Chinese Chequers in Pakistan: Hyperbole, Hazards and some Heft for The Economy

Sushant Sareen, 

Senior Fellow, VIF

Forty-six billion dollars. A figure like this not only makes for a great headline but also creates a hype which deflects from the fine print and details that lie behind this number. Not surprisingly, the focus of attention – in Pakistan, in India and in other parts of the world, including the US – is the big number and how it will be a ‘game-changer’, how it will change the destiny of Pakistan, how it will change the strategic balance in the region and so on and so forth. But start breaking down the number into its component parts, and the hyperbole surrounding China’s grand plans for Pakistan appear to be somewhat over the top. Equally important, the sort of alarm being sounded by some Indian analysts is also a trifle misplaced. While India must keep a hawk-eye on the China-Pakistan nexus, it surely doesn’t behove India to have a knee-jerk reaction to every Sino-Pak collaboration.

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project is going to come up over the next 15 years. This means that the $46 billion is not going to be dumped in Pakistan in the next few months but will be spread over more than a decade. There are a few ‘early harvest’ projects – about $ 28 billion worth – that will come up in the next 3-5 years. Most of these are in the power sector (about $ 22 billion). The rest ($ 6 billion) are infrastructure projects which include building the Gwadar port and expanding the existing road networks. While the Karakorum Highway is to be extended and broadened, there is as yet no firm plan to either build a railway line through the Gilgit-Baltistan area of Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK) or an oil and gas pipeline linking Gwadar to Kashgar in Xinjiang province of China. These projects may eventually come up but as of now they haven’t moved beyond the drawing board stage. The rest of the $ 17 billion will be spread over another ten years beyond 2020 and will once again include some power projects, roads networks and industrial townships and Special Economic Zones.

The plan to link up the restive provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan with the CPEC is going to happen in the second stage, if at all. There are also plans to extend the CPEC to Afghanistan. But this will depend in large part on how the political and security situation develops in that country. Come to think of it, a lot of the CPEC will also depend on how the security situation develops inside Pakistan, and if things don’t look up, a lot of the investment will simply not come.

To be sure, even if half of the investment and projects that are envisaged under the CPEC come up, it will provide a fillip to the anaemic Pakistan economy. Assets will be created, as will jobs. Business and economic activity will also get a kick-start. So far so good. But this will all come at a cost, which one daresay, may not have been calculated or factored in by the Pakistani side. Whether this is because of their desperation to get things moving any which way, or it is because of their exuberance, excitement and even their servility towards the Chinese, or it is because of the Pakistani inability to think things through before taking the plunge, is a matter of debate. Suffice to say, there are serious economic implications of these projects. It is of course entirely possible that ultimately the Chinese write off their investments in Pakistan as a gift to their ‘Iron Brother’ and instead of the economic dividends that will flow China’s way through its investments in the CPEC, China remains satisfied with the political and strategic dividends that it expects from the project. If this happens, then it would fit into a pattern set by Pakistan's benefactors before China.

For now, however, the Chinese are demanding and getting their pound of flesh.The rate of return on the power projects they are setting up is anything between 24-37 per cent. What is more, the Chinese projects will get their payment before any other power producer gets it. This is because the Chinese are extremely wary of the horrendous ‘circular debt’ crisis that has brought the Pakistan power sector to near financial collapse. Many of the projects that will be set up are coal based projects. These are being shut down in China because of the environmental havoc they have caused. For the Chinese, shifting these power plants to Pakistan is a win-win. They dump their obsolete and polluting technology on Pakistan and make top dollar in the process. Although the Pakistan electricity regulator has declared an upfront tariff for different kinds of power plants, what the final tariff will be remains unknown for now. The apprehension expressed by some Pakistani economic analysts is that the entry of the Chinese might end up worsening the financial crisis of the power sector instead of solving the energy crisis that has crippled industry and homes for many years now. There is also the whole issue of building supply chains for the coal-based power projects and the cost this will entail, not just in terms of infrastructure building but also in terms of imports and how this cost will be factored in the power prices.

What is also causing disquiet in some circles in Pakistan is the fact that the Chinese projects have not come in through any competitive bidding process but as part of what cynics call ‘sweet-heart’ deals. Despite the fact that many Chinese investors are public sector companies, they are not at all squeamish about buying and bribing their way into countries like Pakistan, which for political and strategic reasons find it difficult to say no to the Chinese.

Apart from the Chinese, the Turks and the Qataris have also been taking advantage to seal some sweet-heart deals with Pakistan. In many of these cases – Chinese locomotives, Turkish electricity ships and Qatari LNG and road projects – Pakistan has ended up either with junk or paying a very heavy price (Rs 42 a unit for buying electricity from the Turkish power ship before it was scrapped by the Pakistan Supreme Court). There are fears that something similar may happen with the power and infrastructure projects that will be set up under the aegis of CPEC.

Questions have also been raised over both the funding of the projects (investments and repayments) as well as the Chinese model of investment under which practically everything – labour, machinery, equipment, raw material and what have you – is brought from China and very little is sourced from the local market. This could well mean that there will be little economic spin-off of these projects and Pakistan could end up with white elephants for which its people will be made to pay through their noses for the rest of their and their children’s lives.

While the economics of the projects is quite iffy, the strategic assumptions and dimensions underpinning CPEC are also not as awe-inspiring as is being made out by both the detractors as well as backers of this project. Given the topography of the area through which corridor is going to pass, it is unlikely to become a replacement for the sea traffic going to and from China through the Straits of Malacca. This is so even if a railway line was to be built through the Karakorum range going into Xinjiang. While the Corridor will provide a closer sea access to Western China – Xinjiang and to an extent Tibet – it will be quite a stretch to imagine that it will also provide an alternative route to the Eastern Seaboard of China to access the Arabian sea and beyond. The Corridor also doesn’t need Afghanistan to access Central Asia or even Iran, the former can be accessed through links already established and the latter can be accessed through Pakistan. Afghanistan is important only to the extent that the Chinese can transport raw material out of that country, which is also contingent on whether Afghanistan indeed has the sort of mineral wealth that is often cited and on Afghanistan not descending into chaos and anarchy in the next few months and years. The Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa legs of the Corridor are also not going to come up because once the Sindh-Punjab route is settled, no one will sink money into building another route through these two restive provinces.

In the end, the Corridor is primarily about China getting a solid base in Gwadar and getting a land access to this port from its Western borderlands. All the other projects are just embellishmentsthat ostensibly sweeten the deal for the Pakistanis, partly through creation of assets and partly through under-the-table deals that will further enrich theruling classes of that country. A lot will of course depend on how the security and political situation develops inside Pakistan. But as long as the Chinese have a secured Gwadar, they will have got what they want out of this deal, especially since they will have tied Pakistan into a neo-colonial arrangement in which it will become a virtual colony and a captive market for Chinese goods. Although the Pakistanis are happy being the recipient of Chinese largesse – aptly summed by the acronym of the new China-Pakistan think-tank titled ‘RANDI’ or Research and Development International – because the Chinese have desisted from interfering in Pakistan's political affairs (unlike the overbearing Americans), this too could start changing with the rising Chinese involvement and investment in Pakistan.

