Ameen Izzadeen, International relations expert, Colombo, Sri Lanka
The Case of Maldives:
The case of the Maldives is not so different. Since independence from the British in 1965,
Maldives virtually grew under British protection until India emerged in the 1970s as the guardian of the Indian Ocean archipelago in keeping with its Indira doctrine.
When Sri Lanka‘s mercenaries laid siege to the capital Male in 1988, it was India which took control of the operation to hunt down the mercenaries and helped President Mamoon Abdul Gayoom to stay in power.
But today, it is a different story.
The Maldives has come under the security microscope of not only India, but also of the U.S. and China.
Political developments in recent years and months in the Maldives have given rise to intrigues and theories about foreign power involvement.
India was seen as wielding greater influence when President Mohammed Nasheed was in power, with an Indian company winning a long-term contract in 2010 to manage Male‘s Ibrahim Nasir International Airport.
The controversial deal was cancelled by the interim government of President Mohammed Waheed after Nasheed was overthrown in 2012.
This was followed by reports that Waheed was to sign a deal with the U.S. allowing the superpower to set up military facilities in two atolls.
Exposing the deal, the Maldivian news website Dhivehi Sitee carried a detailed article by Azra Naseem which tried to make a link between the deal and the big power rivalry in Asia:
Clearly, a military base in the Maldives would be quite a prize for both China and the U.S. Both countries would, no doubt, go to great lengths to acquire one.
Towards the end of last year, the Maldives government, led by Defence Minister Nazim, was seen actively wooing China, while simultaneously manufacturing tensions with India, the region‘s other Big Power.
What the new Maldivian President Abdulla Yameen told the media in Colombo in January 2014, during a visit to Sri Lanka sheds more light on the dilemma facing South Asian states.
Admitting there had been some movement towards offering a facility to the U.S. military, Yameen said his government would not go ahead with the proposal as it would upset regional power India.
However, Yameen is seen as getting more close to China and a new law that his government has passed has evoked fresh fears in India that it was aimed at allowing China to have a foothold in the Indian Ocean Island chain.
The development prompted India to send its Foreign Secretary to the Maldives a month before China‘s President Xi Jinping made a historic visit there.
Yameen in a missive to India said his country would remain a ‘demilitarized zone‘ and would not allow China or any other country to set up bases.
The new law allows foreigners to own land in the country if they invest $ 1 billion and reclaim 70 percent of the land from the sea.
This kind of money can come only from China. Besides, China has agreed to construct a bridge connecting the capital Male with the island that hosts the airport. According to Darshana Baruah, an analyst at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi:
“We already have tensions along our land border with China in north and opening up possibility for China to have a permanent position within our maritime border is making India nervous…. Tomorrow, if China has so much of economic interest and investments in the Indian Ocean, they will have all rights to protect their economic interests. Adding more concern to India are the Yameen government‘s willingness to be part of China‘s Maritime Silk Route and his new found courage to tell off Indian Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj – in the wake of political unrest following the arrest of former President Nasheed – that his government would not tolerate foreign interference in domestic issues. The Indian Express interpreted the statement as a shot at India (Roy 2015).
China, on the other hand, said it would not interfere in the internal affairs of the Maldives.
The Case of Afghanistan and Pakistan:
It sent real shockwaves across the world when the visiting Chinese President Xi Jingping announced in April 2015, a mammoth $ 46 billion infrastructure development aid package to Pakistan, with the key project being the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) linking Pakistan‘s Indian Ocean Port at Gwadar with China‘s Xinjiang province, via a network of highways, railways and pipelines to transport goods and fuel.
The aid package and the envisaged development activities carry the potential to make Pakistan the next Asian Tiger, probably the next Fergana Valley of the old Silk Route fame.
Developing nations desperate for cheap development funds see China‘s rise as a godsend. Xi‘s ‘fate-and-game-changing‘ visit, which he describes as a visit to his brother‘s house, was greeted in Pakistan with slogans such as ‘Pakistan-China friendship is higher than the mountains, deeper than the oceans, sweeter than honey, and stronger than steel.‘
This mindboggling aid offer is expected to put Pakistan on a rapid course to development, creating job opportunities and boosting its economy, which in turn will increase its military power.
The project can indeed be a game changer if Islamabad could bring in major socioeconomic reforms aimed at making the country a modern Islamic republic with warped interpretations of Islam being dumped in the dustbin of history.
As mentioned above, India also can get economic benefits if it gains access to China‘s Silk Road Economic Belt, which can stimulate world trade as never before.
