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Journalism of Courage
India8217;s record on high stakes multilateral diplomatic campaigns has been, to use the kind of understatement beloved of all foreign office communiques, mixed. Two obvious recent examples are the official ownership of Shashi Tharoor8217;s unsuccessful campaign to become the UN secretary general and the long-standing, and not-going-anywhere campaign to make India a member of the UN Security Council. The strange burst of romanticism that informed India8217;s direct involvement in elections for the UN chief is now deservedly a very small footnote. But it still enjoys some relevance because similar tactical vulnerabilities are seen in India8217;s UNSC campaign.
As this newspaper reported on Sunday, India8217;s two neighbours have cleverly done the un-neighbourly thing of making earlier UNSC campaigns difficult. The question to ask is not why China and Pakistan would do this but rather how tactically hard-headed India has been in anticipating this counter campaign. Has the official assumption been that China is amenable to some form of non-Western solidarity? Those who claim to see China8217;s goodwill towards India have found a voice in the current political context. But diplomacy needs to look at cold realities. And maybe the cold reality is that, first, China isn8217;t thrilled at the idea of India being at the UN high table 8212; Beijing has at best been open-ended on the issue, even after Japan8217;s UNSC claim, which China reportedly opposes, got de-linked from India8217;s campaign. Second, India isn8217;t and/or doesn8217;t want to be in a position where it takes on Chinese opposition in what will be a fairly brutal game of realpolitik, inevitably requiring America8217;s support.
