China and South Asia: Changing Regional Dynamics, Development and Power Play [1 ed.] 0367428296, 9780367428297, 1000439534, 9781032057958, 9780367855413

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‘Today, South Asia witnesses significant changes ranging from growing partnerships and unfolding opportunities to perceptible uncertainties, and China's robust engagement with the region needs to be seen and understood through a fresh lens of strategic pragmatism and developmental reciprocity. This collection of essays, by both established and up-and-coming scholars from the countries involved, provides an excellent study of multiple aspects of the relationship and reflects diverse perspectives and complementary insights. The study, balancing sober thoughts and meaningful policy recommendations with sanguine expectations, also proves a worthwhile attempt to move beyond the conventional geopolitical approach.’ Zhang Li, Professor, Institute of South Asian Studies, Sichuan University, Chengdu, China ‘The profile of China–South Asia interactions is increasing day by day due to the Belt and Road Initiative, investments in infrastructure for connectivity, trade and tourism, but also due to the spread of terrorism and other non-traditional security challenges. This volume, which has gathered a number of scholars' perspectives unravelling these interactions, is comprehensive in its coverage of subjects and themes and provision of diversified opinions. Several contributors to the volume have reflected on the historical and contemporary interactions, asymmetries, balance of power, cooperation, competition or even elements of conflict emerging in the region and provide relevant studies.’ Srikanth Kondapalli, Professor, Chinese Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India ‘This edited volume is a well-timed and powerful collection of seventeen chapters from eminent scholars across the world, each taking a close and dispassionate look at China's role in regional and global politics. It provides an international context against which China's foreign policy behaviour and strategic thinking can be carefully compared and critically examined. In this analytically sophisticated and empirically rich volume, the authors have brilliantly offered systematic, graceful and trenchant analyses of the critical factors that shape and influence China's external relations. As such, it makes an enlightening addition

to the scholarship on China’s foreign policy in the changing international environment.’ Ehsanul Haque, Professor, Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh ‘South Asia has been moving closer to the very core of the India–China bilateral dynamics, as developments in this region vigorously overlap and intermesh, with both powers engaging and contending with the myriad challenges in very different ways. While most accounts seek to portray this complex engagement in terms of power politics, the voices from within the region have a more nuanced story. By bringing a host of scholars from South Asia, this volume serves to invigorate the ongoing debates with fresh perspectives, closer to the ground realities, and bring a much-needed balance to the dominant discourse.’ Alka Acharya, Professor, Centre for East Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India ‘South Asia is a geographical centre and a place where cultures gather. Now it has become an active stage for the strategic competition of great powers. This book gathers some influential experts and scholars in China and South Asia, from the perspectives of history, geography, culture and economy, who discuss the relationship between China and South Asian countries comprehensively and in depth. Reading this book can help readers understand China's South Asia policy, the trends and causes of changes in China–India relations, how to eliminate the uncertainty in China–India relations and understand the importance of China–South Asia relations more comprehensively and accurately.’ Zhang Jiadong, Professor, Center for South Asian Studies, Fudan University, Shanghai, China ‘There is now little doubt that China is a global superpower, if not the world's preeminent political, economic and cultural player. The Chinese influx in South Asia, home to almost two billion people and arguably the single most important region in charting the future of the world in decades to come, is therefore of global significance. By charting numerous aspects of China's historical and contemporary engagements with South Asia, most notably its uneasy relationship with India and a growing strategic and economic influence in Pakistan, this volume offers critical insights into China's ongoing South Asia odyssey. Whether China's growing footprint heralds an egalitarian and sustainable development paradigm will have an impact on not only South Asia but the world at large.’ Aasim Sajjad Akhtar, Professor, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan

China and South Asia

This book looks at the changing dynamics and regional power play between China and South Asia. It explores crucial issues such as the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor and the changing nature of China–India relations; China’s trident approach in South Asia and its rising influence in the region; the responses of small states to rising China; China’s twenty-first-century Belt and Road Initiative; China and India; China’s rise and the USA’s security policy vis-à-vis India; the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and regional security; and Russia’s ‘Pivot to the East’ and its impact on the Asia–Pacific region. The volume brings together the views of scholars from China, South Asia and beyond on different aspects of China and South Asia engagement, including regional politics, connectivity, infrastructure and development projects, power politics, economy, ideology and culture. The chapters offer insights into trends and challenges within China’s economic and security environment as impacted by globalization, regional interests and the demands of cooperation. They present critical, comprehensive and expert analyses of China’s engagement with South Asia by covering historical, sociological, political, cultural, economic and strategic factors while including perspectives from individual countries. This volume will be useful to scholars and researchers of Chinese studies, politics and international relations, South Asian studies, foreign policy, diplomacy, security and strategic studies and political studies, as well as to those in the media, policymakers, bureaucrats, diplomats and think tanks. Rajiv Ranjan is Associate Professor in Global Studies at the College of Liberal Arts, Shanghai University, China. Guo Changgang is Professor at the College of Liberal Arts; Director of the Institute of Global Studies, Shanghai University and Director of the Institute of History, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, China.

Routledge Critical Perspectives on India and China

India and China together are home to more than one-third of the world’s population. Two of the fastest-growing economies today, these two nations will be key to the world’s future. This unique collaborative series between the Routledge India and China publishing programmes aims to bring cutting-edge, interdisciplinary research from and on these two global powers. The books in this series focus on topical and emergent issues in contemporary India and China, presenting new perspectives on politics, society, economy, environment and culture. China and South Asia Changing Regional Dynamics, Development and Power Play Edited by Rajiv Ranjan and Guo Changgang The Chinese Shadow on India’s Eastward Engagement The Energy Security Dimension Edited by Sanjay K Bhardwaj The Rise of India and China Social, Economic and Environmental Impacts Edited by Kala S Sridhar and Li Jingfeng India and China Economics and Soft Power Diplomacy Edited by Geeta Kochhar and Snehal Ajit Ulman South Asia and China Engagement in the Twenty-First Century Edited by Adluri Subramanyam Raju For more information about this series, please visit: www.routledge.com/Routledge-Critical-Perspectives-on-India-and-China/ book-series/RCPIC

China and South Asia Changing Regional Dynamics, Development and Power Play

Edited by Rajiv Ranjan and Guo Changgang

First published 2022 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2022 selection and editorial matter, Rajiv Ranjan and Guo Changgang; individual chapters, the contributors The right of Rajiv Ranjan and Guo Changgang to be identified as the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this book are solely those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the editors or the publisher. The analyses based on research material are intended here to serve general educational and informational purposes and not obligatory upon any party. The editors have made every effort to ensure that the information presented in the book was correct at the time of press, but the editors and the publisher do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability with respect to the accuracy, completeness, reliability, suitability, selection and inclusion of the contents of this book and any implied warranties or guarantees. The editors and publisher make no representations or warranties of any kind to any person, product or entity for any loss, including, but not limited to special, incidental or consequential damage, or disruption alleged to have been caused, directly or indirectly, by omissions or any other related cause. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A catalog record has been requested for this book ISBN: 978-0-367-42829-7 (hbk) ISBN: 978-1-032-05795-8 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-367-85541-3 (ebk) DOI: 10.4324/9780367855413 Typeset in Sabon by SPi Technologies India Pvt Ltd (Straive)

For our friends 孔子:有朋自远方来，不亦乐乎! Confucius: Isn’t it a joy to have friends come from afar!

Contents

List of figures List of tables List of abbreviations Foreword by S D Muni Acknowledgements List of contributors 1 Introduction: China and South Asia in the twenty-first century

xii xiii xiv xvi xx xxii 1

RAJIV RANJAN

PART I

Politics and strategy

15

2 CPEC and changing dynamics of China–India relations

17

SAEED SHAFQAT

3 China’s Trishula approach in South Asia: challenges to balancing the end game

35

MAHENDRA P LAMA

4 Coping with rising China: responses of the small states of South Asia

57

ROBAYT KHONDOKER AND RASHED UZ ZAMAN

5 Cooperation and competition in China–India relations: a quantitative analysis of academic debates

79

ZHANG SHULAN, XU WEIDAN AND HUO WENLE

6 Security environment in South Asia: the role of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) AMJAD ABBAS KHAN

97

x  Contents PART II

Belt and Road Initiative

109

  7 China’s twenty-first-century Maritime Silk Road and its influence on the development of South Asia: a geopolitical perspective 111 ASANTHA SENEVIRATHNA

  8 The Belt and Road Initiative: the changing dynamics of development in South Asia

125

ATIA ALI KAZMI

  9 The Belt and Road Initiative: Chinese normative power in South Asia

141

FEDERICO TOMBARI

10 Bangladesh–China maritime security cooperation: a search for new opportunities under the Belt and Road Initiative

157

NOOR MOHAMMAD SARKER

PART III

Ideology, media and culture

173

11 The impact of the Sino-Soviet split on the politics of the left in Pakistan

175

MUHAMMAD QASIM SODHAR

12 Image of China in the Afghan media

186

HAZRAT M BAHAR

13 China–India cooperation in the cultural industry in the twenty-first century

197

WAN JIQIONG

14 Development of cultural ecotourism in Gilgit-Baltistan: opportunities and challenges in the wake of the CPEC NAILA MASOOD AHMAD

210

Contents  xi PART IV

Great power politics

225

15 Anticipating the China challenge: China’s rise and the United States’ security policy vis-à-vis India

227

KASHISH PARPIANI

16 China’s Belt and Road Initiative and the Indian Ocean balance

243

VIVEK MISHRA

17 Russia’s ‘Pivot to the East’ and its impact on the Asia-Pacific region and South Asia

255

ALEXEY A SEMENOV

Index

268

Figures

  5.1   5.2   5.3   5.4   5.5   5.6   5.7 12.1

Mainstream of Sino-Indian relations (recognition) 84 Sino-Indian interactions in economy and trade (recognition) 87 Sino-Indian interactions in energy 88 Sino-Indian interactions in climate change, IT and Antiterrorism89 Sino-Indian interactions in geopolitics 89 Key issues influencing Sino-Indian relations 91 Routes of Sino-Indian cooperation 92 Volume of exports to Afghanistan (in USD) 188

Tables

2A.1 Details of Meetings between Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India and President Xi Jinping of China, 2014–2018   3.1 China’s Land Border, Trade Routes and Emerging Connectivity in South Asia   3.2 China–South Asia Trade Volume 1980–2018 (Million USD)   3.3 Shares of India and China in Total Trade of South Asian Countries and Myanmar 1996–2018   9.1 AIIB-Approved Projects and Co-lending IOs 12.1 Stories in Newspapers Mentioning China 14.1 Tourist Inflow in Gilgit-Baltistan (2007–2016) 14.2 Avenues and Activities of Eco-Cultural Tourism 14.3 Projects for Tourism Sector Development

29 38 43 45 142 192 213 214 217

Abbreviations

AAGC Asia–Africa Growth Corridor ADB Asian Development Bank AIIB Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank APEC Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation APR Asia-Pacific Region ASEAN Association for Southeast Asian Nations BAF Bangladesh Air Force BBIN Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal Initiative BCIM Bangladesh–China–India–Myanmar Economic Corridor BEP Big Eurasian Partnership BIMSTEC Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation BJP Bharatiya Janata Party BRI Belt and Road Initiative BRICS Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa CCGT Combined Cycle Gas Turbine CDB China Development Bank CENTO Central Treaty Organisation CICT Colombo International Container Terminals Ltd COVID-19 Coronavirus Disease 2019 CPEC China–Pakistan Economic Corridor CTC Comprehensive Training Centre DSE Dhaka Stock Exchange DTMB Digital Terrestrial Multimedia Broadcasting EAEU Eurasian Economic Union EEU Eurasian Economic Union EEZ Exclusive Economic Zone EU European Union EY Ernst & Young FDI Foreign Direct Investment FICCI Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry FTA Free Trade Agreement GDP Growth Domestic Product GE General Electronics GMBGT Greater Mekong Basin Growth Triangle GMS Greater Mekong Subregion

Abbreviations  xv HIPG Hambantota International Ports Group HS Hasht e Sobh INSTC International North South Transport Corridor IOR Indian Ocean Region IR International Relations KKH Karakoram Highway KT The Kabul Times LNG Liquefied Natural Gas M&E Media and Entertainment MBD Mission Based Deployments MCC Metallurgical Group Corporation MoU Memorandum of Understanding MSRI Maritime Silk Road Initiative NAM Nonaligned Movement NDRC National Development and Reform Commission NHDP National Highways Development Project NSE National Stock Exchange NSEW North South East West Corridor NUG National Unity Government OBOR One Belt, One Road OSARFCC Organization for South Asian Regional Friendship and Cooperation with China PAN Pajhwok Afghan News agency QUAD Quadrilateral Security Dialogue R&D Research and Development RCEP Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership RMB Renmin Bi SAARC South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation SARS Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome SCO Shanghai Cooperation Organisation SDR Special Drawing Rights SEZ Special Economic Zone SIPRI Stockholm International Peace Research Institute SLOCs Sea Lines of Communication SRF Silk Road Fund TAR Tibetan Autonomous region TDDF Tanzania People’s Defence Forces UN United Nations UNCTAD United Nations Conference on Trade and Development UNHRC United Nations Human Rights Council UNP United National Party UNPKO United Nations Peacekeeping Operations UNSC United Nations Security Council UNSCO United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process USA United States of America USD United States Dollar

Foreword

China’s engagement with what we know as South Asia today has evolved over centuries. It has been defined and nursed by cultural and religious exchanges, commercial contacts, wandering pilgrims, travellers and scholars, as well as by occasional conflicts and tensions. The victory of the communist revolution led by Mao Zedong in 1949 received spontaneous support from India. India also endorsed China’s ‘liberation’ of Tibet, withdrawing its significant presence from there and Xinjiang. The significant but short-lived phase of peaceful coexistence between India and China came to an end, however, when their unresolved boundary dispute in the Himalayas led the two countries to an armed conflict in 1962. Differing perceptions of border claims persist between them, building the potential for further conflict, as evident from their current military stand-off. Revolutionary China established its trade relations with Sri Lanka in 1952 under the Rice-Rubber barter deal, in which Sri Lanka defied US sanctions. China established its diplomatic relations with Nepal as an independent country in 1956. It is keen to do so with Bhutan, as well. With Pakistan, China’s relations started building slowly and gradually, but by the mid 1960s, they had firmed up. Now Pakistan is China’s ‘all-weather friend’. While maintaining normal friendly relations with the South Asian countries, China has never shied away from offering them political, diplomatic and even financial support as and when they needed it to balance their relations with India and other great powers. With the end of the Cold War, China started looking at South Asia afresh. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was lauded as a mechanism for ‘promoting peace, stability and economic cooperation in the region’ by Jiang Zemin during his visit to Pakistan in 1996. Since then, China’s interest in South Asia has grown. The Kunming initiative in 1999 and the idea of a Bangladesh–China–India–Myanmar forum were aimed at building the infrastructure connectivity of the Chinese periphery in Yunnan with the neighbouring South Asian markets and the sea. President Xi Jinping has cast China’s approach to Asia and the world in a new vision. His One Belt, One Road (OBOR) idea, spelled out in 2013, gave an added push to regional connectivity and economic integration. The New Silk Road and Maritime Silk Road redefined OBOR as a massive Belt and

Foreword  xvii Road Initiative (BRI) in 2015. This vision was articulated and endorsed at the 19th Party Congress in October 2017 and the 13th People’s Congress in March 2018. The BRI is now an integral part of China’s Party Constitution. South Asia has emerged as one of the important theatres for realising this vision. Four major drivers for China’s new approach are shaping its enhanced engagement with South Asia. They are: . The security, stability and development of China’s peripheral regions. 1 2. Maintaining the growth trajectory of China by economic engagement. 3. Resolving the Malacca Dilemma by seeking alternative access to the sea and consolidating China’s presence in the Bay of Bengal and wider Indian Ocean. 4. Containing the potential for the adversarial use of South Asia by competing powers. Developing the Periphery: six of the South Asian countries, namely Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Bhutan and Myanmar, border China’s south-western peripheral regions. These regions, namely Yunnan, Tibet and Xinjiang, are distant from the mainland, and landlocked, and their access to the adjoining regional and global markets is difficult. Three BRI components, economic and connectivity corridors, are aimed at integrating China with South Asia. The megaproject of the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) was launched in 2013. The rail and road linkages with Nepal were encompassed under the Trans-Himalayan Multidimensional Connectivity Network of 2019. This connectivity will boost the economic engagement of China’s landlocked regions with South Asian countries, thus helping in their development. It may therefore be seen as an extension of the Yunnan–BCIM model. The BCIM has now been given a greater bilateral thrust, as India has not yet engaged with it actively. Economic Promise of South Asia: South Asia is a region of more than 1.5 billion people, larger than China in population. It is growing, even under difficult circumstances, at an average rate of 5–6% annually. This opens up huge opportunities for anyone engaging South Asia economically. China, or any other growing economy, cannot ignore this region, particularly since China may have to deal with complex challenges in its growth trajectory in the coming decade. China also has surplus infrastructural and productive capacities that South Asia is ripe to absorb. Malacca Dilemma: China’s ‘Malacca Dilemma’ was spelled out for the first time in 2003, by the then President Hu Jintao. China’s nearly 80% and more of energy trade passes through the Malacca Strait, making it heavily dependent on this passage in the Indian Ocean. China needed alternate strategies to mitigate this weakness (Storey 2006). The Chinese media have been periodically and widely debating this issue, conceding that ‘there is no exaggeration to say that whoever controls the Strait of Malacca will also have a stronghold on energy routes of China’.

xviii  Foreword Seeking alternate routes, China has been looking for access to the sea through different entry points. Projects such as the Gwadar port in Pakistan, that were conceived long before the BRI, have now been brought under this initiative. China has also undertaken to build a deep-sea port at Kyaukpyu in Myanmar and is proposing to build the Kra Canal in Southern Thailand to bypass the Malacca Strait. Besides seeking alternate entry and exit routes to the sea for trade, China has also decided to strengthen itself militarily – through the PLA-Navy (PLAN) – to cope with the unforeseen eventuality of the Malacca Strait’s being blocked. For the enhanced and smooth movement of the PLAN in the Indian Ocean, and to protect Chinese cargo ships, the BRI aims at building and developing a network of deep-sea ports. Hambantota in Sri Lanka has been developed, though the proposal for Sonadia in Bangladesh has not come through. Countering Adversarial Influences: China is demanding a new framework of relations with the great powers, especially the USA. It wants to counter the possibility of the USA using Asian countries in containing China, as was done during the Cold War. China suspects that the US-initiated Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC) is a new tool in contemporary times. China has succeeded in detaching Pakistan from the US alliance. It is making serious efforts to neutralise the anti-China thrust of the US influence in other countries of the region. China is closely monitoring the growing strategic proximity between India and the USA and would like to ensure that this proximity does not impinge on China’s perceived strategic goals in Asia. China is surely uncomfortable with initiatives, such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD), that are seen as challenging China’s core interests in the IndoPacific region. As a critical component in such emerging equations, India is being approached carefully by China. Beyond the Indo-Pacific strategic dynamics, there are many layers of China–India relations, as Prime Minister Modi of India acknowledged at the 2018 Shangri La Conference in Singapore. The significance of this relationship was acknowledged at the Wuhan and Mamallapuram informal bilateral summits between the Indian and Chinese leaders. China’s push into South Asia is decisive but not without challenges. The biggest challenge is India’s persisting opposition to the BRI. India is competing with the BRI and Chinese push into South Asia anywhere in the region, be it the Maldives, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka or Nepal. Keeping in view its financial constraints to match Chinese incentives and offers, India is also collaborating with other players, such as Japan and the USA. The military stand-off in the Himalayas between India and China has further vitiated competition and contests between them for strategic space in the rest of the South Asian countries. The financial and strategic stakes in the South Asian countries are expanding and complicating China’s engagements. Questions are gradually being raised about the consequences of long-term debt, the prospect of political interference and unwanted strategic pressures. Some BRI projects

Foreword  xix are being revisited and renegotiated, as was evident in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Bangladesh. These countries are also looking at the security/military dimensions of infrastructure projects. Recall the controversy around the visit of submarines (even nuclear-powered) on Chinese-funded commercial ports in Sri Lanka. In cooperating with China, the smaller South Asian countries will be careful to avoid giving any offence to India or other cooperation partners. Questions are also being raised both within China and the recipient countries about the financial viability of the BRI projects. These countries are also gradually becoming aware of and uncomfortable with the political implications of the Chinese push in South Asia. Chinese policymakers are aware of these challenges and are working hard to cope with them. The present volume looks into all the relevant aspects of China’s growing engagement with South Asia. Contributions by eminent scholars, analysts and policymakers from diverse South Asian countries and China have scrutinised the economic, ideological, cultural and strategic dimensions of contemporary China-South Asia relations objectively and in-depth. The information and insights presented here will greatly enrich the readers’ understanding of this evolving relationship. S. D. Muni Professor Emeritus, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India

Acknowledgements

The idea of the book germinated with the establishment of the Center for South Asian Studies at the Institute of Global Studies, College of Liberal Arts, Shanghai University in 2017. An international conference on the topic was held in 2018, where more than 100 participants from South Asia, China and across the world gathered for brainstorming sessions on China and South Asia. It is thanks to the director of the Institute of Global Studies that the book has seen the light of day. His able leadership and guidance have ensured that the project culminated in a book. We are also indebted to Professor Zhang Yong’an, Dean of the College of Liberal Arts, for providing unconditional support to the project. Colleagues Tugrul Keskin, Yang Chen, Jiang Shixue, Wang Dong, Wang Sanyi, Antonio Zapata, Liu Yi, Ved Baruah, Iris Borowy, Wu Hao and Xie Xiaoxiao offered their wisdom and thoughts. Intellectual and academic discussions with Professors S D Muni, Saeed Shafqat, Walter Anderson, Li Xiguang, Mahendra Lama, Pradeep Taneja, Rashed Uz Zaman, Zhang Shulan, Zhang Jiadong, Chen Jinying, Qiu Meirong, Wang Dehua, Hu Zhiyong, Gao Jian, Tang Qingye, Streltsova Liliia, Dinesh Paudel, Peng Nian, Zhang Jincui, Wang Nan, Khadga K.C, Bharti Chhibber, Naveen K Lohani, Indira P Ravindran, Anshuman Behera, Ahmad Salim and Amjad Abbas Khan helped the participants to formulate their arguments better. Some even took pains to review and comment on the chapters. We are highly grateful for and appreciate their support. We also benefited from reports by three anonymous reviewers. We would like to thank the Consulate General of India, Shanghai, for supporting the initiative. One of the editors is also thankful to Professors Tan Chung, Zhang Li, Ma Jiali, Srikanth Kondapalli, Alka Acharya, Ehsanul Haque, Ajay Patnaik, Manoranjan Mohanty, B R Deepak, Li Tao, Li Li, Wang Zhengxu and Tang Shiping, and friends and colleagues Qian Feng, Lin Minwang, Sanjeev Kumar, Arvind Das, Neeraj, Yudhast Kumar, Pankaj, Sudeep Kumar, Huo Wenle, Imran Khan for sharing their ideas and perspectives on the topic, on various occasions. Qasim Sodhar, Yang Chuan, Du Donghui, Li Ning, Kams, Tann Eangdavid, Soeung Seyhak, Loeun Chhany, Hilal Nur Haldan, Zahid Khan, Ken Li,

Acknowledgements  xxi Zhang Wenting, Ren Jiabo, Shan Xuyan, Xu Chengcheng, Sonartho Kek, Trinh Tung Lam, Rafiq Akbar and Krity Bumma provided research support. We would also like to thank all our contributors from the region and the beyond. Coordinating with 16 scholars in changing regional politics often posed challenges. But we do hope that despite our different perspectives and styles, as a community of scholars, we make sense of China and regional politics. Needless to say, the views and opinions provided here are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily represent the views of their institutions or editors. Generous recognition must be given to Shoma Choudhury, Rimina Mohapatra, Wendy Nardi and the team at Routledge for patiently working with us and ensuring that volume reaches readers. Last but not least, thanks to both our families for their unflinching patience and support. For Rajiv Ranjan, his daughter, Dhanika, and wife, Swati, are perennial sources of love and support. Rajiv Ranjan Guo Changgang

Contributors

Naila Masood Ahmad is Senior Assistant Professor in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences at Bahria University Islamabad, Pakistan. Her research interests focus on gender studies, communication, social issues, tourism and microfinance. She has published articles in international journals and journals recongnied by Higher Education Commission (HEC), Pakistan. She has presented papers at various national and international conferences. Hazrat M Bahar is Assistant Professor at the Shaikh Zayed University, School of Journalism, in the Khost province of Afghanistan. He is currently a PhD scholar at the Shanghai University School of Journalism and Communication. His research interests include political communication and media, mainly social media. His latest peer-reviewed article, ‘Social media and disinformation in war propaganda: How Afghan government and the Taliban use Twitter’, was published in the journal Media Asia. Guo Changgang is Director of the Institute of History, Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences, and Professor at the College of Liberal Arts, Shanghai University, China. He is also Director of the Institute of Global Studies, Shanghai University; a Member of the Advisory Board of Global Studies; Director, the Chinese Association of Religious Studies and Vice-Chair, the Shanghai Association of World History. He has published nine books, including China’s Contingencies and Globalization (Routledge 2018) and is the chief editor of the book series Global Studies Review. His recent research interests are global studies, ethnic and religious diversity in the context of globalization, and development studies. Wan Jiqiong is Associate Professor at the Department of Political Science, School of Marxism, Sichuan University of Science and Engineering (SUSE), China. She received a master’s degree in International Relations from the School of Law, Sichuan University, Chengdu, P. R. China in 2005. She has published academic papers such as ‘Sino-India Relations after the Cold War’ and ‘Sino-India economic trade cooperation in global financial crisis’.

Contributors  xxiii Atia Ali Kazmi is Senior Research and Policy Analyst at Pakistan’s premier university-based think tank, the NUST Institute of Policy Studies, Islamabad. She has had a distinguished career in teaching, research, and administration, over two decades. Dr Kazmi has organized and participated in numerous international and national conferences and Track 1.5/2 dialogues. She has authored policy reports, research papers and book chapters and regularly writes articles on the issues of national security and development. Her areas of interest include geopolitics, diplomacy, public policy and conflict management. Amjad Abbas Khan is Assistant Professor and former acting Director of the Pakistan Study Center, University of the Punjab, Lahore, Pakistan. He is also a Visiting Professor at Jiangxi University of Science and Technology, China, and Editor of Pakistan Vision. He teaches and supervises master’s and PhD students and frequently appears as a commentator for Pakistani and international Media. His research interests include the government and politics of Pakistan, Pakistani foreign policy and China–Pakistan relations. Robayt Khondoker is Assistant Professor teaching International Relations at the Bangladesh University of Professionals (BUP), Bangladesh. He previously served as a sessional faculty member in the International Relations Department at Bangladesh Military Academy (BMA), Bangladesh. He holds an advanced master’s degree in Globalization and Development from the Institute of Development Policy and Management (IOB), University of Antwerp, Belgium, and pursued honours and a master’s degree in International Relations from the University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. His research interests lie in the broad areas of South Asian security, Great Power relations in Asia and the mobility of people and commodities in the South Asian borderland areas. Mahendra P Lama is a noted development economist and Senior Professor at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. He served as the Founding Vice-Chancellor of the Central University of Sikkim and as a Member, National Security Advisory Board of the Government of India and the Eminent Persons Group on India-Nepal Relations. His recent work includes the co-authored book, India–China Rethinking Border and Security (University of Michigan Press, 2016). Vivek Mishra is Research Fellow at the Indian Council of World Affairs, New Delhi, and Deputy Director (Honorary), Kalinga Institute of Indo-Pacific Studies, Bhubaneswar, India. He is an Adjunct Fellow at the Haripada Ghosh Research Centre under Bandhan-Konnagar. He is also Assistant Professor (en lien) in International Relations at the Netaji Institute for Asian Studies, Kolkata. He was a Fulbright–Nehru Doctoral Research Scholar at the Saltzman Institute of War and Peace, School of International Public Affairs, Columbia University in the City of New York for the academic year 2015–2016. His areas of research concern

xxiv  Contributors probing the American role in the Indian Ocean and Indo-Pacific and Asia-Pacific regions, including the USA in security in South Asia Indo–US defense relations, and the Indian defence sector. Kashish Parpiani is Fellow at the Observer Research Foundation, India, and is based in Mumbai. His interests include USA–India ties and US foreign policy in the Indo-Pacific. He is the co-author of America and the IndoPacific: Trump and Beyond (Routledge, 2021). He has by published by the Institute for National Security Studies (Israel), the Centre for Asia and Globalization (Singapore), the Deccan Herald (India), the Marine Corps University Press (US), and The Hindu (India). He has presented papers at conferences by the International Studies Association, the London School of Economics–IDEAS, and Shanghai University. Rajiv Ranjan is Executive Director at the Center for South Asian Studies, the Institute of Global Studies and Associate Professor at the College of Liberal Arts, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China. He is also an Adjunct Fellow at the Institute of Chinese Studies, New Delhi. He has a PhD in Chinese Studies from the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Trained in the Chinese language, Dr Ranjan previously worked as Research Fellow at ICWA, New Delhi, and was Visiting Senior Scholar at Shandong University. He has published in Contemporary International Relations, Critical Sociology, Global Environmental Politics, International Affairs, Political Studies Review, and Millennium-Journal of International Relations and contributed chapters to edited volumes. He frequently writes for international and national media, including South China Morning Post, Hindustan Times, The Wire, Scroll, Indian Express, The Print, China-India Brief, Prabhat Khabar and ORF. Noor Mohammad Sarker is Research Associate at the Bangladesh Institute of Law and International Affairs (BILIA), Dhaka, Bangladesh, and a PhD Candidate at the School of Political Science and Public Administration (PSPA), Shandong University, China. He was also a Visiting Research Fellow at the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences (YASS), China. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in International Relations from the University of Dhaka. His latest publications include ‘Securing the Development: the Nature of Security Threats and Responses in BCIM-EC’ and ‘Intelligence Failure in South Asia: A Comparative Analysis’ (coauthored with Dr ASM Ali Ashraf). His research interests are broadly in security studies, South Asian affairs and East Asian affairs. Alexey A Semenov is Research Associate at the Institute of Far Eastern Studies, the Russian Academy of Sciences (IFES RAS), Moscow, Russia. He completed bachelor’s and master’s degrees at the Faculty of Applied Political Science, National Research University, Higher School of Economics, Moscow, and postgraduate studies at the IFES RAS. As a political scientist, his main research interests are international relations

Contributors  xxv in the Asia-Pacific Region, Chinese–Russian relations, and the Chinese political system. He was a visiting scholar at the Department of Public Administration, Tamkang University, in 2015. He participated in the International NGOs Exchange Program of BRICS invited by the Chinese People’s Association for Peace and Disarmament and the Visiting Program for Young Sinologists at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences in September 2017 and July 2018, respectively. Asantha Senevirathna is Lecturer in the Department of Strategic Studies at General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University, Ratmalana, Sri Lanka. He holds a bachelor’s degree (Hons.) in Geography from the University of Peradeniya, Sri Lanka, and master’s degree in International Relations from the University of Colombo, Sri Lanka. His research interests include geopolitics with a special emphasis on great power politics. Saeed Shafqat is a social scientist of international repute. He joined FCCU in 2007 as a Professor and Founding Director of the Centre for Public Policy and Governance (CPPG). In 2018 he was awarded the Tamghae-Imtiaz in the field of education, research and teaching. In 2019, the Ambassador of France in Pakistan on behalf of the French government conferred on him the Chevalier des Palmes Académiques. He has been Quaid-e-Azam Distinguished Professor and Chair at the Pakistan Center at SIPA, Columbia. Dr Shafqat’s books include Political System of Pakistan and Public Policy (1989), Civil-Military Relations in Pakistan (1997) and Contemporary Issues in Pakistan Studies (2000). His current research is on China’s rise and its impact across Greater South Asia and the Gulf. Zhang Shulan is Director and Professor of the Center for South Asian Studies, Shandong University, Qingdao, China. She received her doctoral degree from the History Department of Peking University in 2002. She has been researching South Asia since 1999, especially the politics, economy and diplomacy of India, China-India relations, environmental politics and party politics. She has published four Chinese monographs and more than 40 articles in Chinese Core Journals, co-edited eight books, and also translated and published one English book and two English articles into Chinese. Muhammad Qasim Sodhar is IPFP Fellow at the National Institute of Pakistan Studies (NIPS), Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, Pakistan. He earned his PhD in World History (Global Studies) in 2019 from the Institute of Global Studies, College of Liberal Arts, Shanghai University, Shanghai, China. He has published research papers in national and international research journals. He has also published more than 300 op-ed articles in newspapers and magazines in English, Sindhi, and Urdu and presented research papers at national and international conferences in China and Germany.

xxvi  Contributors Federico Tombari is a PhD student at the Graduate School of International Cooperation Studies (GSICS) at Kobe University, Japan. He obtained his bachelor’s degree in Japanese studies at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and his two master’s degrees in international relations at Venice University and Kobe University. His interests include the international and transnational relations in the East Asia region, especially connected to the role and meaning of power and norms. His current research topic is the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative and the role of international norms in Asia and the Arctic. He served as a research assistant in transnational relations and a teaching assistant for the IR course. Xu Weidan is a researcher at the Center for South Asian Studies, Shandong University, Qingdao, China, and a PhD scholar at Peking University, China. She has completed her master’s degree studies at the School of Political Sciences and Public Administration, Shandong University. She is also a Visiting Scholar at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India. Her research interests include China–India diplomatic relations. Huo Wenle is a Assistant Research Fellow at the Center for South Asian Studies, Shandong University, Qingdao, China. He completed a PhD from the Centre for East Asian Studies, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His recent publications are ‘Maritime security of India and China in the Indo-Pacific’ and ‘The maritime dimension’. His research interests include China–India relations and Sino-Indian maritime security. Rashed Uz Zaman is Professor in the Department of International Relations, University of Dhaka, Bangladesh. He holds a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree in International Relations from the same university. He also obtained a master’s degree in Security Studies from the University of Hull, and a PhD in Strategic Studies from the University of Reading. In 2009–2011, he was Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at the University of Erfurt, Germany. In 2012, he was a Fulbright Visiting Professor in the Department of Political Science at Vanderbilt University. He works on foreign policy, strategic studies and international security issues.

1 Introduction China and South Asia in the twenty-first century Rajiv Ranjan

South Asia is not a geographical region only but a civilisation that flourished on the banks of the Indus river, subsequently known as the Indus civilisation. China’s connections and interaction with the region date back centuries. This interaction of two civilisations consists of cultural and religious exchanges, trading, pilgrims, travellers and scholars such as Xuan Zang, Fa Xian and Bodhidharma (Da Mo). Today’s South Asia juxtaposes religion, politics, language and culture and houses two nuclear-weapon states. As we experience a power shift in world politics, South Asia is becoming a theatre of power politics, due to its geostrategic importance. In addition, regional rivalry, weak regional organisation and a defunct SAARC have weakened the region’s ability to cope with outside influence. On the other hand, South Asia is home to 22% of the world’s population, and its economy as a whole grew by 7.2% in 2018. Nevertheless, it has only 1.3% of global income and houses 60% of the poor. China’s engagement with the region has intensified. The BRI and CPEC have brought the region closer to China, altering the existing economic, political, social and strategic outlook of the region. For China, after the Cold War, the rise of India, nuclearisation of South Asia, India–Pakistan conflict and international anti-terrorism efforts, among other factors, have attracted the world’s and China’s attention towards South Asia. South Asia is gradually becoming important in China’s diplomatic strategy. Frequent visits by high-level Chinese leaders to South Asia indicate that China is attaching great importance to the region and that China’s South Asia policy is undergoing certain adjustments, with new changes visible. In 2006, while visiting India, the then President of China Hu Jintao’s speech indicated Beijing’s vision of South Asia. Hu remarked that a ‘peaceful and prosperous South Asia is in the common interests of China’, and China hopes to see ‘political stability and economic prosperity in South Asian countries’. He further wished to see ‘South Asian countries living in harmony and seeking common development’. Hu said, ‘China welcomes and supports the improvement of India-Pakistan relations. China does not seek any self-interest in South Asia, and is willing to play a constructive role DOI: 10.4324/9780367855413-1

2  Rajiv Ranjan in promoting peace and development in South Asia’ (Hu 2006). When Li Keqiang visited India and Pakistan in 2013, his speech to Senate of Pakistan recognised Pakistan’s strategic importance in China’s South Asia strategy in strengthening relations with countries in South Asia, Central Asia and West Asia (Li 2013). President Xi Jinping, at the Indian Council of World Affairs, India, also pointed out that The Chinese nation has always emphasised the virtue of associating with benevolent gentlemen, befriending good neighbours and coordinating myriad nations. That is also a principle that runs through Chinese diplomacy. China regards good relations with neighbours as a basis for a peaceful existence and development. We have put forward the concept of China’s diplomacy as intimacy, sincerity, reciprocity and inclusiveness. By that we mean we should get along with our neighbours earnestly and sincerely, put our whole heart into development, jointly promote mutual cooperation and share the fruits of development. (Xi 2014)

China’s neighbourhood diplomacy and South Asia policy During his visit to Japan in October 1978, Deng Xiaoping emphasised ‘搁置 争议, 中同开发’ gezhi zhengyi, zhong tong kaifa forget the dispute, develop together (Zhang 1998: 7). This dictum also guided China’s India policy and overall South Asia policy, since there is no coherent and developed Chinese South Asia policy, being only a part and extension of China’s neighbourhood policy. At the symposium on Neighbouring Diplomatic Work in Beijing, Xi Jinping pointed out that the strategic goal of China’s diplomacy with neighbouring countries is to serve the realisation of the two ‘centenary goals’ and the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. China needs to develop relations with neighbouring countries in an allround manner, consolidate friendly relations with neighbouring countries, and deepen the mutually beneficial cooperation with neighbouring countries. China needs to protect and make the best use of the strategic opportunities to safeguard China’s national sovereignty, security and development interests. China needs to develop closer ties with neighbouring countries, with more friendly political relations, stronger economic bonds, deeper security cooperation and closer people-to-­people contacts. (Xi 2013) These later become pillars of Xi’s signature Belt and Road Initiative. Xi emphasised developing good-neighbourly relations with surrounding countries as the consistent principle of China’s diplomacy with its neighbours: China and neighbouring countries should maintain the good-neighbourly friendship and help each other. China and neighbouring

Introduction  3 countries should treat each other as equals and value friendship. China and neighbouring countries should meet and visit each other more frequently. China and neighbouring countries should do more things that win and warm people’s heart. China needs to make neighbouring countries more friendly, stay closer to China, more recognising and more supportive and increase China’s affinity, magnetism and influence. China needs to treat neighbouring countries with sincerity so as to win more friends and partners. (Xi 2013) Xi Jinping also took note of changing dynamics in the neighbourhood to stress that: Great changes have taken place in China’s surrounding environment and China’s relations with neighbouring countries. The economic and trade links between China and neighbouring countries are getting increasingly closer, with unprecedented interactive exchanges. Such a situation requires China to keep pace with the times and be more active in devising diplomatic strategies and undertaking diplomatic work. Thereby, Xi advocated inclusive thinking and to promote regional cooperation with a more open mind and a more positive attitude suggested that China should make overall plans for economic, trade, scientific and technological, financial and other resources, make good use of comparative advantages to pinpoint strategic integrating points, deepen mutually beneficial cooperation with neighbouring countries and actively participate in regional economic cooperation. He further suggested that ‘we should make joint efforts with relevant countries to accelerate infrastructure connectivity, to build the Silk Road economic belt and Maritime Silk Road of the 21st century’ (Xi 2013). Xi linked China’s neighbourhood diplomacy to build a community of common destiny based on ‘principles of amity, sincerity, mutual benefit and inclusiveness in conducting neighbourhood diplomacy, promote friendship and partnership with our neighbors, foster an amicable, secure and prosperous neighbourhood environment, and boost win-win cooperation and connectivity with our neighbours’ (Global Times 2013). Building on Xi’s speech at Symposium of Diplomatic Works, Wang Yi further clarified neighbourhood policy, which is now part of China’s new diplomatic theories and practices, together with China’s relations with major countries and developing countries (Wang 2014). Wang emphasised that these innovations in the theory of international relations have enriched China’s long-established diplomatic principles of equality, mutual benefit, opening-up and win-win cooperation, and our converging interests have thereby been expanded and our mutual understanding enhanced in the neighbourhood. Hu Chunhua, member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Vice Premier of the State Council, at the 5th China-South Asia Expo and the 25th Kunming Import and Export Trade Fair,

4  Rajiv Ranjan pointed out that South Asia is a close neighbour of China and an essential partner in the joint construction of the Belt and Road Initiative (CPC News 2018). Hu further emphasised that China and South Asia are the regions with the most development momentum and growth potential in the world economy, and future cooperation has bright prospects. China is willing to continuously increase political mutual trust with South Asian countries and strengthen mutually beneficial cooperation under the framework of the Belt and Road (CPC News 2018). In order to better grasp the change and continuity in China’s neighbourhood diplomacy, reports to the various National Party Congress are essential documents. In 1997, while delivering the report at the fifteenth NPC, Jiang Zemin said that the good-neighbourly policy should be upheld as this has been China’s consistent stand and will never change. He further highlighted that keeping in mind the ‘overall objective to maintain peace and stability, we should settle the disputes between China and the surrounding countries through friendly consultations and negotiations’. Jiang argues that if this fails to serve the purpose, we should put them aside for the time being, seeking common ground while reserving differences (Jiang 1997). Which still guides China’s policy towards neighbouring countries, especially with India and Bhutan, with whom boundary problem remains unresolved. In 2002, the sixteenth NPC, Jiang Zemin again reiterated China ‘will continue to cement our friendly ties with our neighbours and persist in building a good-neighbourly relationship and partnership with them’. He also pointed out that China will step up regional cooperation and bring our exchanges and cooperation with our surrounding countries to a new height (Jiang 2002). In 2007, at the seventeenth NPC, Hu Jintao proposed to ‘strengthen good-neighbourly relations and practical cooperation with them, and energetically engage in regional cooperation in order to jointly create a peaceful, stable regional environment featuring equality, mutual trust and win-win cooperation.’(Hu 2007). At the eighteenth NPC, in 2012, Hu Jintao further proposed to ‘ensure that China’s development will bring more benefits to our neighbours’ (Hu 2012). Speaking at the nineteenth Party Congress, Xi Jinping reiterated that China would deepen its relations with its neighbours in accordance with the principle of amity, sincerity, mutual benefit and inclusiveness and the policy of forging friendship and partnership with its neighbours (Xi 2017).

Scholarly debates on China’s South Asian policy The Chinese official position does not clearly decipher its policy and only concentrates on the benevolent approach. Scholars, however, both Chinese and international alike, have discussed China’s South Asian policy at a great length. Indian and international scholars mostly consider the increasing footprint of China’s role in South Asia as increasing strategic rivalry, thereby challenging India’s traditional role in the region. Garver argues that by ensuring that India remains preoccupied with Pakistan over Kashmir,

Introduction  5 China gains regional and even global advantages. Thus, he highlights that this is the geopolitical fact that underlies China’s unprecedently long, stable, multifaceted, all-weather relations with Pakistan (Garver 2005). For Malik, the main objective of China’s Asia policy has been to prevent the rise of a peer competitor, a real Asian rival to challenge China’s status as the Asia-Pacific’s sole ‘Middle Kingdom’ (Malik 2001: 74). Tang seems to agree with this hypothesis and argues that China’s strategy in South Asia is not to contain India but to ensure that India’s leadership position in the region does not threaten China’s interests. China’s South Asia strategy is thus one of offshore balancing (Tang 2000: 28). Zeng more emphatically proposes to ‘cooperate with the small and attack the big he xiao yi gong 合小以攻’ (Zeng 2012: 49). Interestingly, this is gradually changing to ‘cooperate with the small and maintain stable relationship with the big 合小稳大 he xiao wen da’. Kumar links China’s policy towards South Asia to unifying its territories and consolidating its boundaries, guided by its own notion of history (Kumar 2019: 144). In contrast, Zhang emphasises that a ‘stable and healthy India-Pakistan relationship inevitably enhances China’s own interests’. For him, a special strategic relationship between China and Pakistan is not for confronting or checking India but part of China’s broader security and interest considerations (Zhang 2006). But he fails to define what those security and interest considerations may be. Zhang links the Kashmir issue with the Tibet problem and hence suggests that China’s sovereignty and security is closely intertwined with great power politics in the region (Zhang 2000: 196). Nevertheless, the easing of India–Pakistan relations also provides an opportunity for China to redefine the nature of China–Pakistan defence and strategic cooperation, eventually eliminating India’s doubts about the China–Pakistan relationship and strengthening mutual trust between China and India (Zhang 2006). Xue suggests that China should adopt a proactive South Asia policy by taking geopolitical advantages and expanding cooperation with South Asian countries. He argues that understating India-Pakistan relations and ensuring the positive interaction of the China–Pakistan–India triangle is key to stabilising the situation in South Asia (Xue 2007: 40). Peng sees continuity in China’s South Asia policy and suggests that China’s balancing strategy with India and Pakistan is still necessary, and he even terms this strategy a core of China’s South Asia policy. But he cautions that this depends on the future development of China–India relations (Peng 2014). Nonetheless, Freeman argues that China’s regional foreign policy in South Asia is guided less by the perception of geostrategic competition with India than by a broader ‘comprehensive’ conception of security that understands economic development and security as intertwined (Freeman 2018: 82). Freeman further argues that Beijing sees benefit to its security from boosting regional development, which it perceives as contributing to improving the stability of its complicated regional neighbourhood. It views this stability as valuable to its own security as it pursues such fundamental interests as sustaining economic development and preventing external

6  Rajiv Ranjan threats to domestic security – particularly those that emanate from across its borders (ibid.). Menon, too, mostly agrees that today’s world, in which no can claim an exclusive zone or area of influence, is a globalised world where power reaches everywhere. Hence, he warns that India should not be fixated on whether China is encircling India. For Menon, the drivers of Chinese foreign policy are still the quest for status and the acquisition of power: political, military and economic (Menon 2016: 38). As for the region, the impact of China’s expanding regional engagement and India’s rising concerns presents an opportunity for states in the region to act independently and play the two giants off against one another. Hence, smaller states’ interests could be harmed if they became targets of strategic competition between the two big powers, whether through direct bilateral interactions or within regional groupings (Freeman 2018: 82). In their chapter, Khondoker and Zaman argue that small states in South Asia are neither bandwagoning nor balancing China, as structural realism assumes. Instead, these small South Asian states have adopted a form of hedging strategy. They are adopting hedging as they do not have core security interests sitting in opposition to China, which indeed permits them to embrace Chinese investment without clearly compromising national security (Lim and Mukherjee 2019: 496). Moreover, these small states, as the increasing trends suggest, tend to also follow non-alignment in South Asia to maximise their self-interest (Ranjan 2019). Wang considers China’s participation in South Asia affairs as positive, flexible and limited and see significant departures in Chinese diplomacy from focusing on bilateral affairs to regional affairs in the South Asia. He offers two reasons for the change. First, as a rising and developing country, its imperative that Beijing maintain security and stability in South Asia. Second, India–Pakistan relations are incredibly fragile, and there is strategic mutual distrust between China and India. Hence, he prescribes the role of special envoy as inevitable and important in China’s South Asia diplomacy (Wang 2011: 10). Apparently, by comparing the official narrative and academic discourse in China on South Asia, it becomes clear that Beijing’s perspective is more of benevolence, thus projecting itself as ‘王道 humane authority’ (Yan 2018 and 2019), although academic discourse is divided. While one group of thinkers pushes for trilateral cooperation between China, Pakistan and India, another more vocal group advocates balancing India and at the same time cooperating with smaller nations in the region.

Themes and perspectives In his thought-provoking chapter, ‘CPEC and changing dynamics of ­China-India relations’, Saeed Shafqat refutes the idea that CPEC is China’s device to ‘encircle India’ and Pakistan is only a collaborator in this scheme, and also downplays that CPEC is a ‘game-changer’ and is solidifying the China–Pakistan strategic partnership. He argues that the India–China

Introduction  7 economic relations are booming with trade and investment, to the tune of more than 80 billion USD, while China–Pakistan trade and investment is less than 5 billion USD. He emphasises that without India, CPEC could ignite regional rivalry, and asks the very pertinent question whether, as CPEC unfolds, China’s biggest challenge in South Asia would be managing India–Pakistan contestation. Mahendra P Lama suggests that there are three abiding yet powerful objectives in China’s emerging ‘forward policy’ in South Asia. These include the expansion of its military base and strategic access, both through high mountain roads and maritime routes; economic and commercial penetration into the vast South Asian market, and through it to the Middle East, and finally, to effectively tackle its own potential internal instabilities. He terms this as China’s Trishula approach in South Asia and highlights that China is pushing itself as an advocate of exclusive Asian value, an unparalleled source of infrastructure-building and a durable counterbalancing force in India-dominated discourse. Robayt Khondoker and Rashed Uz Zaman systematically analyse the types and causes of strategies undertaken by three small states in South Asia in response to China’s rise. They focus on the contentious regional dyads in South Asia and its maritime domain, exploring how structural, behavioural and past experiences shape the ways in which Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives respond to a rising China and the regional power politics. Khondoker and Zaman argue that small states in South Asia are neither bandwagoning nor balancing China, as structural realism assumes. Instead, these states have adopted a form of ‘hedging’ strategy where they do not merely act as Lilliputians in the Gulliver’s world but maximise opportunities that a rising China offers to these countries of South Asia. Zhang Shulan, Xu Weidan and Huo Wenle analyse the debate on the nature of China–India engagement. They agree that interactions between India and China have become increasingly frequent and diverse. Therefore, with deeper cooperation and fiercer competition, the bilateral relation is more complicated than ever before. Hence, both countries cooperate where interest converges and compete on strategic issues to maximise their interests. Zhang et al. see China–India engagement as coopetition. Amjad Abbas Khan examines the Security Environment in South Asia and stresses that including India and Pakistan as members of SCO has altered the mechanism of relationships in the region. In addition, it has not only changed the status quo in power politics but also provided an outlet for regional states to maximise their interests through mutual cooperation. China’s aspirations to go global cannot be fulfilled until security in the region is maintained. Khan says Beijing is wary of the security environment in South Asia in the wake of BRI, and thereby Beijing sees SCO as possibly helping to bridge the gap between Islamabad and New Delhi, to ensure a peaceful and stable environment in South Asia. Asantha Senevirathna highlights that the countries in South Asia have lacked much-needed infrastructure facilities for decades, which has affected the overall development of these countries. Senevirathna believes India’s stance and its power to influence its smaller neighbours against the growing

8  Rajiv Ranjan Chinese influence in the region has created a geopolitical paradox for many countries in the region. Senevirathna emphasises the inductive method of analysis, which builds up a conclusion from the special situation of Chinese development initiatives in South Asia and the geopolitical reactions of the interested stakeholders to these development projects. Noor Mohammad Sarker suggests that the security interests of Bangladesh and China converge in the Indian Ocean and thereby necessitate cooperation between the two states. Sarkar argues that the Maritime Silk Road under BRI has widened the scope of this bilateral maritime security cooperation in a win-win manner, whereas Bangladesh has the opportunity to upgrade its naval capabilities and seaports by China’s technical and financial assistance, and China can connect its landlocked southern provinces to the Bay of Bengal by using Bangladesh’s maritime and land routes. Atia Ali Kazmi focuses on the overarching strategy of BRI and an overview of China’s ‘peaceful rise’. Kazmi sees the prospects of achieving regional win-wins, particularly in South Asia, through the implementation of BRI’s corridors. She sees BRI as a motivational push for political accord among partner countries and foresees the potential outcomes of BRI in reaping comprehensive economic dividends and thereby ways of nurturing stronger linkages in the region to achieve a future of shared harmony. Federico Tombari considers power as relational, arguing that Chinese power is not necessarily a zero-sum game. He challenges the pessimistic view of China as a threat. Tombari sees Chinese power as related to the creation and strengthening of cooperative behaviour between states through the development of Chinese ‘norms’ within the Belt and Road Initiative. Muhammad Qasim traces ideological contradictions that emerged between the Soviet Union and China in the 1960s, which affected the left throughout the world. Because of the effect of these contradictions on world politics, the Pakistani left could not remain unaffected. Sodhar meticulously discusses the significant effects of this rift on Pakistani politics, especially the politics of the left. Hazrat Bahar analyses the image of China in Afganistan through the prism of media reporting. China is the largest investor and an active player in the peace process in war-torn Afghanistan. Using framing theory and combine quantitative and qualitative content analysis, Bahar concludes that China is being seen favourably by the media and examines why the Afgan media portray Beijing in such a positive way. Wan Jiqiong argues that the BRI has further toughened India’s stance toward China, but instead of falling into a power play, China and India should promote and engage in cultural cooperation to defuse political tensions. For Wan, India–China cooperation is needed to strengthen regional stability and joint development, to reap regional multilateral benefits. Naila Masood Ahmad explores the possibilities and challenges of developing ecotourism in the Gilgit-Baltistan region. She believes that CPEC will play a monumental role in connecting the area geographically, generate employment opportunities for indigenous people, attract foreign investment towards the tourism industry and improve the standard of living.

Introduction  9 Kashish Parpiani assesses the United States’ security policy vis-à-vis India in the context of China’s rise. Parpiani argues that US overtures to court partnerships with Asian countries such as India as ‘balancers’ against China’s rise are not a nascent phenomenon and could be seen as a Manichaean rendering of China and India that was present in the American security lexicon long before China’s contemporary economic rise. Vivek Mishra argues that China’s BRI has begun to alter the balance of power in the Indian Ocean and evinces the potential to significantly disrupt power dynamics in the Indian Ocean with new regional shifts, power-sharing, partnerships and possibly alliances in future. Mishra sees the Indian Ocean as the center of the geopolitics emanating from the BRI in South Asia, with all routes designed geographically to encircle the Indian subcontinent. Alexey A. Semenov examines the Russian foreign policy strategy in the Asia–Pacific Region and South Asia and prospects for Russia’s ‘pivot to the East’. Semenov refutes the allegations that this is an attempt to overcome economic difficulties and diplomatic isolation from Western countries and stresses that the foundations of Russia’s ‘pivot to the East’ were laid much earlier than the deterioration of relations between Russia and the West. By developing closer relations with China and India, Moscow intended to play a more pro-active role in Asia to create a more balanced security architecture.

Changing dynamics and power play India and China, two of the world’s oldest civilisations and simultaneously rising powers, are engaged in a geopolitical power play. Both India and China are undergoing a process of power accumulation with the ultimate aim of re-establishing themselves as great powers within the international system. As contiguous neighbours, they will need each other’s help to fulfil their ambitions. Nonetheless, frequent border clashes and geopolitical ambitions have marred their path as that of a power-dilemma (Ranjan 2017). While China currently surpasses India in all three aspects of power – political, economic and military – it is undeniable that the latter has made significant strides in these same areas. Over the last few years, India has strengthened its strategic partnership with other major powers, most significantly with the USA, undergone continued and sustained economic growth, and made advancements in military technology, including nuclear strike capabilities. These developments, among others, are seen by both policymakers and academics in Beijing as New Delhi’s growing clout in international politics and more important, as a balance to China (ibid.). Similarly, most strategic analysts in New Delhi view China’s rise and its growing influence in South Asia, India’s backyard, as detrimental to its own rise. China’s ambitious BRI has also been seen as an attempt to enlarge Beijing’s sphere of strategic influence and as a detriment to India’s sovereignty. This relationship between New Delhi and Beijing represents a power

10  Rajiv Ranjan dilemma – a situation in which each state seeks more power to respond to what it perceives as the growing power of a rival, which in turn causes the rival to try to increase its power, and so on in an action–reaction pattern (ibid.). As a result, both might find themselves worse off. When one state is wary that another state is gaining political power by acquiring membership in coveted international organisations or making strategic partnerships with different states across the globe by virtue of its economic and military heft and enlarging its sphere of influence, this could well instigate the state to do the same, further fueling the rivalry. Opposition to India’s membership to the NSG and silence over India’s bid for permanent membership in the UNSC could be interpreted as Beijing’s strategy to deny India greater international power (ibid). Doklam Standoff 2017 and Galwan 2020 show unpredictable future and uncertain nature of India–China relations. If their worsening relations are not handled well, the hard-earned successes of previous governments could potentially be undone. As Sino-Pakistani relations gradually evolved from a bilateral relationship in the general sense to a de facto quasi-alliance relationship, China and Pakistan show solidarity and coherence on issues related to their core interests in international organisations and regional multilateral mechanisms (Huang 2016: 118). The construction of the China–Pakistan economic corridor has overall strategic implications. For China, first, to accelerate the economic development of the Western region areas along the belt; second, to maintain the needs of energy security; third, to promote participation in the processes of globalisation and marketisation; fourth, to maintain social stability in the border areas; and finally, to ensure regional and even global development (Chen and Zhang 2016: 131). Nevertheless, within Pakistan, there are two schools of thought examining the cost and benefit of the CPEC. On the one hand, the optimistic downplay intractable territorial disputes and endemic rivalry between India and Pakistan and emphasise investment, trade and economic rewards. This group even argues that the Indo-Pakistani rivalry has deep historical roots and has little to do with the development of the CPEC. Opponents, on the other hand, suggest that it undermines the prospects of any peaceful engagement between India and Pakistan, and they invoke the issue of the violation of sovereignty and territorial integrity and point out that any infrastructure development that passes through unsettled boundaries is unacceptable. In his chapter, Saeed Shafqat discusses the debate on the CPEC at length. Afghanistan is of great significance to China’s security and stability and to the construction of the Silk Road Economic Belt, in which Afghanistan holds a key position. Zhu and Wei asserts that if the security situation in Afghanistan deteriorates, it will have a specific impact on the Silk Road economy, but not a fundamental and direct impact (Zhu and Wei 2017: 113). He also lists four reasons explaining the importance of Afghanistan in China’s strategic calculus. First, Afghanistan is at the center of the Silk Road Economic Belt. Second, the Silk Road Economic Belt is a system of

Introduction  11 networks and multi-nodes, and therefore, security problems in one country are not enough to affect the overall situation. Third, from the historical and realistic point of view, for geographical and other reasons, Afghanistan’s direct security impact on China is limited. Fourth, the deterioration of the security situation in Afghanistan poses an important threat to the Silk Road Economic Belt through Central Asia (ibid.). China’s Afghanistan policy has changed from the reduction of possible economic loss to enhancing its overall involvement in Afghanistan. Since 2014, China has been engaged in diplomacy from two aspects: first, act as a bridge between the Taliban and the Afghan government. Second, a focus on improving Afghanistan and Pakistan relationship. China has always stressed that these initiatives are in the Afghan interest and taken only at the request of the Afghan government. But this still shows that China is deeply involved in Afghan affairs, even seeing itself as a substitute for the United States (Xiao 2016: 27). The Maldives, a geostrategic location in the Indian Ocean, is considered a ‘natural node’ in China’s Maritime Silk Road (MSR). A visit by Xi Jinping in September 2014 paved the way for strengthening China–Maldives relations within the broader framework of the twenty-first century MSR. Hence, China has been actively involved in construction and upgrade work for a series of infrastructure projects in the Maldives (Singh 2019). Chinese and Indian perspectives on MSR differ in the region. For China, the ‘complex interdependence’ virtues of the initiative for connectivity, a globalised liberal trading order and inter-civilisational exchanges are the main principles (Chung 2018: 318). Nevertheless, New Delhi considers these initiatives to lure its neighbours and reduce traditional influences in the region. Beijing has mostly targeted MSR on surrounding countries, particularly Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and the Maldives. This increases the power play between China and India in the region and thus could well lead to a full-blown contest for influence between China and India over South Asia, which could allow the region’s smaller countries to benefit from both in the near term but would ultimately increase regional tension and mistrust (Chung 2018: 318). Sri Lanka’s response to China is a positive hedging strategy which consists of active engagement and accommodation. The country has embraced a ‘rising China’ with closer political–economic and military relations. Despite being a physically small country, Bangladesh has also developed a hedging strategy, which serves its national interest vis-à-vis accommodating China. Given its geopolitical location, Nepal is attempting hard to balance its relationship with both the Himalayan neighbours. Even Pakistan lately hedged with China to balance India, but it turns out that Islamabad has no options but to embrace China, given the American withdrawal. Apparently, with the advent of BRI, China’s footprint in South Asia has witnessed an exponential increase, from infrastructure development, connectivity, and strategic and economic partnerships to enhancing social and cultural connections. The advertisement of Shan Biryani Masala in Pakistan

12  Rajiv Ranjan to cultivate new social relations with the Chinese people, and the Chinese ambassador promoting tourism in Nepal, display a new dimension in the engagement. The rapidly increasing number of South Asian students at Chinese universities, mostly from middle-class families, bears witness to the spectacular infrastructure, seamless communications and growing prosperity in Chinese society. Fascinated by China’s rise, an urge to imitate the Chinese success at home inspires them. On the other hand, an opaque political system, limited media, controlled social media and a lack of electoral democracy act inversely to the ‘Chinese Model’. Therefore, the relationship between China and South Asian nations in the twenty-first century continues to sway, on account of the admiration for Chinese development and hedging with regional and global players to maximise payoffs.

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Introduction  13 Jiang, Zemin. 1997, 12 September. ‘Hold high the great banner of Deng Xiaoping theory for an all-round advancement of the cause of building socialism with Chinese characteristics into the 21st century’, http://www.bjreview.com.cn/document/txt/2011-03/25/content_363499_14.htm. Accessed on 5 June 2020. Jiang, Zemin. 2002, 8 November. ‘Build a well-off society in an all-round way and create a new situation in building socialism with Chinese characteristics’. Report Delivered at the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/topics_665678/3698_665962/t18872.shtml. Accessed on 5 June 2020. Kumar, Sanjeev. 2019. ‘China’s South Asia policy in the “new era”’. India Quarterly, 75(2), 137–154. Li, Keqiang. 2013, 23 May. ‘Making new progress in growing China–Pakistan all-weather friendship’. Senate of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, Islamabad, https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjdt_665385/zyjh_665391/t1043526.shtml. Accessed on 5 June 2020. Lim, Darren J and Rohan Mukherjee. 2019. ‘Hedging in South Asia: Balancing economic and security interests amid Sino-Indian competition’. International Relations of the Asia-Pacific, 19(3), 493–522. Malik, J Mohan. 2001. ‘South Asia in China’s foreign relations’. Pacifica Review: Peace, Security & Global Change, 13(1), 73–90. Menon, Shivshankar. 2016. Choices: Inside the making of India’s foreign policy. Gurgaon: Penguin Randon House India. Peng, Nian. 2014, 30 September. ‘New changes in China’s South Asia policy’, Ai Sixiang [彭念, ‘中国的南亚政策 现新变化 爱思想’], http://www.aisixiang.com/ data/78471.html. Accessed on 5 June 2020. Ranjan, Rajiv. 2017. ‘Indo-China relations: Power play or power dilemma?’ ChinaIndia Brief #102, 27 September, 2017–10 October, 2017. Centre on Asia and Globalisation, National University of Singapore, https://lkyspp.nus.edu.sg/ research/publications/details/china-india-brief-102. Accessed on 5 June 2020. Ranjan, Rajiv. 2019, 3 December. ‘Policy India needs to change’. The New Nation, Kathmandu, http://m.thedailynewnation.com/news/238021/policy-india-needsto-change. Accessed on 5 June 2020. Singh, Antara Ghosal. 2019, 2 March. ‘China’s vision for the Belt and Road in South Asia’. The Diplomat, https://thediplomat.com/2019/03/chinas-vision-for-the-beltand-road-in-south-asia/. Accessed on 5 June 2020. Tang, Shiping. 2000. ‘Chess of China–India relations and China’s South Asia strategy’ [唐世平，中国—印度关系的博弈和中国的南亚战略]. World Economics and Politics, 2000(9), 28. Wang, Weihua. 2011. ‘China’s special envoy diplomacy to South Asia in the New Century’ [王伟华, 新世纪中国的南亚特使外交]. South Asian Studies Quarterly, 144(1):6–10. Wang, Yi. 2014, 26 December. ‘Full text of FM Wang Yi’s speech on China’s diplomacy in 2014’. Xinhua, http://english.www.gov.cn/state_council/ministries/2014/12/26/content_281475029808332.htm. Accessed on 5 June 2020. Xi, Jinping. 2013, 25 October. ‘Speech at the forum on neighboring diplomatic work’ [习近平在周边外交工作座谈会上发表重要讲话]. Xinhua, http://www.xinhuanet.com//politics/2013-10/25/c_117878897.htm. Accessed on 5 June 2020. Xi, Jinping. 2014, 18 September. ‘In Joint Pursuit of a Dream of National Renewal’, Speech by H.E. Xi Jinping President of the People’s Republic of China At the Indian Council of World Affairs, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, China, https://www.

14  Rajiv Ranjan fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/topics_665678/zjpcxshzzcygyslshdsschybdtjkstmedfsllkydjxgsfw/t1194300.shtml. Accessed on 5 June 2020. Xi, Jinping. 2017, 18 October. ‘Secure a decisive victory in building a moderately prosperous society in all respects and strive for the great success of socialism with Chinese characteristics for a new era’. 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/download/Xi_Jinping’s_ report_at_19th_CPC_National_Congress.pdf. Accessed on 23 January 2019. Xiao, He. 2016. ‘From “development of diplomacy” to deep intervention: China’s Policy towards Afghanistan under the “Belt and Road Initiative”’ [肖 河, 从 ‘发展 外交’到深度介入: ‘一带一路’倡议下的中国对阿富汗政策, 南亚研究季刊]. South Asian Studies Quarterly, 2(165), 27. Xue, Yong. 2007. ‘China–India–Pakistan triangular relations and China’s South Asia policy’. South Asian Studies Quarterly, 1(128), 40. Yan, Xuetong. 2018. ‘Chinese values vs. liberalism: what ideology will shape the international normative order?’. The Chinese Journal of International Politics, 11(1): 1–22. Yan, Xuetong. 2019. Leadership and the rise of great powers. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2019. Zeng, Pinyuan. 2012, March. ‘China’s South Asia strategy’ [曾品元,中国南亚战略 论]. Journal of Strategy and Decision-Making, 3(2), 45–50. Zhang, Li. 2006. ‘China’s South Asia diplomacy and the Kashmir issue’ [张力, ‘中 国的南亚外交与克什米尔问题’]. South Asian Studies Quarterly, 2006(1), 41–47. Zhang, Wenmu. 2000. China’s security strategy in the new century’ [张文木, ‘中国新 世纪安全战略]. Shandong: Shandong People’s Publication House. Zhang, Xiaoming. 1998, January. ‘Deng Xiaoping’s strategic thoughts on stabilising the periphery’. International Politics Studies [张小明, ‘邓小平关于稳定周边的战 略思想’], 1998(1), 1–9. Zhu, Yongbiao and Wei Lijun. 2017. ‘Afghanistan security situation and its impact on the silk road economic belt’ [朱永彪, 魏丽珺, ‘阿富汗安全形势及其对丝绸之路 经济带的影响’, 南亚研究]. South Asian Studies, 2017(3), 100–116.

Part I

Politics and strategy

2 CPEC and changing dynamics of China–India relations Saeed Shafqat

In the eyes of many Pakistani and international observers, the China– Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is changing the dynamics of geopolitics and socio-economic relations in South Asia. Is this likely to dampen or intensify the rivalry between India and Pakistan? Indian policymakers and analysts assert that the CPEC is China’s device to ‘encircle India’ and Pakistan is only a collaborator in this scheme, while Pakistani policymakers claim that it is a ‘game-changer’ and is solidifying the China–Pakistan strategic partnership. Until May 2020, the reality was that India–China economic relations were booming with trade and investment to the tune of over 80 billion USD, while China–Pakistan trade and investment total less than 18 billion USD. Given this reality, why would India be hostile towards the CPEC? Would China and Pakistan be receptive to the idea of expanding the CPEC? This chapter explores some of these questions and argues that without the inclusion of India, the CPEC could ignite regional rivalry, which in turn could compel China to review its time-tested policy of ‘non-interference’ and ‘peaceful co-existence’ in international relations. As the CPEC unfolds, in South Asia, China’s biggest challenge will be managing India–Pakistan contestation. Is China ready for it? The chapter is divided into five parts. The first part focuses on analysing the historical context of India–Pakistan rivalry and how the CPEC could transform it. The second part makes sense of the perceptions and policy positions of Pakistan and India on the CPEC. Third, it briefly examines the dynamics of Indo-US relations on containing China and why the two identify the CPEC as a strategic challenge. Fourth, it provides an assessment of booming Indo-China economic relations and diverging strategic interests and how skilful India and China will be in managing these. Is Pakistan watching and learning? Finally, it articulates how a pragmatic approach to the CPEC could diffuse tensions and brighten the prospects of a peace dividend in South Asia.

