China breaks the Himalayan barrier
By M K Bhadrakumar
Two veteran diplomats, one from China and the other an American, trudge their
weary way from their respective capitals to the remote Himalayan kingdom of
Bhutan to witness as "observers" a gathering of eight leaders from South Asia
agonizing over the stasis of their 25-year old regional forum.
And then they retire to Beijing to exchange notes.
One year ago, such a scenario would have been considered implausible - even
illogical. Yet, when Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wang Guangya receives the
United States Assistant Secretary of State Robert O Blake Jr at Beijing on
Monday for the first meeting of the newly-formed "US-China Sub-Dialogue on
South Asia", what seemed far-fetched moves into the realm of geopolitical
reality.
The summit meetings of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation
(SAARC) are better known as occasions for India-Pakistan diplomatic pageantry.
The 16th SAARC summit at the Bhutanese capital of Thimpu on April 28-29 was no
exception. The regional media, at least, thought so.
Yet another India-Pakistan prime ministerial meeting did take place on the
sidelines of the regional forum in a new attempt to breed a fresh format of
dialogue as the two South Asian adversaries try to tackle their intractable
differences.
The new India-Pakistan process may or may not prove enduring. However, the
Thimpu summit will be seen in retrospect as a watershed event where something
fundamentally changed in the alchemy of regional cooperation in South Asia.
(SAARC comprises Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Pakistan, Nepal, the
Maldives and Sri Lanka.)
Plainly put, cooperation - or the lack of it in comparison with most other
regions on the planet - is henceforth going to be an international spectacle
with the "great powers" present to take the pulse of the gyrating actors.
Equally, what emerges is that a region that withstood Cold War infections for
decades may not be so lucky this time as it gears up for what Ian Brummer,
president of the Eurasia Group, recently called "the fight of the century"
between China and the US.
To be sure, the backdrop is unprecedented and rather intimidating. The US has
become a long-term military presence in the region for the first time in
history. And China, also for the first time in its history, is casting aside
its millennia-old reclusiveness in Middle Asia and seems set to pole-vault over
the Himalayas and become an active participant on the South Asian arena.
From ''observer' to participant
It is interesting that the US-China sparring in South Asia is beginning with a
gingerly round of mutual consultation to figure out each other's hardcore
perspectives and unspoken intentions. Which side took the initiative to hold
the two-day consultation that begins on Monday remains unclear, but since the
venue is Beijing, it appears China did.
The SAARC has seven other "observers" - Iran, the European Union, Japan, South
Korea, Mauritius, Australia and Myanmar - but the sub-regional meet at Beijing
will keep them out. Evidently, China and the US do not have a high estimation
of them (including the Europeans and the Japanese) as capable of carrying the
burden of global responsibility to oversee the South Asian region's acute
problems of security and stability.
All the same, the US and Chinese statements on the occasion of the SAARC summit
present a study in contrast. Blake was perfunctory to the point of being
protocol-minded. For the record, he congratulated the SAARC on its 25th
anniversary this year and "welcomed" its "vision for greater South Asian
regional cooperation". In all probability, he spent his time fruitfully
elsewhere in bilateral meetings.
The US State Department spokesman in Washington awkwardly suggested that the
SAARC summit was nothing terribly earthshaking: "One of a number of important
structures that you have across the broader Asia region. We think they're
important. We encourage them ... the secretary [Hillary Clinton] is committed
to strengthen the United States' ties to other structures like ASEAN
[Association of Southeast Asian Nations]. This is an indication of our ongoing
and deepening commitment to the region."
When his turn came, on the other hand, Vice Foreign Minister Wang manifestly
warmed up. He stressed Beijing's desire to "elevate friendly ties" with the
SAARC to "a new level". He viewed SAARC in ideological terms, as a forum where
"China stands together with developing countries".
Wang responded to the SAARC summit's focus on climate change by calling on
developed countries to provide financial, technical and capacity-building
assistance to enhance the ability of developing countries to cope with climate
change.
"China is ready to strengthen practical cooperation with South Asian countries
on climate change through bilateral channels and within the framework of
South-South cooperation," he said.
Wang further assured that "on the basis and in a spirit of equality and mutual
benefit, China is ready to conduct dialogue and exchanges and expand practical
cooperation with SAARC". He announced a contribution of US$300,000 by China to
the SAARC Development Fund and invited the body's senior officials [heads of
foreign ministries] to a meeting in Beijing.
