Developing Leverages to Counter China’s Strategic Encirclement

China has for long seen India as a major competitor and has been engaged in the strategic encirclement of India through its proxies like Pakistan along India’s land borders and its string of pearls strategy in the northern Indian Ocean region. However, India had till recently adopted no pro-active measures to develop counter leverages of its own. This is now changing gradually as India has begun to reach out to its friends in Southeast Asia and further east along the Asia-Pacific rim as part of a carefully thought through strategy to develop some pressure points. The first step in the new “look east” policy is to propel India’s strategic partnership with Vietnam to a higher trajectory.

One month after China objected to oil exploration by India in the South China Sea under a contract awarded to the Indian state-owned company ONGC Videsh Ltd by the Vietnamese and three months after the Chinese navy warned Indian Naval Ship Airawat, which was sailing in international waters between the Vietnamese ports of Nha Trang and Hai Phong, to leave Chinese waters – a warning that INS Airawat ignored, India and Vietnam signed an agreement on energy cooperation. The agreement was signed during the visit of Vietnamese president Truong Tan Sang to New Delhi to further cement the India-Vietnamese strategic partnership. The two countries also decided to pursue a regular security dialogue, which has further incensed the Chinese.

The Global Times, a mouthpiece of the Communist Party of China, thundered: “China may consider taking actions to show its stance and prevent more reckless attempts in confronting China.” Earlier the paper had warned that prospecting for oil in China-claimed waters would “push China to the limits”. The relatively more moderate People’s Daily also did not mince words: “China must take practical and firm actions to make these projects fall through. China should denounce this agreement as illegal. Once India and Vietnam initiate their exploration, China can send non-military forces to disturb their work, and cause dispute or friction to halt the two countries’ exploration.”

The China Energy News said that “India is playing with fire by agreeing to explore for oil with Vietnam in the disputed South China Sea… its energy strategy is slipping into an extremely dangerous whirlpool.” Such a jingoistic campaign has not been launched by the Chinese media against India in recent times. Chinese analysts are perhaps unaware that ONGC’s association with Vietnam for oil and gas exploration goes back 23 years. For the time being India has chosen to ignore Chinese warnings and continue its activities in accordance with the contract signed by ONGC Videsh with Vietnam.
Recent news reports have suggested that India is considering the sale of the non-nuclear BrahMos supersonic cruise missiles to Vietnam. The geo-political implications of India’s enhanced strategic cooperation are not lost on anyone. Some Indian analysts have gone to the extent of saying that India should project Vietnam as “India’s Pakistan” in its quest to develop leverages against China as Vietnam offers India an entry point through which it can “penetrate China’s periphery.”

Clearly, as India begins to flex its maritime muscles, the footprints of the navies and the merchant fleets of both the countries will criss-cross each other in future and there is need for a serious dialogue to avoid clashes. Also, arrangements for security will need to be made in consultation with the government concerned so that Indian assets being employed for legitimate commercial purposes are not vandalised or destroyed by either adversary states or state-sponsored terrorists who can operate with plausible deniability.

A Marshall Plan for South Asia

The war of words between the United States and Pakistan in recent weeks has put in stark relief the two core strategic conundrums Washington has vis-à-vis Islamabad, as well as the integral role India plays in both of them. The first is to encourage a more constructive Pakistani approach in Afghanistan, which Islamabad regards as a theater for its endemic rivalry with New Delhi. The second is to steer a nuclear-armed but deeply dysfunctional Pakistan away from failed state status, a harrowing prospect that many believe is all too plausible unless Islamabad is convinced that its prospering neighbor to the East actually represents an economic opportunity rather than an existential threat.

The Obama administration entered office believing that Pakistani cooperation on Afghanistan was a function of addressing its acute security anxieties regarding India. Two weeks before the November 2008 election, Barack Obama declared that resolving the perennially-inflamed dispute over the Kashmir region was one of the “critical tasks” for U.S. foreign policy and worthy of “serious diplomatic resources.” It was a valid observation but the manner in which Washington pursued it guaranteed a quick failure. Moves to appoint a turbo-charged envoy (in the person of Richard Holbrooke) with the mandate of mediating the Kashmir issue– similar to U.S. efforts to broker the Middle East peace talks – met with Pakistani approval but proved too much for the sovereignty-conscious Indians to accept.

