New Delhi must keep its eye on the ball as Beijing ups the ante
A series of apparently unconnected developments in India’s neighbourhood, which ought to be regarded very much as falling within her sphere of influence, over the past few days should alert the Indian state to the inescapable fact that China’s policy of ‘encirclement’ vis-à-vis its southern neighbour is not only alive but kicking too. India has faced a series of setbacks given the events that have gone down in the Maldives, Nepal and Sri lanka over the past week capped by the Chinese Foreign Minister’s aggressive briefing on the now apparently defused Doklam crisis and his Ministry’s dismissive attitude towards Indian concerns regarding the construction/diversion upstream of the Siang River (in Arunachal Pradesh) which is turning the Brahmaputra ‘black’ with pollutants, making it imperative for New Delhi come up with a plan to deal with its main competitor in Asian, if not global, powerplay.
In Maldives, President Abdulla Yameen earlier this week aggressively pushed through Parliament without disclosing details a Free Trade Agreement with China which he then signed in Beijing where he met President Xi Jinping and followed it up with a controversial action three days later on home turf by suspending three elected local body officials for an ‘unauthorized’ meeting with the Indian Ambassador to the Maldives. The three councillors suspended all belong to main Opposition party led by former President Mohammed Nasheed whom India has cultivated for long. Meanwhile in Sri lanka last Saturday, the Hambantota port, built by the Chinese, was handed over to them to conduct all commercial activities on a 99-year lease in a USD 1.12 billion deal. The port is near the main shipping route from Asia to Europe and likely to play a major role in China’s One Belt, One Road (OBOR) initiative that India has been wary of and kept away from. It must also be kept in mind that Hambantota is a deep-water port so it can
potentially be used for military purposes too, thus provides Beijing strategic depth in India’s backyard. Coming as this does on the back of the clear win for the China midwifed in a way left Alliance in Nepal’s General Election for Parliament and provincial Assemblies under its new Constitution, Beijing has reasons to be pleased.
The culminative effect of these developments was evident in the briefing Foreign Minister Wang Yi gave to the Chinese media on the Doklam standoff after his India visit a few days ago, in which he was quoted by his foreign ministry as saying “the viciousness caused by the cross-border infiltration of Indian border guards put bilateral relations under severe pressure” before the matter was settled peacefully through diplomatic means. Beijing also made it clear in its characterization of bilateral ties with India in 2017 as “not very satisfactory” that even the small moves New Delhi is making to try and reverse decades of pusillanimity in India’s China policy have been noted by Beijing and would be definitely be countered. Such a Chinese approach can be seen in its traditional bullying of India, a lower riparian country, on the issue of the diversion of and/or constructions on the Brahmaputra (Yarlung Tsangpo in China) which once again came to the fore midweek in its lack of response to Indian concerns that the river was turning black. In this context, it is pertinent to note that the Director of the Intelligence Bureau and the National Security Adviser were part of an inter-ministerial meeting called by the PMO on the issue on Wednesday.