China would play by the rules and make it more democratic so I don’t think rise has been peaceful and I also don’t think it is a responsible stakeholder.
He underlines that I don’t think that there is any doubt that beginning January or as far back as November last year, according to South Morning Post when the first Covid 19 case was uncovered the Chinese engaged in extensive misinformation around the world. It locked down the free news reporting in China and till date we don’t know the effect inside China. The statistics comparing the spread of the disease in the USA, Europe, Latin America and now in India or elsewhere in the world look makes it look it completely solved in China which is impossible to believe. We also don’t know the economic impact on China.
He says the ISIS territorial caliphate has been eliminated which is a significant victory. But ISIS remains a powerful force in Iraq and Syria and even in Afghanistan. He tells the Taliban remains as dangerous as ever. They don’t have intentions of honoring the peace deal they had. The harboring of terrorists whether ISIS, Al Qaeda, and the Taliban remain a severe problem. I was very skeptical for talks with the Taliban from the beginning.This could be destabilizing in South Asia and the other side of the Middle East.
Pakistan is part of the problem and the solution both in containing terrorism. I don’t think that it is in the long term interest of Pakistan to aspire to these terrorists who commit the crime in India and within their own country and around the world. There is nothing like good terrorism or bad terrorism adds Bolton.
Courtesy DD News
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