Governments across South Asia have rushed to congratulate America’s fascist president-elect Donald Trump, voicing their readiness to work closely with his incoming administration and further integrate themselves into Washington’s war drive against China.
Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi on August 19th, 2024 [Photo by Prime Minister’s Office (Government Open Data License – India)]
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi called Trump on Wednesday, stating in an X/Twitter message: “Had a great conversation with my friend, President @realDonaldTrump, congratulating him on his spectacular victory. Looking forward to working closely together once again to further strengthen India-US relations across technology, defence, energy, space and several other sectors.”
Modi’s statement makes clear that his government will step up its involvement in Washington’s war preparations against China. With the support of the opposition Congress Party, Modi’s Hindu supremacist Bharatiya Janatha Party has transformed India into a frontline state in America’s military-strategic offensive against China. In return the US has extended strategic “favours” to India, including access to advanced weapons and weapon-systems and a growing role as a cheap-labour US arms industry subcontractor.
New Delhi has given the US military access to Indian ports and bases for resupply and repair and joined an ever-growing web of bilateral, trilateral and quadrilateral alliances directed against Beijing, with the US and its principal Asia-Pacific allies, Japan and Australia. It is working in close concert with Washington to counter Chinese influence across South Asia and draw states throughout the Indo-Pacific into an informal anti-China bloc.
Both Democratic and Republican administrations have prioritised developing the Indo-US Global Strategic Partnership. Under the Biden-Harris administration this was taken to a qualitatively new level. In August 2023, senior Indian officials let it be known they were urgently responding to a Biden administration directive that they detail what support India would provide in the event of a war with China over Taiwan.
Nevertheless, Modi and other senior Indian government leaders have expressed enthusiasm at Trump’s victory, calculating that the Indian bourgeoisie can profit from the tactical differences between Trump and the outgoing administration over how best to secure US global hegemony. In particular, the Modi government is hopeful that the second Trump administration will be less strident than Biden’s in pressuring India to downgrade its longstanding economic and military-strategic ties with Russia, and will instead prioritise America’s strategic conflict with China.
Explaining how India can benefit from Trump’s victory, Indian Foreign Affairs Minister Jaishankar told a meeting of Australian business leaders in Sydney on Thursday that his election is likely to accelerate the shift of US and other western-based firms from China to India.
“There was already a re-ordering of the supply chains taking place. It is very likely that in view of the election results, this would accelerate. Some of it will be disruptive, but we in India see it as an opportunity,” Jaishankar said.
Underscoring the Indian government’s eagerness to cooperate with Trump, Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal indicated support for Trump’s plans to deport immigrants en masse. According to a report in the Deccan Chronicle, he said that New Delhi agrees undocumented Indians in the US “should come back.”
Modi’s warm relationship with Trump is not only based on shared Indo-US strategic and economic interests. Modi is very much a far-right political leader in the Trump mold—a would-be Hindu authoritarian strongman, with a long and bloody record of communalist incitement, brutal cuts to social spending and pro-business attacks on the Indian working class.
In Bangladesh, Muhammad Yunus, who heads that country’s interim administration congratulated Trump. “Electing you as the US President for a second term reflects that your leadership and vision have resonated with the people of the United States of America. I am confident that under your stewardship, the United States will thrive and continue to inspire others around the world,” he declared.
Yunus came to power following mass protests that forced the resignation of Bangladesh’s former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina Hasani and her dictatorial regime. He has pledged to maintain the harsh International Monetary Fund austerity policies Hasani was implementing.
JVP leader Anura Kumara Dissanayake [Photo: Facebook]
Anura Kumara Dissanayake, Sri Lanka’s recently elected president and leader of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP)/National People’s Power (NPP), was among the first of the South Asia leaders hailing Trump’s victory.
His X/Twitter message declared: “Warm congratulations to president-elect Donald Trump on receiving a strong endorsement as the 47th President of the United State of America. I look forward to engaging with your administration in realising common objectives of our relations that are beneficial to the people of Sri Lanka and the United States.”
Dissanayake’s congratulations are yet another assurance to Washington that his regime will maintain the policies of his predecessor, Ranil Wickremesinghe, and further integrate the island into the US and Indian geostrategic offensive against China.
The increased involvement of Sri Lanka, which is located alongside strategic Indian Ocean import and export shipping routes to China, including access to vital Middle East oil, is key to Washington’s geostrategic planning. Over the past two years Dissanayake has cultivated close relations with US Ambassador Julie Wang and last month held closed door meetings in Colombo with US Pacific Fleet Commander Admiral Steve Koehler.
This week the JVP’s Lanka Truth website published an article written by Dr. Amunugama, a former cabinet member in governments led by Wickremesinghe’s United National Party and the Sri Lanka Freedom Party, echoing Dissanayake’s farcical claim that Trump’s agenda could benefit “the people of Sri Lanka and the United States.”
Sajith Premadasa, the leader of the opposition Samagi Jana Balawegaya (SJB) and former President Wickremesinghe also joined Dissanayake in congratulating Trump. Premadasa expressed his wishes for “peace, goodwill, and meaningful cooperation” during Trump’s incoming administration. Wickremesinghe described Trump’s return to power as a “historic accomplishment” and an indication that American people “trust” in Trump’s reactionary, demagogic pledge to “Make America Great Again.”
The rush of South Asian political leaders to hail the fascistic Trump is no accident.
Modi, Dissanayake, Yunus and other members of South Asia’s ruling elites are well versed in whipping up communalism—their own versions of Trump’s racist attacks on immigrants—to suppress the inevitable struggles that will erupt against the austerity measures they are imposing in their own countries. And like Trump they will readily turn to dictatorial forms of rule to impose the dictates of big business, the banks and the billionaires.
Sri Lankan President Dissanayake and his JVP/NPP administration live in fear of a re-eruption of the multi-million strong movement of workers and the oppressed masses that emerged in 2022 against the austerity measures of the Rajapakse regime and threw it out of office. Their eagerness in backing Trump is a desperate attempt to reinforce their ties with what remains the world’s premier imperialist power and thereby strengthen their hand against the working class and rural toilers.
Workers in South Asia need to join with their class brothers and sisters in the US and internationally in a united movement against the escalation of imperialist war across the globe and the imposition of dictatorial forms of rule. Such a movement must be based on the fight for socialist internationalism and the overthrow of the capitalist profit system.
These are the foundation of the program on which the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) in Sri Lanka fights. The SEP is intervening in the country’s general elections to be held on November 14, running 41 candidates in three electoral districts—in the capital Colombo, Jaffna in the north and Nuwara Eliya in central plantation area—to take forward this fight. We urge workers, students and youth in Sri Lanka to vote for our candidates, support our election campaign and join the SEP.
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Publish date : 2024-11-08 15:50:00
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