Evidently, China takes its "observer" status - which it secured in 2005 -
seriously. There have been reports that China aspires to seek full membership
of SAARC, but India thinks that the regional body had better remain as it is
with eight member countries belonging to the geographically definable region,
and the bloc's charter stipulates that all decisions need to be unanimous.
The challenge for Delhi ...
India faces an existential dilemma somewhat similar to what Russia is gradually
coming across in Central Asia (and the US may face in the Middle East, Africa
and Latin America or in Southeast Asia): the appearance of a red star over the
slice of firmament they somehow regarded as their own sphere of influence where
they claimed to have uncontestable special interests in determining the shape
of the constellation.
No analogy is quite complete. Unlike Russia in Central Asia, India never ruled
the South Asian region but then the enveloping cultural ambience and the shared
history and geographical space and bindings of a common civilizational that
flow through millennia are perhaps far more profound.
Both Russia and India have a troubled history of relations with China in modern
times and have fought bloody border conflicts, but Russia has been far more
successful in coming to terms with the past.
One main difference is that the Central Asian region comprises autocratic
regimes for whom Russia stands between them and the deluge, whereas the South
Asian countries are all democracies of one kind or the another that do not
necessarily depend on India for their political survival.
Besides, South Asian countries have an altogether different perception of China
than that harbored by India - China as a benefactor.
Even India's close neighbors like Nepal and Sri Lanka are eager to cultivate
deeper Chinese involvement in their countries. And in the more recent past,
China has been responding with noticeable alacrity, which of course causes
uneasiness in the Indian mind although there is no evidence that China
obstructs the expansion of India's cooperation with its regional partners.
The hard reality is that the potentials of India's economic cooperation with
its neighbors - except Nepal and Bhutan which are recipients of Indian aid -
remain far from explored and the emerging possibility is that China may come
from behind and overtake India.
... to get its act together
Unlike India, China places primacy on its immediate neighborhood in its foreign
policy and as Wang displayed, Beijing has a definite action plan with regard to
carrying forward the impetus of cooperation with its South Asian neighbors.
The clock has begun ticking for India to watch out for a point when China
overtakes India in terms of substantive volume of cooperation with the SAARC
partners. China did a similar act on Japan (and the US) in Southeast Asia.
For India itself, China currently figures as the number one trade partner. The
bilateral trade target for 2010 is US$60 billion, and Chinese Vice Foreign
Minister Zhang Zhijun said last week, "I believe if we make the right efforts,
we can even exceed the target."
China is developing all-round cooperation with India's SAARC partners in a
structured way in the economic, political and even military spheres. Curiously,
China has been quite effective in the use of ''soft power'' too.
Chinese diplomacy is placing its accent on people-to-people contacts, including
with India. The attempt is to repeat the phenomenal success China scored in the
Asia-Pacific and Southeast Asian region by placing ''soft power'' as a cutting
edge of its diplomacy.
India has annual tourist traffic of 1 million people with China, whereas the
figure for South Korea stands at 5 million. The tiny island group of the
Maldives hugs India's coast, yet receives more Chinese tourists than Indians.
There is no evidence that Indian diplomacy is geared for what lies ahead as
China makes its presence felt as the SAARC region's key partner.
Already there is immense frustration among the SAARC countries like Nepal,
Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Maldives that the stasis of the regional body is
rooted in the adversarial character of India-Pakistan ties. In an extraordinary
outburst at Thimpu, Maldives President Mohamed Nasheed bluntly demanded that
India and Pakistan should "compartmentalize" their mutual animosities and allow
regional cooperation to gain traction.
China's profile as the South Asia's leading interlocutor highlights India's
inability to lead its own sub-region and erodes its credibility as a regional
power. This is the stark message that the Indian foreign policy establishment
needs to cull from the Thimpu summit once the dust settles after the alluring
India-Pakistan diplomatic road show there.
In hard terms, there is no escaping the fact that Delhi needs to evaluate the
damage caused by the "militarization" of the Indian foreign policy mindset in
the past few years. India may end up holding the wrong end of the stick through
its obsession with the "string of pearls" thesis - that Beijing is encircling
India. What is actually taking place is far more perilous - Chinese diplomacy
may make India look ineffectual as a regional power.
The fact that Blake headed for Beijing fresh from the Thimpu summit of SAARC
testifies to a geopolitical reality.
Ambassador M K Bhadrakumar was a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign
Service. His assignments included the Soviet Union, South Korea, Sri Lanka,
Germany, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Kuwait and Turkey.
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