Contextualising Indo-Pakistani rivalry India’s and Pakistan’s threat perceptions have been highly coloured by and convoluted due to unresolved disputes, particularly the issue of Kashmir. DOI: 10.4324/9780367855413-3

18  Saeed Shafqat The CPEC has emerged as the latest addition to this list of ‘irritants’. While Pakistan perceives the CPEC as a ‘game changer’ for economic growth, development and regional connectivity (Ministry of Planning Development and Reform, Pakistan 2018: 4), India views it as an instrument of China and Pakistan intended to ‘encircle India’ (Shah 2015). Both India and Pakistan are nuclear powers, and their rivalry is endemic, so one segment of Pakistan’s threat syndrome is rooted in this perception and reality. Proponents of the CPEC downplay intractable territorial disputes and endemic rivalry and instead emphasise investment, trade and economic rewards. Furthermore, CPEC proponents argue that Indo-Pakistani rivalry has deep historical and ideological roots which have little to do with the development of the CPEC. Opponents of the CPEC aver that it undermines the prospects of any peaceful engagement between India and Pakistan. These opponents invoke the issue of the violation of ‘sovereignty’ and ‘territorial integrity’ and point out that any infrastructure development that passes through unsettled boundaries is unacceptable. There is no denying that the strategic environment in South Asia is driven and defined by the India–Pakistan rivalry. In that continuity, realist theory reigns in South Asia. Despite a shared colonial past, and visible cultural and institutional similarities, the dynamics of power relations continue to be driven by hostility, a lack of trust, conflict and war. Insecurity, fear and suspicion of the ‘other’ thus continue to maintain South Asia as a ‘nuclear flash point,’ while peace, cooperation and economic partnership remain elusive. Most scholarly and journalistic studies continue to present a dismal picture of ‘unending conflict’ in the region. This rivalry encourages violence and militancy and perpetuates an environment that ignites terrorism (Ganguly 2002). The roots of the ‘hatred of brothers’ are buried in Hindu, Muslim and British histories and cultural experiences. Both states can and do invoke ‘past glory’ to run each other down. Suspicious of each other’s intent, the two tumbled into war over Kashmir (1947), which aggravated anxieties and insecurities. Since then, Kashmir has been and continues to be the ‘core issue’ of conflict and potential war between India and Pakistan. India claims Kashmir is an integral part of India and Pakistan contests that claim and maintains that it is a ‘disputed territory’. The two have fought three wars (1947, 1965, 1999) over the issue (Margolis 2001).

Is the CPEC fueling territorial disputes and igniting sovereignty issues? Over the past half a century, the international community has shown little interest in the ‘historical, legal validity or merits’ of the case of the Kashmir. Rather, its primary concern has been to ensure that a conflict between the two does not degenerate into large-scale military or nuclear war. India is opposed to the CPEC because, as policymakers point out, the CPEC passes

CPEC and changing dynamics  19 through territory which India contends is under ‘Pakistani occupation’ and is ‘disputed territory’. In fact, India remains a ‘fierce opponent’ of the One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative (renamed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)), and the CPEC is only one of its six corridors. India’s Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj is on record as having said that the CPEC is ‘unacceptable to India’, while Finance Minister Arun Jaitley stated, ‘I have no hesitation saying that we have some serious reservations about it (OBOR), because of sovereignty issues’ (Mitra 2017). In 2017, Prime Minister Narendra Modi opposed the OBOR and CPEC, asserting that regional connectivity should not undermine India’s sovereignty. Thus, India considers the CPEC as a territorial dispute and sovereignty issue. China’s foreign minister and ambassador to India have both challenged and refuted Indian assertions. On 5 May 2017, Ambassador Lou categorically stated that the CPEC has ‘no connections to or impact on sovereignty issues’, and he hastened to add China had, ‘no intention to get involved in the sovereignty and territorial disputes between India and Pakistan’ (ibid.). Second, India also feels that the CPEC, which is an important component of the BRI, has geopolitical ambitions. New Delhi also holds that through Gwadar, China is attempting to extend its influence in the Indian Ocean and must be resisted because the CPEC facilitates this to undermine Indian interests in the Indian Ocean Region (Bender 2018). Perceptions of threats and economic opportunities have emerged as twin engines shaping the foreign policies of many states. India perceives the CPEC as a strategic threat and not as an economic opportunity. The government of Prime Minister Narendara Modi that took office in 2014 has been quick to capitalise on India’s economic potential, but its strategic goals are changing and evolving. Modi was prompt in establishing a personal rapport with President Xi Jinping of China and ostensibly energised and redefined relations with China. He met President Xi Jinping in July 2014 in Brazil and in September 2014 in Gujrat, India (see Table 2A.1). The Chinese president paid an official visit to India and was also a personal guest of Prime Minister Modi. India and China have signed 12 agreements, and China has pledged to invest 20 billion USD in the next five years in infrastructure development projects in India. This visit conveyed the impression of personal bonding between the two leaders and a warming of relations between India and China. In December 2014, the Indian Prime Minister visited the United States and was given an unprecedented welcome and support by the then President Obama’s White House, which reshaped USA–India relations. The visit became a catalyst for deepening Indo-US relations and alarmed China about India’s twists and turns. Between July and December 2014, India’s China and United States policies underwent a pendulum swing, cooling towards China and warming up towards the United States. What led India to make such a cataclysmic shift in distancing from China and cozying up to the United States within a span of four months?

20  Saeed Shafqat

Containment reincarnated: changing dynamics of Indo-US relations India has begun to reexamine the military might and strategic potential of a rising China and the benefits of tilting towards the United States. According to S Jaishankar, former Foreign Secretary of India (currently Foreign Minister), China is a ‘potential great power’, and the economic and military gap between the two countries has grown rapidly. Jaishankar blames both the United States and China for restraining the rise of India. He argues that the United States has been ‘ambivalent’ towards the rise of Indian power and has ‘worked overtime to neutralise our regional dominance and strove particularly hard to ensure some parity with Pakistan’ (Jaishankar 2018). According to Jaishankar, China has ‘qualitatively enhanced its collaboration with Pakistan’, and strategically, China is the maritime challenger for India in the Indian Ocean. Therefore, India ‘must be open-minded and imaginative’ in dealing with China. Jaishankar claims that no other society has ‘influenced Chinese culture as extensively as India’. Analysing China’s rise and economic development, he highlights three critical factors: ‘progressive bureaucratic leadership’, elegant political leadership and administrative capabilities, among other factors. On the other hand, he considers Pakistan more of a psychological challenge: ‘Pakistan poses a unique challenge due to its belief that India’s will power can be broken’. He hastens to provide a solution and argues that Pakistan is an irritant but can be managed through two ways; first, India should remain ‘unpredictable’ and make it costly for Pakistan to create any disorderly episode (not letting Mumbai 2008 happen again). Second, he calls for investing in improving partnerships with Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal. He urges Indian policymakers to be vigilant and engaged to counter China–Pakistan collaboration (Jaishankar 2018). Thus, calling for dual containment, India must neutralise China and contain Pakistan. Such a perception and policy prescription leaves little space for encouraging engagement, dialogue and peace between India and Pakistan. From the perspective of US security and defense, India has immense strategic significance in countering China’s rise and ‘maintaining a balance of power in Asia’ (ibid.). In this geopolitical equation, both countries have intensified and deepened strategic cooperation declaring the CPEC as a threat to economic and strategic interests in the region. To contain China and deflate Pakistan, India and the United States have identified common goals strategically and swiftly. India may be struggling with developmental issues such as high absolute poverty rates, poor infrastructure, a youth bulge, a lack of employment opportunities, gender inequalities and problematic urban governance. Yet, India is also recognised as an emerging global power (Cohen 2001).1 Its economic growth rate has surpassed that of China, with currently the world’s seventh-largest GDP. In the coming decades, India’s workforce is being projected as the largest in the world. India has the third biggest military and is the largest buyer of international arms (Bouton 2017: 1).

CPEC and changing dynamics  21 The realist theoretical perspective drives India’s policy perception. Thus, India views the CPEC as a strategic challenge rather than an opportunity for investment, trade and connectivity. India apprehends that the CPEC could weaken its strategic position in South Asia, the Middle East and the Central Asian states. In the past few decades, India has been actively engaging with the latter, eyeing the prospects of obtaining natural gas and other mineral resources. India fears that completing the CPEC would restrict its access to the Central Asian states and, as a result, has meandered its way through Bangladesh, Vietnam, Sri Lanka and Myanmar, signing energy agreements to make up for provisional energy demands (Kugelman 2017). India has invested heavily in developing the Chabahar port in Iran and the rail link to Afghanistan, as an alternative to Gwadar and the CPEC. The Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan–India gas pipeline and the International North–South Transport Corridor are other avenues of alternate connectivity India has been exploring to overcome challenges posed by the CPEC. This transport corridor provides sea, rail and road links for participating countries in Central Asia, including Russia. Shared electricity plans are also being discussed between Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal (Mario 2016; Kugelman 2017). Until the eruption of the China– India border skirmishes in May 2020, it seemed plausible for Pakistan and China to encourage India to see the CPEC as an opportunity that could supplement the facilitation of India’s energy needs and commerce and trade activity. May 2020 disfigured the economic partnership between India and China and reshaped it into a strategic rivalry. Now, Indo-US hostility to the CPEC has emerged as a new strategic reality that could perpetuate terrorism and conflict, intensify rivalries and thwart peace and development in South Asia. It is equally important for Pakistan to recognise that just as India has been able to build economic ties with China despite its unresolved border disputes, Pakistan and India could also try to manage territorial disputes following the Chinese example and pave the way for the CPEC as a bridge and opportunity for economic, cultural and educational cooperation. To dispel apprehensions about OBOR’s strategic implications, the Chinese government renamed it the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), implying and assuring the neighboring states that it is not a vision, program or strategy. It is an initiative that calls for ‘shared growth through discussion and collaboration’. It needs to be understood that the BRI is, ‘Much more than investment and infrastructure projects’. The BRI is now part of ‘Xi Jinping Thought and Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era’ and is part of the Communist Party of China’s Constitution. The BRI now includes digital connectivity, the ‘Digital Silk Road’, and envisions ‘innovation action plans for e-commerce, digital economy, smart cities, and science and technology parks’ (Ahmad 2018). In May 2017, China launched a major BRI ‘soft power’ exercise by hosting a ‘Silk Road Summit for International Cooperation’, in which more than 60 countries participated, while India conspicuously stayed away. China particularly reached out to EU,

22  Saeed Shafqat ASEAN and SCO countries. In the Middle East, it entered into joint construction projects with six Arab Countries More importantly, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait and Oman have shown support for the BRI. China has given new meaning and a boost to multilateralism, and the BRI is an important Chinese initiative for multilateral diplomacy, an answer to unilateralism and narrow-minded protectionism. The BRI’s strength lies in flexibility, fluidity, adaptability and inclusiveness. An increasing number of countries are showing interest in joining BRI and see it as an opportunity for growth and development and not as a threat of Chinese hegemony. Chinese leaders continue to remind others that the BRI is not ‘a solo, but a symphony performed by all the relevant countries’ (ibid.). The BRI is spectacular Chinese orchestra, to show case China’s achievements as a modern state and growing economy, and it helps China extend its soft power in global affairs. It is estimated that 900 projects are in the works under the BRI, an umbrella organization which is mobilising the technology, management, human resources and people to people the connectivity, goodwill and support of many countries. This reassuring and somewhat cultural projection of BRI by the Chinese policymakers and academia has given momentum to a third perspective, which I would classify as CPEC Pragmatists. Focusing on Indo-­Pakistan rivalry, claims and counter claims of preserving territorial rights, I have argued that CPEC is not a ‘threat’, and it offers India an opportunity to seek investment, trade, regional connectivity and lead movement for peace and harmony with Pakistan and broadly South Asia. CPEC pragmatists CPEC pragmatists like this author provide a synthesis of geopolitical and geo-economic factors which are influencing and bolstering the dynamics of the BRI. These pragmatists also bring attention to the role of strategic culture and political leadership in personal skills in persuasion and a nuanced understanding of the ‘other’. For example, retired diplomat Talmiz Ahmad argues that India’s concerns on the CPEC are ‘misplaced’. He contends it is in ‘India’s interest for China to invest in Pakistan and hopefully wean the country’s youth away from extremism’. Building roads in disputed territory does not compromise Indian claims, and in any case, it’s an issue that the two countries will have resolved when the time is ‘propitious’ for both (Ahmad 2018). In fact, over the years and particularly following the CPEC, the Chinese government has shown considerable flexibility in appeasing India; since the 1990s, China has stayed away from supporting Pakistan on international forums on the Kashmir issue and has encouraged it to resolve the dispute bilaterally. Second, it has insisted that the 1963 Pakistan–China Border Agreement does not compromise Indian ‘sovereignty’. Third, and most important, it has gone to the extent of saying that to reassure India, China would be willing to change CPEC’s name even, so India needs to re-examine

CPEC and changing dynamics  23 its policy towards the CPEC and BRI2 (Ahmad 2018). Ahmad strongly recommends that India will benefit from CPEC, therefore India should support rather than oppose it, as the Chinese are willing to be accommodating. Atul Bhardwaj, Senior Fellow at the Indian Council for Social Science Research, calls Indian opposition to the CPEC ‘worrisome’ and ‘flawed’. He argues that the CPEC offers unprecedented trade and commerce opportunities, and India should ‘welcome the revival of old Silk Road as it gives India more choices and reduces its dependence on trade routes controlled by the United States’ (Bhardwaj 2018: 5). There is reason to be optimistic about the CPEC as the harbinger of a peace dividend for South Asia. The electoral victory of Imran Khan in the July 2018 elections and his installation as Prime Minister of Pakistan has further boosted the pragmatist view. In Indo-Pakistani diplomacy, gesturing carries considerable weight and at times opens up the prospects of possible repositioning by the respective governments on mending relations. Although it is too soon to tell, however, in his first speech as PM, he has shown interest in promoting trade and cultural activities between Pakistan and India. Simultaneously, he has been quick not only in showing sympathy for the people of Kerala in worst floods of the history but also in offering to provide relief supplies to India in this hour of tragedy. More important, on the swearing-in ceremony of Imran Khan, the Indian cricketers were invited, and one Indian cricketer-turned-politician, Navjot Singh Sidhu, was given a warm embrace by Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff, indicating that the Pakistan’s military, which is widely perceived as, and in reality is, an influential player in defining the parameters of India–Pakistan relations, may be willing to support a fresh dialogue process.3 This could mark a new beginning. Despite bilateral tension, Imran Khan’s intent to open a dialogue with India raised expectations about the immense potential for trade and the peace dividend that comes along with it.4 Despite Pulwama and the near-warlike situation, Imran Khan showed strong resolve in seeking peace with India and downplayed the prospect of a confrontation. He persisted in creating hope that after the April 2019 Indian elections, India and Pakistan could resume peace negotiations (Gettleman 2019). Unfortunately, after 5 August 2019 and the India– China border clashes of May 2020, hostilities between India and Pakistan have remained problematic and worrisome. The bilateral trade between India and Pakistan totals around 2.5 billion USD, however, it is ten times higher through indirect channels, via Dubai and the Gulf States. Similarly, in textiles, surgical instruments and sports items, Pakistan could expand upon its existing market, while it can import stainless steel from India. Improving infrastructure and cross-border security management could further expand economic and cultural ties (Hussain and Sinha 2018). Opening business-to-business dialogues and forums could boost trade and lead to revising the visa protocols in South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries, improving the level of trust. The CPEC is thus an enormous opportunity for improving economic relations and regional connectivity and is not a threat to India. Nevertheless,

24  Saeed Shafqat creating a synergy between commercial and strategic interests is a big challenge for the two countries. If constructed, keeping these considerations in mind, the CPEC could open up new vistas of cooperation and peace between the two rivals. For recasting Pakistan–India relations, China–Turkey relations provide an interesting model which has been reshaped by the BRI. In the 1950s, Turkey, like Pakistan, was part of CENTO, and during the Korean War, Ankara sent a Turkish Brigade to fight alongside the United States, against China. However, the key irritant for China has been Turkish support for Xinjiang separatists, helping some of their radicals and then bad-mouthing China’s policy in the region. This hostility and mistrust have been transformed into a cautious and calculated trust, since President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to China in 2015. Given the recent trade and tariff war between the United States and China, and the imposition of economic sanctions by the United States on Turkey following the arrest of an American clergyman, the relations between the USA and Turkey have hit an all-time low. Aggressive US diplomacy has brought China and Turkey even closer to calibrating their strategic interests and communications, and the BRI has enhanced the possibilities of greater economic cooperation between Turkey and China, signaling a shift from hostility to accommodation and from simple geostrategic relations to more complex and layered geo-economic ones (Global Times 2018).

Changing dynamics: India–China relations and CPEC This leads us to a critical question: How and why have India–China relations drifted from ‘friendship’ into contemporary ‘hostility and suspicions of containment’? Since the mid 1980s, India and China have shared a complex and multilayered relationship, where the leaders of the two countries have sustained a high-level dialogue. This has helped the two in border and dispute management and in sustaining uninterrupted business and cultural/ educational exchange programs. A brief historical overview may help us understand this riddle better. The first phase of Indo-China relations can be traced from a period of fraternity beginning in the early 1950s (specifically 1954) and lasting until the Indo-China war of 1962. This phase is fondly remembered as a period of Hindi-Chini Bhai-Bhai (Indians and Chinese are brothers). Do the recent exchanges between the Chinese and Indian leaderships promise the revival of that old spirit? The skirmishes of May 2020 have considerably dampened those prospects, if not completely destroyed them. The second phase (1962–1988) occurred as a consequence of the 1962 war between India and China and the humiliating defeat of India. It sowed seeds of distrust and mutual suspicion. During this phase, the Sino-Indian rivalry and the Cold War were at their climax, and the two countries became distant and uncomfortable neighbors. In the third phase (1988–1999), a new beginning was made when the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi visited Beijing, in 1988. Both countries

CPEC and changing dynamics  25 sought a rapprochement and embarked on a phase of internal development and peaceful border management. The highlight of this new beginning was under the leadership of Prime Minister Narashimha Rao, in the 1990s. He was invited to China in 1993, and the two sides signed an ‘Agreement on Maintaining Peace and Tranquility Along the Line of Actual Control on Sino-Indian Border’ which set the parameters of improving China–India bilateral relations. In December 1996, Chinese President Jiang Zemin visited India and signed two ‘Agreements on Confidence Building Measures (CBMs)’ and border management. Under Narasima Rao, the relations between the two remained stable and expanded. The fourth phase (1999–2004) coincided with the rise of the Bhartya Jannata Party (BJP) and the coming of age of the Indian Diaspora, particularly in America. The Kargil conflict between India and Pakistan led to a paradigm shift in India–United States relations as President Bill Clinton’s administration resolutely sought improved relations with India, and President George W Bush sustained and solidified them. Simultaneously, both China and India deepened their economic ties through trade, investment and effective border management. The fifth phase (2005–2013) began in 2005, with two momentous agreements by India. First, in July 2005, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Sigh and US President Bush signed a comprehensive United States–India agreement that included peaceful uses of Nuclear Energy—popularly labelled a Civil Nuclear Agreement. Second, during the same year, India and China signed an Agreement on ‘Political Parameters and Guiding Principles for the Settlement of India-China Boundary Question’, whereby the two sides laid down a framework for managing and settling border disputes. Thus, India was skilful in enhancing and broadening the parameters of relations with the United States and China. The United States vigorously propounded democracy as a shared value with India. But behind this smokescreen of collaborating democracies, the thrust was to devise a common strategy to restrict a rising China. This phase seems to have set the tone of the emerging Indo-US strategic partnership. The sixth, and current, phase in India–China relations began after the assumption of power of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in India in 2014. This phase is more complex and reveals that India’s thinking on relations with China may still be swinging between containment and non-alignment. The gesturing, symbolism and frequency of the meetings between the Indian prime minister and the Chinese president reveal that the two are willing to engage in dialogue rather than confrontation. From 2014 to May 2018, 12 one-on-one meetings between Prime Minister Modi and President Xi Jinping took place in an atmosphere of cordiality and understanding. In these meetings, the two had extensive deliberations on issues such as trade, investment, technological exchange, terrorism, tourism, security and border management (see Table 2A.1 in the appendix). In my assessment, these meetings did set two new and interesting trends in bilateral and multilateral diplomacy. First, there was a one-on-one personal

26  Saeed Shafqat meeting between the two leaders, Narendra Modi and Xi Jinping on the sidelines of BRICS annual meetings. Second, informal summits: in this context, the May 2018 Wuhan Summit conveyed the impression of redefining India–China relations. Despite their differences, these meetings do convey a sense of rapprochement between India and China and could revive the spirit of the old bond. Economic interdependence and cooperation will revitalise the long fractured relationship and is therefore a priority placed at the top of the agenda. Economic analysts have already predicted the emergence of a ‘Chindia’ in the next twenty to twenty-five years (Engardio 2007). In fact, India and China need ‘to shed their prejudiced approach in dealing with each-other. As rising nations in the world and as neighbors, New Delhi and Beijing should learn to cohabit’ (Ranjan 2018). But, following the May 2020 Indo-China border skirmishes, it seems that the personal relationship between the Chinese President and Indian Prime Minister has collapsed, and the national interests of India and China are diverging from economic cooperation into a strategic rivalry. It is in China’s national interest to become India’s partner and support it in international politics, as it is economically strong, and the two have a similar position on a number of issues, such as the Russian involvement in Ukraine, the need to protect the interests of developing countries, etc. For a country seen as ‘isolated’ it was important to develop ties with countries that share the same view on international issues. China’s Premier Li Keqiang paid a visit to India as part of his first trip abroad. Li also proposed establishing the Bangladesh–China–India–Myanmar (BCIM) Economic Corridor, a sign of how valuable India is to China. India was the most important destination during President Xi’s visit to South Asia. This can be seen as one of the main reasons by China for endorsing Sino-Indian friendship so quickly and easily, even though Sino-Indian border problems still have to be addressed. Yet, India continues to be suspicious and watchful over Chinese involvement in the region, in particular with respect to the CPEC. It has repeatedly indicated its discomfort over the development of the megaproject, claiming that while carrying out its infrastructure investments, China has been oblivious to the territorial disputes that have agitated the region over the past few decades. The Chinese have defended their position by relying on the ‘development for all’ motto, using it all too frequently to pacify BRI/CPEC opponents. In 2017, a spokesman from the Chinese Foreign Ministry responded to the Indian premier’s concerns that the CPEC challenged the nation’s territorial autonomy, saying that the CPEC aimed to bring countries together and promote regional peace. In another public meeting in New Delhi, Chinese Ambassador to India Lao Zhaohui shadowed his colleague’s remarks when he assured the audience that China does not wish to impede on any country’s sovereignty but rather aims to promote cooperation to achieve shared development goals through opening up trade and investments. With this aim, Zhaohui claimed, China would be willing to play mediator between the two countries and push for bilateral negotiations to expedite the process of conflict resolution (Naqvi 2017; Dawn 2017).

CPEC and changing dynamics  27 According to an Australian think tank report, both India and Pakistan have their own, ‘singular reasons’ to ensure that relations with China continue to grow. India’s reasons include economic opportunity and a sense of threat from China, while Pakistan’s include the fear of India and China’s role as an arms supplier and protector, but more importantly as being China’s window to the West and South?’ Pakistan is now central to China’s network of ports, energy pipelines and maritime routes for its exports to Europe, Africa and the Middle East. It is, as was noted, China’s entry point into the Indian Ocean, enabling it to reach the oil and gas fields of the Middle East. Like that of Andrew Small (2015), this report’s basic premise is that it is antagonism towards India that glues China-Pakistan relations. However, it is noteworthy that increasingly, scholars and policy experts are not simply looking at Pakistan through a geopolitical/geostrategic lens but trying to desegregate multiple ways by which China perceives Pakistan as an incredible asset (Hughes 2018: 4). From China’s perspective, Pakistan serves many vital geostrategic objectives in the region. Pakistan is a regionally important country to China, but the trajectory of its economic growth and development has not been steady and remains shaky. Pakistan was a key ally for China throughout the Cold War period. As noted earlier, since the mid 1980s, China’s relations with India have undergone a dramatic shift due to bilateral trade. Indian exports to China rose from 45.5 million USD in 1988 to almost 9 billion USD in 2016. Its imports from China went up from 95.3 million USD to more than 60 billion USD for the same period (World Integrated Trade Solution 2018). On the other hand, Pakistan paid inadequate attention towards increasing trade, investments and commercial and educational relations with China; instead, it solidified a security and strategic partnership, which has developed between the two over the decades. Whereas the possibility of warming up China–India relations cannot be ruled out, the visible indications are that Beijing would not abandon Pakistan, as China’s interest in a stronger Pakistan coincides with its own interests. Pakistan plays a role in fighting terrorism and separatism, and China has established an alliance with the SCO to fight terrorist forces in northwest China; it also works with Pakistan to do so in southwest China. Despite this durable and expanding a strategic partnership, Pakistan has yet to devise a well-thought-out set of economic policies, which could make the CPEC a ‘game changer’ for Pakistan.

Conclusion The foregoing analysis shows that Pakistan, China and India are confronted with the three challenging issues of terrorism, separatism and extremism, and these demand cooperation, dialogue, engagement and peace rather than ‘containment’ or perpetual conflict, rivalry and the potentiality of a nuclear holocaust. Just as India has been able to build economic ties with China despite border disputes, Pakistan and India must also learn to manage boundary disputes and understand the significant opportunities that

28  Saeed Shafqat could be realised for both countries if economic, commercial and cultural ties are reset. Synergising strategic and commercial interests is hard in countries which have long-standing intractable disputes; the CPEC offers a window of opportunity to India and Pakistan for a possible peace dividend. This will require India to overcome its skepticism regarding the CPEC road routes going through Gilgit-Baltistan (Kashmir) or its fears of China’s facilitated access to the Arabian Sea (Mario 2016). Similarly, Pakistan would actively need to resolve the possibilities of any Indian assistance to separatists (the arrest of an alleged RAW agent in Balochistan last year has sparked controversy in this regard) (Mario 2016). Since 2014, Pakistan has shown a determination to curb and dismantle religious militancy, and the process must be sustained. Expecting such a change from the Pakistani and Indian governments is idealistic, but a beginning needs to be made, and building trust is a precondition. That demands changes in mindset and attitudes, which is difficult to come by easily among Indian and Pakistani policymakers and leaders. To paraphase Rajiv Ranjan, India and Pakistan need to ‘shed their prejudiced approach’, while dealing with each other and the two can ‘learn to cohabit’ with each other as unavoidable neighbors (Ranjan 2018). Pragmatism demands an attitude and orientation transformation among the leadership and policymakers of the two states. only then can the people of South Asia reap the benefits of the peace dividend. The CPEC offers an economic opportunity for the peoples of South Asia, if it is not perceived or construed as a security threat or strategic challenge to India. For this to happen, China, Pakistan and India need to develop a shared cooperative vision and harness instruments of trust, partnership and cooperation and dispute resolution through dialogue, not confrontation. Unfortunately, such an opening has been badly bruised and shattered by the Indian government’s 5 August 2019 decision on Kashmir and the China–India border clashes of May 2020. Under these circumstances, could the CPEC make a new beginning? At the moment, that seems like a blind ally and, for that ‘new beginning’ to happen, the growing Indo-US strategic collaboration to contain China needs to change from strategic competition to a strategic cooperation which provides space to a rising China, gives confidence to India and revives the prospects of dialogue between India and Pakistan.

Appendix Table 2A.1  Details of Meetings between Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India and President Xi Jinping of China, 2014–2018 Date

Place

Details

Key Discussion Points

2014

Jul 14

Fortaleza, Brazil

• First meeting between PM Modi & President Xi Jinping

Sept 17

Gujrat, India

• First visit of Xi to India • Three-day tour • Celebrated Modi’s 64th birthday together

• India welcomed to join the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank as a founding member • Xi proposed a Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor to enhance regional cooperation • Modi welcomed Chinese enterprises to invest in India’s infrastructural development • Worked together to achieve peaceful development • Signed 12 agreements related primarily to closer partnership in development, one of which was that China would invest 20 billion USD in India’s infrastructure over five years • Detailed economic investment plans were discussed for instance, the setting up of industrial parks in Gujrat, India • Both sides also focused on increasing cooperation in trade, space exploration and civil nuclear energy • Modi said that true potential of both countries could only be realised once the border issue was resolved (Continued)

CPEC and changing dynamics  29

Year

Year

Date

Place

Details

Key Discussion Points

2015

May 14

Xi’an, China

• First visit of Modi to China • Three-day trip

Jul 8

Ufa, Russia

• Meeting ahead of 7th Summit of BRICS

Jun 23

Tashkent, Uzbekistan

• On the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit

Sept 4

Hangzhou, China

• On the sidelines at the G20 Hangzhou Summit

• Xi presented four points: 1. Work together to promote a strategic partnership and the ‘international order towards a more just and reasonable direction’ 2. Greater economic cooperation 3. Resolve differences, problems and mistrust 4. Make ‘bilateral cooperation a social consensus’ between both countries, implement cultural exchange programs • Modi: India believes that the Belt Road Initiative will help South Asia prosper through enhanced connectivity • Xi stressed exploring ways to connect the Belt and Road Initiative to India’s development plans • Stressed the need to have a closer China–India partnership within BRICS to attain world peace • Both countries acknowledged the need to improve cooperation in various sectors including trade, railways, industrial parks, energy and power, IT and environmental sustainability • Both acknowledged that their ‘relations maintain a sound momentum of healthy, stable and rapid development’

2016

30  Saeed Shafqat

Table 2A.1  (Continued)

Year

2017

Place

Details

Key Discussion Points

Oct 15

Gao, India

• On the sidelines of the 8th BRICS summit

Jun 9

Astana, Kazakhstan

Jul 7

Hamburg, Germany

• On the sidelines of the 17th SCO Summit • Both meeting for the first time after India boycotted the Belt and Road Forum held in Beijing in May 2017 • Exchanged greetings at an informal gathering of BRICS, on the sidelines of the G20 summit (China ruled out, it being a bilateral meeting) • Only lasted about five minutes

• Both recognised terrorism as the key issue • Discussed India’s prospects of joining the Nuclear Supplier’s Group (NSG) • Discussed the issue of banning terrorist JeM chief Masood Azhar • Modi expressing his appreciation to China for India’s accession to the SCO • Discussion on the need to work closely together within SCO framework • Both had a ‘conversation on a range of issues’ as per the official statement released by the Raveesh Kumar, official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs in the Government of India

(Continued)

CPEC and changing dynamics  31

Date

Year

2018

Date

Place

Details

Key Discussion Points

Sept 5

Xiamen, China

• Hour long meeting on the sidelines of 9th BRICS Summit • First meeting after the Doklam border stand-off was resolved

Apr 27–28

Wuhan, China

• Two-day-long ‘informal summit’

• Xi said India should treat China’s development correctly and rationally • A discussion on the fact that if the China–India relationship is to move forward, then peace must be achieved on the borders • Agreement to work together on an economic project in Afghanistan • Discussion on reducing border tensions • Both issued ‘strategic guidance’ to their armed forces to build trust and be more effective in managing border disputes

Source: Compiled by the author from various sources.

32  Saeed Shafqat

Table 2A.1  (Continued)

CPEC and changing dynamics  33

Notes 1 His work is among the earliest studies to project India as a potential global power. More recently, see Ayres (2018), who makes a persuasive case for India’s rise and how it is gaining global recognition and attention as an emerging power, along with China. 2 Ahmad cites Chinese diplomat Liu Jinsong, who made these remarks at the BRI conference at Mumbai in April 2017. 3 His attendance, however, was very badly received by the Indian media/newschannels in particular, indicating a strong segment of Indian society that is still very opposed to the idea of Indo-Pakistani peace. How do you get the public on board, when dealing with decades of mistrust and skepticism towards each other? 4 The report says Imran Khan defends Sidhu’s visit and also calls for peace and dialogue between India and Pakistan.

References Ahmad, Talmiz. 2018, 2 July. ‘Why India needs to take a fresh look at China’s belt and road initiative’. The Wire, https://thewire.in/diplomacy/india-needs-totake-a-fresh-look-at-the-belt-and-road-initiative-proposal. Accessed 17 June 2020. Ayres, Alyssa. 2018. Our time has come: How India is making its place in the world. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Bender, Michael. 2018, 16 April. ‘The tiger, the dragon and the race for Indian ocean supremacy’. South Asia Programme, Hudson Institute, www.southasiaathudson.org/ blog/2018/4/16/the-tiger-the-dragon-and-the-race-for-indian-ocean-­supremacy-1. Accessed 10 May 2018. Bhardwaj, Atul. 2018, 8 May. ‘India’s opposition to China–Pakistan economic corridor is flawed’. Economic and Political Weekly, 52(4), pp. 1–5. Bouton, Marshal M. 2017, 18 May. ‘The Trump administration’s India opportunity’. Asia Society Policy Institute, https://asiasociety.org/policy-institute/trump-administration’s-india-opportunity. Accessed 17 June 2020. Cohen, Stephen. 2001. India: Emerging power. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press. Dawn. 2017, 12 June.’China defends CPEC; India claims it passes through its territory’, https://www.dawn.com/news/1309370. Accessed 10 May, 2018. Engardio, Peter (Ed.). 2007. Chindia: How China and India are revolutionising global business. New York: McGraw Hill. Mario, Esteban. 2016. ‘The China–Pakistan corridor’. Strategic Studies, 36(2): 63–74. Ganguly, Sumit. 2002. Conflict unending: India Pakistan tension since 1947. New York: Columbia University. Gettleman, Jeffrey. 2019, April 9. ‘Pakistan premier: “No use” for armed militias anymore’. New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/09/world/asia/ imran-khan-pakistan.html. Accessed 13 April, 2019. Global Times. 2018, August 20. ‘Look at China–Turkey ties objectively’, http://www. globaltimes.cn/content/1116209.shtml#.W3r4SUJYl0Q. Accessed 23 August 2018. Hughes, Lindsay. 2018, 5 April. ‘China in South Asia: The case of Pakistan’. Future Directions International, http://www.futuredirections.org.au/wp-content/uploads/ 2018/04/China-in-South-Asia-The-Case-of-Pakistan.pdf. Accessed 10 May 2018. Hussain, Afaq and Riya Sinha. 2018, August 15. ‘The market across the border: India and Pakistan will both gain immensely by encouraging bilateral trade’. The

34  Saeed Shafqat Hindu, https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/the-market-across-the-border/ article24692883.ece. Accessed 17 June 2020. Jaishankar, S. 2018, August 13.’Disruption in world order: The nimblest power with least problems will fare best’. Economic Times, https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/politics-and-nation/disruption-in-world-order-the-nimblestpower-with-least-problems-will-fare-best/articleshow/65378857.cms. Accessed 14 August 2018. Khaleej Times. 2018, August 21. ‘Imran Khan defends Navjot Singh Sidhu’s Pakistan visit for oath-taking ceremony’, https://www.khaleejtimes.com/international/ pakistan/imran-khan-defends-navjot-singh-sidhus-pakistan-visit-for-oath-takingceremony. Accessed 31 August 2018. Kugelman, Michael. 2017, 2 November. ‘The China Pakistan economic corridor’. Asia’s Energy Security and China’s Belt and Road Initiative, Special Report no. 68. The National Bureau of Asian Research, https://nbr.org/publication/the-­chinapakistan-economic-corridor-what-it-is-how-it-is-perceived-and-implications-forenergy-geopolitics. Accessed 10 May 2018. Margolis, Eric S. 2001. War at the top of the world: The struggle for Afghanistan, Kashmir and Tibet, pp. 154–178. New York: Routledge. Ministry of Planning Development and Reform. 2018. Long term plan for ChinaPakistan economic corridor (2017–2030). Government of Pakistan, http://cpec. gov.pk/long-term-plan-cpec. Accessed 26 July 2018. Mitra, Devirupa. 2017, 8 May. ‘To meet Indian concerns, China offers to rename China–Pakistan corridor’. The Wire, https://thewire.in/diplomacy/china-pakistan-india-obor. Accessed 29 June 2018. Naqvi, Javed. 2017. ‘China invites India to join One-Belt-One-Road Project’. Dawn, https://www.dawn.com/news/1331943/china-invites-india-to-join-one-belt-oneroad-project. Accessed 10 May 2017. Ranjan, Rajiv. 2018, 27 July. ‘India and China must set aside mistrust to emerge as world leaders’. The Wire, https://thewire.in/diplomacy/india-and-china-must-setside-aside-mistrust-to-emerge-as-world-leaders. Accessed 17 June 2020. Shah, Fahad. 2015, 3 December. ‘A costly corridor: How China and Pakistan could remake Asia’. Foreign Affairs, https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/asia/201512-03/costly-corridor. Accessed 4 July 2018. Small, Andrew. 2015. The China Pakistan axis: Asia’s new geopolitics. Delhi: Random House India. World Integrated Trade Solution. 2018. Home page, https://wits.worldbank.org/ Default.aspx?lang=en. Accessed 15 June 2018.

3 China’s Trishula approach in South Asia Challenges to balancing the end game Mahendra P Lama

China is everywhere in South Asia, physically as an agent of globalisation, temporally as a growth model and strategically as a ‘daring and resolute’ power. There has been a marked change in its approach, strategy and goals. In the last 60 years, China has transformed itself from being an astute proponent of ideological influence and covert supporter of insurgency to being a builder of cross-­border modern infrastructures, wild market grabber and dogged player of strategic repositioning (Bhattacharjea 2001; Yee and Storey 2002; Lama 2006; Kirby, 2011). It ignores Maoism and has disrobed itself of the socialist paradigm to adopt a reincarnated ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ (Xi 2018). Yet, it consciously hesitates to accept that it is actually in the capitalist mode and loathes to prove that democracy and development have no correlation. South Asians devour this ambiguity of China, as the subcontinent itself is a reservoir of scattered thinking, ambiguous planning and actions based on marginal utility. A potentially powerful neighbouring South Asia realised the wider usefulness of China only when the Cold War came to an end and China started showing a meteoric rise in terms of growth and global market influence and as an advocate of exclusive Asian value, an unparalleled source of infrastructure building, an influential technological bastion and a durable counterbalancing force in India-­dominated discourse.1 In the very recent past, the overwhelming majority of South Asian countries (except Bhutan and India) have subscribed to both the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB). There could be four very abiding yet powerful objectives in China’s fast emerging yet speedy ‘forward policy’ in the South Asia region. These include the expansion of its military base and strategic access both through high mountain roads and maritime routes; economic and commercial penetration into the huge South Asian market and through it to the Middle East; isolating India from a potentially potent and promising Indo-­Pacific and QUAD partnership and finally, effectively tackling its own potential internal instabilities, particularly in the south-­western and western regions. This chapter examines these and other key issues on the subject.

DOI: 10.4324/9780367855413-4

36  Mahendra P Lama

Trishula2 approach By the mid 1980s, China had greatly realised that national security could be ensured through mulin zhengce (睦邻政策), a better relation with neighbouring countries. For a country with 14 contiguously connected neighbouring nations with ‘diverse international regions’, varied political systems and levels of economic development and asymmetrical threat perceptions, the end of the Cold War brought an opportunity to broaden its foreign policy options. It faced an enigmatic challenge of remaining ‘a regional power without a regional policy’. This is where Deng Xiaoping’s advocacy of comprehensive zhoubian zhengce (周边政策 periphery policy) was squarely driven by ‘open world’, where he stated that reviewing our history, we have concluded that one of the most important reasons for China’s long years of stagnation and backwardness was its policy of closing the country to outside contact. Our experiences show that China cannot rebuild itself behind closed doors and that it cannot develop in isolation from the rest of the world. (Deng, 1994: 86) China started consciously designing a clear regional policy based on stabilising periphery (wending zhoubian 稳定周边). Determinants such as the political system–ideology linkage (bu yi yishixingtai he sheshuizhidu lun qinsu 不以意识形态和社会制度论亲疏) and super power alliance (yi mei huaxian, yi su huaxian 以美划线, 以苏划线) (Sullivan and Paarlburg 2018), which remained the fundamental basis and hallmark of its foreign relations, were increasingly abandoned. These policies emanated partly from the realisation that the reforms and growth – key to halting and preventing domestic political turmoil – needed a larger playing field. Deng Xiaoping remained doubly convinced that if China were to emerge as an economic power house and a flagbearer in the emerging ‘New Asianism’ and ‘prospect of Pacific century’, a favourable international environment was inevitable (Ross 2011). South Asia and, more specifically, India have been central in this rapprochement game. A new China has been trying to woo South Asia in exactly the same mode it has successfully used in other neighbouring regions, including Central and South East Asia. Just as India engaged its neighbours during a protracted period from the 1950s to the 2000s, China has also sophisticatedly adopted the trishula (trident or three-­pronged) approach to enter into South Asia in a sustained manner (Lama 2006). This trishula approach is based on making very local entry through strategic entry points, engaging the neighbouring country nationally in core economic and other sectors and partnering regionally with a regional organisation such as ASEAN, CARAC and SAARC through initiatives including a free-­trade regime, subregional groupings like the Greater Mekong Basin Growth Triangle (GMBGT) and region-­wide projects such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP). India’s geographical construction limited its actions mostly

China’s Trishula approach in South Asia  37 to South Asia, whereas China could practice and experiment with this trishula approach in the three critical neighbouring regions of South Asia, South East Asia and Central Asia. The Khunjerab Pass on the Karakoram highway in Pakistan, Kerung-­ Rasuwagadhi in Nepal, the Wakhan Corridor in northeastern Afghanistan and the Nathu La (Pass) in India are signs of local integration that mainly address the borderland geography, communities and resources. More than 23% of the total global imports of Bangladesh, 15% of India’s, 24% of Pakistan’s and 19% of Sri Lanka’s are from China. Besides a range of huge investment and credit-­driven projects in these countries, this significant import concentration is a critical manifestation of national-­level engagements. Thirty years back, these statistics were negligible. China’s consistent forays into regional initiatives such as the Bangladesh–China–India–Myanmar (BCIM) Forum for Regional Cooperation and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) are the third trident bar laced with quite an umpteen number of soft-­power tools. Despite initial apprehension and resistance by the partnering countries, this trident strategy has repaid China handsomely in both Central and South East Asia.

Local integration China has been consciously trying to make economic dents at the very local level. Like India, it has also extensively used border trade, water sharing deals, electricity interconnection, gas and oil pipelines and cross-­border physical infrastructure as its main instruments to realise this goal of local economic integration. It is broadly estimated that border trade through its 120 inland towns and ports constitute nearly half of China’s total foreign trade. Table 3.1 provides an overview of various border trading points. Unlike China’s border trading points with countries in other regions such as South East Asia, interactions with South Asian countries remain at a fairly nascent stage. For instance, the border trade at Muse (Myanmar) and Ruili (Kunming-­China) reached a peak of 5.3 billion USD in 2015–2016, which constituted more than 75% of Myanmar’s total border trade, including that with Thailand, Bangladesh and India (Kubo, 2016). Most China–South Asia land-­based trade routes are in difficult and rugged terrains and are limited to the conduct of highly seasonal and restricted trade. Though a significant section of policy echelons in India considers the reopening of the Nathu La Pass route in Sikkim in July 2006 as merely a symbolic border trade venture, China, at least in the long run, looks at it as a vital physical economic entry into the market of 1.3 billion people in South Asia. In terms of feasibility, this is arguably the shortest route (roughly 590 km between Lhasa, Tibet and Gangtok, Sikkim) to reach the ever-­burgeoning middle class on the Indian mainland and in Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal. It could drastically reduce the tortuous sea route entries to these compulsive markets. For India besides Lhasa, these new transport infrastructures could open access to other business centres on the western, central and eastern and

Country and Land Border with China (km) Afghanistan (76 km)

India (3,488 km)

Trade Volume on Traditional Routes Wakhan Corridor, northeastern Afghanistan (over 4,000 m above sea level) in Badshah Khan province, direct route between Afghanistan and China (Tashkurgan Tajik Autonomous County of Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region). It has been a minor trade route. Trade Volume: Not available i) Nathu La in Sikkim (4,310 m) Trade Volume: (8.95 million USD) in 2015–2016 ii) Jelepa via Darjeeling Dist. It used to be the most versatile trade route. It has been closed since 1962. iii) Shipkia in Himachal Pradesh (3,930 m) Trade Volume: (1.28 million USD) in 2015–2016 iv) Lipulekh, Uttarakhand (5,200 m).Trade Volume: (1.20 million USD in 2016–2017 All four trade routes connect with the Tibet Autonomous Region of China

Emerging Connectivity Both to the Border and the Transborder i) Idea of Wakhan corridor is gaining momentum, which would act as a bridge between China, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Pakistan.

Despite restrictions on the number of tradable products (36 exportable items and 20 importable items from the Indian side), border trade has been steadily increasing with the physical infrastructure in place on the Chinese side for much larger trade exchanges. i) Railway line from Lhasa to Xigatse completed ii) Proposed railway line from Xigatse to Nathu La border

38  Mahendra P Lama

Table 3.1  China’s land border, trade routes and emerging connectivity in South Asia

ii) Tatopani-­Zhangmu (1,760 m) connected by Kathmandu–Kodari Highway.Trade Volume: (11.88 million USD) in 2014–2015 (this trade route remained closed for almost five years in the aftermath of 2015 earthquake and also due to Covid-­19) iii) Rasuwagadhi-­Kerung (Gyirong) iv) Mustang (Nhechung), v) Olangchungola (Taplejung), vi) Kimathanka(Sankhuwasabha), vii) Lamabagar (Dolakha), viii) Rasuwa (Rasuwagarhi), ix) Larke (Sirdhibas), Mugu (Mugu) and Yarinaka (Yari, Humla).

Overarching framework of Trans-­Himalayan Multi-­Dimensional Connectivity Network i) As per China–Nepal Transit and Transport Agreement (TTA), China has allowed Nepal to use its four sea ports – Tianjin, Shenzhen, Lianyungang and Zhanjiang (seaports) – and three land ports –Lanzhou, Lhasa and Xigatse (dry ports). ii) Xigatse-­Kerung-­Kathmandu Trans-­ Himalayan Railway. iii) Optical fibre that provides Nepal internet access through a Chinese medium has been in use since August 2018.

Pakistan (438 km)

Khunjerab Pass (4,733 m), Gilgit–BaltistanHunza-­Nagar District, connects with the Xinjiang region of China Trade Volume: 856.3 million USD in 2019.

i) ii)

Source: Compiled by the author from various sources.

The Karakoram Highway was completed and has been in use since the mid 1980s. The China–Pakistan Economic Corridor passes through this trading point, which has now introduced Web-­Based One Customs (WeBOC) system at Sust Dry Port.

China’s Trishula approach in South Asia  39

Nepal (1,414 km)

40  Mahendra P Lama south-­eastern sea coast of China (Lama 2005). China has already extended its railway line from Lhasa to Xigatse and is likely to connect with Nathu La in Sikkim and Rasugadhi in Nepal by 2023. India is also working to pave a two-­lane highway up to Nathu La and a railway line to Rangpoo in Sikkim. The greenfield airport at Pakyong in Sikkim is now functional. All these are well connected with the Golden Quadrilateral highways of India. Similarly, the Khunjerab Pass connected with the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) recorded a trade volume of nearly 1 billion USD in 2019 (Table 3.1). In the process, traditional trade routes such as Nathu La in India, Rasuwagadhi and Tatopani in Nepal and the Khunjerab Pass in Pakistan are now being connected with economic corridors and physical infrastructures mainly constructed by China that have far reaching implications. In the process, all these local integration instruments are likely to be mainstreamed and transformed, interconnecting with national and cross-­ regional connectivity. This also enables Chinese exports to other regions via the Karakoram highway and Gwadar Port. From insignificant commodities to huge trade baskets interspersed with burgeoning physical connectivity, the interventions have moved from traditional informal institutions as the key actor to expansive regulatory instruments and multiple stakeholders. The proposal to use Nepal as a transit point and an entrepot for India–China trade is primarily raised in this context. In the past, Chinese goods that arrived in Nepal mostly found their way into the Indian market, including through various surreptitious means. Chinese patterns of executing these strategies are much in contrast to those of India. For instance, there have been several visits by the trade, development and investment officials and private sector from Yunnan Province to mostly the Eastern states of India, including West Bengal and some of the eight North Eastern States. Their single agenda is to establish trade and investment linkages with the vast untapped market of eastern India. This region has both natural complementarity and well-­endowed resources that facilitate the commercial exchanges. These delegates in a Track II forum like that of the BCIM provide ample indication of having been bestowed with a ‘free hand’ by their federal government to negotiate the larger process of the ‘Kunming Initiative’. On the other hand, India traditionally maintains foreign trade and investment as an exclusive domain of the Union Government, wherein the relevant constituent states are only ‘consulted’. However, this primary notion of ‘local engagements’ and using trans-­local actors inherent in the geo-­ economics of the Kunming Initiative are something that the Indian Government is trying to cope with. This is where India’s floating a new idea like that of ‘cooperative federalism’ stands to be both significant and critical. The power exchange between Tripura in NER and Bangladesh, triggered by the 726 MW Combined Cycle Gas Turbine (CCGT) at Palatana (Tripura), provides a new direction in terms of local integrative exchange. Besides catering to power-­deficit areas of NER, this project exports 100 MW to Bangladesh (100 MW more is being agreed to by Tripura Government),

China’s Trishula approach in South Asia  41 mainly in lieu of the services provided by it in transporting project-­related equipment, goods and services through its waterways via Calcutta and through Chittagong and Mongla ports. Similarly, about 2–3 MW are exported to Tamu town in Myanmar, through a 11 kV transmission line from Moreh in Manipur.3 All these local integration initiatives will entail unprecedented changes in the land borders. First, the orthodox definition of a border as a geometric line will change, thereby involving larger contents and more spacious interpretations, such as borderlands (Ling et al. 2016). The entire historical emergence of borderlands around these borders, which actually determined the cross-­cultural ecology, political economy, trans-­humance, biodiversity, human security and environmental flows of this subcontinent will be repositioned and reinvigorated. This is more so in the context of transborder environmental injuries such as floods, gene piracy, pollution and pandemics, including SARS and Covid-­19. Second, the interactive fulcrum will shift from bilateralism to perhaps mini-­ lateralism and multilateralism, thereby expanding the market and politico-­strategic engagements and more critically generating much more compact growth and development poles that would fit into the larger vicissitudes of subregionalism, such as the BBIN and BCIM, and new regionalism. Third, the political economy of engagement will be more local, decentralised and even provincialised, which could trigger actors and stakeholders at the provincial and even community levels. Indicating more local and subregional engagements with Nepal, the Chinese side agreed to encourage the TAR as well as Sichuan, Yunnan and Qinghai and other provinces to enhance cooperation in the areas of trade, tourism and investment, among others (Nepal Foreign Affairs 2018). Fourth, it could even open hitherto inaccessible geographies to neighbouring countries. For instance, India could reacquire its pre-­partition access to Central Asia via Afghanistan and the Xinjiang province of China, through the region of Gilgit-­Baltistan and the Karakoram highway, and also access to the newly built Gwadar port. On the other hand, India–Pakistan local integration (Amritsar–Lahore) and border trade at the Wagah-­Attari could be connected with the Karachi–Peshawar (1,100 km) motorway, wherein Indian traders could use the Karachi–Lahore Motorway (392 km Sukkur-­ Multan Section) built under the CPEC. This motorway ends at an upward point at Peshawar via Islamabad and a downward point at Hyderabad. It also bifurcates to Gwadar from Ratodero in Sindh. This motorway also finally connects to the Karakoram Highway in the north, which makes it possible for Indian traders and tourists to gain access to both Xinjiang and also, in the south, to Gwadar Port. This would be possibly the shortest route to move to the Karakoram highway (917 km from Lahore) and Gwadar Port (1,834 km) from Lahore via the Makran Coastal highway using modern multimodal connectivity (CPEC Project 2018). Use of this corridor – emerging as a constituent of the CPEC – could inject confidence, reconciliation and openness into the relationship between

42  Mahendra P Lama India and Pakistan. In fact, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif profusely hinted at this possibility when he said: Let me make it very clear that the China-­Pakistan Economic Corridor is an economic undertaking open to all countries. It has no geographical boundaries…. We are also trying to [establish] a peaceful, connected and caring neighbourhood, it is time we transcend our differences, resolve conflicts through dialogue and diplomacy and leave a legacy of peace for future generations. (Aneja 2017) And finally, connecting these very local arrangements with big time physical infrastructures that have huge cross-­country and inter-­regional ramifications could lead to a new set of arrangements that bring newer opportunities and also unforeseen vulnerabilities. If the proposed North–South link between the Nepal–China borders in the north and the Nepal–India border in the South becomes a reality, then it will provide another route (besides Nathu La) for India–China economic engagement. However, at the same time, this will entail the presence of China at the very northern heartland of India.

National perspective In national-­level interactions, the economic interests of both South Asia and China deeply coincide. The last two decades have shown significant national-­level integration between China and South Asian countries in terms of trade, investment, tourism and infrastructure projects. China’s trade with South Asia recorded more than a five fold jump, from a mere 1.18 billion USD in 1990, to 5.57 billion USD in 2000 and another 25-­fold jump, to 140.43 billion USD in 2018. Over against the 33-­fold increase in India’s trade with China from 2000 to 2018, Bangladesh recorded more than 20-­ fold, Pakistan more than17 fold and Sri Lanka almost 10-­fold. Even smaller countries, such as Nepal, Afghanistan and Bhutan, have recorded handsome trade exchanges with China (Table 3.2). This trade will be further consolidated, as China has a free trade agreement with Pakistan4 and the Maldives5 references, is negotiating such a regime with Bangladesh and has given duty-­free, quota free (DFQF) access to Nepal for 8,000 products. Nepal has been striving to attain an enhanced level of market access to its 512 tradable products (Oli 2018). However, all the South Asian countries have had a huge and burgeoning trade deficit with China, some of which look unsustainable. China’s entry into the South Asian countries has been quite remarkable in the last two decades. From a situation of the natural-­backyard-­based traditional engagements with India, most South Asian countries, including Bangladesh, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, have recorded sharp increases in their trade exchanges with China. The relative predominance of India for

Table 3.2  China–South Asia trade volume 1980–2018 (Million USD) 1980

1990

1995

2000

2010

2015

2018

Afghanistan Bangladesh Bhutan India Maldives Nepal Pakistan Sri Lanka South Asia:

NA NA NA NA NA NA 315.3 132.8 448.1

24 173.44 0.03 270.14 0.53 47.06 574.54 96.67 1186.41

48.48 678.01 0.22 1162.78 0.76 53.59 1011.68 241.13 3196.65

27.36 916.91 1.95 2833.64 1.36 204.52 1126.26 456.03 5568.03

178.92 7054.5 1.6 61735.73 63.52 743.66 2665.66 2097.37 74540.96

376.31 14708.62 10.3 71654.07 172.75 851.31 18959.14 4567.33 111299.8

694.85 18775.22 12.84 95871.05 405.73 1102.99 19151.3 4419.51 140433.5

Source: International Monetary Fund (IMF) 2018. Direction of Trade Statistics Yearbook, http://data.imf.org/regular.aspx?key=61. Accessed on 17 June 2019. Note: NA-Not Available.

China’s Trishula approach in South Asia  43

South Asian Countries

44  Mahendra P Lama decades together in Bangladesh (10.18% in 1996) and Sri Lanka (15.05% in 2010) have now been outsmarted and matched by China with its share of 15% and 13%, respectively, in these two countries’ total trade. Despite its landlocked character, even Nepal has made a significant deviation towards China (see Table 3.3). The trade dependency has demonstrated the remarkable influence ascendency of China across all the South Asian countries. The next step will most likely be the penetration of well-­planned ‘RMB internationalization’ and ‘currency regionalization’ through bilateral channels such as trade agreements, currency exchange arrangements, currency swaps6, settlement of trade in home currency, direct currency transactions and offshore RMB clearing mechanisms. Since the Chinese RMB became of part of the IMF’s Special Drawing Rights (SDR) reserve currency basket in October 2016, countries including Myanmar and Pakistan have already adopted at least the first of the three stages of RMB internationalisation, viz., cross-­border circulation and currency for trade. The ultimate goal is to introduce and practice the other two stages of pricing and settlement, where RMB is used as currency for trade, finance and investment and the final stage of store of value where RMB becomes freely convertible under capital accounts and acquires the shape of a freely exchangeable foreign exchange currency to replace the existing the US dollar, the Japanese Yen, the EU’s Euro and Britain’s pound sterling (Jin 2017). The broad trends of China’s trade in the region have also brought about severe contradictions in the traditional global stands of South Asian countries on issue of international trade. In all of the North-­South negotiations from the1960s to the 1980s, a crucial issue highlighted and fought against by the Non-­Aligned Movement, G-­77 and UNCTAD had been the secular decline in primary commodity prices, thereby very deeply and adversely affecting the terms of trade and balance of trade of developing countries. Raul Prebisch and Hans Singer empirically demonstrated how developing countries were made to export primary commodities – basically, raw materials such as bauxite, iron ore, cotton, copper, wool, etc. – and how these commodities were converted into the final products and re-­exported back to developing countries at a price many times higher than the cost of the raw materials (Bloch and Sapsford 2000; Broda and Tille 2003). In the process, the cream of development that could have otherwise gone to countries with rich natural endowments was usurped by the developed countries. These developed countries in Europe, the United States and even Japan had the distinct advantage of having technology, capital, industrial base, human resources and control over the policies that govern the world trading regimes and investment system. Besides the political regimes, India’s international negotiators and intellectual leaders7 vehemently fought against such discriminatory practices. The Africans, South East Asians and Latin Americans were all partners with India to fight against the developed countries about such unfair trade practices. (Chanana 1976; Dasgupta 1981; Prasad 1981; ECDC Handbook 1983; Research and Information System

Table 3.3  Shares of India and China in total trade of South Asian Countries and Myanmar 1996–2018 Countries

2000

2010

2018

India

China

India

China

India

China

India

China

3.54 10.18 NA 7.6 5.23 50.11 1.27 6.91

5.0 6.5 NA 0.67 19.71 5.52 3.5 1.70

8.09 4.68 66.94 7.95 6.05 38.42 1.20 5.56

4.56 6.88 1.39 0.22 5.71 5.26 3.95 2.16

3.20 11.0 77.39 10.98 8.71 63.36 3.11 15.05

12.85 9.44 1.05 2.72 9.52 9.52 11.32 0.35

8.61 10.68 80.9 9.21 4.34 66.15 2.84 14.46

14.42 15.35 1.07 15.54 32.71 13.22 19.27 13.06

NA: Not AvailableSource: IMF, Direction of Trade Statistics, 2018 and International Monetary Fund (IMF), Direction of Trade Statistics Yearbook, http://data. imf.org/regular.aspx?key=61013712. Accessed on 17 October 2019.

China’s Trishula approach in South Asia  45

Afghanistan Bangladesh Bhutan Maldives Myanmar Nepal Pakistan Sri Lanka

1996

46  Mahendra P Lama for Non-­aligned and Other Developing Countries 1987; Lama 1987, 1997). However, the NAM remains virtually defunct now, and the World Trade Organisation has injected relatively liberal market provisions. India is no longer the voice of developing countries, as most of them are directly or indirectly now aligned to metropolitan and superpowers. However, India has once again become the victim of the same trend and practice. The theatre of operation is not global; it is now regional, and the critical actor and the market are not the United States or Europe. It is its own neighbour, China acting in the larger firmament of the post-­Cold War continuum of the twenty-­first century, in contrast to the immediate post-­ colonial era of the1950s. An example of this repeat drama is India’s trade with China, which started increasing steadily in the 1990s and reached a volume of almost 90.02 billion USD in 2018, from a mere 40 million USD in 1990 and 2.2 billion USD in 2000. India has a burgeoning trade deficit. It was a colossal 57.36 billion USD in 2018. The terms of trade have been blatantly and conspicuously unfavourable towards India. More seriously, despite being a manufacturing hub, India’s exports to China are overwhelmingly primary commodities, i.e. raw or semi-­raw materials. The foremost of these are cotton, copper, iron ore, organic chemicals and other minerals. Its imports are mostly finished products, such as telecom equipment, electrical machinery, computer mobile hardware and fertiliser. Unlike during the four decades of the 1950s to the 1980s, India has no national and global stand on this ominous trend and practice now. No measures are being taken to correct the situation. This has already happened for 18 years now (Lama 2018). This is now a common phenomenon and practice in China’s trade exchanges with other developing regions, including Africa and South East, Central and South and Middle East Asia. This is a quiet intrusion into the prolific natural endowments of neighbouring countries, a situation that may once again cause ‘resource nationalism’ to erupt. This is where Prime Minister Modi’s initiative on ‘Make in India’ stands to be critical, where its raw materials are used by its own manufacturing and other production bases. This allows India to enjoy the huge value-­ added benefits to cater to global markets. This would also restrict unbridled exports of raw materials and inspire research and development activities within the country and facilitate integration with other supply and value chains. This is what China did. It used its comparative advantage of raw materials and relatively cheaper labour by bringing most of the top multinationals from Japan, Europe and the United States to its Guangdong, Fujian, Shanghai, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shandong and Liaoning provinces in the form of small and medium enterprises and ancillary units. This is how China made National Panasonic to Sony and GE to cosmetics found their ways into Asian and African markets. Therefore, can ‘Make in India’ campaign be globalised? Could China transfer some of these industrial projects to India? Given the vociferous protectionist policies and inward-­looking trends in the United States, can India and China together lead from the front? If the top brands of mobile phones of OPPO, Huawei and Xiaomi are manufactured in states such as Gujarat,

China’s Trishula approach in South Asia  47 Karnataka, West Bengal and Assam and marketed as ‘Make in India’ pools of popular products, then their access to entire SAARC and ASEAN region under various free trade agreements could also be harnessed. Similarly, could competitively priced and efficiently produced varieties of Indian dairy products cater to milk-­and yoghurt-­hungry Chinese provinces? These are all people-­and community-­centric projects that bring mutual warmth and collaborative sustenance.

Regional approach At the regional level, China’s silent quest to enter the SAARC has been partially fulfilled, as it has been given observer status in this regional forum. This is another route through which China could effectively and expansively enter the South Asian market. China has never been a part of the South Asian subcontinental past, political ethos and cultural panorama. Perhaps to camouflage this oddity, SAARC leaders also offered observer status to Australia, Mauritius, Myanmar, Iran, the USA, the EU, Japan and Korea. They even allowed the engagement of ‘the SAARC Observers into productive, demand-­ driven and objective project based cooperation in priority areas as identified by the Member States’ in the 18th Summit in Kathmandu in 2014. China, which for long remained focused and engaged with South East, East and Central Asia, has gradually adopted four tangible ways to enter the South Asia region. First, it has been trying to make an entry into the SAARC process and has been steadfastly promoting a Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar (BCIM) cooperation initiative. In fact, China included the BCIM as one of the flagship projects under the BRI initiative. India, which has developed cold feet about its participation in BCIM, mentions that the Chinese made it a part of the BRI without consulting India (Lama 2021). However, when India finally gives way to Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal to take advantage of the India– Myanmar–Thailand trilateral highway under its Act East Policy, and when the Bangladesh–China–India–Myanmar (BCIM)8 Economic Corridor comes to fruition, the central force of gravity will be the North East region of India and its historic cross-­border connections. This is actually going to end the syndrome of the ‘connectivity black hole’ that the NER has long suffered from. Second, China uses its own forums like the BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation to attract South Asian countries. Third, it effectively uses newly created development financing, including the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and Silk Road Fund (140 billion USD), to finance projects in South Asia. Though the Articles of Agreement of the AIIB9 do not mention its relations with the BRI, the Office of the Leading Group for Promoting the Belt and Road Initiative clearly mentions that ‘in fulfilling its own purposes and missions, the bank has become one of the key multilateral platforms for building the Belt and Road, along with other multilateral development banks.’ Most South Asian countries have already started borrowing from the AIIB for both federal-­and province-­level infrastructure projects. Within the course of five years (2016–2020), India borrowed more than 5.307 billion USD for 20 projects. And by 31 December

48  Mahendra P Lama 2020, India alone constituted more than 18% of the total 108 projects and more than 24% of the total approved loans of 21.827 billion USD. Even Bangladesh has already borrowed 1.829 billion USD (8.37%) for 11 projects (10%) and Pakistan borrowed 1.42 billion USD (6.50%) for 6 projects (5.5%). This means financial dependency on China (the highest share holding of 29.78% in the AIIB) has steadily shown an upward trend along with other deepening dependence on trade, investment and technology.10 Finally, the gradual unfolding of the RCEP and its alignment with regional and subregional groupings in South Asia in the course of next few years is clearly seen to extend its pivot status to South Asia. Against the backdrop of India’s withdrawal from the RCEP negotiation process, widely referred to as a shortsighted decision11, China’s continuous strident foray in South Asia could make a big difference in either consolidating the SAARC through substantive cooperation–integration action or erode and dislocate the functioning of the SAARC through counteractive action against the traditionally established pivotal role of India.

Contentious directions and critical issues Despite China’s triggering the development of far-­reaching infrastructure and other projects, many issues have been raised on Chinese investment in South Asia. These include i) harsh loan conditions, ii) inflating the project costs, iii) no transparency in either the negotiation for or final implementation of projects, iv) hobnobbing with the ruling regime and v) creating excess capacities that become burdens on these economies. However, many of these issues are raised by various agencies of the government, and some of them are speculative and not found in any of the government reports, including those of their central banks. Many of these issues are driven by other forces that control the instruments of global discourse. The emergence of debt-­ridden economies in South Asia is one of them. Though there is intense political debate and high-­sounding statements have been issued expressing apprehensions that even the sovereignty of some of these countries could be in danger (Yuji 2018) and that there is a ‘debt trap to hook countries into China’s sphere’ (Pal 2018), the discourse is shaping up in some ways to be one-­sided, hegemonic and generally raised by political oppositions in these countries. However, some of the studies carried out conclude that debt traps leading to severe distress, including that of livelihood, are inevitable. For instance, think tanks such as the US-­based Centre for Global Development provide a vivid illustration as to how China has added to the debt burden of some South Asian countries and what the consequences could be. At the same time, while stating that ‘partnership was open, inclusive and transparent’, China, for example, mentions that The total cost of China-­Maldives Friendship Bridge is 1.26 billion RMB (US$224.2 million) and 57.5 per cent of the cost is the grant by

China’s Trishula approach in South Asia  49 the Chinese government, 36.1 per cent is a preferential loan from the Chinese government and 6.4per cent is from the Maldivian side. (Zhang, 2018) This also indicates that the propaganda by other parties is distant from the facts and realities. There are also apprehensions that these extensive investments could lead to manipulating policymaking and also shaping the direction of domestic and foreign policy in South Asian countries. India has been very often accused of this in the past. The political crisis in the Maldives shows that large-­scale Chinese investments can undermine democratic institutions. For India, this is a warning that Chinese investments in South Asian nations can alter India’s geopolitics by manipulating latent, unresolved hostilities. (Bhandari and Jindal 2018) What stands to be more intricate and complex is the way China draws a hugely interconnected connectivity with a severe scalar effect and cascading impacts. For instance, another apprehension that has gained ground is that of the hurriedly built Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka in 2010, with a massive Chinese loan by the China Harbour Engineering Company, a state-­owned enterprise. This project has already started facing severe underutilisation in its operational capacity that could actually turn out to be massively detrimental to Sri Lanka and South Asia, even after the decree of the government ‘that ships carrying car imports bound for Colombo port would instead offload their cargo at Hambantota to kick-­start business there, only 34 ships berthed at Hambantota in 2012, compared with 3,667 ships at the Colombo port’ (Abi-­Habib 2018). By 2017, Sri Lanka with slightly less than 10% of the estimated debt stock as share of GDP, figured among the top 50 recipients of external debt to China (Horn et al. 2019). Though China constituted only 10% of Sri Lanka’s total foreign debt in 2019 and 60% was lent on concessional12 and 40% on non-­concessionary terms (Weerakoon and Jayasuriya 2019), given its current risk rating, the island nation was identified as one of the 23 countries for which the risk of debt distress, due to additional BRI-­related financing could be quite high (Hurley et al. 2018). Therefore, the new deep-­sea ports, if built by China in Myanmar (Kyaukpyu) and Bangladesh (Chittagong) in the Eastern flank of Indian Ocean, could durably feed the Hambantota and substantially and competitively upgrade its capacity utilisation. Since this would be a much shorter route, it could even attract the Greater Mekong Sub-­region countries, including China, to use this route and also connect with the Maritime Silk Road. The handing over of the Hambantota port and 15,000 acres of land around it on a 99-­year lease to China in 2017 partly substantiated the unexplained rationale of the proposed BCIM-­Economic Corridor, thereby indicating a changing trajectory. After this lease was given to a Sri Lanka–China joint

50  Mahendra P Lama venture – Hambantota International Ports Group (HIPG, 2019)13– the Chinese oil and gas giant Sinopec won the contract for bunkering services. This could transform the HIP into a bunkering hub, thereby potentially competing with two already existing bunkering players – Singapore and Fujairah – in the Indian Ocean (Ranaraja 2020). As a result, the shipment volumes in all three categories (RORO(roll-­on/roll-­off)), dry bulk and liquid bulk) hugely increased by the end of 2019 (HIPG 2019). A recent ADB report (2015) showed that by 2050, the Hambantota port will handle 38% of non-­containerised general cargo, 90% of gateway vehicles, 100% of transhipment vehicles, 50% of LNG volumes and 9% of gateway containers. The refinery to be built by 2025 at this port will require substantial crude oil imports. Though the newly elected Rajapaksa Government has hinted at undoing the 90-­year lease in the national interest (The Strait Times 2019), these ambitious figures are indicative of the massive scale of future Chinese engagement in the Indian Ocean.

