China is dancing all around us, but we don’t have to play dead

The Big Lens

When the Chinese ambassador to Bangladesh decided to give a piece of his mind to Dhaka and advise it to keep away from the Quad, little would he have expected a rebuttal, that too a strong one, from his host. Reeling under the trauma of the “Wuhan Virus” pandemic, Bangladesh, like many other countries in Asia, has set survival as priority rather than getting involved in strategic matters beyond its immediate requirements. In any case, there is no report of any member of the Quad – India, the US, Japan or Australia -- inviting Bangladesh into the grouping. The Bangladesh foreign minister’s reply to the Chinese ambassador – “We’re an independent and sovereign state. We decide our foreign policy” – was as polite a “mind your own business, Beijing” response as language would allow a diplomat.

Elsewhere, Beijing is busy salvaging a crumbling political edifice in Nepal where Prime Minister K P Oli lost a trust vote but remains in office because his detractors failed to muster numbers to form a new government. Beijing has been keen, and has tried its best, to keep Oli in office.

Meanwhile, Sri Lanka is all set to discuss and pass the highly controversial Colombo Port City Economic Commission Bill. The Bill provides for protection of China’s interests and assets, almost resulting in ceding State control over Colombo Port City to Beijing. China’s defence minister was in Colombo last month with a team of military officials to oversee the commercial projects and finalise defence cooperation protocols with Sri Lanka. Unlike Bangladesh, Colombo has complied with Beijing’s warning on the Quad. As Sri Lanka’s Foreign Secretary Jayanth Colombage had noted, “We are observing the rise of Quad as an exclusive military alliance. That is the problem. If Quad is aimed at economic revival, there are no issues.”

It is no secret that Beijing is making intense efforts to rope in Asian countries into its sphere of influence. The economic packages and infrastructure projects are a ruse to lure the political establishments in these countries to tilt towards Beijing or at least remain neutral even as they get into a Chinese debt trap. Laos, the resource-rich gateway to Southeast Asia, is the latest in the list of countries that have come under China’s debt trap. The China Southern Grid Company is all set to take a controlling stake in Laos’s state-owned power grid company Electricite du Laos (EDL), which is saddled with a $5 billion debt.

The Quad summit in March took notice of the impending challenges that the region could face if Beijing decides to continue with its belligerent approach towards Taiwan. The conflict with India in Ladakh may hold lessons. China carried out the intrusion into Indian areas at the height of the Coronavirus pandemic, lockdown and economic stagnation. China has refused to withdraw completely and continues to deploy forces in excess of what’s required for normal patrolling. A weak moment in Washington or in Taipei is all China will be looking for. If push comes to shove, the Quad will have to be prepared to take tough decisions as a team, keeping national considerations aside.

Meanwhile, closer home, after turning Pakistan into a virtual satellite country, China has set its eyes on Afghanistan. It appears that once the US withdraws, Beijing is waiting in the wings to wrest economic and political control over Kabul. Delhi will have to make a deeper assessment of what US withdrawal from Afghanistan will mean. Unlike the former Soviet Union, which confronted the local tribal fighters grouped under the Taliban umbrella, Beijing has been reportedly entertaining second-rung Taliban leaders. China has already signed contracts for resource exploitation – from copper mining to oil exploration – in Afghanistan.

Beijing has invested heavily in Pakistan in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). These assets are important for China but also extremely vulnerable. Notwithstanding Islamabad’s compulsions, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or the Pakistan Taliban, is not very happy to let the Chinese have their way in the Af-Pak region. Last month, there was an attempt on the life of Nong Rong, China’s ambassador to Pakistan, for which TTP claimed responsibility. Sections of the radical outfits in Pakistan and Afghanistan are also not happy with China’s inhuman treatment of Uighur Muslims in Xinjiang province. However much Beijing may want to forge a China-Pakistan-Iran-Turkey axis, it may fizzle out when religious and national interests override China’s strategic interests.

Over the years, even as China has encircled India through its ‘string of pearls’, it has strengthened its military presence in all the major choke points that were once strongholds of the US navy in the Indo-Pacific. It will be of great strategic importance for the US to regain complete control over these.

India is doing its bit by building as many strategic partnerships as possible in the Indo-Pacific region. Recently, India and Russia agreed on establishing a 2+2 ministerial dialogue between the foreign and defence ministers of the two countries. India already has similar dialogues with all the other Quad countries. The dialogue with Russia, India’s old friend, is in line with both Delhi’s interests with regard to military procurements as well as its approach to the Indo-Pacific. Beijing should have taken note.

Delhi has also scaled up its engagement with the European Union. The India-EU summit has agreed to establish a mechanism to promote a free, open, inclusive and rules-based Indo-Pacific architecture and strengthen the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) forum.

India will have to assess whether these action plans will help to reduce China’s belligerence or provoke it further to hasten its efforts to achieve its hegemonic ambitions in the Indo-Pacific.