 Hello and welcome to NewsClick as 2020 comes to an end, we are going to be taking a look at the global geopolitical scenario, the major developments, the major trends and what it implies for both 2021 and the coming years. We have with us Prabir Prakash. Prabir, thank you so much for joining us. So this has been of course a very, to say, chaotic and eventful year. It's a bit of an understatement. We started with of course the assassination of Kasim Suleymani very early on and since then so much has happened, the increased U.S. pressure in West Asia, the U.S.-China trade and tech wars, a lot of say changes in Latin America for instance. But to look at the overall picture, I maybe wanted to start out by asking that at this point of time with the Trump administration leaving a new administration likely to come, how would you see the balance of power so to speak specifically with regard to the United States and its role which it has played for many years as some sort of a global policeman? What we're talking about is a much larger span of time in which the western world really has hegemonized over the rest of the globe. So we're not really talking about just the United States and its role of the global hegemon which it has played since the 90s. But we're really talking of something much larger which really starts with the colonial expansion of Western Europe, its maritime empires, its colonies and then of course the imperial division of the world. Following the Second World War, the emergence of the socialist bloc, of course the Soviet Union in 1917, all of this did play a role. But let's face it, the global economy was controlled by the West, the Soviet Union was an outlier in this. It had a socialist bloc of countries but it was still quite small economically compared to the rest of the world. Its political significance came with its supports for the anti-colonial wars and that really gave it some space. But economically still it was not a very big bloc compared to what we had as the western world which was really western Europe and the United States. And of course post-1919, when you talk about the emergence of the United States as a global hegemon, this makes it appear that the 21st century was going to be the American century. This is what people had predicted. I think we have had a very sharp turnaround in the early, starting from the early 21st century to now, that in 20 years it has become clear that the United States is no longer the global policeman who dictates to rest of the world what they should do or they shouldn't do. That role seems to have eroded. This is one thing that's happening and in this of course the rise of China and the reemergence of Russia as a pole of at least military power has made a difference. It's clear now that with the kind of sanctions that the United States imposed both and Russia now and China, it's really pushing these two together. So even if there were at some point differences that they had with respect to their borders and so on, all of that has been submerged now under the kind of pressures both have come under, the Russians under military pressure, the expansion of the NATO towards the east which has been ringed in by other countries, the missile bases right on its borders. It's feared that the United States is now really developing first strike capabilities with following that with anti-missile batteries which will restrict this any second strike. So complete nuclear dominance over Russia seems to be the objective and this is a military objective because Russia is no longer a major player economically. But what it has done is it has made the competitor to Russia to United States which is Russia militarily to align with China which is really the long-term competitor for the United States economically. So that's one thing that it has forced on these two countries. Now they have become much closer even at the early phase of socialism where both were socialists therefore they were talking to each other and they were close to each other. I think this has driven them much closer than even that. So I think that's something which is changing in the world. The second thing I think is a decline of the United States with respect to the rest of the world that it is no longer if you look at the economic production say of the United States or Western Europe put together it's no longer the dominant economic block that it used to be in the 50s, 60s and even in the end of 90s. So you see that transition which has taken place and this is not surprising because after all it was Asia which was the center of power before this 500 years rise of Western Europe and of course the expansion of Western Europe into the settler colonialism which is the United States, Canada, Australia and to some extent for sometimes South Africa but now Israel. These are the settler colonial states and this axis which really saw itself as the global arbiters of everything. I think that erosion is significant it's not going to come back. Now you know a lot of the people have thought about the sanctions on China, the sanctions on Russia as something which is being done by the United States may not be completely correct but what did all fail to realize is that it has completely destroyed the WTO architecture which you are supposed to have a trading regime which is governed by purely trading considerations and there is an arbiter which is the World Trade Organization there is a dispute settlement mechanism all of that has been really bypassed by the United States under what's called really the nuclear option claiming national security you can actually bypass all of these trade rules that have been set up. So you also have the destruction of the trading architecture which was built over a period of time and which was thought to