Balancing the end game While adopting the Trishula formula to enter South Asia in a sustained manner, China has mostly upset India’s predominant position both as a traditionally core neighbouring country and an influential economic–democratic–military power. Unlike in the past, both countries are making big-­ time investments and transforming projects in the neighbourhood. They trigger growth poles, generate reservoirs of employment and bring international brand names to the recipients. However, they are not bereft of harsh conditionality, wider socio-­ environmental ramifications and penetrative governance manipulations by the investor-­donor countries. Relatively smaller countries,such as Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, are hugely attracted to develop infrastructure with Chinese financing and get better connections with the cross-­regional markets. These countries also believe that the Chinese presence could inject political stability through both visibly impacting economic projects and using these instruments of cooperation to counterbalance India’s predominance. India has reacted in four different yet significant ways. First, it emphatically announced a ‘neighbourhood first’ policy and started comprehensively reengaging the neighbours with a much more liberal attitude and instruments. Second, it started making very proactive and transforming infrastructure project interventions, such as waterways and railways in Nepal and electricity grid interconnections with Bangladesh. Third, it jealously reinvigorated counter balancing regionalism-­based institutions such as the BBIN and BIMSTEC. Fourth, it started engaging China at a different level but not bandwagoning, while keeping intact its tactical alignment with the United States, Japan, Australia and Russia as an act of external balancing. On the other hand, these smaller countries have now started finding themselves drenched in a ‘balancing dilemma’. They are diplomatically striving to provide a visible impression of non-­alignment. Even at the perception level, the cost of alignment could generate a new sense of rivalry

China’s Trishula approach in South Asia  51 and competition. India’s traditional acquaintance with the ruling elites in these countries and their domestic institutional orientation make it immediately sense and realise any significant deviation in their foreign policy. For instance, Nepal’s tilting towards China could be detected easily, without even any major formal agreements or projects. Later, when Nepal signed MOUs related to access to ports, a partnership in BRI initiatives and other trade and investment ventures, India had no other option than to revive and resort to the traditional theme of historico-­cultural intercourse. However, incidents such as the third economic blockade by India during the immediate aftermath of the earthquake in Nepal in 2015 further pushed Kathmandu to bandwagon with China. Like Nepal, most South Asian countries are now trying to find ways and means to balance the presence and participation of both India and China. Bipolar dominance is a ‘given’ and less of a choice. This means that choices and strategies have to be indigenous and not eternally driven. Even a peripheral island country like the Maldives is desperately searching for platforms and instruments where it could bring a semblance of balancing the presence of these two countries without harming its national interest and without hurting its peoples’ sentiments. At the moment, new strategic alignments are remote. At the same time, none of these countries can think of military power as a tool. At times, the balancing act becomes too complex to hew into neat categories that can be replicated by others. How to make India and China peacefully coexist in the native soil of their neighbours and how to undertake a maximalist posture in terms of gains and national interest achievements are the critical questions these countries are trying to resolve. They are reorienting their institutions, reskilling the diplomats and more seriously reconditioning civil society and the media. Both China and India have also realised that the balancing game has to evolve and be institutionalised by the affected country. The methods and means of balancing, if not designed scientifically with wider acceptance, could be quite costly for these smaller countries. Such competitive rivalry could even heavily impinge upon domestic political economy. This could lead to micromanagement by bipolar powers in the neighbourhood in domestic affairs and dislocate the very ethos and institutions of independent decision making. This has been amply seen in Bangladesh, the Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka in the last five to ten years. Immediately after his relection, when Sri Lankan leader Rajapaksa visited India in 2020, intending to reconcile and renegotiate its earlier ‘aligned posture’, he was precisely trying to evolve a balancing technique. The new President of the Maldives is trying to do so too. Sheikh Hasina, overwhelmed by President Xi Jinping’s liberal investment announcement, said in 2017 that Bangladesh would maintain ‘good relations with everyone. The purchasing power of our people will increase, and who will be the bigger beneficiary of that in our region? India is best poised to benefit from the Bangladeshi market’ (Hossain 2016). She was trying to design a new code of a balancing framework between a relatively new player, China, and its own pre-­partition physical part, i.e. India.

52  Mahendra P Lama

Conclusion Four abiding yet powerful objectives are discernible in China’s fast emerging yet speedy ‘forward policy’ in the South Asia region. These include the expansion of its military base and strategic access both through high mountain roads and maritime routes; economic and commercial penetration into the huge South Asian market and through it to the Middle East, isolating India from a potentially potent and promising Indo-­Pacific partnership and, finally, to effectively tackle its own potential internal instabilities. China has sophisticatedly adopted the Trishula (trident – three pronged) approach to enter South Asia in a sustained manner. This Trishula approach is based on making a very local entry through strategic entry points, engaging the neighbouring country nationally in core economic and other sectors and partnering regionally with regional organisations. All three measures in the Trishula approach will entail unprecedented changes in the region. The interactive fulcrum will shift from bilateralism to perhaps mini-­lateralism and multilateralism. It could even open hitherto inaccessible geographies to neighbouring countries. Trade dependency has demonstrated the remarkable influence ascendency of China across the region and could trigger a well-­planned ‘RMB internationalization’ and ‘currency regionalization’. At the same time, it has exposed India’s dilemma both as a champion of North South negotiations and also a fierce fighter against inequities brought by distorted trading practices. With China hugely importing raw materials and other primary commodities from India, the latter has once again become the victim of the same trend and practice. So the question, can the ‘Make in India’ campaign be globalised and penetrate the Chinese provinces? These are all people-­and community-­centric projects that bring mutual warmth and collaborative sustenance. China has never been a part of the South Asian subcontinental past, political ethos and cultural panorama. China, which for a long time remained South East, East and Central Asia focused, has adopted four tangible ways to enter the South Asia region, including seeking membership in the SAARC and including the BCIM as one of the flagship projects under the Belt and Road Initiative. Many issues have been raised on Chinese investment in South Asia, such as harsh loan conditions, inflating project costs, an absence of transparency in both negotiations and the final implementation of projects, hobnobbing with the ruling regime and creating excess capacities that become burdens on these economies. At the same time, some of these are deeply speculative and not substantiated. China has mostly upset India’s predominant position both as a traditionally core neighbouring country and influential economic–democratic–military power. Relatively smaller countries, such as Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan, are hugely attracted to develop infrastructure with Chinese financing. These countries also believe that the Chinese presence could inject political stability through both visibly impacting economic projects and using it to counterbalance India’s predominance. At the same time, these smaller countries

China’s Trishula approach in South Asia  53 have now started finding themselves drenched in a ‘balancing dilemma’. How to make India and China peacefully coexist in the native soil of their neighbours and how to undertake a maximalist posture in terms of gains and national interest achievements are the critical questions these countries are trying to resolve. They are reorienting their institutions, reskilling diplomats and more seriously reconditioning civil society and the media.

Notes 1 There are several instances of South Asian heads of government and the states stating what has attracted them to China. In his address tothe Nepal–China Business Forum in Beijing on 20 June 2018, Nepal’s Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli mentioned that, ‘Our relations date back to antiquity.… it is quite natural for Nepal to aspire for partnership with China for mutual benefits’. See http://nepalforeignaffairs.com/ prime-­minister-­oli-­to-­chinese-­businessmen-­you-­will-­win-­not-­loose-­in-­your-­venture-­ in-­nepal-­full-­text-­of-­his-­address-­to-­business-­forum/. 2 Trishula, a Sanskrit word, is a pointed trident (three-­pronged) that rests on a wood/iron/metal bar. Widely used among the Hindus and Buddhists in South Asia as a religious symbol, it is essentially a trinity of various combinations of objects and interpretation, such as creation, maintenance and destruction; past, present and future or body, mind and atman (spirit). 3 See ONGC Tripura Power Company Limted, http://www.otpcindia.in/index. php?option=com_content&view=article&id=46&Itemid=27. Accessed on 12 December 2015, and ‘Tripura to supply additional 60 MW to Bangladesh’, Business Standard, 4 March 2017. Accessed on 4 March 2017, https://www. business-­standard.com/article/news-­ians/tripura-­to-­supply-­additional-­60-­­mw-­ to-­bangladesh-­117030400306_1.html. 4 World Bank 2006. Free Trade Agreement between the Government of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the Government of the People’s Republic of China, https://wits.worldbank.org/GPTAD/PDF/archive/China-­Pakistan.pdf. Accessed on 18 June 2020. 5 Ministry of Commerce, Government of India, 2017. ‘China and Maldives concludes the Free Trade Agreement Negotiations’, http://fta.mofcom.gov.cn/enarticle/ chinamedfen/ chinamedfennews/201709/35940_1.html. Accessed on 18 June 2020. 6 China has made bilateral currency swap arrangements with more than 20 B&R countries and renminbi clearing arrangements with 7 B&R countries, and signed cooperation agreements with the financial supervision authorities of 35 B&R countries. The renminbi’s functions as a currency for international payment, investment, trade and reserve have been strengthened. See https://eng.yidaiyilu. gov.cn/zchj/qwfb/86739.htm. Also see Office of the Leading Group for Belt and Road Initiative (2017), ‘Building the Belt and Road : Concept, Practice and China’s Contribution’, Foreign Language Press, Beijing; Jin, Xiaoman (2017), ‘Currency Connectivity: Assist RMB Internationalization’, Beijing: New Star Press. 7 These included G Prathasarathy, Sukhamoy Chakravarty, L K Jha, K B Lall, Nikhil Chakravarty, Muchkund Dubey and others. 8 For details see, ‘Joint Statement between the India and China during Prime Minister’s visit to China’. http://www.mea.gov.in/bilateral-­documents. htm?dtl/25240/Joint_Statement_between_the_India_and_China_during_ Prime_Ministers_visit_to_China. 9 See the Articles of Agreement of the AIIB. 10 Calculated and deduced from various approved project documents of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan https://www.aiib.org/en/projects/approved/index.html. Accessed on 02 January 2021.

54  Mahendra P Lama 11 https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/leaving-rcep-was-a-short-sighteddecision-says-former-foreign-secretary-shyam-saran/article33118832.ece. Accessed on 18 November 2020. 12 ‘Typically at fixed rates of 2 per cent, with other fees of 0.5 per cent and average maturity of 15–20 years’. 13 While floating this joint venture between the China Merchants Port Holdings (CMPH) and the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA), Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe stated that the port would fit in with Sri Lanka’s own vision of ‘transforming into a hub in the Indian Ocean’. http://www.xinhuanet.com/ english/2019-­12/24/c_138655160.htm.

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4 Coping with rising China Responses of the small states of South Asia Robayt Khondoker and Rashed Uz Zaman

The dramatic rise of China as a political, military, economic and cultural powerhouse in the twenty-first century is predicted to have a far-reaching impact on international politics, especially on the countries which are situated in the Asia-Pacific region. Given China’s ascendancy on the global stage and South Asia’s growing strategic importance, the countries of this region are experiencing a set of policy choices that shapes their economic prospects and national security. The smaller states of South Asia, Southeast Asia and Central Asia, in particular, are experiencing the powerful foreign policy implications of China’s rise. Amid this rapid power transition, how Beijing will exercise its leverage on its neighbours, owing to its growing prowess, is a matter of scholarly interest to many regional experts. Various strategic options have begun to dominate policy conversations in the region for handling the ‘China Conundrum’, ranging from bandwagoning to containment, active engagement and hedging. So far, much of the discussion on this subject has primarily centered on great power competition between the United States and China (Mearsheimer 2001; Bijian 2005; Ikenberry 2008; Hao 2015), as well as on dynamic geopolitical and geo-economic interactions between the regional states of East Asia and China (Segal 1996; Medeiros 2005; Shambaugh 2005; Christensen 2006; Ross 2006; Kang 2007; Tang, Mingjiang and Acharya 2009). However, little attention has been paid to the ongoing foreign policy reorientation of the small states of South Asia. More specifically, there has been a dearth of literature analysing the ways in which the small states of South Asia manage to promote and further their political and economic objectives vis-à-vis a rising power. Against this backdrop, this chapter attempts to fill this particular gap in the literature and analyse polices employed by three small states – Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives – to adjust to the new realities presented by the ascendancy of China. China’s varied levels of engagements in Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Bangladesh denote special attention to the matter. China’s renewed interest in these three South Asian countries is unravelling a mutually beneficial relationship. The chapter also locates domestic and international factors that shape the foreign policy behaviour of these states towards China. By analysing a number of these three states’ policy directions, we argue that DOI: 10.4324/9780367855413-5

58  Robayt Khondoker and Rashed Uz Zaman small states’ coping strategies are marked by a form of ‘hedging’ where they are not merely pawns on a chessboard dominated by greater powers. Over the last two decades, these states have developed tools and policies that can help them not only internalise challenges posed by China’s rise but also maximise the opportunities that a rising China offers to these countries of South Asia. In the first section, the chapter discusses the theoretical aspects of how small states respond to the policies of bigger states.

Small states’ alignment choices One of the fundamental challenges for small states in international politics is how to manage relations with the big powers, as far as their national security and autonomy are concerned. The mainstream international relations (IR) literature invariably focuses on the alignment policies of the great powers. To quote the Greek historian Thucydides, ‘the strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must’ (Thucydides 1972: 402). In his pioneering work, Politics Among Nations, Hans J Morgenthau observed that ‘small nations have always owed their independence either to the balance of power, or to the preponderance of one protecting power, or to their lack of attractiveness for imperialistic aspirations’ (Morgenthau 1948: 196). Owing to their size, minimal assets and small presence in the play of international relations, small states continue to be alienated from the debates within traditional Western international relations studies. The emergence of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) shifts the theoretical debates in IR to the regional–global architecture, but only partially, not to any change in the hierarchy of the small actors. The existing literature on small states’ alignment choices examines certain specific dimensions. To the realists, one common contention is that small states are largely constrained by external structural dynamics (Jervis 1978). According to this view, in the face of powerful actors, small states in general are expected to ‘balance or bandwagon’ (Waltz 1979; Walt 1987; Schweller 2002) – in which balancing is a behaviour that economically, politically and militarily prevents an ascending power from becoming a hegemon, whereas bandwagoning is to align with the source of the threat through security cooperation, either explicitly or implicitly. As Walt writes, [t]he weaker the state, the more likely it is to bandwagon. Balancing may seem unwise because one’s allies may not be able to provide assistance quickly enough…. States that are close to a country with larger offensive capabilities … may be forced to bandwagon because balancing alliance are not simply viable. (Walt 1987: 25) For Walt (1987), the fundamental mantra of state behaviour relates to the degree of threat small states face in relation to the power of others. Balancing and bandwagoning on the part of smaller states are therefore responses

Coping with rising China  59 to menaces, with the perception of a threat being influenced by the overall power of another state, its geographic proximity, its capability and its offensive intentions. Scholars in IR also differentiate between the ‘hard balancing’ and ‘soft balancing’ that are reflected in states behaviour. Hard balancing refers to strategies pursued by small states to modernise and strengthen their military power, while also engaging in alliances to enhance the negotiating capabilities with the powerful state. Meanwhile, ‘soft balancing’ refers to tacit balancing short of formal alignment. As Paul explains, [i]t occurs when states generally develop ententes or limited security understandings with one another to balance a potentially threatening state or a rising power. Soft balancing is often based on a limited arms buildup, ad hoc cooperative exercises, or collaboration in regional or international institutions; these policies may be converted to open, hard-balancing strategies if and when security competition becomes intense and the powerful state becomes threatening. (Paul 2004: 3) However, this bandwagoning–balancing approach has its critics, due to its dichotomist view, presenting through a narrow set of choices (Lieb 2004). A pure form of the balancing and bandwagoning approach is hardly desirable by small states in their relations to big powers, especially under the normal conditions of global politics, short of an immediate crisis. Liberal theorists claim that the process of globalisation, the growing interdependence among countries, and worldwide institutions have profoundly transformed the nature of IR, moving it out of the balance of power theory (Schweller 2016). For example, Briguglio (2007) has gone beyond the vulnerability paradox to advocate ‘resilience’, and even ‘nurturing’, given the numerous opportunities and challenges of ‘globalisation’. The constructivists’ attack on the balance of power theory is more conceptual and theoretical, arguing that the balancing–bandwagoning approach’s focus on material power misses the key role played by ideational factors such as norms and identities in the making of threats and allies (Schweller 2016). Of late, a plethora of literature has shown that the behaviour of small states is more diverse and dynamic than ever. The behaviour of small states varies considerably, according to the types of international architecture in which they operate. Therefore, it would be inaccurate to argue that small states are essentially weak in an environment largely controlled by large and powerful states. A consideration that has assumed significance is that the ability of the small states to sustain themselves in the face of pressures emanating from larger neighbouring entities, and therefore, what strategies are necessary for adapting to such an environment. Of course, as is demonstrated by scholars, a certain kind of behaviour relating to the small states, and the behaviour of big states towards smaller neighbours, have not changed much. Meanwhile, a new generation of IR theorists have proposed a basket of policy tools including ‘accommodation’, ‘hiding’, ‘buck-passing’,

60  Robayt Khondoker and Rashed Uz Zaman ‘soft-balancing’, ‘transcending’ and ‘hedging’ (Schroeder 1994; Lake 1996; Kang 2004; Pape 2005; Paul 2005; Ross 2006; He 2008, 2015) that are virtually applicable for every state in any part of the world. Among these policy options, ‘hedging’ has drawn particular attention, because this concept seems to persuasively explain small states’ behaviour vis-à-vis emerging powers. In essence, hedging refers to a purposeful act in which a state seeks to insure its long-term interests by placing its policy bets on multiple countering options that are designed to offset risks embedded in the international system.… it is conceived as a multiple-component strategy situated between the two ends of the balancing-bandwagoning spectrum. (Cheng-Chwee and Chian 2008: 5) Some scholars define the concept broadly enough to include the overall strategies of any state. With reference to the policies adopted by Southeast Asian countries, Goh (2006) defines ‘hedging’ as, [a] set of strategies aimed at avoiding (or planning for contingencies in) a situation in which states cannot decide upon more straightforward alternatives such as balancing, bandwagoning, or neutrality. Instead they cultivate a middle position that forestalls or avoids having to choose one side [or one straightforward policy stance] at the obvious expense of another. In short, hedging offers the state enough flexibility to deal with the uncertain intentions of their partner, while enabling them to get the best out of their relations. In the next section, the hedging strategies of Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives are outlined, based on the theoretical underpinnings discussed here.

Bangladesh’s China policy Bangladesh’s foreign policy interactions are primarily shaped by two factors: first, ensuring security and preserving sovereignty, and second, engaging in the quest for resources for overall development (Chowdhury 2011). Geographically, being only 90 miles across the Himalayas, China has always been a major factor in Bangladesh’s foreign policy since formal diplomatic relations were established. For Bangladesh, the historical fact that China cast its first United Nations Security Council (UNSC) veto against the admission of Bangladesh to the United Nations (UN) stays alive in collective memory, although it has been reconsidered in light of China’s political calculations at the time (Yasmin 2016). Since a formal relationship was established between the two countries on 31 August 1975, this bilateral relationship has become one of the major cornerstones of Bangladesh’s foreign policy.

Coping with rising China  61 Visits by high officials, including leaders of government on both sides, marked the significance of these bilateral relations. With President Xi Jinping’s visit to Bangladesh in October 2016, a new chapter in China– Bangladesh relations unfolded. During the visit, China promised its largest economic assistance and investment to Bangladesh, totaling 38.05 billion USD (Mirdha 2016). By signing 27 deals with China, Bangladesh is set to receive 24.45 billion USD, while the signing of contracts between 13 Bangladeshi companies and their Chinese counterparts ensure another 13.6 billion USD. It is argued that Xi’s visit elevated bilateral relations from a ‘comprehensive partnership of cooperation’ to a ‘strategic partnership of cooperation’ (Chakravarty 2016). Most notably, the two parties formally agreed to advance China’s flagship project, the ‘One Belt, One Road’ (OBOR) initiative (Kabir 2016). Furthermore, in recent years, China has raised the number of scholarships for Bangladeshi students and government officials for higher study, training and cultural exchange programs. With the purpose of encouraging Bangladeshi students to learn the Mandarin language, China has helped establish a number of Confucius Institutes in different universities, including the University of Dhaka, North South University and BRAC University (Bdnews24.com 2016; Jain 2017; Palit 2017). On the economic front, despite being a latecomer, China was quick to make significant inroads into Bangladesh in the arenas of infrastructural development, trade and economics. China had only a little share of Bangladesh’s imports in 1992, performing less than India, measuring 215 million USD compared to the Indian share of 397 million USD (Sahoo 2013). In 2005, China emerged as Bangladesh’s largest trading partner (Aneja 2006). Similarly, Bangladesh’s trade deficit with China has been much more than that with India, becoming a bone of contention between the two countries (Cookson and Joehnk 2018). Today, bilateral trade between China and Bangladesh is worth 10 billion USD and the trade gap is 9 billion USD (Bhattacharjee 2018a) which favors China. Moreover, due to the extensive trade ties, a large number of Chinese workers migrated to Bangladesh and sent 958 million USD remittance to China in 2014 (Anderson and Alyssa 2015). Since the normalisation of diplomatic relations, defense cooperation has become a major strength of the relations between the two countries. From the 1980s onwards, the leaders of the two armed forces have engaged in military talks, exchanged frequent visits and jointly taken part in training and exercises, which have contributed to strengthened cooperation between them (Ghosh 1995; Sarker 2014; Bhattacharjee 2018b). In 2002, the two countries signed a ‘Defense Cooperation Agreement’ to cooperate in military training and defense equipment production, the first of its kind for Bangladesh (Sarker 2014). Over time, China has emerged as the major supplier of arms, making Bangladesh the second-largest Chinese military equipment purchasing country, after Pakistan (SIPRI 2017). The only ammunitions factory in Bangladesh was built with China’s help, and in addition, the country’s armed forces are equipped with Chinese tanks,

62  Robayt Khondoker and Rashed Uz Zaman patrol crafts, missile launchers, fighter aircrafts, artillery guns and so on. More recently, Bangladesh signed a new contract with China to purchase training aircraft for the Bangladesh Air Force (BAF) (Mushtaq 2018). Sandwiched between two rising powers – China and India – the foreign policy orientation of Bangladesh is significantly constrained by external political dynamics (Chakrabarti 1994). The geographical location of Bangladesh is such that the country, surrounded by India on three sides, is often dubbed ‘India locked’. As a consequence, the statesman in Bangladesh always needs to take India into serious consideration while formulating its China policy. From the beginning, New Delhi has kept an eye on Bangladesh’s closer ties with China and views the relationship as inimical to its strategic interests, which only increases over time. While some observers claimed that the Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s government is actively pursuing an India-leaning foreign policy and has abandoned the counterbalancing strategy taken by the previous regimes (Chakma 2012), there is a concern from India about Dhaka’s growing bonhomie with Beijing. Bangladesh’s acquisition of two Ming class diesel-electric submarines at friendly prices from China, as part of its military modernisation project ‘Forces Goal 2030’, disconcerted Indian policymakers (Herzinger 2016; Khurana 2016; Samaranayake 2016). The country views the presence of Chinese submarines in the strategically rich Bay of Bengal arena as a potential threat – a case made clear by former Indian diplomat Chakravarty’s (2016) remarks. India was so alarmed that it promptly dispatched Defense Minister Manohar Parrikar to Bangladesh. Later, the two countries signed a framework agreement and Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) on defense cooperation. However, very little information about the contents of the agreement and MoUs have been made public, as these are protected by a confidentiality clause (Bhattacharjee 2018b). The deal sparked controversy at home in Bangladesh, and experts raised questions about the true nature and the necessity of a defence deal with India (Khan 2017; The Daily Star 2017). In addition, Bangladesh and India signed three agreements in October 2018 which allowed New Delhi access to two strategically important ports – Mongla and Chittagong – as transit points for the movement of goods to and from India (The Daily Star 2018). Notwithstanding the common perception that the rivalry between the two regional powerhouses – India and China – benefits the small countries, as they can reap the reward of this rift (Paul 2019), Bangladesh often finds itself swimming in troubled waters while balancing relations. For example, when Bangladesh requested China’s assistance in developing and modernising the Chittagong port, it came under intense scrutiny by Indian policymakers, who consider the project another pearl in China’s so-called ‘String of Pearls’ strategy. Later, during Sheikh Hasina’s visit to China in 2014, Bangladesh and China agreed to sign a deal on the construction of the Sonadia deep sea port. However, immense pressure from India, the USA and Japan not only halted the signing of the deal, but the project was scrapped altogether in 2016 (Shepard 2016). More importantly, the country’s formal

Coping with rising China  63 consent to join the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) did not please India – which has officially opposed this grand project, due to fear of Chinese encirclement of its own backyard (Saimum 2017; Hossain 2018; Saimum 2020). In addition, Bangladesh is party to a regional quadrilateral arrangement, the Bangladesh–China–India–Myanmar (BCIM) Economic Corridor. However, the progress of this initiative has been less than satisfactory in terms of reducing tensions and promoting interstate connectivity, though the origin of this platform dates back to the late 1990s (Sahoo and Bhunia 2014; Islam 2016). More recently, Beijing’s purchase of a 25% stake in the Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) – the largest stock market in Bangladesh – outbidding the offer of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) of India, has actually expanded the sphere of competition from hard infrastructure to soft assets (Kabir 2018). On the recently unfolded Rohingya refugee crisis, China’s action to block the moves of the UN Security Council against genocide or ethnic cleansing by Myanmar was deeply unsettling for Bangladesh, which sees it as an unfriendly act by an ‘all-weather friend’ (Cookson and Joehnk 2018). In the end, China came to partially rescue Bangladesh by mediating a rather weak repatriation deal with the Myanmar government. The agreement has not yet been implemented properly, but China’s quiet diplomacy demonstrates its ambition to take a leadership role in the regional crisis, further undermining India’s role as a security manager in South Asia (Hossain 2018). Over the past four and half decades, Dhaka’s perception of Beijing, and consequently its foreign policy orientation towards china, has not varied significantly under different regimes: in fact, it is always perceived as ‘positive factor’ for the overall development of the country. As Jain (2017; 114) writes, ‘[B]angladesh perceives China as a principal source of economic aid, indispensable for the country’s economic development and prosperity.… there is a growing perception among Bangladeshis that China is friendlier and more accommodating than India’. The bilateral interactions over the years show that Bangladesh is carefully hedging its relations with China, keeping the necessary maneuvering space and the regional chess game in mind. While the country is calibrating its effort to attract Chinese investment, it also actively engages India in political, economic and security cooperation at the same time. While speaking to the press after assuming power for the fourth time, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina reiterated Bangladesh’s position towards India and China: ‘India should not worry about the China-led Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) rather it can join the initiative for the economic benefit of all countries’ (Feroze 2019). The chapter illustrates that the mixed strategy of pursuing China as well as keeping the regional reality of Indian hegemony in mind has composed the crux of the hedging strategy of Bangladesh. For obvious economic reasons, Bangladesh needs China. However, just as China does not put all its eggs in one basket, Bangladesh has also diversified its options. More significantly, in recent years the rising geopolitical significance of Bangladesh has caught international eyes (Zaman 2017). Bangladesh, being wedged

64  Robayt Khondoker and Rashed Uz Zaman between Northeast India and providing the closest maritime port opportunities for Nepal and Bhutan, has seen itself at the forefront of a number of regional and international initiatives, such as the BBIN – Bangladesh, Bhutan, India and Nepal and Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC). The increased activities of major powers in Bangladesh is a testament to the country’s growing importance (Yasmin 2016). Bangladesh’s changing identity as a keeper of international peace and security through its contribution to United Nations Peacekeeping Operations (UNPKO) is widely recognised. Also, China and India’s race for geopolitical supremacy in the Indian Ocean region would involve hedging in the South Asian region itself (Zaman and Yasmin 2014). Gradually, Bangladesh has developed a hedging strategy, despite being a physically small country, which serves its national interest vis-à-vis accommodating China.

Sri Lanka’s China policy The response of Sri Lanka towards China is a positive hedging strategy which consists of active engagement and accommodation. The country has embraced a ‘rising China’ with closer political, economic and military relations (Samaranayake 2011; Kelegama 2014). For example, a large number of bilateral visits by government officials at different levels took place in the years after the civil war in Sri Lanka (Samaranayake 2011; Kelegama 2014; Panda A. 2014; Gamage 2017). Mahinda Rajapakshe, during his tenure in presidency, made six official visits, while the past president Maithripala Sirisena paid a major visit in March 2015, and the then Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe in April and August 2016 and May 2017, which added much impetus to relations between the two countries. The mutual interactions between the two countries started in 1952, even before formal diplomatic relations, when the pro-West United National Party (UNP) in Sri Lanka signed the ‘Rubber-Rice pact’ with China, due to economic compulsions (Samaranayake 2011; Kelegama 2014). Since then, the relations between Sri Lanka and China have been amicable, with Colombo an early recogniser of China’s Communist party-led government after the revolution. The significant part of this long-standing diplomatic tie is Sri Lanka’s constant support of China’s ‘One-China’ policy, votes against Taiwan’s attempts to become a member of the UN a number of times, and adoption of similar policies with respect to Tibet and Xinjiang. However, it was during Sri Lanka’s more recent protracted ethnic conflict with Tamil separatists that China’s non-judgmental support became indispensable (Uyangoda 2010). During the administration of Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was elected in 2005 and ran the administration over the last years of the war, Sri Lanka increasingly became cornered by the international community for its severe human rights violation. China’s unwavering support through economic assistance, military weapons supply, and political support at the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) helped to forestall

Coping with rising China  65 potential sanctions for human rights violations (Pararajasingham 2017a). Just as Sri Lanka supported China’s bid for a UN seat during the 1950s and 1960s, instead of Taiwan, China came to the rescue of Sri Lanka when the UNHRC attempted to launch a probe against the war crime allegations into Sri Lanka’s government actions in May 2009 (Samaranayake 2011). This fostered Sri Lanka’s greater appreciation towards China, as it has received no assistance from the West. After the war, Sri Lanka warmly welcomed massive Chinese investment in the construction of a port in Hambantota and, in June 2009, was awarded ‘dialogue partner’ status in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) (Behuria and Sultana 2013). Though China’s engagement with Sri Lanka is not new, the investment has increased rapidly in recent years (Bhatia 2016; Ramachandran 2018a). Most of the big projects by Chinese companies in Sri Lanka, including Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport, the Lakwijaya power plant at Norochchollai and some other long road construction projects, have a better record of meeting deadlines, and thus create a positive impression among Sri Lankans (Behuria and Sultana 2013). Sri Lanka’s economic pragmatism is best demonstrated by their government officials’ frequent visits to China, which have always been accompanied by high-powered business groups and have resulted in agreements on numerous joint venture projects. Since 2005, bilateral trade has skyrocketed from 660 million USD to more than 4 billion USD in 2016 (The Daily News 2016) and the investment from China in the period of 2005–2017 significantly increased, to become Sri Lanka’s largest source of foreign direct investment (FDI) (Deyshappriya 2017). Presently, Sri Lanka’s trade with China is growing at a faster rate than that of its trade with India and USA, the country’s two traditional major trading partners. According to Xianliang (2017), Chinese Ambassador to Sri Lanka till 2016, ‘Chinese companies in Sri Lanka has completed construction of infrastructure projects amounting to over USD 15.5 billion and made direct investment over USD 2 billion.’ With respect to military ties, China had already been a major supplier of arms to Sri Lanka. It is worth mentioning here that China’s military support during the civil war proved vital to the government’s victory. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) report in 2017, China is the major arms supplier to Sri Lanka (SIPRI 2017). Since 2015, China has provided more than 1,200 scholarships, training programs and internships to Sri Lankan students annually (Xianliang 2017). In addition, China has launched a series of training programs for Sri Lankan government officials, journalists, academicians and entrepreneurs. In order to facilitate academic interactions between the two countries, the Confucius Institute of the University of Kelaniya and Confucius Institute of the University of Colombo were inaugurated in 2007 and 2015, respectively (Palit 2017). However, this relationship is not one-sided, as China too sends its students to Sri Lanka for study and research in subjects such as Buddhism, Sinhala and tea plantation.

66  Robayt Khondoker and Rashed Uz Zaman In January 2015, Maithripala Sirisena became the president of Sri Lanka and showed his eagerness to reorient Sri Lanka’s foreign policy towards India, Japan and the West and move away from China. The new regime was welcomed by New Delhi and Washington. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi even made a phone call and congratulated the newly elected leaders of the incoming government before the announcement of the election results. At the beginning, President Sirisena suspended some of the Chinese-led infrastructure projects started under the previous administration over some highly questionable provisions, suspected corruption, overpricing and flouted government procedures. However, the government soon realised that their room to manoeuvre was limited, and no other country could fill the economic and commercial void that would be left by China in Sri Lanka (Behuria and Sultana 2013). Therefore, a year later, after a few changes in some of the projects, the government allowed them to run. It has not only restarted the suspended projects, but Sri Lanka also signed a 300 million USD contract with the Chinese Railway Beijing Engineering Group Co. Ltd. to build 40,000 houses in the Tamil-dominated Jaffna district in the Northern Province (Ramachandran 2018a). The country has also engaged in a negotiation with China to invest 30–40 million USD in Sri Lanka’s rubber plantation industry, to boost its export capacity (Ramachandran 2018a). Under the National Unity Government (NUG), economic considerations have been a key driving force behind Sri Lanka’s China policy. In May 2018, during a meeting with China’s ambassador to Sri Lanka, President Sirisena reiterated his support towards China’s signature OBOR initiative and put greater emphasis on Chinese-backed megaprojects, such as Colombo Port City, as well as the Hambantota Port and the Industrial Park in Sri Lanka. However, Sri Lanka’s active engagement with Beijing has been viewed by India with apprehension as China deepens its presence in the Indian Ocean region, builds strategic ties with Pakistan, Myanmar, Djibouti and pursues growing economic activities in the littoral states in the region (Smith 2013; Brewster 2018; Jayawardena 2018). The geostrategic location of Sri Lanka at the centre of the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) is critical to the security of India’s south-western and south-eastern regions. Indian defence planners view the Chinese projects in the Indian Ocean region as a form of strategic encirclement by China towards India, an area where China has historically not tried to expand its sphere of influence (Sakhuja 2009; Waidyatilake 2018). India has long nurtured ambition to become a security provider and regional manager in South Asia and elsewhere in the Indian Ocean region, and the Indian strategic community considers India a country destined to be the natural leader of the region (Brewster 2018). The turning point for Sri Lanka’s relations with India came when a Chinese navy submarine docked at the Colombo International Container Terminals (CICT) in September 2014 (Smith 2016). The Indian government and security elites sharply reacted to the visit of Chinese submarines to Sri Lanka, as the issue later came up for clarification by way of a question in the Indian parliament

Coping with rising China  67 (Sakhuja 2015). In response to China, India is growing its defence relations with the USA, Australia and Japan (informally known as ‘Quad’) and building naval ports near Indian Ocean choke points that implicitly threaten China’s trading routes. Beijing, on the other hand, takes a sharply different view regarding India’s proper role in the Indian Ocean region and China’s presence there. It strongly opposes any argument that India has any sort of natural right to check China’s relations with the Indian Ocean littoral states or that India should be in some way recognised as having a special role in the region. China thinks that it is free to engage in relationships with any state in the region. In October 2018, the country emerged from a deep political crisis when president Sirisena suddenly dismissed Wickremesinghe as prime minister and replaced him with Rajapaksa, a choice that complicated the domestic and regional political dynamics. After around two and half months, the political dust settled down with the restoration of Wickremesinghe as prime minister. However, the tussle illustrates China and India’s competing interests for extending influence in an Indian Ocean state (Gupta 2018; Xavier 2018). Moreover, this is a concrete example of how quickly the alliances between local political leaders and external powers can shift in Sri Lanka. Since 2009, the United States has expressed its concern about Sri Lanka’s foreign policy shift towards China. In December 2009, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee published a report that mentioned that Sri Lanka’s strategic reorientation towards China would have implications for US interests in the region and that the US could not afford to ‘lose’ Sri Lanka. The report urged an increase in US leverage vis-à-vis Sri Lanka by adopting a comprehensive and broader approach to secure US interests. US security analysts have argued that Beijing has been actively cultivating a ‘String of Pearls’ strategy to ensure the safe passage of Chinese oil and gas ships, as well as to position Chinese Navy as a countervailing force against US naval supremacy along the sea lines of communication (SLOCs) (United States Senate 2009). Meanwhile, in recent years, with the desire to push back China’s influence in Sri Lanka, Japan is trying to woo Sri Lanka in cooperation with India, by offering investments in the economy and military assistance. For example, in 2017, Japan announced an investment in Sri Lanka’s port infrastructure, with a total amount of one billion yen (9.46 million USD) being dedicated to the improvement of the Trincomalee port. In 2015, the Japanese prime minister called for the Sri Lankan Navy to join the Malabar exercise as an observer. Symbolically significant, two Japanese ships docked at the Colombo port immediately after the annual Malabar naval exercise series ended in July 2017 (Kurukulasuriya 2018). Although it is clear that the Sri Lanka’s relations with China are steadily increasing on the basis of growing economic, military, and diplomatic interactions, there is, however, no evidence that Sri Lanka limits its foreign policy choices due to the stronger ties with China. Unlike the previous

68  Robayt Khondoker and Rashed Uz Zaman government, the current administration is dealing with China in a more prudent manner. After his election, Sirisena made India his first destination abroad, reaching terms on Sri Lanka’s first-ever nuclear deal. The country is actively trying to reduce India’s anxiety over Chinese presence by asserting that the Hambantota port will not be turned into a Chinese military destination. Regardless of whether Beijing has strategic ambitions in the Indian Ocean, the Hambantota port epitomises Colombo’s robust relationship with Beijing in the current era. In more recent years, a growing number of analysts have argued that the loans extended by China pushed Sri Lanka into a ‘debt trap’, due to high-interest rates associated with different projects. By the end of 2016, as Moramudali (2017) mentions in his article, Sri Lanka’s external debt stock soared to USD 25.3 billion, which amounts to 34 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product. Out of this massive debt stock, about 13 per cent – which amounts to USD 3.3 billion – is owed to China; most of the debt to China was obtained over the last decade. Under such conditions, after months of protracted negotiations, Sri Lanka handed over the port to China in 2017 on a 99-year lease (Pararajasingham 2017b), which stoked fear among Indian and Western analysts. In addition, the deal brought criticism from many quarters on the grounds that Sri Lanka is virtually ceding control of the strategically vital port to China, though the deal erased 1 billion USD in debt from the port project and prohibits any military activity without Sri Lanka’s consent in the final agreement. In response to such criticism, Chinese Ambassador to Sri Lanka Mr Cheng Xueyuan denied any intention to use the joint projects for military purpose and said the port is part of China’s ‘pragmatic cooperation’ with Sri Lanka for economic development (Xueyuan 2018). The then Sri Lankan Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, in an interview with CNBC, said that ‘we don’t foresee any issues by looking at this from an economic project, as an economic investment…. Sri Lanka has been unaligned and have stayed that way since 1948’ (Jegarajah 2018). Brewster (2018: 3), for example, argues that ‘even if China were to take a more transparent approach to its activities, significant differences in perceptions of threat and over status and legitimacy will produce a highly competitive dynamic between them in the maritime domain’. The accelerating commercial and military ties represent a strong case for the realist school arguing that Sri Lanka is actually bandwagoning with a rising China, especially due to China’s mounting interest and strategic presence in the Hambantota port. Yet, the port represents one of the many projects in Sri Lanka, not only by Chinese companies but also by Indian, Japanese, Iranian, and Saudi Arabian companies. Moreover, it is even hard to think of Colombo declining any investment from the USA, if offered. Sherwood points out how ‘Sri Lanka suddenly matters’, while a ‘small state’

Coping with rising China  69 like Sri Lanka had hardly received any previous recognition from great powers (Sherwood 2016). Its geopolitical significance rose as China shifted its gaze towards the Indian Ocean region. In fact, it is not only the small states of South Asia, but both India and China, as the analysis of Zaman and Yasmin argues, that will use a hedging strategy in the Indian Ocean region (Zaman and Yasmin 2014).

The Maldives’ China policy The Maldives occupies a crucial place in China’s Maritime Silk Road Initiative (MSRI), due to its geopolitical and geostrategic location in the Indian Ocean. In recent years, the country has been thriving as a political pivot at an unprecedented scale, largely due to the ongoing power play by the regional players in the maritime domain (Brewster 2015, 2018). Formal diplomatic relations between the Maldives and China were established in 1972, seven years after the Maldives gained independence from Britain (Kondapalli 2018). However, bilateral relations started flourishing only recently, when China set up an embassy in Male in 2011 (Ramachandran 2018b), during the regime of former President Mohamed Nasheed. On the other hand, the Maldives opened its embassy in Beijing in May 2009. Subsequently, high-level bilateral consultations on political, economic and military issues were initiated. Soon, direct flights from China to the Maldives were inaugurated, and educational opportunities in the form of providing scholarships to the Maldivian students were initiated. The political ties, according to Maldives’ Ambassador to China Mohamed Faisal (2017a), went through a ‘sea change’ when Chinese President Xi Jinping visited the country in September 2014, accompanied by a hundred-member business delegation, demonstrating the economic focus of the trip. In the words of Mohamed Faisal, ‘I always describe relationship between Maldives and China as ‘before Xi Jinping’s visit’ and ‘after Xi Jinping’s visit’ (Faisal 2017b). China’s involvement in different projects including the tourism sector, maritime cooperation and infrastructure building has significantly expanded. In 2017, China replaced Europe as the largest source of tourists coming to the Maldives. For his part, President Yamen has embraced the Belt and Road initiative, and the country has become a founding member of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) and allowed the Chinese navy to dock in its port (Ramachandran 2018b). The Maldives has entered into a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with China which was signed on December 8, 2017, during President Yameen’s fourday visit to China (Ramachandran 2018b). The agreement is the Maldives’ first with any country, and the second of any South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries after Pakistan to sign a FTA with China. It provides an opportunity for the Maldivian fish industries to export in the world’s largest consumer market, opens up the Maldives tourism sector to Chinese investors, and allows them to run hotels, restaurants

70  Robayt Khondoker and Rashed Uz Zaman and travel agencies. According to the Maldivian Ambassador to China, tourists from China account for close to 30% of all visitors who travel to the Maldives. Moreover, China has funded mega infrastructure projects in the country, including the ‘China-Maldives Friendship Bridge’, which was inaugurated lately linking Male to Hulhule Island, the expansion of the airport, and the construction of a 1,000-apartment housing project on Hulhumale Island. In addition, China is actively involved in many other projects, including renewable energy, building hotels and setting up telecommunications networks (Kondapalli 2018). However, China’s growing partnership and deepening ‘all weather’ friendship with the Maldives has alarmed India, which traditionally views this small island nation as an important strategic ally (Kumar 2012; Gupta 2014; Panda J. 2014; Krupakar 2017; Kumar and Stanzel 2018; Rajagopalan 2018). Ever since China started investing in the Maldives’ infrastructure, India has felt threatened by the presence of Chinese companies and citizens in the archipelago (Kumar 2016). Historically, the country has always remained under India’s sphere of influence. The relationship between India and the Maldives is deep and old, and India, unlike China, was among the first countries to recognise the independent state of the Maldives, back in 1965 (Gupta 2014). According to Malone (2011), India had the only resident diplomatic mission in the capital before the Chinese came to the Maldives. The two countries have had friendly relations in terms of economic, military and cultural cooperation since 1965. In 1988, when the then President Mamoon Abdul Gayoom faced an imminent coup d’état (Ramachandran 2018b), after ruling the country for about 30 years, India sent 1,600 paratroopers upon request from the Maldivian president, known as Operation Cactus, which helped Gayoom to stay in power until 2008. The relations between India and the Maldives significantly deteriorated when President Abdulla Yameen came to power in 2013, after a ‘soft coup’ which ousted the first democratically elected Maldivian President Mohammad Nasheed, who has since been living in exile in neighbouring Sri Lanka, and only returned to the country after the election in 2018. In February 2018, a supreme court ruling called the Yameen government’s imprisonment of opposition leaders as unconstitutional and urged them to release including the former president, Mohamed Nasheed (Tiezzi 2018). Though this led to a domestic political crisis, the stakes have significantly increased, as it has drawn both India and China onto the regional chessboard (Kumar and Stanzel 2018). While opposition leader Nasheed asked India to intervene militarily and resolve the crisis, China, quite unusually, warned against any intervention by India, saying that it did not want the coup to become another ‘flashpoint’ (Tiezzi 2018). By courting Beijing’s support, the then Maldives government resisted the pressures emanating from India. Amid this crisis, a new government led by President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih, who is largely seen as pro-Indian, was sworn in in September 2018,

Coping with rising China  71 defeating Abdulla Yameen through election. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi became the first prime minister to congratulate the newly elected president, attended his swearing in ceremony in Male as the only foreign leader (Kaura 2018). Soon after assuming office, Solih made his maiden visit to India and affirmed his country’s traditional ‘India-First Policy’ (Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India 2018). At the end of the visit, when the two leaders, Modi and Solih, in a joint statement ‘reiterated their assurance of being mindful of each other’s concerns and aspirations for the stability of the region and not allowing their respective territories to be used for any activity inimical to the other’ (Ministry of External Affairs 2018), it is not difficult to imagine which country they are referring. The competitive dynamic between China and India for influence in this strategic island nation means that both the regional actors cannot afford to alienate the Maldivian government (Gupta 2014). For its part, its dealings with the regional neighbours in recent years suggest that the Maldives cannot completely steer away from China and tilt towards India, but rather is moving fluidly within the regional political chessboard. In fact, China serves two critical roles in the Maldives’ hedging strategy. First, it is an irreplaceable source of big economic investments. Second, a large section of Maldivian political elites shares China’s deep discomfort with Indian dominance, especially with India’s interference in the domestic affairs in the Maldives.

Conclusion This chapter explores how the small states in South Asia are strategically responding to an ascending China in the regional subsystem. The analysis throughout the chapter suggests that all three countries – Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives – treat relations with China as beneficial, and their interactions have clearly been rising along economic, military and diplomatic lines. However, whether stronger ties will result in a fundamental reorientation of regional alliance pattern as feared by some China observers, particularly by the structural realists, is far from decided. Bangladesh’s, Sri Lanka’s and the Maldives’ current China strategy is composed of major components, namely economic pragmatism, diplomatic engagement and political accommodation. These components reflect a greater level of interdependence, and a cooperative relationship with China for the sake of their domestic development, while enabling them to counter undue pressure from other regional actors. The most remarkable feature in all three cases is that the countries employ a hedging strategy by combining various policy options to cope with an emerging China. In fact, the small states in South Asia seek to preserve their sovereignty and autonomy in decision making by resorting to strategies that promote their national interests by not explicitly aligning with any of the regional powers. This strategy is a rational choice, given their historical experience of dealing with Beijing, as well as the dominant domestic and regional strategic settings.

72  Robayt Khondoker and Rashed Uz Zaman So far, the three small countries’ operationalisation of this strategy has proven to be largely effective, as it has allowed them to move fluidly among allies, courting economic assistance, foreign aid and investment. They have developed a dense network of bilateral and multilateral engagement with China through multiple avenues and at different levels to improve communications and thus enhance mutual trust. Nevertheless, these countries face challenges when dealing with China. As regional and external great powers are quietly playing a great game in the Indian Ocean region (Kaplan 2011), engaged in an incessant struggle to maximize their regional share, the small countries have become a venue for competition. Against this backdrop, countries such as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives often seek to play China and India (and their partners) off against each other, to attract more investment in major infrastructure projects, and thereby find themselves in a precarious situation. These South Asian countries are fully aware that the grass gets trampled not only when two elephants fight or make love but also when elephants walk down the desired path.

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5 Cooperation and competition in China–India relations A quantitative analysis of academic debates Zhang Shulan, Xu Weidan and Huo Wenle Since entering the twenty-first century, China and India have witnessed frequent bilateral economic and trade exchanges and high-level visits. Sino-Indian relations have an important impact on the stability and harmony of Asia and even the Asia-Pacific region. At any given time, bilateral relations exhibit the characteristics of competition, conflict or cooperation. The cooperation and competition between China and India constitute an important part of the countries’ bilateral relations. Cooperation is conducive to the further deepening and long-term development of relations, while competition could provide an opportunity and driving force for development or merely have a side effect on it. Therefore, intensive research into the cooperation and competition between China and India is of great importance for Sino-Indian relations. There is substantial work (including theses, books, monographs and academic articles) about Sino-Indian cooperation and competition, in the Chinese and English lanaguges. Ma Jiali, Wen Fude, Zhang Guihong, Zhang Minqiu, Zhao Gancheng and other well-known scholars such as John Garver, Mohan Malik and T N Srinvasan have written extensively on the subject. Based on related research, this chapter first introduces the research method and then discusses the similarities and differences between Chinese and non-Chinese scholars. Finally, it summarizes the consensus and divergence of Chinese and non-Chinese scholars’ arguments and views. To limit the scope of the study, the chapter examines only the literature published from 1998–2014.

Relative concepts Some concepts used in this chapter have not been defined or differentiated yet. In the context of the cooperation and competition between China and India, this chapter provides a clear definition of these concepts.

‘Conflict’ and ‘competition’ Generally, the main characteristic of bilateral relations at a given time is considered to be cooperation, competition, conflict or mixed elements. DOI: 10.4324/9780367855413-6

80  Zhang Shulan et al. However, some scholars do not distinguish between ‘conflict’ and ‘competition’ and use the terms interchangeably (Garver 2002a). As a state or behaviour of confrontation among human beings, conflict includes both oppositions of the intangible, such as thoughts, ideas, cultures and political systems, and competition or confrontation of the tangible, such as the economy, the military and so on. In international relations, in addition to war, conflicts mainly take the form of non-military methods. In fact, in most cases, states tend to appeal to policy instruments with lower cost – such as revenge – to maintain their interest and power, rather than engaging in wars, which come at a higher cost (Li 2002). Thus, in international politics, conflict is a relatively broad concept that includes competition, confrontation and war. Competition between the two actors is only a part of the conflict. In spite of territorial disputes between China and India, there have been no military conflicts or wars since1962, and thus competition remains the main form of non-military confrontation between China and India.

‘Traditional security’ and ‘non-traditional security’ Based on the traditional understanding of the term, traditional security mainly refers to national sovereignty. Security is generally considered a situation where there is no objective threat from outside the country or subjective fear inside. Therefore, to ensure national security, one must not only safeguard territorial security, sovereignty and regime security but also diminish the fear of threat and maintain a sense of security. Traditional security mainly means military and political security, while power, the military, force and war are the core guarantees. However, new security issues emerge, such as the Asian financial crisis and 9/11 terrorist attack, which bring about new threats to national security. Such new issues are quite different from traditional military and political threats, and so they are defined as non-traditional security issues. Since the 1990s, the concept of ‘non-­ traditional security’ has been widely used in papers on the national security strategy of the United States, Canada, Britain and the ASEAN countries, which suggests that governments have accepted it. Non-traditional security refers to freedom from threats to survival caused by non-military force. (Yu and Wang 2006). Given the interaction between China and India, traditional security means the military, political and diplomatic areas, while the non-traditional security means climate, energy, antiterrorism, economy and trade, and technology.

Analytic method, samples and statistical analysis technique This section offers an introduction to the analysis samples and the statistical analysis technique used in this chapter. The research is based on selected monographs, books and articles by scholars and officials from China and

Cooperation and competition in China–India relations  81 abroad, and related papers published in authoritative journals as sample for analysis. First, there are many recognized scholars who are engaged in Sino-Indian relations research in China, India and other countries, and their monographs and papers have high visibility and influence. They include Zhao Gancheng, Wu Yongnian, Ma Jiali, Yang Siling and Chen Lijun, Chen Jidong, Wen Fude and Yang Wenwu, Zhang Minqiu, Zhang Guihong, Wang Hongwei, Zheng Ruixiang, Lan Jianxue and Ye Zhengjia, Swaran Singh, Mohan Malik, John W. Garver, Yuan Jingdong, Kanti Bajpai, Amitendu Palit, and C Raja Mohan. These scholars have devoted themselves to Sino-Indian relations research and all have prominent reputations and authority. Their work is influential, such as China and India: Great Power Rivals, by Mohan Malik; Protracted Contest: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Twentieth Century, by John Garver; and China and India: Economic Performance, Competition and Cooperation and China and India: Economic Performance, Competition and Cooperation: An Update, by T N Srinivasan. Second, there are officials who once served Chinese or Indian foreign ministries as diplomats and, having worked for the foreign ministry, have access to first-hand information about the interactions between China and India. Also, given their great political influence, they have had direct impacts on both countries’ foreign policy decision-making. After devoting themselves to academic research, they published monographs or papers – which have also been selected as analysis samples. These officials are: Zhou Gang, former Chinese ambassador to India, who worked there for many years and has a deep understanding of Sino-Indian relations; Cheng Ruisheng, former Chinese Ambassador to India and a member of the China Center for International Studies; Mira Sinha Bhattacharjee, India’s famous Chinese expert, a former director of the Institute of Chinese Studies in India, who was an Indian diplomat engaged in research on Sino-Indian research for years and published China the World and India; C V Ranganathan, former Indian Ambassador to China, who has a profound understanding of Sino-Indian relations; and Rajiv Sikri, former Secretary (East), Ministry of External Affairs, India, who has been engaged in Sino-Indian relations research for years and published an influential monograph, Challenge and Strategy: Rethinking India’s Foreign Policy. Third, this chapter also presents selected related papers published in global journals such as China Report, Journal of International Affairs, International Studies, South Asian Studies, and South Asian Studies Quarterly. For example, ‘Science and Technology Cooperation between India and China’, by D Varaprasad Sekhar, which appeared in International Studies, and ‘China and India: More Cooperation in Energy and Climate Change’, by Toufiq Siddiqi, in Journal of International Affairs, are taken as samples. For the purposes of this chapter, we selected 19 monographs related to the topic ‘cooperation and competition between China and India after the 1998 Indian nuclear test’, among which ten are Chinese and nine foreign. Also, the chapter examines 103 papers related to the topic, among which

82  Zhang Shulan et al. 65 were written by Chinese scholars and 38 by non-Chinese scholars. The research samples involve 65 scholars: among them, 32 are Chinese and 33 are foreign. Second authors of journal articles have not been included. Based on comparative research, this chapter analyses research samples, Chinese and foreign, with a strict standard. Also, quantitative analysis is used based on a statistical technique. When it comes to the consensus and divergence of scholars, this chapter sets a statistical standard. Generally speaking, the word ‘consensus’ is the view held by most scholars in this chapter, while ‘divergence’ refers to different opinions or disagreement among scholars on the same issue. If one has different opinions in different monographs, then we have selected the latest paper or publication. This chapter considers there to be consensus on any issue among the scholars if 70% or more scholars define it as consensus; if not, then it is considered divergence.

Comparison between Chinese and foreign research Many Chinese and non-Chinese scholars have researched the cooperation and competition between China and India and published their research findings. There are both similarities and differences in perspective among Chinese and non-Chinese scholars.

Similarities in research perspective First, Chinese and non-Chinese scholars both focus their research on the same problems, namely: ‘Cooperation or competition, which is the mainstream of Sino-Indian relations’, ‘In which fields do China and India cooperate or compete’ and ‘How to promote Sino-Indian cooperation’. From different research perspectives, scholars come to different conclusions on these problems. For example, as for the mainstream of Sino-Indian relations, Wu Yongnian argues that the overall direction of the Sino-Indian relationship is still cooperation (Wu 2010). In the fields of energy and climate change, cooperation is the mainstream (Siddiqi 2011). As for the interaction between China and India, both Chinese and non-Chinese scholars study traditional security, including political and military security, and non-traditional security, such as trade, energy, science and technology and climate. As for the problem, ‘How to promote cooperation between China and India’, Chinese and non-Chinese scholars suggest efforts to strengthen economic and cultural communication, promote mutual trust and tackle key issues. Second, Chinese and non-Chinese scholars both closely follow new developments and changes in the international community, and their research has gradually expanded from traditional security to non-traditional security. The research of Chinese and non-Chinese scholars has followed a pattern from politics and security to the economy and trade and then the energy sector, climate change and other fields. After India’s nuclear tests in 1998, Chinese and non-Chinese scholars mainly focused on the traditional security

Cooperation and competition in China–India relations  83 of China and India. With the steady development of Sino-Indian economic and trade relations, research into Sino-Indian relations has expanded into the economic and trade sector. Later, energy security became an increasingly important issue in international relations, and the energy sector has become an important area where China and India compete and cooperate. In recent years, climate change, science and technology, and other non-traditional security issues have gradually attracted scholars, and the scope and themes of research on the cooperation and competition between China and India continue to broaden. Finally, the main fields of non-traditional security are the trade and energy sectors. These are undoubtedly where cooperation between China and India is growing fastest. The bilateral trade volume maintains a steady and rapid growth, and ‘the bilateral trade has become a powerful engine of Sino-Indian relations’ (Palit 2012). In addition, in the twenty-first century, China’s and India’s demand for energy keeps growing. China and India have become the world’s largest and fastest-growing energy consumers in the world (Srinivasan 2004), which makes interaction in the energy sector more frequent between these two countries. At the same time, scholars have begun to pay attention to and carry out research on it, and the energy sector has become another key field of research in non-traditional security.

Differences in research perspective The research of Chinese and non-Chinese scholars shows differences in research perspective. On the one hand, non-Chinese scholars prefer to do research from the perspective of interactions between China and India in traditional security, while Chinese scholars pay more attention to their interactions in non-traditional security. For example, Mohan Malik argues that classical realism still applies to Asia, and there is no so-called interdependence or ‘Chindia’. Due to their strategy, competing for resources and other reasons, China and India have been trapped in a security dilemma. Therefore, as two Asian giants, there is the only competition between China and India. What’s more, he adds that both China and India choose to balance each other in case of worse security situations that may arise (Malik 2012a). John Garver agrees that China and India have been imprisoned in a security dilemma. China continues to strengthen its naval force in the Indian Ocean, which leads to India’s dissatisfaction and military and diplomatic responses. Therefore, although there is a certain degree of cooperation between China and India, the competition is still fierce (Garver 2002b). However, Swaran Singh studies cooperation and competition between these two countries in the areas of economy and trade. Besides non-Chinese scholars focuses on traditional security. Unlike non-Chinese scholars, most Chinese scholars are inclined to do research in the fields of non-traditional security. For example, Wen Fude’s research focuses on the ties and cooperation in the economy sector, especially the economic cooperation between China and India (Wen 2004, 2006,

84  Zhang Shulan et al. 2008). Chen Lijun has done research on the cooperation between China and India in the energy sector (Chen 2010, 2011). Zhao Gancheng argues that the influence of issues such as territorial disputes has been weakened and that the main problem in the relations between China and India is the asymmetric growth of the two sides’ economies (Zhao 2013). On the other hand, Chinese scholars are more concerned about providing suggestions for improvement in China–India relations. The main purpose of Chinese scholars devoted to studying the cooperation and competition between China and India is to make suggestions or provide approaches to improve bilateral relations. Therefore, an important part of their monographs or papers consists of approaches or measures to improve relations. For example, in his analysis of Sino-Indian relations, after summarizing the history and key factors, Zhang Minqiu provides measures and strategies for eliminating obstacles and establishing a friendship between these two countries (Zhang 2004). The suggestions Yang Siling, Gao Huiping and Yuan Chunsheng have made for China’s relationship with neighbouring countries are that China promote the establishment of Sino-India Free Trade Area (FTA), develop complementary industries and strengthen cooperation in the fields of non-traditional security (Yang, Gao and Yuan 2014). In contrast, although several Indian scholars, such as Mira, have also focused on countermeasure analysis, the primary purpose of their research is cause analysis.

Cooperation or competition From different perspectives, scholars have explored the problem of the cooperation or competition which is the mainstream of Sino-Indian relations and come to rather different conclusions. There are both consensus and divergence in their conclusions (Figure 5.1).

Co-opeon 13.89%

Cooperaon 41.67% Compeon 44.44%

Figure 5.1  Mainstream of Sino-Indian relations (recognition). Source: Created by Authors.

Cooperation and competition in China–India relations  85

Consensus: coexistence of cooperation and competition According to their research, 100% of scholars agree that there is both cooperation and competition between China and India, which is a recognized consensus of all scholars. Even scholars who are quite optimistic about the prospects of bilateral relations have admitted that there is competition in some fields between China and India, such as the economic and trade sector and the energy sector. Similarly, even scholars who are pessimistic on China–India relations have recognized that there is cooperation to some extent, in some areas. For example, Mohan Malik denies the interdependence between China and India and the possibility of ‘Chindia’, but he still acknowledges that there is cooperation between China and India (Malik 2011).

Divergence: the mainstream of Sino-Indian relations As for the problem of cooperation and competition, which is the mainstream of Sino-Indian relations, 28 scholars have researched it and provided answers. Among them, 16 scholars argue that cooperation is the mainstream, accounting for 57.14% of all; six argue that competition is the mainstream, accounting for 21.43%, and six argue that neither is the mainstream, accounting for 21.43%. Therefore, there is a divergence of scholars’ conclusions on this problem. First, scholars such as Chen Zonghai, Wu Yongnian, Wang Hongwei, Zheng Ruixiang, Gillian Hui Lynn Goh and Chandrima Ghosh are optimistic about the prospect of Sino-Indian relations. Chen Zonghai argues that the mainstream of bilateral relations is still cooperation, and competition exists only in branches (Chen 2013a). More important, as two emerging powers in the world, China and India share extensive common interest and basis for cooperation. Recent years have seen more frequent high-level visits between China and India and closer links in the economic sector, which makes the Asian Century and ‘Chindia’ quite possible (Wang 2003; Goh 2006; Wu 2007; Zhang 2007; Ghosh 2009; Ma 2010; Zhang 2010; Zhang 2013). Interestingly, scholars who have served in the foreign ministry, such as Cheng Ruisheng, Zhou Gang, Mira Sinha Bhattacharjea and C V Ranganathan are optimistic about the future of Sino-Indian relations. They argue that there is a broad basis for cooperation between China and India and a bright future for bilateral relations (Ranganathan 2001; Zhou 2004; Cheng 2009). Second, Yuan Jingdong, Mohan Malik, Swaran Singh, John Garver and other scholars hold that competition is the mainstream of Sino-Indian relations. Although there is to some extent cooperation between China and India, the fierce competition resulting from a great demand for markets and resources is being intensified by a trust deficit and lack of communication between these two countries. Due to the lack of communication, neither side can be sure of the other’s intention and take measures to ensure its own

86  Zhang Shulan et al. security, which leads to security dilemmas for China and India. Moreover, the asymmetric growth in the economic sector makes the situation worse. In addition, historical problems such as territorial disputes, Sino-Pakistani relations, and Tibet cannot be ignored, because they all directly influence bilateral relations. Therefore, subject to all the negative factors, the relationship between China and India will be a new ‘Cold War,’ and such a ‘Cold War’ will be everywhere in Sino-Indian relations (Garver 2002b; Sidhu and Yuan 2003; Scott 2008; Singh 2009a; Malik 2012a). Finally, scholars such as Zhao Gancheng, Lan Jianxue and Mohanty argue that there is both cooperation and competition in Sino-Indian relations and that neither is the mainstream. Zhao Gancheng argues that Sino-Indian relations cannot be easily defined as cooperation or competition, because it is a relationship of coexistence, which means there is not only cooperation but competition. The future of bilateral relations will be decided by the manner in which both governments handle it (Zhao 2010). Mohanty argues that for China and India, two rising powers in Asia, ‘the neo-realist paradigm only talks of India and China as rivals, enemies or allies, but there is also an alternative geo-civilizational view that sees the complex of linkage between the two from historical times to the present day. The probable scenario is the simultaneous unfolding of both trends (Mohanty 2010). Interestingly, most Chinese scholars are optimistic about Sino-Indian relations prospects, while most non-Chinese scholars are not. Non-Chinese scholars’ conclusions are affected by the so-called ‘Chinese threat’.

Fields of cooperation and competition With the development of China and India, the two countries have built closer links to each other which penetrate all fields of the economy, politics and culture. This raises the question, in which fields do China and India cooperate or compete? Many scholars have researched this question, and there is a consensus on their conclusions.

Consensus: cooperation in non-traditional security The fields where China and India cooperate are the economy and trade, energy, climate change and technology, which are all fields of non-­traditional security. First, 13 scholars have researched the interactions between China and India in the economic sector, and 12 argue that although there is competition between China and India in this sector, there is also fruitful achievement of cooperation; this accounts for 92.31% of the scholars researched in this chapter. Therefore, there is consensus that China and India have achived cooperation in the economic sector (Figure 5.2). T N Srinivasan, Yang Wenwu and Wen Fude argue that both sides are promoting the development of cooperation in the economic sector. For

Cooperation and competition in China–India relations  87 Co-copeon 5% Competon 10%

Cooperaon 85%

Figure 5.2  Sino-Indian interactions in economy and trade (recognition). Source: Created by the authors.

example, T N Srinivasan has analysed both China and India’s economic situations, such as development constancy, poverty rate and macroeconomic prospects, and draws the conclusion that there is a broad basis for economic cooperation between China and India (Srinivasan 2004). Wen Fude argues that bilateral trade volume, mutual investment and labour service have increased, and although there is asymmetric economic growth, China and India have established extensive cooperation in the economic sector (Wen 2008). Swaran Singh argues that in spite limitations between these two countries, trade volume keeps increasing, and the cooperation in the economic sector between China and India is quite successful (Singh and Zhang 2006; Singh 2009a). Scholars also make suggestions to further promote cooperation. Yang Wenwu and Ni Xiangqin argue that both governments should take leading roles in economic cooperation and at the same time, the governments should properly handle trade frictions, while enterprises ought to actively expand the markets (Yang and Ni 2007). Second, 11 scholars have researched on the interaction between China and India in the energy sector. Among them, nine scholars claim that there is cooperation in this sector and only two claim that there is both cooperation and competition in this sector. In other words, 81.81% of the scholars agree that there is cooperation between India and China in the energy sector while only 18.19% scholars claim coopetition in this sector. Since both China and India are developing quite fast, their demand for resources, especially oil and coal, is huge. There is a broad space for cooperation in the energy field (Jain 2014). In fact, although China and India compete for the supply of oil, there are many successful cases where China and India have established cooperation, particularly in the supply of overseas oil (Chen and Ren 2005; Yang 2006; Pathak 2007). To further promote cooperation in the energy sector, both sides should coordinate each others’ interests and strengthen

88  Zhang Shulan et al. Compeon 5.26%

Co-copeon 42.11%

Cooperaon 52.63%

Figure 5.3  Sino-Indian interactions in energy. Source: Created by the authors.

cooperation in a multilateral mechanism (Gong 2011). In addition, China and India should downplay geopolitics, advocate healthy competition and establish a cooperative mechanism, in order to achieve greater cooperation (Chen 2011) (Figure 5.3). Finally, in the fields of antiterrorism, climate change and technology, China and India have also established cooperation. Nine scholars have studied this and released their research results. In recent years, both China and India have extended their understanding of security and established cooperation with each other in non-traditional security (Ren 2004). In order to tackle global climate change, China and India have tended to cooperate with each other in all negotiations since 1992, although they have different goals, positions and negotiating styles. China’s and India’s efforts in climate change negotiations contribute to building a just order in tackling climate change (Jayaram 2014). In technology, competition has resulted from the developing strategies of both countries, especially in the sector of information and technology. China’s IT industry mainly relies on the production of hardware, while India’s depends on software. However, both China and India are dissatisfied with this and are to making innovations to expand the market, which is leading to inevitable competition in this sector (Chaudhuri 2012). Although there is competition, there is also the possibility of cooperation between China and India in the IT industry. With the fast development and complementarity of IT industries, there is great potential for China and India to cooperate. After joining the World Trade Organization (WTO), China fully opened its market, and Sino-Indian relations improved, which makes cooperation between China and India in the IT industry possible. Therefore, both countries should seize the opportunity and take measures to promote cooperation in diverse forms (Chen 2004; Goh 2006) (Figure 5.4).

Cooperation and competition in China–India relations  89 Compeon 9.09%

Cooperaon 90.91%

Figure 5.4  Sino-Indian interactions in climate change, IT and Antiterrorism. Source: Created by the authors.

Consensus: cooperation and competition in the field of geopolitics In addition to non-traditional security, scholars have carried out research into traditional security, especially in the field of geopolitics. Seven scholars have devoted research to this field, analysing the interaction between China and India in Southeast Asia, South Asia, Central Asia, Africa and the Indian Ocean. Among them, five scholars came to a consensus that there is both cooperation and competition in these areas, accounting for 71.43% of the scholars (Figure 5.5).

