 Hello and welcome to NewsClick. We have with us Ambassador Bhadrakumar, who used to be in the Indian Foreign Service and ambassador to Turkey at one point, played a very important role in Indian foreign policy, particularly in a certain area. Coming to the G20, which is taking place right now. Ambassador Bhadrakumar, do you see any specific role that G20 has today, particularly in the context that there is a Ukraine war, there is a NATO, Russia standoff on Ukraine, and of course there is also, with respect to China, the US-China tech war, which of course uses Taiwan as a kind of peace, centerpiece of that, particularly from the US side, but really a much wider war, technological war, economic war if you will. So what role do you see of G20? Well, on G20, let's recall in the first instance, its genesis. It was born in the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2007-2008, when it became extremely apparent for anyone and everyone that the G7, which used to be the locus of economic diplomacy, of economic order and political order therefore, that has changed and the locus has shifted out away from the G7. And therefore the western countries, in particularly Obama, felt that there was a requirement to assimilate these changes. So what they try to do is they try to assimilate these changes without surrendering their leadership role, the leadership role that was the product of this Bretton Woods system. They tried to contrive to continue, but appearance-wise, giving what we call the global south today, for the emerging powers at that time, is say. Because you see, without that, the danger was there that the emerging powers will, from their platform, start challenging the western supremacy, the western hegemony over the economic order. So you see, it was really geopolitical in that sense, the formation of the G20. And a lot of help was available from countries such as India, which were aware that it would be a subaltern role, but some role will be better than no role. And India coming on board meant that G20 attracted a lot of other countries, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, like that, Indonesia, and so on. But since then, what has happened is in 2010, the Americans introduced the pivot to Asia. Their own assumptions regarding China's rise that they would be able to absorb and they would be able to reform China in the sense that they would be able to make introduced liberal democracy in China and so on, that was the earlier motion. All those things apart, they almost came to the conclusion that China is what it will determine itself to be. And it will not be a prototype of the western world. And so you see, this China's rise was in qualitative terms, was perceived differently, began to be felt differently. And that led to the announcement of the pivot to Asia. Confundation wasn't there at that point to the extent that we see today when we speak even about a possibility of war. But the kind of the tongue that was there between the United States and within the western world in China, that started receding. It gave way to competition. So you see, that was one factor there. But when we come to today's moment, what really changed matters is that much as we are not aware of it, there is a kind of bipolarity sitting in the world order. It's a curious, it's not the bipolarity that we saw in the Cold War era because there is the western world and the non-western world. And in the non-western world, everything is not together as one chunk, one alien system or anything. There are distant voices, there are lots of powers which have come, which are autonomously working, Iran for example. But there's a very big slice of the world community, which is not willing to identify with the West. Ukraine thing has brought it to the fore with a brightness which even shocked the Americans. The fact is they are isolated now, the West is isolated. And other countries are just mutely watching. They refuse to impose sanctions against Russia. And then the kind of behavior on the part of the western countries, that has also shocked the other countries because they're freezing the assets of another country. It was completely contrary to the promise that pledged that the United States made in the early 1970s when the dollar replaced gold as the world currency. Now you see, it was that decision, that transformation took place on the basis of an understanding that the United States is committed and the United States made the commitment that it will allow purchasing power in dollars for all countries in the world. And Saudi Arabia then said that the trading in oil will take place in dollars, that the trading houses in London or wherever they will also trade in dollars. And all countries needed to trade in dollars. On the basis of that, countries kept their reserves in dollars in the Western banks. And then suddenly this has never happened before like this. In the case of Russia, it's a massive amount of 300 billion dollars, which is just frozen. And it's money that the country earned, its income was appropriated. So this is like in the wild west in American history, that the strong man can do what he likes. So you see, a lot of countries are watching this. Now for example, in Washington Post had a report, a leaked report and it's an establishment paper. So it was done with a purpose, whoever has leaked it, a CIA report on the United Arab Emirates. And it's very interesting, the CIA has given a report saying that just as the United States, at least their pressure was manipulating the American politics, domestic politics. United Arab Emirates, UAE has interfered in a very significant way in American politics, driving their way through and so on. It's a very nasty report. It says it's a one step away from threatening that it qualifies for American sanctions. So there may be again, OPEC plus, etc. Now why are these countries today