Opinion Express View: Hiroshima G7 summit provides an opportunity for India to seize new economic possibilities

As he joins the G7 leaders in Hiroshima this week, Prime Minister Narendra Modi must try and recalibrate India’s great power relations, reposition the country to deal with the unfolding structural changes in the world economy, and reassess its priorities in the multilateral arena. The Hiroshima summit is about uniting the advanced nations to confront the challenges presented by Russia and China and widening the G7 coalition to include key non-Western nations. The G7 countries plan to intensify the sanctions regime against Russia, whose war against Ukraine continues. The US and Japan also want to bring the European partners fully on board in confronting the China challenge. While the Europeans see the dangers of Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine, they are less vocal about the Chinese ambitions for Asian hegemony. India has the opposite problem: While coping with the multidimensional threat from China has become Modi’s principal preoccupation, he has tended to mince words on the Russian war in Ukraine and its implications for global order, especially the sovereignty and territorial integrity of nations.

That the US needs India to balance China has given Delhi some room for manoeuvre on the Russian question. But that room will continue to shrink as Moscow’s war against Ukraine enters the 16th month. Military dependence on Russia, which is locked in an unwinnable confrontation with the West and hopelessly tied to China, India’s principal adversary, does not bode very well for Delhi. Navigating paths out of difficult corners must be a high priority for the PM in his engagement with the G7 leaders. At the same time, Delhi must seize the new possibilities to accelerate its economic growth in partnership with the G7 countries. The US-China confrontation is no longer a narrow geo-political one, but also geo-economic, and that promises an overhaul of the world economic system.

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As a member of the Quad with the US, Japan, and Australia, Delhi is already engaged in discussions about regional and global economic restructuring through the diversification of supply chains and greater technological cooperation among trusted friends and partners. Advancing this agenda is critical for India’s long-term economic prospects. Finally, Delhi should also be clear-eyed about the global multilateral architecture. India’s current leadership of the G20 does give it an important role in bridging the divide between the West and the rest. Delhi, however, must temper its expectations about G20 which is riven by deep internal conflict and the amorphous Global South. Back in the 1970s and 1980s, India was tempted by the soaring ambitions of leading the Third World which blinded Delhi to the expansive opportunities for commercial cooperation between the North and the South that some of its Asian neighbours gained from. If Delhi lets its rhetoric on the Global South get ahead of itself, India could once again miss a hinge moment in the global political economy.