Cooperaon 6.25%

Compeon 25% Co-copeon 68.75%

Figure 5.5  Sino-Indian interactions in geopolitics. Source: Created by the authors.

90  Zhang Shulan et al. In Southeast Asia, Central Asia, Africa and the Indian Ocean, the relationship between China and India is characterised by both cooperation and competition. There is great potential for China and India to cooperate in Southeast Asia, because the rapid growth of their power, particularly economic power, is beneficial to the countries in Southeast Asia and in India, as well. However, in the field of politics, there will be competition (Zhang and Rong 2006; Chen 2012; Jha 2013). After India’s Look East Policy, there are more chances that China and India face cooperation and competition in Southeast Asia. In spite of this, it is still possible for China and India to be partners in this region (Zhao 2007). In recent years, both China and India have become aware of the importance of the Central Asia. In addition to its unique position, Central Asia has abundant natural resources. China and India are cooperating in the fields of security and economy. In the field of security, these two countries are taking action against terrorism, while in the energy sector, energy cooperation is a good choice. Also, different understandings of the interest and the role of the United States and the existing competition between China and India cannot be neglected in this region (Zhang 2008a). Both countries’ connection with Africa is mainly economic, and China’s relationship with the African countries is closer than that of India. However, the structure of ­China’s products exporting to Africa is single, and India’s software products are better than those of China. Therefore, because of differences in the economic structures of China and India, both countries have their own advantages and disadvantages in Africa (Sun 2008). China continues to attach importance to developing good relationships with South Asian countries such as Pakistan, Nepal and Bhutan. However, India misunderstands China’s intentions and thinks that China’s relationships with these countries is evidence for its intention to balance India (Zhang and Rong 2006).

Measures to promote cooperation Scholars engaged in research into the cooperation and competition between China and India also address the problem, ‘How to promote cooperation between China and India’. They try to provide measures to further establish cooperation from different perspectives and draw different conclusions.

Consensus: three core issues Certain core issues must be handled properly, for further cooperation between China and India. Nineteen recognized scholars have done research on the core issues which have a deep influence on Sino-Indian relations, and there is a consensus in their conclusions (Figure 5.6). First, 15 scholars, with the percentage of 78.95%, mentioned territorial disputes and the Tibet issue and argue that these are core issues in bilateral relations. For historical reasons, the territorial disputes remain unsettled. The trust deficit brought about by the territorial disputes is also serious and has become a time bomb in bilateral relations. The Tibet issue has worsened

Cooperation and competition in China–India relations  91 94.70%

68.42%

26.30%

Border and Tibet Issues

Sino-Pak Relaons

Economic and Trade Fricons

Figure 5.6  Key issues influencing Sino-Indian relations. Source: Created by the authors.

the situation, because it is being used by India as a tool to counterbalance China (Zhang 2002), which complicates the territorial disputes. The influence of Tibet issue might be bigger than that of the territorial disputes. The Chinese government now pursues not only the stability and development of the economy in Tibet but also the harmony of its political order. However, because of the economic connection between Tibet and India, India’s influence on Tibet is quite large. Although India admits China’s sovereignty in Tibet, China’s attitude towards India is quite important (Jacob 2011). Second, 13 scholars argue that Sino-Pakistani relations are another core issue in Sino-Indian relations. These days, China’s diplomatic policy in South Asia is more balanced and coordinated, and China is developing good relationships with both India and Pakistan. However, due to the tensions between India and Pakistan, India thinks that China’s relationship with Pakistan is a measure to balance India (Garver 2002b; Malik 2011; Yuan 2011). Some Chinese scholars agree that with China’s Threat theory in the international community, the mutual trust between China and India faces a challenge, which affects Sino-Indian relations directly (Zhang 2002; Garver 2002b; Zhang 2010; Malik 2011, Yuan 2011).

Divergence: issue of economic and trade frictions About the core issues of Sino-Indian relations, five scholars have examined the economic and trade friction, and they argue that this issue is also important. With the economic development of China and India, the trade deficit between China and India has become another concern for India. Also, asymmetric economic growth is another uncertainty in Sino-Indian relations (Zhao 2013). Faced with the trade deficit, India chooses to take

92  Zhang Shulan et al. anti-dumping measures towards China, which produces more frictions between China and India in economy and trade (Zheng 2010). In addition, since both China and India are developing countries, the structures of their products are the same, to some extent, and the competition involved for resources and markets is another reason for the trade friction.

Divergence: measures to further promote cooperation As for the problem of how to promote cooperation between China and India, scholars have provided suggestions such as establishing mutual trust. As many as 15 scholars have talked about measures to further promote cooperation, but there is no consensus on this problem, because scholars approach it from different angles (Figure 5.7). First, five scholars argue that mutual understanding, mutual benefit and mutual trust are necessary. Both China and India should follow the principle of a mutual understanding of differences and mutual trust; only in this way can the interests of both sides be ensured and a cooperative basis for these two countries established (Zhang 2008b). In addition, to establish constructive cooperative relations, both sides should follow principles such as attaching importance to the stability of society and the state, and human rights, as well (Yang 2006). Both sides should tolerate and understand each other, tackle historical problems properly and look to the future. There is a strategic opportunity for development for China and India, and these two countries should seize it and establish greater cooperation. Meanwhile, China and India should insist on mutual economic benefit, political trust and interactions in technological and cultural fields (Bhattacharjea and Ranganathan 2000). 60% 50%

50% 45.45%

40% 30% 22.70% 20% 10% 0%

Mutual Trusts

Social Exchanges

Figure 5.7  Routes of Sino-Indian cooperation. Source: Created by the authors.

Mutual Respect & Understanding

Cooperation and competition in China–India relations  93 Second, six scholars suggest that China and India should strengthen their social and cultural links and communication with each other. To promote cooperation between China and India, the social and cultural links between the two countries should not be neglected; only when there is frequent communication will there be a possibility of avoiding misunderstandings and establishing mutual trust (Wu 2010). Faced with many problems in national strategy, the best choice for China and India to establish cooperation is to build a bridge between their citizens to strengthen their communications (Jain and Yan 2011). Also, since they both belong to Eastern culture, there are similarities between China’s and India’s culture and civilization, and it is easy to shape a common identity for these two countries (Zhao 2013). Finally, three scholars argue that China and India should broaden their mutual trust and create a good environment for investment and communication. Both China and India have noted that if there is no mutual trust, there will not be a good foundation for bilateral and multilateral cooperation (Chen 2013b). Therefore, China and India should make efforts to establish mutual trust, to promote cooperation (Cheng 2009).

Conclusion This chapter analyses the related research by scholars in China and elsewhere in the world, and finds that there are both similarities and differences between the research perspectives of Chinese and non-Chinese scholars and consensus and divergence in the conclusions drawn by that research. As for similarities in the research perspectives of Chinese and non-Chinese scholars, first, both Chinese and non-Chinese scholars focus their research on same problems, namely: ‘Cooperation or competition, which is the mainstream of Sino-Indian relations’, ‘In which fields do China and India cooperate or compete’ and ‘How to promote Sino-Indian cooperation’. Second, both Chinese and non-Chinese scholars closely follow new developments and changes in the international community, and their research has gradually expanded from traditional security to non-traditional security. Third, the main fields of non-traditional security are the trade and energy sectors. Most Chinese and non-Chinese scholars focus their efforts on the interaction between China and India in non-traditional security, especially the trade and energy sector. There are also differences in the research perspectives between Chinese and non-Chinese scholars. First, non-Chinese scholars prefer to do research from the perspective of interactions between China and India in traditional security, while Chinese scholars pay more attention to their interactions in non-traditional security. Second, Chinese scholars are more concerned with providing suggestions to improve China– India relations. Also, there are consensuses and divergences in the scholars’ conclusions and opinions. There are three main consensuses. The first is that there is cooperation and competition in Sino-Indian relations, and the second is that China and India have established successful cooperation in the fields of

94  Zhang Shulan et al. the economy, energy, technology and climate change. The third consensus is that the territorial dispute, Sino-Pakistani relations and the Tibet issue are core sensitive issues in bilateral relations. The divergences mainly concern the mainstream of Sino-Indian relations and promoting cooperation between China and India.

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6 Security environment in South Asia The role of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) Amjad Abbas Khan

The end of the Cold War appeared to bring in a new era of alignments and cooperation. The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), successor to the Shanghai Five, is the outcome of these global settlements. It made new arrangements for mutual trust, benefits and disarmament in the region. At first, the Shanghai Five promised to mitigate the security threats left unattended after the Cold War. The Shanghai Five also pledged to create a new security paradigm by promoting security through collaboration and resolving global conflicts through dialogue. Later on, the Shanghai Five’s expansion heralded a new era of regional security and peace (Ur Rahman 2008). For the last 17 years, the Shanghai Five has been characterised by openness, transparency and not targeting any third party. The SCO is a partnership among member states, rather than a military or political alliance. The core emphasis of the SCO is the opposition to Cold War politics and power struggles. The SCO focus more on security, and Shanghai Spirit has become the epicentre of the relationships among member states. The SCO’s internal policy has fundamental principles of ‘mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, consultations, and respect for cultural diversity, and pursuit of common development’ (Rafi 2018). Moreover, foreign policy is defined by the core values of non-alignment, non-targeting any third country and openness. In a complicated era of global and regional security, the SCO maintains reverence for the United Nations and acknowledges international laws, opposes violence for violence and the zero-sum game, and believes in mutual cooperation to safeguard security non-interference.

Regional security and expansion of SCO The incessant war on terrorism in Afghanistan has had deep impacts on the security of the region, which allows the major players to maximise their national interests. Unfortunately, in South Asia, the interests are divergent and threaten the security situation in the region. The prevailing security environment of the region is mainly due to the tug of war between the rising powers and existing powers, enhancing the dependency of the states and forcing them to realign and revisit their foreign relations. The factors for such a security environment may be determined. First, the gradual DOI: 10.4324/9780367855413-7

98  Amjad Abbas Khan withdrawal of NATO and ISAF forces from Afghanistan has left the security of the region unattended. The Middle Eastern conundrum, Syrian crisis, Kashmir dispute, India-China border dispute and South China Sea conflict are flashpoints in the wake of the security situation in the region. The deteriorating Sino-US relations and US-Russian rising rivalry has given birth to a new Cold War (Akram 2018). The SCO charter vows to keep member states away from active military engagements and pledges stability at borders. The charter also emphasises confidence-building between the militaries of different states to maintain peace (Majid 2016; SCO Charter n.d.). The organisation plays an active role in implementing its charter. The Shanghai Five agreement to resolve border disputes and reduced military deployment on the borders is the best illustration of Shanghai Spirit (Majid 2016; Akhtar, Ul Ain and Kiran 2018). It can be inferred that the SCO, like its predecessor the Shanghai Five, will manage the possibility of conflicts among member states. Another significant feature of the SCO is a treaty on ‘long-term good neighbourliness friendship and cooperation’. Joint military exercises to eradicate terrorism are furthering the security cooperation among member states. A Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS) was established to counter terrorism, separatism, radicalism and extremism within the member countries (Weitz 2017). The adoption of the ‘Shanghai Convention on Combating Terrorism, Separatism and Extremism’ (Yuan 2010; Fayyaz 2019) by member states is another hallmark in enhancing security cooperation. In April 2006, the SCO announced its plans to fight against drug trafficking under the counterterrorism rubric, a step towards security collaboration. The SCO has tackled the issue of the arms race visà-vis regional security. Furthermore, a new mechanism of holding meetings on different levels, including the secretary of security, defence ministers, and public security and border defence leaders, has been put in place. The creation of cultural brands in the military, such as the series of ‘Peaceful Mission’ joint military exercises and the ‘Fanfare for Peace’ military music festival, augur well for regional peace and security. The new situation in which the extension of the SCO is taking place is critical, due to ongoing economic and political developments in the region. At the very outset, founding member states differed over the expansion of the SCO and granting observer status to South Asian states, especially India and Pakistan. The troubled relationship between India and Pakistan made member states sceptical about the nature of the dispute between India and Pakistan and created fear that the dispute is beyond the handling of the SCO (Siddiqi 2018). Despite troubles and doubts, the expansion of the organisation was inevitable. Keeping in view regional integrity and cooperation, the SCO Conference of Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia was held in Almaty in 2002. Sixteen states became observer members of the SCO, including the two South Asian nuclear states. The UFA Summit decided to grant India and Pakistan the status of full members on 10 July 2015 (Dawn 2015; Rab and He 2019). On 24 June 2016, at Tashkent, both South Asian states signed the memorandum of obligations to observe the formal process of membership (Daily Times 2016) and officially joined the group as full members on 9 June 2017 at Astana Summit (Dawn 2017). At

Security environment in South Asia  99 present, Beijing is fully supporting the inclusion of Iran in the SCO. China’s ambition of multilateral economic and security cooperation is helping observer states to become full members. China underlines the importance of Iran in OBOR (Heirannia and Khormaei 2018). Iran’s inclusion in the SCO may augur well for regional cooperation, especially for Iran and Pakistan. Its partnership in the CPEC will also help to form an economic as well as a security community in the region. Currently, SCO member states account for about half of the world’s population (Misra 2001; Scheineson 2009), 20% of the world’s GDP (Fayyaz 2019; Khetran 2019), two permanent members of the UN Security Council – China and Russia (Rafi 2017) – 80% of Eurasian states, four nuclear powers and three members of BRICS – China, Russia and India. Iran, Afghanistan and Gulf States such as Qatar and Bahrain have made appeals for joining the organisation (Alimov 2018; Usmanov 2018). The inclusion of Iran and Afghanistan, Belarus and Magnolia as observer states (Hasnat and Awan 2016) could maximise economic cooperation and help solve regional issues that are crucial to the development of Asia in general and to BRI, in particular. The SCO is further expanding its audience, and the ‘six dialogue partners include Azerbaijan, Cambodia, Armenia, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Turkey. At the same time, there are three guest attendants: Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Turkmenistan’ (Qadir and Ur Rehman 2016).

Outcome of the SCO summit 2016 Peace and stability always remained top preferences of the SCO (Majid 2016). The organisation has made significant achievements in maintaining security through mutual cooperation. It created a security environment with a win-win situation and established a community of shared destiny for people. It became the first organisation to recognise the threat of terrorism and introduce its antiterrorism stance. Pakistan–India relations are going through a difficult time. There were different meetings between the leaders of both countries after the SCO Ufa summit, but Pakistan and India failed to recommence the complete negotiations. Both Pakistan and India are nuclear states, so there is no other option except to resolve their conflicts by restarting the complete dialogue process by using the SCO platform (Fayyaz 2019). The present situation demands structural cooperation to develop their confidence. Both countries must follow the Shanghai Spirit, which will help in improving regional trade, connectivity and security. Membership in the SCO also involves having friendly relationships. Peace and coherence are the preconditions for safeguarding development and technical progress and carrying enhancements into all segments of economy. Since both countries want to strengthen their economy, there is no space for mistrust and hate in their relations. Pakistan’s membership in the SCO will equally help Pakistan and the SCO states. SCO states may play a serious role in soothing Afghanistan; fighting a joint war against terrorism, separatism and extremism; and promising and providing potential assistance in the different sectors. Pakistan

100  Amjad Abbas Khan has historical and traditional relations with the Central Asian Republics; cordial economic relations with China and increasing ties with Russia. The military operation Zarb-e-Azb and CPEC are game-changers for regional and global peace and success. Zarb-e-Azb helped Pakistan in the reduction of terrorism. Pakistan has arisen as an achievement story in the war against terrorism (Rab and He 2018). The SCO provides a potential platform for energy-rich countries to develop an integrated system to meet the needs of energy-deficit states (Khetran 2019). In this regard, the development in establishing CASA-1000 and TAPI is a positive sign. Pakistan may benefit from this energy link by importing hydroelectricity from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. The inauguration of a hallmark project such as CASA-1000 took place back in 2012, and the expected date of completion was in 2018, which could have enabled Tajikistan to export 1,300 megawatts of electricity to Pakistan. The expected completion date of TAPI was 2019 but has now been extended to late 2022. TAPI would transport natural gas from Turkmenistan to signatory countries (Kiani 2019). Unfortunately, both of these projects have still not been completed, even in 2021. Terrorism and extremism remain grave impediments to regional stability. SCO member states consider terrorist and radical extremist groups a serious threat to the peace and stability of the region, and they consider the elimination of this menace a collective obligation (Carroll 2011). In this direction, the formation of Quadrilateral Cooperation and Coordination Mechanism is a good step for counterterrorism among Pakistan, China, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. The high-level opening summit of the armed forces of member states was held in Urumqi, Xingjian, China, on 3 August 2016. Under this arrangement, major countries would unite in counterterrorism capacity building, clue verification, situation evaluation, intelligence divisions, and joint and personnel counterterrorism training. The present situation of the SCO expands both trials and chances. The explanation of regional challenges lies in constructing a common vision and approaches for firming up peace, collaboration and economic incorporation. A regional approach should include mechanisms for resolving territorial and political disputes, creating economic interdependence among member states, maintaining the balance of power in the region, starting negotiation and confidence-building measures, increasing people-to-people interaction and improving the role of local administrations, such as the SCO (Carroll 2011; Fayyaz 2019). We should not only settle our disputes but also have to solve them through dialogue and peaceful means. Let us emphasise peace and growth by joining the mainstream Asian development and making the twenty-first century an Asian century. Cordial relations among SCO states are a good omen for regional defence and security. The following factors are responsible for enhanced cooperation. • First, combined military exercises, peaceful missions and other activities in the field of defence are a great contrast to the three ‘evils’ of terrorism, extremism and separatism (Rab and He 2018).

Security environment in South Asia  101 • Second, joint military exercises develop trust among armies, to help he armed forces share their experiences in curbing terrorism. Holding peace missions annually furthers joint defence cooperation. • Third, stability and peace are already in question. Enlargement of the SCO and inclusive cooperation in every field is enabling member states to play their role in stabilising the region(Akhtar, Ul Ain and Kiran 2018). Antonio Gutierrez, UN Secretary-General, envisioned the SCO and said that the organisation is becoming the centre of gravity in the new world order. It is believed that the expansion of the SCO is setting the stage for new alignments and block formations. Due to onging political situation in Eurasia and the Middle East, Iran and Turkey are deliberating whether to join the SCO and discussing the pros and cons of the membership. The further expansion of the SCO is attaining considerable importance in the balance of power in the region, as NATO in the East and the SCO in the West are expanding. SCO states are persistent in advocating peaceful solutions to the crises in Afghanistan, the Middle East, Syria and Yemen. SCO members observe the need to implement a join comprehensive action plan for Iran’s nuclear programme.

SCO can bring India and Pakistan together Including India and Pakistan in the SCO brought two traditional rivals under one umbrella. The SCO charter is inclusive, and participation in all activities under the SCO is mandatory for member states. Joint participation and the inevitable dialogues will help India and Pakistan build confidence and normalise relations (Akhtar, Ul Ain and Kiran 2018). Member states pledge to further synchronise multilateral counterterrorism activities under the auspices of the SCO. Kazi Khalilullah, Pakistan’s ambassador to Russia, noted the importance of events under the SCO and observed that Pakistan attaches importance to peace missions and military exercises and Pakistan will participate in upcoming events of SCO (Siddiqi 2018). P. Stobdan, Indian diplomat, stated the initiative will certainly bring confidence in military-to-military relations. Russia and China are also in favour of normalisation between India and Pakistan. India and Pakistan have worked together under the umbrella of the United Nations, but this will be the first time in history that both countries will conduct joint military exercises. (ibid.) In June 2001, the founding members of the SCO, with the creation of the organisation, announced a set of rules to which armed forces and defence ministries of all countries were agreed, to uphold the popular notion of the ‘Shanghai Spirit’. It was hoped that as an outcome, a Eurasian economic and political giant would emerge during the then-ongoing year. Another event, ‘Fanfare for Peace Military Tattoo’, has also been proposed in a meeting participated in by the defence ministers of all the member

102  Amjad Abbas Khan countries. This event would help to create healthy environment and to bridge the gap among member states. Another significant achievement by the SCO includes the inclusion of India and Pakistan in the Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS), Peace Mission 2018 and many other exercises. In the long run, this will prove a milestone in exchanging information in countering terrorism (Fayyaz 2019). Under the auspices of the SCO, diverse fields of multilateral cooperation have come to surface in energy, education, culture, tourism and trade (Hansen 2008). Moreover, at the twelfth session of the SCO, China also proposed an agreement to be signed by the member countries of the SCO to deal with the multipronged issues of cybersecurity, extremism, separatism and drug control. There is no denying the fact that by bringing two regional rivals together on the same platform, the SCO has emerged as a powerful regional organisation on the globe. As a powerful coalition of different nations, the SCO could alleviate the retrospective differences between India and Pakistan, but it has to work beyond the sphere of the region-specific strategic approach. There is an intense ray of hope after various successful agreements among member countries on the use of conventional arms. The SCO will be an effective forum to build a sound a comprehensive confidence-building mechanism, specifically in the case of regional rivalries, such as that between India and Pakistan. In this regard, P. Stobdan, a former Indian diplomat and Eurasia expert, reported on Quartz that the conversion of antagonism into cooperation is the focal point of two great Asian powers, namely, China and Russia (Balachandran 2017). It is evident from the joint performance by India and Pakistan under the umbrella of the United Nations that the SCO will be another effective platform to engage both countries in joint military drills, as well (Sengupta 2017). Being part of RATS, the two countries will be obliged to coordinate against terrorism and cyber issues. Though the area of cooperation in joint military drills has been unaddressed to date, yet it is evident from the steps taken under the SCO that both countries will find a great venture under this plan. Contrary to this, another opinion highlights the intensity of regional rivalry as a challenge for the organisation to overcome. Michael Kugelman stated that ‘I don’t think we should exaggerate the influence that India and Pakistan will have on the organisation, whether positive or negative. SCO is currently dominated by China and Russia’ (Balachandran 2017). In addition to this, India and China may possibly not want to use the platform to focus on their regional clashes as a matter of global attention. Madhav Nalapat, the UNESCO Peace Chairman at the department of geopolitics and international relations at Manipal University, said, ‘China will not like any dragging of differences with India to that forum. Hence, I do not forestall any instability in the organisation as a result of India and Pakistan amalgamation’ (ibid.). There is another school of thought prescribing caution in this context. In this regard, ambassador Stobdan said, ‘As far as India and Pakistan goes, their relations can either bring together the SCO, or destroy it completely’ (ibid.). In a similar ambit, the Sino-Indian conflict of 2017 of Dokhlam

Security environment in South Asia  103 was the major issue at the time of India’s inclusion in the SCO. India has refused to join China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), with an estimated 5 trillion USD in infrastructure spending covering more than 60 countries worldwide. Constantino Xavier stated that ‘joining the SCO is a low-cost initiative to increase India’s influence in Central Asia’ (ibid.). It is interesting that the geopolitical war-dance in Asia is just grabbing more attention. Furthermore, due to the history of hostile relations, India opposes the BRI because, in their opinion, it passes through Gilgit Baltistan (Khan, Mehmood and Alam 2018).

SCO and regional connectivity Among all the member countries of the SCO, India is the only one to refuse to endorse and be included in China’s Belt and Road Initiative. In addition, it has also opposed the CPEC. Being a part of BRI, India might find a healthy opportunity to integrate itself into a global connectivity projected by China. Many other ventures are supported periodically by India, such as the TAPI gas pipeline and the Iran Pakistan gas pipeline. These projects could be enlarged under the umbrella of the SCO. For this purpose, the Gawadar and Chabahar ports could be coordinated as a unit to gain the maximum benefit on the sustainable basis, which could stimulate development in landlocked Central Asian states and all other SCO member countries, providing access to the warm waters of the Arabian Sea (Hanif 2016). The Central Asian Republics are considered a hub of energy resources which can be streamlined for export to the other countries, including China, Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan and India (Rab and He 2019). In this regard, the TAPI gas pipeline and Central Asia South Asia (CASA) 1000 electricity line could materialise. Similarly, by the CPEC, Central Asian states and South Asia will turn into markets for each other (Pakistan Observer 2017). At the last summit of the SCO, held in 11–12 October 2018 in Dushanbe, the SCO Heads of the Council advocated strengthening cooperation in the economic sphere to create a favourable atmosphere for trade and investment (ibid.).

Summit meeting in Bishkek on 13–14 June 2019 Bishkek hosted a meeting of the SCO’s Heads of State Council, as a subsequent gesture, on 13–14 June 2019. In this summit, leaders reviewed the implementation of the results of the 2018 Qingdao Summit. Also, the leaders revised the primary goals for SCO improvement with regard to current economic, global and political practices. The Bishkek Declaration was adopted, so the parties’ agreed-upon points are redirected in it (Bishkek Declaration 2019). The signatories of the SCO stressed that it is an active and productive apparatus for multidimensional collaboration that would play a vital role in sustaining peace and stability in the region. The member countries expressed their intention to achieve the objectives of the SCO. The member states stressed implementing the Shanghai Spirit, which exemplifies ‘equality, trust, consultations, and respect for the variety of civilisations,

104  Amjad Abbas Khan cultures and determined for collective progress’ (Qadir and Ur Rehman 2016).

Challenges to SCO The permanent enmity and regular skirmishes on the Line of Control (LOC) offers little hope for dialogue between Pakistan and India. Terrorism and instability in Afghanistan are the two major threats to the integrity and functioning of the SCO. Pakistan has been successful in overcoming the threat of terrorism by the decisive operation Zarb-e-Azb. Pakistan can help SCO countries in the fight against terrorism by forming a joint mechanism (Dawn 2018). In light of the contemporary state of affairs, the spillover of ISIS from the Middle East into Afghanistan could halt important initiatives such as the BRI. It is, therefore, necessary for member states to formulate a joint and coordinated strategy to overcome this challenge (Fayyaz 2019). Pakistan could also mediate in the Afghan peace process, on the platform of the SCO. Other outstanding issues, such as drug and human trafficking, climate change and extremism could also be mutually tackled through the SCO. Therefore, maintaining peace is essential, as the SCO comprises four major nuclear powers, and a bit of irritation could stimulate tension between the states. It is the need of the hour to provide SCO states a mutual understanding and to develop a coherent strategy on all regional issues.

Conclusion In this globalised world, regional and global institutions have a considerable amount of supremacy over political and socio-economic issues. Asia is not institutionally prosperous, it lacks an institution such as the European Union or NATO. It has few regional organisations like ASEAN or SAARC, but the limited mandate of these organisations have barred them from achieving any significant goals. In this vacuum, the SCO could effectively fill the gap. Its mandate has been evolving, and it has experience in resolving border issues among the states. The United States and foreign influence in Asia could be minimised in the region by strengthening the relations among member states. In this regard, Pak-China friendship could serve as a launching pad for an integrated and prosperous Asia. Whether it is the Middle East crisis, Afghan instability, border issues among different states or IndoPak tensions, the SCO could mediate and emerge as an effective channel of peace and economic welfare in Asia. The doctrine of shared destiny and integrated defence cooperation distinguishes the SCO from its sister organisations. From Shanghai Spirit to RATS and the Comprehensive Action Plan on Disarmament to shared security, the SCO has emerged as a supportive platform to curb the evils and maintain the peace and stability of the region. The SCO may plan to integrate the economy to further enhance cooperation among the member states. The

Security environment in South Asia  105 SCO has brought traditional rivals onto a single platform with a vision of interaction and engagement. India and Pakistan are engaged regularly through mandatory participation in events under the auspices of the SCO. The platform has the potential to advance confidence-building measures among the members, especially between India and Pakistan. China’s leading role may help resolve bilateral disputes and further multilateral cooperation. Integrated interests may augur well and bear fruit for the BRI, by expanding the base of the organisation through the inclusion of ambitious states such as Iran and Turkey.

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Part II

Belt and Road Initiative

7 China’s Twenty-First-Century Maritime Silk Road and its Influence on the Development of South Asia A Geopolitical perspective Asantha Senevirathna The MSRI is a large-scale project proposed and initiated by the Chinese government to develop massive infrastructure projects, along with the countries of the ancient Maritime Silk Route that connected ancient China with Europe, forming a network of maritime trade among the countries in Asia and Europe. As Funaiole and Hillman (2018) mention, the MSRI is the maritime dimension of President Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), or One Belt, One Road (OBOR), a project valued at more than 4 trillion USD in new railways, roads, ports and other infrastructure. Within this massive ever-expanding construct, Chinese investments have been largely active in the region of the Indo-Pacific, raising questions about the economic or strategic interests that are specially implemented via major port investments. According to Blanchard (2018: 1–32), the Chinese government has taken various steps to improve the financial funding of the MSRI by developing many new financial institutions. Among the main financial institutions established at the beginning were the 40 billion USD Silk Road Fund (SRF) and the 50 billion USD Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which provides funding for infrastructure projects as part of the Maritime Silk Road Initiative (MSRI) and Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB), commonly known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Further, the Chinese government uses established financial institutions to finance the MSRI directly, such as the China Development Bank (CDB), which reported its plans to invest more than 890 billion USD in the BRI projects. As identified by Blanchard and Flint (2017: 223–224), large-scale infrastructure-based connectivity projects have played a significant role in global economic and political changes. Even the great classical geopolitical theory of Sir Halford Mackinder highlighted the importance of railway connectivity for dominance. Now, China is implementing many railway infrastructure projects under the BRI, which has created similar discussions among experts on geopolitics and policymakers. Considering the scale of the financial, geographical and economic impact the project is having, it has attracted the attention of Chinese and other businessmen and the policymakers of the countries involved, including in South Asia.

DOI: 10.4324/9780367855413-9

112  Asantha Senevirathna Now, with the massive amount of wealth that it has accumulated due to rapid economic growth, China wants to expand its domestic infrastructure boom to other parts of the world, which could ultimately result in the growth of Chinese trade and deeper economic relations with those countries. As indicated by Guan (2016), China’s proposal for a new Maritime Silk Road hearkens back to the historical settings of ancient sea lanes linking Chinese ports with the ports in the South China Sea and the Indian Ocean, where ancient Chinese traders used to play a significant role in developing largescale trade links with the rest of the world. Chinese President Xi’s vision for China is presently participating in the development of major ports between China and Europe, to promote maritime connectivity. The current Chinese leadership seems relatively optimistic in its effort to reshape the country’s global profile in a bold and creative way, an essential element of which is to build up an economic system with China at its centre. Further, the twenty-first century MSRI, together with the SREB, has emerged as a signature foreign policy initiative and is the first global strategy for enhancing trade and ‘fostering peace’ proposed by the new Chinese leadership under President Xi Jinping (Chaturvedy 2017). Highlighting the importance of the MSRI along with the SREB as important diplomatic initiatives, President Xi Jinping described how the initiatives would create deeper economic integration with neighbouring countries: It is an important goal of neighboring diplomacy to focus on maintaining the overall situation of peace and stability in the surrounding areas. We must focus on deepening the mutually beneficial and win-win situation, actively participate in regional economic cooperation, accelerate the interconnection of infrastructure, build the Silk Road Economic Belt, and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road, and build a new pattern of regional economic integration. We must adhere to the new security concept of mutual trust, mutual benefit, equality, and cooperation, and promote safe cooperation with neighboring countries. Efforts should be made to strengthen publicity work, public diplomacy, non-governmental diplomacy, and humanities exchanges with neighboring countries, make friends, broaden the good fortune, and connect the Chinese dream with the people of the surrounding countries to live a better life and connect with the development prospects of the region. The community of destiny has taken root in neighboring countries. (Li 2013) The region of South Asia, with its coastal connectivity to the Indian Ocean, is a key region under the MSRI. South Asia has the potential for fast economic growth, and China seems to have identified the importance of building deeper economic connectivity with the countries in the region. China is involved in building seaports, railway lines, roads, power plants and many

China’s Twenty-First-Century Maritime Silk Road  113 other infrastructure projects under the MSRI in South Asia. But, there is a clear distinction between looking into MSRI and its implementation within the region, where India is not a participant in the projects and has raised concerns on China’s growing influence. Due to India’s border disputes with China, and the future probable competition for global supremacy, India views the MSRI and its impact on South Asia as a geopolitical challenge to its regional interests. In contrast, India’s small neighbours in the region, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and the Maldives, and India’s major rival in the region, Pakistan, view the immense amount of financial and technical assistance under the MSRI as a much-needed boost for rapid economic development, to overcome poverty-stricken economic conditions.

India and South Asia It is of paramount importance to discuss India’s role and its significance for regional hegemony, in analysing the geopolitical aspects of the MSRI in relation to the development of South Asia. India is the largest country in South Asia, in terms of both land area and population. Due to its size and power, it can be identified as having regional hegemony in South Asia. Jayawardane (1992: 286) states that India occupies a predominant position in the region, due to the country’s asymmetrical relationship between itself and its neighbours. India generally constitutes three-fourths of region’s territory, population and GNP. Further, in addition to its apparent predominant size, its centrality within the region is a principal factor in its power projection. As highlighted by Bhasin (2017), the structural approach to power concedes an advantaged position in South Asia to India,which has borders with all of the South Asian states in the region and is a vital physical link within the region. India occupies 72% of the land surface in South Asia; 77% of South Asia’s population lives in India. The Indian economy represents 75% of the region’s economic output. In geopolitical terms, India inherited a powerful position in the region at the time of its independence in 1947. The British colonial rulers who had occupied and governed much of present-day India for more than a century had a profound impact in its culture as well as the creation of its present-day boundaries and its political status. India’s strategic thinking is based on the dissension between itself and its neighbours; further elaborating on the historical impact, Jayawardena mentions that the strategic doctrine developed and implemented by the British colonial power to secure the Indian subcontinent during the British Raj was continued by India after gaining independence (Jayawardane 1992: 286). Given that India is the largest country in the region, it is important to define the views of political leadership at the time of the creation of India in the postWorld War II period. India’s first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru himself, described the geographic parameters of India’s sphere of influence in the region. He said, ‘anything happening in South Asia as well as Southeast

114  Asantha Senevirathna Asia, the Gulf region, West Asia and the Indian Ocean region affects India, and India could not close her eyes to it’ (Chandra 1993: 73). The foregoing statement clearly highlights the fact that Indian political leaders have identified the potential of India in the region as a large, powerful state and expect other states in its vicinity to identify its importance in formulating their foreign policies. Since the MSRI is connected to South Asia via the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), it is important to identify the strategic location of India in the Indian Ocean geographical setting. India is the most populous state among the IOR states and is located in the centre of busy sea routes that connect Asia with the Middle East and Africa. In this context, India has incurred importance within the IOR, due to its strategic location. As Jha (2002) indicates, India’s strategic location within the IOR and the peninsular character with an extensive open coastline make it largely dependent on the region; this is natural that, being the most powerful military state in the IOR, India is concerned about strategic developments in what it considers its backyard. ‘The rise of any hostile power with access to the Indian Ocean would not only disrupt our foreign trade which depends upon freedom of the Indian Ocean but also undermine our global importance and jeopardize our security’ (Jha 2002: 32). India has a long history of aspirations to be the dominant power in the IOR. Due to its significance, it considers itself the leading IOR state and destined to be a natural leader in the region. The great Indian strategist Panikkar’s most famous book, India and the Indian Ocean: An Essay on the Influence of Sea Power on Indian History, ‘deliberately named after the famous work by the nineteenth-century U.S. naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan, remains foundational to Indian strategic thinking about the Indian Ocean’ (Brewster 2018: 58–59). As the regional hegemon in the area where the MSRI of South Asia has been implemented, India’s reaction to the growing Chinese influence through development projects in the region remains the most important geopolitical question.

MSRI and South Asia: Development and Geopolitics With the exception of India, all of the countries with maritime connectivity to the Indian Ocean in the region of South Asia have pledged to support the MSRI. Among the countries involved, Pakistan’s participation has created the most notable geopolitical influence in South Asia. China and Pakistan have developed strategically important security relations with each other, largely due to the common border disputes that have prevailed with India for many years. In the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), Pakistan has become an important link, since it connects the MSRI with the SREB. The flagship project, the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), is the physical link that connects the MSRI with the SREB through Pakistan. The joint

China’s Twenty-First-Century Maritime Silk Road  115 development of infrastructure projects by China and Pakistan has a long history, prior to the implementation of the CPEC. As explained by Garver (2018), in 1964, China started the construction of a highway from Kashgar, in South West China, over the physically rugged Karakoram Mountains range to Pakistan. This was extremely difficult terrain which contained fractured rock structures with steep-walled canyons in the region of the upper Indus River. Yet, with all these difficulties, by 1969, the road was developed into a link passable by trucks. The famous Karakoram highway at that point was a secure link through which China could resupply Pakistan in the event of war with India. According to Kiani (2016) and Siddiqui (2017), the CPEC project was originally valued at 46 billion USD, and now its value has increased to 62 billion USD. As indicated by Markey and West (2016), the CPEC will promote connectivity across the regions of Pakistan’s connecting network of railways, highways and pipelines. Further, it is being accompanied by industrial, energy and many other infrastructure development projects, to cater to critical energy needs to boost Pakistan’s economic growth. In the long term, the CPEC will improve trade and related economic activities along the routes that connect China to the Indian Ocean, creating a link from the Chinese city of Kashgar to the port of Gwadar in Pakistan. As Ali (2016) mentions, the CPEC is a large-scale project of strategic and economic significance for both China and Pakistan. It will pave the way for China to access the resource-rich Middle East and Africa from the port of Gwadar, enabling it to access the Indian Ocean and reciprocally support development projects in Pakistan to overcome energy and economic problems. From Pakistan’s perspective, the CPEC provides both economic development and favourable geopolitical gains to the country. The long-standing rivalry with India, due to border disputes, diminishing US assistance, and the developing strategic relations between the United States and India are major geopolitical concerns for Pakistan. Against this background, Pakistan seeks a much closer strategic relationship with China, which remains a prominent factor. The CPEC will provide Pakistan with the ideal opportunity to face many internal and external geopolitical challenges. Economic gains and closer security ties with China are important for Pakistan to face the challenges of the rapidly growing economic and military power of India. From an Indian perspective, the CPEC provides challenges to its hegemony in the region from several angles. India has brought forward serious concerns about the CPEC on the grounds that it is violating its territorial integrity. The northern part of the CPEC passes via the disputed Kashmir region between India and Pakistan. India considers the region as part of the Indian territory, and thereby forcefully objects to the CPEC. India has never endorsed the BRI and refuses to be part of the initiative. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, highlighting his concerns about the project, said,

116  Asantha Senevirathna ‘Only by respecting the sovereignty of countries involved, can regional connectivity corridors fulfil their promise and avoid differences and discord’ (Shah 2017). The port of Gwadar is the maritime link of the CPEC. This port has furthered India’s concerns about growing Chinese influence in the region, which India identifies as its sphere of influence. The connectivity that the Gwadar port provides China to the Indian Ocean is triggering concerns for Indian strategic community. India is concerned that China’s control of Gwadar port could be transformed into a future permanent Chinese naval establishment in the Indian Ocean, challenging the Indian influence (Ali 2016). India’s current deep-water port development in Chabahar, Iran, in very close proximity to Gwadar, can be seen as a countermeasure to address its geopolitical concerns on the growing Chinese influence in the region. India is investing a great deal of money in Chabahar and creating a rail link from there towards Afghanistan. As of 20 September 2016, The Hindu reported that India had committed millions in money in steel to construct a railway connecting Chabahar and Zahedan, near the Afghan border. After the development of the project, the location of the Chabahar port in the Sistan-Balochistan province of energy-rich Iran will provide India’s western coast with easy access to the Persian Gulf, bypassing Pakistan. Sri Lanka is an island nation strategically located in the Indian Ocean. Due to its location along the world’s busiest sea lanes connecting the Far East with the West, it has become an important part of the MSRI. China has funded and built the first expressway, the first coal-fired power plant and many other important infrastructure projects in the country. After facing 30  years of civil war that ended in 2009, Sri Lanka built important economic and political relations with China, both during and after the war. Chinese economic and military assistance were of high importance to Sri Lanka, due to the economic issues it faced during the civil war. During the tenure of President Mahinda Rajapaksa, from 2005 to 2015, relations between the two countries improved to greater levels. During the time of President Rajapaksa, China came forward to assist two flagship and strategically important projects under the MSRI. The first of these strategically important projects was the Hambantota deep-water sea port, with the international airport nearby in southern Sri Lanka. The second largescale project under the MSRI is the Colombo Port City (CPC) project, right next to the strategically important Colombo port, the largest-ever foreign investment received by Sri Lanka. The CPC has received an investment of 1.9 billion USD and in the second phase, will receive investments worth 13 billion USD (Samaranayaka 2015). Phases I and II of the port of Hambantota have cost 1.5 billion USD to construct (SLPA 2018). However, the CPC was a direct investment by China; both the Hambantota port and adjacent airport were largely built with loans provided by Chinese financial firms. Due to the difficulty of repaying the loans, in 2017, the government of Sri Lanka offered 70% of the shares and management of the Hambantota port to China, with a 99-year lease. This raised concerns in India, which as a

China’s Twenty-First-Century Maritime Silk Road  117 counterbalance is negotiating a deal to buy the management of the nearby Hambantota airport (Stacey 2017). As mentioned by Jayawardena (2018: 286–304), India has played a dominant role since its independence by not allowing extra-regional actors to influence the region. Even the United States was reluctant to get involved and prevent the Indian intervention in Sri Lanka’s internal affairs in the 1980s. However, China, with its massive economic capabilities, is influencing Sri Lankan politics, which has created serious geopolitical concerns for India. To counter the Chinese influence, India is involved with its own projects, along with countries such as Japan. In this context, Sri Lanka must manage its strategic geographic location and arising geopolitics in a smarter manner, to avoid the unwanted attention of powerful countries and to develop as a country. As highlighted by Sui (2018: 91), China–Maldives political and economic relations have improved, reaching greater levels with the opening of the Chinese embassy in Male in 2011 and when Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Male in September 2014 (the first Chinese president to visit the island nation). The two countries signed an agreement on the development projects related to the MSRI. The two countries have identified cooperation in the fields of maritime security, maritime economy, environment protection, ocean research, and disaster prevention. As part of the MSRI, the largest development initiative the Maldives receives is an 800 million USD project to expand its main airport, by a Chinese company. As stated by the Maldives’ president, Abdulla Yameen, the airport expansion project will be the economic backbone of the nation and the future gateway of the country’s development. As Kondapalli (2018: 49) indicates, in 2014, President Xi came to the Maldives with a 100-member business delegation, signalling the economic importance of the Maldives to China. During Xi’s visit, China and the Maldives embraced the idea of the MSRI and the importance of connectivity between the two countries, indicating the developing strategic nature of relations. The Xi-Yameen talks in September 2014 resulted in the implementation of projects by Chinese companies within the framework of the MSRI in the sectors of housing development, road development and bridge construction. As of 21 February 2018, the Maldives Times reports that the President Yameen government’s deepening economic relations with China has created worries in the strategic community in New Delhi. Particularly, the massive development project to upgrade the Maldives airport has generated speculation in New Delhi about the future Chinese presence in the island nation. Further, the report mentions that while President Yameen prefers closer ties with China, ousted opposition leader and former president Mohamed Nasheed is backed by India. This connection by the main political parties of the Maldives to China and India has contributed to political turmoil in the country. This is an indication that the Chinese development initiative under the MSRI in the Maldives has created a struggle for influence among the Asian giants.

118  Asantha Senevirathna Like the rest of the countries in South Asia, Bangladesh has been a major participant in the MSRI. During the decade that ended in 2017, China launched many projects in Bangladesh, worth more than 3 billion USD. The amount of Chinese spending on development projects in Bangladesh will drastically increase in years to come (Bhandari and Jindal 2017). Bangladesh is an important link in the MSRI, since it critically connects South Asia with South East Asia. As identified by (Sui 2018: 93) China and India cooperation in upgrading the status of the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor (BCIM), from a subregional economic cooperation forum to the first track of quadrilateral business talks, has benefited the future of the MSRI. The BCIM is opening a platform to the MSRI to invest large amounts of money for successful implementation of the project. Recently, foreign direct investment (FDI) from China has played a significant role in the development of infrastructure in Bangladesh. The most important development project under the MSRI in Bangladesh, the Chittagong harbor project, is a 14 billion USD investment that has gained prominence. The underground tunnel via the River Kanapuli, with an investment of 800 million USD, the coal power plant in Patuakhali and the Padma Bridge are large-scale developments under the MSRI in Bangladesh. As mentioned by Cookson and Joehnk (2018), there is a geopolitical tug of war between China and India for the large-scale infrastructure projects in Bangladesh. For ethnic and religious reasons, Bangladesh is an important country for India’s own security. But, the larger economic capacity that China has over India is an advantage for China in spreading its influence in Bangladesh.

The ‘String of Pearls strategy’: The Indian Worry The concept of the String of Pearls entered the picture of IOR politics in 2005, with a report published by the United States Department of Defense. The concept was used to describe the network of Chinese port development facilities and relationships across its sea lines of communications (SLOCs), from the Chinese mainland to Port Sudan. The sea lanes run via several strategically important maritime chokepoints, such as the Strait of Malacca, the Strait of Mandeb, the Lombok Strait, the Strait of Hormuz and other strategically important maritime centres in Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, the Maldives and Pakistan (The Washington Times 2005). The concept is largely taken into consideration in the policymaking and academic circles of the United States and India. As highlighted by Pehrson (2006), the emergence of the String of Pearls concept showcases China’s growing geopolitical influence via concerted efforts to improve access to ports and airfields in the Indo-Pacific region, expanding and modernising its military forces, and fostering strategic relationships with trading

China’s Twenty-First-Century Maritime Silk Road  119 partners, and these large-scale developments raise the question of whether China’s activities are commercial or a strategy for future hegemony in the region. Against this background, the Indian policymaking circle fears that Chinese port development projects under the MSRI in its backyard in South Asia could be a future geopolitical threat. India Today reports that the String of Pearls is about how China is supposedly encircling India on the high seas (India Today 2016). The Chinese strategy is not just confined to the sea, but also occurs on the land and in the air and is strategically involved in the economies of the South Asian countries. These developments in the Indian backyard must be taken into consideration by India’s strategic planners. As mentioned in the foregoing sections, India considers South Asia and the IOR to be part of its sphere of influence and is responsive to the growing influence of external powers in those areas. As Bajaj (2010) indicates, the growing Chinese influence in the region of South Asia irks the Indian government, which worries that China is widening its sphere of influence in the region. The String of Pearls strategy will eventually undermine India’s future potential rise and be a threat in the economic and security sphere. There are many competing narratives about China’s port development projects in the IRO, which alternatively explain their geostrategic and economic significance. As Brewster (2018: 61–62) explains, some security experts claim that China is implementing the String of Pearls tactic influenced by a Mahanian strategy of constructing a chain of naval bases across the northern Indian Ocean region that will be utilized by the Chinese navy in future to protect China’s trade routes and potentially dominate the IOR. China offers its own ‘de-securitised’ story of economic development, as a component of the MSRI. Further, these bases in the region could be used by the Peoples Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) to secure its SLOCs across the IOR from traditional or non-traditional security threats and to control maritime trade by other actors. This argument assumes that China is constructing a maritime pathway along the IOR, with the intention of ultimately becoming the dominant naval power in a strategically important region, in a manner comparable to the United States and Britain before it. The Chinese do not support the argument forwarded by the larger community of US and Indian strategic thinkers and presents a very different narrative from the String of Pearls debate. As (Brewster 2018: 65) suggests, Beijing argues that its infrastructure developments along its maritime trade routes are part of a ‘peaceful rise’. Chinese companies are constructing ports in the IOR for the mutual economic benefit of all countries involved. The Chinese government is reframing and de-securitising the debate about its maritime developments in the IOR through bundling its present interests and futuristic plans into the MSRI, which is the maritime version of the BRI.

120  Asantha Senevirathna As Khurana (2015) indicates, China’s probable bases, as forecast by the String of Pearls, are a relatively lesser threat to India compared to PLAN developments with regard to its mobile landing platform (MLP), with the development and advancement of many naval and commercial ships. The Chinese have an ambitious plan of developing a large number of ships with more advanced offensive and capabilities, which will be largely operative in the IOR. Further: The concept of ‘military base’ necessary for executing a full-fledged armed conflict may be a thing of the past. Politico-military manoeuvres in short-of-war situations are more contemporary. Therefore, in the foreseeable future, a maritime-military strategy that combines ‘peacetime replenishment’ with ‘sea-basing’ may be more than adequate for Beijing to meet its national-strategic objectives in the IOR. (Khurana 2015) This viewpoint clearly portrays Chinese influence in the IOR from a different angle and denounces the argument that is advanced by the String of Pearls concept as the greatest extra-regional threat to India’s hegemony in the IOR in the twenty-first century. India as a regional power is now witnessing the growing Chinese influences in South Asia and has become suspicious of China’s MSRI. The geopolitical concept of the String of Pearls remains the most challenging geopolitical worry for India. As Sokinda (2015) indicates, India will probably adopt a different range of countermeasures, which include enhancing its own military capability for control of the sea in the IOR and building strategic alliances with other willing partners to cooperate on a contingency plan. Internal stability and continued economic development are important to remain a regional power and prepare to face Chinese influence. Additionally, India must actively engage in developing its ‘Look East1’ policy to develop strategic relations with key stakeholders in the broader Indo-Pacific region. India’s growing strategic relations with the United States will be an extremely important element in the countermeasures.

Conclusion The MSRI, along with the SREB, commonly known as the BRI, has become the largest connectivity-related infrastructure development project initiated by the Chinese government in the twenty-first century. Newly created financial institutions such as the SRF, the AIIB and other Chinese companies are funding more than 4 trillion USD in new railways, roads, ports and other infrastructure development initiatives. Since its announcement in 2013, the MSRI has generated large-scale maritime infrastructure and

China’s Twenty-First-Century Maritime Silk Road  121 related development projects within the region of South Asia. Pakistan, the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh have become important participants in the MSRI in South Asia. As Jayawardena (2018) argues, India has occupied a paramount position within South Asia since the day it became a state. In this context, it is important to understand China’s growing influence from a geopolitical perspective. Since 1947, India has been able to keep a tight grip over its smaller neighbours in South Asia. After gaining independence, the Indian strategic community has continuously recast India as a regional hegemon, influencing the internal politics of other small states to maintain its dominance. The CPEC between China and Pakistan is an important link in the BRI initiative, since it links the MSRI and SREB. The 62 billion USD worth of investment will transform Pakistan’s economy and provide incentives to improve its power status to face internal and external security challenges. From an Indian perspective, the CPEC is a challenge from several angles. India has raised serious concerns about the CPEC, on the grounds that it violates its territorial integrity since it goes through the disputed border regions in Kashmir. Further, the growing strategic relations between China and Pakistan due to the CPEC is a geopolitical challenge to India, since it has border disputes with both countries. India’s current deep-water port development in Chabahar, Iran, is in very close proximity to Gwadar and can be seen as a countermeasure to address its geopolitical concerns. Sri Lanka and the Maldives, as strategically important island nations in South Asia, have received their largest development initiatives ever, from the MSRI. It is evident that the internal politics of the Maldives is now linked to the competition between India and China for influence. In Sri Lanka, the MSRI dominates large-scale infrastructure projects, but India has shown interest in investing in strategic development projects as a countermeasure in recent times. Bangladesh has benefited largely from the MSRI by receiving large-scale projects, while India is also improving its development ties with Bangladesh. The String of Pearls has become the most considerable worry for the Indian strategic community, though the Chinese government largely denies the concept. The growing Chinese influence in South Asia due to the MSRI has further contributed to future Indian geopolitical concerns, and India seems to be reacting to the developments. India’s development of strategic security relations with the United States and Japan and its policy of ‘Look East’ and ‘Act East’ are contingency plans.

Note 1 India’s Look East policy was initiated in 1991, during the government of Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao (1991–1996), to maintain Indian regional power and to counter China by developing strategic relations with South East Asian countries. At present, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has advanced the policy as the ‘Act East Policy’.

122  Asantha Senevirathna

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8 The Belt and Road Initiative The changing dynamics of development in South Asia Atia Ali Kazmi

The twenty-first century beckons to us to share a common destiny through economic cooperation. The six economic corridors of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) are poised to follow this principle and connect China’s mainland and its ‘underdeveloped hinterland’ with neighbouring regions in Asia, Europe and Africa in five key areas of cooperation. These are policy coordination, financial integration, free trade, facilities connectivity and people-to-people contacts. the BRI’s flagship project, the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), and the proposed Bangladesh–China–India– Myanmar Economic Corridor (BCIM) are designed to introduce a new era of development and inclusive growth in South Asia and the Indian Ocean region, provided all the stakeholders eschew opposition and resolve their bilateral differences for the collective good (Pakistan Observer 2017). The BRI is the largest development plan in recent history. Linkages through the BRI have the potential to ensure the smooth flow of goods and ideas, best practices, positive externalities and viable policies. Every so often, the initiative is gauged for its geopolitical implications, especially in the context of perception that China’s foreign policy is more active and assertive at the same time. One-fourth of humanity resides in South Asia – a region that still awaits mature political considerations, peaceful coexistence and earnest economic cooperation. The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was established in December 1985, more than two decades ago. The forum covers 21% of the global population, 4% of the world’s economy, and 3% of the world’s land mass. However, the SAARC resembles an unlevelled field and something moth-eaten by the competing interests of its members. The potential of this region can only be tapped through a will to collaborate for the common good. Pakistan and China enjoy an all-weather friendship. Relations with India, however, remain vulnerable to the evolving dynamics of geopolitics. President Xi Jinping offered to open a ‘new chapter’ in Sino-Indian relations during his April 2018 meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Wuhan. The historical decision of Pak-Indian troops to take part in a joint exercise in Ural Mountains of Russia to enhance counterterrorism cooperation under the aegis of Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), and DOI: 10.4324/9780367855413-10

126  Atia Ali Kazmi the inclusion of Pakistan and India as permanent members of the China– Russia managed SCO, are by far groundbreaking decisions. They are set to remove the dust of mistrust and herald mature considerations in the multilateral and bilateral relations in a region which can be termed the world’s powerhouse.

The peaceful rise of China China’s ‘peaceful rise’ through the long journey of the previous four decades into the new century is no longer a mystery for the world of international relations. This new era of Chinese pragmatism, founded on Deng Xiaoping’s principle of ‘Four Modernisations,’ envisioned revitalising and opening up China’s economy by consolidating four main sectors: national defence, agriculture, industry and technology (Bendini 2016). China’s steady growth through strengthening its military and economic muscles is regarded as a historical development by many Western observers. Its well-designed and meticulously managed economic reforms and subsequent diplomatic prowess have changed the geopolitical canvas of Asia, while enhancing China’s stature and its ability to participate copiously in the established blocks of global power. The new market structure, with the policy of opening up for international trade, bilateral and multilateral cooperation, and a strong network of inward and outward foreign direct investment (FDI) through greater access to foreign markets, has increased China’s global influence and enabled it to import technology, resources and consumer goods (Sutter 2013). This transition has not only supported China’s economy but also helped the state to finance and support its military, political and other power structures, service sector and new types of industries but at the same time offers opportunities for foreign enterprises, which have already increased investment in mainland China or China-led offshore initiatives. High-tech enterprises also find the Chinese market huge and open enough to distribute their technology sufficiently (Ding 2015). The Hu Jintao administration continued to follow Deng Xiaoping’s ‘bide and abide’ maxim and kept a low-key approach to China’s international relations. In the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, however, an ‘assertive debate’ continued on how aggressively China’s power should be projected to defend its ‘core interests’, and the Chinese leadership shifted decisively to quash the debate through a key speech by State Councillor Dai Bingguo in December 2010, titled ‘Adhere to the Path of Peaceful Development’(Dai 2010). The white paper on China’s peaceful development released in September 2011 further endorsed this assertion (State Council 2011). President Xi’s administration took hold of the country’s foreign policy only to boost it up towards a dynamic design through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). According to Foreign Minister Wang Yi after the first year in the office, the leadership’s diplomatic approach remained ‘active’ with

The Belt and Road Initiative  127 two ‘outward-facing concepts’ based on the ancient Silk Road under the multimodal plan of the BRI – the Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) and the twenty-first-century Maritime Silk Road (MSR). President Xi formally announced this ‘new round of opening to the world’ during his tour of Kazakhstan, Belarus and Russia in September 2013. Premier Li Keqiang emphasised the importance of the BRI for creating ‘strategic propellers’ for development in the official Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt, issued by China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) in 2015. The ‘China Dream’ of President Xi focuses on ‘the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation’ based on an ‘inherent requirement of the ‘two centenary goals’ of the SREB and MSR, along with an inclusive strategy to maintain stable relations with the United States and key diplomatic partners (Yang 2013). His ‘bold vision’ hinges on four fundamental pillars: revitalizing the Party, cleansing it of corruption, restoring its sense of mission, and re-establishing its authority in the eyes of the Chinese people; reviving Chinese nationalism and patriotism to instil pride being Chinese; engineering a third economic revolution… [through] structural reforms to sustain China’s historically unsustainable rates of growth; and reorganizing and rebuilding China’s military. (Allison 2017) The BRI remains by far Xi’s foremost priority. Apart from the populists’ mantra of an ‘economic disharmony’ in China under the so-called authoritarian governance under President Xi (Trigkas 2016), China alone accounts for 3% of contribution to the world’s economy, with a 7% growth rate. The ‘new normal’ economy is its shift from the previous ‘high speed to a medium-to-high speed growth’ and a constant upgrade to China’s economic structure, driven by innovation instead of investment and input. Since the start of 2015, more than 11,000 new enterprises have been established in China on average every day. Besides the outward BRI, China targets igniting a market worth trillions of yuan through the coordinated development of Beijing–Tianjin municipalities and the economic belt along the Yangtze River. The economic integration through the BRI thus appears destined to usher in a new era promising win-wins across the entire landscape of Asia.

The promises of the BRI The Silk Road concept is a grand ‘action plan’ with the potential to involve an area that covers 55% of the world’s GNP, 70% of the population and 75% of identified energy reserves (Zhang et al. 2018). Nearly 350 billion USD is to be spent on BRI projects by China by 2022 (ibid). There are currently more than 1700 projects either in development or already completed. BRI is based on six strategic priorities of China:

128  Atia Ali Kazmi support China’s ‘Go Global’ policy;1 increase exports to BRI countries; promote industrial restructuring; strengthen China’s geopolitical role; strengthen the renminbi’s global role; and reduce industrial oversupply’. (Baker McKenzie 2017) Within the short span of five years, the BRI has evolved as a reality. As of December 2017, China had signed more than 100 cooperation agreements with 86 countries and international organisations, as per a local report on ‘five years on, the Belt and Road Initiative’s contribution to Asian integration’ (CGTN 2018). According to official statistics, non-financial direct investment of Chinese enterprises in 54 participating countries of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2020 was RMB 82.79 billion (11.8 billion USD), up 35.2% from last year (Ministry of Commerce 2020). Around 2,936 new project contracts were signed, worth 11.81 USD, with 61 Belt and Road states, a 3.6% decrease from 2019 that accounted for 55% of foreign contracts’ total value (ibid.). In 2017, in terms of revenue, seven of the ten largest construction companies in the world were Chinese (Engineering News-Record 2017). Several BRI projects are making steady progress. In South Asia, the CPEC is a major infrastructure project that envisions strengthening regional connectivity and bringing down China’s shipment costs through its western flanks. It has provided around 60,000 jobs in Pakistan and is expected to create more than 800,000 by 2030 (Dada 2018). The Sri Lankan port Hambantota is being run by a Chinese firm. Moreover, construction plans include the Belgrade–Stara Pazova section of the Hungary–Serbia railway and the Khalifa Port in the United Arab Emirates, while the Mombasa–Nairobi railway in Kenya has been put into operation (CGTN 2018). Under the BRI, construction of the China–Thailand high-speed railway was inaugurated in December 2017 and China–Laos and Jakarta–Bandung railway projects have commenced. China and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) are exploring combining the BRI with the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity (MPAC) 2025 (ASEAN 2016). Since 2011, about 7,000 cargo trains have travelled on 61 railway lines linking 36 European cities with 38 Chinese cities, including Xian and Yiwu (Xinhua 2018b). The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) supported nearly 24 projects in 12 countries with more than 4.2 billion USD in loans (Xinhua 2018a). Two Chinese companies, COSCO Pacific and China Merchants, have 65% stakes in Kumport, Turkey’s third-largest container terminal (Zhen 2015). From Kumport, located strategically on Istanbul’s Europe side and called the doorway to the Black Sea region, the construction of some dozen inland rail lines under BRI finance schemes is underway (Keith 2015). Other developments included negotiations with around two dozen countries to construct 5,000 km of high-speed rail network worth 160 billion USD (Djankov et al. 2016). Global awareness of the BRI tripled between 2014 and 2017 (Guo 2018). Through the inclusion of the Trans-Pacific Maritime and Polar Silk Roads

The Belt and Road Initiative  129 that cover Latin America and the Arctic, the BRI is a global project that now covers all regions excluding Canada, Japan and the United States. On President Xi’s invitation to join, President Trump did not accept, Japan expressed interest, and Canada joined the China-managed multinational AIIB (Shi 2018). Several countries have shown interest in connecting their national development plans with the BRI. Russia, for instance, agreed to align with it the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EEU). President Xi’s vision of the ‘great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation’ positions ‘two centenary goals’ of the SREB and MSR as key yardsticks for the nation, i.e. transforming China into a ‘socialist modernised country … rich, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, and harmonious’ and doubling the country’s GDP per capita for urban and rural people by 2020 (Johnson 2016). An integral part of China’s thirteenth Five-Year Plan of October 2015, the BRI is an ambitious investment and trade project that covers a quarter of all the goods and services moved globally (Ngai and Sneader 2016). It was jointly designed by three vital organisations in China – the National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Commerce. According to the official document on the ‘Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road’, the soft infrastructure development under the BRI entails institutions, agreements and accords on facilitation in the exchange of people, air travel and logistics, bilateral investment treaties, policy coordination, and well-placed structures to allow the smooth movement of goods, capital and labour (Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation 2017). Hard infrastructure will evolve as a grand land- and sea-based multimodal network of linked passageways, road sections and junctions, railways, fibre optic and information technology (IT) networks, and sea lanes connecting China with the member countries, with a key focus on yielding the maximum advantage from international routes of transport, relying on main cities along the Belt, and using important economic industrial parks as ‘cooperation platforms’ (ibid.). The gradual establishment of green and low-carbon infrastructural facilities, land and water transportation and technical standard systems is included. Advanced port cooperation, more sea routes and voyages, significant information technology-based cooperation in maritime logistics and comprehensive civil aviation infrastructure and cooperation are also in the cards. Trade and investment will be enhanced through a sound business environment, trade liberalisation, custom cooperation, accreditation and certification, joint inspection, standard measurement, statistical information, removal/lowering of barriers and effective implementation of the World Trade Organisation’s Trade Facilitation Agreement. A ‘single window’ operation has been sought on border posts to reduce the cost of custom clearance, improve the system’s proficiency and the transparency of measures for technical trade, and recognise Authorised Economic Operators. Financial arrangements, assessment, allocation and risk management happen to be the lifeline of any project. For more than a decade, the China

130  Atia Ali Kazmi Development Bank (CDB) has been financing many projects in developing countries, where Chinese investors are greeted with the hope of bringing in the experiences of China’s grand model of growth. This facet has also been considered in BRI planning. The main channels for bearing the financial aspects of the BRI are four main state-owned banks, namely the Bank of China, China Construction Bank, Agriculture Bank of China and Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, which have evolved from government institutions into semi-commercial entities. The Silk Road Fund (SRF) has worked under the aegis of the government since its formation on 29 December 2014 (Djankov et al. 2016) and invests in equities. Besides other key investments, the SRF bought a 10% stake in Russia’s second largest gas producer, Novatek’s, Yamal liquified natural gas project in September 2015 (China Daily 2015) and invested in Russian nanotechnology holding, RUSNANO and the development of real state in Sri Lanka, including financing a building of hotels, offices and apartments near the Colombo harbour (Chowdhury 2015). Furthermore, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank is expected to finance 20 to 25 billion USD annually. There is also an expectation of financial support to governments and financial institutions by the New Development Bank and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (NDRC 2015). All these steps will increase China’s financial leverage as a creditor, while promoting the internationalisation of its currency in project financing and cross-border trade (Haenle 2018). The BRI will bring world’s premier financial giants, construction companies and advisory firms together. The increasing cooperation between regions is evident from instances such as the AIIB membership of the United Kingdom. The BRI is expected to serve four main goals for China. First, as the Chinese government desires to reduce its economy’s reliance on domestic infrastructure investment and associated growth, businesses such as construction and equipment companies have to search for external markets and are expected to ‘plan, construct, and supply’ China-funded BRI projects. This is evident in the projects, as revealed in a 2013–2015 study about loans by the Exim Bank of China and the China Development Bank, that 7% of overseas credit was given on the prerequisite of purchasing Chinese equipment and involving Chinese labour for the project (Kynge 2015). Second, the initiative will help the Chinese currency achieve a better position as an international reserve currency. The renminbi (RMB) was already added by the International Monetary Fund to the Special Drawing Rights basket with the US dollar, euro, yen and British pound on October 1, 2016 – a move that integrated the Chinese economy into the global financial system and recognised its enduring reform process and China’s expanding role in global trading (IMF News 2016). At the same time, China established the AIIB, joined the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and used the RMB to fund and provide loans for ventures. The third objective is to secure China’s energy supplies through new pipelines in deep-water ports in Russia, Central Asia and Southeast Asia. China is the world’s largest consumer of energy and importer

The Belt and Road Initiative  131 of oil. Along with its growing economy, China’s energy demand has risen more than 500% since 1980 (Levine et al. 1992), and the BRI will address the upcoming challenges of the energy sector. The fourth impetus is infrastructure development, also likely to enhance demand for Chinese products and services (Djankov et al. 2016). China’s enormous surplus industrial capacity in cement, steel and other industrial inputs will be utilised. Most of the countries along the BRI are low-income or emerging markets, and China stimulus through the implementation of the BRI seems inevitable.