Over the last few years, Pakistan has had to initiate major operations against their own jihadist proxies on Chinese demands – first in the Lal Masjid operation and later in Operation Zarb-e-Azb. This could become a precursor of things to come.

From the Chinese point of view, there are two additional factors that they need to take into account. The first is Pakistan's track record of double-dealing with their benefactors, something that the Americans and now the Saudis are finding out to their cost. The second is the civilizational disconnect between China and an increasingly Islamised Pakistan.

Although the Pakistanis have downplayed the heavy-handed crackdown by China against Muslims in Xinjiang, the jihadists in Pakistan as well as the international jihadists narrative has started portraying China as a Dar-ul-Harb, or land of war. This could in future become a major flashpoint between China and Pakistan and could become the trigger for the latter double-dealing the former. An additional factor is also that the Chinese people don’t have a very high opinion about their ‘Iron Brother’. The Pew Survey claims that only 30 per cent of the Chinese have a positive image of Pakistan, equal to the number who have a positive image of India!

As far as India is concerned, the most objectionable part of the CPEC is that it traverses through PoK. The increasing Chinese involvement and presence in that region is going to effect a material change in the status of this part of India which is under Pakistan's illegal occupation. Other than this, there isn’t much reason for India to be overly concerned. The CPEC is not about encircling India, at least that doesn’t appear to be the primary purpose at this point in time. Interestingly, even though the Pakistanis are crowing about CPEC, they are also trying to sell this project to the world by saying that it will bind together 3 billion people of the region. Given that there are 1.4 billion Chinese, .2 billion Pakistanis and throw in the Afghans, Iranians and Central Asians (about another 100-150 million), the figure of 3 billion has to include India. Ironically, while Pakistan implicitly includes India in the CPEC, it explicitly excludes India by denying transit rights and routes and refuses to enter into a normal trading arrangement under WTO rules.

Be that as it may, the CPEC is more about China’s expanding role and influence in the region that it considers its backyard and falling within its sphere of influence. It is also about finding new, practically captive markets for its industry which is already showing signs of slowdown. The way the Chinese see it, by going in for the CPEC, they will help in stabilising Pakistan and thereby limiting the regional destabilisation that a failing Pakistan will cause. At the same time, they will make some money in the process and also increase their strategic footprint. To the extent that China’s expanding footprint spooks, even riles, India, it will be an issue in Sino-Indo relations. But if India plays it well, it can turn this Chinese footprint into an advantage, much like it did with the US. It is another matter that the US hasn’t been very effective as a partner in altering Pakistan's rank bad behaviour. But if the Americans could do anything to Pakistan in their own cause, it is pointless to expect them to deliver anything in India’s cause against Pakistan. This may not be the trajectory if India can get China right. Thus, while Prime Minister Narendra Modi must protest the use of PoK territory for the CPEC, he must have a plan in place to win over China for a mutually beneficial economic and strategic partnership. That will give India another pressure point against Pakistan.

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Published Date: 27^th April 2015, Image Source: http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk

China Eyeing Enhanced Role in Afghanistan Post US Drawdown

Monish Gulati

China's Foreign Ministry on 18 July said that it had appointed a special envoy for Afghanistan, underscoring its concerns on the political and security developments in the country. Sun Yuxi, a former ambassador to both Afghanistan (between 2002 and 2004) and India, has been named as the special envoy and will have "close communication" with Afghanistan and other relevant parties to help "ensure lasting peace, stability and development for Afghanistan and the region", the Chinese Foreign Ministry said in its statement.

Recent events, both internal and external, appear to drive the ramping up of Chinese interest in Afghanistan. Continued disturbances in Xinjiang, cooling of relations with Myanmar, Pakistan’s tussle with its internal security, Saudi-Iran rivalry and the developments in Afghanistan itself are some of the drivers. To that end, Sun Yuxi’s appointment not only signals Chinese concerns regarding possible threats emanating from the region, but also an intent to firm up some of its geo-economic initiatives in the wake of US drawdown from Afghanistan. This article examines the current Chinese focus on Af-Pak.

Terrorism

One of China's chief worries is that Uighur militants, who are fighting for a separate state called East Turkestan in China's Xinjiang region, will step up their activities by exploiting the security vacuum in Afghanistan after most of the NATO forces withdraw by the end of the year. China believes hundreds of Uighur militants of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) are holed up in the tribal areas straddling Afghanistan and Pakistan. There is a good cause for the Chinese worry- despite employing a wide range of measures it has failed to get a grip on the insurgency in Xinjiang.

Early on 28 July, the last day of Ramadan, 215 Uighurs armed with knives and axes attacked a police station and government offices in Elixku and Huangdi towns in Shache County in Xinjiang.¹ Chinese police shot dead 59 attackers in response and 37 civilians also died during the incident. A total of 13 armed Chinese personnel were killed and about 67 people were arrested in this connection. On 30 July, Jume Tahir, the Imam of China’s largest mosque in the westernmost city of Kashgar was attacked as he was leaving the Id Kah mosque and stabbed to death.² The 74-year-old Imam, who was also a former deputy to the official National People’s Congress (NPC), was reportedly supporting China’s Communist party by publicly speaking out against the wave of violence in Xinjiang and accusing the separatist Muslims for halting progress and social and ethnic cohesion.

The recent Ramadan violence is amongst a string of incidents that have been taking place in Xinjiang over past few months. Among the most shocking incidents was a market attack in Xinjiang’s capital Urumqi in which 39 people were killed in May, and a deadly rampage by knife-wielding assailants at a train station at Kunming in China’s southwest in March, which left 29 dead. Earlier this month, Chinese courts in Xinjiang sentenced 32 people to prison terms ranging from four years to life for terrorism-related charges. In June, authorities executed 13 people, and sent more than 100 to jail in a public mass sentencing on mostly terrorism-related offences in Xinjiang.

China’s approach to curb insurgency in Xinjiang is a combination of economic inducements and harsh security measures. To that end, it seeks to bring economic development, jobs and higher standard of living to Xinjiang by creating economic corridors or Silk routes through the region to the Central Asian Republics and Pakistan.

The insurgency in Xinjiang has been acquiring external dimensions. According to China's special envoy for the Middle East, Wu Sike, Muslim extremists from Xinjiang have gone to the Middle East for training and some may have crossed into Iraq to participate in the upsurge of violence there.³The Af-Pak region is key to curbing the disturbances in Xinjiang; both in terms of promoting economic development of the region and denying sanctuaries to the Uighur militants.

Afghanistan

Appropriately Sun Yuxi commenced his charge with a visit to Kabul, and on 23 July, he had talks with President Karzai and presidential candidates Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani on separate occasions. During his stay in Afghanistan, Sun also met with US and European Union ambassadors to the country as well as the head of United Nations Assistance Mission.⁴

Sun reaffirmed China’s support for the ongoing political and reconciliation process in Afghanistan and said if groups in Afghanistan including Taliban reach agreement on national reconciliation then nobody will make trouble."So far we have not directly got involved with Afghan groups including Taliban and we place our hope on the new government." He said he will visit US, Russia, India and Iran to discuss the situation in Afghanistan.

