US has deliberately become a ‘lonelier power’, China’s rise reshaping global order: Jaishankar

New Delhi: Days after he noted that the US' lack of appreciation for cross-border terror from Pakistan is impacting Indo-US ties, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar said on Sunday that the United States had "deliberately become a lonelier power", claiming Washington's changing posture and China's rise as the two defining features of the global order.

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference edition here, Jaishankar said competition extended beyond the two powers and had led countries to weaponise whatever leverage they possessed.

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"No one would disagree with the fact that the landscape today is primarily marked by a radical repositioning of the United States. A repositioning which is a posture of choice and, in a way, it has deliberately become a lonelier power," Jaishankar said. He also underscored India's ties with Russia saying Moscow has stood by New Delhi against a military power next door when the rest of the world did not back India. Jaishankar said the two countries have historically enjoyed very good relations, and that experience continues to shape their ties. "People don't forget good history or bad history," he said, adding that the India-Russia ties today not only focus on defence, nuclear and space issues but also growing economic and energy ties.

The EAM identified China's emergence as the other major force reshaping international relations, describing its perception of itself as a unique country as both a matter of self-image and, in several respects, reality. Jaishankar said the increasingly competitive environment had implications for countries well beyond Washington and Beijing. "That competition today, not limited to these two countries, has led to a weaponisation of any leverage that any country has. And that competition coexists with the complexity of interdependence."

In this backdrop, emerging and middle powers had reasons to strengthen cooperation with one another wherever their interests did not directly clash. They would also continue working with the US and China, Jaishankar noted. The EAM referred to the Quad as one example of such cooperation. In connectivity, he pointed to the India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor, the International North-South Transport Corridor and the Northern Sea Route.

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BRICS, he said, brought together countries that believed their collective voice carried greater weight than their individual positions. He also highlighted the International Solar Alliance and the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure, both initiated by India, as examples of countries organising around shared priorities.

Countries did not have to be the leading global powers to build effective arrangements, he suggested. Where interests converged, they could develop agendas, institutions and sustained cooperation. "They come together where their interests require them to do so: they find working arrangements, develop an agenda, develop organisations, develop habits of cooperation, and this is today's evolving global order," Jaishankar said. Referring to the accelerating emergence of multipolarity, Jaishankar said countries would maintain relationships with different powers even when those ties were difficult to reconcile. "The idea that countries will have relationships with players which may not always be easy to harmonise, but nevertheless are a reality, is a compulsion for countries. It's a sort of strategy of advancing by hedging," he said.