China’s latest strategy paper provides insights to Xi’s
thinking on power projection. India should keep its options open while sparing
its strategic space to China by participating in the BCIM corridor project.
Col
R Hariharan
At
last India also seems to have made up its mind on joining the China-promoted
Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) corridor project to open
up a land access route between South Asia to China’s South Western region.[i] General VK Singh, Minister of State for External Affairs, recent statement
that the recent stand of with Burmese Naga insurgents in Manipur would not
affect the Project amply clarifies New Delhi is clear in its decision.[ii]
Perhaps,
Prime Minister Narendra Modi took the decision to join the Project after
clarifying his mind on some of India’s strategic concerns about China after his
May 2015 visit to Kunming capital of Yunnan Province where he inaugurated
a Yoga Institute supported by India. Chinese also “acknowledge that unlike in
the past, when it was perceived to be dragging its feet, India is now showing
enthusiasm over the project” according a news report in The Hindu from Kunming.[iii]
With its changed stance Chinese have high expectations of India speedily
completing the last bit of 200 km of road on Indian side of the border to
provide four-lane highway connectivity between Kunming to Kolkata.
Ever
since President Xi Jinping came to power two years back China has been
vigorously promoting the BCIM corridor as part of its strategic outreach to
South Asia, mainly India.[iv]
Yunnan
has become the focal point of this effort. For the last three years China had
been convening the China South Asia Think Tank Forum at Kunming, the capital of
Yunnan Province, to improve its people to people links with South Asia in a bid
to overcome apprehensions about China’s strategic intentions and objectives in
the region.
The
project is expected to trigger start greater investment inflow because it links
India and China which are topping the global economic growth charts first time
in two and a half centuries and have the money and inclination to invest in
green field areas in the region serviced by the BCIM.
Tenuous
land links from the landlocked regions of Southwestern China with Northeastern
Indian states. The whole region is rich in natural resources including
minerals, forestry, petroleum, forestry and energy. Lack of development in the
BCIM region is one of the causes for age old tribal and territorial animosities
coming up frequently to result in insurgency movements. However, there are
signs of most of the insurgency movements in India’s Northeastern states are
talking peace for some time to end decades of conflict. Development and
economic growth expected in the wake of BCIM project can speed up this process
to improve the quality of life denied to the people of the region. It could
also contribute to peace and prosperity to the whole region contributing to the
economic viability of the BCIM project.[v]
Perhaps
this is what made Prime Minister Modi to decide upon joining hands with China
to complete the BCIM project, keeping aside the historical baggage of
unresolved territorial disputes between the two countries relevant to the
security of the Northeast. Ideally, on completion the BCIM could provide a
win-win situation for all the four member states and promote greater
understanding and harmony among them, lessening the chances of confrontation.
But
India has to recognize a few home truths. The bottom line is India will be
sparing its strategic space for China’s entry into India’s East through the
BCIM project which fits in with President Xi’s belt and road strategy and
supplements the 20th Century Maritime Road initiatives.
These pave way for greater assertion of China’s economic, strategic and
political clout. And this could be at the cost of India, which had been the
cock of the walk in the region for hundreds of years till it failed to build
upon its strengths due to its own national and regional preoccupations and
pulls and pressures and seemingly endless ethnic conflicts sometime stoked by
China. This had resulted in a cycle of conflict, poor governance and lack of
development. In the 90s India embarked upon the Look East policy to the
Northeast by improving the connectivity of landlocked region to ASEAN and
Southeast Asia. But it made tardy till Prime Minister Modi preferred to Act
East rather than merely Look East.
In
this context, the China’s military strategy
paper released by the State Council Information Office of the People’s Republic
of China, Beijing on May 26, 2015, provides interesting insights into the
dynamics of Xi’s strategy. [vi]
The strategy paper is different in both form and
content from the last White Paper “The Diversified Employment of China’s Armed
Force” published on April 16, 2013.[vii] Unlike
the earlier one, this is more focused on concepts of strategy and doctrine than
details. So it is less obtuse than the earlier document and provides a clear
correlation between President Xi Jinping’s world view on key strategic issues
affecting national development and security as well as employment of Chinese
armed forces. However, core concepts of the doctrine appear to remain the same
as enjoined by the Communist Party of China (CPC).
A few things stand out in the whole paper. These
include getting the armed forces ready for a global role, to protect strategic
interests outside China (including protection of maritime rights), and ensuring
the CPC’s continued doctrinaire control over the armed forces. On the
modernization of armed forces which has been progressing for nearly two decades
the focus is now on modernizing the logistics in tandem with the development of
road, rail and air communication networks. This was perhaps the weakest link in
China’s strategic Westward move. Similarly the emphasis on nuclear deterrence
and second strike capability, cyber warfare and space warfare provide Chinese
leadership’s employment of forces on emerging threats to the realisation of the
Chinese Dream.
President Xi would like the world to see his
Chinese Dream as the Chinese peoples’ aspiration “to join hands with the
rest of the world to maintain peace, pursue development and share prosperity.”