On Afghanistan's future, Sun said the immediate and most important task is to achieve reconciliation for all parties and sectors as only nationwide reconciliation is an effective measure for long term stability. He added that China is concentrating on economic development and raising standard of living to help create peace and security in Afghanistan and to that end the private sector must be involved.

Pakistan

In his first presser in China on 21 July, Sun Yuxi had praised Pakistan and the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) for their fight against terrorism and all but absolved them of any involvement in the recent attack on the Indian consulate in Herat.⁵Sun Yuxi said "I think ISI has been effective in fighting against terrorism. I do believe that Pakistan government or any responsible agency of Pakistan will only fight against terrorism instead of being involved with any terrorist." Sun told the media that he saw in the future, the Pakistan government playing an important and positive role in the peaceful reconstruction of Afghanistan.

While visiting Pakistan, Sun Yuxi called on the Pakistani Foreign Secretary and expressed China's solidarity with Pakistan in this endeavour and appreciated Pakistan's contribution to global efforts against terrorism.⁶ Pakistan highlighted its constructive engagement to promote regional cooperation. The two sides also conferred on the Ministerial Meeting of the Heart of Asia/Istanbul Process, to be held in Tianjin, China.

At the same time, Pakistan is eyeing Beijing’s proposed huge investment of about $40 billion over the next eight years in the country’s energy, water, coal, roads and other infrastructure projects. China has reportedly commissioned a "preliminary research study" to build an international rail link connecting its westernmost city of Kashgar in Xinjiang with Pakistan's deep-sea Gwadar Port, according to the Director of Xinjiang's Regional Development and Reform Commission.⁷ The 1,800-km China-Pakistan railway is planned to also pass through Pakistan's capital of Islamabad and Karachi, with land ports to India and Afghanistan also being proposed.

India

As regards India, China is aware of the US influence on its Afghan policy and that as US forces withdraw, sooner or later Washington will lose its effective veto over more aggressive Indian approach. If Afghan politics and security start to unravel or India feels it has been short-changed strategically, it is likely to make its own costs and benefits calculations and chose a path of greater intervention.⁸ There would therefore a requirement to factor in Indian interests to some measure.

Assessment

Sun Yuxi statements during his visits to Afghanistan and Pakistan are indicative of Chinese approach to Af-Pak. Pakistan is the primary partner, who will play a dominant role in the reconciliation and reconstruction in Afghanistan. Efforts will be made to integrate the Taliban into politics and governance at the provincial level and ideally at the national level. Chinese capital would power the Kashgar-Gwadar economic corridor; Pakistan would ensure its security and indirectly contribute to the security of Xinjiang. Exploitation of natural resources would be the main plank of the Chinese strategy to revive Afghan economy and Pakistan would gain the control of the Afghan transit trade.

Beijing has come to perceive that its near-term aims in Afghanistan are consistent with those of the US, that being fighting terrorism and avoiding a relapse into civil war. To the extent the two sides disagree, it is over the specific sources of threat; Uighur separatists or al-Qaeda. Beijing, therefore, appears remarkably eager to cooperate with the US in Afghanistan. However, the key is how China is reading the situation in Afghanistan; does it anticipate a complete US drawdown from the region by 2016 or will find space to articulate its interest despite US presence in a counter-terror posture in Afghanistan. If not would it look to squeeze out US from the region with support from Pakistan; which would make it easy for it to negotiate with the Taliban and of course call the shots in Af-Pak .

Russian buy-in would come from the fact that it would get access to a land route for selling its gas; diverting it away from Europe and expand its arms supply to Afghanistan and other nations in Central Asia. It would assist in curbing narcotics trade and receive support in checking the rise in Islamist militancy. Iran would get to retain its cultural influence in Western Afghanistan, sell gas to Pakistan and probably India through a land pipeline and have the main Chinese “silk route” to Europe running through northern Iran.

In the coming few months Beijing would be focussed on the establishment of the new Afghan government and the Istanbul Process, a ministerial-level dialogue that brings together all of Afghanistan’s neighbours and major donors. China is hosting the next conference in Tianjin and is eager to make it a meaningful event by using the meeting as a means to confer the international community’s approval on the next Afghan government.

China is also conscious of the fact that its top down approach of doing work may not succeed in post-Karzai Afghanistan and that it would need Pakistani support. To this end, some Chinese officials even suggest that the present diplomatic initiative is aimed at expanding Chinese regional expertise and capacity to understand the political dynamics in developing states.

In the current situation, with the US seemingly keen on just curbing terrorism emanating from Afghanistan (and directed at the US), it would most likely be happy to go along with China as long as these objectives are achieved. The current imbroglio in Ukraine would to an extent have compromised the Russian stand in support of India, when faced with Chinese opposition. India would most probably then be coerced into accepting the Chinese game-plan in Afghanistan, with the prospect of TAPI/IPI, a land port on the Kashgar-Gwadar corridor and SCO/ APEC membership thrown in as sweeteners.

Endnotes

1. Dozens killed in terror attack in China’s Xinjiang, Agence France-Presse , July 30, 2014. http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/624792/dozens-killed-in-terror-attack-in-ch...
2. ‘Imam of China’s largest mosque stabbed to death,’ Al Arabiya News, July 31, 2014. http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/2014/07/31/Imam-of-China-s-largest-...
3. Ben Blanchard. ‘China says may have citizens fighting in Iraq,’ Reuters, July 28, 2014. http://news.yahoo.com/china-says-may-citizens-fighting-iraq-065750770.html
4. China to give more support for Afghanistan's development: Envoy, Eastday.com, July 26, 2014. http://english.eastday.com/auto/eastday/nation/u1ai10370_K3.html
5. Sutirtho Patranobis. ‘China's new Afghan envoy lauds Pak spy agency ISI,’ Hindustan Times, July 21, 2014. http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/pakistan-spy-agency-isi-a-respo...
6. ‘Pakistan, China renew resolve for Afghan peace,’ The Nation, July 28, 2014
   http://southasiamonitor.org/detail.php?type=vign&nid=8642
7. China launches study to build rail link to Pakistan via Pakistan Occupied Kashmir, PTI, June 28, 2014. http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2014-06-28/news/50929596_1_...
8. Daniel Markey.’ Afghanistan Anxieties Reign in India and China,’ CFR, July 24, 2014. http://blogs.cfr.org/asia/2014/07/24/markey-afghanistan-anxieties-reign-...

(The author is an independent analyst based in New Delhi)

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Published Date: 22^nd September 2014, Image source: http://www.wadsam.com

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Vivekananda International Foundation)

China’s Pakistan Syndrome and India

Sushant Sareen, 

Senior Fellow, VIF

As two giant countries sharing a common border, India and China have a host of issues between them that they need to sort out and work together. From border disputes to concerns over river waters, from trade imbalances to safety of investment and market access, from freedom of navigation in the maritime space to ensuring energy security, from mutual suspicions over containment policies and strategies being pursued for counter-balancing to building on mutual interests in bilateral, regional and global security, including the issue of terrorism, it is an endless list of things that both countries have to deal with. Many of these will come up for discussion when the Chinese President Xi Jinping visits India. But there is one major irritant, or if you will, fly in the ointment – Pakistan – which if addressed will go a very long way in lowering many of India’s concerns and suspicions regarding China.

