THE HINDU DAILY ANALYSIS

DATE – 20 MARCH 2021

For Preliminary and Mains examination

(Also useful for APSC and other government examinations)

CONTENTS

GS 2 – International Relations

1. New phase of U.S.-China ties comes with tests for India

2. Terror biggest hurdle to India-Pakistan relationship: Amarinder Singh

GS 3 – Indian Economy and Environment

1. Advanced nations failed world on climate change: Nirmala Sitharaman

2. Six tigers ‘missing’ in Ranthambore

3. G-sec yields rise to highest level in FY21

EDITORIALS

GS 2 – Polity and Governance 1. Delhi undermined: On Centre’s bid to run the National Capital Territory

GS 2 – International Relations

2. Chasing peace: On allowing Taliban to share power in Afghanistan

3. The message in Alaska, from Washington to Beijing

New phase of U.S.-China ties comes with tests for India

• A sharp exchange between top U.S. and Chinese officials in Alaska on Friday, played out fully in the eyes of

the gathered media, marked the start of a new phase in U.S.-China relations — one that comes with fresh

challenges for India.

• If the acrimonious public exchange appeared to be a surprising departure from the diplomatic norms

usually followed in such scripted meetings, it was, on one level, entirely expected.

• After all, both sides had made clear in the lead-up to the Biden administration’s first in-person

engagement with China that the meeting in Anchorage was more about drawing red lines than any real

attempt at a reset. Even describing what the meeting actually was had emerged as a point of discord,

labelled by Beijing as a “strategic dialogue” even as Washington disputed that description.

• Secretary of State Antony Blinken, accompanied by National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan for the talks

with Yang Jiechi, Politburo member and Director of the Central Commission for Foreign Affairs, and Wang

Yi, the Foreign Minister, set the tone by expressing “deep concerns with actions by China, including in

Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan, cyberattacks on the U.S., and economic coercion toward our allies”.

• These actions, he said, threatened “the rules-based order that maintains global stability”, as he framed

the Biden administration’s view of ties with China as being “competitive where it should be, collaborative

where it can be, adversarial where it must be”

• What followed was a 16-minute speech from Mr. Yang, going far beyond the expected two-minute

opening statement, which he said he “felt compelled to make” because “of the tone of the U.S. side”. Mr.

Yang slammed the “so-called rules-based international order” which he said was “advocated by a small

number of countries” — the U.S.-India-Japan-Australia “Quad", incidentally, is among them. To

Washington’s contention that it was engaging China from a position of strength — the Alaska meeting

pointedly followed the Quad leaders’ summit last week and Mr. Blinken’s recent visits to Japan and South

Korea — Mr. Yang retorted, “the U.S. does not have the qualification to say that it wants to speak to China

from a position of strength”. The remarks were widely circulated in the Chinese media, welcomed as

reflecting a new dynamic in the relationship.

• The message from Beijing was that if Washington expected this meet to be about a one-way drawing of

the red-lines, it was clearly mistaken. Meanwhile, the unequivocal message from Washington was that the

Biden administration will certainly not be an Obama 2.0, a time when both sides emphasised cooperation.

Key takeaways

• The main takeaway from Alaska is that any reset in ties from the turbulent Trump era is unlikely. At the

same time, the acrimonious beginning, which to some degree was a result of public posturing by both

sides who were concerned about sending the right messages to their audiences at home, may give way to

some cautious engagement.

• If China made a concession by travelling to Alaska, a point made by its officials, a return visit to Beijing by

Mr. Blinken in coming months, should it take place, will underline that both sides are still seeking spaces

to work together amid the rancour. Both, for instance, could still agree to cooperate on issues like climate

change, the global economic recovery, and Afghanistan.

• The other takeaway is the emergence of a drawing of battle lines between Washington and its allies on

one side, and on the other, Beijing and its main ally when it comes to the Indo-Pacific and Eurasia, Russia.

China was quick to announce, before the Alaska talks, that Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will

visit Beijing, days after President Biden called Russia’s Vladimir Putin “a killer”.

• This will particularly pose a test for India’s diplomacy, starting with affecting India’s defence supplies from

Russia, with the U.S. making it clear that importing Russian equipment like the S-400 missile defence

system will attract sanctions as well as the U.S. withholding high-tech exports.

