India is in the best geopolitical position among almost any major country in the world today, said American political scientist and geopolitical expert Ian Bremmer, highlighting New Delhi’s careful balancing act with the West and non-West powers.
In an exclusive conversation with India Today TV’s News Director Rahul Kanwal, Bremmer spoke about the recently held Brics Summit in Kazan and how it has propped India’s unique identity in an increasingly bipolar world.
“One thing that we have seen from the Brics Summit is that India is, perhaps, in the best geopolitical position among almost any major country in the world,” said Bremmer.
“India’s relationship with the United States, with the Europeans, with the Japanese, is extremely strong. At the same time, Indians are the natural leaders of the global South. And we saw that when they were chairing the G20 just a couple of years ago,” he added.
Ian Bremmer highlighted Prime Minister Narendra Modi holding a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping on the sidelines of the Brics Summit, which followed the groundbreaking border disengagement agreement between the two countries.
“India’s relationship with China, which of course is their leading trade partner, has now been stabilised from the bilateral meeting that was successful between Modi and Xi,” he said.
Bremmer also highlighted how India, despite buying a lot more oil from Russia amid Western sanctions, received very little backlash internationally as compared to China, which enjoys similar friendly ties with Moscow.
According to Bremmer, a stable political leadership over the last 10 years under PM Modi, who has another five years at the top post, has helped India’s cause.
“You need to have a geopolitical environment that allows for you to act as a leader, as a bridge. But it’s also true that being a stable leader for more than 10 years now, with five more in the future, especially in a democracy, is a decidedly unusual thing to have happened. Most leaders are very unpopular in democracies these days,” said Bremmer.
Bremmer said that despite PM Modi suffering a bit of a disappointment in his last election and running a coalition government, India’s foreign policy is unlikely to see a change.
“Internationally, Modi is still seen as the same pair of hands that he’s been for over a decade now, and someone that really wants to be a friend of pretty much everyone. Not Pakistan, and certainly not Canada today, but pretty much everyone around the world,” he said.