For around fifty years now, China’s Pakistan Syndrome has been a red rag for India. The way India sees it the glue that has bound China with Pakistan has been India. There is enough evidence on record to back India’s assessment that both China and Pakistan embraced each other in order to contain and constrain India. For China, Pakistan was a perfect tool to keep snapping at India’s heel, and for Pakistan, China served as the big guy on the block to keep a check on India. Other than this, there is little that China has to gain from Pakistan, except perhaps for the fact that it serves as a dumping ground for many of its products and technology coupled with the benefit that China gets from the sort of neo-colonial economic and strategic relationship it has built with Pakistan. The icing on the cake is not only the massive commissions that accompany the deals with Pakistan, but also the ease with which anything that China sells is accepted by Pakistan in order to preserve and buttress its ‘all-weather friendship’ with China.

While a cynical case – enemy’s enemy is a friend – could have been made for China-Pakistan compact fifty years back, that time is now long gone. Persisting with this sort of a strategy is now only going to yield diminishing returns, more for China than for Pakistan. Today the dictum that China needs to follow is “a wise enemy [in case of India, a competitor and not enemy] is better than a foolish [and destructive] friend”. To put it differently, China has far more to gain – diplomatically, strategically, and economically – from engaging India than from remaining wedded to Pakistan. The choice before China is to either play for the small benefits it gets from its neo-colonial relationship with Pakistan or to make a pitch for the big game and benefits that will come by engaging India and disengaging from Pakistan.

With India’s economic, diplomatic and strategic options opening up in terms of its budding relationship with the US, Japan and other countries on China’s rim, China will need to make a call on whether Pakistan even serves any useful purpose anymore, more so in light of the steady slide of Pakistan towards failure and extremism, something that forced President Xi Jinping to ‘postpone’ the Pakistan leg of his tour. Despite the heartburn and embarrassment that the ‘postponement’ caused in Pakistan, and notwithstanding the reassuring words uttered by Mr Jinping about China’s commitment to its relationship with Pakistan, this is as good a time as any for China to re-evaluate its Pakistan policy.

For a couple of years now, there are some indications and pointers that there is growing concern in China about Pakistan. There is also some sort of an incipient rethink underway in Beijing, which is borne out by the fact that the Chinese are now engaging India to talk about both Afghanistan and Pakistan (something that they never did before). The reasons for this are clear. There is growing disquiet in China over the export of radical Islam and terrorism from Pakistan into China. Although the Pakistanis are ostensibly leaning over backward to address Chinese concerns – the Operation Zarb-e-Azb in North Waziristan is partly aimed to reassure China – the Pakistanis are known to play double-games, especially where it involves the Jihadists. Even if these double-games do not have China in the cross-hairs, there is bound to be a spill-over of Pakistani flirtation with Jihadism in China’s restive Xinjiang province and beyond. Questions are also starting to be asked about how secure Chinese investments in Pakistan will be, especially if Pakistan continues to slide towards chaos and anarchy. This is a question that acquires even greater salience in light of ambitious plans involving an investment of anywhere between $30-50 billion to develop an Economic Corridor from Gwadar to Kashgar.

Apparently, the Chinese believe that they need to pump in money in Pakistan in order to stabilise that country. This is quite similar to the misplaced arguments that are often made by the Americans who have consistently bought the nonsense that they could change Pakistan's rank bad behaviour and alter the trajectory of its inexorable slide by artificially propping it up through infusion of money. Of course, there is a big difference between how the Chinese and Americans pump in funds into Pakistan. Ironically, the Americans who don’t believe that there are any free lunches have been giving only free lunches to Pakistan; the Chinese, on the other hand, because of their socialistic pretensions subscribe to free lunches at least ideologically, but have never given any free lunch to Pakistan. They have always managed to extract their pound of flesh on the cheap from Pakistan. But with plans like the Economic Corridor, it seems that the Chinese too are starting to tread the beaten path of the Americans. But here’s the thing: if the Americans have got nothing to show for the treasure they have expended in Pakistan, the Chinese too will end up with nothing, for such is the nature of the beast that they are trying to sustain.

Given Pakistan's adherence to the ideology of political Islam and jihadism, it should be clear to the Chinese that Pakistan can never reconcile to an infidel China. India, on the other hand, has neither any civilizational conflict nor any other fundamental strategic conflict with China. The border dispute is in many ways a minor issue when seen in light of all the other areas in which India and China stand to gain from a closer relationship and even partnership. Even if resolving the border issue will take time, it can be easily managed until a mutually acceptable resolution is worked out.

On the economic front, apart from the sheer volume of trade between India and China (which dwarfs anything that Pakistan can offer), India is a safe, secure and profitable destination for Chinese investments (once again much more than Pakistan can ever hope to be). Chinese investments in India will be a win-win because they will not only address some of the problems emanating from the huge trade imbalance that exists between the two countries, but also fulfil India’s needs for rapid growth, which in turn will make Chinese investments even more productive and profitable.

Even in terms of connectivity, India can offer a better and safer Corridor to the Arabian Sea from China’s north-west than Pakistan can. India already has a railway line in the Kashmir valley and is working on connecting this to the rest of the railway network. Perhaps, this same line can be extended to China, at a fraction of the cost it will take to rebuild and restore the broken down Pakistan railway network. After all the geographical challenges in Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir are not much more than what China faces in Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir. Perhaps, if the Kashmir route is not feasible, there are other areas which can be explored to provide connectivity from Kashgar to Kandla or Shigatse to Surat. Of course, any such project will only take off if there is sufficient confidence and trust, something that China will need to build with India.

Despite problems with China in the past, India has neither any intention nor any policy to contain China. But this may still happen, not by design but by default, if China is unable to adjust itself to the new emerging realities in the region. India has no choice but to work closely with the US and Japan, not so much with an eye on China but for its own development. India’s partners know that India will never become a pawn in their hands against China and there are enough reasons to believe that they are not even aiming for this. As far as they are concerned, India’s development will serve as a natural counter-balance to a rising China. This however isn’t a challenge for China but more of an opportunity to engage India in a mutually beneficial and profitable relationship. If however China remains wedded to the past and to Pakistan, this opportunity will be missed. China now needs to take a call on whether it wants India as a bridge to both the far-east and middle-east, or it wants India as an uncomfortable neighbour.

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Published Date: 16^th September 2014, Image source: http://img.tradeindia.com

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Vivekananda International Foundation)

Time for India to use its Soft Power in China

Prof. R Vaidyanathan 

(Member, VIF Advisory Board)

July 2014 is an important month for global economics and China. It is the first time in recent history that China has overtaken USA in GDP [adjusted for purchasing power parity or PPP] and has become number one country in the world according to Euromonitor¹. Now the order is China/USA/India/Japan in terms of GDP at PPP. Of course in per capita terms, USA has ten times more gross income than China given the population size of the latter.

Still China’s growth has been phenomenal and in the next two decades, it is poised to become numero uno even in nominal terms out running USA. This has implications for India from an Asian perspective and also we need to formulate our strategy about China. Traditionally in the last few decades, we have been looking at China using US or UK lens. This is due to the fact that we have not developed many China centers all over India. Hence we have few experts who understand their language and try to look at China with Indian glasses rather than Anglo-Saxon lens.

