With Queen Elizabeth's Death, many Indians Want Kohinoor Diamond Returned amid Britain's King Charles III proclaimed Britain's new monarch

The crown of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, containing the famous Kohinoor diamond, pictured on April 19, 1994.Tim Graham Photo Library via Getty Images

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Queen Elizabeth II has passed away

Queen Elizabeth II has died

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With Queen Elizabeth's
Death, Indians Want Kohinoor Returned

An Indian model shows a replica of the famous Indian diamond Kohinoor during a press meeting in Calcutta, 29 January 2002.  

 https://twitter.com/i/status/1568572941448941568

Shortly after British monarch Queen Elizabeth II passed away on Sept. 8, the word “Kohinoor” began trending on Indian Twitter.

It was a reference to one of the world’s most famous gems. The Kohinoor diamond is just one of 2,800 stones set in the crown made for Elizabeth’s mother, known as the Queen Mother—but the 105-carat oval-shaped brilliant is the proverbial jewel in the crown.

In India, it is notorious for the way in which it was acquired by the British. 

The history of the Kohinoor

When it was mined in what is now modern-day Andhra Pradesh, during the Kakatiyan dynasty of the 12th-14th centuries, it was believed to have been  793 carats uncut. The earliest record of its possession puts it in the hands of Moguls in the 16th century. Then the Persians seized it, and then the Afghans.

The Sikh Maharajah, Ranjit Singh, brought it back to India after taking it from Afghan leader Shah Shujah Durrani. It was then acquired by the British during the annexation of Punjab. The East India Company got hold of the stone in the late 1840s, after forcing the 10-year-old Dunjeep Singh to surrender his lands and possessions.

Read More: Countries May Cut Ties With Monarchy After Queen’s Death

The company then presented the gem to Queen Victoria. Prince Albert, her consort, asked for it to be recut and it was set in the crowns of Queen Alexandra and Queen Mary before being placed in the Queen Mother’s crown in 1937.

The Queen Mother wore part of the crown at her daughter’s coronation in 1953. The Kohinoor has been among the British crown jewels since then, but governments in Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India have all laid claim to the diamond.

Britain’s controversial possession of the Kohinoor diamond

While no plans for the future of the gem have been disclosed, the prospect of it remaining in the U.K. has prompted many Twitter users in India to demand its return.

“If the King is not going to wear Kohinoor, give it back,” wrote one

Another said the diamond “was stolen” by the British, who “created wealth” from “death,” “famine” and “looting.”

It is not the first time that the diamond’s return has been sought. Upon India’s independence in 1947, the government asked for the diamond back. India made another demand in the year of Queen Elizabeth II’s coronation. These demands fell on deaf ears, with the U.K. arguing that there areno legal grounds for the Kohinoor’s restitution to India.

British-Indian author and political commentator Saurav Dutt says the chances of the U.K. returning the jewel are slim. 

 Read More: Why King Charles III Was an Unpopular Heir

True, the British recently facilitated the return of the Benin Bronzes—72 artifacts looted by British soldiers in the 19th century—to the Nigerian government. But Dutt says the British royal establishment is still “married to this romantic version of empire, even though it is long dead, and has lost its power.” The Kohinoor is a symbol of that power, Dutt argues, and in turning it over, he believes the Royals “would essentially be eviscerating themselves.”

At the very least, King Charles III must acknowledge the “black history” of the Kohinoor diamond, Dutt says.

“A recognition of the fact that it was obtained through stealth and deception would be a significant step at this stage, that lays the groundwork for the next generation to be able to give it back,” he tells TIME.

Many Indians may not have that patience. In the wake of the Queen’s death, there is one demand on Indian Twitter: “Now can we get our #Kohinoor back?” 

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Washington weaponizes Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) even before it takes shape

 

 After a long period of public opinion hype, the first ministerial meeting of the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) led by the US and participated by a total of 14 countries is set to be held in Los Angeles from Thursday to Friday. Although officials in Washington claimed that this does not mean participating countries have to pick a side between China and the US, it is just a cover-up to appease people and an insincere statement - in related reports in the US and Western media, "anti-China" frequently appears in news headlines, and some even couldn't wait to tout that the IPEF is "the best way for US to counter China in the Indo-Pacific."