going to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS? Because they see the writing on the wall that tomorrow, if there is going to be an unpleasant encounter with the Americans on any plane, they have to be watchful and all their assets are kept in the western banks. So you see, this is the world that we are living in today. Therefore, when I said multi-polarity, it is multi-polarity in one sense, west versus the rest. And within the rest, there is again a certain strategic autonomy that countries are working out. Now, therefore, for example, Saudi Arabia was being a very strong supporter of the United States. That was the only reason it qualified itself to be a member of the G20. Because Saudi Arabia's credentials, it's just an economy built on just one commodity. But the Americans wanted it to be there because it was there. But today, see where the situation is. So it illustrates Turkey, a NATO member. And so Americans assume that it is going to sing the American tune all the time. But today, Erdogan is on a path of his own. It's an interesting picture that you're drawing out. And this is something that we have been watching in a different way. We looked at the trade that, for instance, the United States had in, say, 70s and 80s up to the 90s, that at that point of time, the US was a major trading partner of most countries in the world. Today, it's China. If we look at the European Union, its major engineering industry, in fact, its industry plus its domestic energy consumption, was met with Russian gas and oil, as well as coal, in fact. So that was the major source of energy, while the Chinese today have become the largest global trading partner for 80% of the country or 70% of the countries in the world. So this is the change that we see, that primary commodities is, US is a bit of an outlier on that because it does do agriculture, it has energy, reserves and so on. But otherwise, if we take all the other advanced capitalist countries, as you would say, they're all dependent today on finance. They neither have energy, nor do they do primary commodities, nor do they do manufacturing. So the world focus, therefore, shifting as you have pointed out, there is a larger economic productive base to that, and that's manifest itself. And also, we have map showing, as you were talking, that we have, what is G7 in terms of the world economy or in terms of world's population? What is the amount of area they occupy in the world compared to the rest? And the only continent, which is not represented in G20, apart from South Africa, is actually Africa. That is very weakly present. As I said, only one country from Africa is present. So it doesn't seem to represent also the rest of the globe in a meaningful way. And what you're pointing out on the reports that we are also getting from G20 from Bali, that the West has come with a fortress mentality. It doesn't want to engage in any discussion. Its one point agenda is to, what you exactly have said, to basically delegitimize G20 because it serves no purpose. So they want to go back to their G7 and tell the rest of the world what they think should happen. That seems to be the trajectory Bali is going to follow, after which India is going to be the president of G20, but essentially president of something which seems to be, according to you and according to the reports that we seem to get, that the rest of the world is not interested anymore in G20. It doesn't serve their purpose anymore. That's the whole point. It doesn't serve their purpose because it was conceived for entirely different reasons and on the basis of assumptions which have proven to be no longer relevant, those things. We are seeing right in front of us the transformation that is taking place in the international system. Now nobody expected this to just erupt so suddenly. The war in Ukraine has introduced a terrible beauty actually in the international system that for the first time there is a strategic defense of the weaponization of sanctions. Look at Iran for example, a country which has been under sanctions ever since its birth of the Islamic Republic. It has not seen a day in its life without American sanctions and now today it has come to a situation that a superpower for fighting a war is taking help from Iran. So the world has changed. That is something which we have to accept. We cannot separate actually in my opinion the international economic order and the political order because in the way that these things have flown through history, good politics is always about economics and without economics politics doesn't make sense. So you see this is how you know it is. I would just add that your strategic dimension to this geography also plays a role and if you go back to Mackinder who said the world island is really Eurasia and then there is this other island called America, North America and what happens in Eurasia, the world island that will decide the future and that's what the US problem today is. The Eurasian land mass is getting out of their control. The economy, the geopolitics, which is geography and of course people that's what is really good in terms of the... No, Mackinder's theory is proving right actually and the Americans came up with their counter theory of this so-called island theory that if you control the seas... Oceans, the ocean theory, control North Atlantic, control Pacific, then you can control... Then you are the king. You really look at it and if you put a checklist in front of you, where is it that China has done something against the United States? Never. Its attitude is always one of readiness to work with the United States and it is very happy with the interdependency there. So it is all about hegemony and the western countries are... Its very existence and the size of its economy and its growth makes it a danger. That's the way the United States is. So coming to our