The major change that is taking place in China is not related to their growth rates and Three Gorges Dam and the shopping malls and Olympics stadia. That is a typical Western way of viewing China. The main change is in religious affiliation and assertion of Islamic followers and development of large scale underground Church. The middle classes have given up rice [perceived to be for the illiterate poor] and are embracing Christianity since it also helps in job mobility particularly in global companies where the heads could belong to the same Church. The Muslim population is less dispersed and more concentrated in specific locations like western part But there is also a growing interest in China about its past. The Ming dynasty tombs in Beijing which are made in marble were painted in red color during the great cultural revolution of the sixties and even today laborers are washing it to make it back in to white color without success. The guides are not reluctant to talk about it. The ten handed Buddha in the Summer Palace of Ching dynasty near Beijing has significant relationship with our idea of Lord Vishnu who destroys evil and even this is mentioned clearly. More importantly, China is opening what are called Confucius Institutes in more than fifty countries which is similar to British Council efforts but more focused on China’s ancient wisdom. . The first thing we should learn is to stop looking at China with Western glasses.

The economic boom in China has given rise to issues related to their faith/religion and associated things. First and foremost, China is facing a severe separatist [called splitters by Chinese] in their western region namely Xinjiang by Uighurs. The region is populated by followers of Islam religion and seeing unrest for the past two decades. But recently it has reached violent proportions. For instance, early last week Chinese claimed that at least 100 have been killed in disturbances in that region². Not only that, some portion of the Uighurs has carried the battle to Beijing itself. In other words, one form of regional separation combined with Islamic terrorism has become a major problem in China. There are also reports that the Islamists are taking shelter in the Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK).

On the other hand, China is also waging a battle with “unrecognized” Church in its territory. Once a hub of Christianity, worshippers in Wenzhou fear their faith is facing its biggest threat since the Cultural Revolution³. The recent visit of the Pope to South Korea as part of his engaging Asia has fuelled concerns in China since China has its own church and does not recognize Papal authority.

“By my calculations China is destined to become the largest Christian country in the world very soon," said Fenggang Yang, a professor of sociology at Purdue University and author of Religion in China: Survival and Revival under Communist Rule.⁴ But for China, both the Abrahamic religions are alien to its culture going back several thousand years. So they are trying to revive “Confucianism” by encouraging the study of it as we’ll as opening several centers to propagate it. Buddhism is their ancient religion and Hindu influences are significant.

The keynote speech by the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China- Hu Jintao to the 17^th Party Congress in October 2007 – devoted a paragraph to religion. He stressed that religious people including priests, monks and lay –believers played a positive role in the social and economic development of China. Hence religion is not any more the opiate of the masses. The state controlled Xinhua stresses that there must be freedom of belief. It says that religion can play an important role in realizing a ‘harmonious society” which is the new political role of the party⁵. That is the main issue we at India should be interested in. A 2007 study conducted by two professors of China Normal University based on more than 4500 people concluded that more than 300 million people namely 31 percent are religious and more than 60 % of those are in the 16-40 age group. The number of followers of Christianity has increased to 12 % from a low of less than 8% in the nineties.

This last fact is interesting since a huge underground Church has developed in China and Zhao Xiao, a former Communist Party official and convert to Christianity, thinks there are up to 130 million Christians in China.⁶. This figure is much more than the official figures of 21 million –16 million Protestants and five million Catholics. If the latter figure is true—which is corroborated by other like Pew Forum –then there are more Christians in China than the Communist Party membership which is pegged at 74 million in the last count.

Thus, a significant change that is taking place in China pertains to religion. The economic growth bereft of spiritual underpinnings in the context of death of Marxism is going to be a great challenge for China and India as an elder brother should facilitate orderly transformation based on our common shared ancient wisdom. Let us remember that China is also a multi-cultural and multi religious society but interested in our shared past. In the words of Hu Shih, former Ambassador of China to USA [1938-1942] “India conquered and dominated China culturally for 20 centuries without having to send a single soldier across her borders.”Ship loads of Sanskrit and Pali original works taken away by Chiang-Kai-Shek from mainland to Taiwan bear testimony to it. These are exhibited in the Taipei museum even today.

Hence, India should be sending Sri Sri Ravishankar/Mata Amirtanandamayi / Swami Ramdev/ Pramukh Swami/Sankaracharyas/Vaishnavite Seers and other spiritual leaders, Bharatha Natyam experts, musicians, other artists in hundreds to China to “ Conquer and Dominate” by our soft power. We need to print millions of copies of Ramayana and Mahabharata and our Puranas and Gita and Jataka stories in all modern Chinese languages and widely make them available. The CDs of Mahabharata and Ramayana etc. can also be given free. We should start some fifty Bharatiya Vidya Bhavans in China. Actually China needs this more than USA even though all our soft power is currently on show in the USA. We should create a fund of at least Rs.1000 crore for this effort. There is a statue of Kalidasa in the Shanghai theatre unveiled by the theater academy. I do not think of any metro in India including the so called “cultural capital” Kolkata, having a statue of Kalidasa. At Kolkata, the Theatre street became Shakespeare Sarani and not Kalidasa Marg!

We should strategically recognize the weak point of China and also the need of its masses in the absence of Communism. Many a Chinese even today believe that their next birth should be in India to reach salvation. Culture and religion are not taboos any more.

There are other issues. Officially China recognizes or permits only five religions namely Buddhism, Islam, Taoism, Protestantism and Catholicism⁷. Hence we should take steps to include Hinduism as one of the permitted religions. The Indian Government should take appropriate steps in this regard. The point is that our soft power in culture is interwoven in a tapestry form with the religion. You cannot separate it howsoever one tries it. Carnatic Music without Bhakti is neither music nor art. But our Government of all hues has never raised this issue with the Chinese.

The strategy should be to envelop China with music, dance, art, Yoga. Ayurveda, spiritual texts like Ithihasas, Gita, Puranas etc and capture the hearts of the middle classes as we have done for centuries.

The second issue is related to our own mind-set. We tend to look at China either through the Western spectacles or through local Marxist spectacles—which have more thick glasses. We need to come out of it. Even when invitations come to Indian spiritual leaders, the Government of India remains unenthusiastic and indicates its dis-interest in the false assumptions regarding China’s political orientation. The policy formulators are still living in the sixties and seventies while as China is undergoing a gigantic social crisis due to material prosperity and spiritual vacuum. Unfortunately, as a Chinese colleagueof mine at Shanghai University commented last year, “both our countries are ruled by rootless deracinated foreign educated wonders that do not have any idea of the civilizational roots or the cultural richness of our lands.” Hopefully now it should have changed!!

China is enthusiastically waiting. To quote late B K S Iyengar, the doyen of yoga, “Mr. Iyengar told The Hindu during a visit to Beijing that he saw China as a future home for yoga. When he travelled to Guangzhou to give a lecture, he was stunned to find that organisers had rented out a stadium – more than 1,300 students had come to listen to him”.⁸

But this is the opportunity to us since it is better to have a competitor and neighbour sharing the past cultural commonness. This will be very useful when the world is going to have two super powers from Asia unlike the conflict of last century between two super powers—USA and USSR- who did not have any shared cultural roots.