For the past three years, Washington has struggled to find a way to bring the two sides together and focus them on their common interests. Fortunately, the parties may have found one themselves. Despite the obvious displays of mutual suspicion in both capitals, a consensus is growing in the two countries – especially evident in their business communities – that the time has come for a more normalized relationship.

After a three-year hiatus caused by the 2008 terrorist strikes in Mumbai, India and Pakistan have restarted their peace dialogue. In July, Pakistan’s new foreign minister, the 34-year-old Hina Rabbani Khar, held unexpectedly warm talks in New Delhi, where she emphasized that a “mind-set change” was occurring among younger Indians and Pakistanis. Last month, for the first time in 35 years, Pakistan’s commerce minister visited New Delhi, bringing with him a notably large business delegation. The trip was especially productive. The two countries pledged to more than double their two-way trade flows – to the $6 billion annual level – by 2015. They agreed to ease visa rules for business travel and to open a new customs post at the Wagah border crossing that lies midway between Lahore and Amritsar. Islamabad also committed to extending “most favored nation” trade status to New Delhi, reciprocating the status India earlier conferred upon Pakistan. This last development promises to enliven the 2006 South Asia Free Trade Agreement which up until this point has been all but a dead letter. India’s commerce minister, Anand Sharma, captured the spirit of the meeting when he exclaimed that “only shared prosperity can bring lasting peace.”

The annals of India-Pakistan relations are filled with numerous false dawns and the current moves toward greater economic engagement could well founder upon the sharp historical animosities that regularly bedevil bilateral affairs. But things may be different this time. Reports out of Islamabad indicate that the Pakistani government realizes the country is in desperate economic straits and that closer ties with India constitute a much needed lifeline. The military establishment is also said to understand that the eastern border needs to be stabilized so resources can be focused on combating rising internal security threats.

If enhanced trade ties were to develop between South Asia’s largest economies, they would produce significant economic and (eventually) security dividends for both countries. Despite the common civilizational and historical bonds that permeate South Asia, as well as the unified market forged by the British Raj, the region today is remarkably fragmented economically. Trade flows between India and Pakistan, for instance, represent a miniscule fraction of each country’s overall trade portfolio.

Wagah is the only vehicle crossing along the 1,800-mile-long international border. The two-lane road there is only open a mere eight hours a day and the cargo that passes through it must be unloaded and transferred to local trucks. Indeed, the crossing, which some refer to as the “Checkpoint Charlie of South Asia,” is better known for the Kabuki-like displays put on by the border guards than as an efficient transit point.

The pervasive barriers to bilateral economic cooperation have also spurred circuitous and highly inefficient trade patterns. A booming India requires cement for its construction sector yet is forced to import it from Africa instead of Pakistan, where the cement industry has excess capacity. Off-the-books trade – the value of which easily rivals official levels – is also conducted via third countries like Dubai, Singapore and Afghanistan. According to various studies, a more liberalized trade regime would increase bilateral exchange at least 20 times above current figures as well as boost economic prosperity in both countries.

The Obama administration would do well to reinforce the current stirrings by launching a Marshall Plan-like initiative geared toward the expansion of cross-border economic linkages between the two countries. One of the keys to the Marshall Plan’s far-reaching success was the major financial inducement it gave European countries devastated by World War II to frame their economic futures in conjunction with their neighbors. By putting an emphasis on reconstruction projects that crossed national frontiers, it was an important catalyst for the historic reconciliation between France and Germany and paved the way for the deep economic integration embodied in today’s European Union.

A similar vision should inspire a U.S. effort to bolster cross-border economic cooperation between India and Pakistan. This initiative would be aimed at helping the two countries, on a joint basis, upgrade and expand the meager transportation infrastructure presenting connecting them. It would support projects that increase road and rail linkages, as well as the number and capacity of customs posts. It would help provide resources for modernized seaport facilities that enable more two-way trade. And with each country plagued by chronic power shortages, it would help bankroll cross-border energy projects such as joint electrical grids or the proposed natural gas pipeline connecting Central and South Asia via Afghanistan.

This effort would dovetail well with the “New Silk Road” initiative that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced in Chennai this past July, to foster the economic integration of Central and South Asia. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who was born in what is now Pakistan, has spoken eloquently of the powerful role stronger economic linkages can play in bridging South Asia’s deep political fissures. In early 2007, he spelled out his vision for regional integration:

I dream of a day when, while retaining our respective identities, one can have breakfast in Amritsar, lunch in Lahore and dinner in Kabul. That was how my forefathers lived. That is how I want our grandchildren to live.”