area, this is a manifestation of what's something that we need to expect now that multilateralism, the way that we understood multilateralism. This is not only G20 and you are a great expert on climate. After all the Hullabaloo about climate in Scotland and all that, that summit and all, where are things today? Its gone to the back burner and important countries are not even showing up there in Egypt. So multilateralism, trade, WTO, so you say trade, G20, climate, all these are showing the stresses and strains that have come into world politics and the kind of fracturing that has taken place where it is becoming very difficult to really resort to consensual politics and at the same time no single country is any longer capable of solving the world's problems. So it's a combination of circumstances also that way. As the Chinese saying says, we live in interesting times and that means we live in dangerous times. The world changing particularly when the one hegemon and even if a multipolar world arises, it is a dangerous moment in history because no empire lets go of its hegemony politely and slowly. That is where we are at at the moment. A dangerous moment in history because we are seeing wars continue now involving major powers who have the ability to destroy the world many times over while the other wars haven't gone away. Your wars in Africa that are taking place with United States having a number of military bases which they don't even tell you how many bases they have and so on. But nevertheless what you have pointed out is absolutely today the fulcrum of the shall we say the new era around which it will hinge which is United States and China. How this contradiction play out and of course what's happening in Europe which is really NATO versus Russia in Ukraine. These are the two really hot you know. I must add one caveat that I do not expect even in another 10 years time or something after China has overtaken the United States. I do not I'm not convinced if somebody says that China will behave the same way as the Americans. You see the China's behavior will be very different. So and that is why I said that there will be multipolarity available space for multipolarity is something that China will concede and China is not going to take a discussion. I'll come back to you this question because I have a theory why it is so that land trade which is what is the crux of China a lot of the Belt Road initiative is really that is has to be cooperative unlike maritime trade which actually can be one to one. And in fact that is why you have seen the European powers behaved very differently with respect to hegemony than the landed even earlier empires seem to have done. But that's a longer discussion. But I completely agree with you that China the way they have developed their trade has been through a cooperative exercise. But as I said yes particularly India and China we know that we have a contradiction because of the borders we share and therefore of course that is always a fertile ground for tension. But apart from that India China Russia all of them are major land powers so is Iran and Turkey therefore the Eurasian land. They have shared common interest they have common interest and this is what this is the tragedy of the situation. One of the things you know that the western world is exploiting is that you know that the kind of unity that is possible and it can be very dangerous. So somehow it should not take shape in that way you know even this price cap and this Treasury Secretary's arrival here why is it so important for the United States that India India's position because it's an Asian country and he are talking about another Asian power Russia and there is another Asian power to the east which is China. So you know if a common ground you know develops between these three powers then the game is over you know it's a check and checkmate that is the problem. And of course you have Turkey at one hand and Southeast Asia on the other but again one day I mentioned about the I mentioned about the Washington Post article. Yes this is again out of sheer frustration you know frustration that you know that Biden went there to that region in August and personally took a and this time now we're about to you have seen in the newspapers that Washington Post article sensationalizing that there is going to be an imminent Iranian attack on Saudi Arabia. So the Americans immediately put their forces on alert and pledged that they will move heaven and earth to see that Saudi Arabia comes to no harm. Saudis were not impressed they didn't even open their mouths they were just not they ignored in fact the American pledge you know. So you see this region which is so important for the western world you mentioned rightly that Americans are now no longer importers in that sense they are not dependent on the Middle East oil but Europe is we have seen it Europe is and the whole crisis today in Europe is this boomerang from the sanctions against Russia. It has come to haunt them because as you correctly said you know the prosperity of Germany has been built on two pillars one is the cheap predictable seamless quantities of oil you know which are possibly to be brought in through pipelines and yes brought in through pipelines from Russia and secondly the cheap goods from China. Now these are so you know see Schultz has gone to China you know because and you know the we need actually a bigger discussion on this because you know we need to really explore what prompted the United States in fact to destroy the Nord Stream pipelines. See where it is going to Germany is their strong ally and the Germans just came to the point of saying that we know who's done it but we will not say. So you know that is up to that point they have come so if they could do this to their their closest ally Germany and for this you can see what a high stakes game this has become.