China is at the threshold of change. It is yearning for spiritual solace. Many groups and sects from Western countries [with or without permission] are trying to spread their influence and message—since this is an opportunity for them.

Are we ready to undertake such a mission?

Endnotes

1. [http://blog.euromonitor.com/2014/07/china-overtakes-the-us-as-the-worlds-largest-economy.html]
2. [http://www.dw.de/china-revises-uighur-unrest-figures/a-17828475].
3. [http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/05/china-christianity-wenzhou-zhejiang-churches].
4. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/10776023/China-on-course-to-become-worlds-most-Christian-nation-within-15-years.html]
5. [Asia Times Online July -3 -2008].
6. [The Economist 2^nd October 2008]
7. [Government White Paper on Religions, 1997]
8. [http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/world/india-to-open-yoga-centre-in-china/article6229124.ece]

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Published Date: 22^nd August 2014, Image source: http://deskofbrian.com/

(Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Vivekananda International Foundation)

Kunming Stabbing Incident: China under the Shadow of Islamic Radicalism

Radhakrishna Rao, 

Visiting Fellow, VIF

Slowly and surely, the middle kingdom seems to be emerging as a preferred “soft target” of terrorist violence spearheaded by a radical outfit with its alleged links to the notorious Al Qaeda. For the communist China, which not long back was least worried about the devious doings of global terrorist networks, disturbing developments in its home-turf in recent months have brought home the looming threat of terrorism in all its manifestations.

Not surprisingly then the violent stabbing spree at Kunming railway station in Yunnan province on March 1 has set the alarm bells ringing in China’s security set up. Incidentally, the south westerly Yunnan province whose capital is Kunming has had no history of a terrorist attack or social violence. Much to the dismay of Chinese security and intelligence agencies, the knife wielding attackers who encountered virtually no resistance initially left 33 people dead and 130 injured in one of the bloodiest incidents ever reported in this part of the country. China’s official Xinhua news agency described this pre-meditated violent incident as “China’s 9/11 and a severe crime against humanity”. The authorities of the Kunming Municipal Government were quick to point out that evidence at the crime scene showed that the attack was organised by the Xinjiang based Uighur separatists. Significantly, this is for the first time that militants allegedly belonging to the, which is fighting for a sovereign Muslim majority Xinjiang country, managed to carry out such a frightening and violent attack outside their home-turf. The suspicion is that the attack could be a part of the long term strategy of Uighur separatists to hit soft targets deep inside China with a view to create “fear psychosis” and draw global attention to their on-going struggle for a separate Muslim majority Xinjiang country.

The Patronage that the banned East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) is said to be receiving from Al Qaeda is considered a major factor behind its rapidly expanding acts of violent terrorism.

Nevertheless, this is not the first act of terrorism mounted by Uighur separatists outside of the Xinjiang province. In October last, a terrorist attack in the capital city of Beijing had stunned and rattled China. This well planned violent attack at the historic Tiananmen Square had resulted in the death of five people. In the aftermath of this incident, the ruling dispensation in Beijing had described this terrorist outrage in the heart of China’s capital city as a “pre meditated and well planned suicide attack” aimed at destabilizing the Communist giant. This attack which was also blamed as the handiwork of ETIM marked a significant shift in the militant activities of ETIM whose violent activities were for long confined to Xinjiang. Chinese authorities drive home the point that ETIM has for long been engaged in Central, East (By "East" , the Chinese authorities imply the possibility of Uighur extremists having linkages with Muslim separatists in Southern Thailand and insurgents in Mindanao island of Philippines) and West Asia and has joined hands with many of the terrorist outfits with global footprints. ETIM cadres are known to have fought alongside Taliban militia in Afghanistan and rebel forces in trouble torn Syria. Clearly and apparently, China has enough to worry about ensuring its domestic peace and territorial integrity in the face of brazen terrorist attacks.

In a well thought out move aimed at psychologically paralysing the terrorist outfits by blocking their funding sources, China’s Central Bank has announced new measures aimed at enabling authorities to freeze assets of domestic terrorist groups and their “overseas patrons’. Cutting off the source of funding could take the sail out of the winds of a terrorist group. India too needs to take steps to end the “hawala racket” which has become a major source of funding for terrorist outfits, criminal gangs and anti social networks in the country. Chinese security agencies believe Afghanistan, Pakistan and Central Asian Republics offer safe sanctuary to the fugitive Uighur separatists owing allegiance to ETIM For long there has been a suspicion that ETIM gets funds, training and psychological motivation from Al Qaeda. The Islamabad based Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies had indicated that Uighur separatists from Xinjiang province of China mainly frequent the mountainous North Waziristan, the most turbulent part of the lawless tribal belt. Indeed, Beijing has on many occasions expressed its displeasure over the failure of Pakistan to crack down on Uighur terror groups. Chinese officials in Xinjiang blame ETIM overseas cadres, chiefly those active in camps of Pakistan, for fomenting trouble in many parts of the province. This largest Chinese province in the extreme west of the country shares porous borders with both Pakistan and Afghanistan. Uighur extremists are also known to have forged strong links with radical Islamic groups in the Central Asian Republics.

For well over two decades now, the ruling dispensation in Beijing has been blaming Uighur extremists for acts of sporadic violence and destruction in the sprawling and resources rich Xinjiang where 12-million ethic Uighurs reside. Currently, Uighurs constitute 45% of the total population of Xinjiang. Uighurs are upset that with the state supported plan to settle Chinese Hans in the restive Xinjiang, they are doomed to end up as a minority group.

Since 1990s, Xinjiang has been making it into the media headlines for acts of violence indulged in by the disgruntled Uighurs who see a repressive streak in the policy designed for them by the rulers in Beijing. China is of view that ETIM is trying to insulate itself from the country’s counter terrorism measures by developing robust transnational ties that include alliance with other terrorist groups and safe operational bases in other countries.

Uighurs are quite upset that their religious, cultural and commercial activities are being curtailed by Beijing presumably to put a lid on the separatist sentiments embedded deep in the psyche of the community. In recent years, Chinese authorities have been pressurising Uighur men not to grow beards and Uighur women not to use veil or other Islamic attire. These measures have been justified by Beijing as a cornerstone of the strategy designed to end the spread of religious extremism said do be responsible for the violent separatist movement. Many Uighurs say that they are made to feel like second class citizens in their home turf. Uighurs are upset that the Chinese speaking Hans in Xinjiang have cornered most of the civil service jobs and are forging ahead in business and professions.

