AN optimal handling of the neighbourhood is a major challenge confronting the Indian foreign policy establishment. This is particularly so due to the presence next door of a powerful state. It is plausible to argue that the days of exclusive spheres of influence are over, even though some votaries of realpolitik may find this a defeatist assertion. Though a major power may be better placed than other powers in a particular region because of proximity, power equations, historical links, economic and cultural factors and so on, it has to leverage this advantageous position with skill. Any attempt to impose its will could be counter-productive because, barring exceptions, even the weakest of states have multiple options. In the case of India, there is always the possibility of its neighbours turning to China as a countervailing power. But the problem is even more complex. The very fact that India is so much more powerful than them can prompt neighbours to look for an external balancer.

Clearly, it is both morally right and politically sound to base India’s relations with even the smallest of her neighbours on the principle of mutual respect and equality. This does not mean naïve surrender of India’s interests. There will, alas, be occasions when the political leadership of one or the other country would be obsessively committed to an anti-Indian policy framework, even when it is demonstrably against its interests, rationally conceived. In such cases, India would have no option but to take firm but fair measures to protect its own interests.

This might sometimes play into China’s hands. But as Sino-Indian relations have improved, China has realized that it is in its long-term interests to recognize Indian compulsions, and not encourage needless anti-Indian behaviour. So one can put forward the proposition: if India’s relations are simultaneously bad with China and some small neighbour, the relationship tends to acquire a distinct anti-Indian hue; if, however, India’s relations with China are good, it reduces the anti-Indian content of that relationship.

Some analysts are so accustomed to see India-China relations as one continuous zero-sum game that every development on India’s neighbourhood is interpreted as either a Chinese gain and an Indian loss or vice versa. Of course, with each state pursuing its own interests, there is bound to be a fair degree of competition. But in the complex real world there will be developments which have negative or positive implications for both India and China at the same time. Broadly speaking, it is in the interest of both countries that their neighbourhood remains peaceful and stable. The descent of any nearby country into – using currently fashionable vocabulary – ‘a failed state’ or, probably worse, ‘a rogue state’ would present a foreign policy nightmare to both.

One other commonsense proposition needs to be made simply because it is so often ignored by those who see every Chinese move in the region surrounding India as necessarily targeted at India. Some elements of China’s relations with these countries are part of normal inter-state transactions; some of the other Chinese moves relate to her different interests and not necessarily to India, at least not primarily so.

 

Let us now apply these propositions to ground realities as they have evolved in our neighbourhood. In the worst period of India-China relations – the 1960s and early 1970s – China seemed to go out of its way to build linkages with India’s neighbours to fit them into a larger anti-Indian design. It was liberal in the use of phrases like ‘hegemony’, ‘big nation chauvinism’ and ‘expansionism’ to describe India’s approach to its smaller neighbours.

Of all the Chinese involvements with the subcontinent, it is Sino-Pak relations that have undoubtedly presented the most serious challenge for Indian policy-makers. This ‘time-tested, all-weather’ relationship – with a prominent military aid component – acquired a solid foundation in the early 1960s, courtesy shared hostility to India. For more than four decades when so much else on the international stage witnessed profound changes, Beijing-Islamabad bonds have remained close. China extended strong political support to Pakistan during the Indo-Pak conflicts of 1965 and 1971, but did not resort to direct military intervention. However, a failure to prevent the break-up of Pakistan may have been a factor in China yielding to Pakistan’s pleas for transfer of nuclear and missile technology.

 

An improvement in India-China bilateral relations, which accelerated after Rajiv Gandhi’s visit to China in December 1988, also had a spin-off effect on Sino-Pak relations. Even during the temporary dip in Sino-Indian relations following Indian nuclear tests in 1998, the Chinese, with an eye on the long-term implications, decided against a pronounced pro-Pakistan or anti-India tilt on the Kashmir issue. As the Kargil conflict escalated, in May 1999, Beijing made a special effort to appear as even-handed as possible. This could not have been of much comfort to Pakistan. Nevertheless strong links between the two countries continue, of which building the Gwadar deep-sea port is the latest manifestation. The Gwadar Port serves important interests of both Pakistan and China. To Pakistan, it provides strategic depth, reducing its dependence on the Karachi naval base that proved so vulnerable to India’s superior naval might. To China it provides an additional facility which could be particularly handy as it moves towards building a blue water navy. Perhaps more importantly, it would be a critical staging junction in an overland route via the Khunjerab Pass in the Karakoram for Chinese exports and imports, above all for energy supplies from the Persian Gulf.

