| Sreemoy Talukdar brings you the essential cheat sheet on foreign affairs covering India and the world |  | | Apologise to readers for missing an edition last week due to ill-health. We have a lot to catch up on. This edition starts with Egyptian president's three-day visit to India where he was the chief guest at 74th Republic Day. Egypt-India ties are fast getting consolidated over a variety of domains. We also look at former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo's controversial memoir, Pakistan's economic collapse, buzz over a 'thaw' in India-Pakistan ties and New Zealand's new PM who succeeds global woke icon Jacinda Ardern. | | TOP FIVE NEWS UPDATES | | India, Egypt elevate ties to strategic partnership; vow to boost trade, investment and fight terrorism | | Egyptian president Abdel Fatteh El-Sisi's visit to India from January 24-27, and his participation as the chief guest of Republic Day, marks a significant uptick in bilateral ties. Egypt is a pivotal state straddling one of the world's most important geoeconomic and geostrategic zones, and the three-day visit formalized a partnership that has been witnessing steady dovetailing of mutual interests. Reflecting growing bonhomie, an Egyptian military contingent took part in India's 74th Republic Day parade in the presence of president El-Sisi. On Wednesday, after a bilateral summit between the two sides when talks were held in both restrictive and official delegation-level formats, both countries elevated their relationship to a 'strategic partnership' based on "four key pillars — political and security cooperation, cultural, scientific, people to people contact" and "decided to build resilient supply chains for food and energy security to avoid disruptions because of circumstances like the pandemic and the Russia-Ukraine conflict," reports The Telegraph. In a media statement post the discussions, prime minister Narendra Modi said "In today's meeting, President Sisi and I have decided that under the India-Egypt Strategic Partnership, we will develop a long-term framework of greater cooperation in political, security, economic and scientific fields… We have also decided to further strengthen cooperation between our defence industries, and enhance the exchange of information and intelligence related to counter-terrorism," said Modi, according an ABP Live report. President Sisi said "cooperation in the field of defense was on the agenda of today's talks…We affirmed our interest to continue coordination, joint exercises, and exchange of experiences, and to explore broader horizons to foster closer cooperation in that field, including co-manufacturing". As the current G20 chair, India has invited Egypt as a 'guest country'. The two sides have signed five MoUs covering culture, cooperation on youth matters, cyber security, information and technology (IT) and public broadcasting. If you are interested in reading the joint statement, find the MEA release here. Egypt is mulling the possibility of allocating a special area of land for the Indian industries in the Suez Canal Economic Zone (SCEZ) for setting up of industrial units. China already has an established presence in the region. Both sides have set a target of increasing bilateral trade within five years to $12 billion from the current $7.3 billion. The other significant takeaway from Sisi's visit was the focus on terrorism. "Both sides decided to flag cross-border terrorism, and Modi and El-Sisi condemned the use of terrorism as a foreign policy tool… And the Egyptian side signed off on this formulation that targeted Pakistan, a fellow member at the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation," reports Indian Express. | | India, Pakistan were on verge of nuclear war after Balakot strikes, claims Mike Pompeo in memoir | | Mike Pompeo, former CIA director and US secretary of state under the Donald Trump administration, has released his memoir on Tuesday and triggered off a spate of controversies from New Delhi to Ankara to Washington. In his book, Never Give An Inch, Pompeo has claimed that India and Pakistan were on the verge of a nuclear war after the Balakot strikes in February 2019 and the world was saved due to American intervention. Pompeo writes that he was awakened to speak to his then Indian counterpart Sushma Swaraj who told him that Pakistan was preparing for a nuclear attack in the wake of the Balakot strikes and India is preparing its own escalatory response." Pompeo writes the incident took place when he was in Hanoi for the US-North Korea Summit on February 27-28 and his team worked overnight with both New Delhi and Islamabad to avert this crisis. "I do not think the world properly knows just how close the India-Pakistan rivalry came to spilling over into a nuclear conflagration in February 2019. The truth is, I don't know precisely the answer either; I just know it was too close," Pompeo writes, according to a report in The Times of India. In his book, Pompeo also claimed that "China's actions have caused India to change its strategic posture in the last few years" and called India a "wild card" in Quad. Pompeo's disrespectful comments on the late Sushma Swaraj, the former Indian foreign minister, drew a stinging response from EAM S Jaishankar. Pompeo, a potential 2024 US presidential candidate, also received flak in Washington for calling murdered Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi an "activist". Khashoggi, an open critic