In 2009, around 200 people had paid with their lives in one of the bloodiest clashes that took place between native Uighurs and Han settlers in the provincial capital of Urumqi. And in April 2013, violent clashes involving Uighurs and policemen in Kashgar had left 21 dead. Further in June.2013, 35 people were killed in an attack against a Police Station in Luquan. Uighurs who follow a moderate version of Sunni Islam are clear that repressive policies aimed at the community is at the root of on-going “unrest and turbulence” in the province. But Uighur uprising has never attracted the global attention the way Tibet has. Strategic analysts believe, however, that Uighur uprising could pose a serious threat to China’s territorial integrity in comparison to the turbulence in Tibet. For now, by design or accident, Tibet is on the way to slowly getting integrated into the “Chinese mainstream”. But then the festering unrest and turmoil in Xinjiang has all the potentials of graduating into a full scale and well armed separatist movement that China can ignore at its own peril. It is not for nothing that Xinjiang has been described as China’s emerging West Bank.

China’s Geo-Strategic Jaw : Another Step to Global Power

Lt Gen (Retd) Gautam Banerjee, 

Executive Council, VIF

Preamble

Development of the Gwadar Port on Pakistan’s Makran Coast on the Arabian Sea has been in the news off and on since the project took a concrete shape in the late 1990s. Meanwhile, thousands of kilometres to the North, across the entire length of Pakistan, then across the Pakistan occupied Northern Areas of the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, and finally beyond there to the Western Province of Xinjiang in China, another development of monumental proportions had already taken place – that was the opening of the Karakoram Highway for commerce, in 1986. Since then, both these Sino-Pak joint venture among the two formally declared ‘all weather friends’ have continued to generate considerable interest among the strategic community who focus on the South and West Asian region. However, it was only recently, following the turmoil that engulfs the region of Pakistan, Afghanistan and beyond, that the two apparently distinct events crystallised as parts of a grand design of immense geo-political implications, both encouraging and worrisome, depending on which side the observer pitches for and as to how one is inclined to come to terms with it.

This paper argues that development of the Karakoram Highway and the Gwadar Port had ever been but two ends of one strategic initiative to pave the way for China’s emergence as a world power. Further, it is argued that the overland ‘axis’, connecting China’s core areas, through her peripheral provinces, to the strategic outlet at the Gulf of Oman, is but a complimentary version of the sea connectivity between China, through the Indian Ocean and its littoral states, to West Asia and beyond to Africa – two arms of a strategic ‘jaw’, so to say.

China’s Peripheral Territories

Down the ages, successive Chinese empires had exercised varying degree of control over the East Asian landmass that is bounded by the great Mongolian Steppe to the North, the China Sea to the East, the Indo-Tibetan high-altitude Plateau to the South and the East Turkmenistan region of Central Asia to the West. Historians therefore are inclined to view the extent of the Chinese empires under three distinct categories, viz, the ‘core’ area of predominantly Han ethnicity, the ‘cradle’ area of Chinese civilisation and the ‘peripheral’ or the outlying areas.

The last named is the general area West of the Hwang Ho River. This is a desolate region, bounded by rugged mountains going up to an average altitude of 4000 metres and cold high altitude deserts. The region is inhospitable to human settlements except in small patches along a narrow ‘Corridor’ that runs East-West connecting the Hwang Ho River Valley to where territories of Tajikistan, Afghanistan (the Wakhan Corridor) and Pakistan lie within 250 kilometres of each other. With the highlands and climate prohibitive to human settlements, the ‘peripheral’ areas were traditionally treated as the nature’s barren land, an ‘open-to-all’ ground for international transit for trade and religion, and controlled by local overlords, who many a times accepted Chinese suzerainty for expediency till they could gather enough muscle to repudiate the superficial allegiance. Thus, during the course of three millennia past, five of the six of the most powerful Chinese dynasties had enjoyed varying forms of jurisdiction from time to time – sometimes formally, otherwise notionally or none at all - over this vast and desolate landmass. Then there were long intervening periods when the empire’s rule shrunk just to the Hwang Ho and the Yangtze River Valleys, smaller independent kingdoms reigning over the rest. Indeed, the extent of territories over which China’s ruling dynasties imposed their control in various forms, went through cyclic expansions and contractions throughout the history, as dictated by the political and military power at their disposal.

Point to note is that even at the best of times, the Chinese jurisdiction over what today are the provinces of Gansu, Quinghai and Xinjiang was geographically confined to a narrow, relatively habitable and fertile ‘Corridor’ that run East from Lanzhou, through Urumqi, to its Western terminus, Kashgar. Yet, it is the control over this ‘Corridor’ that sanctifies China’s present day territorial sovereignty over the desolate mountains of the Kun Lun Shan and Tien Shan and the Takla Makan Desert – most of the ‘peripheral’ area, to be concise.

As China became a republic in 1911, first under the Guomingtang and then finally under the Communist rule in 1949, she continued to consider the largest territory, more or less, that constitutes the aforesaid ‘peripheral’ area - inclusive of Manchuria, Outer Mongolia and Tibet - that was ever under any form of imperial China’s control, even influence, as her sovereign territorial jurisdiction. As a corollary, the above mentioned ‘Corridor’ – Lanzhou to Kashgar – became the power-arm of her claim over the ‘peripheral’ areas. Concerned over the historical fact that control or its loss over the peripheral territories had ever been synchronous with the rise and fall of Beijing’s state power, the modern era Chinese strategists are very sensitive towards the sanctity of this territorial jurisdiction. In fact, these territories are seen as a plank of China’s statehood, and explains her extreme sensitivity to the rebellious ethnic inhabitants, particularly the independent minded Uyghurs and the Tibetans. Indeed, the traverse of this ‘Corridor’ sustains China’s control over the remote, ethnically and religiously different territories at her peripheral out-back. Later, as we shall see, contemporary geo-politics has made this ‘Corridor’ even more significant to China’s access to world power status.

The Karakoram Highway

The route along the East-West ‘Corridor’, connecting China’s ‘core’ area to Central Asia, had been trod over since times immemorial. This was also the main ‘silk route’ during the middle ages. During the later part of Nineteenth Century and the early Twentieth Century, parts of this route was gradually developed for motorable and rail traffic. After the Communist takeover at Beijing (Peking as it was called then), one of the first matters that drew their attention, besides the ‘integration’ of Tibet, was to further develop the road and rail communications over this ‘Corridor’, extend the roads branching off to the areas to the North and South of the ‘Corridor’, and so enforce their rule over these ‘peripheral’ areas. Thus by the mid-1950’s, the ruling-arm of China was well in control up to the Western limits of her East Turkmenistan – now Xinjiang – territory.

China’s decision to patronise Pakistan and start construction of the Karakoram Highway in 1959, to connect Kashgar to Islamabad, was a strategic master-stroke. It is not known whether it was a foresighted grand design devised by the Chinese geo-strategists - given her traditional wisdom, it could well be the case – or was it an event favoured by providence. The case for grand design becomes more apparent when viewed alongside her assumption of control over Pakistan’s ‘gift’ of India’s Shaksgam Valley (gift of a stolen item!) and surreptitious occupation of the Indian territory of Aksai Chin to provide depth to her yet intended ‘axis’ to the Arabian Sea – her geo-strategic ‘Corridor of Power Projection’ so to say. Whatever be the case, the fact remains that these decisions stand vindicated as a welcome stepping stone towards realisation of China’s dream of regaining her ‘Middle Kingdom’ status in the world.