BRI and the trajectory of development in South Asia The logical impact of the BRI will be dynamic patterns of linkages across South Asia through trade corridors and mechanisms, having an involuntary outcome of cultural and social affinity and political considerations. South Asia needs to focus on building specific sectors – such as information technology, the production of specific commodities, tourism, the transport network, primary and secondary roads, other infrastructure including industrial and logistics parks, urban nodes, clusters and energy projects – and a vast human capital. The region is home to 22% of the world’s population but has only 1.3% of global income. Nearly 6 % of its population is poor and the countries lie extremely low on human development index (The Tribune 2017). With its integral component of corridor diplomacy, the BRI could bring a fresh wave of development to this region by supporting existing growth and linking the economic development of cities with rural areas. Two of the BRI’s six corridors, the CPEC and BCIM, will be in South Asia. The concept of corridors is not unique to the twenty-first century; rather, it is as old as human civilisation. The BRI is uniquely designed to be the first of its kind in the modern age, due to its span and scope, and can be correlated to the history of effective economic activity and enhanced people-to-people contact attributed to linkages made possible due to corridors signifying shared interests and all-out prosperity. Not having a static purpose, corridors have been used for physical connectivity, investment and infrastructure. They favour integrated trade, travel, tourism and transport, supporting the maxim that ‘there would be no transportation without geography and there would be no geography without transportation’ (Rodrigue et al. 2006). Their economic, geographic and demographic intersections have connected markets and helped them to flourish, promoted private sector investments, and augmented business opportunities and political linkages. Pelt consider corridors: streams of product services, and information moving within and through communities in geographic patterns according to a matrix or ‘culture’ of trade agreements and treaties, statutes, delegated legislation, and custom that govern and guide trading relationships, institutions, and structures. (Pelt 2003)

132  Atia Ali Kazmi At least three characteristics distinguish them from simple groupings of cities ‘connected by roads – their production function, which makes basic goods and services available; their transformation function, which adds value to the basic goods and services; and their provision of access to national and international markets’ (Pelt 2003). The step-by-step completion of projects along a corridor leads to expanded supply chains and productivity, thus adding value to all sectors of the economy. China’s BRI includes these milestones of corridor connectivity. The participating countries could witness a marked improvement in their national yields and service quality. They could become part of a broader international nexus of value addition and sustained development. Developing Asia requires nearly 26 trillion USD of investment between 2017 and 2030 in infrastructure development to maintain current growth rates (Asian Development Bank 2017). China trades significantly with Asian countries and is the largest trading partner of 16 of them. By November 2017, trade between China and 25 Asian countries had reached 1.17 trillion USD. The collective population of China and South Asia exceeds three billion, a human resource that can promise immense opportunities for cooperation. China increased its imports from South Asia by 30.7% in 2017, and trade volume grew from 91.3 billion USD in 2013 to 126.8 billion USD in 2017. In his keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the 5th China-South Asia Expo in Kunming, Vice Premier Hu Chunhua expressed interest in boosting political trust, enhancing ‘practical’ cooperation under multilateral frameworks, facilitating trade, investment, and other prospects with South Asian countries and addressing their concerns over the trade balance (An 2018). China encourages its domestic enterprises to expand investment, build industrial parks and run collaborative projects in South Asia, Hu said. Vice-Minister of Commerce Gao Yan articulated China’s desire to ‘integrate its advanced industries with the developmental needs of South Asian countries to enhance cooperation’ (An 2018). China sits as an observer state in the SAARC. A number of other regional initiatives are bringing China and South Asia on board, such as the Organisation for South Asian Regional Friendship and Cooperation with China (OSARFCC). The China- and Russia-led SCO has involved Pakistan and India as permanent members. Similarly, forums such as the South Asia– China SMEs (small and medium enterprises) seminar give voice to business delegates from South Asian countries. Besides Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs), private-owned firms (POEs) are also increasingly getting involved in the BRI and winning deals in external markets. For instant, Tencent, a Shenzhen-based internet firm, is buying start-ups in India. OPPO, a Dongguan-based smartphone manufacturer, is investing in Bangladeshi retail outlets, while a factory in Gazipur is also under construction. The future strategy of Chinese firms to set up manufacturing facilities under the BRI will benefit these sectors in South Asia. The contemporary set-up of trade linkages and corridors exists mainly in isolation in South Asia, and projects envisaging corridors for economic

The Belt and Road Initiative  133 integration cannot be sustained in the absence of the interest and political will of governments. In fact, a complete gamut of actors is involved for the successful planning, implementation and management of such plans for reaping dividends. They include government, security and military organisations and agencies, multinational and national enterprises, private firms, non-governmental organisations, start-ups, entrepreneurs and many others. Pakistan and India are the two most important stakeholders of China’s BRI in South Asia, by virtue of their strategic locations and economic and political acumen. Pakistan is uniquely placed as the meeting point of South, North and landlocked Central Asia and is the jugular vein for inter-regional cooperation. The CPEC has brought China and Pakistan even closer and is a strong embodiment of their all-weather friendship spanning more than seven decades. The CPEC is a harbinger of peace and harmony, and its establishment registers a new epic of cooperation. The Gwadar Port in Pakistan will complement multilateral eastward-westward-northward trade through a shortened, easy and less-expensive maritime route. This is why many countries, including Iran, Russia and the EU, have shown interest in CPEC’s expansion. Pakistan has also invited companies worldwide to participate in Gwadar’s development and seeks to transform it into one of the world’s largest port cities by 2055, having trade and industrial zones, steel mills, oil refineries, LNG terminals, tourist resorts, etc. The Iranian envoy called Gwadar ‘one of the greatest projects in the history of the region’ (Dawn 2016). Chinese exports to Pakistan increased 77% between 2012 and 2015 (Sender and Stacey 2017). Reuters (2018) reported 5.4 % growth in Pakistan’s economy, the fastest pace in the last ten years. The network of the main trade corridors in Pakistan has all the ingredients to complement the CPEC and transform trade linkages in the region by becoming a market hub and an opening through the Arabian Sea into the deep waters of the Indian Ocean. The Northern Trade Corridor (NTC) is 1,889 km long and links Karachi with Kabul and onwards; the Southern Trade Corridor (STC) links Karachi via Gwadar with Kabul and beyond; the Central Trade Corridor (CTC) links the Karachi port with Kabul and Kandahar (Khan 2013). These corridors could eventually prove to be vital linkages with the Central Asian states and beyond. More important, these developments will bring prosperity to war-torn Afghanistan and ease the processes of rebuilding and rehabilitation. India is another significant actor in ensuring cooperation and peace in South Asia, whose geographical setting, strategic weight and will to resolve longstanding issues with regional countries could play a game-changing role. China has offered India a major chunk in the BRI through the BCIM corridor rooted in the 1999 Kunming Initiative2. The BCIM will be the first expressway between India and China through Bangladesh and Myanmar (Dasgupta 2013) but awaits the clear intent of the Indian government. Despite the creation of an Inter-Governmental Cooperation Mechanism more than three years ago, their ‘tug of war over the corridor is preventing any progress’ apparently due to ‘different domestic circumstances and

134  Atia Ali Kazmi developmental aspirations in [their] respective countries’, though Bangladesh and Myanmar have voiced their consent to start the construction of the connectivity infrastructure (Lyer 2017). Mainstreaming its domestic infrastructure development with the BRI should not be impossible for India, which is pursuing a massive inland corridor development. For instance, the Delhi–Mumbai Industrial Corridor is a 1,483-km infrastructure and urban development corridor plan worth 90 billion USD. It was initiated by India and Japan in 2006 to support the Japanese companies doing business in India. Recently, the Indian government has envisioned 44 highways stretching over 27,000 km to be developed as economic corridors. The two ongoing mega expansion plans since 1999, totalling 13,000 km, are the North South East West Corridor (NS–EW) and the Golden Quadrilateral (Dash 2016). The NS–EW is the second phase of National Highways Development Project (NHDP), which is said to be the fifth longest in the world. At a cost of some 12.37 billion USD (1999 value), the 4,000-km North–South Corridor connects Srinagar with Kanyakumari, and the 3,300-km East–West Corridor links Silchar with Porbandar. With almost 90% of work completed, the project spans more than 70 Indian cities and seeks to connect the country’s major commerce, manufacturing and cultural centres. Similarly, ‘Bharat Mala+’ is an overarching highway project in India to link logistic hubs, ports and border areas and enhance exports, cargo movement and the country’s overall growth (Dash 2016). According to the National Highways Development Project, the 5,846-km Golden Quadrilateral highway network was completed in 2012 (Indian Express 2012). It connects the four main hubs of Chennai, Kolkata, Delhi and Mumbai with other metropolitan areas, such as Ahmedabad, Pune and Nellore. A similar project named the Diamond Quadrilateral will complement the economic corridors through the establishment of a high-speed rail network. By aligning its domestic corridor plan with BRI member states and the highway systems along its borders, India can essentially provide the missing link in the chain of development of South Asia.

Geopolitics of the BRI The geo-economics perspective of the BRI is uniquely interwoven with its geopolitical imperatives. It is destined to recreate those shipping and land routes which made China a great power centuries ago. Being the pivot of President Xi administration’s key benchmarks, a failure to implement the BRI is simply not a choice for China. On the other hand, with its numerous benefits, an outsider would only reap disappointment in the long run. The idea of regional states gelling together into a useful and sustainable alliance is too pragmatic to be ignored. Bridging the existing divides in South Asia through the introduction of economic corridors without unwinding the old, tightly knit folds of skirmishes will be a herculean task.

The Belt and Road Initiative  135 The economic initiative is expected to be completed by 2049 – the year that will mark the one-hundredth anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned in a 2015 press conference that the BRI should not in any case be termed a ‘tool of geopolitics’ and an offshoot of an ‘outdated Cold War mentality’ (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2014). Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui termed China a satisfied power, and BRI is ‘not geostrategic tool (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2015, 21 March). The initiative upholds China’s five principles of peaceful coexistence and is in line with the codes of the UN Charter. The Chinese government deems the economies along the Belt and Road ‘mutually complementary’ and enjoying their respective resource advantage. The BRI will be mainstreamed within the partner countries’ development strategies to complement a ‘new cooperation consensus’ (NDRC 2015). A possible flipside cannot be disregarded. One school of thought sees the tendencies of an intrinsic competition and power maximisation against the soft, inclusive and constructive nature of this initiative. On this view, China’s competition with other powers appears inevitable, to some extent severe, once the BRI acquires a substantial hold in its target regions. Easier said than done, the matters of interstate security dilemmas, alliances, trade frictions, poor governance, and institutional structures are longterm and tedious tasks to be sorted out and may ultimately become any initiative’s Achilles heel. Cultural, ideological, traditional and trade barriers along the routes of the BRI, capacity gaps in participating countries and existing intra-state disputes are likely challenges to the development plan (Zhang 2015). Therefore, all major players in South Asia need to synergise their efforts and abandon the long-prevailing beggar-thy-neighbour approach.

Exploring the win-win around the BRI Corridors serve the logic of the magic mantras for contemporary world relations – interdependence and interconnectivity. It is pertinent to contextualise the individual and local issues according to global needs and connect the centres of production, distribution and consumption in a win-win tangle. Therefore, corridors in the twenty-first century connect the existing dots on the map of collective development and make world leaders think of win-winism instead of war. A golden opportunity for glocalisation3 has dawned on South Asia through the economic corridors of the BRI. In this context, experts should focus mainly on three key aspects: expanding the existing structure of corridors for greater linkages; strategies to fill in the policy and structural gaps; and combined efforts for developing more cutting-edge corridors across the region. Economic development based on dynamic political synergies is the best deterrence against any form of aggression in the modern world. It has diversified our options in a number of ways, all centred on successes and harmony.

136  Atia Ali Kazmi The future of trade in Asia depends much on how China’s BRI shapes up and its infrastructure and trade routes projects unwind and develop, besides reducing investment risks. Co-working with foreign companies in maintenance, training, accounting, and legal arrangements will be useful for Chinese companies. In the wake of the prevailing concerns about the majority of BRI financing going to Chinese enterprises and contractors, Foreign Minister Wang Yi elucidated at the BRI Forum in Paris that it was a ‘sunshine initiative,’ there will be ‘no backroom deals,’ it will ‘respect international rules’ and ‘will run according to market rules’ (Cainey 2018). The remarks are in sync with President Xi’s 2015 claim of helping countries align their development strategies and formulate complementary plans ‘with no intention of replacing existing mechanisms and initiatives for regional cooperation’(CGTN 2018). The valuable dividends to be reaped from the BRI cannot be de-hyphenated with a package full of financial risks. To achieve a competitive edge, trade plans require continuous overhauling. In the wake of the swift economic reorganisation in Asia and the transformation of value and trade chains, the trade patterns in China might require reorganisation. Mechanisms to avoid debt burdens, trade deficits and behind-schedule projects would also be required. Transparency in the complete spectrum of financial allocations is important, along with the filling of gaps between public and private funding (Ngai and Sneader 2016). Many of the participating economies are fragile and corrupt or have weak governance structures. Slow procedures and poor administrative efficiency and operating costs may affect or completely jeopardise the Chinese firms’ efforts to implement BRI in these countries (Jia 2015). China and BRI member countries can reap the initiative’s dividends by addressing challenges and working through business on equal terms.

Conclusion Geography is an important factor in determining the course of corridors, and it is on the BRI’s side. The initiative is likely to attract economic activity and political harmony. It is viably positioned to build strong relationships among communities along the routes of its economic corridors. A majority of the contiguous states have signalled interest in the development frameworks of the BRI, with the expectation of benefiting from the emerging trends of the globalisation of the economy, culture and technology. The BRI offers cutting-edge engineering solutions and entrepreneurial finesse. While harnessing modern technologies, it must draw new inclusive structures on the old regional map. The BRI, as desired in the official vision and action plan, has the potential to be the ‘biggest common denominator for cooperation … [and will] give full play to the wisdom and creativity, strengths, and potentials of all parties’ (NDRC 2015). China has open heartedly invited countries and organisations to join this harmonious venture. The onus thus lies on all actors in South Asia to eschew differences, join hands for regional growth, peace and stability, and ensure a better tomorrow for their peoples.

The Belt and Road Initiative  137

Notes 1 The Going Global strategy emerged in 1999 and sought to bid farewell to the Mao-era mindset of self-reliance, urging Chinese firms to take advantage of thriving world trade to invest in global markets. 2 The concept of the BCIM emerged in the late 1990s, when linkages were sought between China’s Yunnan province through a subregional cooperation involving South-Western China and Eastern India, Myanmar and Bangladesh. The platform that eventually developed out of this concept came to be known as the Kunming Initiative, as the first meeting was organised in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, in 1999. 3 Glocalisation is a combination of two words, ‘globalisation’ and ‘localisation’, used to describe a product or service that is developed and distributed globally but is also adjusted to accommodate the user or consumer in a local market.

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The Belt and Road Initiative  139 grids-preview/2014-09-09-14-38-33/item/606-conflict-transformation-by-pakistan-army-the-central-trade-corridor-ctc. Accessed on 23 October 2018. Kynge, James. 2015, 18 June. ‘Chinese overseas lending dominated by One Belt, One Road strategy’. Financial Times, https://www.ft.com/content/e9dcd67415d8-11e5-be54-00144feabdc0. Accessed on 19 July 2018. Levine, Mark D., Feng Liu, and Jonathan E. Sinton. 1992. ‘China’s energy system: historical evolution, current issues, and prospects.’ Annual Review of Energy and the Environment, 17(1), 405–435. Lyer, Roshan. 2017, 3 May. ‘Reviving the comatose Bangladesh–China–India– Myanmar Corridor’. The Diplomat, https://thediplomat.com/2017/05/reviving-the-comatose-bangladesh-china-india-myanmar-corridor/. Accessed on 12 September 2018. Ministry of Commerce. 2020. ‘Investment Cooperation between China and BRI participating Countries, January-August, 2020’. People’s Republic of China, http://english.mofcom.gov.cn/article/statistic/foreigntradecooperation/ 202010/20201003010996.shtml. Accessed on 2 October 2020. Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 2015a, 8 March. ‘Foreign Minister Wang Yi answers journalists’ question on China’s diplomacy, foreign policy and foreign relations’. People’s Republic of China, http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_chn/wjb_602314/ wjbz_602318/zyjhs/t1243647.shtml. Accessed on 2 November 2018. Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 2015b, 31 March. ‘Vice Foreign Minister Zhang Yesui: “Belt and Road” Initiative Is Not Geostrategic Tool’. People’s Republic of China, https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjbxw/t1248008.shtml. Accessed on 18 July 2018. NDRC. 2015. ‘Vision and actions on jointly building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road’. National Development and Reform Commission China, http://english.www.gov.cn/archive/publications/2017/06/20/ content_281475691873460.htm. Accessed on 18 July 2018. Ngai, Joe and Kevin Sneader. 2016. China’s One Belt, One Road: Will it reshape global trade? McKinsey & Company, https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/china/chinas-one-belt-one-road-will-it-reshape-global-trade#. Accessed on 18 July 2018. Pakistan Observer. 2017, 30 November. ‘BCIM corridor vs CPEC’, https://pakobserver.net/bcim-corridor-vs-cpec/. Accessed on 30 October 2018. Pelt, Michael Van. 2003, 26 May. ‘Moving trade: An introduction to trade corridors’. Work Research Foundation, https://www.cardus.ca/research/work-economics/reports/moving-trade/. Accessed on 18 July 2018. Reuters. 2018, 26 April. ‘Pakistan projects a 5.8 per cent economic growth rate’, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-pakistan-economy/pakistan-projects-a-5-8percent-economic-growth-rate-idUSKBN1HX30X. Accessed on 11 November 2018. Rodrigue, Jean-Paul, Claude Comtois and Brian Slack. 2006. The geography of transport systems. New York: Routledge. Sender, Henny and Kiran Stacey. 2017, 17 May. ‘China takes “Project of the Century” to Pakistan’. Financial Times, https://www.ft.com/content/05979e182fe4-11e7-9555-23ef563ecf9a. Accessed on 3 November 2018. Shi, Ting. 2018, 29 January. ‘China infrastructure push reaches Arctic, leaving out U.S’. Bloomberg, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-28/ china-infrastructure-push-reaches-arctic-further-isolating-u-s. Accessed on 30 October 2018.

140  Atia Ali Kazmi State Council, PRC. 2011, 6 September. ‘China’s peaceful development’. White Paper, http://english.www.gov.cn/archive/white_paper/2014/09/09/content_2814 74986284646.htm. Accessed on 17 October 2018. Sutter, Robert G. 2013. U.S.-China relations: Perilous past, pragmatic present. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. The Tribune. 2017, 3 September. ‘With 22% population, South Asia has only 1.3% of world’s income: Report’, https://www.tribuneindia.com/news/archive/ chandigarh/with-22-population-south-asia-has-only-1-3-of-world-s-income-report-461445. Accessed on 16 November 2018. Trigkas, Vasilis. 2016, 20 May. ‘China’s new normal: An indispensable locomotive of global growth’. China Business Review, https://www.chinabusinessreview.com/ chinas-new-normal-an-indispensable-locomotive-of-global-growth/. Accessed on 14 November 2018. Xinhua. 2010, 13 December. ‘Stick to the path of peaceful development’, http:// www.china.org.cn/opinion/2010-12/13/content_21529346_4.htm. Accessed on 5 November 2018. Xinhua. 2018a, 24 January. http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-01/24/ c_136919332.htm. Accessed on 18 August 2018. Xinhua. 2018b, 15 February.‘Economic Watch: 40 years on, the rising power of Chinese consumers’, http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2018-02/15/c_136977885.htm. Accessed on 18 August 2018. Yang, Jeichi. 2013, 8 August. Innovations in China’s diplomatic theory and practice under new conditions. PRC Ministry of Foreign Affairs, http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/ mfa_eng/wjdt_665385/zyjh_665391/t1066869.shtml. Accessed on 3 November 2018. Zhang, Wenxian, Ilan Alon and Christoph Lattemann (Eds). 2018. China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan. Zhang, Yesui. 2015, 21 March. ‘The ‘One Belt, One Road’ initiative is not a geopolitical tool’. Xinhua, https://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjbxw/t1248008.shtml. Accessed on 15 October 2018. Zhen, Summer. 2015, 17 September. ‘Chinese consortium to invest in Turkey’s No 3 container terminal’. South China Morning Post, https://www.scmp.com/business/ companies/article/1858962/chinese-consortium-invest-turkeys-no-3-container-terminal. Accessed on 18 July 2018.

9 The Belt and Road Initiative Chinese normative power in South Asia Federico Tombari

After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, US policymakers started referring to China as an existential threat: this anxiety was the reason for the creation of the so-called Chinese threat theory, according to which Chinese foreign policy moves were inherently menacing. A much more detailed description would understand it based on the assumption that an increasingly powerful China is likely to destabilise regional security in the near future … a developed economy could potentially turn China’s huge population from a weakness into a strength, and give China the basis for a world-class military and technological capability. (Roy 1996: 758) Capabilities and intentions were conflated: whereas the first is quantifiable, the second is not, and what is difficult to understand is often a source of uneasiness. During the post-World War II period, a global governance system was in the making, but the Mao period was characterised by an overall scepticism about the Western-led multilateral environment. Deng determined a watershed moment in Chinese foreign policy, with initial participation in multilateral initiatives. With Jiang Zemin, China was socialised into global governance, and it proactively partook in many institutions. One could argue that once China was embedded in the global governance system, its position changed radically from being engaged1 to de facto engaging the system2. Hu Jintao and Xi Jinping started shaping the multilateral institutional framework: whether one calls it ‘institutional statecraft’ (Ikenberry and Lim 2017), ‘contested multilateralism’ (Morse and Keohane 2014), or ‘shadow foreign policy’ (Heilmann et al. 2014), it is clear that China’s footprint on the global system was massive3. Surely, many from the West interpret China’s moves as threatening the US-led system. Indeed, an alternative structure could potentially challenge the existing one, but cooperation is always possible: the following table shows how the majority of the projects sponsored by the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) are co-funded by the World Bank or other IOs4, a proof that the AIIB is mostly complementary to the Bretton-Woods institutions, rather than a competitor5 (Table 9.1). DOI: 10.4324/9780367855413-11

Name

No.

Approval

Region

Co-lending IO

Dushanbe-Uzbekistan Border Road Improvement Project The People’s Republic of Bangladesh Distribution System Upgrade and Expansion Project Pakistan: National Motorway M-4 Project Indonesia: National Slum Upgrading Project Pakistan: Tarbela 5 Hydropower Extension Project Myanmar: Myingyan Power Plant Project Oman: Railway System Preparation Project Oman: Duqm Port Commercial Terminal and Operational Zone Development Project Azerbaijan: Trans Anatolian Natural Gas Pipeline Project (TANAP) to be co-financed with the World Bank (WB) Indonesia: Regional Infrastructure Development Fund Project Indonesia: Dam Operational Improvement and Safety Project Phase II Bangladesh: Natural Gas Infrastructure and Efficiency Improvement Project India: Andhra Pradesh 24×7 – Power For All Georgia: Batumi Bypass Road Project India: India Infrastructure Fund Tajikistan: Nurek Hydropower Rehabilitation Project, Phase I India: Gujarat Rural Roads (MMGSY) Project

2

24 June 2016

Tajikistan

EBRD

3

24 June 2016

Bangladesh

/

1 4 5 7 14

24 June 2016 24 June 2016 27 September 2016 27 September 2016 8 December 2016

Pakistan Indonesia Pakistan Myanmar Oman

ADB WB WB IFC(WB), ADB /

13

8 December 2016

Oman

/

11

21 December 2016

Azerbaijan

WB, EIB, EBRD

12

22 March 2017

Indonesia

WB

10

22 March 2017

Indonesia

WB

15

22 March 2017

Bangladesh

ADB

9 21 22 18 25

2 May 2017 15 June 2017 15 June 2017 15 June 2017 4 July 2017

India Georgia India Tajikistan India

IBRD(WB) ADB / IDA(WB), EaDB /

142  Federico Tombari

Table 9.1  AIIB-Approved projects and Co-lending IOs

41–51 6 31 23 38 27

4 September 2017 27 September 2017 27 September 2017 27 September 2017 8 December 2017 8 December 2017

Egypt India Asia Philippines India Oman

/ ADB IFC(WB) WB EIB /

37

8 December 2017

China

/

57 20 30 62

9 February 2018 11 April 2018 24 June 2018 24 June 2018

Bangladesh India India Turkey

/ WB / WB, ISDB

60

24 June 2018

Indonesia

WB

63 52 132

28 September 2018 28 September 2018 28 September 2018

India Egypt Turkey

/ WB /

Source: Data retrieved from: https://www.aiib.org/en/projects/approved/ (accessed on 13 June 2020).

The Belt and Road Initiative  143

Egypt Round II Solar PV Feed-in Tariffs Program India: Transmission System Strengthening Project Asia: IFC Emerging Asia Fund Philippines: Metro Manila Flood Management Project India: Bangalore Metro Rail Project – Line R6 Oman: Broadband Infrastructure Project China: Beijing Air Quality Improvement and Coal Replacement Project Bangladesh: Bangladesh Bhola IPP India: Madhya Pradesh Rural Connectivity Project India: National Investment and Infrastructure Fund Turkey: Tuz Golu Gas Storage Expansion Project Indonesia: Strategic Irrigation Modernisation and Urgent Rehabilitation Project India: Andhra Pradesh Rural Roads Project Egypt: Sustainable Rural Sanitation Services Program TSKB Sustainable Energy and Infrastructure On-lending Facility

144  Federico Tombari In brief, Western anxiety was caused by the perception of a rising China, a pattern that seemed to resemble previous theories of hegemonic/power shifts where a conflict was inevitable, and a conflict between the United States and China is deemed inevitable now. This uneasiness with a powerful rival reached the apex with Chinese assertiveness in the East and the South China Sea, where its acts were described as warfare and lawfare, both terms related to direct military threats. However, a state can also be threatening without the use of military means, because other ways to expand its own influence or exercise power are present and characterised as ‘economic statecraft’ and softer means like the utilisation/creation of ‘soft’ and ‘normative’ power. Nowadays, to assess a country’s behaviour it is not useful to merely look at its ‘hard power’ capabilities (weapons and money). However, it is essential to focus on its endeavours such as rampant public diplomacy initiatives, the smart use of international media, whether is acting as a responsible stakeholder in multilateral initiatives and, as explained before, if it is creating new organisations or regimes. It goes without saying that the development of the Belt and Road Initiative, along with the related IOs (AIIB, SCO, etc.), was determinant in shaping the assessment of a rising China. To conclude, Chinese peaceful development is deemed as propaganda by many, but although the creation of the BRI is usually judged as a way to expand Chinese clout in the region (especially Central and South Asia), the mechanisms and tangible proofs of this endeavour (what ideas are diffused and how) are scarce. This chapter argues that this lack of proofs is determinant in defining the fallacies of the China Threat theory and, therefore, the potential for cooperation shall not be underestimated. This chapter first defines what power is and how it should be characterised in international politics (relational approach); secondly, it explains how the BRI is associated to power (hard, soft, normative); the third part focuses on the Chinese effort to export its norms in the BRI area (not abstract ideas but technical standards that could lead to active cooperation). Subsequently, the chapter is centred on the reality of South Asia in relation to the Chinese BRI and the diffusion of Chinese norms in the area, followed by a concluding summary of the findings.

Relational and normative power Relational power The most prominent scholars arguing for a relational approach to power analysis are, among others, Lasswell and Kaplan (1950), Dahl (1957), and Baldwin (1979). They agree on four main points: power is a causal concept; it should be understood as a relational one, not as a property; power is multidimensional6, and the bases of power are numerous. Although Lasswell and Kaplan were among the first to introduce the concept, it was Robert Dahl who proposed it and popularised it; therefore this approach to power is usually called either the ‘Dahlian concept of power’ (Baldwin 2016) or

The Belt and Road Initiative  145 ‘relational concept of power’7. David Baldwin, following the Lasswell and Kaplan/Dahlian tradition, further developed the relational approach to power, highlighting three main aspects that are fundamental in the study of power: 1) the distinction between the relational8 and property concepts, 2) the fact that power is multidimensional, and 3) the importance of the policy–contingency framework. This study is founded mainly on Baldwin’s depiction, according to which power is defined as actor A having power over actor B to the extent that A can get B to do something that B would not otherwise do (Dahl 1957: 202–203). Low fungibility of power resources The term ‘fungibility’ refers to ‘the ease with which power resources useful in one issue-area can be used in other issue-areas’ (Baldwin 2013: 278). The prototype for a fungible resource is money in a market economy: money’s purchasing power need not be addressed to specify its scope and domain, because the same currency can be used to buy different things; moreover, money can be used everywhere, any time and in different ways (Baldwin 2016: 70). Although some scholars equate the role of money in a market economy with the role of power in international politics (see Parsons 1963 or Mearsheimer 2001), this equivalence is misleading. Power is not fungible: the scope and domain must be specified, because the same power base can be used in a certain situation and not in another. Identifying power with resources is typically called the ‘vehicle fallacy’ and specifically associated with the neorealist approach to international relations (IR). Normative power Whilst ‘relational’ refers to the understanding of power in general, the adjective ‘normative’ indicates a specific type of power connected to the diffusion of norms in IR theory. As ideal types, power in IR can be regarded as ‘hard’ (coercive, based on one country’s military capabilities and/or economic strength) and ‘soft’ (based on one country’s attractiveness related to a change in another’s preferences), although in reality, the two kinds are heavily intertwined. In this research, the term ‘normative power’ is not utilised in the original and debated meaning of ‘what a country is’ (Manners 2002), but as ‘what a country does’, a concept closely linked to the ‘pouvoir normatif’ developed later by Manners (2013), an ideational form of power. Having said that, it is possible to relate soft and normative power, since the latter is a specific instance of the first: normative power is nothing else than the ‘normative aspect of soft power’9. A proper definition goes as follows: ‘normative power’ is the actual power of infusing norms (new or existing ones) in the system, so that these norms become the accepted normal in a certain area. Scope and domain are already specified in this chapter (norms; BRI area) and the possession

146  Federico Tombari of capabilities does not alone determine Chinese normative power: hence, the general characterisation of power as relational is cognate to the specific normative one. Last, a few words on the importance of focusing on the role of norms and power in IR. Never before in history hsa the importance of soft power been stressed as it is today in describing the Chinese rise. China is becoming – or perhaps has already become – a gigantic actor in international politics, but many analysts, albeit that these are important aspects, merely focus on its hard military and economic power. Nevertheless, how this power is developed and sustained, how Chinese influence is expanding in the region and beyond, is a matter of military coercion and economic/financial inducements. China’s endeavour (successful or not) to underline its attractive features and to attract others with its charm is undoubtedly a reality that rival actors and neighbouring countries have to confront, sooner or later. Within this strategy, the role of norms is the foundation of the expansion of Chinese clout, because importing Chinese norms, hence sharing the same ones, reflects an institutionalisation of a relationship which is much harder to cut than an economic tie (trade or international aid). The infusion of norms in the system is both sustained and sustains the hard foundations of power in IR, but without specifying which norms are real features of a country’s power, this link is missing and so practitioners, policymakers and researchers can only generalise about the sources of power, at best. Specifying the normative aspect of power fills the void and enhances the understanding of power in general and the behaviour of actors in international politics.

The BRI and power theory Origins and motives of the Belt and Road Initiative The term ‘Silk Road’ was coined by a German traveler and geographer named Ferdinand Freiherr von Richthofen in the second part of the nineteenth century (Milward 2013: 21). However, it is useful to underline the fact that the Silk Road was ‘neither silk nor road’ because 1) its importance was not focused on the silk trade per se, and 2) it was not a road but a great network, a multitude of roads impossible to characterise with east–west horizontal lines on a map (Milward 2013: 21). The ancient Silk Road was the guideline for the new one, previously called One Belt, One Road (OBOR) and changed to the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), given that to describe the presence of only one road was misleading. This project was first proposed in 2013, by the Chinese President Xi Jinping. The BRI gradually became China’s primary focus in international politics exchanges, to create a network of infrastructures (roads, railways, pipelines, communication infrastructures, etc.) connecting China to Central and South Asia, Western Africa and Europe via land and sea (respectively, the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road, divided into five routes and six corridors10). However, the traditional characterisation of the BRI as an

The Belt and Road Initiative  147 endeavour in creating and developing infrastructure projects in Eurasia is ambiguous, because economic/financial cooperation is paired with the social and cultural cooperation (cultural and university students exchange projects are deemed as important as the building of physical bridges). The institutional framework of the BRI is composed by the presence of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), the New Development Bank (NDB, previously BRICS Bank), the New Silk Road Fund (NSRF) and the China Investment Corporation (CIC). The motives behind the development of the BRI, although still the topic of debate, can be summarised as follows: solve the problem of excess capacity11, secure the energy supply, remove US political pressure and expand businesses overseas (Kon, Hsu and Kung 2016: 39): ‘a reflection of China’s ascendance as well as her growing power in the global arena’ (Yu 2017: 355).

Belt and Road and power That the BRI alters the balance of power is a contemporary topic of debate, with diverse implications. Although the economic importance of the BRI (to advance Chinese economic interests) is obvious, the political advantages that could come from such an endeavour are various and the subject of harsh critiques. Following the original depiction of China as a threat (conflating capabilities and ‘bad’ intentions), the BRI has been characterised as an effort to rebuild the old tributary system with China at its centre12, hence an imperialistic endeavour. Other commentators compare the BRI with the Marshall Plan (see Griffiths 2017), but focus only on the result: the emergence of a new hegemon in the system. It should be pointed out that these are speculations based on the potential result of Chinese economic/financial statecraft: along with the China threat theory, they are both somewhat founded on the past repeating itself, although the Chinese situation is peculiar and the differences with the American or British examples are numerous. As said before, inferring one’s power from capabilities is misleading and trying to foresee the future almost impossible. If focusing on ‘hard’ power seems unfruitful, perhaps looking at other forms could be more profitable. Many scholars associate the BRI with Chinese soft power in general, but since such a strategy is not peculiar to the BRI, the specific normative aspect of soft power could be, which is the focus of this chapter, because it is the less analysed in academia. The following section describe in detail Chinese normative power, characterizing it within the BRI example.

The BRI and normative power By many, the BRI has been considered a way to expand Chinese influence in the area, not only economic/financial but also normative. While many scholars associated those norms with peculiar Chinese ideas, there is a

148  Federico Tombari lack of evidence in proving the dissemination of those ideas. It would be more fruitful to focus on more tangible norms, such as implementing new technical standards in the area. This issue shall be addressed through the normative power theory to better understand Chinese behaviour and the importance of the BRI strategy. China started developing its own standards to avoid paying royalties to international patent holders, especially in the informational and communication technologies (examples of Chinese standards are: TD-SCDMA (mobile systems), WAPI (wireless LAN encryption) and AVD and CBHD (digital disc players) (Breznitz and Murphree 2013). Furthermore, China issued its Standardisation Law on 4 November 2017 (the first modification after 28 years), proving in this way its renewed focus on the importance of standardisation. In fact, the previous year, the 39th ISO General Assembly had been held in Beijing, and Xi Jinping was clear about the importance of standards as the common language of today’s world. BRI primary documents envision in different parts the unification of standards within the BRI area, and the same is reiterated in almost all the bilateral joint statements with BRI countries. The urge for standardisation has its own paragraph in the official Belt and Road program (Building the Belt and Road: Concept, Practice and China’s Contribution, Government of China 2017b), and a small mention in the program regarding the Maritime Silk Road (Vision for Maritime Cooperation under the Belt and Road Initiative, Government of China 2017d). The importance is also proved by the presence of specific documents outlining the mechanism of implementation of standards, namely the Action Plan on Belt and Road Standard Connectivity (2015–2017), followed by the updated Action Plan on Belt and Road Standard Connectivity (2018–2020) (published after the 19th National Congress); the Vision and Actions on Jointly Promoting Certification and Accreditation Services (Government of China 2015); The Belt and Road Vision and Actions for Cooperation in Metrology (Government of China 2017c) and the Belt and Road Initiative Meteorological Development Plan (2018). Indeed, the harmonisation of standards is nothing new or unusual in such an endeavour as the BRI; its importance comes from the fact that in many parts of the documents, China pushes for the implementation of its own standards ‘to go out’ and the developing countries to accept them (not only mutual recognition). Examples of Chinese standards ready to be exported are related to construction, finance, data management, artificial intelligence and 5G; China has successfully exported key technical standards for building high-speed railways in Indonesia13 and other South East Asian (Yap 2017) and African (Yu 2017) countries. It is still not clear whether China is implementing only its own standards or also sponsoring existing ones (e.g. ISO ones), but the aim is clear: create ‘one standard, one certificate’ along the BRI (Government of China 2015).

The Belt and Road Initiative  149 The focus of the analysis of Chinese normative power has been directed to identifying peculiar ideas and norms that characterise it: typically, its alternative mode of development, Confucian and pre-Qin philosophies and sovereignty issues. A few exceptions focus on actual norms being implemented by other states under the Chinese push, though merely related to the ASEAN area and not so detailed (Womack 2008; Han 2017). The following section addresses the Chinese diffusion of technical standards in South Asia.

South Asia and Chinese norms Area of analysis This section will investigate the diffusion of technical standards by China in South Asia within the BRI framework. Conventionally, the geographical area called South Asia includes the following countries: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. In this analysis, however, the Bhutanese state will not be taken in consideration, since it has not embraced the BRI and is not a member of BRI-related organisations. India, too, is not explicitly part of the BRI, but it is an active member of the AIIB and SCO, and moreover, it is named in official documents related to the technical standards diffusion. There are no issues related to other countries. What kind of technical standards The last section was a general description of the Chinese standards that will be implemented along the BRI area. This section looks into details of the South Asia example. First of all, both the two initiatives that compose the BRI are present in South Asia: the land-based one and the Maritime Silk Road. This division is important because, although the general issues related to the Chinese endeavour are present in every initiative, the technical details related to the operationalisations of the programs are different. Looking at the coastal countries (Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the Maldives), it is clear that apart from the general infrastructural standards there is a focus on environmental protection, explicit in the general program (Government of China 2017d) as well as in bilateral agreements and statements: to protect the coastal environment, with an emphasis on blue carbon. Along with the other standards, China is also focusing on creating standards related to accreditation processes, quarantine, controls, infrastructure-related standards, meteorology and metrology itself. Institutional framework While the AIIB was explicitly linked to the BRI initially, the SCO was linked to the initiative later (Patranobis 2017), which is the only direct link between India and the BRI. It is not a surprise that all the states in South Asia are

150  Federico Tombari members of the AIIB and every one of them (but Afghanistan) are founders. That means that, although small, they have a voice in the allotment of AIIB resources, which is closely related to the allotment of BRI resources, although the second is more discretionary to the Chinese government. The SCO is more related to a specific area (Central Asia), but India and Pakistan are members, Afghanistan is an observer and Nepal and Sri Lanka are dialogue partners. It is not clear (purposively or not) whether participation in the SCO is connected to a direct adherence to BRI guidelines, but apparently, nobody has raised the issue (although India’s uneasiness is palpable). General documents and South Asia The general documents related to, or just mentioning, the standardisation issue are, as in their title, not specific enough to indicate all the countries that China engaged; nevertheless, a few examples are the exception: 1) in the Action Plan on Belt and Road Standard Connectivity (2015–17), India is explicitly named as the target for ‘signing of agreements on standardisation cooperation’ (ibid.); in the updated version Action Plan on Belt and Road Standard Connectivity (2018–20), India is not present anymore, but regarding Pakistan, the document talks about global energy Internet standardisation cooperation, carry out standard demand analysis of multinational grid interconnection fields such as … Pakistan, and promote the development of international organisation standards for the bilateral or multilateral interconnection of multinational power grids, and apply them in multinational networking projects. (Ibid.) Finally, the Joint communique of leaders’ roundtable of Belt and Road forum (China Daily 2017) proposes the internationalisation of standards in the BRI community: the document was signed, among others, by Pakistan and Sri Lanka. Bilateral documents Joint statements, communiqués and memorandums of understanding (MOUs) are bilateral documents that officially proposed the development of technical standards developed by China. By and large, all the sources follow the same scheme: first, the emphasis is on something that China feels to be important: to agree on principles such as ‘peaceful coexistence’, ‘winwin cooperation’, ‘non-interference in internal affairs’ and ‘respect of sovereignty’, and to respect each others’ ‘independent choice of development’. Many authors focus on those ideas as an example of Chinese normative power, but is that the case? Is it possible to prove that without Chinese engagement, the Maldives or Sri Lanka would not otherwise abide by these

The Belt and Road Initiative  151 norms? The answer is no. While the specific focus on such norms is important in order to understand the features of Chinese foreign policy initiatives, they are not an example of the Chinese diffusion of norms in the system. The bilateral documents continue with other technical details regarding the specific features of each country: first, a focus on human and cultural exchanges related to the Chinese soft power strategy, and then on specific issues often related to economic and investment matters and standards that will make economic and financial interactions quicker and more efficient. Looking at the proofs of a Chinese normative power strategy (diffusion of norms, in this case, technical standards) it is clear that the endeavour is real and ongoing, although still in development. It is fair to say that this strategy is not always straightforward, but pairing the bilateral documents with more general ones makes it possible to read between the lines and associate some issues with specific norms and standards. This is the case of Bangladesh: in the document Joint Statement Of The People’s Republic Of China And The People’s Republic Of Bangladesh On Establishing Strategic Partnership Of Cooperation (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, China 2017) China proposes to establish a dialogue for maritime cooperation to develop a Blue Economy (art. 11), more specifically, when climate change issues are cited (art. 13), specifying the protection of mangroves and seaweeds. The word ‘standard’ is not present in the statement, but linking these sentences with the general program related to the Maritime Silk Road makes it crystal clear that the focus is on standards, specifically the ones related to ‘strengthening international blue carbon cooperation’ (Government of China 2017d: 5), in which paragraph China proposes to develop standards related to that matter. To clarify, blue carbon is captured by algae and mangroves: to protect them is related to the development of specific programs that up to now are mostly in the hands of national initiatives or NGOs (Ahmed et al. 2017). China wants to develop its own standards and export them abroad. The Maldives example (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, China 2017) is similar, since China proposes to deepen the cooperation on marine environment (art. 13) and face climate change issues (art. 15), all related to the development of blue carbon standards. Moreover, art. 16 names the effort to deepen cooperation related to different matters, among them the one related to meteorology, a matter discussed in a specific document related to the development of standards (Belt and Road Initiative Meteorological Development Plan, 2018). In Sri Lanka too China is pursuing coastal and marine cooperation, along with marine meteorology and ecosystem protection (art. 12) as emphasized by the Joint Statement Between the People’s Republic Of China And the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka at the Conclusion of the Official Visit of Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Sri Lanka 2016) regarding the states that do not face the sea, China is less clear. It does not explicitly link any standardisation issue in the document with Afghanistan (Abdullah 2016), but it names the establishment of laboratory and quarantine facilities in

152  Federico Tombari Nepal (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, China 2018: art. 9), which is a problem also tackled in a specific document, Vision and Actions on Jointly Promoting Certification and Accreditation Services (Government of China 2015) related to the development of technical standards. Last, the Pakistan example is peculiar for the presence and the effort to build the CPEC, unpaired within the BRI area. In the Long Term Plan for China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (2017–2030), the word standard is present, explicit since the document is not a mere joint statement but a proper plan: e.g. ‘Pakistan to adopt China’s Digital Terrestrial Multimedia Broadcasting (DTMB) standard’ (ibid.: 19).

Conclusion The aims of this chapter are two: to discredit the China-threat theory as based on a power-as-capabilities/intentions approach and to define Chinese normative power. Related to the first, the power study helps explain why capabilities and power possess no direct relation without specifying a policy-contingency framework; moreover, inferring intentions from the possession of capabilities is merely tentative and speculative. This chapter argues that there are other ways China is trying to expand its influence, not only through military or economic means but also normative ones: if the first leads naturally to conflict and the second could be prone to rivalry or self-interested moves, the third is perhaps closer to cooperation. This chapter analyses the Belt and Road Initiative through the lenses of the normative power theory, according to which China is infusing norms in the system, in this case, the BRI area: while rebutting the traditional view of China exporting norms linked to its model of development and/or Confucian/pre-Qin thinking, this research advances the claim that to prove China is acting as a normative power we shall focus on more tangible proofs, in this case the dissemination of new technical standards in the BRI area. The empirical part looks at the South Asia example and the Chinese effort to diffuse its norms mainly through primary sources: general, specific and bilateral statements. The empirical research proved to be rich, and the examples regarding Chinese effort to export its norms was verified, although more specific in the case of the coastal states where China is trying to develop norms linked to the protection of the maritime environment. The most straightforward example, though, is connected to Pakistan, where the Chinese focus is massive. Further studies shall focus on the rest of the BRI countries to discern broader behaviour patterns linked to the Chinese standardisation strategy. It should be clear now that the expansion of the Chinese economic clout is not the only issue related to the BRI and power, but the normative power strategy is real and its developing already started few years ago. The good news is that, up to now, this strategy proved to be peaceful and prone to the expansion and strengthening of cooperation among the countries in the BRI area and China.

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Notes 1 This is tantamount to saying that China has been socialised: see Johnston (2008). 2 For a more exhaustive account, see Lanteigne (2009); for a ‘two-way socialisation’ account, see Chin (2012). 3 A frequent assessment portrays China as a dissatisfied power in search for its right place in global politics and ‘China has seat at the table today, and it’s getting bigger. It will use its rising influence to shape, to the extent it can, the rules of the game’ (Olson and Prestowitz 2011). 4 Private lenders or local governments are not listed in the table. 5 Originally prepared for a previous paper (Tombari 2018). 6 At minimum, the scope and domain must be specified. 7 Van Ham (2010: 22) goes as far as calling it ‘Baldwinian’ to underline Baldwin’s original developments. 8 ‘For the purpose of comparing the power of actors, Dahl … insisted, we need to focus primarily not on the actions of A, but on the responses of B; the base and means of power, though important, do not provide us with a comparison of the power of actors’ (Katzenstein and Seybert 2018: 81). 9 The importance of the ‘normative’ characterisation comes from the need to detach from more general studies about one actor’s ‘soft power’. 10 The Ice Silk Road (developing Arctic shipping routes) was added later (Government of China 2018). 11 Although Pu (2016: 113) is skeptical on this point, arguing that the BRI can actually worsen the problem in some cases. 12 For example, see Mendis and Wang (2018) and Er-Rafia (2017). 13 Jakarta-Bandung High Speed Rail Project.

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156  Federico Tombari Patranobis, S. 2017, 11 June. ‘China links Belt and Road plans with Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’. Hindustan Times. https://www.hindustantimes.com/ world-news/china-links-belt-and-road-plans-with-shanghai-cooperation-organisation/story-yJerxFqASfY4zFpOlUsveJ.html. Accessed on 16 June 2020. Pu, X. 2016. ‘One Belt, One Road: Visions and challenges of China’s geoeconomic strategy’. Mainland China Studies, 59(3), 111–132. Roy, D. 1996. ‘The “China threat” issue: Major arguments’. Asian Survey, 36(8), 758–771. Tombari, F. 2018. ‘Diverse response to Orientalism: Japanese conformity and Chinese opposition’. Paper prepared for delivery at the international conference: Orientalism, Neo-Orientalism and Post-Orientalism in African, Middle East, Latin American, Asian/Chinese Studies, May 17–18, 2018 – Institute of Global Studies, Shanghai University, China. Van Ham, P. 2010. Social power in international politics. London, New York: Routledge. Womack, B. 2008. ‘China as a normative foreign policy actor’. In Who is a normative foreign policy actor? The European Union and its global partners, edited by N Tocci, 256–299. Brussels: Centre for European Policy Studies. Yap, Jasmina. 2017, 5 September. ‘Everything you need to know about the LaosChina railway, -February 20, 2017’, https://laotiantimes.com/2017/02/20/ everything-you-need-to-know-laos-china-railway/. Accessed on 16 June 2020. Yu, Hong. 2017. ‘Motivation behind China’s “One Belt, One Road” initiatives and establishment of the Asian infrastructure investment bank.’ Journal of Contemporary China, 26(105): 353–368.

10 Bangladesh–China maritime security cooperation A search for new opportunities under the Belt and Road Initiative Noor Mohammad Sarker Bangladesh is an important strategic partner with China in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) – a two-dimensional mega-project, comprising the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Twenty-first Century Maritime Silk Road (MSR). The Maritime Silk Road encompasses the major sea lanes of communications (SLOCs) of Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal. However, being an Indian Ocean littoral state, the country’s maritime area has been on the verge of a number of traditional and non-traditional security threats. Bangladesh faces non-conventional security threats in the Bay of Bengal, where her coastal zone is vulnerable to a number of seaborne security challenges, including maritime terrorism, piracy, arms and drug smuggling and human trafficking. Given these phenomena, Bangladesh has, so far, undertaken a number of measures to modernise its maritime defense forces through capacity building and technological advancement. In this regard, China’s technical as well as technological assistance attaches great importance to Bangladesh. Considering these developments, this chapter aims to contribute to the existing literature by exploring the scope of the BRI in order to maximise the opportunities for Bangladesh in its maritime security cooperation with China. Although the chapter focuses on the issue mostly from Bangladesh’s perspective, it touches upon some of the major maritime security problems for China in the Bay of Bengal as well, especially those in line with Bangladesh’s maritime security challenge.

Conceptual and theoretical frameworks Maritime security The term ‘maritime security’ was introduced in the 1990s as one of the latest additions to the glossary of international security studies (Bueger and Edmunds 2017: 1293). Initially, the term was narrowly conceived as the protection of a state from war at sea and restoring peace on the seas (Alam 2018). However, rising concerns over global climate change and the

DOI: 10.4324/9780367855413-12

158  Noor Mohammad Sarker intensification of maritime terrorism activities in the contemporary era have led the scholars of international relations to search for a more inclusive definition of the term. Rahman’s (2009: 31) definition of maritime security, for example, encompasses five interrelated areas: ‘security of the sea itself; ocean governance; maritime border protection; military activities at sea; and security regulation of the maritime transportation system’. On the other hand, Hawkes (1989) argues that, maritime security deals with ‘those measures employed by owners, operators and administrators of vessel, port facilities, offshore installations, and other marine organisations or establishments to protect against seizure, sabotage, piracy, pilferage, annoyance or surprise’. Thus, in line with the objective of this study, a comprehensive approach to maritime security includes both traditional and non-traditional threats against which states should employ the available security measures, both conventional and non-conventional.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is the most significant and far-reaching project that China has ever put forward (Lo 2017: 183). It was first proposed by Chinese President Xi Jinping in late 2013 under the broad heading of ‘The Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road’ (Xinhua 2017). During his speech at Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan in September 2013, Xi pointed out that, ‘To forge closer economic ties, deepen cooperation and expand development in the Eurasian region, we must take an innovative approach and jointly build a “Silk Road Economic Belt”’ (Xi 2013: 1). In the very next month, October 2013, Xi addressed the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) informal leader’s meeting in Indonesia, where he noted that, ‘Since ancient times, Southeast Asia has been an important hub along the historical “maritime silk road”’ (Wu and Zhang 2013). In his speech, Xi welcomed Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries to enhance China–ASEAN maritime cooperation and jointly build the ‘21st-Century Maritime Silk Road’ (Wang 2016: 22–23). These two addresses by Xi Jinping paved the basis for the BRI, which was later developed into a formal set of plans by the Chinese government about how the initiative would be implemented. To build a community of shared interest, destiny and responsibility featuring mutual political trust, economic integration and cultural inclusiveness has been the major objective of the BRI set by the government of China (MoFA & MoC, PRC 2015). China has taken the primary responsibility of funding this mega project and established a number of financial institutions. Among these institutions, the Asian Infrastructure Development Bank (AIIB) is the largest by far, with 86 member states from six continents (Jiang 2018). As of 2017, the AIIB’s registered capital is 100 billion USD, of which China alone has provided 30 billion USD (Naisbitt et al. 2017: 112).

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‘Top-down’ and ‘Bottom-up’ approaches to the international order at sea ‘Top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’ are theoretical approaches for explaining the international maritime order, as advocated by Bekkevold and Till (2016). According to this theory, the frameworks of interaction, cooperation and even conflict among states regarding the governance of the international maritime area are merely caused by these two influential factors: ‘top-down’ and ‘bottom-up’. ‘Top-down’ or structural influence refers to the states as the primary actors in sea-governance. State-centered factors, such as ‘global power shifts, changing threat perceptions, naval modernisation, and changes in naval capabilities and an evolving interpretation and enforcement of the Law of the Sea’ contribute to particular contexts over different periods of time, as states change the course of cooperation and conflict among themselves (Bekkevold and Till 2016: 7). For example, China’s growing economic development, as well as its increasing military and civilian maritime capabilities, led the United States to formulate a ‘pivoting’ or rebalancing Asia strategy in 2011 (Campbell 2016). In contrast, the ‘bottom-up’ approach refers to the factors influencing the maritime disorder from the root levels, on which states have less or no control. These factors include non-traditional security threats, such as ‘piracy, terrorism, trafficking in WMD, unsustainable over-fishing, and environmental degradation’ (Bekkevold and Till 2016: 7). Often states are compelled join in the framework of cooperation or conflict because of these factors. For example, the aftermath of the 2004 Tsunami in Asia witnessed one of the largest humanitarian programs ever organised by joint efforts from both developed and developing countries (Jayasuriya and McCawley 2010). Hence, these two approaches merely focus on ‘structural changes, geo-political shifts and non-traditional bottom-up security challenges’ as the key factors resulting in cooperative engagements among the maritime countries with a view to maintaining good order at the sea (Bekkevold and Till 2016: 8). However, the top-down approach characterises the ‘proactive’ role of the states and emphasises the impact of their individual foreign policy choices over the maritime order, whereas the bottom-up approach denotes those seaborne factors evolving as disorder, against which states tend to play a ‘reactive’ role by initiating new policies or revising existing ones. The present study seeks to contribute to these theoretical approaches by adding a new perspective about the effect of the BRI on fostering bilateral cooperation among the maritime states to minimise traditional and non-traditional security concerns. In line with the key research objective, the aim is to help readers understand how the BRI has offered complementary opportunities to the bilateral maritime security cooperation between Bangladesh and China in order to minimise various top-down and bottom-up security threats in the Bay of Bengal, such as the politics among regional and extra-regional powers, terrorism, piracy and so on.

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Significance of maritime security for Bangladesh in the twenty-first century In the context of an ever-growing focus of international politics towards Asia in the twenty-first century, Bangladesh’s geostrategic location in the Bay of Bengal provides the country with an important strategic space. Therefore, any discussion about the maritime security of Bangladesh must include its geostrategic and geo-economic realities as a littoral state in the Bay of Bengal. Geostrategic significance Bangladesh is located at the northern border of the Bay of Bengal with an approximately 710-km coastline (Karim and Mimura 2008; Abedin and Shaw 2013: 214). The Bay of Bengal is one of the largest bays in the world, encompassing an area of 2,173,000 sq km, surrounded by the littoral states of about 1.4 billion people (Rahman 2017: 357). These geostrategic features have, in due course, contributed to the rising great-power competition among India, China, Japan and the United States in order to extend their influence over this part of the India Ocean (Rahman 2014: 1). Correspondingly, for being a littoral state of the Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh has been endowed with important strategic maritime space. This was further signified after the demarcation of its maritime boundary with Myanmar in 2012 and with India in 2014, in which Bangladesh obtained a maritime area of about 166,000 sq km, which carries significant security ramifications for the entire country (Azad 2016: 150). In view of these developments, there is growing interest among the great powers to establish closer political, economic and military ties with Bangladesh. For example, the world’s biggest economies, including China, Japan and the United States, have already expressed interest in upgrading the existing capacity of the Chittagong seaport, as well as developing other deep seaports in the coastal areas of Bangladesh (Kabir and Ahmad 2015: 223). Geo-economic significance The Bay of Bengal occupies a significant portion of the Indian Ocean, endowed with warm navigable water, important sea routes and huge trading potential (Hossain 2016: 163). About 17% of fisheries, 90% of international trade and 30 million people of Bangladesh are directly connected to the ocean-based economy (Khan 2017). The sea and adjacent coastal areas of the country contain a huge amount of proven living and non-living resources, including fisheries, energy, minerals and hydrocarbons. For instance, in January 2018, Bangladesh discovered about 600 billion cubic feet of gas reserve in its southern coastal district of Bhola (The Daily Star 2018). In terms of

Bangladesh–China maritime security cooperation  161 fisheries, there are about 475 species of fish in the coastal areas of Bangladesh, which contributes about 2.73% of the gross domestic product (GDP), about 4.9% of total export earnings and about 12% of the country’s total employment (Hossain 2016: 165). Therefore, Bangladesh has a wider scope to employ its blue economy for national development and, thereby, maximise its geo-economic opportunities as well. Maritime security threats for Bangladesh Given its geostrategic and geo-economic realities, Bangladesh is facing both traditional and non-traditional security threats in its coastal areas. However, the nature of the foreign policy and socio-economic characteristics of Bangladesh indicate that the non-traditional threats have been major areas of concern and take on great importance in the country’s maritime security issues. Traditional security threats For Bangladesh, the Bay of Bengal is the next frontier of economic development. The maritime area of the country contains two critical SLOCs: the first one goes east to Southeast Asia, China and Japan through the Strait of Malacca, and the second one goes west to Saudi Arabia, Iran and so on (Karim 2015: 312). Bangladesh conducts more than 90% of its international trade by using these two SLOCs (Alam 2014). Being a littoral state in the Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh is exposed to the great power rivalry in the Indian Ocean. The geostrategic importance of the Bay of Bengal has long been a key issue of contention among the major powers of the world, i.e. the United States, China, Japan and India. Therefore, any blockage on either of these SLOCs, caused by a military conflict among the major powers, is likely to bring about economic disaster for the country. Apart from great-power politics in the Bay of Bengal, Bangladesh is also apprehensive of its next-door neighbours: India and Myanmar. India, being the largest littoral country in the Indian Ocean, considers the bay an integral part of its military influence (Robinson 2016). For example, in the course of its peaceful naval buildup, Bangladesh acquired two submarines in November 2016 from China, which, by instant reaction, Indian policymakers considered an ‘act of provocation’ by Bangladesh towards India (Raghuvanshi 2016). On the other hand, just a few years before their maritime boundary was demarcated Bangladesh and Myanmar went for a naval standoff in 2008, followed by Bangladesh’s discovery of 15.51 trillion cubic feet of oil and gas reserves in its maritime waters (Iyer 2017: 4). Hence, the traditional security threats in its sea area provide Bangladesh with a valid ground to pursue maritime security cooperation with some extra-regional powers, such as China.

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Non-traditional security threats Transnational terrorism In recent times, the use of the maritime domain by the transnational terrorist groups has received wider attention from the policymakers and security experts of the coastal countries. For the last two decades, a series of terrorist attacks on or by sea, including the October 2012 attack on a French oil tanker and the November 2008 attacks in Mumbai, has clearly indicated the security exposure of the coastal countries to terrorism (Hossain 2016: 167). The Mumbai attacks in particular had grave security implications for Bangladesh. The nature of the attacks, in which terrorists used small fishing boats to cross the maritime route and landed by sea to launch the attack on the city, introduced whole a new dimension of non-traditional security threat from the sea (Rabasa et al. 2009: 1). Maritime piracy The Bay of Bengal is one of the world’s hotspots for maritime piracy (Kraska 2011: 35). The coastal livelihood of Bangladesh is highly dependent on fishing, which includes trawlers and other small fishing boats. While fishing in the sea, they often become easy targets of local or regional pirates. For example, an estimation of the Cox’s Bazar District Fishing Trawler Owners Association (DFTOA) of Bangladesh projects that, from 2010 to 2015, at least 411 fishermen have been killed and more than 1,000 fisherman wounded by pirates in the Bay of Bengal (Bhuiyan and Alam 2015). Apart from this, pirates often target large cargo ships in international waters. The Bangladeshi cargo ship MV Jahan Moni, for example, was hijacked by heavily armed Somali pirates in December 2010 from the coast of India (BBC 2010). Arms and drug smuggling The Bay of Bengal has long been exploited as a transit route by the regional insurgent groups and drug dealers of South and Southeast Asia (Osmany and Ahmad 2003: 162). The coastal regions of Bangladesh, especially Chittagong, Khagrachari and Bandarban, are mostly remote and hilly by nature. These areas have land borders with Northeast India and Myanmar, where a number of local insurgent groups have had strong footholds for decades (Sarker 2016). These insurgents often use Bangladesh’s land and maritime area for the transportation of their arms and ammunitions. For example, a large quantity of arms and ammunition was confiscated in Chittagong in April 2004, and it was widely reported that these weapons were headed to insurgents in Northeast India (The Daily Star 2014).

Bangladesh–China maritime security cooperation  163 In addition, the Bay of Bengal is located between the two largest illicit opium-producing areas of the world, i.e. the ‘Golden Triangle’ (Thailand, Myanmar and Laos) and the ‘Golden Crescent’ (Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran). Almost half of the world’s illicit drugs, produced in these areas, are trafficked through the Bay of Bengal and its littoral countries to different parts of the world (Husain 2000: 8; Hossain 2016: 168). Human trafficking Transnational criminal networks use the Bay of Bengal as a maritime route for the trafficking of humans, mostly Bangladeshi citizens and Rohingya refugees from Myanmar, to Southeast Asian countries, especially Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand (Albert and Maizland 2018). According to a report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), around 31,000 people, including Bangladeshis and Rohingyas, were trafficked through the Bay of Bengal in the first half of 2015 (UNHCR 2015: 2). Regional militant and terrorist organisations in South and Southeast Asia are believed to be benefitting from this human trafficking (Herman 2015). Natural disasters Bangladesh is one of the worst victims of climate change, with most of its surface lying less than 10 meters above sea level. It has been the world’s most vulnerable county to natural disasters, including tropical cyclones, storm surges, floods, soil intrusion, extreme temperatures and drought (Denissen 2012). In 2007, Geosciences Australia reported that the Bay of Bengal is the most dangerous area for large tsunamis, and Bangladesh falls in the second position after Indonesia for the largest population threatened by tsunamis (Bateman 2012: 23). In 2009, a study by Climate Change Cell, working under the Department of Environment, Bangladesh, predicted that a 45cm rise in the sea level would inundate 10–15% of the country’s land area by the year 2050, generating more than 35 million climate refugees from the coastal districts (MoEF, GoB 2009: xv).

Bangladesh’s maritime security cooperation with China under BRI Given the existing traditional and non-traditional seaborne threats, Bangladesh needs to strengthen its security measures, such as the modernisation of its naval and Coast Guard capabilities. China’s long-standing assistance to Bangladesh has proven crucial in this regard, whereas the BRI provides with a new window of opportunity, as well. Naval rejuvenation and, thus, ensuring the security of maritime trade routes under the BRI are among

164  Noor Mohammad Sarker the key priorities of China’s overall military modernisation strategy. So far, rapid technological advancement as well as the increasing capability of the armed forces have enabled China to become a world-class blue water navy (Godbole 2015: 236). Therefore, maritime security cooperation with China under the BRI could provide Bangladesh with better expertise, infrastructural capabilities and modern equipment. China as a strategic security partner for Bangladesh After consistent military cooperation for several years, China has emerged as a strategic security partner for Bangladesh in South Asia. Bangladesh’s maritime area occupies a significant geostrategic position in the Bay of Bengal, in particular, as well as in the Indian Ocean. However, the country is geographically surrounded by India in all sides, except the south-eastern part that borders Myanmar (Banerji 2007: 233). India, as the most powerful country in South Asia in terms of geography, economics and the military, considers the region under its sphere of security influence (Dahiya 2015). This hegemonic nature of India naturally elevates security concerns among its smaller South Asian neighbours, including Bangladesh (Syed 2002: 20). Hence, Bangladesh has been left with no choice but to maximise its geostrategic options through cooperative security measures with an extra-regional power. China plays a key role in South Asia as a geostrategic balancer for Bangladesh. In terms of the traditional security aspect, Bangladesh and China have maintained a closer relationship for the last two decades. They entered into a Defense Cooperation Agreement in 2002, the first of its kind for Bangladesh. Bilateral security engagements between Bangladesh and China include military-to-military cooperation in terms of training, maintenance, technical servicing and relevant intelligence sharing (Ahmed 2013: 281). Bangladesh has been upgrading its military capability with China’s assistance in expertise and equipments, as well. Most of the existing military equipment in Bangladesh came from China. For example, the Bangladesh Army has been equipped with Chinese tanks; its Navy has Chinese submarines, frigates and missile boats; and the Bangladesh Air Force flies Chinese fighter jets (Sarker 2014: 86). In March 2019, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reported that China had been the largest exporter of military equipments for Bangladesh in 2018, and Bangladesh was the second largest importer of Chinese weapons at the same time (SIPRI 2019: 2–6). These developments of bilateral military cooperation ­provided Bangladesh with an opportunity to maximise its strategic importance in the region, whereas China plays the role of balancer vis-à-vis India.

Bangladesh–China maritime security cooperation  165 Modernisation of Bangladesh Navy and Coast Guard Bangladesh acquired an enormous sea area of about 166,000 sq km after its maritime boundary demarcation with India and Myanmar. However, the government of Bangladesh soon realised that the country’s Navy and Coast Guard were neither efficient nor well enough equipped to ensure security in its maritime area from both traditional and non-traditional threats (Nowshin 2015). Hence, Bangladesh unveiled a plan to pursue strategic initiatives in order to increase the efficiency and technological capability of its Navy under its Forces Goal 2030. According to this strategy, the Bangladesh Navy is supposed to upgrade its naval capabilities from solely surface platforms into ‘three dimensions’: aviation, surface and undersea (Samaranayake 2016). China is playing a vital role in the modernisation of the Bangladesh Navy through providing technological and infrastructural assistance. In terms of technical support, China offered shipping designs and technologies to the shipyards of the Bangladesh Navy in 2015–2016 (Singhi and Tuli 2017). China has also sold a large quantity of naval equipment to Bangladesh. For example, Bangladesh purchased six surface ships from China between 2009 and 2015, including two patrol boats with modest anti-surface and anti-submarine capabilities, and two ex-Jianghu-III Chinese frigates. As a part of its ‘three dimension’ goal, Bangladesh purchased two refurbished submarines from China, named BNS Nabajatra and Joyjatra, both delivered in 2016. These are Chinese Ming class submarines with an overall length of 76 meters and maximum speed of 18 knots under sea, including the capability to launch Yu-3 and Yu-4 type heavyweight torpedoes (Jha 2016). This technological support and upgraded equipment from China have enabled the Bangladesh Navy to transform its capacity from the ‘brown-water’ to the ‘blue-water’ class (Gupta 2014). In line with these developments, Bangladesh also reformulated its Coast Guard Act in 2016, with the objective of making the country’s Coast Guard more capable than ever to protect its sovereignty and prevent non-traditional security threats coming from the sea (Alam 2018). Over the past few years, China has remarkably developed its Coast Guard by employing its naval technologies (Morris 2018). Therefore, similar to naval modernisation, China seems a suitable option for Bangladesh to engage in bilateral cooperation for the advancement of its own Coast Guard’s efficiency, as well.

China’s cooperation to mitigate non-traditional security threats in the bay For the last few years, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) Navy has maintained its regular presence in the wider Indian Ocean with a view to preventing maritime piracy and, thereby, securing international trade routes

166  Noor Mohammad Sarker in this area. China’s major sea routes through the Indian Ocean serve as its distant sea-lifelines for energy supplies from the Middle East and African coasts. These routes are also integral parts of the Maritime Silk Road under the BRI. However, the rising presence of American naval forces in the Asia Pacific and the constant threat of maritime piracy in the Indian Ocean have made China anxious about the safety of its critical SLOCs in the upcoming days (Cooper 2018). Hence, in response, China has integrated the concept of ‘far seas protection’ (‘远海护卫’) to its maritime strategy since the early 2000s, which signifies the development of an independent Chinese blue water navy in the greater Indian Ocean (Mohan 2015: 44). The major objective of this strategy lies in protecting Chinese interests abroad, which include ‘overseas energy and resources, strategic sea lanes, overseas Chinese investment, and overseas Chinese citizens and legal entities’ (Li 2017: 9). Accordingly, China’s naval ships have been making their presence in the Indian Ocean and participating in regular anti-piracy operations as well as naval exercises with littoral countries since December 2008 (Smith 2017). In February 2017, for example, the Haikou and the Changsha, two Chinese destroyers, performed anti-piracy drills in the eastern part of the Indian Ocean (Scott 2017). About two months later, a joint anti-piracy operation by Chinese and Indian naval forces in April 2017 in the Gulf of Aden managed to rescue a hijacked merchant ship from Somali pirates (Kalra 2017). In line with surface naval ships, Chinese nuclear submarines have joined these operations from 2013 onwards (Japanese Ministry of Defence 2014; Sakhuja 2014). In this context, the BRI has opened a new window of opportunity for Bangladesh to seek China–Bangladesh bilateral cooperation with a view to mitigating its seaborne security threats. As a part of the Maritime Silk Road, the security of the Bay of Bengal remains one of the primary focuses of China’s naval policy. For example, in order to prevent seaborne threats, such as maritime piracy and human trafficking, China, with its modern technological support, has actively collaborated with Southeast Asian countries for the past decade (Fernando 2012: 469). Accordingly, China has also expressed interest in a joint collaboration with Bangladesh to combat terrorism and strengthen their disaster management capacities (MoFA, GoB 2016).

Theoretical implications Based on the foregoing discussions, the study offers two major theoretical implications for academia. Implications of top-down and bottom-up approaches According to the top-down approach, wherein the states are the key driving forces, the mutual cooperation between Bangladesh and China has been conducted by the official engagements of both of these countries, partly

Bangladesh–China maritime security cooperation  167 based on their individual perceptions about the existing traditional security threats in the Bay of Bengal. For example, Bangladesh perceives India’s military assertiveness as well as Myanmar’s naval build-up as traditional security threats in the bay (Robinson 2016; Iyer 2017: 4). Conversely, the increasing US military presence in Southeast Asia following its ‘Pivot to Asia’ policy has raised China’s concerns about the security of its SLOCs through the Malacca Strait in the upcoming days (Rahman 2014: 8). As a result, China is looking for possible alternatives to bypass the strait for its connectivity, trade and energy links by using Bangladesh’s maritime and land areas, whereas Bangladesh is seeking balance with India and Myanmar through Chinese naval assistance (Gupta 2014). The complementary interests of these two countries to mitigate their existing traditional security threats in the Bay of Bengal have, somewhat, resulted in this bilateral security cooperation. This study also explores the existing non-traditional security threats for Bangladesh as well as China in the Bay of Bengal, which can be explained through the bottom-up approach. Maritime piracy and terrorism, in particular, have been common problems for both countries in their overlapping SLOCs (Kalra 2017). China’s modern naval technology, supported by Bangladesh’s geostrategic advantages, seems effective to prevent these security problems. Thus, apart from their traditional security concerns, seaborne security threats have also led Bangladesh and China to pursue mutual security cooperation with a view to finding effective solutions to these problems. Implications of the Belt and Road Initiative As part of its original contribution to these theoretical approaches, this study explains the role of the BRI in maximising the scope of B ­ angladesh– China maritime security cooperation, wherein both countries can achieve a win-win situation by minimising their security challenges in the bay. The study finds that the major SLOCs for both Bangladesh and China in the India Ocean pass through the Bay of Bengal, whereas the existing great-power politics among regional and extra-regional powers primarily serve as a top-down security threat, and problems of piracy, terrorism and so on serve as bottom-up security threats for both countries. However, the BRI, as a cooperative framework, provides a window of opportunity for Bangladesh to obtainlucrative financial and technical support from China to upgrade its seaports and naval facilities. China, on the other hand, could benefit by using Bangladesh’s seaports to connect its landlocked Southern provinces with the Bay of Bengal through the maritime and land routes of the BRI. Therefore, the BRI serves as tool to foster bilateral cooperation to mitigate top-down and bottom-up security threats at sea.

