Referring to the India-China agreement to end the standoff in eastern Ladakh US ambassador to India, Eric Garcetti has said the US has always supported India’s efforts to safeguard its strategic interests and respect of its borders. Garcetti is the blue-eyed boy of the US Administration for whom the post of ambassador was kept vacant for two years.

Declassified US documents of 1962 reveal that when Jawaharlal Nehru sought American military assistance in the wake of China’s invasion, the US administration said; give them some weapons but make sure India and China never join hands. In 1972, using Pakistan as intermediary, Nixon, and Kissinger visited China; creating the Chinese Frankenstein, which it may end up fighting.

Garcetti is shrewd enough to understand that the India-China agreement is primarily to resume patrolling, China reverting to the pre-April 2020 posture is out of the question, and PLA dismantling permanent structures is unlikely notwithstanding the hype of disengagement in the media. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, who announced “disengagement is completed on October 21, changed tack on October 26 by terming the” breakthrough agreement on patrolling” as disengagement – can it get more absurd? Long-winded narratives claim India has restored the sanctity of the LAC, which is contrary to the prime minister saying no one entered our territory.

China anyway has never adhered to agreements it has signed and the same goes for global norms, which it does not respect. Recall that within a month of the India-China pullback at Doklam, PLA was back in developing defences, occupying North Doklam and establishing dual-use villages. Akso, Tapir Gao, BJP MO from Arunachal had told Parliament that the PLA has occupied territory more than 60 km deep inside Arunachal Pradesh and that the next Doklam, if it happens, will be in Arunachal Pradesh – yet there is no word on it either from the government or the media.

Indian production capabilities are hinged on critical raw material, technology, spares and technical support – for which it cannot decouple from China. Where India is welcoming Chinese investments, India is also investing in China; for example ,the Shanghai-based Adani Energy Resources Company (AERCL) incorporated on September 2, 2024. Also, despite booming Indian economy and $689.5 billion FOREX reserves in the limelight, India ranks 105 in Global Hunger Index (GHI); facing severe food insecurity and malnutrition, while 83 million Indians (of the 1.45 billion) live below the poverty line, subsisting daily on ess than $2.15,

The West has been trumpeting that Russia’s economy in the dumps for the past few years, which the IMF now calls 4th largest economy in the world. Similar is the Western hype over China’s economy, as if it will disintegrate like the Soviet Union. But yes, the Chinese economy is not in good health, which is why China wants to regain its hold on Indian markets and increase contacts at all levels to further its national interests. Besides, China is already benefiting $100 billion annually through trade with India, the accumulated total of which since 2000 exceeds $1.4 trillion.

In the 16th BRICS Summit held Russia during October 2024, Chinese President Xi Jinping announced the BRICS new payment system, saying, “There is an urgent need to reform the international financial architecture, and BRICS must play a leading role in promoting a new system that better reflects the profound changes in the international economic balance of power.” Russia’s President Vladimir Putin introduced the creation of a BRICS investment platform to facilitate mutual investment between BRICS countries. The blockchain-based BRICS pay system, like the SWIFT payment platform, would facilitate nations within the group to promote the use of their currencies for trade.

The above summit was held in the shadow of: the US-led West arbitrarily seizing funds in the Central banks of Afghanistan and Russia and weaponizing the SWIFT system. The US-led G7 has now sanctioned an allotment of $50 billion to Ukraine out of Russian frozen finds – a case of extreme highhandedness amounting to economic terrorism. The latest is that 159 out of the 193 countries are said to have signed up to use the new BRICS settlement system bypassing the SWIFT system.

The Western media largely ignored the BRICS Summit; while some have voiced that western financial hegemony will remain significantly unaffected. Jim O’Neill, former Goldman Sachs chief economist, told Reuters: Western attempts to isolate Russia over the Ukraine war have failed and that Russia is building ties with the rising powers of Asia. BRICS now accounts for 45% of the world’s population and 35% of its economy in terms of purchasing power parity (PP), though China accounts for more than half of its economic might; China and India are actually really trying to agree on things, rather than effectively trying to confront each other all the time.

Jim O’Neil doesn’t see a challenge to the dollar but he did not comment on latest news that 159 out of the 193 countries have signed up to use the new BRICS settlement system. More important is what if the India-China economic engagement continues to increase, keeping the border issue aside – which China has been stressing for many years? Would this not be the most serious concern of the US, even though the BRICS is still dabbling in creating an exclusive currency for the bloc that will hasten de-dollarization?

To say that the US is happy with the economic rise of India would be the height of foolishness; one has to just examine the political shenanigans of Eric Garcetti and his posse before India’s general elections earlier this year to understand the implications. Jeffery D Sachs explains how America changed regimes in Pakistan and Bangladesh, which it is doing globally pretty frequently; using CIA and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) – a CIA-funded NGO established in 1983 (headed by CIA Director William Casey) in the garb of strengthening democratic institutions through its worldwide grants program.

British investigative journalist Kit Klarenberg has described how the CIA and NED operate to down governments (less the failed $1 billion effort to overthrow the government in Syria) and how the regime change was effected in Kiev in 2014 to install Volodymyr Zelensky as the President of Ukraine.

Interestingly, while giving credible explanation of the US involvement in downing the Imran Khan government in Pakistan, Jeffery D Sachs sats the US did not like Imran playing the game with the US, Russia and China simultaneously. The Indian media terms the India-China patrolling agreement a geopolitical signal by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the US – not to take India for granted. But wouldn’t the US view Modi playing the same game as Imran Khan?

We may call this Modi’s acumen of tightrope walking but the CIA-NED would be working overtime under Donald Lu, Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia and Central Asia in the US State Department; Donald Lu being the carbon copy, if not worse, of Victoria Nuland who orchestrated the regime change in Ukraine. Garcetti may be bamboozled for not doing enough. This would be the priority of the US notwithstanding how tight Modi hugs the POTUS – present or the next one.

The author is an Indian Army veteran. Views expressed are personal.

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