ensure that the United States and the European powers will be able to control the global economy so that is also fallen. So I think you are seeing a transition which is not just Trump Biden and so on but a much longer transition that's going on at the moment and Trump within that may have played a kind of maverick role so to say you know doing various things which were completely unpalatable to large sections of the world opinion also to its some of its own people but nevertheless the larger trajectory has not really changed I think that remains constant that how to manage the conflict may have different strategic tactics shall we say or between Biden and Trump one more the sledgehammer the other trying to create blocks of different kinds trying to isolate Russia and China but I think the basic trajectory is still going to be same it is the weakening of the United States it's a question what is Western Europe going to do is it going to hitch its wagon still to the United States will it try to find a certain via media is its future in Eurasia or its future with North America namely the United States these are question Western Europe or European countries will have to find and I think for the rest of the world it is coming to terms particularly Asia but the most of the economic development taking place has to come to terms that they cannot do with the hostility to China and aligning with the United States only outlier is in this with this entire process is India and part of it was triggered by the northern borders of India and the tensions that have taken place recently but also the fact that it sees itself as a counterweight to China and therefore if it comes close to the United States can it therefore get certain benefits out of this relationship and this is this is something that the Indian strategic community here has been pressing for a long time that India should become an ally of the United States because you want to compete with China this is something a lot of the international experts in India have been advising against saying that India is too big a country it should have strategic autonomy the question is not alliance with A or B it's a question of strategic autonomy it has interests which it has common with China it has interest which is at contradiction with China this is the strategic expert community's belief but that is slowly being taken over by the military belief of what the other section is the military elite who really think everything in military terms but unfortunately or for the country wars are not the way that India and China will resolve this conflict it will have to be resolved at the negotiating table at some point with give and take from both sides but at the other other part of it economic relations with India and China if they remain as as it is threatening to do it's actually harmful for both the countries it's not going to help anybody in this India will suffer more because of smaller economy and if it decides to do without the Chinese market then its consequences that India is not going to find that kind of a market easily in rest of the world China is going to be the biggest market in the world in the foreseeable future I think that's a big risk Indian strategic community is taking by pushing India into this collision course with China I think that's these are some of the issues that I see before me today and I think what both India and the Americans and the Europeans have to understand what rest of the world seems to understand that this is not something which will be resolved between India China and the United States or Europe the rest of the world needs China it needs European countries and it needs India and whether we like it or not the United States is a big player will continue to be big player we need them as well the question is will they settle this in negotiations give and take competition as well as some tensions or will they try to fracture the world which is where the United States currently is heading I just wanted to return to the China Russia aspect and focus on one specific angle which is that of for lack of better word we've been framing it as a war in the realm of technology and this also has very long-term implications because the very future of communications is very much at stake and China has invested a lot in this sector as well so considering the kind of sanctions that especially this year the United States and for that has imposed and has been pressuring its allies to impose how do we see the prospect of China's development in this sector this is of course communication specifically 5G but also technology engine you know the the battle that has been now launched against China is that wherever United States has an advantage whether they can use that advantage to create sanctions against Chinese industries and force them to a smaller place in the global economy so if we look at the two large sets of sanctions which have taken place and I'm it makes it actually quite funny one of it is of course the communication Huawei that is publicly known the second has been into what I call do-it-yourself drones now these are small drones which have been manufactured by China they have taken over the world because they'll be useful lots of different services you have the drones which fly over a small arena taking videos from the air it is used for surveys the whole bunch of applications this is really low tech compared to anything else because the chipset which goes into the drone is also the chipset which goes into your cell phone so if you look at the connection the connection is really the kind of mechanism by which you can see the watch your phone understands where you are the GPS signal it knows the orientation that's why you know the picture keeps on turning if you change your