In essence this is what the earlier military white paper also said.
President Xi and other leaders have been repeatedly
proclaiming China’s peaceful intentions even as China is making strategic
inroads into South and Central Asia and the world beyond. Chinese war ships are
increasingly asserting China’s claim to the South China Sea; Chinese navy has
become a regular part of the Indian Ocean landscape to protect its national
interests.
The Paper probably hopes to set at ease the doubts
about China’s strategic intentions in the minds of its neighbours like India
and ASEAN over the “Belt and Road” strategy and the 20th Century Maritime Silk Road projects. There is also latent
fear among them about China’s promotion of the communication links in tandem
with the Asian Infra-structure Investment Bank and broad banding the BRICS
network to build a strong Chinese-led economic and strategic counterpoise to
the West. When successful it could make China’s economic and strategic
domination of Asia complete and holistic making the RMB the transactional
currency among the networked countries.
Even if China’s proclaimed intentions are peaceful,
can India be lulled by these words? The answer to this question is closely
related to India joining hands with China on opening the BCIM corridor.
National Security Advisor Ajit Doval delivering the annual KF Rustamji Lecture
on May 22, 2015 on “Challenges of Securing India’s Borders: Strategising the
Response” cautioned that while India’s relations with China ‘were
looking up’, India’s border issue remained critical for bilateral relations
with China.[viii] And India
needed to remain on a ‘very very high alert.’ In particular, he spoke of
India’s concerns about the Eastern Sector where the Chinese have claimed Tawang
in Arunachal Pradesh. He was only articulating what Narendra Modi asked China
“to reconsider its approach on some issues that hold us back” during his recent
visit to Beijing.
It is a moot question whether the publication of
the White Paper was timed to coincide with the worsening situation in the South
China Sea? The U.S. and its allies notably Philippines are locked on
near-confrontation over China’s development of an air strip on the disputed
Spratly islands after artificially expanding the reef. The issue has caused
concern to all stakeholders using the sea links including India because it
strikes at the root of China’s much professed recurrent theme of “peace and
harmony” with all the neighbours. But Beijing seems to be confident of India
understanding the Chinese point of view.[ix]
Prime Minister Modi has the difficult task of
deciding how far and how much India can trust China and cooperate with it. He
seems to have taken a calculated risk in promoting the BCIM project perhaps in
the interest of bringing peace, harmony and good governance in the region and
to wean away people from insurgencies. It would also reinforce his Act East
policy, and provide for greater Indian investment and trade to flow eastwards.
It also augments his overall strategy of building bridges with India’s
neighbourhood to reinforce our soft power to achieve strategic objectives for
the common good of the people living in the entire region.
However, participation in multilateral economic and
development initiatives comes with some cost to the country’s freedom in
decision making and sovereignty. India has joined major Chinese strategic
initiatives i.e. BRICS grouping and its economic initiatives, Shanghai
Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank
(AIIB). India also appears to be interested in signing a Free Trade pact with
the Eurasian Economic Union.[x] So India will
be coming under greater pressure than ever before in the coming years from
diverse countries and multi lateral associations while taking strategic
decisions in its national interest.
So India will have to closely monitor the progress
and operation of the BCIM project lest the outstanding sovereignty issues with
China affect the Northeast region in the course of the laudable development
initiative.
[Col R Hariharan, a retired Military Intelligence
officer, is associated with the Chennai Centre for China Studies and the South
Asia Analysis Group. Their websites carry many of his analytical articles.
E-mail: haridirect@gmail.com
Website:www.col.hariharan.info]
Courtesy: Chennai Centre for
China Studies C3S Paper No. 0139/2015 dated 8 July 2015
South Asia Analysis Group
Paper No. 5966 dated 8 July 2015
END NOTES
[i] Atul Aneja, China India fast track BCIM
economic corridor project, May 26,2015 http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/china-india-fasttrack-bcim-economic-corridor-project/article7355496.ece?homepage=true
[ii] Manipur attack will not deter
BCIM plans, says V.K. Singh http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/manipur-attack-will-not-deter-bcim-plans-says-vk-singh/article7310639.ece
[iii] China, India fast-track BCIM economic corridor project,
June 26, 2015 The Hindu http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/china-india-fasttrack-bcim-economic-corridor-project/article7355496.ece
[iv] Fully text of Li Keqiang’s speech at
opening ceremony of Boao Forum (1), April 11, 2014http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/853912.shtml
[v] Liu
Zongyi, Beijing and New Delhi can open an Indo-Asia Pacific era http://www.globaltimes.cn/content/881546.shtml
[vi] Full
Text: China’s military strategy http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2015-05/26/content_20820628.htm
[viii] Settling border issue key for india-china relations
says NSA, May 23, 2015 http://www.tribuneindia.com/news/nation/settling-border-issue-key-for-india-china-relations-says-nsa/84174.html
[x] India to sign free trade pact with Eurasian
Economic Union, Moscow, June 19, 2015. India Brand Equity
Foundation http://www.ibef.org/news/india-to-sign-free-trade-pact-with-eurasian-economic-union
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