Making peace with Pakistan and abandoning the policy of treating China as a rival could make India prosper.
The Indira doctrine is an economic liability. Over the years, China has been Pakistan‘s all-weather friend and a much more trustworthy partner than the United States, whose relations have seen their ups and downs, soured by sanctions, U.S. administrations‘ closer ties with India and the reluctance to sell F-16s and other advanced weaponry to Pakistan.
China, on the other hand, has been more reliable, providing, in addition to economic assistance, military supplies.
The two are seen as natural allies against the backdrop of the mistrust between India and China over a territorial dispute that had taken the two countries to war in 1962.
Yet, Pakistan cannot afford to abandon the U.S. Pakistan has much more to gain from maintaining close relations with the United States. Peace in Pakistan‘s troubled regions depends on U.S. cooperation.
Peace is important for development and growth.
Peace in Afghanistan and Pakistan can come only if all stakeholders sit at the negotiating table and work out a deal.
The U.S. has recognized China‘s peacemaking potential because the latter worked with both the Taliban government and the post-U.S. invasion governments in Afghanistan. China is also in a position to coax Pakistan to put to good use its channels with the Taliban.
Besides, President Xi Jinping sees a link between China‘s political and economic stability and regional peace, especially in view of Uighur militants – from China‘s troubled Xinjiang province – links with the Taliban.
China‘s involvement in recent months in Afghan peace efforts has gained pace with the high-level meetings being held in London, Beijing and Murree (Pakistan) against the backdrop of a planned drawdown of U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
The power struggle within the Taliban after the death of its leader Mullah Omar and the presence of the Islamic State in Afghanistan may have slowed down China‘s peace efforts, but there is little indication that China has withdrawn from the peace initiative.
Also any peace move to succeed in the Af-Pak region, Pakistan‘s security worries, especially India‘s unusually larger presence in Afghanistan and its alleged links with Baloch separatists, need to be addressed.
India‘s multi-billion dollar investments in Afghanistan and other South Asian nations (despite bulk of its population still overwhelmingly poor), points to the strategic dimension of its involvement in South Asian countries.
But China is also seeking to take India on board its One-Belt-One Road or Silk Road project, despite India‘s closer defence ties with the U.S. and Japan.
China probably operates on the premise that greater economic cooperation will produce greater peace dividends that could avert military confrontations arising from territorial disputes or other crises.
Its mammoth development programmes in Central Asia and the Af-Pak region can certainly be catalysts for peace. Yet the U.S. has no immediate intention of letting Afghanistan slip out of its control. With the Central Asian region regarded as Russia-China sphere of influence, a U.S. foothold in Afghanistan is a strategic necessity for Washington.
Washington and Kabul have inked security pacts, in terms of which the U.S. will have a military presence in Afghanistan till 2024 and beyond.
Conclusion:
States pursue economic and military objectives with a view to increasing their power and security.
Big powers thrive in the security deficiency of small states.
They react aggressively when a state or a rival is seen to be increasing its security value or power.
They try to undermine measures a rival state or even a friendly state takes to increase its power.
This is the bottom line in the new cold war between the United States and China, despite China being the United States biggest trading partner and the biggest investor in U.S. bonds.
This is the also the reason why India tries to throw the spanner in the works when South Asian countries court the friendship of China in search of development aid.
Despite tensions that threaten to trigger a major war in the South China Sea, the very thought of its devastating consequences prevents the big powers from going to war.
With all indicators pointing to an emergence of a China-centric world order, South Asian countries should act with prudence.
They must evaluate each situation and take decisions. South Asian nations should redefine non-alignment or look at how countries like Britain, a powerful North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) ally of the United States, have been courting China‘s friendship, even going to the extent of abandoning their long-held principled policies.
This is the way forward.
No country can devise a long-term strategy when dealing with another country.
No country can promise to another country to be true to it in good times and in bad, in difficulty and in prosperity till kingdom come.
This is because international relations are always in a state of flux.
Alliances could change and foes could become friends over the years or all of a sudden.
Countries only have short-term strategies to achieve their national interest goals.
The long-term interest of a country consists of a series of short-term strategies to suit the global order at a given time.
South Asian nations, therefore, must take the necessary short-term decisions to benefit from China‘s economic rise and be wary of its military rise to avoid being caught in a quasi-Cold War.
# Text courtesy: Islamabad Policy Research Institute (IPRI) journal, 2017.
Consent from the distinguished author received.
#Thanks IPRI and the Author Ameen Izzadeen, Colombo.
The author is an Expert on International Relations: Upadhyaya N. P.
# Concluded.