For his part, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has even expressed the hope that India and Pakistan could one day join together in an economically-unified zone like the EU.

The original Marshall Plan entailed a staggering sum of money – well over $100 billion in today’s terms – and an austerity-minded U.S. Congress would certainly balk at any scheme with a similar price tag. But the initiative outlined here need only entail a modest level of expenditures – say, $50-75 million per year over a five-year period – and could be paid for by redirecting funding already authorized under the 2009 Enhanced Partnership with Pakistan Act. Better known as the Kerry-Lugar-Berman bill, the act provides $1.5 billion annually in non-military assistance to Pakistan through 2013. But due to a variety of factors, much of its economic development funds remain unspent.

To avoid potential concerns in New Delhi and Islamabad that Washington might try to extract diplomatic concessions from specific funding decisions, resources could be routed through the World Bank or the Asian Development Bank, where professional staff would assess the viability and impact of proposals submitted jointly by the two countries and make final judgments on which projects go forward. Additional countries, such as those assembled by Secretary Clinton in New York last month to discuss the New Silk Road plan, also could be invited to contribute resources.

Obviously, this initiative offers no magic bullet for transforming the singular intensity of the India-Pakistan strategic rivalry. But it would be a creative investment in nurturing promising developments already underway in both countries, which if they take root over the long term would help lead to a game-changing situation in South Asia: One in which Islamabad looks upon New Delhi more as a partner than as an outright enemy. If such a development came to pass, U.S. interests in the region would be vastly easier to safeguard than they are today.

China is Emerging as a Water Hegemon in Asia

A crisis of gargantuan proportions with unprecedented geo-political repercussions is gradually taking shape in Asia. Tibet is the source of several large Asian rivers. The Indus River with its source in Tibet flows through India and Pakistan; the Brahmaputra (known as the Yarlung Tsangpo in Tibet) flows from Tibet through India and Bangladesh; and, the Sutlej flows through India into Pakistan. From its source in Tibet, the Salween enters Yunnan in China and then flows through Myanmar, finally forming the border between Myanmar and Thailand. Originating on the Tibetan Plateau, the Mekong River, which is the heart and soul of mainland Southeast Asia, flows through Yunnan, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. Similarly, the Amur, Illy, and Irtysh rivers flow through Russia and Central Asia.

Amazingly, contrary to good international practices, as the upper riparian state with physical possession of the headwaters of Asia’s major rivers, China has not entered into equitable international agreements with any of the lower riparian states the lives and livelihood of whose people depend on the uninterrupted flow of these rivers. And, to confound matters even further, news reports keep surfacing with alarming regularity about China’s plans to divert the waters of some of these rivers to make up for the declining water levels in the rapidly drying up rivers in the heartland of China. These include the Yangtze River, which too originates in Tibet, and the Huang He (formerly Howang Ho or Yellow River, also called ‘China’s Sorrow’).

According to Indian analyst Brahma Chellaney, “China rejects the very notion of water sharing or institutionalised cooperation with downriver countries… Whereas riparian neighbours in Southeast and South Asia are bound by water pacts that they have negotiated between themselves, China does not have a single water treaty with any co-riparian country.” Only recently China has begun to selectively share ‘flow statistics’ with the lower riparians. However, Chellaney is of the view that “these are not agreements to cooperate on shared resources, but rather commercial accords to sell hydrological data that other upstream countries provide free to downriver states.”

China’s diabolical plans to divert the waters of the Brahmaputra and other rivers to the deficient Yangtze River along the ‘Great Western Route’, though officially denied, will cause untold misery to the downstream populations of many Asian countries, including India and Bangladesh. According to Tibetan data, 10 dams have already been completed on the Brahmaputra, three others are under construction, seven new dams are under active consideration and eight more have been proposed.

Satellite images reveal that plans are proceeding at a rapid pace to construct a 38,000 megawatt dam at Metog (Motuo in Chinese) on the Brahmaputra. The project will be double the size of the Three Gorges Dam, which has caused immense environmental damage.  This project on the ‘Great Bend’ of the river will result in a large dam with serious seismological repercussions as the Himalayas are young mountains with frequent earthquakes. China is also planning to construct a hydro-electric power project at Dadiqua. This project will exploit the natural 2,500 metres drop in the river and will not need a large dam.