of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, disappeared in October 2018 after he entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, and was later found to have been brutally murdered. In an editorial, Washington Post lambasted Pompeo, stating: "Pompeo coddled the person who sent the Khashoggi hit squad." Pompeo, it seems, has also managed to rub Turkey the wrong way. | | Pakistan goes dark again, rupee crashes, forex reserves touch a new low; Fawad arrested for 'sedition' | | It's all happening in Pakistan. Its electricity grids are failing — leading to long blackouts, the currency is on a bungee jumping spree and its foreign exchange reserves are lower than its credibility. On Monday, Pakistan again plunged into darkness. According to a Reuters report, Pakistan's generators produced more power than was required, causing voltage fluctuations that culminated in a system collapse that plunged 220 million people into darkness for a whole day and disrupted commercial activity as outages also hit internet and mobile services. In its attempts to secure another tranche of IMF bailout funds, authorities in Islamabad removed unofficial curbs on currency exchange rate, leading the Pakistani rupee to suffer a free fall. The currency fell 9.6% against the dollar on Thursday, central bank data showed — the biggest one-day drop in over two decades. Ironically, however, it may lead the IMF to resume lending to the country since the removal of the exchange rates was a key demand as part of a programme of economic reforms it has agreed on with the cash-strapped South Asian nation, reports Reuters. The currency's official value closed at 255.4 rupees against the US dollar versus 230.9 on Wednesday, the central bank said. Equally precarious is the situation of Pakistan's foreign exchange reserves. Reflecting Pakistan's acute balance of payments crisis, forex reserves "held by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) dropped a massive $923 million to a mere $3.7 billion, data released on Thursday showed. This is the lowest level of SBP-held reserves since February 2014," reports Business Recorder, adding, "total liquid foreign reserves held by the country stood at $9.5 billion. Net foreign reserves held by commercial banks stood at $5.8 billion." At current levels Pakistan may sustain less than three weeks' worth of imports. Not just the economy, however, Pakistan is also in a state of political turmoil. On Wednesday, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party senior leader and Imran Khan's colleague Fawad Chaudhry was arrested and taken into custody from his residence in Lahore, reports Indian Express. The arrest of Chaudhry, 52, came amidst rumours that the government may arrest former premier Khan, adds the report. | | India's routine invitation to Pakistan FM, PM for SCO meet sets tongues wagging about a 'thaw' in ties | | India, hosts of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation foreign ministers' meeting in May, has sent an invitation to Pakistan's foreign minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari to visit Goa, rising fervent speculation of a 'thaw' in ties. The speculation is likely to be idle. There has been no change in India's stance regarding "talks" with Pakistan and the invitation is little more than routine. According to a report in Hindustan Times, "Bhutto Zardari and Pakistan chief justice Umar Atta Bandial are among the SCO leaders and dignitaries invited by India to meetings of the eight-member grouping. The invitation to Bhutto Zardari had gone out recently with those for other SCO foreign ministers, including China's Qin Gang, from the external affairs ministry." The report further adds, "the invitation sent to Bhutto Zardari is a 'routine matter' in line with India's position as the current chair of SCO. 'Such invitations are sent by all host countries and nothing more should be read into it,' the report quotes unnamed sources within the Indian establishment, as saying. A report by India Today claimed that India will also invite "Pakistan prime minister Shehbaz Sharif to the SCO meeting to be held in May this year," though it did not go into further details. The Hindu reports "that the SCO Ministers meeting invitation was delivered to the Pakistani foreign ministry by the Indian High Commission in Islamabad, but it is still unclear whether Pakistan will accept the invitation, and at what level, indicating that either Bhutto or minister of state for foreign affairs Hina Rabbani Khar would attend the meeting." Rabbani Khar on Thursday told the Pakistani senate that that no backchannel talks were being held between Islamabad and New Delhi. "At this moment, there is no such thing under way," she was quoted, as saying, adding that backchannel diplomacy was desirable when it was result-oriented." | | 'Chippy' Hipkins succeeds Jacinda Ardern as New Zealand PM, but faces an arduous road ahead | | New Zealand has a new prime minister after Jacinda Ardern, global woke icon, announced that she will step down and not seek re-election in the upcoming polls because she had "no more (left) in the tank" to lead the country. BBC reports that Chris Hipkins, who built a reputation as the minister who led New Zealand's Covid-19 strategy, has been sworn in as New Zealand's 41st prime minister. "At the ruling Labour Party's caucus over the weekend, Hipkins received unanimous support to be promoted to lead the country, and now faces the uphill task of retaining power in the upcoming general