Obama and Xi Jinping meet: economics to the fore

 
June 5, 2013, 8:08 pm

In this Feb. 14, 2012, file photo President Barack Obama and Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping, left, engage media during their Oval Office meeting at the White House in Washington. When Obama and Jinping meet again at week’s end for an unusual two-day summit at a Southern California estate, Obama will be looking for signs of seriousness in China’s recent private pledges to address cyberhacking, which he has said is a rapidly growing threat to national security. This while keeping present that it is China, whose help will be needed to stem nuclear threats from North Korea and Iran, to curtail the violence in Syria, and to build on the U.S. economic recovery. (AP)

Lenin’s historic project of the communist state, helped in no small measure at the time, to impress on the world, that there is a strong viable alternative to capitalism and its political and social institutions. If not for the strength of character of the political figures just mentioned, Ahimsa and communism would not have explosively eme-rged upon the stage of human history, to the degree to which they did. 

The following poser by a Western journalist, raised against the backdrop of the upcoming meeting between US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping in the US, should, ideally, provoke a robust debate internationally on the issues at the heart of it. It was as follows: ‘Can great leaders really shape the world we live in? Or are they mere figureheads carried along by the unstoppable economic and demographic flood-tides of human history?’

A thought-provoking poser indeed in the face of growing evidence that ‘economics drive politics’, particularly in these times of market-led growth. There is also the almost universal, overwhelming acceptance of neo-liberal ism, and its socio-economic and political fallout, that one needs to take into account, for, ideologically, the world seems to have drifted unmistakably in a Right-ward direction. So, political personalities, however charismatic they may prove to be, have very little to do with how the world is taking shape, apparently.

Yet, major political figures, have, to a degree, left the imprint of their thinking and personalities on the happenings of history. Just two such personalities are Mahatma Gandhi and V.I. Lenin. While hardly anything need be said further by way of elaboration on the profound contribution made by Gandhi to political thought and the nourishing of humanism worldwide, it may not be sufficiently realized in this the heyday of market economics, that Lenin helped usher in a socio- political order in Russia, which from the perspective of his day and age, was of unheard of revolutionary proportions.

Lenin’s historic project of the communist state, helped in no small measure at the time, to impress on the world, that there is a strong viable alternative to capitalism and its political and social institutions. If not for the strength of character of the political figures just mentioned, Ahimsa and communism would not have explosively emerged upon the stage of human history, to the degree to which they did.

That said, the question could be raised whether we have had in the latter decades of the 20th century and after, any ‘History Makers’ of stature, who have helped in ‘changing the course of political and social history’, so to speak. To be sure, there have been revolutionary changes in science and technology, in the times in focus, but such changes do not come within the scope of this commentary, which is confined to political and social change of a revolutionary nature.

These issues gain their relevance from the question posed earlier whether contemporary ‘leaders’ can, indeed, shape the contours of the world we live in. What adds to the urgency of the question is the upcoming Obama-Xi Jinping meet. A relevant historical backdrop to these concerns, some Western commentators tend to believe, is the Reagan-Gorbachev meeting of 1985, which is seen as having ushered revolutionary changes in international politics, and paved the way for the eventual crumbling of the Cold War and connected developments of great historical import.

But what does an unprecedented warming of Sino-US ties, if such a development does come to pass, hold for the rest of the world? To begin with, if there is a "dynamic" of the old Cold War kind which exists in Sino-US ties today, it is purely of an economic kind. If at all there would be a ‘positive’ outcome from the Obama-Xi meet, it would be in the ongoing economic squabbles or ‘trade and currency wars’ between the US and China, where some mutual accommodation to meet their concerns could be expected between the powers. Any major and primary benefits from these adjustments would be for only the powers concerned and not for the rest of the world.

However, since over 60 percent of China’s GDP is derived from trade the world over, a further improvement in China’s economic prospects could benefit those countries with which China engages in trade, and these include a considerable number of developing countries. Accordingly, there could be some ‘spin-off’ benefits from the Obama – Xi meet for the rest of the world, but these are not positives one could gloat over.

A better understanding between the Chinese and US Presidents could also improve the security climate in the Asia-Pacific region, where the powers concerned are competing for influence and control. Recently, US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was quoted telling Asian countries that despite budget reductions, the ‘Pentagon will continue to shift troops, ships and aircraft to the Pacific region.’ Meanwhile, China is giving indications of expanding its security and military ties in particularly the Indian Ocean region.

Accordingly, a rapid warming of Sino-US relations could help in improving the security climate in the Asia-Pacific region, but this is hardly the stuff revolutionary changes in world politics are made of. At most, one could expect a de-escalation of sorts in the competition between the US and China for spheres of influence in the Asiatic region.

Moreover, it is the drastic tilt in the global economic power balance in favour of East and South East Asia which is setting the stage for a stepped-up US and Chinese military presence in the regions concerned. With the increasing economic disempowerment of the West, it is the East which is gaining in significance for the major economic powers. Accordingly, our current predominant world political leaders are being ‘shaped’ by the world they live in, to a considerable degree, and are of little influence in determining its contours.