THE world will keep trying to decipher the stated and unstated meaning of the new metaphor emerging from the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and its sidelines in the port city of Tianjin in China. There were two platforms at Tianjin -- one of the SCO and the other of the trilateral assemblage of India, Russia and China. Though the two activities appeared independent of each other, so to say, they served a common purpose of sending a clear message across the globe straight to Washington DC where United States President Mr. Donald Trump chewed his nails and clawed into his own flesh in exasperation -- that he (or the US) was not in the least leading the emerging world order with multiple poles.

 

For, what was in evidence at Tianjin was a collection of many nations around the globe hurt by the economic hooliganism of US President Mr. Donald Trump -- all vowing to stand together and form a front that would dare the American browbeating. And equally important was the triumvirate of Russia, India, and China (RIC) seeking to redefine norms of international relations -- in which respect for everyone’s interests should be the key. Mr. Donald Trump’s Washington feared exactly that -- the RIC grouping rejuvenating itself. One of the US goals of imposing heavy trade tariffs on Indian goods was to separate India from its age-old ally Russia. The US did not declare similar tariffs on China, all right, but the threat loomed larger every passing day -- making China redefine its diplomatic goals and close the ranks with India (so as to form a common front against the Americans). Already victim of heavy US sanctions, Russia, too, was a willing partner in the new effort to see the US eye-to-eye.

 

Thus, Mr. Trump’s plan did not make any sense, and he felt forced to issue an assertion -- through his New Delhi Embassy -- that US and India were friends of considerable consequence. This assertion moments ahead of the SCO gathering made little diplomatic sense, but did offer a material for savage humour in the international community. No American President had ever made himself look like a joker as did Mr. Trump. Of course, Mr. Trump still holds some trump cards close to his chest. He may feel compelled to spare China from imposition of high tariffs. He may want to open a similar kind of diplomacy with China (in the footprint of one of former Presidents -- Mr. Richard Nixon). He may start encouraging American corporates to continue with their manufacturing activity in China (which the US discouraged in the past some time). And the US may do all this only with the purpose of separating China from the RIC grouping. In every likelihood, China may start reconsidering its stance vis-a-vis the US with the changing American attitude. And in that case, the RIC grouping would remain only a formality. In that case, the current Chinese assertion that to be friends is the best choice for China and India may get sufficiently watered down. This possible scenario is well within the realm of the world’s diplomatic imagination.

 

Nevertheless, such possibilities do not obliterate the new metaphor of international relations -- thanks to the realism embedded in it. No matter what happens to US-China relations, it is obvious that many an economic equation is going to change in the coming times. In that rapid arena, India will have a greater role to play -- as a leader of not just the Global South, but also other nations in different geographies. Of course, Global South, too, is a metaphor whose leadership has naturally come to India. That is exactly the reason why Mr Trump wants to deny. Hence his hooliganism -- which got a strong rebuff at Tianjin. The symbolisms from Tiannjin -- like the demonstrated closeness among Mr. Narendra Modi, Mr. Xi Jinping, and Mr. Vladimir Putin -- tell Mr. Trump a new story he did not want to hear.