Economic
Highlights
New Delhi, 30 November 20014
China ‘Intrudes’ SAARC
By
Shivaji Sarkar
It is aggression beyond borders.
Chinese moves are calculated to outdo India. It has virtually captured
ASEAN and now through Pakistan
wants to strengthen its presence in the Indian sub-continental market known as
SAARC.
The game had
started at Addu in Maldives,
where China increased its
presence and has been successful in replacing some Indian companies in the
infrastructure and some other sectors in Maldives.
The last
SAARC summit held at Maldives in 2011, under the then Prime Minister Manmohan
Singh, saw poor Indian diplomacy failing to resist secret Chinese hands in the
draft of Addu the 20 point declaration that adopted the declaration to “undertake a comprehensive review of all matters relating to SAARC's
engagement with Observers, including the question of dialogue partnership”.
The previous
government could not prevent Chinese machinations in the sub-continental issues.
Pakistan, in many ways
emerging as a vassal of China,
has carried the mission further at Kathmandu to seek elevation of China and South Korea to either a full member
or a dialogue partner. The SAARC has nine observers – Australia, China,
EU, Iran, Japan, Mauritius,
Myanmar, South Korea and the US.
Even Sri
Lanka President Mahinda Rajpaksa wants greater engagement with observers, an
oblique reference to China, with Sri Lanka is not only having trade links but
even military ties. Sri Lanka
has granted
Chinese State-owned companies operating rights to four berths at the Hambantota
port.
Having lost
grounds to Chinese lobbying at Addu, in reality, the SAARC has yielded to it
further by accepting at Kathmandu that
observer countries of SAARC may be engaged in “demand-driven priorities”. It
paves way for further Chinese incursion in a 1.6 billion-strong South Asian
market and by its trade and maritime interests in the Indian
Ocean. It should be a concern as it impinges on India’s efforts to create ‘make in India” and
increase its trade.
It appears
Pakistan has played its card well not only to play for its ally China but also
use the forum more for political purposes in stalling two agreements on road and
rail connectivity. Its reluctance to come on board also signalled
its persisting resistance to India
expanding its economic engagement with Afghanistan.
While
transportation of goods and passenger by road between India and Afghanistan
through Pakistan is opposed
by the associations of truck and bus operators in Pakistan
for the fear of losing business, the difficulty arises from strategic
calculations of blocking India
from emerging as a competitor to Pakistan
in Afghanistan.
In reality,
even Pakistan granting the
most favoured nation (MFN) status to India is rhetoric. Trade engagement
with Pakistan
remains at a low level. The formal trade between India
and Pakistan
has increased from $ 144 million in 2001 to $ 2.7 billion till early 2012. It
is a mere 0.09 per cent of India’s
total trade and 0.99 per cent of Pakistan’s.
India wants the
sub-continent to be the connecting point between the East and West, including Central Asia. Pakistan wants to resist it and for
now has been successful by blocking the rail and road connectivity proposals. Such a refusal makes it slightly difficult for Prime Minister Narendra
Modi to make South Asia a viable economic counterweight to China and limit Beijing's role in the region. Regional
integration would happen “through SAARC or outside it”, Modi warned the summit,
if the grouping failed to agree on the pacts.
Despite a free trade pact since 2006, trade among
South Asian nations makes up five percent of their total trade. They share few
transport and power links. India
has increased its transport linkages with Bangladesh,
Nepal, Sri Lanka and even Pakistan despite its
resistance.
China, free of the baggage, has built
ports and sold weapons across South Asia, where its new Asian Investment
Infrastructure Bank has attracted interest, including from India. Through Pakistan, China suggested it play a larger
role in the regional grouping, but Modi has prevented it for now.
It needs to be glossed how SAARC could become more
effective link in the region as ASEAN has become in south-east Asia. Pakistan
is surviving on anti-India sentiments. It could not be allowed to block integration
of the region.
It calls for a new Indian diplomacy to engage the
countries of the region through flow of investments and financial arrangements.
Modi has made a beginning by involving Bhutan,
Bangladesh, Nepal and Afghanistan. He has to look at Sri Lanka and Maldives
also and integrate Myanmar
into the regional bonding. It is the hope for largest populated region having
the highest number of poor people.
Modi expressed the concerns as he asked “Is it
because we are stuck behind the walls of our differences and hesitant to move
out the shadows of the past?”. Modi understands the region needs the
association to counter terrorism, though this too was stalled by Pakistan, and ameliorate the conditions of the
people, greater people-to people link through forming a regional
economic community in the coming 15 years as declared in Kathmandu.
The
Kathmandu Declaration, which the summit produced, lists a lot of other lofty
goals like developing a "blue economy" (ocean-based economy) for the
region, monitoring cyber crimes, good governance, reinforcing cultural
heritage, universal health coverage, and food security. Western observers are
circumspect as also happy because it makes the region dependent on others. Modi
has to provide the leadership to create feeling of oneness among the people of
sub-continent and fight their battle together.
Sharing of
electricity through a regional power grid has achieved a bit of the objectives
of creating a common interest that is like to bind the countries together. The
agreement has isolated Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to an extent.
The region’s
“acchhe din”(better days) could not be a
pawn in the hands of Pakistan
and China.
Modi has to steer the people through intensification of regional contacts and
subtle diplomacy to achieve the goal. It requires multi-tasking through a slew
of measures and engagement at all levels including economy and security to
bring the rest of SAARC minus Pakistan
closer.---INFA
(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)
|