The Economist - USA (2022-03-12)

32 Asia The Economist March 12th 2022

Indian officials and analysts are at once

irritated by Western criticism and relaxed

about the consequences. Irritated, because

they  divine  Western  hypocrisy.  India

would  very  much  like  to  rely  less  on  Rus­

sian arms and buy more from America. But

they are either too expensive or, in the case

of  missile  systems,  out  of  reach:  America

would not sell India its latest versions.

Elsewhere,  Indian  policymakers  ask,

where has been the full­throated condem­

nation  of  China’s  aggression  along  its

shared  border  with  India,  which  in  June

2020  turned  into  a  deadly  high­altitude

brawl?  And  they  are  still  fuming  over

America’s hasty withdrawal last year from

Afghanistan, leaving the country to the Ta­

liban.  They  feel  it  handed  an  easy  advan­

tage to Pakistan, the Taliban’s backers. 

Yet Indian officials are also relaxed, be­

cause  they  calculate,  probably  correctly,

that  India  will  suffer  few  consequences

from  the  West  over  its  stance  at  the  un.

America and India have a shared interest in

countering  Chinese  assertiveness  or  ag­

gression.  That  has  underpinned  the  logic

of the four­nation Quad, a security group­

ing that also counts Australia and Japan as

members.  Plenty  of  Asia  hands  in  Wash­

ington argue that America should keep its

eye  on  the  larger  goal  of  containing  Chi­

nese  expansionism  (see  Banyan).  In  this

context, it makes sense to overlook India’s

softness on Russia, they say. 

That  may  be  so.  But  India’s  response

points  to  other  weaknesses.  It  claims  to

have leverage over Russia because it is the

biggest  buyer  of  its  arms.Yet  India’s  gov­

ernment still had immense trouble evacu­

ating  the  20,000­odd  Indian  students

caught  in  Ukraine.  (Most  have  now  es­

caped,  but  at  least  one  was  killed  during

Russia’s  shelling  of  Kharkiv.)  Neither  Mr

Modi  nor  any  other  Indian  bigwig  has

rushed  to  Moscow  to  urge  Mr  Putin  to

change course. They are under no pressure

at  home,  either.  Most  Indians  do  not  care

much about the war. 

India’s  coddling  of  Mr  Putin  could  yet

become a liability. It is bad for India’s repu­

tation, and will become more so if he com­

mits  even  worse  atrocities,  such  as  using

chemical  or  battlefield  nuclear  weapons.

And  if  Russia  comes  out  of  the  war  ex­

hausted, impoverished and dependent on

China,  that  could  indirectly  harm  India,

too.  What  might  China  demand  in  return

for supporting Mr Putin? 

In 1962, when India and China fought a

bloody border war, Nikita Khrushchev, the

Soviet  leader,  initially  favoured  his  Chi­

nese  “brothers”  over  his  Indian  “friends”

and pushed India to accept Chinese terms.

Russia  is  in  no  position  to  boss  India

around  today.  But  if  it  became  dependent

on  China  to  survive  sanctions,  and  China

demanded  that  it  sell  less  top­of­the­line

military kit to India and more to China, Mr

Putinwouldsurelyagree.

India’s deployment of Russian s­400

missileshasalreadycreateda vulnerabili­

ty.Chinadeploysthesamesystem,soits

military planners know its flaws and

strengths intimately. India could deter

Chinamoreeffectivelywitha differentsys­

tem.IfAmericankitistoocostly,plentyof

alternativesexist.

Meanwhile,thewarishurtingIndia’s

economy.Sharprisesinthepriceofcrude

oil, cookingoil,fertiliser andmore will

makeitharderforthecentralbanktocurb

inflationwithoutstuntinggrowth.Econo­

mistsarealreadypredictingslowergrowth

andhigherinflation.Thatwouldhitthe

pocketsofordinaryfolk.Andbysqueezing

MrModi’sbudget,includingfordefence,it

wouldmakehisgoalofstrategicautonomy

everhardertoachieve. n

Floodsandfires

Extreme no more

T

hewilsonsriverbrokeitsbankson

the  night  of  February  27th  while  Lis­

more,  a  town  of  around  30,000  in  New

South  Wales,  was  sleeping.  Its  residents

snoozed  through  early­hours  emergency

warnings that “risk to life [was] imminent”.

Within  hours  the  town  was  submerged.

Residents  scrambled  into  their  attics.

Mothers carried children onto rooftops. An

army of locals launched tin boats into the

floods to save them. Four people died. 

Eastern  Australia  has  been  hammered

by  what  politicians  call  “once­in­1,000­

year”  flooding.  It  has  already  had  a  soggy

summer  because  of  La  Niña,  a  phenome­

non which triggers downpours there. Then

on  February  23rd,  meteorologists  warned

that  an  area  of  low  pressure  was  forming

over southern Queensland. It sucked mois­

ture from the sea, forming an “atmospher­

ic river” over the east coast. It has dumped

biblical quantities of water ever since.

Brisbane,  Queensland’s  capital,  re­

ceived almost 80% of its annual rainfall in

less  than  a  week  in  February,  flooding

15,000  homes.  As  the  rain  edged  into

northern  New  South  Wales,  it  ripped  up

roads and drowned herds of cattle. Storms

lashed  Sydney  on  March  8th,  causing  a

dam  to  spill  over.  Some  50,000  people  in

the  state  have  been  forced  to  evacuate.  As

The Economistwent to press, 21 people had

died in flooding in the two states.

Scientists are wary of blaming floods on

global  warming  because  everything  from

rainfall to urban development contributes

to them. They disagree, too, about whether

climate  change  is  a  factor  in  this  kind  of

never­ending  downpour.  No  matter  the

cause,  extreme  weather  is  now  a  regular

occurrence in Australia. New South Wales

was buffeted by its last “once­in­100­year”

floods, which submerged Western Sydney,

just a year ago. In 2019 and 2020 vast tracts

of  the  country  were  torched  in  bushfires

which  destroyed  more  than  3,000  homes

and  killed  33  people.  Unlucky  towns  such

as Lismore have in recent years been hit by

both fire and floods. 

It does not help that the state and feder­

al  governments’  response  has  been  bun­

gled.  When  disaster  strikes,  official  aid  is

often slow to come. In 2019 the federal gov­

ernment  set  aside  almost  A$4bn  ($2.9bn)

for a fund that would help it respond to cri­

ses  and  mitigate  future  ones.  But  it  has

spent hardly any of that money. It has now

deployed the army and is dishing out cash

to victims, but locals fume that they were

left for days without power or fuel as sup­

plies of food and water dwindled. Good sa­

maritans clothed and fed them. A universi­

ty is putting up the homeless. “Isn’t some­

body meant to write a plan for this?” won­

ders Ella Buckland, a resident of Lismore.

A  debate  now  rages  about  how  or  even

whether  places  like  Lismore  should  re­

build. Analysts think the floods might trig­

ger  insurance  claims  worth  more  than

A$3bn. Premiums are already so high in di­

saster­prone  towns  that  many  locals  can

no  longer  afford  cover.  Some  politicians

would like the government to pay compa­

nies  to  insure  houses  that  will  inevitably

be struck by future fires or floods, as it does

in  the  cyclone­bashed  Northern  Territory.

“If we are going to start thinking every time

there’s  a  natural  disaster  that  we  have  to

give  up  and  leave  because  it’s  too  hard,

then where are we going to live?” asksLis­

more’s mayor, Steve Krieg. That is becom­

ing a question for ever more Australians.n

LISMORE

Freakish weather is becoming

increasingly common in Australia

When the levee breaks