• While India confronts its own problems with China amid a slow-moving disengagement process along the

Line of Actual Control (LAC), it has still made clear it does not want to be part of any alliances. This

balancing act is reflected in India’s varying multilateral engagements, ranging from the Quad to groupings

like RIC (Russia-India-China), the BRICS, and the China and Russia-led Shanghai Cooperation Organisation.

• The U.S.-China divide will also mean a tightrope walk for India at the UN Security Council, where it is

serving a two-year term as non-permanent member, as the split between the U.S, the U.K and France on

the one hand and Russia and China on the other grows ever wider, as seen in response to the Myanmar

coup.

Terror biggest hurdle to India-Pakistan relationship: Amarinder Singh

• Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh on Friday termed Pakistan-sponsored terrorism as the biggest

hurdle to normalising relations between India and Pakistan.

• He also said Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff, General Qamar Javed Bajwa, should back his rhetoric on peace

with India with solid action.

• General Bajwa should first control “his ISI”, and then talk about stability in Indo-Pak relations, said the CM,

adding that India cannot afford to go soft on Pakistan till they walk the talk and prove their sincerity.

• “Infiltration into India from across the border is still happening, Indian soldiers are being killed at the

borders every day. They (Pakistan) are dropping arms and heroin into Punjab via drones every other day.

Efforts to create trouble in my State continue to take place. All this should stop first, only then we can talk

peace,” said Mr. Singh.

• “Given the way the situation has evolved over the past few months, Pakistan’s increasing collusion with

China, which has been causing a whole lot of trouble for India on the other border, is a matter of

concern,” said the Chief Minister.

• “If Islamabad seriously wants peace with New Delhi, they should send out the message to Beijing, loud

and clear, that Pakistan is not with them in the dangerous escapades at the Line of Actual Control (LAC),”

he said.

Advanced nations failed world on climate change: Nirmala Sitharaman • Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Friday admonished advanced countries for failing to keep their

financing commitments to help emerging economies cope with climate change, invoking the recent

Uttarakhand disaster as an example of the vulnerabilities that need to be addressed.

• The government, she said, was committed to building infrastructure that would not only revive the

economy but also prove resilient to the risks of climate change. “We are looking at innovative systems

that can certify [that] the resilience of the infrastructure is established. A global standard for certification

for resilient infra is also something we are thinking of,” Ms. Sitharaman said at the International

Conference on Disaster Resilient Infrastructure.

• Arguing that advanced economies had failed to fulfil their ‘quantitative commitment’ to provide $100

billion a year to help smaller countries, she pointed out that this amount itself was ‘meagre’, to begin

with.

• “Financing for building resilient infrastructure, during the pandemic and after it, is a critical issue.

Emerging economies or, worse, the small islands and countries in Africa, are going to have serious

challenges in meeting the commitments of the Paris agreement. I appeal to the advanced economies that

their commitment to financing climate change and transferring technologies which are important for

achieving climate related goals will have to be ramped up, sped up and scaled up,” she said.

Six tigers ‘missing’ in Ranthambore

• Six tigers — four adults and two sub-adults — have been unaccounted for since March 2020 in the

Ranthambore tiger sanctuary, Rajasthan. However, State forest officials are not willing to label them

“missing” and denied reports that they may have been poached.

• Independent wildlife groups such as Tiger Watch have alleged that the tigers have been missing for over a

year and that “negative human intervention being a cause [poaching]” could not be ruled out.

• The National Tiger Conservation Authority, a wing of the Union Environment Ministry, has constituted a

committee to ascertain the disappearance of the tigers. R.P. Gupta, Secretary, Environment Ministry, said

while a report was still awaited from the State, it was not unusual for tigers to move outside the reserve

— even as far as Mathura, Uttar Pradesh; Bharatpur in Rajasthan and Dati in Madhya Pradesh — but they

have not ruled out other causes.

• There have been no camera trap images of the six creatures since March, T.C. Verma, Chief Conservator of

Forests, Ranthambore Tiger Reserve, told The Hindu. Ranthambore’s estimated 70 tigers exceeded its

carrying capacity, he said, and newer tigers were driving out older ones and so the tigers had possibly

branched out of their territories.

• Qamar Qureshi, scientist at the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, said the disappearance of tigers was

a cause for concern. “The details are sketchy but generally established adults don’t venture very far. So if

it is this category of tigers and so far not captured on camera, then there is cause for concern. Also the

particular territories in Ranthambore are notorious for poaching,” he told The Hindu.