In May this year, US President Joe Biden announced the launch of the IPEF during his visit to Japan. Washington's boast that the IPEF "goes beyond typical trade deals" and will "have an affirmative economic agenda" in the region is just a guise to cover up the IPEF's "innate deficiencies." Its "non-typical" feature is that it does not include tariff relief, market access and other arrangements, which makes it difficult for member states to obtain substantial economic benefits from it; its "innovation" is that it does not require congressional approval, and member states can freely choose to participate in the four pillars. This means the IPEF lacks legal binding force.

More importantly, although the IPEF has been painted with "economic cooperation," its root is the "political framework" to contain China. Washington's real purpose is to create a small circle of supply chains and industrial chains in the Asia-Pacific region that is "decoupled" from China. This obviously harms the vital interests of Asia-Pacific countries, and this is what most countries are worried about and opposed to. At the same time, some member governments have not been able to explain to their citizens the "necessity" of participating in the IPEF. Most of them participated in the negotiation with a skeptical attitude, and some were coaxed by the US.

Washington has designed four "pillars" for the IPEF: trade, labor and digital economy; clean energy and decarbonization; resilience of supply chains; tax and anti-corruption. What is basically certain is that Washington will not offer any concessions to the participating countries. Based on past experience, what Washington will actually do is to ask for more. While inciting other countries to "decouple" from China's industry chain, it also attempts to quietly turn these countries into economic vassals of the US. Countering China has become Washington's open scheme, while creating more economic vassals and geopolitical minions at the same time is its secret plot. This should arouse high vigilance of Asia-Pacific countries.

Coincidentally, the IPEF has a high degree of overlap in terms of the members with the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) that came into effect earlier this year. Among the 15 member countries of RCEP, 11 countries have participated in the IPEF. Only four countries, including China, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, are not IPEF members. And among IPEF countries, apart from the US, India and Fiji, the remaining 11 countries have all joined the RCEP.

The US wants to use IPEF to hurt the foundation of RCEP and hollow out this regional free trade agreement. However, compared with RCEP, which has solidly promoted regional economic integration, IPEF is just a big empty shell. Each participating country has its own demands for interests, and it is impossible for all of them to follow US orders like Japan.

Most of the participating countries hope to obtain US commitment to open the market through the IPEF negotiation, but Washington is advertising that the IPEF negotiation will bring benefits to US labors, as well- as small and medium-sized enterprises. Washington has shown no interest in bridging the gap between different interest demands.

In addition, the IPEF faces a huge uncertainty - its progress is made only by the president's executive order. When the US government changes, the negotiated agreement may be overturned at any time. It is widely anticipated that once there is a political party rotation and if the Republican Party takes office, relevant content relating to fair trade, digital economy, and clean energy will be revised immediately and substantially. This means that three of the so-called four pillars of the IPEF could collapse overnight.

People still have a fresh memory of the TPP, and many people still use the TPP to benchmark the IPEF. In 2016, Washington pooled a lot of resources to building the TPP to contain China. Now that six years have passed, China and the international community, including the US, have become more deeply integrated. Washington is still obsessed with protectionism and unilateralism, and even blackmails the world at its whim. Before the IPEF takes shape, some people in the US are eager to install teeth on it, claiming that "an IPEF without teeth is bad for the US and catastrophic for our relationships in the region." Such bloc confrontational mentality and geopolitical evil thought have already determined the future of the IPEF.

Although the stage of the IPEF was set up, the play is not on yet. Washington cares only about its own hegemony and does not care about the interests of others, and this farce is only a temporary one. 

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This guy speaks the facts:

Liz Truss takes over a Britain in decline and in severe crisis: Martin Jacques

 

Liz Truss delivers a speech at an event to announce the winner of the Conservative Party leadership contest in central London on September 5,2022. Photo: AFP

Liz Truss is the new British Prime Minister. She beat her Conservative rival Rishi Sunak by tacking strongly to the right. No doubt the fact that she is white, and Sunak is brown, was also a major factor for the 170,000 overwhelmingly white Conservative Party members who voted. If Truss is to be taken at her word, she will be the most right-wing prime minister since Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s.