 

China, like India – indeed like most countries in the world – has viewed the rise of Islamic extremism in Pakistan and the terrorism it has generated with deep apprehension. While China generally eschews any critical comments on developments within countries it regards as friendly, it went public last year with its demand that greater security be provided to 5000 or so Chinese nationals living in Pakistan with an increasing number of its citizens being targeted by Islamist militants. There is a widely held belief that the crackdown on the militants holed up in the Lal Masjid was in response to Chinese pressure.

During discussions at an influential Chinese think tank last May, when the author was in Beijing with a delegation of Indian scholars, he and his colleagues were asked about their assessment of ‘increasing Talibanization’ in Pakistan. As the domestic situation in Pakistan deteriorated last year, it is almost certain that the Chinese were as worried as everyone else about the danger of Pakistan’s nuclear assets falling into the hands of the extremists.

In case of China there are two other sources of Pakistan-based dangers (i) the links between some elements in Pakistan and the Uighur militants of Xinjiang which borders Pakistan; and (ii) the anger of Balochi nationalists who are unhappy with Chinese involvement in the construction of Gwadar and other projects in Balochistan which they regard as an attempt by the central government to colonize them and their natural resources.

It is reasonable to assume that the Chinese must be relieved by the relatively peaceful elections in Pakistan and its results, but like everybody else they will watch future developments with a mixture of hope and anxiety.

 

There was a period of time in the late 1960s and early ’70s when India was almost as concerned about Sino-Nepalese relations as the Sino-Pak axis. India’s relations with both China and Nepal nose-dived at more or less the same time. King Mahendra dismissed the Nepali Congress government in December 1960, an action that India saw as being both anti-Indian and anti-democratic. This was China’s opportunity. It moved in with generous offers of aid, including the building of a road which would eventually connect Lhasa to Kathmandu. Clearly the initial Chinese objective was a strategic one; the economic benefits would be a welcome spin-off.

King Mahendra was hailed by the Chinese as ‘an outstanding statesman’ and praised for pursuing ‘a policy of independence, peace and neutrality.’ A standard formula was evolved, to be repeated on every occasion: ‘resolute support to Nepal’s just struggle against foreign interference and in defence of national independence and state sovereignty.’ And, in a not so subtle reminder that Nepal need not be overawed by India’s size, it was occasionally mentioned that this resolute support came from (the then) ‘650, 000,000 Chinese people.’ Emboldened by its evolving relationship with China, Nepal persuaded India in 1969-70 to withdraw the Indian Military Liaison Group and Indian personnel from check posts along the Nepal-Tibet border.

Apart from neutralizing the preferential presence which India had earlier enjoyed, China’s main concern in building up its relations with Nepal was to ensure that no other external power could use Nepal as a base for destabilizing the situation in Tibet.

Mahendra died in January 1972. His son and successor Birendra was, if anything, even keener to use the China card in dealing with India. Chinese aid came into new sectors. In what was perceived in Delhi as a brazen disregard of India’s security interests, Nepal even acquired arms from China.

 

However, the limits of Sino-Nepalese partnership gradually became apparent. The sheer facts of geography dictate that China cannot replace India’s role in Nepal’s economic well-being. For China to even attempt to do so would be an overly expensive proposition and Nepal’s trade with Tibet remains a minute fraction of its trade with India. In any case, as Sino-Indian relations gradually improved in the 1980s, China became less inclined to make any extravagant investments in Nepal. Further, Chinese focus on its own modernization dictated new priorities.

China had yet another reason to be more cautious. It was obvious that the movement for the restoration of democracy in Nepal enjoyed popular support and was not simply the result of some Indian machination. As in the case of the popular upsurge in East Pakistan in 1971, China would have been conscious of the fact that India was on the side of the great majority of the people while China was in danger of being perceived as allied to an unpopular ruler.

In the old days any mention of Maoists in Nepal (or for that matter in India) would automatically, and rightly, have been associated with China’s revolutionary foreign policy under Mao. In China today ‘Maoism’ is obsolete and official policy steers clear from militancy abroad by self-proclaimed Maoists. But, of course, now that the Maoists in Nepal are part of the mainstream, the Chinese would have no problem in associating with them along with the rest of the ruling parties.

What comes across from China’s relations with both Pakistan and Nepal is that it deals with the government of the day. It makes no comments on the internal affairs of either, other than in general and diplomatic terms, consistent with its oft-reiterated and useful principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of another state. This same principle has stood it in particular good stead in interacting with changing political regimes in Bangladesh.