Completed in 1979, the 1300 kilometre Highway takes off from Kashgar, crosses over the Karakoram Ranges through the Khunjerab Pass (15,400 feet), and skirts past the Nanga Parbat to run down along the Indus River Valley via the Pakistan occupied settlements of Hunza, Gilgit and Chilas. Emerging at the foothills of Abbotabad, the Highway finally meets the Islamabad – Peshawar – Kabul Road at Wah, strategically one of the two most significant communication hubs in central Pakistan. Added with alternate crossing over the Mintaka Pass and widened to 10 metres, the Highway was opened for commercial transportation in 1986. There is survey going on to lay a rail link astride this alignment which, demonstrative of the Chinese culture, is certain to be executed in good time. Since 2006, China has started work to further upgrade the Highway to six-lane specifications. It is on the strength of this Highway that China is a power for Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and India to contend with. It is this Highway that has actually found China her military foothold in the Pakistan Occupied Kashmir – a very significant event indeed. Obviously, it is only a matter of time before this ‘Corridor of Power Projection’ plays a major, if not dictatorial, role in the Indian Sub-continent and its neighbourhood.

The Gwadar Port

If the construction of Karakoram Highway was a contemporary version of the ‘Great Game’ of the mid-Nineteenth Century, its connectivity with the Gwadar Port on the Makran Coast of Pakistan’s Balochistan Province is a game even greater.

A small port-township of geographical significance, Gwadar was transferred to Pakistan by Muscat in 1958. Situated close to the Strait of Hormuz – the energy life-line of South and East Asia – and one hour’s drive from Pakistan-Iran Border, it had earlier served as a port of call for sea traffic steaming from Britain to her South and East Asian Colonies. During the 1971 Indo-Pakistan War, the Karachi based Pakistan Navy took shelter here to avoid the marauding Indian Navy and Indian Air Force, and thus struck the idea of developing Gwadar as a major port and a commercial hub, and of course, a naval base. Construction work was however slow to take off; it picked up pace in 2001 with China’s technical and financial assistance and started operation in 2008. A network of high classification roads connect Gwadar with Karachi, and through the Indus Valley Road to Western China and beyond. Presently, with one set of global issues coming upfront with Afghanistan and Iran, and another set of issues to contend with in the Central Asian States, the geo-strategic importance of Gwadar – and its Iranian counterpart, Chabahar - is mind boggling.

China has officially repudiated any suggestion of her eyeing Gwadar as a naval base for the ‘People’s Liberation Army Navy’ (PLAN). But the Chinese logic has a way to find synonymy in opposite meanings – a ‘naval facility’ could just do as much as a ‘naval base’.

The Lanzhou-Gwadar ‘Axis’

We have so far discussed the significance of the East-West ‘Corridor’ as an artery of China’s state-power over her ‘peripheral’ territories. We have also appreciated the role that the Karakoram Highway would play in regional affairs related to the Central and West Asia, thus upgrading the ‘Corridor of Power’ to a ‘Corridor of Power Projection’. Now, with its seamless connectivity to the Gwadar Port, this great ‘Axis’, traversing from East China Sea Coast to the mouth of the Gulf of Oman, would pave the way for China’s bid for world power status. Let us briefly see as to why it should be so.

The great overland ‘Axis’ connecting the ‘core’ areas of China to the Persian Gulf elevates China’s reckoning in geo-politics to a very significant level and offers great possibilities – good or bad as one chooses to view it – in regional matters. On a positive note, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran and India could be its direct beneficiaries through trade, tourism and harnessing of natural resources including energy, water and strategic minerals. No doubt, this ‘Axis’ could transform the poverty-ridden societies into happy ones, thus bringing about a state of regional inter-dependency for common good. Besides, it could only be a matter of time before the circle of beneficiaries could expand to include the West Asia-Middle East and the South-East Asia neighbourhood, and finally, attract the Western Powers in their quest to retain the economical lead that their societies have become so used to. The lead player in all this would, of course, be China on her way to her elevation to world power status that she is so keen to assume.

Currently, China continues to conform to showcase her rise to be a ‘peaceful’ one which may not cause any apprehension amongst her regional neighbours. It is averred that in the coming decades, the overland connectivity from Gwadar to Lanzhou and beyond would satiate China’s ever increasing demand for energy and raw materials. In other words, flow of resources from Africa, West Asia and Central Asia into China would dominate the role of this ‘Axis’. However, it is becoming apparent that the period of marking time till her economic and technological rise is firmly in place - in conformity to Deng Xiaoping’s ‘24 Character Strategy’ to “keep cool ..., be composed ..., hide capabilities and bide time ...“ - is nearing its end. This is evidenced by a growing school of hard-line strategist who cannot restrain themselves from adopting rather assertive, even threatening stance towards her neighbours on China Sea, Tibet and Indian Ocean. Given the Communist China’s affiliation to her imperial culture that is dictated by a sense of supreme superiority and predatory tendencies, there is every possibility that the Lanzhou-Gwadar Axis may turn out to be China’s hegemonic tool, an axis of political machinations, economic cartels and military arm-twisting. Therefore, rather than just being a conduit for inflow of resources into China, there is every possibility, nay certainty, that the ‘Axis’ would also transport China’s military belligerence the other way. Attraction of the Western Powers towards this region, as mentioned above, could also lead to emergence of ‘client states’ - as Pakistan is to the United States and China – that would add to the sinister competition. Inevitability of such a situation is a lesson of history.

A Geo-Strategic ‘Jaw’

This discussion would remain incomplete unless we look at another development of landmark dimensions – that is China’s quest for a position in the Indian Ocean. Indeed, the initiatives taken by her in finding footholds for her ‘peaceful’ shipping lanes, that is, her energy life-line, has generated much discussion – and subtle consternation - among the littoral states. No doubt, a situation wherein a blue water PLAN would majestically impose over the Indian Ocean while enjoying logistic facilities from the string of friendly ports – commonly referred to as the ‘string of pearls’ around the peninsular India – is yet far away. But it is inevitable.

Seen in wider perspective, the aforementioned Lanzhou-Karakoram Highway-Gwadar Port Axis appears to be an upper jaw while the ‘String of Pearls’ is the lower one, with mainland China as its pivot and the Gulf of Oman in its mouth. Between these two lie a host of nations trying to lift themselves up from a state of under-development. As to how this gigantic ‘Jaw’ would come handy in promoting harmony, development and friendship, or would it be used as a geo-strategic lever to torment smaller neighbours, is to be seen.

Whatever be the case, the Karakoram-Gwadar connection is a significant geo-strategic development. The soul of the Tang Dynasty General Gao Xianzhi, defeated by the Abbasid army in the Battle of Talas in AD 751, that put paid to China’s territorial expansion to the West Asia, may now be pleased!

Conclusion

Geo-Strategic developments are always twin purpose tools. If harnessed sagaciously, the Lounzhou-Gwadar Axis could make the region a better place to live. But alas, in the cauldron of international politics, noble considerations are invariably subsumed by a greed for more power, more consumption – and that at the cost of others. That is probably in human nature. But whatever be the case, as history teaches us, it is always advantageous to protect one’s peace and development by diplomatic arguments that is backed up with a stern military countenance.

Whether India is getting ‘surrounded’ or ‘embraced’, depends on her strategic wisdom.