During the week straddling the summer solstice, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken met with Xi Jinping, and President Biden met with Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister. Both meetings were matters of Realpolitik. In the first, we sought to lower tensions with a dictatorship by citing common interests. In the second, we sought deeper collaboration against China, talking up shared democratic values despite Modi’s strongman ethno-nationalist politics at home.
Then, at the end of the week, Yevgeny Prigozhin took his Wagner Group mercenaries into insurrection and headed toward Moscow. The possibilities led Americans, in Daniel Drezner’s words, to an impulse to “wishcast a ‘good guys beating the bad guys’ kind of scenario.” This armed revolt lasted only a day, but Drezner’s comment reminds us to think hard before designating good guys or bad guys in the world.
In this vein, we should examine our dealings with China and India. This is not a partisan issue – any administration could well take the same geopolitical path, and even couch the meetings in the same rhetoric. Playing hard power politics is always tricky for America. Though our nation was conceived on an abstract creed of personal rights and government by the governed, our protection and nurturing of this ethos will require us to work with unsavory realities. We need clarity as to why we work with whom. Confusing or mis-labeling good guys and bad guys can confuse us and even turn us into hypocrites.
Regarding India, the country is certainly an electoral democracy. But we cannot ignore Modi’s transgressions of rule of law, of which the list is not short, including his role in an anti-Muslim pogrom when he ran the state of Gujurat. We could, perhaps, understand some bare-knuckled economic measures imposed to modernize the nation. Modernization can spur democratic development. Even as India remarkably built its democratic electoral tradition, governing practice was always shadowed by local and regional machine politics, factional disorder, and stifling bureaucracy. But Modi may or may not be leading India to greater democracy.
Furthermore, India has not condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, a clear violation of justice as well as law. In his speech to Congress Modi talked of peace and against domination of the Indo-Pacific, but never named Russia or China. India remains an electoral polity but its democracy is in question. Its foreign policy stands at odds with undemocratic China, but they share our hard geopolitical interest, not comity in our commitment to rights.
Our approach to today’s India can and should be one of Realpolitik. We can honestly state our hope to build on shared interests. Those include economic as well as security interests, and certain governing traditions adopted from British practice. But we should note and accept that they will not join an alliance aimed at China, will not move toward military inter-operability as we have with NATO nations, and will not soon develop the same rule of law that, say, Norway practices. Noting that their electoral system puts them closer to our values than many, and encouraging their economic development, signifies that we do see them in an amicable light. But a rhetoric of spiritual kinship equates Modi’s India with Norway, a true democracy and committed ally. We should keep the distinction to preclude doubt among the Norways of the world. Realpolitik of common interests, bolstered with our sincere hope for growth in India’s democratic traditions, is plenty friendly – and not hypocritical.
Regarding China, of course Realpolitik is the order of the day. But seeking to de-escalate tensions simply by citing common interests fails to address the tensions. As the prior sense of common interests with China has declined, a persistent underlying mistrust re-raises suspicions, from their side that we are out to undermine China and from our side that they are out to take over the world. If we acknowledge our actual basic reason for differences, we can perhaps play realpolitik more candidly, if only so neither side increases hostility by mistake.
If China’s Communists feel that we are out to undermine their regime, they are not entirely wrong. Our whole existence is premised on individual rights and the right of any people to change their government. This cannot be undone, and the idea in itself poses a threat to the Chinese Communist regime. That said, if we ourselves acknowledge this difference, we can then choose to acknowledge their governing commitment to a view of public interest rather than to clan and gang, and recognize their hold on a level of loyalty within the nation. In this explanation, we could say credibly that we see them outside any category of monsters we would go abroad to destroy.
In this stance Taiwanese autonomy will still raise a fundamental clash of core interests – we cannot abandon such a deeply democratic society and China will not cede their sovereign territory. That said, the “One China” policy has allowed a durable modus operandi. If we can honestly say that we look to organic evolution within Taiwan and/or mainland China to resolve the problem, we affirm our deep interest but also our wish to keep a modus operandi,
In this stance, we show that our interest is not in global domination per se but in the protection and nurturing of our existential tenets. This motivation, if pursued consistently, can make sense to a Realist regime in China. Calling out their dictatorship while engaging on economic issues looks too much like rhetorical cover over a Realpolitik drive for world domination. So does treating a Realist Modi like a paragon of democracy. Dealing instead – with an India as well as with China – in candid clarity over our core interest will say, not only to China but also the American people, why we engage with this adversary where we do, and where we will not.
If we address China as a system incompatible with ours but with whom we can navigate our shared interests; if we treat India as a nation with great common interests but not fully in our moral camp; if we handle relations with any country in terms of their compatibility with our founding tenets; we will know what makes a “good guy” or a “bad guy,” or just a guy to deal with. We will not cozy up needlessly to bad guys and we will not signal to true democracies that that their liberty is a truly fundamental priority to us. We will know that what is most basic to our identity comes first in our policy. As and if Russia goes through a major change, this stance will give a clear set of priorities by which to address whomever may come to power. The same will hold for any developments in the world, however new or unexpected they may be.
Common Conviction 