India Should Develop Good Relations with All Great Powers, Feels Kishore Mahbubani

February 04, 2014

New Delhi: “India should maintain a steadfast policy of developing good relations with all great powers without giving any of them the opportunity to take India for granted”, stated Professor Kishore Mahbubani, Dean, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore, today, insisting that “India is entering a moment of extraordinary opportunities to enhance its global standing and to improve its diplomatic and geopolitical opportunities”. Professor Mahbubani was delivering the annual K Subrahmanyam Memorial Lecture on “Can India be Cunning?” at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA) on February 4, 2014.

The opening for India has never been better, as it is at the crossroads of two historical eras: the end of the era of Western dominance and the re-emergence of Asia, stated Professor Mahbubani.

It is natural for the Western states to be concerned about the loss of their dominance and look for countries to balance China, he added, stating that “the Indo-American nuclear deal was a geopolitical gift the United States gave to draw India to its side.” India should be ‘cunning’ and take advantage of courtship with countries like the US and Japan, but at the same time “develop equally close relations with China, especially on the trade and economic front”. The more India engages with the West, the more China will show willingness to have closer relations with India, he emphasised.

“India should use this opportunity of great courtship by great powers to push its case for a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council (UNSC)” insisted Professor Mahbubani, however, adding that India’s entry will have to be “part of a package deal that also adds a permanent seat for Africa and Latin America”. These two regional groups will block reform if they are not included, “hence, India should reconsider its policy of working with the G4 Group (Brazil, Germany, India and Japan)”, said Professor Mahbubani.

Equally “India could apply pressure on the P5 members of the UNSC by hinting that India will reconsider the wisdom of accepting the mandatory decisions of the UNSC, if it remains excluded from permanent membership” he further noted.

Speaking on how India can improve relations with Pakistan, Professor Mahbubani said that “India could be as ‘cunning’ in its policy towards Pakistan as China has been in its policy towards Taiwan. He pointed out how China never shied away from cultivating the Taiwanese people even during the regimes of Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui bian governments. India can deploy a lot of ‘soft power’, especially through Bollywood, to win the hearts and minds of ordinary Pakistanis, even if and when it has difficulties with the Pakistani government, added Professor Mahbubani.

Expressing concern that India could sail through this geopolitical sweet spot without taking full advantage of it, Professor Mahbubani emphasised that he country should put its national interest before moral values. “When countries are ‘cunning’, they can produce good moral results”, he concluded.