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Conclusion Among all the aspects of national security, the maritime security of Bangladesh remains a comparatively underexplored phenomenon (Hossain 2016: 162). However, the aftermath of the country’s maritime judgments, with Myanmar in 2012 and with India in 2014, has observed the rising awareness in academia and among experts on Bangladesh about the importance of security in the maritime domain, especially in relation to the maximum utilisation of its geostrategic and geo-economic potentials. In this regard, China has extended timely assistance to modernise Bangladesh’s security in the sea, whereas the BRI has, in fact, widened the scope of this bilateral maritime security cooperation. Nonetheless, these two countries could work on some major policy areas. First, Bangladesh could identify key areas where this bilateral security cooperation could have a larger scope for contributions. For example, compared to naval development, the Bangladesh Coast Guard still lacks capacity as well as modern equipment to defend the country’s maritime area from non-traditional security threats. Given the remarkable development of China’s Coast Guard in the last few years, Bangladesh could look for Chinese cooperation in the modernisation of its Coast Guard. Second, India, as the major power in South Asia, has still not supported the BRI but rather perceives it as a major threat to her regional leadership and, thereby, seeks to align with other major powers against China (Godbole 2015). If India continues this outlook in future, it may jeopardise Sino-Bangladesh maritime security initiatives. Therefore, China and Bangladesh should work together and pursue initiatives that could change India’s viewpoint on Sino-Bangladesh maritime security cooperation.

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Part III

Ideology, media and culture

11 The impact of the Sino-Soviet split on the politics of the left in Pakistan Muhammad Qasim Sodhar

The history of the left-ethnic-nationalist nexus in Pakistan starts from the very inception of Pakistan, when the national question emerged in the country. On the one hand, the Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP) was very active. Especially in the then West Pakistan, the CPP was taking on both the class question and the national question simultaneously. At the same time, the Awami (People’s) League (AL), a party that was representing the people of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), was also representing both the leftists and the Bengali nationalist elements of East Pakistan. The AL came into existence in 1949, when conflicts emerged in the East Pakistan Muslim League. Ultimately, one section of the Muslim League left the party and formed another party called the Awami Muslim League. Maulana Abdul Hameed Khan Bhashani, known as a progressive person, was elected as the first president of the Awami Muslim League (Chaudhry 1994: 22). The Awami Muslim League consisted of both right-wing and left-wing elements, but the left wing was more influential than the right. Simultaneously, the CPP activists who were working underground after being banned in 1954 also joined the Awami Muslim League. Now the left wing became over-represented and as the result, the name ‘Awami Muslim League’ was replaced by ‘Awami League’ (Chaudhry 1994: 22–23). The logic behind this change in name was that the party should not be limited to Muslims only, but that all political elements could join, regardless of their religious identity. However, the 1950s was a decade of changes in the Pakistani government set-up, and1954 was an even more important year in Pakistan’s political history. It was then that, when on the one hand, the United Front won elections in East Pakistan, which was considered a success for the progressive forces of Pakistan, because the candidates who won these provincial elections by the platform of the United Front belonged to the Communist Party and the AL. On the other hand, in the same year the CPP was banned and the United Front’s government in East Pakistan was dismissed just three months after it was formed (Ahmed1988: 34). But the major political decision – which annoyed the people of West Pakistan, except for people of Punjab, and strengthened the national question – was Governor-General Ghulam Muhammad’s steps to dismiss the Constituent Assembly, and later on, the imposition of the One-Unit formula (Ahmed 1988: 37). DOI: 10.4324/9780367855413-14

176  Muhammad Qasim Sodhar The One-Unit formula was a plan by which, through eroding all of the provinces of West Pakistan, only two wings were created, viz. East Pakistan and West Pakistan. This plan was made to create ‘parity’ between two wings of the then Pakistan, because East Pakistan was a most populous wing at that time, constituting more than 54% of the total population. Hence, in order to break East Pakistan’s hegemony in terms of population, the West Pakistan authorities, under the rule of Governor General Ghulam Muhammad, imposed the One-Unit plan. Apart from creating parity between the two wings in terms of population, the purpose behind imposing the One-Unit by the Punjabi government elite was to exploit the minerals of Balochistan, control the electricity of the NWFP and occupy the fertile lands of Sindh (Salim 2018). To consolidate West Pakistan into the One-Unit, the existence of West Pakistani provinces, such as Punjab, Sindh, NWFP (now KPK) and Balochistan were denied and these provinces lost their individual status in the new arrangement. Only two wings existed: East Pakistan and West Pakistan. This decision by the central government was considered by the people of the provinces of West Pakistan as a conspiracy against the people of Pakistan, to convert West Pakistan into a ‘Greater Punjab’. The idea of the Greater Punjab was very old. It originated in 1930, when the idea of Pakistan had not yet emerged. The ethnic-nationalists, especially the Sindhi and the Baloch, still believe that Allama Muhammad Iqbal, a very famous poet and scholar of the subcontinent, was the originator of the idea of a Greater Punjab when he addressed the All India Muslim League session held in Allahabad, India, in 1930. He said: I would like to see the Punjab, North West Frontier Province, Sindh and Balochistan amalgamated into a single State. Self-government within the British Empire or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated North West Indian Muslim State appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of North West India. (Hassan 2008) Iqbal cunningly conceptualized the idea of creating a Greater Punjab by amalgamating the Muslim majority provinces of India. Although he emphasised in his speech to unify Muslim majority areas of Western India to create a single state and imagined to see Punjab as a dominating province, since it was most populated among all three but did not consider East Bengal, most Muslim dominated area of India to be part of this Single Muslim state as that would have negated his idea of Greater Punjab. Some nationalist leaders, such as Mir Ghaus Buksh Bizenjo, the Baloch nationalist, claimed that imposing the One-Unit plan set a path to the secession of East Bengal from Pakistan. As he argued: Ironically, the process of the secession of East Pakistan started when Pakistan’s rulers invented the dubious East-West parity formula between the two wings of the country in conjunction with the

The impact of the Sino-Soviet split  177 formation of One Unit of West Pakistan. H.S. Suhrawardy, an ardent champion of democracy, was wooed into the ongoing plot with the promise that general elections could be held soon if the parity formula was accepted by East Bengal. The power brokers and the ruling elites of Punjab were always scared of Bengalis’ numerical majority. They apprehended that Bengal could at any time endanger Punjab’s domination by joining forces with other federating units of West Pakistan. How to safeguard the vested interests of West Pakistan’s feudal-dominated ruling elite was the issue at stake. It was argued that East-Wing parity in representation, coupled with the integration of the provinces of the West wing into a single unit of West Pakistan would help to strengthen the country and contribute to greater progress and prosperity of the people of both wings. This way, Punjab’s vested interests were in fact killing two birds with one stone. On the one hand, parity formula would put an end to Bengal’s numerical majority status. On the other, bringing the provinces of west wing under a single provincial administrative setup with its headquarters located in Lahore would prove the first step towards the west wing into Greater Punjab! (Bizenjo 2009: 38–39) Since the very inception of the country, the Pakistani state had taken the stance that there were no any other nations or nationalities in Pakistan other than only one, the ‘Pakistani’, but at least existence of provinces was accepted. Now, after the imposition of the One-Unit formula, the existence of provinces was denied. In the wake of this change, on the one hand, the Communist Party of Pakistan was under state suppression, and at the same time, if nationalist leaders, writers, journalists or intellectuals tried to raise their voices against the One-Unit scheme, they were declared anti-Pakistan or agents of foreign countries. However, in this critical condition, it was very difficult to continue with the politics of ethnicity with the progressive narrative. Despite such state suppression of political activities, the progressive and ethnic-nationalist elements of both wings met and formed some kind of united front again under the name of the National Awami (People’s) Party (NAP), which not only served progressive purposes but also highly resisted the One-Unit formula.

Formation of the National Awami Party (NAP) The NAP was the first party in the history of Pakistan in which all of the progressive forces of the country came closer and worked together (Chaudhry 1994: 38). As Aziz (1976: 111) points out, on 25 July 1957, there was, as we have seen, a serious rift in the East Pakistan AL, and Maulana Bhashani walked out to form his own party, the National Awami Party. In West Pakistan, it was soon joined by the Pakistan National Party, which itself was a combination of the Azad

178  Muhammad Qasim Sodhar Pakistan Party, the Red Shirts, the Sindh Awami Mahaz and a few other minor groups. The real reason for Bhashani’s break with the AL was his disagreement with Suhrawardy on foreign policy and his belief that the AL had betrayed itself by refusing to implement the 21-point manifesto of the late United Front. In 1956, before the formation of the NAP, the Pakistan National Party (PNP) was formed, as a merger of the parties of West Pakistan only; therefore, it was merged with the NAP a year later. The main points of the NAP manifesto, as given by Bizenjo (2009: 46), were: • ‘Defence of the sovereignty, integrity and independence of Pakistan. • Non-aligned, independent foreign policy; withdrawal from the military pacts, SEATO and Baghdad Pact (later CENTO). • Ending of exploitation of Pakistan externally and its people internally. • Abolition of One Unit and reorganisation of provinces on linguistic basis; maximum provincial autonomy in a federal structure, with only defence, foreign affairs and currency to be left with the Federal Government and all other powers to rest with the autonomous units. • Protection and security of the right of adult franchise’. As the NAP was a merger of both the left and the ethnic-nationalist parties, therefore, the manifesto represented the demands of both ideological fronts within the same party. The left-wing forces of the country severely opposed the defense pacts which Pakistan had signed with the United States. The Pakistani government was propagating the idea that Pakistan needed security measures against foreign countries, especially India, and therefore, it was time to ally with the United States in order to get ammunition, to protect Pakistani borders from any external threat. But, the reality behind these pacts was to counter communism, not only in Pakistan but throughout the world. The other fact was that India had already initiated good relations with the former Soviet Union. This was not in favour of Pakistani government authorities, who feared that if India wanted to attack Pakistan, the Soviet Union would take India’s side, which happened later, during the Pakistan–India War in 1971. However, this was a totally unwanted situation for the progressive forces of Pakistan. Therefore, as the pacts were anti-communist, every manifesto of progressive parties such as the CPP and the PNP adopted stance against these pacts. As for as the demands to abolish the One Unit, grant autonomy to the provinces and reduce the powers of the central government were concerned, these were demands by the nationalist forces who were part of the NAP at that time. In this regard, a very active character of the NAP in movements such as the Anti-One Unit movement, Minto (2018), who is also founder of Pakistan’s current major leftist party, the Awami Workers Party (AWP), explained in a personal interview for this study that the ‘One Unit movement was a movement of national bourgeoisie, not a movement of the left,

The impact of the Sino-Soviet split  179 but still we supported the nationalist forces because we both were a part of the same party, the NAP’. On the one hand, the NAP is being appreciated as a very strong alliance or nexus of the left and ethnic-nationalist forces of the country. However, on the other hand, it has been criticised. In this context, one of the major criticisms of the NAP, specifically criticism of the nationalist forces of the NAP, is, as Ali (2015: 219–220) points out, from the very beginning, the leftist elements in these parties felt sidelined by the dominance of regional leaders (mostly large landholders) whose main objective was the undoing of the One Unit. Despite their subservience, the left worked towards retaining the party’s unity as it was committed to the ideals of regional and cultural autonomy in the face of the state-sponsored Muslim nationalist (one people, Islam, Urdu) ideology. But, at the same time, the left of the NAP was divided on the issue of One Unit. On the one hand, Pakhtun progressive leader and chairman of the West Pakistan-National Awami Party, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, popularly known as the Gandhi of the Frontier, was taking a severe stance against One Unit, arguing that breaking the One Unit was more important than the independence of Kashmir (Chaudhry1994: 44). Khan Ghaffar Khan had published a pamphlet entitled Pathans and One Unit in February 1958. In that pamphlet, he maintained, as quoted by Aziz (1976: 11) that the establishment of One Unit was ‘a dangerous conspiracy against the people of smaller units hatched by the late Mr. Ghulam Muhammad, Chaudhry Muhammad Ali, Mian Mumtaz Daultana, Mr. Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani, and the Punjab leaders’. But on the contrary, Maulana Bhashani, chairman of East Pakistan-National Awami Party, disagreed with Khan Ghaffar Khan’s view of the One Unit. Bhashani was of the opinion that the NAP should not take serious consideration of the One Unit, because this issue could only be resolved with the consent of all political forces and the people of Pakistan (Chaudhry 1994: 44). However, the NAP was focusing on the national question, as former communist leader Salim (2018) states. the NAP was the only party in 1957, which demanded Pakistan was promised in the Lahore Resolution of 1940, but later on, when the NAP was divided into two factions; the faction which followed the pro-Soviet stance, supported the national question issues, but the proChina faction did not do that and it adopted very radical stance.

The Sino-Soviet split and its effects on the NAP Chinese communists were being supported by the Soviet Union before the revolution occurred in China in 1949. When the National Government of Chiang Kai-shek was ruling the country, China had faced severe aggression

180  Muhammad Qasim Sodhar from Japan. At the time, the National Government of China was not a communist government, in spite of which it was supported by the Soviet Union against the aggression of Japan. As Shu-Kai (1967: 66) points out, as Japan launched her aggression against China in the 1930s, the Soviet Union did not hesitate to offer its assistance to the Chinese Nationalist Government, presided over by Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, after Stalin realised that only the Generalissimo could rally the invaders It was the opinion of the then Soviet Union government that Chiang Kaishek’s government was the only force capable of fighting against Japanese aggression at that time. Hence, Shu-Kai (1967: 66)points out, when the Generalissimo was kidnapped in 1936 by certain pro-Communist military forces, Stalin intervened to secure his release. With the encouragement of Moscow, the Chinese Communists were once more brought into the fold of the Chinese National Government, with which the Soviet Union maintained correct diplomatic relationships throughout the war. After continuous struggles by the Chinese Communist Party, Chinese Communists had succeeded in gaining power in 1949. From then on, the relationship between the Chinese communist government and the government of the Soviet Union remained fruitful; once Stalin died, in 1953, however, and especially when Khrushchev took power, the situation started to change. In this regard, Saksena (1964: 68) argues that the death of Stalin in March 1953 was a turning-point in the history of Soviet Communism-nay-international Communism. In the succeeding three years till 1956 when the heirs of Stalin struggled for power, not much change was witnessed. But with Khrushchev emerging on the Russian scene after overthrowing Beria, Malenkov and Bulganin, liberal forces gained momentum in Russia. In February 1956 when the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party was held in Moscow, Khrushchev openly denounced the personality cult and accused Stalin and Stalinism for the same. Here was the beginning of differences between strong conservatives like Mao who has been an ardent follower of Stalin and the liberal forces embodied by Khrushchev. The major difference between the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) was an ideological one. As the CPSU, under the leadership of Khrushchev, had embraced liberal thought, the CCP perceived this against that of Leninist ideology. It was interesting that Khrushchev did not deny the fact that the Soviet Union had shifted its ideology in terms of resisting imperialism and strengthening

The impact of the Sino-Soviet split  181 relationships with capitalist states, because according to the then Soviet Union leadership, it was the need of the time. This Russian position was clearly stated by Khrushchev in 1960, as quoted by Saksena (1964: 69): It should not be forgotten that Lenin’s pre-positions on imperialism were advanced and developed tens of years ago when the world did not know many things that are not decisive for historical development for the entire international situation. Some of Lenin’s prepositions on imperialism date back to the period when there was not Soviet Union, when the other Socialist countries did not exist….one cannot mechanically repeat on this question what Lenin said many decades ago…and quite different historical conditions. If Lenin could rise from his grave he would take such people as one says, to ask and would teach them how one must understand the essence of the matter. On the other hand, Chinese responded in the ‘Red Flag’ in 1960, again as quoted by Saksena (1964: 69): We believe in the absolute correctness of Lenin’s thinking; war is an inevitable outcome of system of exploitation and the source of modern war is the imperialist system. Apart from the CPSU policy over resisting imperialist forces, some other points of deference were including the Khrushchev policies of ‘Peaceful Coexistence’, ‘Disarmament’ and getting rid of the ‘Personality Cult’. According to Krushev’s policy, co-existence was a policy of the interstate relations between socialist and capitalist countries, because now the CPSU realised that the policy of using war and violence was no longer a viable tactic for the communists. But contrary to CPSU policy, the CCP argued that ‘the Communist Party of the Soviet Union has given up revolution and has substituted peaceful co-existence for class struggle. Lenin never advocated that the exploiter and the exploited should co-exist peacefully’ (Saksena1964: 71). As for as the issue of ‘Disarmament’ is concerned, the CPSU maintained that, as using violence through arms and ammunition was no longer a suitable tactic to spread the Communist ideology, the CPSU believed that the world should be saved from further destruction, for which disarmament was the only solution. But again, the Chinese Government under Mao’s leadership did not accept this policy, because the CCP not only believed in dogma but also advocated violent means as necessary tools for class struggle. As Saksena (1964: 72) points out, according to Chinese, disarmament is not feasible, it is needless also. Why disarm when capitalists exist? Declare war on them, destroy them and when socialism triumphs all over the world, then talk of disarmament. If anyone talks about it earlier he is not a revolutionary. He is not a true Socialist.

182  Muhammad Qasim Sodhar Simultaneously, the issue of demolishing Stalinism by the Khrushchev government was another major reason for the Sino-Soviet rift, which ultimately led the CCP to declare that after the demolition of Stalinism, it became clear that the CPSU had lost its revolutionary sprit, and China considered itself the saviour of Marxism–Leninism. However, the split took place in the international communism, which also impacted the Pakistani left, and this impact was very negative, which ultimately broke up the unity of left itself and the unity between the left and ethnic-nationalist forces. Ali (2015: 230) points out that, by the early 1960s, the various groups of the Left had also started to feel the impact of the Sino-Soviet split within international communism. In Pakistan, some of these international differences were played out in terms of factional rivalries, while others took the form of tangential arguments on the nature of the martial law regime. In the 1960s, when the split took place in the NAP, General Ayub Khan was ruling the country. As he was a military dictator, he was trying to retain his power through different tactics. For example, he introduced the system of ‘Basic Democracy’, by which people had to be selected by his choice, to serve in local government. The name of Ayub’s suggested political system shows that it was kind of a democratic system or process. In reality, it was a way of encouraging nepotism in the name of democracy, because these all 80, 000 people who were supposed to be chosen under this program had to be appointed or selected by the Ayub Khan regime, rather than being elected in any real sense. In this context, it was clear that the system of basic democracy was making political forces apolitical, because the system was a bureaucratic one, and it was a trap for political forces set by Ayub. Despite that, one NAP faction that was following the Moscow line supported Ayub Khan in his trap, because ‘some in the Left argued that the Basic Democracy system was similar to the Russian soviets at the time of the 1917 revolution (Ali2015: 230)’. Likewise, Tariq (2018), a leftist and follower of the Trotskyite line, explains that, the division within the NAP created two contrary situations; on the one side, the pro-Soviet faction of NAP had stopped opposing the Ayub Khan’s regime’s martial law, and on the other side, the Stalinist group narrated that the communists should continue class struggle through peaceful manners. But as Ayub Khan was a military dictator, so his rule must have been resisted, and at the same time, how was it possible that a class struggle that was launched against an oppressor class could be peaceful? The rift in international communism and also in the Pakistani left changed the Pakistani government’s policies towards the left of Pakistan. In this regard, when Pakistan moved closer to China, the left that followed the

The impact of the Sino-Soviet split  183 Chinese line became acceptable to the government, and by contrast, the pro-Soviet left faced harsh actions by the same Pakistani government (Ahmed 2010:4). However, the conflict within the NAP did not stop at its division into two factions: pro-Moscow and pro-Beijing. The NAP (Wali Khan Group) that was following the pro-Soviet line further divided, when the Mazdoor Kissan Party-MKP (Laborer-Peasant Party) was formed. As Ahmed (2010: 6) points out, the MKP was founded in 1968. It was a product of the split in the National Awami Party (NAP) into a pro-Moscow, West Pakistan-based wing led by Wali Khan, son of the Frontier Gandhi Abdul Ghaffar Khan, and the East Pakistan-based Maulana Bhashani. In West Pakistan, the Maoists broke away from the National Awami Party (NAP) (Wali Khan) and founded the MKP under the leadership of Afzal Bangash, a Pukhtun like Wali Khan. In 1970 Major (Retd) Ishaq Muhammad from the Punjab joined it along with his supporters. Although after the division took place in the NAP, its different factions existed and had been working, the left-ethno-nationalist nexus broke down and could never reunite as a single party as it had been under the NAP. This might be possible due to the secession of East Pakistan in 1971, when the political scene completely changed. In the 1980s, such a step was taken once again but did not succeed. In order to form a United Front once again, in 1986, another party with virtually the same name, the Awami National Party (ANP), was founded. As Ali (1987:1235) points out, this, party was formed when four parties – Awami Tehrik (active only in Sind), National Democratic Party (popular amongst the Pakhtuns), Mazdoor Kissan Party (with an insignificant following in Punjab) and a section of Pakistan National Party (active amongst the Pakhtuns and Sind) – decided to merge into one anti-imperialist party with ‘peoples national democratic’ programme. However, this was tried by the progressive forces, but it did not continue its struggle for more than two years. The major reason behind its failure was that the party was not representing the progressive elements of all provinces or nations of Pakistan, but it represented mostly only two ethnic-nations, viz. Pakhtun and Sindhi. A very nominal section of Punjabi left was there, and there was no representation of Baloch people in newborn ANP. In the result, very soon the party was divided and the allied parties maintained their individual existence, but the same party with the same name, ANP, is still functioning in Pakistan, which has not remained a leftist party anymore but an ethnic-nationalist party that has been representing only the Pakhtun people in KPK province and Pakhtuns living in Karachi city.

184  Muhammad Qasim Sodhar

Conclusion Pakistan was created in the name of a particular religion, Islam; therefore, the Mullahs (religious forces) have always tried to make it an Islamic state. At the same time, the state narrative had supported the ‘One-Nation’ formula that there was only one nation in the country and that was Pakistani, but the ethno nationalists, along with the forces of the left, opposed such a state narrative on the nationalities question and insisted that Pakistan was a multi-nation country. They demanded autonomy for all provinces. Simultaneously, within a very short span of time, the Pakistani state authorities inclined towards the United States through signing two anti-communism defense pacts, i.e. SEATO and CENTO, in 1954 and 1955, respectively, which was not acceptable to the left-wing in Pakistan. In retaliation, both the left and nationalist forces joined hands to resist the state narrative on the national question and also the state policy of Pakistan’s joining the US camp against the former Soviet Union. In this regard, initially the Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP) resisted the state policies, along with the nationalist forces, but it was soon banned due to the Rawalpindi Conspiracy Case in 1954. After the CPP, the National Awami Party (NAP) became a broader and strong alliance of the left and ethno nationalist forces of the country, which had challenged the status-quo, but unfortunately, the NAP could not remain intact, due to the split that occurred in the international communist movement, between the Soviet Union and China. After this split took place in the international left, the NAP was also divided into two factions, pro-Moscow and pro-Beijing. This division within the NAP not only affected the politics of the left in Pakistan but also affected the nationalist movement, because after the NAP, a countrywide nexus between the left and ethno nationalists was no longer possible.

References Ahmed, Aziz-ud-Din. 1988. Kiya Hum Ikathay Rah Saktay Hain? (Pakistan me Qoumi Masalay ka Tajziya) [Can we live together? (An analysis of the national question in Pakistan)]. Lahore: Maktab-i-Fikr-o-Danish. Ahmed, Ishtiaq. 2010. ‘The rise and fall of the Maoist movement in Pakistan’. ISAS Insights, 102, 1–7. https://www.files.ethz.ch/isn/116646/ISAS_Insights_102.pdf. Accessed on 12 May 2019. Ali, Babar. 1987. ‘One year of left unity in Pakistan’. Economic and Political Weekly, 22(30), 1235–1236. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4377281. Accessed on 12 May 2019. Ali, Kamran Asdar. 2015. Surkh Salam: Communist politics and class activism in Pakistan. Karachi: Oxford University Press. Aziz, K K.1976. Party politics in Pakistan 1947–1958. Islamabad: National Commission on Historical and Cultural Research. Bizenjo, Mir Ghaus Buksh. 2009. In search of solutions: The autobiography of Mir Ghaus Buksh Bizenjo. Karachi: Pakistan Labour Trust and University of Karachi (KU) Pakistan Study Centre.

The impact of the Sino-Soviet split  185 Chaudhry, Zafar Ali. 1994. Pakistan ki Taraqi Pasand Tehrikein aur Tanzeemein [The progressive movements and organisations of Pakistan]. Rawalpindi: Ganhara Books. Hassan, Riffat. 2008, 14 August. ‘Understanding Iqbal’s “Dream” of Pakistan’. The Nation, https://nation.com.pk/14-Aug-2008/understanding-iqbals-dreamof-pakistan. Accessed on 17 May 2019. Minto, Abid Hassan. 2018, 26 April. Personal interview. Lahore, Pakistan. Saksena, Km Vimla. 1964. ‘Sino-Soviet rift’. The Indian Journal of Political Science, 25(2), 68–76. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41854001. Accessed on 10 May 2019. Salim, Ahmad. 2018, 24 April. Personal interview. Islamabad, Pakistan. Shu-Kai, Chow. 1967. ‘Significance of the rift between the Chinese Communist regime and the Soviet Union’. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 372(1), 64–71. doi:10.1177/000271626737200107. Accessed on 10 May 2019. Tariq, Farooq. 2018, 26 April. Personal interview. Lahore, Pakistan.

12 Image of China in the Afghan media Hazrat M Bahar

The media play a vital role in society, mainly in the construction of meaning and public opinion through propaganda and disseminating information. The media can pacify the public. They can also terrify people and turn a pacifist population to warmongering, as Noam Chomsky has argued (Chomsky 1997). The impact and function of the mass media have been extensively examined and their role or importance highlighted, not only in shaping political reality but also in determining and setting agendas (McCombs and Shaw 1972). Simply put, the media have the potential and power to tell us ‘what to think’ and ‘how to think’. It all depends on production, the portrayal by the media and its framing, ‘a mental structure that help people understand [or make sense of socially constructed] reality’ (Paracha, Imran and Khan 2011). The concept of the image, be it of a state and leader or country, is a fictional and socially constructed reality of the entity. It is a figure of a leader, candidate, product, institution, state, party, country, etc. in people’s minds (Vinogradova and Denisova 2018). The image of a nation or country is the product of historical processes caused by various factors including politics, the economy, diplomatic relations and its position in global economic and political arenas (Ali and Bahar 2019). A state image, in terms of formation and reception, is divided into a) The state, independent of external and internal factors; b) The state as formed and propagated by authorities; c) The state as perceived by the population; d) The state formed by a political elite; and e) The image of the state created through media (Vinogradova 2010). The creation and perception of images is a cognitive and mental process. The brain acquires and processes information, and the media help facilitate this process. After various cognitive processes, new knowledge and understanding or an ‘image’ is generated. The media as a facilitators or providers of information in broader terms encompass newspapers, news agencies, magazines, books, the cinema, billboards, radio, television, online and social platforms, etc. For this study, two newspapers and a news agency have been chosen. China has been increasing its presence in Africa and more recently in Europe, particularly after the inception of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013. Such a presence has received mix responses on the national and DOI: 10.4324/9780367855413-15

Image of China in the Afghan media  187 international levels. As an emerging economy and the world’s second largest, China has been relatively well received nationally; however, g­ lobally – mainly in the West – its involvement has sometimes been termed a ‘onesided natural-resource-gathering quest’ (Ludwig 2013) and ‘ruthless’, ‘unscrupulous’, and ‘exploitative’ (Ali and Bahar 2019). This, in turn, has to some extent, blurred its image or dominated the global media discourse. Geographically connected and politically not very strongly tied, AfghanSino relations, and mainly China’s representation in the Afghan media, have not been thoroughly examined. Broadly speaking, the image of China in South Asia is still an understudied area. Although Hatef and Luqiu (2018) have tried to position China and Afghanistan regarding the BRI, the study is methodologically flawed. The media outlet chosen from Afghanistan (Khaama Press (KP)) is neither mainstream nor print. It is preferably an online newsgathering and disseminating portal, which monitors and surfs information with amateur practices that mostly rely on social media posts. It could be misleading if we considered KP as representing Afghanistan. This chapter is an attempted contribution to the examination and representation of China in Afghanistan. In other words, it attempts to understand and examine how Afghan media portray the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Before going into the topic, to provide some background, I briefly delve into the two countries’ relations in historical, political and economic contexts.

Afghan-Sino relations Historically speaking, Afghanistan, precisely modern Afghanistan (founded in 1747), did not have a strong relationship with China, although it was part of the traditionally famed Silk Road, an ancient network of trade during the Han dynasty (130 BCE), which was closed after the Ottoman Empire boycotted trade with the West, in 1453 (Mark 2018). However, the two countries maintained intermittent relations after Afghanistan gained its independence in 1919. Following the establishment of the PRC in 1949, Afghanistan was one of the first countries that offered official recognition, though it was reciprocated five years later, and then they deployed diplomatic missions, including exchanging ambassadors in 1955 (Ehsan 2013; Ludwig 2013). At the onset of the Cold War, although Afghanistan had been pursuing a foreign policy of non-alignment, it has or was obliged to have a tendency toward the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), and this in turn, given the Sino-Soviet split after the demise of Joseph Stalin and Sino-Pak ties, may have discouraged China from establishing more active relations with the country. However, in 1957, the two countries’ high-ranking officials paid visits to each other and inked various agreements, including The Treaty of Non-aggression and Establishment of the China and Afghanistan Friendship Association (Ehsan 2013), as well as an agreement on their 75-km border and its demarcation (Segal 1981). After the Soviet invasion

188  Hazrat M Bahar

2016

Iran

2017 Pakistan

China

1,16,59,31,753

1,08,68,51,109

1,26,41,67,477

1,17,92,97,874

1,29,32,24,715

1,21,25,63,809

1,09,27,07,519

1,19,87,59,334

1,26,51,39,067

of Afghanistan in late 1979, the PRC sided with the anti-Soviet block and armed the resistance (Ludwig 2013). After the Soviet defeat and its subsequent dissolution in the early 1990s, Afghanistan became engulfed in civil war, which gave birth to the Taliban; China maintained its non-interference policy, and the two reportedly established relations in 1999 (Sahay 1999). After the collapse of the Taliban and establishment of a new government in late 2001, China, compared to its previous involvement, started to play an active role, highly likely because China had developed a great deal. It is emerging or has already become a great power, not only in the region but across the globe. Besides that, it can no longer want its immediate neighbourhood to turn into maneuvering venue for its rivals. Therefore, in 2012, China, after India, became the second country with which Afghanistan had signed a Strategic and Cooperative Partnership (Chandra 2016). That same year, Afghanistan was granted observer membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). China is now part of multiple groups important to the peace and security of Afghanistan, including the Quadrilateral Coordination Group (the United States, China, Afghanistan and Pakistan), the trilateral meeting (China, Afghanistan and Pakistan), the Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan (RECCA) and the Heart of Asia – Istanbul Process. Afghanistan, on a moderate estimation, has a worth of about 1 to 3 trillion USD in untapped natural resources (Risen 2010; Harooni 2011). The Ministry of Mines and Petroleum says only 10% of the country has been geologically surveyed (AE4D 2018). China, by securing two big contracts (Mes Aynak Copper and the Amu Darya project of oil refinery and production), worth around 3.5 billion USD, is the leading country in terms of business investment in Afghanistan. It has also contributed to construction and reconstruction, though less, compared to its investment in mines. The two countries signed a memorandum of understanding to join BRI in 2016, and the following year, Afghanistan joined the Asian Infrastructure Invest

2018

Figure 12.1  Volume of exports to Afghanistan (in USD). Source: Data retrieved from Central Statistic Organisation of Afghanistan, www.cso.gov.af.

Image of China in the Afghan media  189 Bank (AIIB), which funds the BRI. Based on 2019 statistics published by the Central Statistic Organisation of Afghanistan, China is the second-largest exporter to the country after Iran, and its exports surpassed Pakistan’s in 2018 (Figure 12.1).

The Media and Afghanistan After a regime change in 2001, Afghanistan witnessed unprecedented changes in governance and mass communications. A democratic government was formed, arguably for the first time, and a new constitution (2004) and mass media law guaranteed freedom of the press. In turn, this paved the way for freedom of the press, which was followed by the establishment of hundreds of print, radio, TV and recently, internet-based media outlets. Against this backdrop, Afghanistan has experienced a drastic increase in the media industry (Barker 2008). The country now entertains relatively better press freedom, compared to regional countries, according to a Reporters without Borders 2018 index that ranked Afghanistan 118th out of 180 countries (RSB 2018). The media are hailed as among the ‘remarkable success[es] of the Afghan state’ (Page and Siddiqi 2012). The approximately 495 operational media outlets include 183 newspapers, 200 radio stations, 96 TV stations, and 14 news agencies (Khalvatgar 2019). Besides that, all prominent social media platforms are freely accessible. With a total population of 31.6 million (CSO 2018), out of 4.01 million internet users, 3.5 million people use social media (Hootsuite 2018), and after sports and celebrities, politics is a topical issue discussed on social media (GIZ 2014). To understand how China is portrayed in Afghan media, for this chapter, I chose three outlets: a) The Pajhwok Afghan News agency (PAN); b) Hasht e Sobh (HeS), literally meaning 8 o’clock in the morning; and c) The Kabul Times (KT). PAN, the leading and largest private news agency, provides paid wire news service about Afghanistan in three languages (English, Pashto and Dari), to national and international media. HeS is the only private daily newspaper that is apart from the capital, Kabul, being printed in two other provinces (Herat and Balkh) (Khalvatgar 2019). KT is a staterun English daily newspaper, established in 1962. Their one-year online archives were retrieved and searched with the terms ‘China’ or ‘People’s Republic of China’.

China in Afghan media As many as 228 stories mentioned the term ‘China’. The name predominantly appeared in news stories but in some opinion pieces as well. I scanned the Afghan media to see the portrayal of China and what frame is more evident in their representation. I chose the time span of one year:

190  Hazrat M Bahar May 2018–2019 for HeS and KT, and January–December 2018 for PAN. The different duration was because of the inaccessibility and unavailability of online archives. I also talked with two senior editors/owners. After they answered these questions, some possible reasons for the results are examined. Content analysis of media stories using a framing conceptual framework shows that China has been represented in a positive or favourable tone. According to Neuman (2007), content analysis is ‘a technique for gathering and analyzing the context of the text. The “content” refers to words, meanings, pictures, symbols, ideas, themes, or any message that can be communicated. The ‘text’ is anything written, visual, or spoken that serves as a medium for communication (quoted in Macnamara 2005). Frame, as Entman puts it, is to ‘select some aspects of a perceived reality and make them more salient in a communicating text’ [sic] and salient or salience is to make ‘a piece of information more noticeable, meaningful or memorable to audiences’ (Entman 1993). Citing Tversky and Kahneman (1981), he explains how different frames can change the decision of viewer or reader: Imagine that the U.S. is preparing for the outbreak of an unusual Asian disease, which is expected to kill 600 people. Assume two alternative programs to combat the disease have been proposed. If program A is adopted, 200 people will be saved and in the case of B, there is a onethird probability that 600 people will be saved and a two-thirds probability that no people will be saved. In this experiment, 72 per cent chose program A; 28 per cent chose B. In the next experiment, identical options to treating the same described situation were offered but framed in terms of likely deaths rather than likely lives saved: If program C is adopted, 400 people will die. If program D is adopted, there is a one-third probability that nobody will die and a two-thirds probability that 600 people will die. The percentages choosing the options were reversed by the framing. Program C was chosen by 22 per cent, and Program D garnered 78 per cent. (Abridged version) An important part of media framing is tone or valence. There are basically three types of tone: positive, neutral and negative (Boydstun et al. 2013). They are sometimes also called favourable, neutral and unfavourable or good, neutral and bad, and they are used here interchangeably. Before identifying media content as favourable, neutral and unfavourable, we need to define what they mean in this particular context.

Image of China in the Afghan media  191 Favourable tone: stories that portray China as the second-largest economy cooperating with Afghanistan on peace, counterterrorism, trade, investment and infrastructure development. Neutral tone: stories that do not explicitly attach particular salience when China is mentioned. This usually appeared in stories where China was not directly focused on. Unfavourable tone: stories that attach negative implications when China is mentioned. This often appeared in connection with great powers competing for their own interests in Afghanistan, regime type and the reluctance of China to put pressure on Pakistan to help Afghanistan in peace and security. The name of China mentioned in the stories is categorised based on direct and indirect correlations. The direct category means that the story features China directly, its name was either in title or was centrally focused on; the indirect category means that its name was mentioned in the background, context and sometime in trivial references. Out of 228 articles, China was directly mentioned in 140 stories or, in other words, the country was featured and the central focus of the story; by contrast, 88 stories indirectly mentioned the name, mostly to provide additional, trivial information. The tone of 103 of the 140 stories where China was directly mentioned was favourable; in six, it was unfavourable; the remaining 31 had a neutral tone. The tone of 88 stories where the name was indirectly mentioned was remarkably neutral (49), followed by favourable (25) and unfavourable (14). The negative tone was observed mostly in stories on the role and influence of China over Pakistan. PAN was the leading media outlet, in terms of its coverage, publishing 149 stories; there was no visible difference between HeS and TK, which published 39 and 40 stories, respectively. As a state-owned daily newspaper, KT did not run any stories with a negative tone against China in its one-year coverage, based on the information retrieved from their online archive. The country was featured 26 times with a positive tone and ten times with a neutral tone in the direct category, whereas, in the indirect category, it was portrayed three times with a neutral tone and once with a positive tone. PAN, having 74 direct stories, represented China 68 times with a favourable tone, five times with a neutral tone and once in an unfavourable tone. When it comes to the indirect category, PAN had 75 stories, where the tone of 41 was neutral, 23 favourable and 11 unfavourable. HeS was relatively critical, compared to the other two. It ran 39 stories in total, with 19 neutral in tone, nine favourable and five unfavourable, in the direct category, while in its indirect stories, the privately owned daily newspaper had five with a neutral tone, three with an unfavourable tone, and one with a favourable tone. This is further illustrated below (Table 12.1):

192  Hazrat M Bahar Table 12.1  Stories in newspapers mentioning china Number of stories PAN Direct Indirect Total

74 75 149

Favourable Unfavourable Neutral Total

PAN 68 1 5 74

Favourable Unfavourable Neutral Total

PAN 23 11 41 75

HeS

KT

30 36 9 4 39 40 Direct stories with tone HeS KT 9 26 5 0 16 10 30 36 Indirect stories with tone HeS KT 1 1 3 0 5 3 9 4

Total 140 88 228 Total 103 6 31 140 Total 25 14 49 88

Source: Author’s compilation

Why is this the case? The perception and reception of an image of a country are produced and instilled about the concept of power, mainly soft power, whose resources are, among others, political values, cultures and foreign policies. China is considered and portrayed as an important country in Afghanistan. This can be inferred from the number of stories published in these three media outlets; an average more than four stories (4.38) directly or indirectly linked with China are published per week. More important, the dominant positive tone of the stories highlights the salience and importance of China. The following reasons may explain why this is the case or, in other words, why China is important and represented favourably, with extensive coverage in the Afghan media. The idea that throughout history China and Afghanistan have enjoyed friendly and culturally similar relations is dominant not only in the media landscape but also in academia (see, for example, Ghulam 2006; Hatef and Luqiu 2018; Bashardost 2019), although this idea has not been proven scientifically, with well-researched evidence. After 2001, China ramped up its engagement and besides other classes, it has been building or has established working relations with media and media practitioners in Afghanistan,

Image of China in the Afghan media  193 including sponsoring and facilitating training and visiting China (interview with editor). China has the second-largest economy across the globe and the largest in the region. It is also a significant trading partner of Afghanistan, after Iran, though the trade balance is largely asymmetric; Chinese export to Afghanistan is 1,165 million USD, as against 28.4 million USD in 2018; however, the volume of export from Afghanistan to China in 2016 was 4.7 million USD, small, but a drastic increase (CSO 2019) can be observed. In addition, China has so far invested about 4 billion USD in natural resources, mainly copper and oil, though this investment has not been properly materialised to contribute to economic development, because of obstacles and concerns about the security and mobilisation of these megaprojects. To put this amount in perspective, the country’s national budget for 2019 was around $5 billion. After all, Afghanistan is en route to join a multi-billion project – the BRI – as well. Besides the economy, China is also perceived in Afghanistan an emerging political power both in regional and world arenas. After a sharp decrease in the number of international forces in 2014, interactions between the two countries have remarkably increased. China was the first country the incumbent president of Afghanistan – Mohamad Ashraf Ghani - visited after taking office. He termed it ‘a strategic partner’ (BBC 2014). In post-Soviet Afghanistan, the then Mujahidin – who fought against the Soviet Union and its sponsored government in Kabul – has been playing a great role in governing and dominating the country’s political landscape. When the Mujahidin were waging war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s, China was one of the main suppliers of weapons to the Mujahidin. Against this backdrop, today, China is playing an active role in the political landscape of the county. This role is more visible in peace, security and counterterrorism. The Afghan government encourages China to help push Pakistan to make the Taliban negotiate a peaceful settlement to the ongoing conflict in Afghanistan. China initiated talks with the Taliban and allegedly invited their delegation to Beijing (Reuters 2016); however, this has yet to yield the desired outcome – that the Taliban talk directly with the Afghan government. In terms of security, China and Afghanistan have converging interests. A secure Afghanistan could diminish any chance of instability in the western Xinjiang province and also provide opportunities for Chinese companies to explore and make use of the large and untapped natural resources of the country. Furthermore, a peaceful region is also in the best interest of Afghans, after all.

Conclusion The media outlets observed for this study, generally speaking, present a favourable image of China. However, they did not highlight some significant issues, such as investigating procrastination in the Mes Aynak and Amu

194  Hazrat M Bahar River oil projects, possibly because the findings could provoke a backlash. These media outlets seem in line with the foreign policy and official position of the state put forward by Ashraf Ghani vis-à-vis China ‘as a strategic partner, in the short term, medium term, long term and very long term’ (BBC 2014). In order to maintain smooth bilateral China–Afghanistan relations, some reports are unpublished. This uniformity was further observed among the stories focusing on Sino-Pakistani relations. The Afghan government tries to encourage China to put pressure on Pakistan to cooperate in peace, and the media objectively, with an unfavourable tone, portray this ambivalence of China. The PRC, apart from being the second-biggest economy, is perceived and understood to be the strongest country that can force Pakistan to change or rethink about its policy vis-à-vis Afghanistan, and this scenario is not expected from any other great power. The media are important and could play a more constructive role in Afghan-Sino relations by paying attention and addressing vital issues, including obstacles that so far have obstructed full utilisation of the mega projects Mes Aynak and the Amu River oilfield. Mes Aynak was awarded to two Chinese state-owned companies, the China Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC) and the Jiangxi Copper Company Limited in 2008, and the contract ‘worth of $2.9 billion stipulates that copper production will commence in the fifth year [2013] of the 30-year lease’ (Amin 2017). This project was expected to generate revenue of 350 million USD annually and create thousands of jobs, along with the construction of a 400-megawatt coal-fired power plant. Addressing these impediments could in turn, strengthen bilateral relations. The Chinese traditional view regarding Afghanistan, as Ehsan (2013) argues, being peripheral to Beijing, has changed, and the country, besides having vast untapped natural resources, is important politically, as well. China prefers and will highly likely prefer in the future to have a friendly neighbour who has great potential to play a role in its security and economy, particularly as regards the BRI.

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196  Hazrat M Bahar Page, David and Shirazuddin Siddiqi. 2012. ‘Afghanistan in transition: The challenges of transition’. BBC Media Action, https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/ media/57a08a8de5274a31e0000672/bbc_media_action_afghanistan_is_in_transition.pdf. Accessed on 12 July 2019. Paracha, Sajjad Ahmed, Fatima Imran and Muhammad Ashraf Khan. 2011. ‘Framing of drone attacks in Pakistani elite press: A comparative study of Dawn and The Nation’. Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences, 3(1), 471–482. Reuters. 2016, 30 July. ‘Afghan Taliban delegation visits China to discuss unrest: Sources’, https://www.reuters.com/article/us-afghanistan-taliban-china/afghantaliban-delegation-visits-china-to-discuss-unrest-sources-idUSKCN10A09H. Accessed on 12 July 2019. Risen, James. 2010, 13 June. ‘U.S. identifies vast mineral riches in Afghanistan’. New York Times, https://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/world/asia/14minerals.html RSB. 2018. ‘World press freedom index 2018’. Ranking. Reporters Without Borders, https://rsf.org/en/ranking/2018. Segal, Gerald. 1981. ‘China and Afghanistan’. Asian Survey, 21(11), 1158–1174. Sahay, Tara Shankar. 1999, 12 February. ‘Taliban-China deal puzzles diplomats’, https://www.rediff.com/news/1999/feb/12tali.htm. Accessed on 12 July 2019. Tversky, Amos, and Daniel Kahneman. 1981. ‘The framing of decisions and the psychology of choice.’ Science, 211(4481), 453–458. Vinogradova, N S. 2010. Politico-psychological analysis of the image of Russia in Anglo-American printed media. Moscow: Moscow State University. Vinogradova, N S and S A Denisova. 2018. ‘A quantitative analysis of the image of Russia in the Asia-Pacific Region media’. European Research Studies Journal, XXI(1), 555–569.

13 China–India cooperation in the cultural industry in the twenty-first century Wan Jiqiong

In 1947, Theodor W. Adorno and Max Horkheimer, philosophers of the Frankfurt School, proposed the concept of ‘Cultural Industry’ for the first time, in their book, Dialektik der Aufklärung (Horkheimer and Adorno 1947). By this industry, they meant mass cultural activities produced as ideology and promotion. They thought that such cultural products had been commoditised, technicalised and standardised, acting as a force to control social ideology and dominate, eliminating people’s personalities and differences. They even made the criticism that ‘the cultural industry endlessly cheats its consumers out of what it endlessly promises’ (Horkheimer and Adorno 2002). In the 1970s and 1980s, the European Commission and UNESCO changed the concept of ‘industry’ to refer to the existence of culture and its role in contemporary society, with the ‘cultural industry’ becoming a type of cultural economy in a broad sense (Zhang Xu and Ma 2006). Therefore, culture has been given commercial and service attributes, besides its spiritual features, which means culture can produce cultural goods for consumers and create and shape peoples’ values and lifestyle. The culture needs to produce objects in reality transforming its attraction, charm and appeal from a conceptual form to a practical one. Only in this way can culture play a bigger role and more powerfully influence reality and peoples’ lives. Thus, the cultural industry is an important manifestation of practical, cultural forms. It not only contributes to the development of a country’s economy but also plays an important role in a country’s social development, and its international influence and attractiveness. The cultural industry includes media, cartoons, film/television, entertainment, games, tourism, education, publishing, internet/information services, music, drama and art museums.

Overview of Chinese culture and its cultural industry China’s history as a civilisation goes back 5,000 years. It is one of the ‘four ancient civilisations’, with ancient Egypt, Babylon and ancient India. It is generally accepted by the Chinese academic community that China’s traditional culture is a fusion of three major cultural philosophies: Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. The basic structural features of Chinese culture DOI: 10.4324/9780367855413-16

198  Wan Jiqiong are formed by ‘ruling the mind with Buddhism, controlling the body with Taoism, and governing the world with Confucianism’ (Liu 1985). At the time, Chinese traditional culture can be divided into two categories. One is the elite official and written language culture, which is inherited from the texts such as 四書 (the Four Books), referring to Da Xue 大学 (The Great Knowledge and Learning), Zhong Yong 中庸 (The Doctrine of the Mean), Lun Yu 论语 (The Analects of Confucius), and 孟子 Meng Zi (The Mencius); and 五经 Classics, including Shi Jing 诗经 (The Book of Songs), Shang Shu 尚书 (The Classic Historical Documents), Li Ji 礼记 (The Book of Rites), Zhou Yi 周易 (The Book of Changes) and Chun Qiu 春秋 (The Spring and Autumn Annals). They were handed down in writing for and belong to the ‘elite culture’, which is different from the ‘folk culture’. Therefore, most of the prose in the Pre-Qin Dynasty, Chu Ci 楚辞 (The Songs of Ancient Chu Land), Han Fu 汉赋 (prose with rhyme of the Han Dynasty), Tang poetry 唐诗 (poetry of the Tang Dynasty), and Song Ci 宋词 (poetry of the Song Dynasty) are elite cultures. The other is the folk culture, which is transmitted through means other than written language, including oral, customary methods and processes and behaviour, such as making wine, making tea, making local foods and so on. There may not be written records of these activites, nor are there school professors to teach them. Instead, they rely on non-written language forms, such as oral teaching and behavioural communication. In the twenty-first century, the concept of ‘Chinese culture’ has been given new meaning. Qiu Yunhua proposes that the concept of Chinese culture should cover the basic attitudes of contemporary Chinese people, not only to their traditional culture but also to Western culture. In addition, Chinese culture should include China’s political construction, achievements in various fields of society, spiritual experience, psychological feelings, value standards, beliefs and aesthetic habits (Qiu 2012: 2). Chinese culture has a long history and is well established, with comprehensive and deep meanings. It highlights the value of benevolence, nationalism, integrity, respect for justice, harmony, community and ­moderation. Chinese people should pursue the ‘unity of Heaven and man’, be ‘­People-oriented’ and follows the ‘Self-improvement way of life’. The concept of harmony between man and nature is at the core of Chinese traditional culture and is a major contribution to human culture. At the same time, Chinese culture has had high achievements in calligraphy, literature, martial arts, art, painting, music, folk customs, architecture and so on. The highlight of the traditional Chinese culture is its classic literature. Meanwhile, cultural heritage is an important part of cultural resources. UNESCO has recognised 55 heritage sites of China as World Heritage sites, including 37 Cultural Heritage sites. Now China shares first position with Italy on the World Heritage List (UNESCO World Heritage Centre 2020). The profound historical heritage and rich cultural heritage of the 5,000year Chinese civilisation is a treasure trove for the Chinese cultural industry,

China–India cooperation  199 which is constantly developing to meet the demands of people in the new era, in terms of their aesthetic needs and spiritual enjoyment. In the past 40 years of reforms and opening up, the Chinese cultural industry has grown rapidly. The period from 1978 to 1991 was the bud of the development of the Chinese cultural industry. From the end of the 1970s to the middle of the 1980s, with the end of the ‘Cultural Revolution’, the reform of the economic system promoted changes in the cultural and ideological fields, which led to the rise of the cultural market and the emergence of recreational cultural consumption. In 1992, China officially listed the cultural industry as a tertiary industry. From 2002 to 2011, due to the policy of actively developing cultural industries, China’s cultural industry entered a period of accelerated development. According to the China Government Network, in 2011, Chinese cultural market operators had a total annual operating income of 25.53 billion USD and a total profit of 8.68 billion USD (Ministry of Culture 2012). Since 2012, the Chinese cultural industry has entered a period of comprehensive improvement, forming a cultural industry ownership structure with public ownership as the main body, and developing together with a multi-owner system. This lays an important foundation for the long-term development of the national cultural industry. At the same time, the status of the cultural industry and its role in economic growth are increasing, becoming the new engine of economic and social development and the pillar industry of national economic development (Zhou and Yu 2018: 4). As of October 4, 2017, the China National government news network listed on its website, the added value of the national culture and related industries of China was ¥3,078.5 billion in 2016, which was higher than the nominal growth rate of GDP in the same period and the proportion of GDP was 4.14 % according to the forward-looking Industrial Research Institute. (Government of China 2017) At the same time, according to the China Industrial Economic Information Network, by 14 February 2018, China’s import and export of cultural products (including entertainment equipment and products, movies, television and drama, etc.) and services were worth 126.51 billion USD in 2017, an increase of 11.1% over the same period in 2016; of that, the import and export of cultural products amounted to 97.120 billion USD, and the import and export of cultural services amounted to 29.39 billion USD by 2017 (Ministry of Commerce of China 2018). Today, the Chinese cultural industry continues to expand. China has formed a cultural market system consisting of six major components: the performance market, the entertainment market, the audio-visual market, the online cultural market, the film market and the art market. For example, China’s entertainment industry market was nearly ¥380 billion (around

200  Wan Jiqiong 60.32 billion USD) in 2016; its video payment market reached ¥ 10.8 billion (around 1.71 billion USD) by 2016, and it’s likely to increase further, reaching up to ¥ 50–60 billion (around 7.13–8.57 billion USD) by 2020. The total size of the video payment market is expected to exceed ¥ 130 billion (around 20.6 billion USD) (CEC CAPITAL 2017). China also has established 30 Chinese cultural centers around the world, including in 11 European countries (France, Germany, Spain, Malta, Russia, Denmark, Belgium, Sweden, Greece, the Netherlands and Belarus) and ten Asian countries (Japan, South Korea, Mongolia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Laos, Nepal, Pakistan, Singapore and Cambodia), and five African countries (Mauritius, Benin, Egypt, Nigeria and Tanzania), three Oceania countries (Australia, New Zealand and Fiji) and one Latin America Country (Mexico) (Yuan 2017: 5). At the same time, according to the Confucius Institute Headquarters (Hanban), China has established 530 Confucius Institutes and 1,129 Confucius Classrooms in 155 countries and regions, as of June 2019. This shows that the numbers of both Confucius Institutes and Confucius Classrooms are rising (Han Ban 2019). However, there are still problems in developing China’s cultural industry, including the backwardness of ideological concepts and consciousness, and the low industrial conversion rate of cultural resources. The Cultural Industries Parks are facing difficulties, such as their aesthetic styles and displays items are similar and seriously lacks clear industrial chains or their own distinguishing features. Meanwhile, the cultural industry policy is not perfect. It has not effectively solved the problem of the shortage of high-quality cultural industry talents. One of the reasons behind this deficiency is the difficulty in gaining sufficient investment. Additionally, the Confucius Institute has been suspected of disseminating China’s ideology in some countries. These factors may have a negative impact on cultural exchanges and cooperation between China and other counties.

Overview of Indian culture and its cultural industry India is also an ancient civilisation with a long history, having nurtured a profound and splendid civilisation. Its history can be traced back to around 2500 BCE, including the most primitive Harappa civilisation, the Vedic civilisation that accompanied the Aryans, and the native Brahman, Buddhist, Hindu and Islamic civilisations. All of them have made India shine a light on the history of the world. The collection, exchange, conflict and integration of different civilisations in different periods, as well as the numerous ethnic groups and races, forms the diversity of Indian culture, including Aryan, Vedic, Hindu, Islamic, Buddhist, Sikh, Tribal and Western cultures. The main feature of Indian culture is its strong secular nature, which is based on Hindu culture and also incorporates Islam, Christianity, Jainism, Sikhism, Parsi, Judaism, Buddhism and other religious cultures. This makes literature, architecture, sculpture, painting, music, dance and folk customs extremely religious, too. Specifically, India has many classical mythological

China–India cooperation  201 literatures, such as the Mahabharata and Ramayana, which are considered two epics of India. Hindu temples and exquisite architecture vividly showcase cultural landscapes of India and unique in the world. The voluminous Buddhism and Sangam Classics are a fascinating treasure house of cultural heritage. Indian Buddhist statues, paintings and architecture are spectacular shows developed form of the art. Indian Muslim architectures also reached the peak of architectural design during the Mughal era. These architectures include the magnificent and beautiful Taj Mahal, the romantic legendary Agra Fort, the solemn and mysterious Sun Temple of the Ajanta Cave, Konark, the ancient pagoda with Buddhist relics, the Great Living Chola Temples, the Rajasthan Fortress and the Goa Church and Monastery. Indian culture is rich and varied and has its own complete cultural form. It can be juxtaposed with Western culture and Chinese culture. It is also one of the irreplaceable cultures in the world. At the same time, the long-term coexistence and mutual influence of multiple cultures and religions, as well as their mutual integration, have created India’s rich and diverse cultural heritage. Since India joined the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage Convention on 14 November 1977, UNSCO has included 37 Indian spots as World Heritage sites. Of these, seven are World Natural Heritage sites and 29 are World Cultural Heritage sites, according to the data listed on UNESCO World Heritage Centre’s website for 4 July 2018. It is clear that Indian culture is an inexhaustible spiritual treasure of the Indian people and a resource and foundation for Indian cultural industry. India has been one of the world’s largest collections of songs, music, dance, theatre, folk traditions, performing arts, rites and rituals, paintings and writings, referred to as ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage’ by UNESCO (UNESCO World Heritage Centre 2020). India’s cultural industry has also developed rapidly, parallel to its modernisation. It grew by 7.9% from 2000 to 2013, and it is 0.7 percentage points higher than the GDP of the same period. The film industry has always been the main force in the Indian cultural industry. India produces 1,500 to 2,000 movies a year, ranking first in the world in terms of output, and its exports are second only to those of the United States. They come in more than 50 languages and are sold to more than 70 countries. The annual output of the film industry is worth about 1.2 billion USD and accounts for 80% of the Indian cultural market (Shao 2018). It was expected that by 2020, the Indian film industry’s revenue would reach 3.7 billion USD, at a growth rate of 11.5% year-on-year (Indywood 2016). Simultaneously, the number of Indian TV channels grew from five in 1991 to more than 890 in 2017. India is also the world’s second-largest pay-TV market, with 177 million pay-TV subscribers in 2016, expected to grow to 215 million by 2021(Li 2018a: 2). In 2018, the internet TV market in India had 100 million subscribers and reached a scale of 280 million USD (Li 2018a: 2). Meanwhile, the Indian media and entertainment sector grew at an annual rate of 20%, to reach a value of 15.4 billion USD in 2012, according to a report released by PricewaterhouseCoopers

202  Wan Jiqiong India (MarketLine 2013). According to a report issued by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and Ernst and Young (EY), the Indian media and entertainment (M&E) sector earned revenues worth 23.9 billion USD in 2018. This amount is expected to exceed 33.6 billion USD by 2021, at a compound annual growth rate of 11.6% (Interactive Media 2019). In addition, the Indian publishing industry is one of the top ten publishers in the world, and it is also the world’s second-largest publisher of English-language books. At present, the total number of newspapers and magazines published in India is nearly 100,000, and the market output value reached 3.9 billion USD in 2016. Recently, areas such as gaming, digital advertising, and animation and visual effects have shown significant growth. Social media and digitisation are gaining considerable popularity, as increased investment by the private sector and foreign investment from media and entertainment giants has given further impetus to the entertainment industry. In short, Indian cultural industry is the integration of ancient civilisation and modern industry, and the blend of local culture and other civilisations, too. In recent years, India has embarked on a road toward the rapid development of cultural industries, with local culture as the core, and with the benefits of technological innovation, content innovation and financial support from governments and enterprises. However, India’s cultural industry also faces development problems. The current cultural management mechanism has obvious shortcomings; the various sectors are separated by traditional industries and are independent, making policy coordination between departments inconsistent, resulting in an unnecessary waste of resources. Another main problem is that the Indian economy is not yet strong enough, so investment in the cultural industry is still small, which requires the government to provide more incentive policies, facilitation measures and financial support.

The current situation of cultural exchanges and cultural industry cooperation between China and India When did the cultural exchanges begin between China and India? There is no conclusion yet. However, from written records, Sino-Indian cultural exchanges have been a model in the history of human civilisation for more than 2,000 years. The late Ji Yulin, Sanskrit, Buddhism and Confucian scholar said that ‘the cultural exchange between China and India can promote literature, art, philosophy and religion. It can enhance the prosperity of both sides of science and technology and promote the advancement of both societies’ (Ji 2000: 3). Since 2000, China and India have developed rapidly and become the world’s two major emerging economies. The trade in Sino-Indian cultural is also growing at high speed. From 2006 to 2015, the total volume of Sino-Indian cultural products trade expanded from 281.3 million USD

China–India cooperation  203 to 2.6 billion USD, with an average annual growth rate of 28.42%. This is higher than the 10.26% annual growth rate of trade in cultural products between China and Russia, and the 4.47% annual growth rate of the world’s cultural products trade. Chinese cultural products are trendy on the Indian cultural market, but Indian cultural products have low market share in the Chinese cultural market. From the perspective of the cultural product trade structure, Sino-Indian cultural product trade is based on design products. The average annual proportion of Chinese-designed cultural products exported to India is around 59.84%, and crafts and new media were the fastest-growing sectors from 2006 to 2015; the average annual proportion of Indian-designed cultural products exported to China is 65.94%, and arts and crafts were the fastest-growing sectors in the same period (Qin and Gu 2017). In recent years, cultural exchange activities between China and India have been increasing, too. There have been many events, including the ­China-India Cultural Festival held in Beijing (2010), the third China-South Asia International Cultural Forum successfully held in Chengdu (2011), the Sino-India Friendly Exchange Year launched in New Delhi (2014), the Strategic Cooperation Framework Agreement signed by the China–India Group Culture Company and Nanguo Real Estate (2015), the China–India International Yoga Culture Festival held in Hangzhou (2015), the Colourful Indian Culture Festival held in Nanjing (2017), and the China–India Cultural Carnival activity held in Shanghai (2018). Moreover, the investment between China and India in the cultural industry has had a good start. For example, the Dalian Wanda Group, a large private enterprise in China, has invested in a cultural tourism park project in Haryana, India. This project has already started. China’s Tencent, Alibaba and other well-known companies are considering investing in Indian media company Prime Focus, a large integrated media services company. About 80% of its revenue comes from the international market (Barman and Laghate 2017).

Positive factors that facilitate China–India cooperation in the cultural industries First, both China and India have rich cultural resource advantages as two ancient civilisations. Each also has a long history, multi-ethnic characteristics, multicultural inclusiveness and diversity. They can offer cultural powers with excellent cultural resources, rich and colourful cultural forms and the top cultural heritages to the world. Undoubtedly, these elements have laid a solid foundation and ideal conditions for the development of national cultural industries and are good for further cooperation between China and India. Second, economic development and transformation in the two countries has provided a good opportunity for cooperation. Both China and India are in periods of rapid economic development and social transition. So, the continuous development of economy and the social demand for cultural

204  Wan Jiqiong products may bring more opportunities for China and India to cooperate. At the same time, both of them have taken their cultural industries as the content of their national development strategy, attached great importance to it, and actively provided economic investment, too. The cultural departments of the two countries, from the central government to the local governments, support the development of cultural industries, including preferential policies, financial support, the relaxation of controls on foreign investment and allowing foreign capital to hold a significant share of news publications. Third, the two countries have large populations, presenting huge consumer markets, and the demands of spiritual life from the people are continually increasing. China’s population is 1.39 billion, the world’s largest number of people. India’s population is 1.34 billion, making it the second most populous country in the world, which means that the sizes of the consumer markets in China and India are huge, and the customer consumption power of the two countries is also increasing with their national economic growth. The demand for cultural products should continue to increase. For example, there were 3.8 billion internet users around the world in 2018. And China leads with 21% of internet users globally, while India has the second largest internet user-base at 12% (Boy Genius Report 2019). Also, China has about 60 million people living outside the country, and India has an out-of-country population of 30 million, These non-residents, the 90 million India and Chinese people buy cultural products from their hometown as gifts for their foreign friends and for themselves, too. Today, the numbers in the Chinese and Indian diaspora are still increasing, and these people are also important consumers of native cultural products. Moreover, the median age in India is less than 30 years, and in China, it is less than 40 years. So, China and India not only present a potentially huge market for cultural products but also a good human resource for promoting the cultural industry construction of the two countries. Additionally, India has a first-class higher education system, which is helpful for cultivating a large pool of talent. China has greater scientific and technological human resources (numbering 71 million), and its research and development (R&D) staff totalled 5.35 million in 2013, ranking first in the world (Ministry of Science 2017). All these resources could help in expanding cooperation in the cultural industry between the two countries. Fourth, cultural industry cooperation is becoming one of the trends in the new round of globalisation. More and more countries are taking the cultural industry as an important part of their economic development. In the United States, the cultural industry is the second pillar industry of the national economy, accounting for a quarter of the GDP, and it is the largest export industry of the country (Li 2018a: 2). The cultural industry is one of the six strategic economic industries in the UK; its output value accounts for about 7% of the UK GDP, and the number of people employed in the cultural industry ranks first among the employment numbers for all industries (Yang 2017). Japan is the leader in developing Asian

China–India cooperation  205 cultural industries, and its cultural industry is the second largest, after the automobile industry. Therefore, the cultural service trade has become an increasingly important means of developing national economies, promoting international exchanges and enhancing relations between countries. In terms of the world’s cultural market share, the United States accounts for 43%, the EU more than 34%, and the Asia Pacific region about 20%; but among the Asia Pacific region, China’s and the other Asia Pacific countries’ cultural market shares are less than 4%, beside Japan’s 10% and Australia’s 6% (Zhang 2011). As the two biggest countries, China and India have great potential and opportunity to develop their cultural industries and promote interaction and cooperation. It is important to note that China and India have already had certain achievements in cultural industry cooperation. For example, China has become India’s import partner of cultural products, indicating that Chinese cultural products are trendy in the Indian cultural market; at the same time, Indian cultural products are increasingly gaining popularity in the Chinese market. This has laid a good foundation for further bilateral cooperation in the cultural industry. In summary, strengthening the culture industrial cooperation between China and India could not only effectively utilise the rich cultural resources of the two countries, but also consume fewer natural resources and have higher added value. It is also more conducive to cultural communication and promoting people-to-people friendship. This cooperation could help China and India in promoting their participation in globalisation. In particular, China’s BRI could complement to India’s Project Mausam, along with other cooperation mechanisms, to strengthen their multilateral relations with other Asian countries (Ranjan 2017). Both China and India could benefit each other in similar ways, even though India hasn’t joined the BRI. Multilateral cooperation would alleviate India’s doubts about China and dilute the historical contradictions between the two countries. Most important, it would help to improve the political trust between China and India. Therefore, cultural industry cooperation carries practical significance for a stable and prosperous Asia.

The negative factors for developing bilateral cultural industry cooperation The lack of mutual political trust between China and India is a major obstacle to the development and strengthening of bilateral relations. Since the war with China in 1962, India has always been sceptical of China, resulting in low mutual trust in bilateral political relations. Border disputes have also plagued the bilateral trust between China and India for decades. In recent years, India has consolidated its relations with traditionally friendly countries, such as Russia. It has also accelerated the development of relations with developed countries such as the United States, Europe, Canada and Japan. At the same time, India has broadened its cooperation with developing countries, especially ASEAN and Africa. India is expanding its

206  Wan Jiqiong geopolitical space by creating the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor with Japan, joining the QUAD grouping of United States, Japan, India and Australia and launching Project Mausam and the Spice Road. These actions more or less target China as a rival, in China’s perception. India is also very sensitive to China’s increasing influence in the Indian Ocean and other South Asian countries. As a result, India is strengthening its own influence in the Indian Ocean and its traditional scope in South Asia and trying to squeeze China. The second problem is that the export markets for Chinese and Indian cultural products are highly similar and concentrated. Above all, in China’s and India’s top ten export markets for cultural products, eight are identical. For example, the top export markets for Chinese cultural products are the United States, the European Union, Hong Kong and Japan, which are also important export markets for Indian cultural products. Thus, the competitiveness of the two countries in the international market will inevitably affect their cooperation in cultural trade. Significantly, US cultural products have a great attraction for both Chinese and Indian consumers, generally surpassing their preference for Chinese and Indian cultural products such as movies and entertainment. The third problem is that China’s social media are relatively closed, which cannot help the Indian manufacturers or consumers to know more about the advantages and needs of Chinese cultural markets, which would impact the opportunities for bilateral cooperation. Meanwhile, Indian markets are flooded with cheaper ‘Made in China’, Indian cultural products. Many people have voiced concerns about the sacredness of these products and about the possible destruction of the traditional Indian culture industry. Finally, regional terrorism and unstable factors always beleaguer China’s and India’s security, which is not conducive to bilateral cultural exchanges and cooperation. Additionally, political factors remain which may affect bilateral cooperation negatively in the cultural field.

Measures of improving bilateral cooperation between China and India in cultural fields China and India should establish a more effective mechanism of cultural exchanges and cooperation between the two sides. Currently, China manages the cultural industry through the Ministry of Culture, the State Administration of Radio and Television, and the Central Publicity Department. On a local level, the government is divided into provincial, municipal and county levels, managing media, press, radio, film and television departments. There are various types of cultural companies in the private sector, too. In India, the cultural industry is managed by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, and the Indian Council for Cultural Relations. And some professional organisations in different fields of the cultural industry, such as the Indian Film Association, the Indian Broadcasting Federation, The Indian Performing Right Society

China–India cooperation  207 and the Indian Newspaper Association. So far, the cooperation mechanisms between China and India have not been established effectively, so a more effective cultural exchange mechanism and cooperation should be established between the two sides. Corresponding cooperation mechanisms in universities and research institutions should also be formed to promote bilateral cultural industry cooperation. Meanwhile, China and India should promote each other’s culture amongst their own people. They could increase the frequency and number of activities of the China–India Cultural Exchange Year, to attract more participants from the two countries. Both countries should carry out more interaction and exchange activities between Chinese and Indian historical and cultural cities, cultural enterprises and other culturally related companies or organisations. Through multichannel, multiform and multilevel bilateral cultural exchanges, it would be conducive to build more cultural products and services for the ordinary people of both China and India. It would be helpful to promote more cooperation in cultural industry, too. Furthermore, it would be beneficial to cultivate a group of internationally competitive cultural enterprises and intermediaries to further develop international cultural markets. As for the concrete areas of the cultural industry, China and India could carry out more bilateral exchanges and cooperation as follows: (1) Entertainment, such as radio, movies and television (2) Tourism (3) Arts, such as music, dance, painting and calligraphy (4) Education, such as language studies, international student programs, publishing, printing and packaging (5) Software services (6) Cultural relics and museum systems (7) Advertising (8) Festival and folk crafts (9) Sports and health care. There are other ways that both countries could foster better cooperation between their cultural industries. First, establish the foundation of cultural industries with investment and financing mechanisms; second, protect the development of cultural industries with a sound intellectual property legal system; third, support the development of cultural industries with modern high-tech production methods; fourth, jointly build up the largest platform for Asian Cultural Industry Cooperation; fifth, cooperatively train the top talents in cultural industries. Finally, effectively use global cultural resources and international media to promote the cultural industries of China and India. Meanwhile it’s also necessary to keep improving the political relationship of the two countries.