• The Ranthambore Reserve is the only source of tigers in the territory with about 53 tigers constituting

over 90% of the population in this block, as per the latest census made public last year.

• The Ranthambore forest reserve consists of highly fragmented forest patches, ravines, river streams, and

agricultural land. The Ranthambore Tiger Reserve is connected to the Kuno-Palpur landscape in Madhya

Pradesh through parts of the Kailadevi Wildlife Sanctuary, the ravine habitats of Chambal and the forest

patches of Sheopur. Tributaries of river Chambal provide easy passage for tigers to move towards the

Kuno National Park.

• India has 2,967 tigers, a third more than in 2014, according to results of a census made public on July 29

last year. Ranthambore, according to this exercise, had 55 tigers.

• Madhya Pradesh has the highest number of tigers at 526, closely followed by Karnataka (524) and

Uttarakhand (442). Chhattisgarh and Mizoram saw a decline in tiger population and all other States saw

an increase.

G-sec yields rise to highest level in FY21

• With the government set to borrow ₹50,000 crore more in the remaining weeks of the fiscal month,

Friday's auction has seen the weighted average yields hitting the roof at 6.18%, the highest this fiscal.

• At 6.18%, the weighted average yield has spiked to its highest level this fiscal, and this is higher by 4 bps

than the previous week when it was at 6.14%, Care Ratings wrote in a note.

• The government raised ₹33,000 crore in its scheduled weekly auction — ₹4,000 crore more than the

notified amount.

EDITORIALS

Delhi undermined: On Centre’s bid to run the National Capital Territory

• The Centre’s Bill seeking to amend the law relating to the running of the National Capital Territory of

Delhi claims that it is aimed at giving effect to the interpretation given by the Supreme Court judgments

on Delhi’s governance structure. The proposed changes are the very antithesis of what the Court has said.

• The Bill, if it becomes law, will wholly undermine the Court’s efforts to strengthen the elected

government vis-à-vis the appointed Lieutenant Governor. The Constitution Bench verdict of July 4, 2018,

said: “The Lieutenant Governor has not been entrusted with any independent decision-making power.

• He has to either act on the ‘aid and advice’ of the Council of Ministers, or he is bound to implement the

decision taken by the President on a reference being made by him.”

• The ‘aid and advice’ clause pertains only to matters on which the elected Assembly has powers under the

State and Concurrent Lists, but with the exception of public order, police and land, and, wherever there

are differences between the L-G and the elected government, the former should refer the question to the

President. T

• he Court was at pains to clarify that the power to refer “any matter” to the President did not mean that

“every matter” should be referred thus. The guiding principle was that the elected government should not

be undermined by the unelected administrator. The Bill introduced in the Lok Sabha does violence to this

interpretation.

• The Bill seeks to declare that in the context of legislation passed by the Delhi Assembly, all references to

the ‘government’ would mean the “Lieutenant Governor”.

• Indeed, Delhi is a Union Territory; but it is somewhat incongruous for a territory with an elected House to

be declared the sole domain of the L-G. The apex court had rightly concluded that the scheme set out in

the Constitution and the Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi Act, 1991, envisages a

collaborative structure that can be worked only through constitutional trust.

• The proviso to Article 239AA, which empowers the L-G to refer a difference of opinion with the Council of

Ministers to the President, does not mean that the administrator is given an opportunity to come up with

a different opinion on every decision made by the Ministry.

• Yet, it is precisely what the Bill proposes to do. And it is quite incongruous that instead of Parliament

identifying the matters on which the L-G’s opinion should be sought, the Bill proposes that the L-G himself

would specify such matters.

• The clause that declares void any rule that empowers the Assembly or its Committees to discuss any

matter of day-to-day administration or conduct enquiries amounts to a rollback of representative

government. The ‘Union Territory’ concept is one of the many ways in which India regulates relations

between the Centre and its units. It should not be used to subvert the basis of electoral democracy.

Chasing peace: On allowing Taliban to share power in Afghanistan

• The peace conference hosted by Russia in Moscow between the Afghan government and Taliban

representatives is the latest example of growing international concern about the future of Afghanistan as

the May 1 deadline for the proposed U.S. troops pullout nears.

• No breakthrough was expected from a single-day conference between the parties that have been fighting

each other for nearly 20 years. The Russian plan was to bring together the Taliban and the government,

whose Doha peace talks have stalled for months, to jump start the peace process.

