The recent diplomatic traffic taking place in India’s capital did not get much attention from our media which is too much absorbed with internal politics and borrowed world problems like a shift of axis. We assume that because our eyes are dazzled by the Western axis we can protect ourselves from a shift in axis by neglecting the rest of the world.

Melting the ice in certain fields with China with which it came to a threshold of war in 1962 and with which it still has border disputes, India made some economic agreements. During his visit to India, Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao signed a 16 billion dollar agreement between Indian and Chinese companies. It is indicated that this year the volume of trade between the two countries has reached 60 billion dollars.

If it is recalled that USA President Barack Obama signed a 10 billion dollar agreement during his visit to India, the step China has taken becomes even more meaningful.
After the Chinese prime minister, the Russian president arrived in New Delhi. During the Cold War there was a special meaning in the Soviet-India relationship. However much India was in the independent block, she still established a close relationship with the Soviets. Counter to this, America supported Pakistan. Coming together with his colleague Pratibha Patil and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev established mutual agreement on the subject of the development of mutual projects in the technological field while continuing heavy cooperation in the military and nuclear areas.

Medvedev’s taking a large number of ministers and businessmen with him to India should be read as an effort not to lose the Indian market, particularly in the nuclear and military fields, to the USA and China.

When it is considered that India has one of the world’s largest populations, and when her technological build-up, her nuclear power and her geo-strategic position are considered as well, the competitive initiatives in regard to India by the USA, China and Russia can be easily understood. All that remains is talking about the new alliances that will be established as a necessity of strategic and economic balances.
However, beyond the strategic and economic dimension in the Indian example, what is important is what kind of dynamics can be triggered by the cultural and historical centers of the ancient world becoming players in the developing new global balances.

The cold war period ignored centers that were historically and culturally dominating. Even if Russia was one of the empires in the America (who historically was not a global actor) and Eurasia axis, it did not play an independent role and it became a determinative center in the settling of accounts on the West-East and North-South axes. It established a system in the name of the East-West block that ignored all cultural differences/wealth and made historically prominent centers ineffective. Even if after imperialism this system appeared as a reaction to a European-centered world system, it was still western-oriented. It should not be forgotten that the Soviet system was a product of the western paradigm.

While the single super power world is at the threshold of becoming history without establishing a world system, new global actors are entering the scene. China, Russia, the USA and the European Union are rising powers that immediately come to mind. The USA, Russia and China lining up to make consecutive agreements with India is a sign that India must be counted among these rising global powers.
If strategic analyses are put aside and the relationship between new power centers and ancient civilization centers is overlooked, we can have difficulty understanding how the new world is shaping up.

When looked at in this way, different centers of civilization have become to appear as new powers for the first time since Europeans emerged as a global actor in the 16th century, particularly since the Ottomans were made ineffective, China was exploited and the Indian Babur Empire fell. Even if the Islamic World is not yet this much of a concentrated power, this role cannot be postponed for long due to its potentially challenging geo-cultural and geo-strategic heritage. In this situation it can be said that it will be determinative in global positioning of powers and the development of an international system of natural power centers. When looked at in this way, it can be said that international balances have begun to take a natural course (like in the India-Chinese example).

When looked at from a geo-strategic perspective, a concentration of power has formed in centers of ancient culture and civilization and an expectation can emerge that they can form a richer, more pluralist world that can influence the system.
However, a point that has been overlooked is that it should be asked whether or not the appearance of new global actors from ancient cultural centers is due to a rise in their own culture and civilizations. During the period of imperialism the Europeans established a system of exploitation that covered almost the whole world from India and China to Latin America. In place of this again a western-centered ideological hegemonic system was set up during the Cold War period.

Now it appears that in a multi-polar system, apparently different countries and cultural centers are re-emerging; whereas, in this new system a western-oriented hegemonic system is operative. The common color of the new international structure is a globalization based on capitalistic values, production relationships and finance capitalism.

What is rising India’s difference from Russia in regard to the relationship it has established with capitalism? Or how apparent are China’s cultural colors in the production and finance differences between China and the European Union? In the end, there is the monopolization of a western-oriented world view. Even if the methods are different from the period of imperialism, we have a similar result. We are talking about an accumulation of power where the ancient cultures can not show their own colors.

Here the role to be played by the Islamic world will be determined by its relationship with this hegemonic sanction of the whole world. In regard to Turkey becoming a global power, it is necessary to talk about whether or not its relationship to the system will be different from the story of the rise of India and China.

Ýlgili YazýlarDünya, English, Siyaset