Shashi Tharoor Government Quotations

As an Indian, and now as a politician and a government minister, I've become rather concerned about the hype we're hearing about our own country, all this talk about India becoming a world leader, even the next superpower.

The Beijing Olympics were an exercise in Chinese soft power. Americans have the 'Voice of America' and the Fulbright scholarships. But, the fact is, in fact, that probably Hollywood and MTV and McDonalds have done more for American soft power around the world than any specifically government activity.

Foreigners have a complex set of associations in their minds when they think of America - from Iraq to 9/11, certainly, but also from Coke to jeans. It is entirely possible for people around the world to love American products, American books, American movies, American music, and dislike the policies of the government of America.

In China, national priorities are established by the Government and then funded by the state; in India, priorities emerge from seemingly endless discussions and arguments amongst myriad interests, and funds have to be found where they might.

This is the one international institution we have in which governments get together to work collectively for a common purpose. International crises, by definition, require international solutions. Peacekeeping is a response to conflict, is a response to situations in which often it is not the business of any one particular country to get into. It seems to me, therefore, that the world will for the foreseeable future need peacekeeping.