Leaving their Marx

Will CPM speaking for Indo-China ties lead to the maturing of Left8217;s foreign policy ideas?

There are three good reasons to welcome the CPM speaking up for good relations with Beijing and ending security-related restrictions against Chinese companies. For one, it suggests the communists have become another vendor in the national market place for ideas. Government policies in democracies are usually a compromise between the wish lists of competing interest groups. The communist entry into the national policy bazaar might turn out to be as useful as economic reforms implemented by the Left government in West Bengal.

Second, in their advocacy of business with Chinese, the Left is evolving from issuing doctrinaire critiques to making a big difference on foreign policy and national security. For decades, reflexive opposition to Indo-US relations has marked the Left vision on foreign policy. Setting a positive agenda on national security has never been a priority. As with its intervention in favour of democracy in Nepal earlier this year, the Left does have the potential to break the sterile consensus of the past on a number of foreign policy issues.

Third, and more immediately, the communist parties can emerge as a valuable ally in the debate against national security conservatives, who are so afraid of thinking creatively on Pakistan and China. That the government cannot differentiate between companies from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan only underlines the questionable quality of the intelligence input into policy making. Instead of focusing on new ways to cope with economic globalisation, our security establishment has opted for a blanket denial of contracts to the Chinese companies. In endorsing Left activism on the national security front, we hope the CPI and CPM will turn out to be more than unpaid lobbyists for China. The Left could do a little bit of lobbying for India in Beijing. For example, it could try and persuade the Chinese President Hu Jintao, who is arriving in New Delhi in less than eight weeks, to offer civilian nuclear cooperation to India. It could tell Comrade Hu to be more flexible on the boundary dispute with India. If they have the political imagination, the communist parties could become a bridge between the two rising powers of Asia.