 

In contrast to Pakistan and Nepal, China does not share a land border with Bangladesh. Apart from a small stretch of the border with Burma, Bangladesh is surrounded by India on its east, west and north, and on the south the Indian naval presence dominates the Bay of Bengal. However, the geo-strategic position of Bangladesh is characterized by three additional important facts which India has always to bear in mind: with a population of around 150 million, Bangladesh is not, by any means, a small country; second, a friendly Bangladesh is important for unhindered access to Northeast India through the narrow Siliguri corridor; and, finally, China is not a distant neighbour of Bangladesh, because between the north-west corner of Bangladesh and the southern most point of Tibet’s Chumbi valley lies this very Siliguri corridor.

The transition of China from a country that strenuously opposed the birth of Bangladesh to its present status as perhaps its closest partner is a commentary alike on Beijing’s nimble-footed diplomacy and the perennial quest of some South Asian countries to seek a countervailing power against India. By the mid-1980s, China had cemented the relationship with numerous trade and cultural agreements and construction projects. More worrisome for India, it also became Bangladesh’s primary supplier of military equipment and training. Various elements of military cooperation were put into the context of an ‘umbrella defence agreement’ signed between the two countries during the last visit to Beijing of the then Prime Minister, Khaleda Zia.

Further, as China looks at the possibilities of a naval presence in the Indian Ocean, the port of Chittagong – where it is developing a container port facility – and the long Bangladesh coastline along the Bay of Bengal offer enticing possibilities.

 

Though strategic considerations have played a role in the evolution of Sino-Bangladesh relations, unlike the relationship with Pakistan for long periods of time and with Nepal at one stage, it has not been publicly projected in an anti-Indian framework. Further, much of the Sino-Bangladesh relationship is of the normal inter-state kind, unrelated to whatever policy they may have pursued vis-à-vis India at any given time.

The same applies to Sri Lanka’s relations with China. Way back in 1952, the intensely anti-Communist UNP government signed the famous rubber-for-rice agreement with China. The end of 1976 found China as Sri Lanka’s leading trade partner. It also provided Sri Lanka interest free loans to finance agro-based industries and a textile mill. It gifted five high-speed boats. As in the case of Bangladesh, China also became a major arms supplier to Sri Lanka. Though every now and then some Indian analyst expresses deep concern at the ‘profound’ implications of these transfers for India’s security, in most cases Sri Lanka went to China or Pakistan or any other party only when India regretted its inability or unwillingness to be the supplier.

 

In dealing with its ‘troubled neighbourhood’ India often faces dilemmas which China does not, dilemmas that arise from the fact that India has an ethnic overlap with all its South Asian neighbours. This has been a particularly critical factor in determining the mode of reaction to the internal strife in Sri Lanka. It is obvious that the self-restraint, which India has exercised in recent years while responding to pleas for help from Colombo in its conflict with Tamil Tigers, arises from the concern about likely reaction in Tamil Nadu.

As in case of Bangladesh, China is involved in a commercial port project in Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka hopes that Hambantota port, 240 kilometres south of Colombo, will become a major trans-shipment hub. Predictably, China’s role in the Hambantota project has disturbed some security experts in India. However, there are others who do not share this concern. They point out that India already has a sizable presence in Trincomalee on Sri Lanka’s northeast coast. According to them, geographic proximity, ethnic links and close ties between India and Sri Lanka cannot be eroded by a few projects and agreements with other countries.

The Hambantota port project is the latest in a series of steps that China has taken in recent years to consolidate its access to the Indian Ocean and to secure sea lanes through which its energy supplies are transported. It has adopted what analysts describe as a ‘string of pearls’ strategy, building strategic relationships with countries along sea lanes from the Middle East to the South China Sea.

 

China as a significant actor in the Indian Ocean is a relatively new phenomenon. There was a time when our major concern was the presence in the Indian Ocean not of China but of western navies led by the USA (recall Indian criticism of US presence in Diego Garcia). For a variety of reasons one hears little today about the problem posed by American presence in the Indian Ocean. This has given way to concerns with the increasingly vigorous manner in which China is now seeking to promote what it identifies as its interests in the Indian Ocean region: these pertain both to its aspirations as a rising power and concerns about energy security. This naturally requires careful monitoring, without assuming that all these moves are necessarily targeted at India. (Of course, in some cases Indian interests may be part of the collateral damage!)