Conclusion China and India are the custodians of some of the world’s oldest civilisations, which have developed almost in parallel. There are many similarities and compatibilities between them. Cultural exchanges between the two countries could play an important role in defusing tension, promoting understanding and further consolidating the Sino-Indian relationship. At the same time, cultural industry cooperation could promote bilateral

208  Wan Jiqiong relations and contribute to regional stability and common development, yielding regional multilateral benefits from the cooperation. The two countries have realised that they should fully use the resources of their cultures to develop their cultural industries in the twenty-first century. They are facing many new challenges, as well as opportunities, in the new stage of globalisation. After all, economic development and social stability are still priorities for both China and India.

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China–India cooperation  209 Liu, Mi. 1985. Objective review of three religions [三教平心论] Vol. I. Beijing: Zhonghua Book Company Publisher. MarketLine. 2013, September. ‘Country profile series: India in depth’. Pestle insights, PESTLE Country Analysis Report, www.marketline.com. Accessed on 12 October 2017. Ministry of Commerce of China. 2018, 14 February. ‘Export of Chinese cultural products achieves rapid growth in 2017’ [2017 年 中国文化产品出口实现快速增 长]. China Industrial Economic Information Network, http://www.cinic.org.cn/ xw/tjsj/421501.html. Accessed on 10 December 2018. Ministry of Culture. 2012, 11 April. ‘Basic situation of national cultural development in 2011’ [2011 年国家文化发展基本情况]. China Government Network, http://www.Gov.Cn/test/2012-04/11/content_2110583.htm. Accessed on 10 June 2018. Ministry of Science. 2017, 18 April. ‘Ministry of Science and Technology on distribution of the 13th five-year national science and technology talent development plan’. [科技部关于印发’十三五’国家科技人才发展规划的通知] Ministry of Science and Technology of the People’s Republic of China, http://www.most.gov. cn/mostinfo/xinxifenlei/fgzc/gfxwj/gfxwj2017/201704/t20170418_132423.htm. Accessed on 20 May 2018. Qin, S J and Gu, Y F. 2017. ‘A study on China–India cultural trade cooperation under the “Belt and Road” Initiative of China’ [一带一路倡议下的中印文化贸易 合作问题研究]. Journal of Shanghai Normal University (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition), 5, 12. Qiu, Yunhua. 2012. ‘The vision and connotation of contemporary Chinese culture’ [当代中国文化的视域与内涵]. Xin Shi Ye, 2, 12. Ranjan, Rajiv. 2017. ‘Cultural aspects of belt and road initiative and project mausam: Strategy for engagement’, Contemporary International Relations, 27(6), 151–165. Shao, Xiaochun. 2018. The research on Indian cultural soft power after the Cold War [冷战后印度文化软实力研究]. Master’s thesis, Shanghai Normal University. UNESCO World Heritage Centre. 2020, 31 December. ‘China newly inscribed by the World Heritage Committee’. UNESCO， https://whc.unesco.org/en/statesparties/ cn. Accessed on 31 December 2020. Yang, Jianfei. 2017. Selected cases of world cultural and creative industries [世界文 化创意产业案例选析]. Beijing: China International Broadcasting Press. Yuan, Jing. 2017. ‘The principles and strategies of Chinese story in the context of cultural communication’ [文化语境下的中国故事、原则和战略]. Journal of Southwest University of Nationalities (Humanities and Social Sciences Edition), 5, 178–184. Zhang, Guozhuo. 2011. Research report on Chinese cultural soft power [中国文化 软实力研究报告]. Beijing: Social Science Literature Publishing House. Zhang, Shengbin, Xu Xiangyu and Ma Shuhua. 2006. World cultural industry overview [世界文化产业概览]. Kunming: Yunnan University Publisher. Zhou, Fan, and Yu Yang. 2018. ‘The development and achievements of China’s cultural industry for the 40 years of reform and opening up’ [改革开放四十年 中国 文化产业的发展与成就]. Journal of Shandong University (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition), 4, 34.

14 Development of cultural ecotourism in Gilgit-Baltistan Opportunities and challenges in the wake of the CPEC Naila Masood Ahmad Tourism provides immense opportunities to explore the world, ­experience new cultures and meet new people. It is a popular tool for socio-­economic development, too, as it paves the way for economic ventures to be undertaken for the benefit of local communities. According to the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) (2017), tourism ranks as the fifth-fastest growing industry in the world, with one billion international travelers, involving 1.53 trillion USD in global revenues and registering a 5% annual increase worldwide. Safer, efficient and economical transport, coupled with the awareness generated by social media of popular tourist destinations, have spurred unparalleled expansion in the tourism industry in recent years. It is, however, a matter of grave concern that mass tourism continues to cause serious damage to the environment through the decimation of natural resources, extinction of biodiversity and disorder of the ecological equilibrium. Unplanned and unrestrained tourism is causing deterioration of the natural environment and devastating the historical and cultural heritage of indigenous communities (Nambath 2012). In this context, the notion of ecotourism has attained extraordinary significance. The term ecotourism encapsulates the notion of exploring the world’s amazing diverse natural life and human cultures with a sense of respect and sensitivity (Das and Chatterjee 2015). It is also construed as a socially responsible, ecologically sustainable and environmentally friendly form of tourism. It encourages visitors to be exposed to the natural history and indigenous culture of a region and, at the same time, prompts them to enjoy the incredible diversity of an area without causing any damage to it. Ecotourism stimulates observation and learning and motivates visitors to imbibe the peculiar cultural traits of the indigenous communities, thus empowering the native communities socially and economically (Bauer 2011). This chapter chronicles the challenges, opportunities and potential of ecotourism, with particular reference to the region of Gilgit-Baltistan (GB). It also briefly highlights the prospects and perils of ecotourism in the wake of the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

DOI: 10.4324/9780367855413-17

Development of cultural ecotourism in Gilgit-Baltistan  211

Geographical and strategic importance of Gilgit-Baltistan Gilgit-Baltistan is a land of immense geographical and strategic importance. It is the meeting point of the Himalayas, Karakoram and Hindu Kush, three of the world’s highest-altitude mountain ranges. The region is a home to the most enticing tourist destinations for nature lovers, cultural tourists, adventure tourists, archaeologists, mountaineers and trekkers. According to the Pakistan Tours Guide (2017), almost 50% of the foreign tourists who come to Pakistan visit GB. The majority of these foreign tourists come from China, Japan and the European countries. At present, the annual revenue generated from tourism in GB is approximately 16 million USD. The region is also known to be a mountaineer’s paradise, as it has five of the ‘eight-thousands’ (peaks above 8,000 metres) and more than 50 mountains over 7,000 metres high. The world’s second highest peak, K2, is located on the borders between the regions of GB and Xinjiang, China. The GB region has a massive range of rare fauna and flora, wildlife, lush green valleys, rivers, streams, mountains and glaciers, which make it an ideal tourist attraction for scores of international and domestic tourists. In view of its geographical proximity to China, the area is destined to capture the imagination of more and more tourists, in the wake of the CPEC, a mega project with an estimated worth of approximately 62 billion USD (Siddiqui 2017). This project aims to reinforce bilateral links between Pakistan and China through the construction of a network of roads, railways, power generation projects, economic zones, and telecommunication/ infrastructure upgrade projects, thereby leveraging economic growth in Pakistan (Hali et al. 2015). The CPEC starts from Kashgar (China), passes through GB and ends at the Gwadar port (Pakistan). The CPEC will not only entail monumental economic prospects for Pakistan, but it will provide a much shorter trade route from China for its merchandise to reach markets in Africa, Europe and the Middle East swiftly and economically (China Daily 2013). The unparalleled physical activity likely to be undertaken for the CPEC may have adverse implications for the natural environment of GB. There is dire need to promote the concepts and practices associated with ecotourism to conserve the region’s natural environment and sociocultural heritage and promote its economic progress. Hence, a symbiotic and intricate connection between the natural environment and tourism activities is only possible when the philosophy can be deciphered into suitable policies, vigilant planning and tactful practicum (Kiper 2013).

Ecotourism Ecotourism, a component of sustainable tourism, has emerged as a buzzword to describe various activities and initiatives aimed at the conservation of natural resources and the economic well-being of the local communities

212  Naila Masood Ahmad hosting tourists. Many countries are now embracing this effective tool of sustainable development and incorporating it in their fiscal expansion and conservation strategies (Kiper 2013). Some of the most common types of ecotourism-driven ventures include educational tours, bird watching, pristine natural sightseeing, walking, cycling, rafting, kayaking, safari, restoring waterways, fauna and flora surveys, cleaning beaches and reefs, hot air ballooning, horseback riding, surfing, skiing, tree plantation, fishing, swimming and diving. Ecotourism sponsors the economic well-being and sociopolitical empowerment of local communities. It also fosters sensitivity and respect for diverse cultures and promotes an understanding of the indigenous values of far-flung communities (Sander 2012). A crucial prerequisite of ecotourism is the sense of respect to be demonstrated by tourists towards both the environment and indigenous communities (Honey 2008). This form of tourism is distinguishable from traditional tourism in that it allows travelers to be better educated about the traits of local physical sites and cultural physiognomies (Gallagher and Hammerschlag 2011). On the other hand, traditional tourism or mass tourism thrives on pleasure-seeking tourists and the maximisation of income by local businesses (Doroantu and Nıstoreanu 2012). The International Ecotourism Society (TIES) has laid down salient principles of ecotourism which call for minimizing harmful impact to the environment through the enforcement of government policies aimed at the preservation of the natural environment and orchestrating strategies for creating awareness about conserving nature and cultural heritages through organizing educational tours, workshops, etc. The principles emphasise optimally utilizing the profits generated from ecotourism to preserve the environment and generate employment opportunities for local people (The International Ecotourism Society 2012).

Foreign tourism Foreign visitors have been exploring the GB area for tourism, trade, pilgrimage, recreational activities and research endeavors. After the 9/11 attacks, the influx of foreign tourists to GB drastically nosedived. However, through the revival of historical trade routes between Pakistan and China by means of the Karakoram Highway (KKH) and CPEC, an upsurge in the flow of tourists is being witnessed (Chawla 2016). The upward trajectory, from the year 2013 onwards, is shown in Table 14.1. According to Ullah (2018), a substantial improvement in the law and order situation has spurred a visibly enhanced inflow of domestic and foreign tourists to GB, as more than 1 million tourists thronged the area in 2017.

Development of cultural ecotourism in Gilgit-Baltistan  213 Table 14.1  Tourist inflow in Gilgit-Baltistan (2007–2016)

2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016

Domestic

Foreign

23,770 54,040 54,602 45,300 61,233 28,893 51,914 245,000 500,000 690,000

10,338 8,404 7,704 5,529 5,242 4,321 4,524 5,000 7,500 10,000

Source: Tourism Department, Government of GB, 2007–2016, quoted in Nigar (2018).

Prospects for ecotourism in Gilgit-Baltistan The region of GB is considered to be the hub for the country’s water and energy sources. The region hosts a great variety of exotic flora and fauna, a diverse topography, wildlife and a cold desert climate that have enabled GB to become a potential ecotourism destination. According to Boley (2015), ecotourism aims primarily at wildlife conservation, environmental preservation, poverty alleviation and the economic development of the tourist attractions. Viewed in this context, the rich mountainous region of GB has a variety of remarkable and endangered wildlife species, such as ‘pheasants, snow leopard (Panthera uncia), flare-horned markhor (Capra falconerifalconeri), and woolly flying squirrel (Eupetauruscinereus), Ladakhurial, Marco Polo sheep, musk deer, Asiatic black and Himalayan brown bears, Himalayan lynx, leopard cat and otters’ (Israr et al. 2009). The protected areas of GB are renowned for their biodiversity conservation, as they provide safe habitats for endangered species. Tourist attractions in the area include the Astore Wildlife Sanctuary, Deosai National Park, Fairy Meadows, Khunjerab National Park and Naltar Wildlife Sanctuary, where visitors can see rare species (Khan 2012).

Positive impacts of ecotourism Ecotourism registers positive impacts on the local environment. As a majority of tour operators are non-natives who are solely motivated by an urge to generate income, they are usually not bothered by concerns such as

214  Naila Masood Ahmad conserving the natural habitat or preserving a cultural heritage. However, ecotourism spurs local communities to get involved by and consequently improve their socio-economic well-being. It also creates the awareness among local communities that preservation of nature will perpetuate their livelihood. Hence, this empowerment of local communities brings about a tangible improvement in the ecology and environment of the destinations (Cole 2004).

Eco–cultural tourism Eco-cultural tourism emphasises the preservation of a region’s culture by showcasing the lifestyle of the local people, their history, art and architecture, and other ancillary elements of society that help shape a unique way of life. It allows individuals to experience an exhilarating combination of both culture and nature. The main focus of eco-cultural tourism is to draw the attention of visitors towards a peculiar taste of the local cuisine, norms, values and traditions of an ecologically diverse region (Table 14.2).

Avenues for eco-adventure tourism in GB To Buckley (2008), adventure tourism involves elements of risk, the exertion of physical labor and the use of specialised skills to participate in adventurous activities. Many of the products used for adventure tourism are derived from natural resources such as wood, water, trails and mountains, so ecotourism helps in planning activities in such a manner as to provide Table 14.2  Avenues and activities of eco-cultural tourism Eco-cultural Heritage in GB Festivals Dance Traditional Music instruments Traditional Music Linguistic diversity Arts & Crafts

Navroz, Jashn-e-Baharan Cultural Festivals. Shandoor Polo Festival, Babusar Polo Festival and Harvest Time Festival Old Man Dance, Sword Dance and Cow Boy Dance (Payaloo) Dadang (drum), Damal and Surnai, Sitar, Gabi(Flute) Rabab, Duff and Khiling-boo.chang and Porgho. Alghani, Ajoli(wedding), Souse (sword dances) and Dani Khowar, Shina, Indus Kohistani, Torwali, Gawri, Palula, Kalasha, Dameli, Gawar-bati, Bateri, Chiloso, Dumaki, Brushaski, Ushojo, Balti, Wakhi, Yidgh Carpet-weaving on handlooms, Stonework, Diamer Pinewood furniture

Source: Dost Pakistan website, http://www.dostpakistan.pk/culture-and-heritage-of-gilgit-baltistan (2018).

Development of cultural ecotourism in Gilgit-Baltistan  215 a thrill and cater to the adventurous needs of the visitors. The geostrategic location and scenic marvels of GB make the region a befitting place for adventure tourism. GB has hosted a number of mountaineering and trekking expeditions since the 1970s. There is huge potential for rock climbing, rafting, snowboarding, cross-country skiing, paragliding, jeep safaris, mountain biking, etc. However, proper planning and investment are needed to develop and market these activities. In addition, GB is regarded as the water reservoir for the country, primarily because of the glaciers and snow deposits in its mountains. GB has huge potential for organizing river ecotourism. In addition, there are 119 lakes that can also be developed for tourism purposes such as Ataabad, Sadpara, Khalti, Sheo-sar, upper Kachura, Shangrila and Boritetcetc (Baloch 2016).

Archeological heritage GB is home to world’s largest collection of rock carvings, prehistoric inscriptions and petroglyphs (The Nation 2020). Archaeological ecotourism seeks to preserve archaeological sites and conserve heritage. However, it is to be noted that excessive archaeological tourism may adversely affect the ancient integrity of these sites. Here, ecotourism may help us competently manage tourist activities in such a way as to avoid damage to archaeological resources. Viewed against this backdrop, it may be suggested that if the potential of GB the tourism sector is efficiently exploited, it may unleash massive economic benefits and lead to the development of the ecotourism sector in GB (Ali et al. 2017).

China–Pakistan economic corridor (CPEC) The CPEC is a monumental initiative encompassing multiple projects likely to benefit both Pakistan and China. Being a segment of the One Belt, One Road Plan conceived by China, the CPEC is likely to entail huge a decrease in Chinese shipping costs in relation to the countries of Europe and the Middle East. Currently about 80% of China’s oil is transported via the Strait of Malacca to Shanghai, taking two to three months and covering a distance of almost 16,000 km. As soon as Gwadar port becomes operational, this distance will be reduced to less than 5,000 km. It will be coupled with a 50% decline in the time consumed, from 50 days to 25 days. Consequently, the freight charges of a 40-foot container would be reduced from 2,500 USD to 1,000 USD. The distance between central China and the Middle East would thus be reduced by 80% (Hao et al. 2015). The distance would be approximately 600 kilometers less, compared to the other nearest port of Chabahar (Lin et al. 2015). In addition, China’s strategic presence in the Arabian Sea could enhance its sphere of influence in the Indian Ocean region. The CPEC could transform Pakistan into a regional economic hub. It will also provide telecommunications and energy infrastructure to Pakistan to overcome the power crisis. Moreover, the initiative will unfurl new

216  Naila Masood Ahmad opportunities, including a transit route to landlocked countries of Central Asia as well as Afghanistan (Anwar 2011). The development of the Gwadar port will be of immense strategic significance (Khan 2012), as it is located at the confluence of Southwest and South Asia, with central Asia not far away. Iran is interested in obtaining more shares in the international oil markets through Gwadar (Bhutta 2014). On the positive side, the CPEC may help GB emerge as the most competitive tourist destination for cultural ecotourism. New avenues for economic development are likely to emerge as the CPEC passes through GB (Khan 2018). Moreover, the CPEC will smooth the way for the development of infrastructure in the region, which will also positively impact the prospects for tourism in Pakistan. In recent decades, a significant number of Chinese tourists have been traveling abroad to various tourist destinations. The CPEC will provide abundant opportunities to the tourism department of GB to focus on the new emerging targeted market of Chinese tourists and entrepreneurs. Since the launch of the CPEC, there has been a 37% increase in tourism-related visa applications submitted to the Pakistani government by Chinese citizens (Ali et al. 2017). On the negative side, the unprecedented movement of men and machinery will adversely impact the spectacular flora and fauna unique to GB. The unprecedented infrastructure development may entail the decimation of forests, the destruction of the region’s biodiversity and drastic implications for the natural environment. In order to contain the adverse implications, a proactive approach by all the stakeholders is the need of the hour.

CPEC and the tourism sector As the CPEC is envisaged to be a bigger structure than the Great Wall of China, it is likely to be a source of huge environmental hazards (Dad 2018). The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Pakistan has recently stressed the need to highlight the issues of environmental degradation and focus on an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA). It is heartening to note that the IUCN Pakistan and IUCN China are collaborating to help incorporate environment-related issues into the CPEC framework. Against this backdrop, Mr. Zhang, the Global President of IUCN, paid a visit to Pakistan in 2015 and held meeting with the Federal Minister of Climate Change and Minister for Foreign Affairs. It was unanimously held that environmental concerns arising out of the CPEC would be underscored and endorsed. The IUCN Pakistan has also been collaborating with the Ministry of Climate Change to extend cooperation towards the preservation of biodiversity and ecosystem conservation in order to promote ecotourism (The Express Tribune 2015). It has also been suggested that the CPEC route could be surveyed strictly in regard to its implications for ecotourism sites. The exercise will help us determine unique biodiversity pockets which could be protected.

Development of cultural ecotourism in Gilgit-Baltistan  217 Table 14.3  Projects for tourism sector development 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

Infrastructure development in the tourism sector through PPP mode Expansion of Gilgit and Skardu airports with instrumental landing facility Promotion of Green and responsible Tourism in Gilgit-Baltistan Development of adventure tourism spots to promote adventure and winter tourism in Gilgit-Baltistan. Establishment of hospitality management training institute at Gilgit Establishment of mountaineering institute and mountain hospital at Skardu Development of Rakaposhi as tourist destination at Nagar District Development of Rama Lake as tourist destination at Astore

Source: Ali et al. 2017.

The Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) of Pakistan has drawn the attention of the policymakers of the two countries towards environmental concerns, in the wake of the CPEC. The institute has indicated that out of the total 39 power generation projects of Pakistan to be completed under the CPEC, 13 are coal-powered, which is considered ‘the dirtiest of the fuels’. The institute further observed that the majority of CPEC projects have been completed without conducting an environmental impact assessment (EIA), which is a matter of great concern (Sustainable Development Policy Institute 2016). The sustainable tourism sector can flourish only if the economic gains of CPEC projects are prudently disbursed. Against this backdrop, eight projects for tourism sector development that have been proposed for financing under the CPEC are given in Table 14.3.

Key challenges for ecotourism development The development of ecotourism in GB is hampered by a number of factors, including:

Flawed management The institutional framework for the tourism sector is devoid of focus. The GB Council (GBC) and GB Tourism Department continue to manage tourism in collaboration with other allied departments. The GBC mandate includes formulating policies and enacting rules and regulations, in addition to issuing permits authorizing trekking and mountaineering expeditions. The tourism Services Department also exercises a vital role in issuing licenses to tour operators. However, the lack of coordination and clarity among all the entities inhibits any meaningful breakthrough.

218  Naila Masood Ahmad

Skewed policy paradigm Prior to 2017, there existed no well-conceived, formal tourism policy for GB. In the absence of meticulously articulated policy guidelines, varied programs and plans were being pursued under federal as well as regional control, leading to an overlap of responsibilities. Numerous efforts were undertaken to formulate a policy, but the drafts were disapproved by the authorities for not meeting the desired expectations. Most important, the draft policy documents miserably failed to address aspects relevant to cultural ecotourism. After critical input from the USAID as well as other core stakeholders, a comprehensive tourism policy draft was approved by the prime minister in June 2017.The 2017 tourism policy calls for resource mobilisation through public–private partnerships. The purpose is to transform the tourism sector of GB as a feasible economic sector relying overwhelmingly on revenues collected from tourists (Rana 2014). Needless to emphasise, an all-encompassing policy framework is sine qua non in order to invite assistance from international development agencies to promote ecotourism development (Zahid 2014).

Financial impediments Financial allocations for the tourism sector in GB have invariably been inadequate to meaningfully promote the sector. Funds for tourism, sports and cultural festivals are hard to come by. The government of GB has yet to evolve its revenue base. It merely collects paltry fees, charges and penalties. The Federal Board of Revenue’s efforts at collecting revenue have been strenuously resisted by the local population. The GB Council collects royalties and permit fees for mountaineering and trekking expeditions; however, the revenue so earned is not necessarily invested in the tourism sector. Resource mobilisation through public–private partnerships and the generation of funding from international donor agencies have met serious challenges. On international fora, India vociferously opposes any assistance in the GB region, thus hampering resource mobilisation for tourism promotion in GB.

Dilapidated infrastructure Adequate infrastructure facilities and allied amenities are prerequisites for promoting tourism, especially for regions such as GB that are remotely located in most difficult terrains. Poor road networks, an absence of roadside facilities, and insufficient medical and rescue assistance render prospects for ecotourism daunting. There is no tourism facilitation center in GB. Karakuram Road provides the only road passage to this region, whereas air travel there is irregular and unsafe, with a 30% cancellation rate (Dawn 2018). Both the airports at Skardu and Gilgit are devoid of modern navigation facilities. The residential facilities are inadequately regulated. Mushroom growth of hotels without proper planning is causing serious damage

Development of cultural ecotourism in Gilgit-Baltistan  219 to the heritage sites. Unbridled expeditions via most frequented routes are, quite understandably, posing serious threats for natural environment (Israr et al. 2009).

Security predicament GB was once considered one of the safest possible destinations for visitors; but of late, the security of tourists has become a matter of serious concern. There have been grave incidents in which terrorists were able to wreak havoc by killing a number of tourists. These tragic episodes were widely reported in the international media, thus denting the image of GB as a peaceful tourist destination. In the aftermath of these incidents, travel advisories have been issued by some Western countries against travelling on KKH, which deterred international tourists (Mir 2013).

Threat to cultural and archaeological heritage The cultural heritage of the area is prone to dwindle due to a lack of awareness amongst tourists, a flawed regulatory dispensation and an insufficient capacity to restore archaeological sites. The risk to these historical assets is increasing, as an adequate investment to conserve these precious assets is not being secured. In the past, such changes to the tangible and intangible assets occurred gradually, followed by periods of relative calm during which damage could be absorbed; but since the opening of the KKH, these areas have been exposed to a continuous process of depletion. This has led to the dramatic disfigurement of the sociocultural fabric and endangered archeological sites. The AKRSP and UNESCO did launch restoration projects in the five endangered settlements of Karimabad, Altit, Ganesh, Shigar and Khaplu,but the intervention is a limited in scope. Similarly, various art forms, skills, customs and languages are also at risk of gradually being lost, as new generations adopt new practices and values. This trend is part of a complex phenomenon of social change, but is indeed averse to the concept of cultural ecotourism in the region (Kreutzmann 2013).

Complex regulatory/legislative framework The legislative framework in GB is somewhat peculiar and intricate, as the GB council and the Government of Pakistan (GoP) have been vested with the powers to legislate on different subjects. GB is governed under a special legal dispensation namely, the GB Governance (Empowerment and Self-Governance) Order, 2009. Tourism falls within the legislative purview of the Gilgit-Baltistan Council. At present, the only tourism-related law applicable to GB is the Hotel and Restaurants Act, 1976. This act leaves a lot to be desired and requires amendment to address contemporary issues. Tour operators and agencies in GB are being regulated by the Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD) of the Federal

220  Naila Masood Ahmad Government. The GB council has failed to legislate with respect to tourism, as well as in relation to culture, although it is authorised to do so. A draft GB Antiquities Act was presented to the GB Legislative Assembly, which still awaits sanction. Despite the fact that some semblance of authority was granted through the governance order of 2009, the federal government continues to call the shots.

Inadequacies of human resources There is a tangible dearth of trained professionals managing the tourism and hospitality sectors. An absence of tourism and hotel management institutes in the area further complicates the human resources inadequacy. In the absence of a strong regulatory mechanism, no mandatory professional qualification is deemed obligatory to work in the tourism sector. GB government institutions, including the department of tourism, also lack professionally qualified tourism experts, especially with an understanding of cultural ecotourism. The dearth of qualified professionals is among the major reasons for limited success in tapping the full potential of tourism in GB (Shah 2017).

Lack of baseline studies In order to formulate policies to effectively regulate tourism, data pertaining to the number of visitors, kinds of visitors and their favored activities is of utmost significance. In the absence of reliable information, policy planning and implementation are hard to accomplish. Data compiled by the Department of Tourism fails the test of authenticity and reliability. Moreover, it does not include statistics regarding lodging, transportation and tourism receipts. With the termination of the federal government ministry of tourism, there exists no data collection apparatus. Hence no data is available subsequent to the year 2009. As a result, all strategic planning is carried out in the absence of valid baseline data (Hussain et al. 2012).

Unstructured marketing strategy GB tourist destinations need to be internationally established as globally recognised ecotourism sites. The marketing strategy evolved by Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) and the Department of Tourism has not paid dividends owing to the fact that it was not crafted by professionals and experts in the field. Concerted efforts have not been made to project and showcase the mosaic of distinctive cultures, rich biodiversity and archaeological legacy that the area possesses (Khan et al. 2015).

Conclusion This chapter seeks to underscore the enormous potential of GB to serve as an internationally recognised ecotourism site, while lamenting that the true

Development of cultural ecotourism in Gilgit-Baltistan  221 potential has not been realised so far. Our research has determined that a number of factors, namely, the complexity of the constitutional status of the territory, skewed administrative and institutional framework, incoherent policy paradigm and inadequate financial allocations are attributable to the failure of the area in its quest to qualify as a globally embraced tourist attraction. It has also been observed that ecotourism could play a pivotal role in conserving the biodiversity and unique flora and fauna of GB. It has also emerged that the ideals of ecotourism could be promoted by pursuing a holistic approach, while banking on the involvement of local communities, as they are cognisant of the cultural variants prevailing there. Against the backdrop of the CPEC, the chapter notes that a massive movement of men and machinery in GB may entail serious ramifications for the biodiversity and cultural heritage of the region. While acknowledging the significance of economic development brought about by projects like CPEC, it is cautioned that ignoring environmental concerns is not a preferred course of action. In the context of unparalleled development work initiated in GB, the importance of conducting environmental hazards studies of the consequential effects cannot be overemphasised. Better infrastructure and tourist facilitation centers are vital. Tourists throng GB for its history culture and scenic beauty. If these unique attributes are distorted, then the prospect of tourism is bound to dwindle. On the other hand, meticulously articulated and carefully orchestrated policy decisions at this juncture could lend impetus to efforts aimed at elevating GB as a cultural ecotourism destination. This would eventually boost the well-being of local people by creating economic opportunities for them and would go a long way in improving the overall economy of GB.

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Part IV

Great power politics

15 Anticipating the China challenge China’s rise and the United States’ security policy vis-à-vis India Kashish Parpiani

This chapter assesses the United States’ security policy vis-à-vis India in context of China’s rise. The chapter begins with a brief summary of the present literature on the theory of power transitions, to draw on the Thucydidean assertion that power differentials are at the core of conflicts over the international system. In this context, the chapter underscores realists’ prophecies of a coming hegemonic war between the United States and China, and highlights US overtures to court India as a ‘balancer’ against China’s rise. However, the chapter argues that this is not a nascent phenomenon. Rather, the chapter argues that a binary, Manichaean rendering of China and India has been present in the American security lexicon long before China’s contemporary economic rise. Further, the chapter engages in a brief perusal of post-Cold War US administrations to highlight the continued relevance of this binary rendering – brandishing China as a ‘repressive’ state that needs to become a ‘responsible stakeholder’ of the international system, while lauding India as the ‘largest democracy’ and a potential ‘natural ally’ of the United States. The chapter argues the foregoing to have spurred the institutionalisation of threat perceptions vis-à-vis China. Similarly, the chapter argues, the US institutional courtship of India as a ‘balancer’ was in the works long before the recent uptick in USA–India relations. A notable example of the same is the post-World War II coupling of India – hardly a Pacific power – with China under the purview of the US Pacific Command – with its jurisdiction precariously ending along the India–Pakistan border. The chapter identifies two roadblocks – India’s isolation from the international community owing to its nuclear programme and the continued hyphenation of India–Pakistan in the American worldview – to have hindered the institutional courtship of India. In conclusion, the chapter highlights the policy initiatives by the successive US administrations of George W Bush, Barack Obama and Donald Trump to address those roadblocks and institutionalise India as a ‘balancer’ with strategic overtures such as the India–USA civil nuclear agreement and security agreements that enhance the defence interoperability between American and Indian armed forces.

DOI: 10.4324/9780367855413-19

228  Kashish Parpiani

Thucydides trap? Realists’ reading of International Relations pedagogy has long construed the international system to be rife with conflict. Regardless of the purported source of such a conflict- either from the idiosyncrasies of man or the inherently insecure nature of macro-level interstate politics, realist thought by the likes of E H Carr and Hans Morgenthau, Kenneth Waltz and Stephen Walt, attributes the origin of conflict to the ‘simple fact that there is nothing to stop it’ (Gilpin 1988: 592). The hierarchical ordering then of this ‘anarchic’ international system – ruled by the Waltzian dictum of ‘self-help’– serves as the only medium through which a system can be relatively ‘stable’ (Waltz 1979). Hence, a ‘stable’ system is one in which a state sits atop the hierarchy – ‘ruling’ with unparalleled primacy over the common power yardsticks of economic and military prowess. However, a system wherein the power differentials between states is narrow, the prospect of conflict may arise. In a multipolar system, where a range of powers ‘rise’ to oversee an increase in their respective influence, the onus of the ‘stability’ of the system then crudely rests on the balance of power dynamics. As two or more of the most influential states engage in a zero-sum game for influence and the dominance of the global system, other nations are compelled to make one of two choices. States may either choose to ‘Balance’ – wherein they ally ‘with others against the prevailing threat’, or ‘Bandwagon’ – wherein they align ‘with the source of danger’ (Walt 2005: 96). Likewise, major powers may court smaller powers to bandwagon with them as balancers to their rivals. Robert Gilpin terms the possible conflict between the major powers, wherein the ‘overall structure of an international system is at issue’ – as a ‘hegemonic war’ (Gilpin 1988: 593). The study of the transition of power over the international system is not nascent. In fact, the most influential study on the matter dates back to the account of the Peloponnesian War – fought in the fifth century between Athens and Sparta – written in 431 BCE by the Greek historian Thucydides. In the introduction to his work, Thucydides describes his assertions as ‘a possession for all time’ for those ‘who desire an exact knowledge of the past as an aid to the interpretation of the future’ (quoted in Gilpin 1988: 591). Thus, through his work, Thucydides sought to underscore the inevitability of the Peloponnesian War, owing to the ‘rise’ of Athens and the ‘fear’ it instilled in the ‘ruling’ power of Sparta (Thucydides n.d.). However, beyond that case-specific thesis, Thucydides put forth an understanding of that war as a phenomenon triggered by a ‘discernible and recurrent course’ (Gilpin 1988: 596). Thus, according to the axiom coined by Paul Kennedy, author of The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, the certainty of ‘alterations’ in power balances produces ‘instability and often war’ (Kennedy 2017: 254). In 2015, that assertion was minutely studied by the Harvard Belfer Center under noted scholar Graham Allison. The Harvard Thucydides’s Trap Project adopted

Anticipating the China challenge  229 16 historical cases within the past 500 years of ‘ruling’ and ‘rising’ powers. The study noted that 12 of those instances eventually devolved into war, triggered by what Allison termed the ‘Thucydides Trap’ (HBC 2015). In providing lessons for the twenty-first century, the findings of the study were thus a robust endorsement of the timelessness and high posterity of the Greek historian’s work. The end of the Cold War ushered in the United States’ ‘unipolar moment’, wherein its primacy across the realms of economic, military and soft power parities stood unmatched (Krauthammer 2001). However, the ‘rise of the rest’ soon became an axiom of the twenty-first century signalling a relative decline of the United States under the ‘Post-American world’ (Zakaria 2008). Simply put, an era of multipolarity ensued, with countries such as China, India, Brazil, South Africa, etc., honing impressive growth rates. Most specifically, the meteoric rise of China – with its GDP swelling nearly five times, from 2.3 trillion USD in 2005 to 11.2 trillion in USD 2015 – spurred realists’ prophecies of a coming hegemonic war between a ‘rising’ China and the ‘ruling’ United States (Scott and Sam 2016). Perhaps recent trends do lend credence to that grim prophecy of a coming power transition war between China and the United States. As former US Secretary of State and noted China scholar Henry Kissinger once noted, the two countries could ‘easily fall into the kind of escalating tension’ associated with the aforementioned Thucydidean assertion (Kissinger 2011: 521). The litmus test for this would be, as Kissinger noted, China trying ‘to push American power as far away from its borders as it could, circumscribe the scope of American naval power, and reduce America’s weight in international diplomacy’ (Kissinger 2011: 521). One may argue that those scenarios have been under play over the last decade, with China seeking to develop Anti-Access Area Denial (A2AD) strategies, engage in serious security maximisation measures to build-up its own naval power, practice economic coercion against smaller powers on its periphery to score minor – yet significant – strategic vassals and militarise the South China Sea for tactical and operational purposes. As for the United States, Kissinger professed it would ‘try to organize China’s many neighbours into a counterweight to Chinese dominance’ (Kissinger 2011: 521). The evidence for this, too, stands clear. In the postCold War world, the United States has sustained its Cold War-era security alliances in the Asia-Pacific. Often dubbed as the ‘hub & spokes’ alliance system (Shambaugh 2006), the United States hones an impressive power projection infrastructure in countries such as Japan and South Korea. Meanwhile, it is also developing substantial security ties with the Philippines, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand and Taiwan. Moreover, in line with the Kissingerian view, in the recent past, the United States has also sought to court nascent security partners such as India, Vietnam, Indonesia and Singapore. When viewed in the context of assertions that deem the ‘impact of China’s ascendance’ to be the ‘preeminent geostrategic challenge of this

230  Kashish Parpiani era’, the United States’ courtship of partners in the region bear an imprint of Thucydidean prophecy. (Allison 2015) However, it is important to note, Washington’s courtship of India specifically predates China’s twenty-first century rise. One may argue, the courtship of India as a ‘balancer’ to China was set in motion at the very beginning of the twenty-first century. The same stemmed from a Manichaean rendering of the two Asian countries in the US security lexicon dating back to the heyday of the Cold War, wherein China has long been characterised in a negative light as an ‘authoritative’, ‘repressive’ and ‘communist’ nation-state, and India has been continually lauded as the ‘largest democracy’ and a potential ‘natural ally’ of the United States.

China and India in US lexicon In context of the US–China power transition war – probably of Thucydidean proportions – Washington’s post-Cold War courtship of nascent security partners such as India is often seen through the prism of balance of power dynamics. Many consider this to be the writing on the wall over harnessing India’s emerging role as a balancer to China. However, it is crucial to note, the United States has long construed China and India in Manichaean terms, regarding the former with strategic suspicion, whilst lauding the latter as a potential partner. The earliest evidence of such a rendering dates back to the heyday of the Cold War. For instance, in 1959, the then Senator John F Kennedy described India as on ‘a route in keeping with human dignity and individual freedom’, while ‘Red China’ was said to be seeking the ‘route of regimented controls and ruthless denial of human rights’ (Kennedy 1959). Speaking in Washington, Senator Kennedy most notably professed India’s role as a ‘counter to Red Chinese’, and to currently be in a race ‘to demonstrate whose way of life is better’ (Kennedy 1959). In underscoring the way forward for American foreign policy, Kennedy emphasised, ‘We want India to win that race. We want India to be a free and thriving leader of a free and thriving Asia’ (Kennedy 1959). Kennedy’s rhetoric was ‘extraordinary’, since he went on to profess that it was the ‘duty of the “free world” to help India outshine “Red China”’ (Riedel 2015b: 50). As veteran CIA analyst Bruce Riedel notes, professing this at a time when ‘many Americans had long regarded it (India) as, if not an enemy, an unwitting accomplice of communism’, was unique (Riedel 2015b: 50). It was clear that the United States’ interest in pushing this binary rendering of China and India was independent of Cold War considerations. Hence, unsurprisingly, this Kennedyesque rendering continued to feature in US foreign and security policy in the post-Cold War world. The first post-Cold War administration of William J Clinton (hereafter, Bill Clinton) reflected the aforementioned Manichaean rendering in stark terms. In fact, in his run for the US presidency, Bill Clinton made China a central campaign issue. Chiefly, he alleged the then incumbent George H W

Anticipating the China challenge  231 Bush administration of honing ambivalence towards China’s human rights record especially when, in the then Governor Clinton’s words, ‘all those kids went out there carrying the Statue of Liberty in Tiananmen Square’ (Clinton 1992). The George H W Bush administration was known to have pursued a policy of ‘realpolitik’ with China, as the forty-first president grappled with major foreign policy challenges emerging from the unification of Germany and back-channeling with his Soviet counterpart to ensure minimum bloodshed during the dissolution of the Soviet Union (Haass 2017: 83). Upon assuming office, the Clinton administration pursued a fairly assertive US approach towards Beijing. Most notably, the Clinton administration oversaw the passing of the Jackson-Vanik Amendment to the 1974 Trade Act in its maiden year – which required the US president to annually review the decision to continue to accord China ‘most favoured nation’ (MFN) status, in view of Beijing’s poor human rights record. In subsequent years, the Clinton administration dialled down its emphasis on China’s record of human rights, with the dismantling of the aforementioned Jackson-Vanik Amendment by passage of the Permanent Normal Trade Relations legislation, which ended the ‘annual ritual of reviewing China’s trade status’ (BBC Report 2000). While this renewed approach was based on a rigorous engagement with Beijing on the economic front, Clinton continued to pursue the aim of spurring a shift in China’s behaviour at home and abroad. This strategy was best encapsulated in the United States’ attempt to seek the ‘peaceful’ rise of China. It was argued that, this ‘peaceful’ rise would encompass integrating China into international economic institutions – and by extension, spurring the integration of China into the US-led liberal world order as a ‘responsible stakeholder’ (Zoellick 2005), to eventually prevent the Chinese from disrupting those very institutions that consolidate US primacy (Osius 2001: 125–126). Certainly, this policy also stemmed from American realpolitik in capitalising on China’s market potentialities. This policy was enunciated in the 1997 National Security Strategy (NSS), which argued that ‘the prospects for peace and prosperity in Asia depend heavily on China’s role as a responsible member of the international community’ (NSS 1997). With respect to India, although the Clinton administration spurred the imposition of sanctions over its nuclear ambitions, the same period also saw a major thaw in relations. President Clinton’s visit to India in 2000 reportedly went ‘a long way toward breaking down years of mistrust’ (Perlez 2001). Further, it is crucial to note that the Clinton administration was the first post-Cold War US administration which oversaw the characterisation of the potentialities of the India–United States dynamic as ‘natural allies’, in the words of the then Indian Prime Minister Atal B Vajpayee (Parthasarathy 2000). Consistent with Clinton’s grand strategy of ‘enlargement’, seeking American ‘security by protecting, consolidating and enlarging the community of free market democracies’ especially in the European states of the former Soviet Union (NSS 1995: 7), many argue that the onset of

232  Kashish Parpiani a new era of India–United States relations is also based on Clinton being ‘drawn to India owing to its unlikely success as the largest democracy and its potential as a major emerging economy that embraced globalisation’ (Raghavan 2018: 354). Thereafter, in the post-9/11 world, the George W Bush administration placed greater emphasis on the promotion of liberal democratic values under his foreign policy. On China, although President Bush furthered his predecessor’s view of integrating China into the US-led liberal world order, owing to its economic and market potentialities, he stepped up the strategic emphasis on India as a possible counterweight to the Asian powerhouse. Most notably, the Bush administration ushered China into the World Trade Organisation. The pragmatism behind this move did not escape observers, when in a speech, Bush famously stumbled in his advocacy for China’s accession. Speaking in Washington, he said, ‘China is a strategic partner, I mean, strategic competitor but that doesn’t mean we can’t find areas in which we can partner and the economy is a place we can partner’ (quoted in Alfredson 2001). In contrast, with respect to India, the Bush administration went beyond the Clinton administration’s focus on India owing to its experiment with democracy. As Srinath Raghavan argues, ‘While Bush shared his predecessor’s enthusiasm for Indian democracy, his administration saw India through the strategic lens of the need to preserve American hegemony from potentially being challenged by a rising China’ (Raghavan 2018: 354). Consider the 2002 NSS, which underscored the Bush administration’s approach towards India. It notes, The United States has undertaken a transformation in its bilateral relationship with India based on a conviction that US interests require a strong relationship with India. We are the two largest democracies, committed to political freedom protected by representative government.… We have a common interest in the free flow of commerce, including through the vital sea lanes of the Indian Ocean. Finally, we share an interest in fighting terrorism and in creating a strategically stable Asia. (NSS 2002: 27) This rendering of the bilateral dynamic paved the way for the India–United States Civil Nuclear Agreement, which proved to be a watershed moment in the post-Cold War evolution of New Delhi’s ties with Washington. Further, although the Barack Obama administration practiced continuity on the Bush-era US pragmatism towards China, with respect to negotiating multilateral agreements such as the Iran Nuclear Deal and the Paris Agreement to combat climate change, it nevertheless built on the Clintonesque precedent of not letting China pass on its civil liberties record. Most notably, the then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton once opined, owing to its restrictions on internet freedom, China ‘should face consequences and international condemnation’ (Clinton 2010). Drawing on the earlier discussed

Anticipating the China challenge  233 Kennedyesque idea of the Asia-Pacific region witnessing a race ‘to demonstrate whose way of life is better’, the Obama administration sought to underplay the China ‘model’, which in the post-Cold War world gained a certain sense of attractiveness, owing to China’s impressive economic rise even under non-democratic rule. In underscoring the downsides of economic progress under an authoritarian system, President Obama notably deemed ‘prosperity without freedom’ to be ‘just another form of poverty’ (Obama 2010). Similarly, in touting the Trans-Pacific Partnership  – the Obama administration’s cornerstone economic initiative in the Asia-­Pacific – ­President Obama argued, ‘we can’t let countries like China write the rules of the global economy. We should write those rules’ (Obama 2015). On India, Obama furthered the strategic outlook honed by his predecessor. Noting the relationship between Washington and New Delhi to be bound by ‘shared interests’ and ‘shared values’, he often professed the same to be ‘one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century’ (TOI Report 2010). Further, the then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared the United States to be ‘making a strategic bet on India’s future’ (Clinton 2011). In the context of the Obama administration’s ‘pivot’ to the Asia-Pacific, which oversaw alterations to US naval postures shifting from the Gulf to the Western Pacific, the then US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta described India as the ‘linchpin’ of the US strategy (quoted in Datt 2012). Finally, at the very outset of the Donald J Trump administration, the aforementioned Manichaean rendering stood as a striking point of continuity. Consider the Trump administration’s maiden NSS. Although the NSS underplayed the role of values in Trump’s conduct of US foreign and security policy, the Kennedyesque warning about competing visions did not fail to receive an invocation. In hailing India’s ‘emergence as a leading global power and stronger strategic and defense partner’, the NSS warned that a ‘geopolitical competition between free and repressive visions of world order’ was ‘taking place in the Indo-Pacific region’ (NSS 2017: 45–46). Along with Russia, the NSS deemed China as ‘revisionist powers’ aiming ‘to shape a world antithetical to US values and interests’ (NSS 2017: 25). In addition, in a visit to India in mid-2018, the then US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley described the India–United States convergence as one built on shared ‘indispensable commitments to the rule of law, the fundamental freedoms expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and a free and open international system’ (Haley 2018). This overt relevance of the Kennedyesque binary rendering in successive US administrations of the post-Cold War era has led to the institutionalisation of the view that China is ‘replacing the Soviet military of the pre-Gorbachev years and the Japanese economy of the 1970s as the next big purported threat to American global leadership’ (Christensen 2001: 6). Scholars such as Amitai Etzioni have warned against the consequences of the same in terms of the United States’ ‘posture toward China’ as ‘largely been driven by the Pentagon’, especially in cases such as the development of

234  Kashish Parpiani the AirSea Battle doctrine against Chinese A2AD activities (Etzioni 2013: 37). This continued threat perception about China has led successive US administrations to also oversee the institutionalisation of perceiving India as a ‘natural balancer’.

US overtures for a ‘natural balancer’ As with the binary rendering previously discussed, India’s perceived role as a balancer is also not nascent in the US calculus. For instance, since the end of World War II, the United States’ military presence around the world has thrived, with multiple Combatant Commands spanning different geographical areas. The largest of these is the US Pacific Command (PACOM) (now, the US Indo-Pacific Command), which ‘oversees an area of responsibility stretching from the waters of the United States west coast to the western border of India, and from Antarctica to the North Pole, encompassing 36 diverse nations’ (The United States Department of Defense n.d.). Interestingly, India – hardly a Pacific power – does not fall under the purview of the US Central Command, as does its South Asian neighbor, Pakistan. Instead, India, along with China, falls under PACOM, with a jurisdiction that ends precariously along the India–Pakistan border. In the post-Cold War world, however, the United States’ institutional courtship of India as a probable balancer vis-à-vis China has been hindered by two major roadblocks. First, as veteran CIA analyst Bruce Riedel puts it, the potentialities of the India–United States dynamic stood ‘constrained and hindered’, owing to America’s ‘complex relationship with Pakistan’, dating back to the heyday of the Cold War (Riedel 2015a). Second, India’s isolation from the international system, owing to its ‘possession of a nuclear arsenal and its unwillingness to join’ the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (Raghavan 2018: 354). The George W Bush administration was the first to openly recognise the reinforcing nature of the ‘roadblocks’, and it sought to dampen the same. During the presidential campaign of the then Governor George W. Bush, his senior advisor and subsequently Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice penned an essay. In it, she underscored Bush’s outlook on India. Rice advocated that the United States pay closer attention to India’s role in the regional balance. There is a strong tendency conceptually to connect India with Pakistan and to think only of Kashmir or the nuclear competition between the two states. But India is an element in China’s calculation, and it should be in America’s, too. India is not a great power yet, but it has the potential to emerge as one. (Rice 2000: 56) Viewed in the context of Rice’s rationale then, the Bush administration’s bold initiative to ‘take a considered view of India’s nuclear programme’

Anticipating the China challenge  235 bore evidence of a larger strategic calculation with respect to India against China (Raghavan 2018: 355). In this regard, the Bush administration oversaw the passing of the Hyde Act (an exemption for India under the Atomic Energy Act of 1954), and Washington and New Delhi negotiated the ‘123 Agreement’ for India to clear nuclear fuel supplies for its civilian use, and sought a waiver for India at the Nuclear Supplies Group. Thus, with this tacit US-led recognition of India’s nuclear programme, the Bush administration sought to free India from the shackles of its ‘pariah’ status. An unnamed Bush administration official also deemed the move to be underpinned with the ‘goal’ of helping ‘India become a major world power in the 21st century’ (quoted in China Daily Report: 2005). With respect to the historic India–Pakistan rivalry, the Bush administration adopted deft diplomacy to ensure cross-border violations and non-­ traditional security threats did not escalate into a broader conflict between Islamabad and New Delhi. As a case in point, the Bush administration dispatched high-level officials, such as the then Secretary of State Colin Powell, to the region in the immediate aftermath of the terror attack on the Indian Parliament. Organised by the Pakistan-based terror outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), the attack had led to serious troop mobilisations on either side of the Indo-Pak border. Certainly, the US interest in leading de-escalatory efforts between India and Pakistan went beyond the motivation to discourage an armed conflict between two nuclear-armed nations in South Asia. One may argue that the Bush administration sought to delink India and Pakistan, to also keep Pakistan engaged – its military and intelligence apparatus’ focus in particular – on its western border with Afghanistan, in support of the War on Terror effort. Thereafter, the Obama administration sought to build on this ‘de-hyphenation’, if you will, of India and Pakistan. First, it built on the Bush administration’s de-escalatory measures in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 Mumbai attacks. Second, it levied greater emphasis – as reflected in the Obama administration’s 2009 White Paper on Af-Pak policy – on Pakistan’s role in the War on Terror effort, to designate Afghanistan and Pakistan as ‘one theater’ (W H White Paper 2009). The latter signified one of the few seminal realms of continuity between the otherwise distinct worldviews of Presidents Bush and Obama and their respective approaches to the use of US power. Under the Obama administration, the ‘hyphenation’ of Pakistan and Afghanistan was spearheaded by the likes of Richard Holbrooke. This hyphenation, reflected in the institutionalisation of the Af-Pak nomenclature and in the fact that Holbrooke served as the first US Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, surmised that the US strategy vis-à-vis Afghanistan was predicated on overseeing a ‘stable Pakistan’ (Kristof 2011). Further, in assuaging New Delhi’s concerns over American operational dependence on Islamabad and its ambivalence towards Pakistani duplicity, President Obama signed the Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009. Also known as the ‘Kerry-Lugar Bill’, the legislation sought to

236  Kashish Parpiani strengthen the civilian dispensation in Islamabad and encourage democratic traditions in the otherwise military–intelligence services dominated nation. Although the bill tripled US aid to Pakistan to 7.5 billion USD over five years, this was designated ‘non-military aid’, with the added provision of periodical assessments by the US Secretary of State to ‘provide certification that the military is not subverting Pakistan’s political and judicial processes’ (PTI Report 2009). In addition, to prevent Islamabad’s nuclear weapons programme from spurring an arms race with its neighbours – chiefly, India  – the act encompassed verifications on ensuring the dispensed aid was not ‘directly or indirectly’ diverted in support of expanding its nuclear programme (US Congress 2009: 20). Further, the Obama administration also oversaw the operationalisation of the aforementioned India–United States civil-nuclear agreement by ironing out the outstanding nuclear liabilities issue with the Narendra Modi government. Thus, the tempo of the institutionalisation of the India–United States dynamic progressed and spurred the relationship’s graduation into one based on strategic issues. For instance, the Obama administration oversaw the introduction of H.R. 4825 – US-India Defense Technology and Partnership Act. This legislation describes the United States–India defense partnership as ‘vital to regional and international stability and security’ and encompasses an amendment to the Arms Export Control Act to accord India a ‘special foreign military sales status’ (US Congress 2016). Although the act did not come up for a vote, the Obama administration enacted its essence and accorded India the status of a ‘Major Defense Partner’. In addition, at the direction of the then Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, the then Deputy Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter set in place the Defence Trade and Technology Initiative (DTTI) to set in-motion a ‘more collaborative approach’ to the India-United States defence relationship. The initiative encompassed the initiation of the first-ever country-specific special cell at the Pentagon, the India Rapid Reaction Cell (IRRC) (Joseph 2015) and encouraged India–United States defence ties to go beyond a traditional ‘buyer-seller’ dynamic, to a collaborative one of co-production and co-development. Furthermore, in achieving greater interoperability between Indian and American armed forces, the Obama administration oversaw the signing of the first of three ‘foundational agreements’ that Washington seeks with its defense partners. With the Narendra Modi government, the United States inked the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) in order to ‘give the militaries of both countries access to each other’s facilities for supplies and repairs’ (George 2016). Finally, according to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the same period witnessed a ‘blazing growth’ in US arms exports to India. In recording a growth of ‘over 550%’ between 2013 and 2017, as compared to the previous five years, the United States in this period rose to become New Delhi’s second largest arms supplier. (The Hindu Report 2018)

Anticipating the China challenge  237 Under President Trump, the above mentioned momentum was sustained, if not accentuated. In furthering the Indo-Pak delinkage, the Trump administration built on previous administrations’ strategy of raising the pressure on Islamabad. In August 2017, Trump presented his administration’s ‘Strategy in Afghanistan and South Asia’, to once again combine Afghanistan and Pakistan as one theatre. In his speech, Trump accused Pakistan of sheltering ‘the same organisations that try every single day to kill our people’. He addressed Pakistani duplicity by complaining about the United States ‘paying Pakistan billion and billions of dollars’ while they house ‘the very terrorists that we are fighting’ (Trump 2017). He called on Pakistan ‘to demonstrate its commitment to civilization, order, and to peace’ (Trump 2017). The US under Trump repeatedly berated Pakistan for ‘not bringing the Taliban within its borders to heel’, and withheld aid worth millions to coax Pakistan to do ‘more in the fight against terrorism’ (Neelakantan 2018). The administration also supported – much to India’s satisfaction – the grey-listing of Pakistan at the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) for having, to quote an unnamed US official, ‘outstanding counterterrorism deficiencies’ (quoted in TOI Report 2018). On binding India into the US strategic calculus, the Trump administration showed a degree of courtship similar to that of previous US administrations. With respect to India’s historical defence ties with Russia, the US law Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) raised the spectre of seriously hampering the trajectory of India–United States relations. The CAATSA legislation not only encompasses sanctions against Russia, Iran and North Korea, but also seeks to ‘punish’ countries dealing with them (Sirohi 2018). A stone in the shoe for India–United States ties, then, has been New Delhi’s purchase of Russian S-400 air defence systems. However, paying heed to Trump administration officials Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense James Mattis’ continued advocacy to grant waivers to partner nations such as India, the US Congress provided modified waiver provisions to India, Vietnam and Indonesia under section 231 of the US law (TNN Report 2018). In addition, in July 2018, the United States–India Enhanced Cooperation Act was introduced in the US House of Representatives, encompassing another amendment to the previously mentioned Arms Export Control Act, to designate India a ‘Major Defense Partner’ – bringing New Delhi on a par with major US allies on defence acquisition matters, despite the two countries’ not having a formal alliance (PTI Report 2018). Further, the Trump administration spurred the heightened adoption of the ‘Indo-Pacific’ moniker. Beyond key administration officials increasingly adopting the new nomenclature, which links the fate of the Western Pacific to the Indian Ocean region, the Trump administration also institutionalised it. The Trump administration rechristened the Pacific Command in Hawaii to the US Indo-Pacific Command. As discussed earlier, although PACOM has had purview over India since the conception of Combatant Commands in the immediate aftermath of World War II, the renaming of the command,

238  Kashish Parpiani although largely symbolic, signified India’s central role in the United States’ strategic calculus in the region. Interestingly, the increased tempo of the India–United States dynamic is not limited to Washington’s initiatives. In 2018, New Delhi and Washington inked the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA), the second of the aforementioned three defence interoperability agreements. Reportedly, this is an India-specific tailored version of the Communication and Information on Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA), aimed to ‘facilitate the use of high-end secured communication equipment to be installed on military platforms being sold to India, and fully exploit their potential’ (Singh 2018). This was followed by the finalisation of the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA) for mutual access of geospatial maps. Reports also suggest New Delhi is contemplating crucial India–United States defence interoperability moves, such as posting an Indian Military Liaison Officer at the newly rechristened Indo-Pacific Command in Hawaii. If this happens, the move would be a seminal endorsement of the American security calculus. The United States has been ‘urging the Indian government since 2002 to post a liaison officer’ at the Pacific Command in Hawaii (Karat 2018). However, past requests to the Atal B Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh governments were met with refusals or stalling requests to instead have an Indian liaison officer at the US Central Command due to India’s strategic concerns largely lying to the ‘west of the PACOM/CENTCOM divide’ (Varadarajan 2011). As briefly discussed earlier, the Pacific Command jurisdiction line precariously ends at the India–Pakistan border, with Pakistan being under the purview of the US Central Command. A possible nod by the Modi government to now post a liaison officer in Hawaii, then, wouldn’t only be an endorsement of the US strategic calculus in the region but also a strong testament to the successful delinking of India–Pakistan by successive US administrations. The latter assessment holds credence in view of recent comments by senior officials of the Indian security community, such as Indian Army Chief Bipin Rawat (now, the Chief of Defence Staff), indicating the time to be ripe for India to ‘shift focus’ from its border with Pakistan to ‘its northern border’ with China (quoted in Shukla 2018).

Conclusion In assessing the United States’ security policy vis-à-vis India in context of China’s rise, the chapter begins with a brief recounting of the present literature on the theory of power transitions. In drawing on Thucydidean assertions of power differentials being at the core of conflicts over the international system, the chapter underscores realists’ prophecies of a coming hegemonic war between the United States and China. In this context, the chapter underscores the US courtship of partners such as India in search of ‘balancers’ against China’s rise. However, the chapter argues against this being a nascent phenomenon.

Anticipating the China challenge  239 Rather, the chapter argues that a binary, Manichaean rendering of China and India was present in the American security lexicon long before China’s contemporary economic rise. Further, the chapter conducts a brief perusal of post-Cold War US administrations, to highlight the continued relevance of binary renderings of China and India – brandishing the former as an ‘authoritative’ and ‘repressive’ state, while lauding the latter as the ‘largest democracy’ and a potential ‘natural ally’ of the United States. The chapter argues that this has spurred the institutionalisation of threat perceptions over China as a ‘strategic competitor’. On America’s courtship of India, the chapter underscores two roadblocks: India’s isolation from the international community owing to its nuclear programme and the continued hyphenation of India–Pakistan in the American worldview. The chapter discusses the policy initiatives adopted by the successive US administrations of George W Bush, Barack Obama and even Donald Trump to address those roadblocks and institutionalise India as a ‘balancer’ with a slew of strategic overtures and security agreements.

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16 China’s Belt and Road Initiative and the Indian Ocean balance Vivek Mishra

It has rightly been observed in strategic circles that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) marks an inflection point in China’s foreign policy. China’s massive infrastructure push across Asia has been both lauded and criticised, but the economic and strategic heft that the initiative packs under its belt make it impossible to ignore. To point to just one example, the absence of two South Asian countries, India and Bhutan, from the Belt and Road International Forum for Cooperation (BARF), held on 14–15 May 2017, did not bother Beijing, even as most of the world’s major powers were on board with the idea of including the United States. Involving about 65 nations with close to 75% of the world’s population, the project involves unprecedented China-led spending in infrastructure. Estimates have it that the Chinese investments involved in this initiative could well touch 4 trillion USD. The infrastructure market in Asia is expected to grow at 8% annually over the next decade or so, taking Asia’s infrastructure needs over 1 trillion USD annually. (Hillman 2016) But what makes these expected investments even more impactful is that they feed right into the infrastructure deficit of the connecting regions, creating huge potential for such investments in the coming times. However, there is growing apprehension in many parts of the world that the BRI’s trade route agenda may not be limited just to trade (Geopolitical Futures 2017). China’s BRI looks westward and has been built by careful planning and years of regional power and capability consolidation. This regional consolidation by China has rattled players in the Asia-Pacific, including the United States. Other countries, including Australia and Japan, have not particularly liked the nature of China’s unilateral rise and its impact on the Asia-Pacific balance of power. China’s rise has been so consequential that it has shifted the centre of gravity of global politics to the Asia-Pacific. The Asia-Pacific region today is witnessing the ‘rising power versus established power’ debate more starkly than any other. China’s growing clout has challenged the United States in every aspect in the region, despite an established network of alliance partners for more than half a century. In fact, China’s rise and an inward-looking approach led by Trump’s ‘America First’ strategy have equally contributed to weakening America’s hold on the region and sowing seeds of doubt among its allies. China’s maritime assertiveness DOI: 10.4324/9780367855413-20

244  Vivek Mishra in the South China Sea, rapid military modernisation, handling of regional maritime disputes and militarisation of islands are quickly turning the narrative of balance of power in the Asia-Pacific region in China’s favour. China’s strategic focus through much of the first decade of the twenty-first century suggested that it was content with being a regional hegemon. However, recent trends, particularly since 2013 when the BRI was announced, have suggested that China is fast ending the debate over the power transition in the Asia-Pacific and is well into the Indian Ocean (Brewster 2018) and even as far as the Black Sea (Panda 2015) and the Arctic (South China Morning Post 2017). China’s economic and military dominance and its ability to keep regional players dependent through trade and other assistance have limited the US ability to mobilise regional partners against China. These limitations have induced the need for alternate grand strategies by other countries, such as Australia, India, Japan and the United States itself, besides a few other smaller, more peripheral partners. China, too, is consolidating its Asian block with trade, loan and dependencies that are the outcome of other grant channels. Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries, Pakistan and quite a few African and Central Asian countries could be counted under this heading. Various multilateral formulations seem to have cropped up as perceived responses to China’s BRI in Asia. At least four geostrategic conceptions central to this new multilateral realignment in Asia are being seen as part of regional power consolidation, as well as a deterrence against China: the Indo-Pacific strategy, Quadrilateral Security Initiative (Quad), Asia-Africa Growth Corridor (AAGC) and International North South Transport Corridor (INSTC). All four formulations are multilateral, trans-regional and, most important, involve the Indian Ocean region (IOR). These multilateral connectivity networks, along with China’s BRI, have set up the Indian Ocean and the larger Indo-Pacific area for a great game. As China plans to extend its reach through connectivity and influence across Asia, Eurasia and Europe, it is expected to disconcert other countries along the way. This perception is most stark in South Asia, with India’s refusal to join Beijing’s BRI and even opposition to parts of the project passing through disputed territory between India and Pakistan. Despite trillions of infrastructural bids riding on China’s BRI and the perceived benign nature of its spread, its westward advance has been met with skepticism, resistance and opposition, especially from the South Asian giant, India. It is a different yet related matter that the initial optimism associated with the promise of the project may have somewhat eroded, especially in light of the emerging ‘debt-trap’ and ‘neo-colonisation’ narratives surrounding the BRI. India’s concerns about the BRI are twofold. The first issue concerns the question of a sovereignty violation with regards to the portion of the BRI called the CPEC, which passes through Pakistan-administered-Kashmir – a disputed territory between India and Pakistan. China’s invitation to India to be a part of the BRI, asserting that the move could help India economically, has barely ended India’s skepticism. The second issue concerns the

China’s Belt and Road Initiative  245 China-aided seemingly benign connectivity infrastructure in South Asia, which seeks to encircle India strategically, both on land and in the maritime domain. India is straightening IOR subregional structures to better cope with the growing imbalance in the region. For the first time, India hosted military exercises of the BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation) group focusing on counterterrorism in September 2018. The aim of the exercise was to build a strategic alignment among the militaries of the seven member states and share best practices among them (Peri 2018). In the past two years, India has embraced BIMSTEC further, to signal an amalgamation of its ‘Act East’ and ‘Neighbourhood First’ policies (Kumar 2020). The idea of BIMSTEC as a strategic grouping emphasises the geostrategic continuum between South and Southeast Asia, an essential component of India’s Act East policy and the intra-­ regional Indo-Pacific strategy.

Shifting strategic coordinates in IOR The waters of the Indian Ocean have witnessed a clear power polarisation. As China seeks to enhance its capabilities in the IOR through a new military base at Djibouti and a commercial base at Gwadar (besides another planned at Jiwani) in Pakistan, France, Singapore and the USA have promised to provide India access to their bases in the Indian Ocean through mutual base-sharing and logistical agreements. Such efforts ride on the power concentration concept and only fuel further regional consolidations of power, as opposed to proving a deterrent to one another. A rapidly shifting power balance in the Asia-Pacific region, too, has led to power dispersion to their western seaboard by most players. As stakeholders try to gain influence through power dissolution, two important consequences have unavoidably cropped up. First, the IOR has become the latest domain of a new regional great game between the world’s major powers. Second, the Indo-Pacific has emerged as a buzzword in Asian security, with connectivity as its central rationale. Through this process of power dispersion, the players of the Asia-Pacific are trying to establish influence in the IOR through hard and soft power. As such, Chinese naval centres and power nodes comprising the String of Pearls in the India Ocean, at one level, represent a power concentration in the region. On the contrary, the Indo-Pacific region presents power dispersion over a trans-regional arena, with the involvement of multiple powers to prevent any imbalance due to power concentration. The Indo-Pacific, thus, represents a continental and maritime continuum that touches the South China Sea, Australia and Japan in the east, covers the western Indian Ocean, including the east African coast and the Gulf, and cuts through the southern Indian Ocean. Essentially, the Indo-Pacific has stood for a construct that includes many countries extending from east Africa to East Asia, thereby also preventing power concentration in this vast expanse. Interestingly, the IOR significantly overlaps the

246  Vivek Mishra Indo-Pacific, making the agenda in the two regions mutually consequential. As a result, we have witnessed the USA harping on the idea to conceptually and pragmatically link the Pacific to the Indian Ocean through its recent emphasis on the Indo-Pacific conception. In its most decisive step, the USA recently changed the name of its Pacific Command to the Indo-Pacific Command. As such, what major players such as Australia, China, India, Japan and the USS do in these crisscrossing regions will have a great impact on the balance of power in the Asian maritime domain.

