External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Sunday said the “radical repositioning” of the United States and the rise of China were among the defining features of the evolving global geopolitical order.
Speaking at the Munich Leaders Meeting, Jaishankar said the US had, by choice, “deliberately become a lonelier power”, while China’s growing influence had contributed to an increasingly competitive global landscape.
“No one in the room would disagree with the fact that the landscape today is primarily marked by a radical repositioning of the United States. A repositioning which is a posture of choice and, in a way, it has deliberately become a lonelier power,” he said.
He said the sharp competition was no longer confined to the US and China and had resulted in countries using whatever leverage they possessed as a strategic tool.
“That competition today, not limited to these two countries, has led to a weaponization of any leverage that any country has. And that competition coexists with the complexity of interdependence,” he said.
Jaishankar said emerging and middle powers were seeking to strengthen cooperation among themselves while maintaining ties with both Washington and Beijing.
He cited the Quad, the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, the International North-South Transport Corridor and the Northern Sea Route as examples of such cooperation.
The BRICS grouping, he said, reflected the efforts of countries to amplify their collective voice rather than rely solely on their individual influence. He also cited the International Solar Alliance and the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure, both initiatives led by India, as examples of countries building institutions and mechanisms around shared interests.
Jaishankar also pointed to the accelerated emergence of a multipolar world, saying countries were increasingly compelled to maintain relationships with powers whose interests might not always be easy to reconcile.
“It’s a sort of strategy of advancing by hedging,” he said, adding that the trend had implications for multilateralism, which was already under pressure with the United Nations facing visible gridlock.
He said one consequence of the evolving global order was likely to be the growing importance of smaller groupings, as countries sought flexible arrangements to advance their interests.
(With inuputs from ANI)
