Madhav Das Nalapat Editorial Director, ITV       NEW DELHI: Neither the top tier of the Chinese Communist Party (which elevated him in 2012 to the post of CCP General Secretary over the claims of Li Keqiang), nor the international community correctly understood the difference between Xi Jinping and his party peers. Before taking over the top job in China, Xi had been content to walk in the shadow of his elders. The anti-corruption campaigns that he launched prior to his appointment in 2012 had netted only small fish, or those few in the middle echelons who had fallen out of favour with higher echelons in the CCP. There…

Madhav Das Nalapat Editorial Director, ITV       Donald Trump is seeking to portray Joe Biden as a secret follower of the principles of the US Congressional members known as the Squad. After the 2018 US Congressional races, four young women banded together as the “Squad”. All four meet Donald J. Trump’s definition of those below the poverty line, which in his view is any citizen with assets below a million dollars. Of the four, the disappointment for liberals has been Ilhan Omar, a backer of Turkey under Recep Tayyip Erdogan and with a neo-Wahhabi philosophy far from the world view of Ayanna Pressley and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, both of…

Madhav Das Nalapat Editorial Director, ITV       Throughout the closing months of 2015 going into most of the next year, suggestions were made from the Republican side that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe meet Donald J. Trump during one of the former’s visits to the US. Such a meeting never took place, and in not meeting the Republican nominee while he was on the campaign trail, Abe was not alone. Japan regards the alliance with the US as the cornerstone of its foreign and security policy, and yet never once did Prime Minister Shinzo Abe meet Trump. That is until 8 November 2016, when soon afterwards he rushed to…

Madhav Das Nalapat Editorial Director, ITV       New Delhi: The founder of the People’s Republic of China, Mao Zedong, was clear that the (Chinese Communist) Party controlled the gun (i.e. the armed forces). Over the past 16 years, this dictum seems to have steadily been reversed, with the CCP more and more adopting policies favoured by the PLA rather than the other way around. The consequence of the adoption of the short-term and aggressive stance favoured by the PLA generals towards ASEAN, India, Taiwan and even the US has resulted in a coming together of these countries in the face of such behaviour by China. The country was…

Madhav Das Nalapat Editorial Director, ITV       November 3, 2020 is when US citizens will either elect President Donald J. Trump to a second term or give the baton to Joe Biden. Both have strong Vice-Presidential candidates in their corner. Mike Pence has refused to take the bait thrown relentlessly at him to “become independent of Trump” and distance himself from the individual who is his only boss, now that the politician from Indiana was elected Vice-President of the US on 8 November 2016. Those who know Pence say that he is an individual who has clear views on the challenges facing the US, both internally and from…

Madhav Das Nalapat Editorial Director, ITV       New Delhi: Jawaharlal Nehru had an imagination which soared far above ground level. His many admirers saw him as the Global Peacemaker and Teacher, the benign and wise leader acknowledged as such by many in the world, as he was by the house-trained social science community in India, who forecast that he would point the world into a peaceful, if not prosperous, future. Foreign policy was designed by Nehru to subserve that lofty ambition, with the country having to look the other way even when its vital interests were challenged. So what if there were setbacks? In time, those countries that…

Madhav Das Nalapat Editorial Director, ITV       COLOMBO is among the most pleasant cities for a tourist to visit, and there are few hotels which can match the majestic Galle Face Hotel on Galle Road. Next door to the hotel is the High Commission of India, and next to that the US Embassy. These days, the closeness of the two compounds to each other mirror the growing partnership between Washington and Delhi, two capitals that have been far apart for much of the past. But the attractions of the hotel is not only its Old World charm but the view of the waves of the sea from the…

Madhav Das Nalapat Editorial Director, ITV       While President Donald J Trump has visited Europe, East Asia and the Middle East several times, thus far he has not come to any of the countries that form the eastern side of the Indo-Pacific, the giant body of seawater that is the hub of global commerce and geopolitics. Unlike Europe, where the Atlanticist establishment reigns and as a consequence, Trump is unpopular with several local leaders, his image within most of Asia’s ruling elites is good. Candidate Trump gave a promise while on the 2016 Presidential elections campaign that he would – in effect – actualise what his predecessor promised…