Take, for instance, the amount of resources China has expended on building a close relationship with the Middle East generally, and Iran in particular. It is doubtful whether in conceptualizing this geo-strategy, China primarily had India in mind. Clearly the objectives here are energy security, but also the larger balance of power game where the perceived adversary is not India but USA.

It is when we come to South Asia that there are more obvious implications for India. In this context a mention must be made of Myanmar, though now usually considered a part of Southeast Asia. China regards Myanmar as an important neighbour for several reasons. The most convenient opening to the sea for the landlocked Southwest China is through Myanmar, which occupies an excellent strategic location for access to the Bay of Bengal on one side and the Malacca Straits on the other.

It was the growing military dimension of China’s relations with Myanmar that most attracted external concern. Reduced to a pariah status by the West and faced with a democratic challenge at home, the Myanmar military junta found in China the only willing source of military supplies and training, as well as for building military installations. They have helped build new naval facilities (particularly the one at Hainggyi Island) and improved existing ones. The one at the Great Coco Island, reportedly, has been equipped with sophisticated surveillance equipment.

Though the Myanmar government insists that they have not offered the Chinese any military facility on their soil, India has a legitimate concern about the use to which China could put these facilities. However, no purpose is served in exaggerating the security threat to India from the Sino-Myanmar military links. To assume that Myanmar could become some sort of a client state of China is to completely misread the situation and to underestimate the strength of Burmese nationalism. There is no doubt that Myanmar does not wish to be excessively dependent on China. Myanmar has responded warmly to the willingness demonstrated in recent years by Delhi to improve relations.

 

One rather obvious, but important point needs to be made. American power will be an overwhelming presence in the overlapping India-China strategic space for many years to come and both Sino-Indian cooperation and competition will take place in an international setting whose structure will be profoundly influenced by this inescapable fact.

India and China are two rapidly rising powers on the international stage. It is inevitable that there will be a certain degree of rivalry. Each of them brings to the neighbourhood their own specific strengths and needs. The challenge for the statesmen is to manage a mutually beneficial co-existence which also takes into account the legitimate aspirations of other countries.

China shares land borders with five members of SAARC, looks over the Chicken’s Neck at a sixth, and has a long border with Myanmar, which must be regarded as part of India’s ‘troubled neighbourhood’. It has built friendly relations with all the countries in the region. Some elements of these relationships are of legitimate concern to India and may require it to take steps to protect her interests. But, by and large, the best and most effective mode to defend and promote Indian interests is to have good relations with both China and our smaller neighbours that would minimize the possibilities of China’s relations with these countries constituting a threat to India.

 

India and China have a shared interest in the economic progress of these countries if our neighbourhood has to cease being a ‘troubled’ one. Take for instance, the so-called ‘string of pearls’ – the series of port facilities that China has helped to construct, and whose usage should indeed be carefully monitored to see whether they are being used by China for purposes undermining India’s security. However, there is no reason why these facilities – Chittagong and Hambantota, in particular – should not contribute to the economic development of our neighbours by helping promote international trade. These ports can conceivably be useful to Indian commercial traffic as well. To see each of them simply as posing a danger to India can be a bit paranoiac. If ever Sri Lanka were to make Hambantota available for a strike against India, it would be evidence of a catastrophic failure of Indian diplomacy.

India and China instead of perceiving each other as a threat in the Indian Ocean should work together, along with other naval powers, to ensure the safety of sea lanes so crucial to the economic well-being of all.

Both India and China, quite rightly, have been applying their minds to the need for cooperation in building ‘a new architecture for closer regional cooperation in Asia’, to quote from the Joint Declaration signed by the Chinese President Hu Jintao and the Indian prime minister when the former visited India in November 2006.

 

In conclusion, a passage from the 2003 Admiral RD Katari Memorial Lecture delivered by the then Minister of External Affairs Yashwant Sinha, bears quotation:

‘The argument that the dominant theme of China’s South Asia policy is to prevent the rise of a potential rival or competitor in the form of India is a defeatist argument. There are probably some in our neighbourhood who seek to play their "China connection" or "China card" to "counter" or even "contain" India. The bankruptcy of this approach is, however, becoming increasingly evident. China cannot objectively be a competitor for India in South Asia. Destinies of the countries of South Asia are interlinked by the overwhelming logic of history, geography and economics. I believe the current relationship between India and China is certainly beneficial for each other and for South Asia.’