Run-of-the-river projects, like the one proposed to be constructed at Dadiqua, will not materially affect the lower riparians, but large dams with plans for the diversion of water to areas on mainland China will have serious implications for the people downstream. It is in the interest of China as well as the lower riparian nations to enter into multilateral river water sharing agreements in keeping with international norms and practices. So far, China has steadfastly refused to enter into any such agreements. Contrary to its self-professed ‘peaceful rise’, China is pursuing hegemonic tendencies that are a sure recipe for instability that may ultimately lead to conflict.

Continuing Turmoil in Gilgit-Baltistan

Reports of a major Chinese presence in the Gilgit-Baltistan area have been pouring in. While Selig Harrison of the New York Times put the figure at 11,000, the Indian Army Chief said recently that about 4,000 Chinese workers, many of them PLA soldiers, are engaged in construction and mining activities in the Northern Areas. This unprecedented Chinese presence is being deeply resented by the local people.

The Gilgit Agency and Baltistan in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK), that now comprise the Northern Areas, were part of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) at the time of partition. The woes of the people of the Northern Areas began on November 4, 1947, soon after J&K acceded to India in terms of the Independence of India Act. A young British major who was commanding the Gilgit Scouts overstepped his authority and illegally declared the accession of the Northern Areas to Pakistan. It shall remain one of the quirks of history that a Major of the British Raj could violate good order and military discipline and seal the fate of the people of an area almost as large as England.

Since then, the people of the Northern Areas have been denied all fundamental and political rights by Pakistan just like the Kashmiris in the rest of POK. They had for long been governed with an iron hand by a Federal Minister for Kashmir Affairs and Northern Areas nominated from Islamabad and supported by the Pakistan army. Now, while the Governor is still appointed by the president of Pakistan, there is a Legislative Assembly with 24 members. The Assembly elects a Chief Minister. The judiciary still exists only in name and civil administration is virtually non-existent. The result has been that almost no development has taken place and the people live poverty stricken lives without even a semblance of health care and with only primitive educational facilities based primarily on madrasas run by Islamist fundamentalists.

These simple and hardy people have never reconciled themselves to their second-class status and have for long resented the tyrannical attitude of the Pakistan government. Consequently, there have been frequent riots and uprisings. The most violent political outbursts took place in 1971, 1988 and 1997. In fact, it was General Pervez Musharraf, then a brigadier commanding the Special Service Group (SSG) commandos, who had been handpicked to put down a Shia uprising in Gilgit in 1988. He let loose Wahabi Pakhtoon tribesmen from the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) on the hapless protestors. These tribesmen invaded Gilgit and went on a deliberately unchecked rampage. They lynched and burnt people to death, indulged in loot, rape and arson, ransacked houses and destroyed standing crops and left the area smoldering for years.

The Pakistan army used the people of the Northern Areas as cannon fodder during the 1999 conflict with India. It refused to acknowledge the contribution of the Northern Light Infantry (NLI) battalions to Operation Badr. Of the 772 Pakistani soldiers, including 69 officers and 76 SSG personnel, who laid down their lives for a militarily futile venture, almost 80 percent belonged to NLI battalions. Of these, over 200 were buried with military honours by the Indian army in graves at heights ranging from 15,000 to 17,000 feet because the Pakistan army had refused to take their bodies back. The people of the Northern Areas were extremely agitated by these developments.

The simmering discontent of the last 60 years and deep resentment against being treated as second-class citizens has led to a widespread demand for the state of Balawaristan. The people are demanding genuine democratic rule and the right to govern themselves. A large number of influential leaders of the Northern Areas have buried their political differences and joined hands to form the Balawaristan National Front (BNF), with its head office at Majini Mohalla, Gilgit.

Though some sops are now being offered to them, the people of the Northern Areas are completely disenchanted. Their alienation from the Pakistan mainstream is too deep to be ever reconciled and Balawaristan is quite obviously an idea they will pursue vigorously.

Afghanistan Antagonists

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Afghan President Hamid Karzai

India has begun maneuvering to fill the potential power vacuum in Afghanistan.

As an earlier post argued, the quickening U.S. disengagement from the Afghan conflict that President Obama signaled four months ago will inevitably spark an intense regional scrimmage for influence as that country’s neighbors scramble to fill the resulting vacuum. The last few weeks have witnessed India making its opening moves in this jockeying by signing a strategic partnership agreement with Afghanistan and by repairing strained relations with Iran.

