The main theme for this year’s summit of the world’s largest economies is derived from Hindu’s timeless concept that ‘the world is our family” (“Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam”).

The hosts of the forthcoming G20 meeting of heads of state and government in New Delhi on September 9-10, 2023, have extended the wisdom of Maha Upanishad Sanskrit scriptures to a more intuitively appealing “One Earth, One Family, One Future.”

By celebrating all life on Earth and in the universe, India hopes to focus the meeting on sound and sustainable economic growth to deliver “a cleaner, greener and bluer future.”

That is a clever move to prevent exclusion and warmongering in order to return to the G20’s original mission of a global economic summit -- a unique forum for member countries to discuss what they can do individually and collectively for a steadily growing and well-balanced world economy.

Unfortunately, that’s unlikely to work, as has been clear ever since the ASEAN-UN meeting in Phnom Penh in mid-November 2022, and a few days later at the G20 summit in Bali, Indonesia.

India has experienced the same problem while hosting a G20 meeting of finance ministers and central bank governors at Bengaluru, Karnataka last February: no consensus could be reached on a final statement due to irreconcilable disagreements and clashes about the war in Europe.

Unbridgeable divisions

That war has now entered a decisive stage. Climate change discussions, promises of “green development,” advice for structural change, digital public infrastructure and women-led development cannot avoid the raging fight for the control of world order.

As one of the most prominent leaders of the developing world – aka the Global South (consisting of Africa, Latin America and most of Asia) – India is in a very delicate position.

On economic issues, there is nothing India can do to improve middle- and low-income countries access to reasonably priced sources of development finance. High and rising interest rates in the developed world are part of U.S. and E.U. efforts to stop and reverse deeply entrenched inflation pressures. That puts the developing world in a very difficult situation.

Those countries’ debt burden is estimated at $9 trillion, with their debt service currently running at about $45 billion.

Incidentally, India may also face problems to close its own savings-investment gap estimated at $120 billion or 3% of GDP.

A fundamentally more difficult issue for India is its geopolitical positioning in a world where the U.S. and the E.U. are on a permanent collision course with Russia and China.

India’s membership in a QUAD (Quadrilateral Security Dialogue) group with U.S., Japan and Australia cannot be brushed off as a seat in another informal security talking shop. No, the Quad’s mission is to “confront China and counter its reach and territorial claims in the Indo-Pacific.”

That’s incompatible with India’s membership in BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), an eight-member economic, political and security group accounting for 40% of the world population. BRICS and SCO want a new world order.

Next week (May 4-5, 2023), India will host an SCO foreign ministers’ meeting in Goa that will discuss, inter alia, the policy coordination and stronger partnerships.

India’s “live and let live” philosophy

Interestingly, Russia and China pretend to show “understanding” for India’s “non-aligned” inclinations.

For example, the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi startled the Russian President Vladimir Putin during the SCO summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, last September with a statement that “today’s era is not of war …” and that “democracy, diplomacy and dialogue are such things that touch the world.” Putin responded that he understood “India’s concerns.”

And then, India became Russia’s important new energy hub, while Delhi continued to manufacture some of Russia’s top gun fighter planes (advanced Sukhoi 30MKI) and a supersonic BrahMos cruise missile, developed by the Russian-Indian BrahMos Aerospace Company. They are now working on a hypersonic (five times the speed of sound) version of that missile.

Moscow and Delhi go back a long way. No wonder Modi says that Russia is India’s best friend.

India’s China relations are more complicated, mainly owing to contested border claims. But they regularly hold field commanders’ meetings along the Line of Actual Control to avoid clashes. They are working on a difficult compromise in (what they call) a spirit of “Oriental wisdom.”

China and India also maintain an active trade relationship. According to Chinese data, the bilateral merchandise trade in the first quarter of this year rose 2.6% to $32.7 billion. China’s exports to India grew at an annual rate of 3.9%, giving Beijing a trade surplus of $23.4 billion.

India, I believe, expects a softening line from a high inflation and a recession bound America. Delhi also sees a more confident and productive ASEAN-China ties -- and an increasingly assertive Global South. Those indeed could be signs of an emerging new strand of global relations.