mobile from a portrait to a landscape configuration so that's a gyroscopic effect which is there in the gyroscopic chips which are there so all of these are essentially what makes the drones work okay now this chipset as I said is same to mobile so that is why you also have sanctions against now companies which use drones and this of course has military implications because it's believed that drone warfare is going to change the a certain part of the military options that countries have and obviously if you see what is being done with Saudi Arabia and Yemen this is obvious because drones were used against Aramco and so on by the Libyan sorry by the Yemeni forces so drones play a very peculiar role but the reason it plays the role is the same reason that the mobile chipsets are affected the same reasons Huawei is affected because the chip making capability that may be there with China but the point is the machines which really create the chipsets those machines are not yet with China and they are at least five to ten years behind in technology so if they accelerate probably in three to four years they will have the chip chip making capability which for instance Taiwan has which Samsung has actually the United States also doesn't have those chip making capabilities but they produce the machines which produce the chips so it's a really a set of technologies which is not as seamless as it now appears that they are discrete components of it which countries hold and the United States in spite of the fact it has lost manufacturing it seems still to hold the technology which produces the machines which then produces the chips so the software the hardware how all of it goes together the optical the etching process various elements of it of course there are Japanese companies there are European countries which also do this but it does seem that without the United States there is a problem that China is going to have so they have tried to leverage that and then make this as the spear point of their attack on Chinese technology the flip side of this is yes they can certainly harm Huawei's growth as they seem to have done but this don't seem to have succeeded in stopping Huawei entering the German market there are some reports now Germany is going to allow Huawei to come back to 5G or the costs otherwise are too high already about two-third of the German market for 5G 4G itself is with Huawei therefore the switch to 5G without Huawei is going to be too high a cost so they're reconsidering it but I think the more important part of it is that they are forcing China to develop everything themselves in chip making which means the biggest market in the world for chips which is China is going to be in the future lost but to the Chinese American manufacturers and I think that is the double-edged sword that if we use sanctions in this particular way you may harm the Chinese growth for at least next three four five years you may allow competition to Huawei in 5G to develop so it's a they're able to fight or the more even kill the Huawei's lead may erode but at the same time you're also going to lose the market which you had in China and this is the fracturing of the market between the US and the Chinese that seems to be taking place the so-called disengagement the so-called you know breaking away the interlocking trade and economic relationship both of these countries have and this this initiative is coming clearly from the United States they believe that if they don't isolate the Chinese today then they will lose their economic dominance tomorrow but the point is it is not possible to make this fracture happen and then isolate China from rest of the world which is what the United States is really aiming for obviously Africa is in is not going to go with China on that Southeast Asia and East Asia with the RCEP agreement has made clear that they have no interest in economic war against China that position they have made quite clear so the question is who is the United States going to take with them in this economic war and the answer is it's really the European countries which have to make up their minds which side they are going to be on and that's going to be the key question for Europe do they go with as I said the settler colonial states which are the outpost of the maritime empire of the United of the Western European countries in 17th 18th 19th century or the end are willing to enter the 21st century as not the ex-colonial powers was but you know equal among nations and I think that's something that we have to think about that is this something which the Europeans who effectively thought they are the global what partially say the arbiters of the globe except the military arbiters were going to be the United States but they would be the intellectual interlocutors for the United States for rest of the world I think that position they have to rethink because I don't think the colonial hegemony that they on which this was based is going to now continue for too long so I do think that this is a complete realignment of the world that we are seeing it's not going to happen in a day but neither is it going to change because you have a Trump or a Biden I think these forces are much more historical and the kind of sanctions that have been imposed on Russia for instance forget about China forget about China but Russia had complete support of Obama Obama in fact most of it was initiated during his time the expansion of NATO eastward was a part of a bipartisan policy of the of the United States so I think these are much bigger questions some of it is getting lost about the how uncouth Trump was as a person rather than the underlying policies that we are talking about thank you so much for talking to us that's all we have time for today keep watching you