The strategic partnership that India and Afghanistan sealed last week – the first of its kind that Kabul has entered into – will significantly enhance New Delhi’s profile in Afghanistan. The arrangement provides for increased cooperation in counter-terrorism operations, as well as for expanded Indian training and equipping of Afghan security forces. It opens the development of Afghanistan’s mineral wealth (which may be worth nearly $1 trillion) and newly-discovered hydrocarbon resources to Indian companies. New Delhi also pledged to work with Iran to develop trade routes to Afghanistan that bypass Pakistan. Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who signed the agreement during a two-day trip to New Delhi – his second visit this year – praised India as a “steadfast friend and supporter” of his country, while Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh promised that India would “stand by the people of Afghanistan” even after the 2014 pull-out of U.S. and NATO forces.

Although Karzai insists that the partnership is not directed against Pakistani interests, it coincides with a serious deterioration of relations between Kabul and Islamabad. In the past week, the Afghan government has accused Pakistan of being behind the September 20th assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani, Karzai’s chief envoy to the fledgling peace negotiations with the Taliban, as well as a foiled plot to kill Karzai himself. Standing in New Delhi, Karzai termed Pakistan a “twin brother” to his own country, but that was hardly enough to disguise the fact that his government was openly spurning Pakistan’s professions of friendship in favor of a wide-ranging covenant with its arch-nemesis.

The partnership underscores that New Delhi, unlike Washington, has no exit strategy in Afghanistan. Since the start of the Afghan conflict ten years ago this month, India has emerged as the country’s largest regional donor. It has invested more than $1 billion in assistance, mainly in infrastructure and development projects, including constructing the new parliament building in Kabul. It has also undertaken small-scale training of the country’s police, army leadership and bureaucrats. Prime Minister Singh traveled to Kabul this past May seeking to broaden India’s engagement. There he unveiled a significant expansion of Indian aid, committing an additional $500 million over the next few years.

Besides shoring up the precarious Karzai government, New Delhi is also moving to patch up strategic ties with Tehran, whose interests in Afghanistan are roughly congruent. India has traditionally relied upon Iran to help blunt Pakistan’s influence in Central Asia and to serve as a bridge to trade and energy opportunities there.  Relations between New Delhi and Tehran have been strained for the past few years as India, at America’s behest, supported several international censures of the Iranian nuclear weapons program. Prime Minister Singh turned down a number of invitations for a state visit to Tehran, and his government engaged in a convoluted exercise to avoid having Indian payments for crucial energy imports from Iran run afoul of U.S. sanctions against Tehran.

Yet the prospect of a geopolitical vacuum in Afghanistan is driving the two countries closer again. Singh met with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly annual conclave in New York last month and pointedly accepted a renewed invitation to visit Tehran in the near future. The two countries have also established a new payments mechanism for Iranian oil exports and are setting up a joint commission to explore even closer economic and security links.

Pakistan has long considered Afghanistan to be its strategic backyard. With so much of its national security posture driven by an obsessive focus on India, Islamabad is bound to regard New Delhi’s growing involvement there as a grave provocation. Pakistan regularly charges (see here and here) that India is using its large diplomatic presence in Afghanistan to funnel covert support to separatists in the restive province of Baluchistan, and the new India-Afghanistan partnership will be taken as further confirmation that New Delhi is intent on encircling and dissecting the country. Likewise, the renewed coordination between New Delhi and Tehran will be interpreted as a return to the role they played a decade, when their support for the Northern Alliance helped frustrate the Taliban regime. (Indeed, there are increasing signs that the remnants of the old anti-Taliban movement are being reconstituted.)

Given the region’s geopolitical dynamics, India has strong strategic interests in ensuring that any government in Kabul is capable enough to be a bulwark against Pakistan. And so India’s maneuvers are predictable enough. Inevitable, too, is the blowback from Islamabad. The nascent thaw in bilateral relations that has developed in the wake of the mid-July visit to New Delhi by Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar is now in jeopardy. Also expect increased attacks by Pakistan-based jihadis targeting Indian interests in Afghanistan, like the bombings of the Indian embassy in Kabul in July 2008 that killed 58 people, including the Indian defense attaché, and in October 2009 that left 17 Afghans dead.