elections in October. Opinion polls have suggested that his party is trailing its conservative opposition, the National Party, in popularity." While Ardern had claimed that her resignation was caused by burnout, in reality her popularity had dipped and support for her party had fallen. Time magazine says in a report that while "Ardern was a broadly popular figure on the global stage, her decision to step down was partly motivated by the Labour Party's tumbling poll figures. According to a 1News-Kantar poll released in December, Labour's support fell to 33% from 40% at the start of 2022—a figure that would rule out forming a coalition with the Green Party. As things stand, the opposition National Party is likely to claim a victory in October unless Hipkins can reverse these numbers." The report adds, "Hipkins made it clear in his speech Saturday that he knows it's a 'challenging time' for New Zealanders. 'COVID-19 and the global pandemic created a health crisis, and now it's created an economic one—and that's where my government's focus will be, said the new prime minister. New York Times says "Hipkins and Ardern may have different styles, but when it comes to policy, their similarities are far more pronounced". The report quoted Bernard Hickey, a political commentator based in Auckland, as saying, "It is very much a government going on the same track as it was before, but with a different face." The report also quotes Christopher Luxon, the leader of the center-right National Party who is almost certain to be Hipkins's opponent in the October 14 election, as saying, "there's no change, it's just more of the same — that's because it is essentially the same team." | | | | | | | | | | TOP ANALYSES OF THE WEEK | | Egypt-India ties destined for fruition: Mohammed Soliman | | Mohammed Soliman, scholar and director of the Strategic Technologies and Cyber Security Program at the Middle East Institute in Washington, tells Sreemoy Talukdar of Firstpost in an interview that Egypt-India alignment is a partnership that is destined for fruition. | | Partnership with Egypt opens door for larger Indian role in Middle East | | India's renewed engagement with Egypt is about consolidating New Delhi's new coalition with moderate Sunni states in the Middle East… It could help promote peace and stability in the Middle East and South Asia, writes C Raja Mohan of Asia Society Policy Institute in Indian Express. | | Keen to foster ties with India on all aspects: El Sisi | | In an interview to Rezaul H Laskar of Hindustan Times, Egyptian president Abdel Fattah El-Sisi says "deep-rooted civilisational and cultural relations bind the two countries and peoples together. We are indeed keen to foster our relations with our Indian friends on all aspects, including defence relations." | | China concerned over India 'catching up' | | Analysing the current Chinese discourse on India, Antara Ghoshal Singh of Observer Research Foundation writes that when all eyes in India are fixed on the volatile border, the Chinese side seems to be of the opinion that the real conflict between China and India is not at the LAC but in the development competition. | | 4 geopolitical lessons from Russian invasion of Ukraine | | Russia's invasion of Ukraine has both challenged and confirmed certain widely held beliefs about international politics in the post-Cold War era, writes professor Rohan Mukherjee of London School of Economics and Political Science in DIIS, a Denmark-based public research institution. | | China is on a charm offensive to reset wolf warrior foreign policy | | Professor Stephen M Walt of Harvard University writes in Foreign Policy that China is putting on a charm offensive as part of a foreign policy reset but whether or not that will work will depend on Xi Jinping and his regime keeping nationalist ambitions in check, and focus efforts on continuing to build economic power at home. | | Xi turns to Wang to draw up a new Taiwan strategy | | Nikkei Asia's Katsuji Nakazawa writes in an analysis that Xi Jinping has turned to political theorist and ideologue Wang Huning to draft a new Taiwan policy. The report says, quoting sources, that Wang will be tasked with writing a theoretical unification strategy fit for the Xi era. | | Western tanks in Ukraine is a pivotal moment in the war | | Sending western tanks to Ukraine that have better armour and more lethal power than Russian tanks to Ukraine makes one thing clear — this is now a western war against Russia, argues Martin Kettle in The Guardian. | | With everything collapsing, even dark humour is wearing thin in Pakistan | | With everything collapsing in the country, dark humour is the Pakistani's only respite. But even that's wearing thin, writes Pakistani columnist Zarrar Khuhro in Al Jazeera. | | Jacinda Ardern's branding masked her political failures | | Tom Chodor, lecturer in politics and international relations at Monash University, writes in Unherd that Jacinda Ardern's progressive global branding veiled her political failure. | | PODCAST | | The state of India-Bangladesh ties | | We recommend this edition of Stratnews Global's The Gist podcast where host Surya Gangadharan speaks to Syed Badrul Ahsan, journalist and commentator from Dhaka. Ahsan says Bangladesh and India remain good friends despite irritants like the unresolved Teesta waters issue, and says that Sheikh Hasina is the best guarantee of bilateral relations moving forward. | | | | Copyright © 2023.Firstpost - All Rights Reserved. | |
