A Complex World Order

CAN INDIA ADVANCE ITS INTERESTS AS TRUMP TRIES TO MAGA IN A CHANGING WORLD?

- ANITA INDER SINGH

Multiple wars, conflicting national interests, economic competition with a rising China, the wish of some countries for multi-polarity and beneficial ties with the US under President-elect Donald Trump (who wants to Make America Great Again) will dominate world politics in 2025. The ongoing war in Ukraine, stemming from Russia's old ambitions, and unresolved enmities in Gaza, Red Sea, Lebanon, Iran, and Syria, have caused humanitarian catastrophes and threatened to break up the existing international order without offering a clue to creating a new one.

Additionally, the US-China rivalry persists, with China challenging the US' global primacy. China's rise since 2008 has resulted in a rebalancing of economic, military, and strategic power, but America's superpower remains intact.

Multipolarity—to which China and emerging economies subscribe—cannot replace the US' post-1990s position as the sole superpower. Any rising power must contend with both globalization and "degobalization," supply chains, digital transformation, and artificial intelligence (AI).

China and India share common ground for advocating multipolarity, even as their border dispute remains unresolved. But for New Delhi, there is more to China's economic and military rise than the problem of it having a far higher gross domestic product (GDP) and GDP per capita.

In part, that is because China's advances in the areas of science and high technology threaten not only other Asian countries but also the prosperous countries of the European Union (EU). Those advances enhance the phenomenon of "China power."