• The U.S. has also called for a UN-led multilateral peace conference. The Afghanistan conflict is a

multifaceted one, with its primary actors being the government, the Taliban and the U.S. Others such as

Russia, China and India are worried about the conflict’s spillover effects.

• There is a consensus among all these countries that Afghanistan needs to be stabilised now. U.S.

President Joe Biden, who is reviewing the administration’s Afghan strategy, said this week that it would be

“tough” to withdraw all U.S. troops by the May 1 deadline as the Trump administration agreed in an

accord with the Taliban. On the other side, the Taliban have threatened to launch a new offensive if the

U.S. does not leave according to the schedule. It is a stalemate.

• Mr. Biden’s dilemma is that he cannot commit troops endlessly to a war that the U.S. is certainly not

winning. But if he pulls back without a peace agreement, the civil war could intensify, and the Taliban,

already in control of much of rural Afghanistan, could make rapid gains.

• And if he decides to keep the troops even for a short term, it could trigger a tough response from the

Taliban. So, the U.S. administration is trying to put together a new peace process, with other regional

actors, which would not just buy time for the Americans but also seek to find a lasting settlement.

• It seems Russia, China and India are on board. Pakistan, which hosts the Taliban leadership, will also

participate in the peace process. The flip side of this diplomatic push is that all the main stakeholders

agree that the Taliban would play a critical role in shaping Afghanistan’s future. The U.S. already wants the

Afghan government to share power with the Taliban. Russia has asked the Afghan government and the

Taliban to make “necessary compromises”.

• The jihadist group, whose reign of Afghanistan during 1996-2001 was notorious for extremism, violence

and suppression of basic rights, is on the cusp of power again. The international actors pushing for peace

with the Taliban should at least extract compromises from them.

• After the Moscow meet, Russia, China, the U.S. and Pakistan said that a peace agreement should “include

protections for the rights of all Afghans”. They should make it their top priority in the coming talks.

The message in Alaska, from Washington to Beijing

Context

• A week after the first Leaders’ Summit of the Quadrilateral Framework, held on March 12, the message of

the virtual meeting between leaders of Australia­India­Japan­the United States was delivered directly to

Beijing, as U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken and Yang Jiechi, Chinese Communist Party Politburo

member and Director of the Central Foreign Affairs Commission Office, accompanied by U.S. National

Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, and Chinese Foreign Minister and State Councillor Wang Yi, met in

Anchorage, Alaska.

Quad in focus

• The message was broadly a three pronged one: that under the new U.S. President, “America is back” in

terms of its desire to play a leading role in other regions, that it views China as its primary challenger for

that leadership, and that the Quad partnership is ready to mount a counter­challenge, albeit in

“soft­power” terms at present, in order to do so. In the Quad’s its first — and in the joint editorial by U.S.

• President Joe Biden and Prime Ministers Narendra Modi (India), Scott Morrison (Australia) and Yoshihide

Suga ( Japan), direct mentions of China may have been absent, but senior officials have made it clear that

they were not overlooked in the conversation.

• Briefing the media about the Quad Summit, Mr. Sullivan said that Quad partners had raised their issues

with China, including: “[China’s] coercion of Australia, their harassment around the Senkaku Islands, their

aggression on the border with India”, which were then taken up during the talks with Mr. Wang and Mr.

Yang.

• The fact that the talks in Alaska were prefaced by the Quad summit, as well as visits to Tokyo and Seoul

(by Mr. Blinken and U.S. Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin; Mr. Austin will visit Delhi this weekend), and also

a visit to Canberra by U.S. Indo­Pacific coordinator Kurt Campbell, is no coincidence, and part of the

concerted messaging from Washington to Beijing.

• For both Japan and Australia, that are military allies of the U.S., and completely aligned on Indo­Pacific

policy, the outcomes of the summit, both in terms of the “3C’s”working groups (established on COVID­19

vaccines, Climate Change and Critical Technology), and in terms of this messaging to the “4th C” (China)

are very welcome.

Vaccine diplomacy

• For India, however, the outcomes of the Quad Summit need more nuanced analysis. On the “3C’s Working

groups”, it is clear that New Delhi is on board, but with some riders. The vaccine initiative, for example, is

a major boost for India’s pharmaceutical prowess, which has already been proven during the current

pandemic.

• India is not only the world’s largest manufacturer of vaccines (by number of doses produced and sold

globally), it has already exported 58 million doses to nearly 71 countries worldwide as commercial

shipments, grants and those funded by the Gavi COVAX initiative.

