By Mahendra Ved
Forget the “String of
Pearls” story about how China is supposedly surrounding India on the high seas.
China is not just on the sea, but also on land, in air and deeply involved in
the economies of all of South Asia and beyond.
Two events in India’s
neighbourhood taking place on a single day, November 14, show the extent to
which the Chinese reach has extended and is expected to grow phenomenally. They
need to be taken into account by India’s strategic planners.
One was Pakistan’s
Gwadar port going operational and the other was the announcement in Dhaka that
Bangladesh was getting its first-ever submarine from China.
Last Monday, the first
major trade cargo departed from Gwadar, marking operationalisation of the port
designed and built by China. That also marked the completion in just about two
years of the project to feed the port under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor
(CPEC) under the Chinese One Belt-One Road initiative.
Flagging off the cargo,
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said the CPEC will “integrate
development and commerce of various regions across Asia and Europe by
increasing connectivity and Pakistan Vision 2025". He further said that it
seeks "to transform Pakistan into a regional hub of trade, commerce and
manufacturing by harnessing its geo-strategic location into a geo-economic
advantage".
Taking in the big
picture, he said the CPEC “will help integrate South Asia, China and Central
Asia and offer opportunities for people in this region, and investors all over
the world”.
The CPEC is central to
the Sino-Pak vision and also to the Pakistani leadership as a panacea to all
the ills affecting the country and of an acute feeling of being isolated after
the United States under Barack Obama and much of Europe leaned towards India.
At the event, the Prime
Minister was accompanied by the army chief, Gen. Raheel Sharif. Both have
attributed Pakistan’s current tensions with India to part of the latter’s
efforts to ’frustrate’ CPEC.
The November 14
departure of trade cargo from Gwadar marks a decisive arrival for China in the
Arabian Sea and the Gulf region. From there, two ships — Al Hussain Zanzibar
and Cosco Wellington — set sail for ports in Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the
United Arab Emirates and the European Union.
The Chinese have moved
fast in Pakistan when, by contrast, there is little push on the
India-Iran-Afghanistan accord to develop the Chabahar port in Iran -- less than
100 km from Gwadar -- and build a railway line that would link Chabahar to
landlocked Afghanistan and thence to Central Asia.
The project, with the
blessings of the Obama administration, was also to get Japanese participation
with the likely visit to Iran of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. But a Japanese
official recently said there was no word from the promoters of Chabahar seeking
any financial participation.
The announcement in
Dhaka about it getting its first-ever submarine from China comes a few weeks
ahead of the visit to India of Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, likely
in the latter half of December. A range of political and economic issues are
expected to be on the agenda.
However, Bangladesh has
for long placed its military eggs in the Chinese basket. Irrespective of the
political colour of the regime in Dhaka, this has been a continuing and
expanding process, making China the largest trade partner and the No.1 supplier
of military hardware to Bangladesh.
Meanwhile, China’s deep
involvement in Myanmar is a continuing story irrespective of whether the
Generals rule the country or the present civil-military leadership. So is
China’s commitment on several projects in Nepal, including a railway line that
can be extended right up to the Nepali border with Bihar.
Nepal wants to maintain
careful equidistance with India and China. Similarly, Sri Lanka, under heavy
debt from China, wants to compensate the latter with several projects that the
Maithripala Sirisena government has held back.
Prime Minister
Ranil Wickremesinghe in July proposed to China’s Ambassador Yi Xianliang
varying degrees of control over some of Sri Lanka’s biggest infrastructure
projects, including the Mattala International Airport and portions of the
Hambantota deep sea port, and wondered if Sri Lanka could receive some debt
relief.
China refused the
suggestions saying it was not possible under the Chinese law. But it has
continued to promise “fullest cooperation” and that such deals should be
conducted via investors on proper commercial terms. While China’s government
will not swap debt for equity, it will help clear the road for Chinese
companies to take over key projects in Sri Lanka. IZP, a Chinese informational
technology company, has been put forward as a potential purchaser of Mattala
International Airport, while COSCO is looking into expanding operations at the
Hambantota deep sea port.
The fact of the
matter is that India has neither the capacity, nor the political intent, to
reach out to its neighbours with investments and projects. Indeed, many of the
projects awarded to it have lagged behind for several reasons.
That being the
case, India has much more to worry and work on beyond countering the “String of
Pearls”. The Dragon has arrived in the Indian Ocean.
(Mahendra Ved is a
senior journalist and President, Commonwealth Journalists Association (CJA).
Comments and suggestions on this article can be sent to
editor@spsindia.in)
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