BRI and IOR balance The growing competition in the IOR through the intersection of various connectivity networks has also led to subtle changes in the discourse around the balance of power in the IOR. Increasingly, the emerging connectivity and linkage competition in the IOR, owing primarily to the involvement of more soft power projection than to hard power, has altered the narrative to concern a balance of influence. As more countries compete to get a stronghold in the IOR, and the likelihood dwindles of a full-blown war with mutual decimation as the most probable eventual outcome, gaining influence through strength projection and newer partnerships has emerged as a potent strategy. In the IOR, the competition for a balance of influence has essentially been between two Asian giants, China and India, with external players as interest-partners. However, the involvement of soft power as a crucial element for gaining regional influence by both China and India, unlike the blatantly hostile Cold War rivalry, has allowed smaller countries of the IOR to ensure significant investments from both India and China, without falling into one camp or another. Recent trends do suggest that countries such as the Maldives, Sri Lanka and Nepal in South Asia are being increasingly swayed by Beijing, but that could be attributed to India’s inability to provide timely and requisite aid to these countries, rather than to Beijing’s arm-twisting of these nations. In this regard, T V Paul argues that the ‘the limited competition between China and India in an era of intensified economic globalization has provided a window of opportunity to small states to maximize their returns from the two without upsetting their relationship with either in a big way’. (Paul 2018) He is of the view that smaller states in South Asia are currently positioned to navigate the India–China economic tussle, but this competition is likely to get even more fraught in the Indo-Pacific region, even as more players get involved in the emerging Asian polarisation. Eventually, smaller states may be forced to make strategic choices between India and China, as China repositions its strategic assets in the IOR (a process which has already begun) and India consolidates its regional hold through military enhancement and partnerships with extra-regional partners. Over the past few years, China has amassed great leverage in the IOR, with an ever-increasing number of nodes in the Indian Ocean. China is gradually enhancing its political, economic and military influence in the

China’s Belt and Road Initiative  247 Bay of Bengal by developing maritime ties with countries such as M ­ yanmar, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh through infrastructural fundings (Business Standard 2017). For China, the Bay of Bengal holds a strategic significance, given the subregion’s potential to circumvent its Malacca Dilemma through Kyakpyu–Kunming connectivity. Relationships with Myanmar and Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal region could prove decisive for China in furthering its connectivity goal into the heart of the IOR. Among other initiatives, China is building a gas pipeline connecting Myanmar’s western coast and Maday island to China’s Yunnan province. These pipelines are expected to cut Beijing’s reliance on the Malacca Strait by cutting its travel time from Africa and Middle East to China by 700 miles, or 30% (Barua 2018). In addition, China has been part of the Bangladesh–China–India–Mynamar (BCIM) corridor that seeks to develop a multimodal transport corridor to connect India (Kolkata) and China (Kunming) via Bangladesh (Dhaka) and Myanmar (Mandalay). When the BCIM was originally conceptualised in the early 1990s, the conception was seen to be concerned with trade, transport, energy and physical connectivity. In its early phase, the BCIM was seen to be outside any prism of regional grand strategy. But in the aftermath of the announcement of the BRI in 2013, the BCIM project is no longer being seen as a single project with a solely economic purpose. Now, the BCIM is being perceived as one of six planned economic corridors through which China wants to promote the BRI (Ebbighausen 2018). The BCIM now symbolically stands for another trans-regional connectivity network that has strategic significance for China. The BCIM’s routes through Myanmar and Bangladesh and its eventual opening in the Bay of Bengal have added to India’s strategic woes, particularly given other places of prominent Chinese presence in the Bay of Bengal and China’s overall grand strategy of transboundary connectivity (Yhome 2017). For India, the BCIM has been a part of its erstwhile ‘Look East’ policy and now ‘Act East’ and is seen as a linchpin in strengthening its ties with Southeast Asia. During the Chinese premier’s Dhaka visit in 2016, China committed to 27 projects in Bangladesh, including development, collaboration and financial assistance/loans. Highlights include the Karnaphuli Multi-Lane Tunnel project in Chittagong, the Confucius Institute at Dhaka University, the Tier-4 National Data Centre in Gazipur’s Kaliakoir, the Shahjalal Fertiliser Company Limited in Fenchuganj, a 1320 megawatt thermal power plant in Patuakhali’s Payra and a 1320 MW coal-fired power plant in Chittagong’s Banshkhali (Slam 2018), out of which the 3.14 billion USD loan for the Padma rail link project was among the highest unitary commitments. The Padma Bridge is expected to link Dhaka to southern Bangladesh through two ports, Mongla and Benapole. Of these ports, Mongla is the second-largest seaport in the country, in the Bagherhat district, and opens onto the Bay of Bengal, potentially giving China some leverage. For Beijing, the Padma Bridge Rail Link comprises an important component of the BCIM. China is a major part of a planned overhaul of Bangladesh’s internal transport

248  Vivek Mishra linkage (Byron 2018). China is involved in the construction of the Karnaphuli Multi-Channel Tunnel Project in southern Bangladesh. The tunnel is perceived as a crucial part of the BRI. Upon completion, the tunnel is expected to link the port city of Chittagong to the Karnaphuli River, which is also the site of a new Chinese economic zone. Upon completion, it is also expected to boost connectivity with three neighbouring nations for Bangladesh: India, Nepal and Bhutan. More important, this project will also boost BRI connectivity in Bangladesh, along with two other projects that are currently underway: the Asian Highway and the Dhaka-Chittagong-Cox’s Bazar Highway (HKTDC Research 2018). For its part, Sri Lanka, sits right at the heart of the twenty-first century Maritime Silk Road, the crucial maritime leg of the BRI. With more than 60,000 ships annually passing through the Indian Ocean, the Chinese-operated Hambantota port Sri Lanka and the industrial zone ­ are not only a key node in China’s growing Indian Ocean presence but have helped with domestic job creation. Almost two-thirds of Chinese oil imports pass through the shipping lanes near the Hambantota port, making it an indispensable strategic asset for China. Besides the strategic Indian Ocean port, China has also been involved in the construction of many megaprojects, including the Lakvijaya Power Station, which provides about 40% of the nation’s electricity supply, the Colombo-Katunayake Expressway, the newly completed Moragahakanda dam project, another newly completed Moragahakanda dam project, etc. (Xinhua 2018). To reduce its debts, which have risen enormously over the past few years, peddling the narrative of ‘debt-trap’, Sri Lanka gave the Hambantota port to China Merchants Port Holdings on a 99-year lease. However, occasional submarines docking at Hambantota by China in the past few years, and the handover of operation of the Hambantota port to the Chinese in December 2017, have raised strategic hackles in New Delhi. Pakistan has emerged as a country where China’s BRI is making progress more rapidly than in any other IOR country, with dual dimensions in land and maritime strategies. China has already built a commercial port at Gwadar, in the country’s Balochistan province, with a potential for strategic use. Amidst reports (Shukla 2018) that China might well be in the process of deploying nuclear submarines at the Gwadar port, and also that a subtle subsurface game of chicken might well be underway between the navies of India, China and Pakistan (The Nation 2016), the regional developments do not augur well for the strategic stability of the IOR. In the recent past, what has added more uncertainty around the future stability of the IOR has been (Gertz 2018) for constructing another overseas naval and air base in Pakistan to enhance capabilities for a greater push in power-projection in the northwest Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea. This is likely to come up at Jiwani, 60 km west of Gwadar. With its proximity to the Indian Ocean port of Chabahar, the facility at Jiwani is likely to see enhanced competition in the Indian Ocean. In Pakistan, Jiwani already has a naval base and an air base in close vicinity to each other. Together with its first naval

China’s Belt and Road Initiative  249 base at Djibouti in the horn of Africa, China is believed to be rapidly moving towards potential Anti-Access/Area-Denial (A2/AD) strategies in the ­western Indian Ocean. Smaller IOR countries have also increasingly been drawn, sometimes even unwillingly, in the game of balance of influence that is unfolding between major stakeholders in the IOR and Indo-Pacific. Djibouti, on the horn of Africa, has emerged as an opposite example of how smaller countries could redefine larger countries’ regional sway. For a long time, Djibouti has been host to troops from France, Japan and the USA. But the entry of China into this mix in 2017, when it opened its first overseas military base in Djibouti, marks an inflection point in post-Cold War IOR stability. First, the move suddenly changed the balance of influence in the western Indian Ocean in China’s favour, particularly vis-à-vis regional players. Second, it accorded substance to the argument that supports China’s rise as a true blue water navy. Third, the incident (Browne 2018) involving two American airmen being injured by military-grade laser beams in Djibouti (for which China has been accused by the Pentagon) does point to the future possibility of larger strategic rivalry between world’s major powers being played out in the IOR. Finally, China’s military base at Djibouti, together with the planned naval and air base at Jiwani, in Pakistan, secures the Arabian Sea waters for China for conducting anti-piracy operations, peacekeeping operations or disaster-management evacuations in future crisis scenarios. China’s influence in Africa has been rapidly growing, and the continent’s eastern coast provides strategic points of access and exit for China. Among other potential nodes that could provide China with platforms for extending influence and control in the IOR is Tanzania. China’s naval fleet, comprising the destroyer Changchun, guided-missile frigate Jingzhou and supply vessel Chaohu visited Tanzania in August 2017 to lay the groundwork. (China Daily 2017) More recently, financial constraints have reportedly compelled Tanzania to grant ownership of the 10 billion USD Bagamoyo Port and Special Economic Zone (SEZ) project to China. The Bagamoyo port and SEZ are understood to provide China with an important shipping and logistics centre near the east African coast, besides attracting as many as 700 industries with investments. (The East African 2017). Giving the tale a strategic twist, China has also built a Comprehensive Training Centre (CTC) in Bagamoyo and jointly trains personnel from Tanzania People’s Defence Forces (TPDF). As China and India vie for greater influence in the IOR, small island nations remain key in setting the tone for future regional stability in the region. Smaller island nations in the Southern Indian Ocean have not been left out of the emerging balance of influence in the IOR and, increasingly, the Indo-Pacific region. Countries such as the Seychelles and Maldives appear to have been caught in the strategic rivalry that is playing out in the IOR between bigger powers, most conspicuously China and India. The latest roadblock in India’s effort to secure Assumption Island for an Indian naval facility could well have a Chinese subtext (Joshi 2018). While India

250  Vivek Mishra seems to be losing its traditional influence in the Maldives to the advantage of China, it is attempting full-blown diplomacy to convince the Seychelles to lease its Assumption Island for an Indian naval facility, in the face of growing domestic opposition. In the past, the Maldives also cancelled its biggest foreign investment project, a 511 million USD deal with Indian firm the GMR Group to develop an international airport (Reuters 2012), besides signing a free trade agreement with China, to the chagrin of India. That the award was later given to a Chinese company couldn’t conceal that the two countries are locked in creating centres of influence in the IOR. As the Maldivian crisis (Sajjanhar 2018) showed, competition over influence in smaller IOR nations could actually derail regional stability and even result in war. After reports about a possible Indian intervention in the Maldives (there being history to such assessments when India sent troops to the Maldives in 1988 through Operation Cactus to prevent a coup), in the face of the domestic government’s inability to arrest a constitutional crisis in the country, China was swift to send its navy in a symbol of deterrence to possible Indian intervention (The Japan Times 2018). In addition, there are other countries that fall on the charted axes of the Chinese BRI and are likely to impact the balance of the IOR, especially due to the emerging labyrinth of connectivity linkages across Asia and the consequent intrinsic nature of ties between the countries of the larger Indo-Pacific region and the IOR. Among these, Australia, Indonesia, Laos, Vietnam, Brunei and Vanuatu in the far Southeast Pacific have emerged as countries that will impact the balance of the IOR through their Indo-­ Pacific connection to the region. India has laid stress on ASEAN centrality in its Indo-Pacific strategy, making countries of the region indispensable in its broader Indo-Pacific strategy. Recently, India has signed an agreement with Indonesia to develop coastal infrastructure in the Sabang port near the Strait of Malacca. Indonesia has also been part of India’s CORPAT exercises, and both countries are trying to align their Act East and Global Maritime Fulcrum strategies. In addition, India’s mutual logistics agreement with Singapore has provided it with crucial port access to the east. In a clear sign of increasing responsibility for regional security and political will, India has also been curating its interests as far as the South China Sea. India has set up a Data Reception and Tracking and Telemetry Station at Ho Chi Minh City, in southern Vietnam, which is likely to give India strategic access to developments over the south China Sea. India has similar facilities set up in Indonesia and Brunei (The Economic Times 2018). China’s BRI has been a key driver in altering the balance of power in the Indian Ocean and evindences the potential to significantly disrupt power dynamics in the IOR with new regional shifts, power-sharing, partnerships and possibly alliances in future. China’s BRI today comprises three primary routes – all leading to the Indian Ocean. First, there are continental connections between China’s Yunnan province and the Indian Ocean through Myanmar; second, the CPEC links Xinjiang province with the Indian Ocean port in Gwadar, Pakistan; and third, the Oceanic Maritime

China’s Belt and Road Initiative  251 Silk Road which links the Indian Ocean with China’s Pacific coast through the Strait of Malacca. While the Kyakpyu-Kunming linkage brings the north east Indian Ocean, the Bay of Bengal, into China’s reach, the CPEC, through its opening in Gwadar, provides transport links to the deep-water port, which would give China direct access to the north-west Indian Ocean in the Arabian Sea. For China, this means that ships carrying oil and other exports from the Persian Gulf (and vice versa) would reach China in much less time than is possible along existing routes. These linkages bring the Indian Ocean to the centre of the geopolitics that is emerging from the BRI in South Asia, the central apprehension being driven by the link routes that geographically seem to encircle the Indian subcontinent. These developments in India’s neighbourhood have unnerved India, which has clarified its position on the BRI. Also, since they have revived India’s apprehensions about the String of Pearls, these developments in its neighbourhood have elicited seemingly retaliatory strategies from New Delhi. Although from time to time India and other countries have insisted that regional groupings and their strategies are not directed against any one particular country, the trends in these groupings do merit analyses from a regional grand strategy perspective.

Regional responses from India As the largest regional country, India needs a strategy to maintain the power  balance in the IOR, which has been upset by a concentration of hard power along Chinese nodes in the IOR and the facilitation of Chinese soft power through them to Africa, Latin America, Eurasia and even Europe. However, India’s approach to devising a strategy to maintain regional balance is nuanced; it involves little consolidation of hard power and a cautious approach to regional multilateralism. As a result, India’s intended naval outreach is limited to building communication posts, radars, mutual logistical facilities, resupplies, etc., as opposed to building naval bases. To be sure, India’s attempt to create outreach centres of various kinds in the Seychelles in the IOR and Vietnam, and Brunei, among others in the Indo-Pacific region, reflects such intentions. Even in its multilateral partnerships and groupings in the IOR, India has made sure that the competition for building a stable IOR order while still maintaining strong regional influence does not spiral into becoming an anti-China herd. This is reflected in particular in India’s embrace of the Indo-Pacific. In his keynote speech at the Shangri La Dialogue, Indian Prime Minister Modi clearly stated that, ‘India does not see the Indo-Pacific Region as a strategy or as a club of limited members’ and called the Indo-Pacific region ‘a natural region’ where destinies of people are linked (Modi 2018). However, India’s recent partnerships with the Australia, France, Oman, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, Vietnam, the EU and the United States point to trends that might be perceived as distinct from India’s traditional approaches in handling regional security and stability. Such sentiments

252  Vivek Mishra could also be seen in India’s recent decision to increase the number of naval deployments, as well as their frequency, in the IOR, through its ‘Mission Based Deployments (MBD)’ (Pandit 2017). in the IOR. The MBD essentially mean that about 15 warships of the Indian Navy are patrolling seven areas of the waters around India, beyond the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), keeping an eye on all entry and exit routes to and from the Indian Ocean (Dutta 2018).

Conclusion The turn of Asian geopolitics, especially in the aftermath of the COVID 19 pandemic, has left a more divisive Asia and a more confrontationist stand between China and the United States. These dynamics are bound to impact the Asian balance of power in a big way. India’s border dispute with China, which started in 2020, has spilled over into 2021, without any resolution in sight, and has had its own impact on India’s reorientation towards maritime preparedness and a regional strategy vis-a-vis China. India’s approach to the Indo-Pacific region, which bases itself on an inclusive strategy, its increasing partnership with the United States and other Quad countries, such as Australia and Japan, together with an emerging coalition of European Powers in the Indo-Pacific including France, Germany and the UK, are bound to change the power dynamics of the Indo-Pacific, impinging on the IOR. However, India’s cautious approach to the region is likely to ensure that there is no power concentration or asymmetry leading to a regional imbalance in the IOR and the larger Indo-Pacific region. Despite the seemingly hostile circumstances, both India and China have preserved the sanctity of liberal order and responsible powers in the IOR. Such a spirit could not go unnoticed in the Second India-China Maritime Affairs Dialogue, held in Beijing on 13 July 2018. Bringing out the convergences, the two countries ‘exchanged views on various topics of mutual interest, including perspectives on maritime security and cooperation, blue economy, further strengthening of practical cooperation and their common vision of the Indo-Pacific’ (Ministry of External Affairs 2018).

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17 Russia’s ‘pivot to the East’ and its impact on the Asia-Pacific region and South Asia Alexey A Semenov

Against the background of the continued deterioration of relations between Russia, the United States and the European Union after the Ukrainian crisis, the Russian government has aimed to overcome economic difficulties and diplomatic isolation from Western countries through the implementation of the ‘pivot to the East’ strategy. With the emergence of the crisis in Ukraine and the weakening of the Western vector of Russia’s foreign policy in 2014, Moscow’s interest in developing relations with the countries of the Asia-Pacific Region (APR) and South Asia increased, and Russia began to strengthen the Eastern vector of its foreign policy. The foundations of Russia’s ‘pivot to the East’ were laid much earlier. For example, the rapprochement between Moscow and Beijing began long before the Ukrainian crisis and has continued for more than 30 years. The reasons for the Chinese-Russian rapprochement are a gradual understanding of the proximity and even the coincidence of indigenous views on the international system and the geopolitical situation in the changing world (Lukin 2015). The idea of turning the foreign policy to the East was repeatedly voiced in the Russian academic and policy circles during the 2000s. But from a political and economic point of view, this pivot began only in 2012, when Russian President Vladimir Putin published an article in the Wall Street Journal. In this article, he claimed that Russia would play an important role in the affairs of the APR, thus for the first time voicing the strategy of ‘pivot to the East’, the purpose of which was to expand the political and economic influence of the country in the region (Putin 2012). In the same year, Russia held the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Meeting on Russkiy Island near Vladivostok. Initially, Moscow’s attention was drawn to the dynamics of the economic and social development of Asia in general and China in particular. The Russian ‘pivot to the East’ was seen as a way to intensify economic cooperation with the countries of the APR and South Asia, as the rapid economic breakthrough of many Asian countries made this region the new centre of international development, where huge human resources and economic power are concentrated. Now the APR is the largest market in the world. DOI: 10.4324/9780367855413-21

256  Alexey A Semenov Russia’s ‘pivot to the East’ is a long overdue need for Russian foreign policy and, to some extent, a belated response to the economic recovery of Asia, which opened up new opportunities for development and international cooperation for the country. It is important to note that while Moscow’s relations with the West have entered into a severe and long-term crisis, Russia’s cooperation with Asian countries is developing dynamically. Russia is determined to develop closer relations with China, India and other countries of the region, play a more proactive role in Asia in general, to create a more balanced security architecture, and develop economic cooperation with the countries of the region. At the same time, Russia’s ‘pivot to the East’ should not be considered a complete turn from Europe to Asia; instead, it is a reorientation of Russia from pragmatic considerations to new opportunities and the desire to meet the requirements of the current political situation. Nevertheless, there are objective conditions and prerequisites for implementing the ‘pivot to the East’. Russia, together with its regional partners, will be able to strengthen peace and promote prosperity in the region (Putin 2017).

Economic prerequisites of the Russian ‘pivot to the East’ Despite an attempt to reorient Russian foreign policy and trade to the East, the mutual trade between Russia and Asian countries has slowed down in absolute terms in the last few years. A number of factors are responsible. First, the general geopolitical tensions and the introduction of economic sanctions against Russia by Western countries. Second, the slowdown in economic growth rates in Russia and other Asian countries, including some slowdown in China’s economic growth. Third, the fall in world prices for energy and raw materials which prevails in Russian exports; for example, this accounts for more than 70% of Russian exports to China. Fourth, the decrease in the purchasing power of Russian consumers due to sharp exchange rate fluctuations of the Russian ruble relative to major world currencies. On the positive side, Russian trade with China, India, Japan, South Korea and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries is steadily growing. In 1999, Russia’s trade with China was 5.7 billion USD, which amounted to about 4% of Russia’s foreign trade turnover. However, Russia–China trade was less than that of Russian trade with Ukraine and Belarus. Since 2010, China has become Russia’s main economic partner, after the EU. In 2016, Russia’s foreign trade with the PRC was 46.551 billion USD, approximately 14.1% of the total Russian foreign trade (Rosstat 2016). China’s share in Russian foreign trade has been steadily growing. In 2015, it was 11.8%. However, Russia is at the sixteenth position in the ranking of China’s main trade partners and account for about 2.3% of China’s foreign trade. China needs oil, in particular, Russian oil. Transporting oil from Africa and the Persian Gulf is not entirely safe, given piracy and the terrorist threat

Russia’s ‘pivot to the East’  257 and the high level of dependence on the Strait of Malacca route. Thus, the closest and most reliable partner is Russia, which is ready to supply the hydrocarbons which are the mainstay of its economy. Whereas Russia needs to diversify exports, China needs to diversify imports. On 21 May 21 2014, China and Russia signed a 30-year gas deal. The Gazprom, a large Russian oil and gas company, entered into an agreement with the China National Petroleum Corporation on the construction of a natural gas pipeline, the ‘Power of Siberia’. The importance of the Chinese market for Russia is swiftly growing. Russian gas and oil exports to China have increased from 6.8% in 2013 to 14.6% in 2017. The deterioration of relations between Russia and the West creates favourable conditions for the Chinese-Russian rapprochement and promotes the development of bilateral relations. In November 2015, Russia overtook Saudi Arabia and became the largest oil supplier to China, which may be a confirmation of the strengthening of Chinese-Russian relations in the energy sector (Chen and Meng 2017). Russia also has a long history of mutually beneficial cooperation with India, and relations between the two countries are traditionally at a high level. The largest joint projects between India and Russia are being implemented in the field of nuclear energy (Shikin and Bandari 2017). This area has become one of the foundations of the Indian-Russian privileged strategic partnership. Other significant areas of cooperation are the defence industry, infrastructure, pharmaceuticals and information technology. In 2015, Indian-Russian total trade amounted to 7.8 billion USD. Russia exported 5.6 billion USD worth of goods to India and imported 2.2 billion USD from India. India’s share is 1.5% of Russia’s total trade, and India ranks seventeenth among Russia’s trade partners (Ministry of Economic Development of the Russian Federation 2015). After the beginning of the economic downturn in Russia in 2014, the Indian-Russian total trade decreased, but recently, there has been a trend towards its recovery. Although Japan has supported Western sanctions against Russia, it shows interest in cooperating with Moscow. In turn, Russia sees Japan as a promising partner in the ‘pivot to the East’ strategy. Strengthening ties with Japan could allow Russia to diversify its imports and exports. Despite its significant role in the APR, Japan fears growing competition from China, which pushes it to rethink its position towards Russia to maintain the balance of power. From 2000–2008 to 2009–2014, there was a gradual increase in trade between Japan and Russia. The exceptions were brief periods in 2009 and 2014–2016. In the first period, the decline arose under the influence of the global financial crisis; in the second, under the influence of anti-Russian sanctions, which Japan joined. Despite an overall decline in bilateral trade since 2014, indicators for specific categories of goods, such as high-tech devices and food, have shown rapid growth. Also, Russia remains one of the main suppliers of coal and oil to Japan (Mishchenko 2017).

258  Alexey A Semenov Russia is also actively pursuing cooperation with South Korea, which is a major importer of natural gas. Despite the diversified system of gas supplies to South Korea, Russian hydrocarbons are usually perceived as a necessary component of the energy portfolio, which also has a number of advantages, such as geographical proximity, security of supply, relatively low political risks, etc. Russia’s economic interactions with other Asian countries are also growing. Thus, in 2003–2012, Russian exports to Vietnam almost doubled, from 357 million USD to 658 million USD. During the same period, Vietnamese imports to Russia increased more than 10 times: from 156 million USD to 2.313 billion USD (Izotov 2013). Despite a slight decline in trade between Vietnam and Russia in 2016, Vietnam’s share of foreign trade turnover in Russia increased in 2016 and amounted to 0.82%, as against 0.74% in 2015 (Russian Trade 2016b). Economic cooperation between Russia and Singapore is also expanding rapidly. According to Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Igor Morgulov, in 2017, bilateral trade increased by 94%, to 4.4 billion USD (Pedanov 2018). Singapore’s investments in the Russian amounted to 142 million USD, and Russian investments in Singapore, to 1.4 billion USD. Simultaneously, the level of economic interaction between Russia and the ASEAN is still at low level, compared to that with other regional partners. In 2016, the trade volume between Russia and the ASEAN countries amounted to only 13.6 billion USD (Russian Trade 2016a). Currently, Russia occupies only the eighth place in the ASEAN foreign trade, which is more than 25 times behind China. Nevertheless, it is essential to note that in 2016, for the first time in history, Russian imports from the APEC countries to the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) exceeded imports from the EU (Ezhov 2017). In 2017, this situation remained the same: the share of the EU countries in the foreign trade turnover of the EAEU decreased by 2.3%, and the share of APEC countries increased by 1.8%, amounting to 31.5% of the total Russian trade. Thus, since 2016, imports from APEC countries to the EAEU exceeded imports from EU countries for two consecutive years. The share of foreign direct investment from APEC countries to the EAEU countries is also growing, compared to the EU share. In addition, after the fall of Russia’s economic indicators, imports from the APEC countries returned to growth first among the main groups of countries, exceeding the level of 2010 in the third quarter of 2016. This indicates the acceleration of the convergence of the two integration platforms (ACGRF 2017). All this once again shows that the process of reorientation of Russia’s foreign relations to the APR is objective and inevitable and is not so strongly related to the current political situation as some claim.

Chinese-Russian relations as a driver of the Russian ‘pivot to the East’ The key element of the Russian ‘pivot to the East’ is the development of Chinese-Russian relations. Under Jiang Zemin, the active restoration of

Russia’s ‘pivot to the East’  259 Chinese-Russian relations began after the 30-year Sino-Soviet split. In 1996–1997, the Shanghai Five grouping was formed, with the signing of the Treaty on Deepening Military Trust in Border Regions and the Treaty on Reduction of Military Forces in Border Regions by the heads of states of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. In 2001, the five member nations admitted Uzbekistan into the Shanghai Five mechanism, thus transforming it into the Shanghai Six. Then, on June 15, all six heads of states signed the Declaration of the SCO, praising the role played thus far by the Shanghai Five mechanism and aiming to transform it to a higher level of cooperation. The SCO has a charter, permanent Beijing-based headquarters, and a structurally formalised system of collective cooperation. The economic and political partnership with China within the framework of the SCO is based largely on the China–Russia strategic cooperation. The organisation is expected to counter the growing influence of the US military outreach program in Central Asia. On 16 July 16 2001, Russia and the PRC, the SCO’s two leading nations, signed the Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation, a 20-year strategic, economic and implicit military treaty. The Treaty consists of 25 articles that cover various spheres of Chinese-Russian relations. The agreement provides for cooperation in trade and economic, military-technical, scientific, energy, transport and other areas. The parties expressed their intention to cooperate in the fight against terrorism, separatism and extremism. In addition, China and Russia confirm that they will not use nuclear weapons against each other. Article 6 claims that the contracting parties have no territorial claims against each other (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China 2001). Although the text of the treaty emphasises that it is not directed against third countries, China and Russia feared the increasing US influence in the region. Moscow and Beijing also negatively assess NATO’s attempts to appropriate the functions of the UN Security Council, interference in the affairs of sovereign states under humanitarian pretexts, support for separatism, the enlargement of NATO, the US intention to withdraw from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and its refusal to join some other international agreements (Lukin 2001). More importantly, the last unresolved territorial issue between the two countries was settled by the 2005 Complementary Agreement between the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation on the Eastern Section of the China–Russia Boundary (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation 2005). After that, Russia became the only bordering country with China, with which it resolved all territorial disputes. In March 2013, a week after he came to power, Xi Jinping paid an official visit to Moscow. Russia was the first country that he visited as head of the PRC. Putin as well, once again taking office in 2012, chose China as the first site of a foreign visit. The leaders of China and Russia issued a joint statement on mutually beneficial cooperation and the deepening of relations. They signed 35 bilateral documents aimed at developing a strategic

260  Alexey A Semenov partnership between their two countries. This visit was one of the most productive in the history of official visit exchanges. It is important to note that China and Russia voted along the same lines in the UN Security Council on almost all important issues during the 2000s. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov repeatedly pointed out that the current Chinese-Russian bilateral relations are the best in the whole history and concluded that they ‘are an example for major powers in the modern era’. Lavrov also called China a key economic partner of Russia (Sputnik 2017). Wang Yi, Foreign Minister of the PRC, said during the Annual Session of the CPPCC in 2017 that China has great confidence in the Chinese-Russian relationship, which has stood the test of international vicissitudes and is as strong as it has ever been. He said that mutual trust has reached an historic high and that the relationship would not be affected or weakened by any external factor. According to Wang, China and Russia would improve strategic coordination on international and regional issues and act as the stabiliser in an otherwise turbulent world (Mo 2017).

Integration in Eurasia and the APR The Chinese concept of the community of common destiny for all mankind presupposes the consolidation of the continent not from the outside, but from the inside. The main framework of the continent should be not an external frame, but a whole system of complementary axes, pulling together a huge and very heterogeneous Eurasian space. Thus, the Russian view of Eurasian integration is similar to the Chinese one. The Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) is one of the key Russian projects in the field of international integration. The treaty aiming for the establishment of the EAEU was signed on 29 May 2014 by the leaders of Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia, and came into force on 1 January 2015. The Union includes Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia. The Customs code of the EAEU came into force on 1 January 2018. The EAEU was established to comprehensively modernise and improve the competitiveness of the national economies and create conditions for sustainable development and cooperation to advance the living standards of the population of the member states. According to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, about 50 countries have expressed a desire to cooperate with the EAEU (Grishina 2017). The EAEU created a free trade zone with Vietnam. The agreement based on the obligations of countries to facilitate access to their markets through mutual trade for suppliers of goods and services was signed by Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and the heads of the governments of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Vietnam, and entered into force on 5 October 2016. It provides for the reduction of import customs duties, the obligation to protect intellectual property rights and cooperation in the field of e-commerce, as well as in the field of public procurement; in addition, common

Russia’s ‘pivot to the East’  261 principles of competition protection are established. It is expected that the document, which envisages the zeroing of duties by almost 90% of goods within ten years, will increase trade more than twice and also start the subsequent integration with the APR countries. The value of this agreement is also that it benefits the reputation of Vietnam, which has confirmed its importance as an Asian partner of Russia, as well as developing negotiation practices and mechanisms for the implementation of such agreements for the EAEU (Tsvetov 2015). Negotiations are underway to establish free trade zones with China, Singapore, India, Thailand and other Asian countries. This will bring the countries of the region closer to each other and signal their commitment to the principles of free trade and integration within the conditions of growing protectionism. An important part of the development of the EAEU is considered to be its conjunction with the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), designed to link China with the EU. The Joint Statement on Cooperation on the Construction of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and the SREB Projects dated 8 May 2015, marked a milestone in the history of bilateral relations between Beijing and Moscow (Kremlin.ru 2014). It has become one of the main achievements of Russian foreign policy in recent years and an important step in Russia’s ‘pivot to the East’. It is assumed that this will help overcome potential conflicts in Central Asia and create the prerequisites for full-scale economic cooperation in the region. It is important to note that the joint efforts of the Chinese side and the EAEU countries on the project to conjunct the BRI and the EAEU have achieved certain results. In February 2017, the Silk Road Chamber of International Commerce and the EAEU Business Council signed an agreement establishing the Silk Road International Development Fund and the Silk Road International Commodity Exchanges in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. This agreement has created the necessary conditions for the financing of joint projects within the framework of the BRI and the EAEU. The main direction in the conjugation of these initiatives is infrastructure projects in the EAEU countries. The emphasis is on transport and logistics infrastructure, since according to the Chinese side, the transport corridors of the New Silk Road should link resources, production and markets. In 2018, the draft agreement between the EAEU and China on the exchange of customs information on goods and vehicles of international transportation across the customs borders of the EAEU and China was approved. The agreement creates a single customs register, which includes information on customs control on the route of goods and resolves the issue of the mutual recognition of the results of customs control of the countries that are participants in the transport corridors. This will help to speed up the clearance of goods imported into the EAEU and China, as well as transported in transit. The idea of pairing the two initiatives is still at the initial stage, but there are already certain plans to make it the basis for an even more ambitious

262  Alexey A Semenov project, a Big Eurasian Partnership (BEP). This was formulated on 3 December 2015, when The President’s Address to the Russian Federal Assembly put forward an initiative to start consultations on the formation of economic partnership between the EAEU, the ASEAN and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO). During 2016, the concept of the ‘integration of integrations’ was repeatedly voiced at various multilateral platforms, including the ASEAN Summit, becoming the flagship Russian initiative to develop integration in Eurasia and the APR (Luzyanin 2018). This idea is based on the assessment of long-term trends, including the partial weakening of the West and the strengthening of Asia. One of the bases of this process is the constructive interaction between Moscow and Beijing. China and Russia are looking for different resources and opportunities in their common neighbourhood, such as labour force and investment opportunities. Both countries are interested in regional security and the stability of political regimes. The concept offers China, the most powerful country in the region, a convenient place as an economic leader, but not a political hegemon, against which other powers would inevitably organise themselves. All of this shows that Russia intends to pursue a more active policy in Asia.

Diplomatic contacts and regional security Russia is strengthening its diplomatic cooperation with its partners in Asia. One of the most problematic areas of Japanese-Russian relations is the Kuril Islands dispute, also known as the Northern Territories dispute, a disagreement between Japan and Russia over the sovereignty of the South Kuril Islands. This issue is the main obstacle to the full settlement of ­Japanese-Russian relations. In recent years, however, both countries have taken steps to resolve the territorial dispute. In 2013, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe paid a visit to Russia, becoming Japan’s first Prime Minister for the previous ten years who had made an official visit to Russia. On 6 May 2016, Abe paid a visit to Sochi, where the two leaders discussed the prospects for future cooperation. The meeting of the two leaders was the first since the introduction of anti-Russian sanctions. The next important milestone in the framework of bilateral cooperation was the first visit of Abe to the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok in September 2016, during which dozens of project proposals by Japanese companies were presented. The Japanese-Russian rapprochement reached its highest point in December 2016, when Putin arrived in Japan for the first time in 11 years. During the visit, the Russian President declared an interim decision on the beginning of consultations on the joint development of the South Kuril Islands, especially in the fields of fisheries, the cultivation of fish and seafood, and tourism. In recent years, India has risen in the list of Russian foreign policy priorities. Russia considers India one of its most important international partners and actively cooperates with it within the framework of the institutions

Russia’s ‘pivot to the East’  263 created by the BRICS countries and at the SCO platform, where India and Pakistan became members in 2015. India and Russia have very similar views on building a harmonious and multipolar world order and similar positions on key issues concerning international relations. Russia is interested in peacekeeping and stability in the region. As a result, Moscow tends to play an important role in the settlement of the crisis on the Korean peninsula, as Russia is the immediate neighbour of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), and so the development of the situation in the region affects its national interests. Russia actively supports UN measures to force Pyongyang to abandon the development of its nuclear program. Moscow does not recognise the status of a nuclear power for the DPRK and considers the actions of Pyongyang as provocative and creating a security threat in Northeast Asia. However, the issue of military action against North Korea is unacceptable to the Kremlin. Russia proceeds from the fact that it is impossible to solve the problem by ‘pinpoint’ strikes and any other attacks, sanctions or pressure. The Russian side is actively cooperating with China to resolve the nuclear crisis and search for non-standard approaches and proposals. In July 2017, China and Russia put forth a joint initiative on resolving the Korean crisis, which offered guarantees for the security and development of the DPRK in response to the rejection of provocations and the freezing of Pyongyang’s nuclear missile activities. The joint Chinese-Russian initiative is based on two ideas. The first one is a ‘double freeze’, which means the ‘freezing’ of both North Korea’s nuclear missile activities and large-scale joint exercises of the United States and South Korea. The second one is ‘parallel advancement’ towards the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula and the creation of peace-maintaining mechanisms on the peninsula. Russia’s political role in the region is gradually increasing. Despite the rapid growth of economic cooperation between the Asian countries, there is still no atmosphere of trust in the region, and the arms race continues. China, India, Japan and South Korea accounted for 20% of global military spending in 2014. US-Chinese contradictions are also growing, and small and medium-sized Asian states are trying to eliminate the unilateral orientation towards China or the USA (Bordachev et al. 2016). Against this background, Russia has a unique position: it is friendly to the two largest countries in the region, China and India, and the cooperation of other countries with Moscow is not perceived as a threat to Chinese or Indian interests.

Modernisation of the Russian Far East In addition to the development of international economic and political cooperation, another important element of Russia’s ‘pivot to the East’ is the accelerated development of the Russian Far East provinces, directly adjacent to the Pacific Ocean. Thus, the ‘pivot to the East’ in Russian foreign policy is complemented by a similar pivot in domestic policy.

264  Alexey A Semenov Asian economic growth allows Russia to use the opportunities and competitive advantages available in the East of Russia and to turn the region into one of the engines for Russian economic growth. Due to the small size of the domestic market and a underdeveloped infrastructure, an export-oriented model of the region’s development was chosen to penetrate Russian products into the rapidly growing Asia-Pacific markets. The main instruments for the implementation of this task are the improvement of the investment climate and the creation of special economic zones (Karaganov et al. 2017). Russia is creating the so-called territories of advanced development (TAD) in the Far Eastern regions. These are economic zones with preferential tax conditions, simplified administrative procedures, etc. It is assumed that in these areas there will be business conditions that can compare and compete with key business centres of the APR. To date, 18 TADs have already been launched. At the moment, there are 11 enterprises on their territory, and 34 are in the construction stage. Russia is actively modernizing sea and airports in the Far East, developing transcontinental rail routes and building new gas and oil pipelines. In addition, the port of Vladivostok has received a special regime of customs, tax and investment regulation since 2015. The project is aimed at expanding cross-border trade, developing transport infrastructure and including the Primorsky Krai in the global transport routes, and also at attracting investments, creating a network of logistics centres with special conditions for the transportation, storage and partial processing of goods in the organisation of non-primary export-oriented industries and increasing production with high added value. All these efforts to develop the Russian Far East are already yielding a certain result: the growth rate of GRP in these regions for four consecutive years has exceeded the average Russian indicators (Karaganov 2017). In 2017, the volume of attracted investments, industrial production and construction demonstrated positive dynamics. Thus, through the active development and modernisation of the Russian Far Eastern regions, Russia seeks to improve the quality of economic cooperation with the Asian countries.

Conclusion The first steps towards Russia’s ‘pivot to the East’ began decades ago and were caused by objective reasons. However, the deterioration between Russia and the West gave a new impetus to this process. Russia’s policy in the APR is becoming more proactive and strategic. Russia aims to play a more important role in the region, but the ‘pivot’ has a pronounced economic character, and its primary task is the internal development of Russia itself through the attraction of investors and the opening of the Asian market. Russia’s cooperation with China remains a key factor in the ‘pivot to the East’. China and Russia have a lot of opportunities for cooperation because there are huge spaces between Europe and China; there is scope for geopolitics and a massive need for infrastructure investment.

Russia’s ‘pivot to the East’  265 In recent years, China and Russia have repeatedly shown that they can avoid competition in the name of mutually beneficial cooperation and sustainable development. The movement of China to the West and Russia to the East provides opportunities for creating a new zone of cooperation and development in Greater Eurasia, which is quite capable of becoming a new centre of world development, an attraction of financial resources, goods and people. Over the past few years, Russia has managed to form a close network of partnerships with other Asian countries and associations, primarily with Japan, India, South Korea and the ASEAN countries. Forcing the development of Russian Far Eastern regions and Russian initiatives on economic integration should positively impact the economic development of the APR and already shows some success. Russia is interested in active participation in the BRI. In addition, Russia proposes forming an economic partnership between the member states of the EAEU, ASEAN and SCO, and an ‘integration of integrations’ within the BEP. Russia is actively seeking to develop economic cooperation with the countries of the region. Despite the decline in Russian foreign trade and the devaluation of the ruble caused by economic sanctions, Russia’s trade with Asia is growing again, and the share of Asian countries is rapidly increasing in the total foreign trade turnover of the country. Russia does not have large geopolitical ambitions in the region and will avoid direct or indirect participation in conflicts. Simultaneously, Moscow is interested in a peaceful settlement of disputes arising between the APR countries and preventing integration and mutually beneficial cooperation. Russia is looking for cooperation in Eastern, Southeast and South Asia, and its ‘pivot to the East’ is an excellent opportunity for the countries of the region to build closer relations with Russia and to improve the scale of economic and political cooperation. Thus, the strengthening of the Eastern vector of Moscow’s foreign policy could give a new impetus to political and economic cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region and South Asia.

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Index

Page numbers in bold indicate tables, page numbers in Italics indicate figures and page numbers followed by n indicate notes. Abe, Shinzo 262 ‘Act East Policy’ 47, 121n1, 245 Action Plan on Belt and Road Standard Connectivity (2015–2017) 148, 150 Action Plan on Belt and Road Standard Connectivity (2018–2020) 148, 150 ‘act of provocation’ 161 ‘Adhere to the Path of Peaceful Development’ 126 Adorno, Theodor W. 197 adventure tourism 214–215 Afghan media: Afghan-Sino relations 187–189, 188; BRI 186–187; content analysis 190; direct and indirect correlations 191; HeS 191; historical processes 186; The Kabul Times 191; media framing 190–191; PAN 191, 192; political values, cultures and foreign policies 192–193; press freedom 189; representation 189–190; social media 189 Afghan peace process 104 Afghan-Sino relations 187–189, 188 ‘Agreement on Maintaining Peace and Tranquility Along the Line of Actual Control on Sino-Indian Border’ 25 ‘Agreements on Confidence Building Measures (CBMs)’ 25 Agriculture Bank of China 130 Ahmad, Naila Masood 8, 210–221 Ahmad, Talmiz 22, 23 Ahmed, Ishtiaq 183 Ali, Akber 115 Ali, Babar 183 Ali, Kamran Asdar 179, 182 Allison, Graham 228 American foreign policy 230

Anti-Access/Area-Denial (A2/AD) strategies 249 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, 1972 259 Anti-One Unit movement 178 archaeological tourism 215 arms and ammunition 162, 181 Arms Export Control Act 236, 237 Asian Cultural Industry Cooperation 207 Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) 35, 47, 69, 128–130, 141, 142–143, 158, 188–189 Asia-Pacific Region (APR) 255, 257, 258, 260–262, 264, 265 ‘assertive debate’ 126 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries 128, 158, 244 authoritarian governance 127 Awami (People’s) League (AL) 175, 178 Awami National Party (ANP) 183 Awami Workers Party (AWP) 178–179 Ayres, Alyssa 33n1 Azad Pakistan Party 177–178 Aziz, K.K. 177 Bagamoyo port 249 Bahar, Hazrat M 8, 186–194 Bajaj, Vikas 119 balance of power 250, 251 Baldwin, D.A. 144, 145 bandwagon 58, 228 bandwagoning–balancing approach 59 Bangladesh Air Force (BAF) 61 Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) Economic Corridor 26, 47, 49, 63, 118, 247

Index  269 Bangladesh Navy 165 Bangladesh’s China policy: ‘all-weather friend’ 63; BAF 61; bilateral relationship 60, 61; BIMSTEC 64; comprehensive partnership of cooperation 61; ‘Defense Cooperation Agreement’ 61; India-leaning foreign policy 62; MoUs 62; ‘positive factor’ 63; regional and international initiatives 64; strategic partnership of cooperation 61; ‘String of Pearls’ strategy 62 Bank of China 130 Basic Democracy 182 Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA) 238 Bay of Bengal Initiative for MultiSectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) 245 BCIM see Bangladesh-China-IndiaMyanmar (BCIM) Economic Corridor Beijing’s strategy 10 Bekkevold, Jo Inge 159 Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) 2, 4, 21–23, 35, 47, 51, 63, 103, 114; changing regional dynamics see regional dynamics; characterisation 146–147; EAEU 261; economic/ financial statecraft 147; fungibility 145; investments 243; IOR balance 246–251; issue 244–245; maritime assertiveness 243–244; maritime security see Sino-Bangladesh maritime security cooperation; motives 147; multilateral relations 205, 206; normative power 145–149; regional consolidation 243; relational power 144–145; responses on national and international levels 186–187; South Asia and Chinese norms 149–152; strategic focus 244 Belt and Road Initiative Meteorological Development Plan (2018) 148 The Belt and Road Vision and Actions for Cooperation in Metrology 148 ‘Bharat Mala+’ 134 Bhardwaj, Atul 23 Bhashani, Maulana Abdul Hameed Khan 175, 177, 179 Bhasin, Madhavi 113 Big Eurasian Partnership (BEP) 261–262 Bizenjo, Mir Ghaus Buksh 176, 178

Blanchard, Jean-Marc F. 111 Blue Economy 151, 161 BNS Nabajatra and Joyjatra 165 Bodhidharma 1 Boley, B Bynum 213 Brewster, D. 68, 119 BRI see Belt and Road Initiative Briguglio, L. 59 Buckley, Ralf 214 Bush, George H.W. 230–231 Bush, George W. 227, 232, 234, 235, 239 Carr, E.H. 228 CASA-1000 100 Central Trade Corridor (CTC) 133 Chabahar port 116 Chakravarty, P.R. 62 Challenge and Strategy: Rethinking India’s Foreign Policy 81 Cheng, Ruisheng 81 Cheng, Xueyuan 68 Chen, Lijun 84 Chen, Zonghai 85 Chiang, Kai-shek 180 China and South Asia: analysis 149; bilateral documents 150–151; general documents 150; initiatives 149; institutional framework 149–150 China Construction Bank 130 ‘China Conundrum’ 57 China Development Bank (CDB) 129–130 ‘China Dream’ 127 China Government Network 199 China–India cooperation: cultural exchange 202–203; improvement measures 206–207; negative factors 205–206; positive factors 203–205 China–India Cultural Carnival activity, 2018 203 China–India Cultural Exchange Year 207 China-India Cultural Festival, 2010 203 China–India International Yoga Culture Festival, 2015 203 China–India relations: Chinese and non-Chinese scholars 82–84; in climate change, IT and antiterrorism 88, 89; conflict and competition 79–80; cooperation and competition 79, 82, 84, 84–90, 88, 89; in economy and trade 86, 87, 91–92;

270  Index in energy 87–88, 88; in geopolitics 89, 89–90; issues 90–91, 91; non-traditional security 80, 86–89, 88, 89; social and cultural links and communication 93; traditional security 80 China Industrial Economic Information Network 199 ‘China-Maldives Friendship Bridge’ 70 China–Maldives political and economic relations 117 China–Maldives relations 11 China Merchants 128 China Metallurgical Group Corporation (MCC) 194 China National Petroleum Corporation 257 China–Pakistan collaboration 20 China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) 6, 7, 8, 10, 17–33, 40, 42, 114, 115, 121, 125, 128, 131, 133; description 17; disputed territory 19; India–China relations 24–27; Indo-Pakistani rivalry 17–18; Indo-US relations 20–22; movement of men and machinery 216; OBOR initiative 19; Pakistani occupation 19; pragmatists 22–24; telecommunications and energy infrastructure 215–216; time-tested policy 17; tourism sector 216–217, 217 China–Pakistan–India triangle 5 China’s Afghanistan policy 11 China’s diplomatic strategy 1 China’s ‘Go Global’ policy 127–128 China’s neighbourhood diplomacy 2–4 China-South Asia Expo 3 China-South Asia International Cultural Forum, 2011 203 China’s ‘peaceful rise’ 126–127 China’s South Asian policy 4–6 ‘Chindia’ 26, 83, 85 Chinese Communist Party (CCP) 180–182 Chinese culture 197–200 Chinese economy 130 ‘Chinese model’ 12 Chinese–Russian relations 258–259 Chinese South Asia policy 2 Chinese threat theory 86, 141, 147 Chin, G. 153n2 Chomsky, Noam 186 Civil Nuclear Agreement 25 Clinton, Bill 25

Clinton, Hillary 232 Clinton, William J. 230–232 Cold War 1, 86, 229, 230, 234 Colombo International Container Terminals (CICT) 66 Colombo Port City (CPC) project 116 Colourful Indian Culture Festival, 2017 203 Communication and Information on Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA) 238 Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) 238 Communist Party of Pakistan (CPP) 175, 177 Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) 180–182 comprehensive civil aviation infrastructure and cooperation 129 Comprehensive Training Centre (CTC) 249 Conference of Interaction and Confidence Building Measures 98 Confucius Institute 200, 247 ‘connectivity black hole’ syndrome 47 containment 20, 24, 25, 27, 57 ‘contested multilateralism’ 141 Cookson, F. 118 Cooperation/competition 82, 84, 86, 93 ‘cooperation platforms’ 129 cooperative federalism 40 COSCO Pacific 128 Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) 237 CPEC see China–Pakistan Economic Corridor cultural heritage 198–199 cultural industry: China–India cooperation 203–207; Chinese culture 197–200; cultural exchange 202–203; Indian culture 200–202 ‘Dahlian concept of power’ 144–145 Dahl, R.A. 144 Dai, Bingguo 126 Daultana, Mumtaz 179 Defence Trade and Technology Initiative (DTTI) 236 ‘Defense Cooperation Agreement’ 61 Delhi–Mumbai Industrial Corridor 134 Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) 263 Deng, Xiaoping 2, 36 Dhaka Stock Exchange (DSE) 63

Index  271 Dialektik der Aufklärung 197 Diamond Quadrilateral 134 ‘Digital Silk Road’ 21 digitisation 202 ‘Disarmament’ 181 District Fishing Trawler Owners Association (DFTOA) 162 Doklam 10, 32, 98 economic cooperation 258 ecotourism, Gilgit-Baltistan (GB): adventure tourism 214–215; archeological heritage 215; complex regulatory/legislative framework 219–220; CPEC 215–217, 217; dilapidated infrastructure 218–219; financial impediments 218; flawed management 217; foreign tourism 212, 213; geographical and strategic importance 211; inadequacies of human resources 220; lack of baseline studies 220; natural resources conservation 211–212; positive impacts 213–214; principles 212; prospects 213; region’s culture 214, 214; security predicament 219; skewed policy paradigm 218; threats 219; types 212; unstructured marketing strategy 220 Ehsan, M.M. 194 elite culture 198 ‘encircle India’ 18 Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act of 2009 235 Entman, Robert M. 190 Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) 216, 217 Erdogan, Tayyip 24 Ernst and Young (EY) 202 Er-Rafia, F.Z. 153n12 ethno nationalists 184 Etzioni, Amitai 233 Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) 129, 258, 260–262 European Bank for Reconstruction and Development 130 Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) 252 Exim Bank of China 130 Faisal, M. 69 ‘Fanfare for Peace’ military music festival 98 ‘Fanfare for Peace Military Tattoo’ 101

Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) 202 Financial Action Task Force (FATF) 237 Flint, Colin 111 folk culture 198 ‘Forces Goal 2030’ 62, 165 foreign direct investment (FDI) 118, 126 foreign tourism 212, 213 ‘Four Modernisations’ 126 Freeman, Carla P. 5 Free Trade Agreement (FTA) 69, 84 Fude, Wen 83 Funaiole, Matthew 111 Gandhi, Rajiv 24 Galwan 10 Gao, Yan 132 Garver, John W. 4, 83, 115 GB Tourism Department 217 geopolitics 134–135 Ghani, Mohamad Ashraf 193, 194 Gilgit-Baltistan Council (GBC) 217–219 Gilpin, Robert 228 2008 global financial crisis 126 globalisation and marketisation 10, 137n3, 204, 205 Goh, E. 60 Golden Quadrilateral 40, 134 gross domestic product (GDP) 20, 49, 99, 129, 161, 199, 204, 229 Guan, Kwa Chong 112 Gutierrez, Antonio 101 Gwadar port 116 Haley, Nikki 233 Hambantota deep-water sea port 116 hard balancing 59 Hasht e Sobh (HeS) 189–191 Hasina, Sheikh 61, 62 Hatef, Azeta 187 Hawkes, Kenneth G. 158 Heart of Asia–Istanbul Process 188 hedging 6, 7, 12, 57, 58, 60, 63, 64, 69, 71 hegemony 22, 63, 113, 115, 119, 120, 176, 232 Hillman, Jonathan 111 Hindi-Chini Bhai-Bhai period 24 Holbrooke, Richard 235 Horkheimer, Max 197 Hu, Chunhua 3, 4, 132

272  Index Hu, Jintao 1, 4, 141 human development index 131 human trafficking 163 humane authority 6 Huo, Wenle 7, 79–94 Hyde Act 235 Ice Silk Road 153n10 ideology 200 illicit drugs 163 India and the Indian Ocean: An Essay on the Influence of Sea Power on Indian History 114 ‘India-First Policy’ 71 India-leaning foreign policy 62 India–Myanmar–Thailand trilateral highway 47 Indian culture 200–202 Indian media and entertainment (M&E) sector 202 Indian Newspaper Association 206–207 Indian Ocean region (IOR) 114, 115, 119, 120, 165–166, 206, 244; BRI 246–251; regional responses from India 251–252; shifting strategic coordinates 245–246 Indian policymakers 17 Indian publishing industry 202 India–Pakistan conflict 1 India–Pakistan local integration 41 India Rapid Reaction Cell (IRRC) 236 India–United States Civil Nuclear Agreement 232 India–United States relations 231–232 Indo-Pacific region 35, 111, 118, 120, 233, 244–246, 249, 250, 251, 252 Indo-Pakistani diplomacy 23 Indo-US hostility 21 Indus civilisation 1 Industrial and Commercial Bank of China 130 informational and communication technologies 148 ‘institutional statecraft’ 141 ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage’ 201 Inter-Governmental Cooperation Mechanism 133–134 international anti-terrorism efforts 1 International Ecotourism Society (TIES) 212 International North–South Transport Corridor 21 international relations (IR) 58, 145, 146

International Relations pedagogy 228 International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) 216 IOs 141, 144 Iqbal, Allama Muhammad 176 Iran Nuclear Deal 232 Ishaq, Muhammad 183 Jackson-Vanik Amendment 231 Jaishankar, S. 20 Jaitley, Arun 19 Japanese-Russian relation 262 Jayawardane, Amal 113 Jayawardena, Eshan 117, 121 Jha, Saurav 114 Jiangxi Copper Company Limited 194 Jiang, Zemin 4, 25, 141 Ji Yulin 202 Joehnk, T.F. 118 Joint communique of leaders’ roundtable of Belt and Road forum 150 The Kabul Times (KT) 189–191 Kahneman, Daniel 190 Kaplan, A. 144 Karachi–Lahore Motorway 41 Karakoram Highway (KKH) 212, 219 Kargil conflict 25 Karnaphuli Multi-Lane Tunnel project 247, 248 Kazmi, Atia Ali 8, 125–137 Kennedy, John F 230 Kennedy, Paul 228 ‘Kerry-Lugar Bill’ 235–236 Khaama Press (KP) 187 Khalilullah, Kazi 101 Khan, Amjad Abbas 7, 97–105 Khan, Ayub 182 Khan, Gandhi Abdul Ghaffar 179, 183 Khan, Imran 23, 33n4 Khondoker, Robayt 57–72 Khrushchev 180–182 Khurana, Gurpreet S. 120 Kiani, Khaleeq 115 Kissinger, Henry 229 Kugelman, Michael 102 Kuril Islands dispute 262 Lama, Mahendra P. 7, 35–53 Lanteigne, M. 153n2 Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) 235 Lasswell, H.D. 144

Index  273 Lavrov, Sergey 260 Li, Keqiang 1, 2, 26, 127 Liu, Jinsong 33n2 localisation 137n3 Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) 236 Long Term Plan for China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (2017–2030) 152 Luqiu, Luwei Rose 187 Mackinder, Halford 111 Mahabharata 201 mainstreaming 134 ‘Make in India’ campaign 46 Malacca Dilemma 247 Maldives’ China policy 69–71 Malik, Mohan 5, 81, 83, 85 Malone, D. 70 Manners, I. 145 maritime logistics 129 maritime piracy 162 Maritime Silk Road (MSR) 127, 129 Maritime Silk Road Initiative (MSRI) 69; description 111; development and geopolitics 114–118; economic integration with neighbouring countries 112; financial funding 111; geopolitical challenge 113; historical settings of ancient sea lanes 112; India and South Asia 113–114; Indian Ocean Region (IOR) 114; ‘String of Pearls strategy’ 118–120 Markey, Daniel S. 115 Marxism–Leninism 182 Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity (MPAC) 128 Mazdoor Kissan Party-MKP (LaborerPeasant Party) 183 Medvedev, Dmitry 260 Memorandums of Understanding (MoUs) 62, 150 Mendis, P 153n12 Menon, Shivshankar 6 ‘Middle Kingdom’ 5 Minto, Abid Hassan 178 Mishra, Vivek 9, 243–252 ‘Mission Based Deployments (MBD)’ 252 mobile landing platform (MLP) 120 Modi, Narendra 19, 25, 26, 29–32, 46, 66, 71, 115, 121n1, 125, 236, 238, 251 Moramudali, U. 68 Morgenthau, Hans J. 58, 228 Morgulov, Igor 258

‘most favoured nation’ (MFN) 231 MSRI see Maritime Silk Road Initiative Muhammad Ali, Chaudhry 179 Muhammad, Ghulam 179 mulinzhengce 36 multiple-component strategy 60 Mumbai attacks, 2008 162 Mushtaq Ahmad Gurmani 179 Muslim 176 MV Jahan Moni 162 Nalapat, Madhav 102 narrow-minded protectionism 22 Nasheed, Mohamed 69, 70 National Awami (People’s) Party (NAP): CCP 180–182; CPSU 180–182; formation 177–179; international communism 182–183; Japanese aggression 179–180; progressive elements 183; proMoscow and pro-Beijing 183 National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) 127, 129 National Security Strategy (NSS) 231–233 natural disasters 163 ‘neo-colonisation’ 245 Neuman, Lawrence W. 190 New Development Bank 130 Ni, Xiangqin 87 Non-Aligned Movement, G-77 44 non-alignment 6, 25, 50, 97, 187 non-interference 17, 97, 150, 188 non-traditional security 80, 82, 83, 84, 86, 88, 89 non-traditional security threats: arms and drug smuggling 162–163; human trafficking 163; maritime piracy 162; mitigation 165–166; natural disasters 163; transnational terrorism 162 normative power: Chinese ideas 147–149; definition 145–146; economic/financial inducements 146; military coercion 146; standards 148 Northern Trade Corridor (NTC) 133 North South East West Corridor (NS–EW) 134 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty 234 Nuclear Supplies Group 235 Obama, Barack 227, 233, 235, 236, 239 OBOR initiative see ‘One Belt, One Road’ (OBOR) initiative OBOR’s strategic implications 21

274  Index One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative 19, 61, 62, 146 One-Unit formula 176–179 ONGC Tripura Power Company Limited 53n3 OPPO 132 Organisation for South Asian Regional Friendship and Cooperation with China (OSARFCC) 132 Padma Bridge Rail Link 247 Pajhwok Afghan News agency (PAN) 189, 191, 192 Pakistan–China Border Agreement 22 Pakistan–India War in 1971 178 Pakistani politics 8 Pakistan National Party (PNP) 178 Pakistan’s threat syndrome 18 Panetta, Leon 233 Paris Agreement 232 Parpiani, Kashish 9, 227–239 Parrikar, Manohar 62 Pathans and One Unit 179 Paul, T.V. 59, 246 ‘Peaceful Coexistence’ 17, 125, 135, 150, 181 ‘Peaceful Mission’ joint military exercises 98 Pehrson, Christopher J. 118 Peng, Nian 5 Peoples Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) 119, 165–166 Polar Silk Roads 128–129 ‘Political Parameters and Guiding Principles for the Settlement of India-China Boundary Question’ 25 political party 117 Politics among Nations 58 Pompeo, Mike 237 ‘Post-American world’ 229 Powell, Colin 235 power broker 177 power dilemma 9, 10 ‘Power of Siberia’ 257 power play 8–12, 69 power theory: BRI 146–149; fungibility 145; normative power 145–149; relational power 144–145; technical standards diffusion 149–152 pragmatism 28 private-owned firms (POEs) 132 Project Mausam 205, 206 Pu, X. 153n11

Quadrilateral Cooperation and Coordination Mechanism 100 Quadrilateral Coordination Group 188 Quadrilateral Security Initiative (Quad) 67, 244 Raghavan, Srinath 232 Rajapaksa, Mahinda 50, 51, 64, 65, 67, 116 Ramayana 201 Ranganathan, C.V. 81 Ranjan, Rajiv 1–12, 26, 28, 205 Rao, Narasimha P.V. 25, 121n1 Rashed Uz Zaman 7 Rawat, Bipin 238–239 RCEP negotiation process 48 ‘Red China’ 230 ‘Red Flag’ 181 the Red Shirts 177–178 Regional Anti-Terrorism Structure (RATS) 98, 102 regional dynamics: allocation 129–130; assessment 129–130; Black Sea region 128; China’s ‘peaceful rise’ 126–127; China–Thailand highspeed railway 128; cooperation agreements 128; corridors 135; development in South Asia 131–134; energy sector 130–131; financial arrangements 129–130; financial risks 136; geopolitical imperatives 134–135; global awareness 128–129; ‘Go Global’ policy 127–128; industrial capacity 131; infrastructure and trade routes 136; infrastructure development 129; Pak-Indian troops 125–126; risk management 129–130 Regional Economic Cooperation Conference on Afghanistan (RECCA) 188 regional organisation 1, 36, 52, 102, 104 relational power 144–145 renminbi (RMB) 130 Reuters (2018) 133 Riedel, Bruce 230, 234 The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers 228 Robayt, Khondoker 6 ‘Rubber-Rice pact’ 64 ruling elites 177 Russian foreign policy strategy 9 Russia’s ‘pivot to the East’: APR 262; Chinese-Russian relations 258–260;

Index  275 diplomatic contacts and regional security 262–263; economic prerequisites 256–258; integration in Eurasia 260–262; Russian Far East development 263–264 Saksena, Km Vimla 181 Salim, Ahmad 179 Sarker, Noor Mohammad 8, 157–168 SCO see Shanghai Cooperation Organisation sea lines of communication (SLOCs) 118, 161, 166, 167 Sekhar, Varaprasad D. 81 Semenov, Alexey A. 9, 255–265 Senevirathna, Asantha 7, 8, 111–121 ‘shadow foreign policy’ 141 Shafqat, Saeed 6, 10, 17–33 Shahjalal Fertiliser Company Limited 247 Shan Biryani Masala advertisement 11 Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) 125–126, 130, 188, 262; challenges 104; foreign policy 97; internal policy 97; joint participation 101; multilateral counterterrorism activities 101; outcome of summit 2016 99–101; and regional connectivity 103; regional security and expansion 97–99; security paradigm 97; summit meeting in Bishkek on 13–14 June 2019 103–104 ‘Shanghai Spirit’ 101 Sharif, Nawaz 42 Sharma, K.P. 53n1 Sherwood, L. 68 Shu-Kai, Chow 180 Siddiqui, Salman 115 Sidhu, Navjot Singh 23 Sigh, Manmohan 25 Silk Road Economic Belt (SREB) 10, 111, 127, 129 Silk Road Fund (SRF) 47, 130 Sindh Awami Mahaz 177–178 Singh, Manmohan 238 Singh, Swaran 83, 87 ‘single window’ operation 129 Sino-Bangladesh maritime security cooperation: ‘bottom-up’ approach 159; BRI 158; Coast Guard 165; definition 157–158; developments 164; geo-economic significance 160–161; geostrategic significance

160; Navy modernisation 163–165; non-traditional security threats 162–163, 165–166; security aspect 164; theoretical implications 166–167; ‘top-down’ approach 159; traditional security threats 161 Sino-Indian friendship 26 Sino-Pakistani relations 10 Sino-Soviet split 187; NAP see National Awami (People’s) Party; One-Unit formula 176–177; political history 175 Sirisena, Maithripala 64, 66 small and medium enterprises (SMEs) 132 Small, Andrew 27 Small states’ alignment choices 58–60 ‘socialism with Chinese characteristics’ 35 social media 202 Sodhar, Muhammad Qasim 8, 175–184 soft balancing 59, 60 Sokinda, Sanjive 120 Solih, Ibrahim Mohamed 70, 71 South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) 1, 23, 47, 69, 125, 132 South Asia policy 2–4 South China Sea 98, 112, 144, 229, 244, 245, 250 Southern Trade Corridor (STC) 133 Special Economic Zone (SEZ) project 249 SREB see Silk Road Economic Belt Sri Lanka–China joint venture– Hambantota International Ports Group 49–50 Sri Lankan politics 117 Sri Lanka’s China policy: CICT 66; ‘debt trap’ 68; ‘dialogue partner’ status 65; foreign direct investment (FDI) 65; National Unity Government (NUG) 66; OBOR initiative 66; ‘One-China’ policy 64; ‘pragmatic cooperation’ 68; Quad 67; ‘Rubber-Rice pact’ 64; sea lines of communication (SLOCs) 67; SIPRI report 65; ‘String of Pearls’ strategy 67; training programs 65 Srinivasan, T.N. 86, 87 Stalin, Joseph 187 state-owned enterprises (SOEs) 132 Stobdan, P. 102 Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) report 65, 164, 236

276  Index Strategic and Cooperative Partnership 188 Strategic Cooperation Framework Agreement 203 Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) 216 ‘String of Pearls strategy’ 62, 67, 118–120 Suhrawardy, H.S. 177 Sui, Xinmin 117 Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) 217 Taliban 188 Tang Shiping 5 Tanzania People’s Defence Forces (TPDF) 249 Tariq, Farooq 182 technical standards 149–152 Tencent 132 territories of advanced development (TAD) 264 The Treaty of Non-aggression and Establishment of the China and Afghanistan Friendship Association 187 Thucydides trap 228–230 Tier-4 National Data Centre 247 Till, Geoffrey 159 Tombari, Federico 8, 141–153 trade corridors 131–133 traditional security threats 161 Trans-Pacific Maritime 128–129 Trans-Pacific Partnership 233 Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation 259 Trishula approach: ‘balancing dilemma’ 50; BCIM-Economic Corridor 40, 41, 47, 49, 52; bilateralism 41; bipolar dominance 51; ChinaPakistan Economic Corridor 42; China’s land border, trade routes and emerging connectivity 37, 38–39; China–South Asia trade volume 1980–2018 42, 43; cooperative federalism 40; ‘currency regionalization’ 44; debt-ridden economies 48; ‘diverse international regions’ 36; domestic political turmoil 36; far-reaching infrastructure 48; India–Pakistan local integration 41; Karachi–Lahore Motorway 41; Kerung-Rasuwagadhi in Nepal 37; Khunjerab Pass 37, 40; Kunming Initiative 40;

mini-lateralism and multilateralism 41; mulinzhengce 36; Nathu La (Pass) route 37; ‘neighbourhood first’ policy 50; ‘New Asianism’ 36; Non-Aligned Movement, G-77 44; political economy of engagement 41; political system–ideology linkage 36; ‘prospect of Pacific century’ 36; regional approach 47–48; regionalism-based institutions 50; regional policy 36; ‘RMB internationalization’ 44; shares of India and China in total trade 44, 45, 46; super power alliance 36; Track II forum 40; UNCTAD 44; US-based Centre for Global Development 48; Wakhan Corridor in northeastern Afghanistan 37; zhoubianzhengce 36 Trump, Donald 129, 227, 237, 239 Turkmenistan–Afghanistan–Pakistan– India gas pipeline 21 Tversky, Amos 190 Ullah, Mati 212 UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC) 64, 65 unilateralism 22 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) 187 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) 163 United Nations Peacekeeping Operations (UNPKO) 64 United Nations Security Council (UNSC) 60 United States–India agreement 25 United States–India Enhanced Cooperation Act 237 United States’ security policy: AirSea Battle 233–234; balance of power 234–238; economic initiative 232–233; India–United States relations 231–232; liberal democratic values 232; multilateral agreements 232; NSS 232, 233; ‘peaceful’ rise of China 231; post-Cold War courtship 230–231; ‘realpolitik’ 231; Thucydides trap 228–230; US-led liberal world order 232 Universal Declaration of Human Rights 233 UN Security Council 259, 260 USA–India relations 19, 231–232 US Pacific Command (PACOM) 234, 237

Index  277 Vajpayee, Atal B 231, 238 Van Ham, P. 153n7 ‘vehicle fallacy’ 145 ‘Vision and Actions on Jointly Building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st Century Maritime Silk Road’ 129 Vision and Actions on Jointly Promoting Certification and Accreditation Services 148, 152 von Richthofen, Ferdinand Freiherr 146 Wali Khan 183 Wall Street Journal 255 Walt, S.M. 58, 228 Waltz, Kenneth 228 Wang, J. 153n12 Wang Yi 3, 126–127, 136 Wan Jiqiong 197–208 War on Terror effort 235 war-torn Afghanistan 8, 133 Wen Fude 86, 87 West, James 115 West Pakistan-National Awami Party 179 White Paper on Af-Pak policy 2009 235 Wickremesinghe, Ranil 54n13, 64, 67 World Bank 141 World Cultural Heritage sites 201 World Integrated Trade Solution 2018 27 World Natural Heritage sites 201

World Trade Organisation 232 World Trade Organisation’s Trade Facilitation Agreement 129 Wuhan Summit, May 2018 26 Xian, Fa 1 Xianliang, Y. 65 Xi Jinping 2, 3, 4, 19, 21, 25, 26, 29–32, 51, 61, 69, 111, 112, 117, 141, 146, 158, 259 Xue Yong 5 Xu, Weidan 7, 79–94 Yameen, Abdulla 70, 117 Yamen 69 Yang, Wenwu 86, 87 Yan, Xuetong 6 Yongnian, Wu 82 Zaman, Rashed Uz 57–72 Zarb-e-Azb 100, 104 Zhang Li 5 Zhang Minqiu 84 Zhang Shulan 7, 79–94 Zhang Wenmu 6 Zhang Yesui 135 Zhao, Gancheng 84, 86 Zhaohui, Lao 26 zhoubianzhengce 36 Zhou, Gang 81