Given Beijing’s constant disregard for the sovereignty and sovereign rights of its regional neighbours, along with its growing disapproval of the established rules-based order, the makings of a new security arrangement seem to have emerged on the sidelines of the Shangri La Forum in Singapore early this month to address these very challenges.
Recently, I happened to attend the 6th Indian Ocean conference ,2023 in Dhaka which was organized by the India Foundation in collaboration with Ministry of External Affairs of India and Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Bangladesh among others.
West Asia has a tremendous innate capacity to spring surprises despite being a highly volatile region. Of late there has been a greater interest among major regional powers to consciously tone down the rhetoric and differences and work on aligning the common areas of interest through expanding reproachment.
From all estimates and analyses it is abundantly clear that President Recep Tayep Erdogan was able to successfully overcome his detractors, his administration’s failures especially in dealing with the worst earthquakes and relief coordination and accusations of democracy deficit and indulgence in autocracy let alone the economic crisis and ultra-Islamism.
BRICS on a mini-lateral level is focusing and yielding rather significantly on what other major groupings and multilateral organisations are aiming at. It has begun to provide an alternate avenue of cooperation from trade, and finance to resolving regional and global issues to counter-terrorism and capacity building. But, it is not free of issues.
At this stage, it looks like a great point for discussion at the Conference as the climate diplomats from the developing world express hope of some forward movement and justice to the ‘Loss & Damage’ agenda. But the wealthy economies are apparently covering their backs through the recession and Eurasian war by pumping in more money into buying more dangerous weapon systems. So, the concern is that will there be again a tepid response to a meaningful financial commitment.