• Manufacturing a billion doses for South East Asia (under the Quad), over and above its current

international commitments, as well domestic goals to vaccinate 300 million people as originally planned

by September (900 million adults in total, i.e. 1.8 billion doses) will require a major ramp up in capacity

and funding, and will bear testimony to the power of Quad cooperation, if realised.

• However, the effort could have been made much easier had India’s Quad partners also announced

dropping their opposition to India’s plea at the World Trade Organization, which it filed along with South

Africa in October 2020, seeking waiver from certain provisions of the Agreement on Trade­Related

Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights for the prevention, containment and treatment of COVID­19 .

• It is surprising that the summit did not seek to bridge differences over this issue (it has seen eight

fractious rounds of talks in Geneva, with the next round expected in June 2021) when the leaders

discussed how to increase India’s production capabilities.

Climate change, technologies

• On climate change, India has welcomed the return of the U.S. to the Paris accord, after former U.S.

PresidentDonald Trump decided to walk out of American climate change commitments. However, while

Mr. Biden has promised to restart the U.S.’s funding of the global Green Climate Fund, which Mr.

• Trump ended, India still awaits a large part of the $1.4 billion commitment by the U.S. to finance solar

technology in 2016, which Mr.Trump subsequently slowed down on. Mr. Biden might also consider joining

the International Solar Alliance, founded by India and France, which the other Quad members are a part

of but the U.S., which promised to do so in 2016, has resisted.

• Meanwhile, on the Quad working group set up to cooperate on critical technologies, India will welcome

any assistance in reducing its dependence on Chinese telecommunication equipment and in finding new

sources of rare earth minerals, but would oppose any move by the other Quad partners to weigh in on

international rule­making on digital economy, or data localisation which had led New Delhi to walk out of

the Japan­led “Osaka track declaration” at the G­20 in 2019.

Handling China

• It is on the “4th C”, however, where it is still unclear how far the Narendra Modi government can go on

the Quad’s intended outcomes, especially on “collaboration, including in maritime security, to meet

challenges to the rules­based maritime order in the East and South China Seas,” as the joint statement

reads.

• While India shares the deep concerns and the tough messaging set out by the Quad on China, especially

after the year­long standoff• at the Line of Actual Control (LAC) and the killings at Galwan that India has

faced, it has demurred from any non­bilateral statement on it.

• India is the only Quad member not a part of the military alliance that binds the others, the only Quad

country with a land boundary with China, and the only Quad country which lives in a neighbourhood

where China has made deep inroads.

• Indian officials are still engaged in LAC disengagement talks that have thus far yielded only a phase­1

disengagement at Pangong Lake; they have a long way to go to de­escalation or status quo ante.

• The violence at the LAC has also left three long­term impacts on Indian strategic planning: First, the

government must now expend more resources, troops, infrastructure funds to the LAC than ever before,

in order to leave no part of the once peaceful LAC unmanned and ensure no recurrence of the People's

Liberation Army April 2020 incursions.

• Second, that India’s most potent territorial threat will not be from either China or Pakistan, but from both,

or what the Indian Army Chief Manoj Mukund Naravane called a “two­front situation”.

• Third, that India’s continental threat perception will need to be prioritised against any maritime

commitments the Quad may claim, especially further a field in the Pacific Ocean. Direction for India The

Modi government has said

• that it sees the Quad formation as it does its other multilateral commitments including the Shanghai

Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Central Asia, BRICS (or Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) in

the emerging economies, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation/Bay of Bengal Initiative

for Multi­Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation in the neighbourhood, etc and seeks to broaden

the space for its principle of Strategic Autonomy; not narrow its bilateral choices.

• In that sense, the Quad’s ideology of a “diamond of democracies” can only succeed if it does not insist on

exclusivity in India’s strategic calculations. Those who speak of Robert Kaplan’s book, Monsoon, which

proposed a greater role for the U.S. in the Indian Ocean as the inspiration for America’s current Quad

strategy, would do well to also read Mr. Kaplan’s sequel, The Revenge of Geography, in which he makes

the case that the world “continues to evolve according to the dictates of physical terrain, frustrating the

proponents of human agency”.

• The truth is, despite last week’s Quad Summit, India’s choices for its Quad strategy will continue to be

guided as much by its location on land as it is by its close friendships with fellow democracies, the U.S.,

Japan and Australia, across the seas.