Each of the last four Conservative prime ministers has been more right-wing than their predecessor: in chronological order, David Cameron, Theresa May, Boris Johnson, and Liz Truss. Truss wants to cut taxes, doesn't like the state, is hostile to redistribution, believes in trickle-down economics (that feathering the nests of the rich will ultimately help the poor), and is an anti-China hawk.

In being true to her beliefs, however, she faces a gargantuan problem. She is confronted with the worst economic crisis of any British prime minister since 1945. It is impossible to find any good news on the economic front. As a result of the war in Ukraine, the price of natural gas, which is the main source of domestic heating, is five times what it was a year ago and is predicted to carry on rising steeply. Without state intervention to hold down energy prices, around half the population will this winter be impoverished.

Inflation, which for most of this century has been at around 2 percent, is already at 11 percent, and is predicted to rise to 20 percent. Interest rates, which have similarly been very low, are rising rapidly, meaning much higher mortgage payments for homeowners. The Bank of England forecasts that the country will go into recession towards the end of this year, and some believe that it will continue until 2024.

With inflation now in double figures, workers are finding they are facing wage increases that are less than half the increase in prices: as a result, they are confronted with the prospect of sharply declining real wages over the next several years. There is growing industrial unrest which is likely to become increasingly widespread over the next year.

This is not just a short-term problem. Real wages are now just below the level they were in 2007, on the eve of the Western financial crisis. In other words, the British economy has been stagnating for the last 15 years and in the process has been falling behind its near neighbours Germany and France. One major think-tank is predicting that over the next two years Britain will experience the largest fall in average real incomes for over one hundred years.

It is inconceivable that Truss can tackle this nightmare scenario by cutting taxes, rolling back the state, and turning a blind eye to the poorest sections of the community. This will require state intervention and redistribution on the scale of the COVID-19 crisis in 2020, otherwise the Conservative Party will surely lose the next general election in 2024. Truss faces a major dilemma: take the right-wing ideological route and court electoral disaster or follow a pragmatic road and swallow her ideological principles.

Even before the coming economic tsunami, there was a mood of frustration and dislocation, a feeling that the country no longer worked properly. Far from ushering in a new era of prosperity and efficiency, Brexit has become synonymous with labour shortages in many parts of the economy. This has been accentuated by the impact of COVID-19 which continues to disrupt the economy, most obviously in the form of chronic labour shortages in many sectors. Britain's most-loved institution, the National Health Service, is now on life-support, a result of being starved of money for many years and an increasingly chronic shortage of staff.

It is important to emphasise that Britain is now in a much inferior position than it was in 1979 when Thatcher first came to power. This is a weakness it shares more generally with the West and especially Western Europe. The Soviet bloc aside, the West for the most part dominated the world during the 1980s. Its influence and hinterland, however, are now much reduced because of the rise of China together with that of the developing world. A topical example will suffice to illustrate the point. Is the present spike in oil and gas prices, which are costing Western Europe dearly, a permanent or temporary phenomenon? It looks very likely that it will be the former, that Western Europe will be permanently disadvantaged, because Russia has found new markets, notably India and China, for its oil. Western Europe enjoys less economic power in the world and its room for manoeuvre has contracted. This is what being part of the declining part of the world means.

Finally, what will Truss mean for Britain's relations with China? There is no reason for optimism. Truss thinks of herself as a cold war warrior. She has strongly hinted that China will be designated a "threat" to national security and treated in the same way as Russia. The golden age in the relationship between Britain and China came to an end around five years ago and there is precious little chance of it returning for a long time to come. 

By Martin Jacques

Born	1945 (age 73–74) Coventry, England, Great Britain, U.K
Nationality	British
Education	King Henry VIII School, Coventry
Alma mater	University of Manchester (B.A.) University of Cambridge (PhD)
Occupation	Editor, academic, author
Website	MartinJacques.com

By Martin Jacques@martjacques

The author was until recently a senior fellow at the Department of Politics and International Studies at Cambridge University. He is a visiting professor at the Institute of Modern International Relations at Tsinghua University and a senior fellow at the China Institute, Fudan University. Follow him on twitter @martjacques. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn 

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