India’s Response to China’s ‘one belt, one road’ Initiative

Originally published as Jabin T. Jacob, ‘India and China’s “One Belt, One Road” Initiative’, Nação e Defesa (Nation and Defense, Instituto da Defesa Nacional, Lisboa, Portugal), No. 142, pp. 56-71.

Abstract

India’s response to China’s ‘new Silk Roads’ or ‘one belt, one road’ initiative is a good example of the problems that beset the India-China relationship. Neither country has quite managed to put in the effort required to pull their bilateral ties out of the deep freeze of suspicion and distrust that came about as a result of the conflict of 1962. And with China’s economic and political rise in addition to its military build-up, doubts about Chinese intentions vis-à-vis India and its South Asian neighbourhood have grown even if India too is growing and gaining economically including through its economic relationship with China. This article examines the ‘one belt, one road’ initiative and the reasons why it creates concerns in India. It looks at India’s response and the weaknesses of that response before examining two cases of Pakistan and the Indian Ocean in the context of ‘one belt, one road’ initiative and the India-China relationship.

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Interpreting Ma Ying-jeou’s Visit to Taiping Island

Taiwanese President Ma Ying-jeou’s visit to Taiping/Itu Aba Island in the Spratly Islands on 28 January 2016 was justified among other things on the grounds that he visited men and women in uniform before every Lunar New Year and that he was seeking to clarify the legal status of the island.[1]

 

Omissions

There are however, some issues that need to be considered.

For one, Ma did not mention the visit to Taiping of his predecessor Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in February 2008. Standing before military personnel this omission perhaps weakened Taiwan’s/Republic of China’ (ROC) image and position, which is to say that there is an element of dissonance between the Kuomintang’s (KMT) position and that of its political rival. Continue reading “Interpreting Ma Ying-jeou’s Visit to Taiping Island”

North Korea’s Nuclear Test: Regional Reactions and the Chinese Responsibility

A shorter version of this piece was published as Jabin T. Jacob, ‘North Korea hasn’t gone rogue. Nukes are its geo-political trump card’, Catch News, 16 January 2016.

 

Following North Korea’s fourth nuclear test since 2006,[1] the world led by the UN Security Council has condemned Pyongyang’s action.[2] The DPRK for its part blamed South Korea’s propaganda broadcasts in the Demilitarised Zone – which includes K-pop songs, by the way – and deployment of military assets, saying these were pushing the two countries to the ‘brink of war’.[3]

The UNSC’s resolutions since 2006 imposing and strengthening sanctions on North Korea for continuing to develop its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles have however not been very effective, even if they have slowed down the pace of development of these programmes. This is because Pyongyang views nuclear weapons as a guarnator of its regime security. Given American efforts at regime change in West Asia, Pyongyang clearly sees nuclear weapons as the ace in its pack. The Americans reminded Kim Jong-un’s regime of that threat by flying a B-52 over South Korea in a joint response to the North Korean test. The bomber that took off from far-away Guam, can carry precision guided conventional ordnance as well as nuclear weapons.[4] Continue reading “North Korea’s Nuclear Test: Regional Reactions and the Chinese Responsibility”

US FON Ops and China’s Continuing Challenge

Originally published as Jabin T Jacob, ‘China’s aggression in South China Sea a global challenge’, Hindustan Times, 4 November 2015.

In late October, the American destroyer USS Lassens sailed within a 12 nautical mile territorial waters limit claimed by China at Subi Reef in the South China Sea. China has no right to such a claim under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the US was exercising its rights to freedom of navigation under the Convention.

Predictably Beijing has protested while others have cheered the US action but American freedom of navigation (FON) operations are nothing new and have been carried out regularly in other seas despite the fact that the US itself has not ratified UNCLOS. In the South China Sea itself, the US has carried out FON operations previously to counter excessive maritime claims by Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Vietnam. Continue reading “US FON Ops and China’s Continuing Challenge”

India, China and the Yarlung Tsangpo: Much Ado About Nothing?

Originally published as, Jabin T Jacob, ‘Brahmaputra water diversion: India must go with the flow on this’, Hindustan Times, 16 October 2015.

China’s recent operationalization of the Zangmu hydropower station on the Yarlung Tsangpo, the largest such station in Tibet, is an occasion to reconsider the ‘water problem’ in India-China relations. Unsurprisingly, but sadly, mainstream Indian reactions have been kneejerk and paranoid rather than based on any rational considerations.

Any dam, even run-of-the-river projects will have effects on riverine ecology. However, the impact downstream must be balanced against the fact that most of the water that contributes to the volume of the Brahmaputra beginning in Assam comes from rainfall and tributary flows on the Indian side in Arunachal Pradesh. The more important issue in India is the lack of management of river water resources; thus, a huge hydropower potential remains un- or under-exploited on the Indian side. Continue reading “India, China and the Yarlung Tsangpo: Much Ado About Nothing?”

Using China as Leverage with Pakistan

Originally published as Jabin T. Jacob, ‘UNGA is an opportunity for Modi to talk Pakistan with Xi Jinping’, Hindustan Times, 23 September 2015.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping are both headed to the United States. If they meet on the sidelines of the 70th United Nations General Assembly, it would be a fitting backdrop for a fresh look at Sino-Indian ties after the high of the Modi visit to China in May this year and the low later of the Chinese blocking an Indian bid in New York to sanction Pakistan for releasing 26/11 mastermind Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi.

This relook must in the main be about Pakistan. Continue reading “Using China as Leverage with Pakistan”

Arunachal Pradesh in the Sino-Indian Boundary Dispute: Constant Claims, Changing Politics

Published as Jabin T. Jacob, ‘Arunachal Pradesh in the Sino-Indian Boundary Dispute: Constant Claims, Changing Politics’, in Gurudas Das, C. Joshua Thomas and Nani Bath (eds), Voices from the Border: Response to Chinese Claim over Arunachal Pradesh (New Delhi: Pentagon Press, 2015), 48-62.

Abstract

The main point of contention in the Sino-Indian boundary dispute was originally the Aksai Chin area in the Indian northwest. In the mid-1980s, however, the core of the dispute shifted eastward to the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. This essay makes the argument that while Arunachal Pradesh remains central to the boundary dispute its significance for the two parties to the dispute has varied over time. For China, the shift in emphasis to Arunachal was in large measure tied to the Tibet question, and this emphasis has, if anything, become more important in recent years as instability and protests in Tibet have increased. For India too, Arunachal’s significance has grown, owing mostly due to the increased Chinese attention. But India also appears to be moving from defending Arunachal militarily within a purely bilateral context to defending Arunachal and strengthening Indian claims in the international context.

This essay also argues that Arunachal ought to be seen in the Sino-Indian relationship not only within the context of the boundary dispute but also within the framework of centre-periphery relations in China and India and in the larger context of the differences between the Chinese and Indian political systems. The nature of Arunachal Pradesh’s relations with the rest of India, including the Indian central government, is important not just for the Indian body politic but also for Sino-Indian relations and for Beijing’s relations with Tibet. If in India, this centre-periphery relationship is a just and equitable one, maintaining a fair and necessary balance between local aspirations for peaceful and sustainable development alongside national security considerations, then India and Arunachal can become the model to follow for China and Tibet – it is in this way that Arunachal will best fulfill its role as the ‘first line of defence for India.’

This essay is divided into four sections including a conclusion. The first section looks at how Arunachal Pradesh is currently involved in the Sino-Indian boundary dispute, the second, looks at how China’s stress on Arunachal is a part of its inability to stabilize Tibet; and the third section looks at India’s own relationship with Arunachal.

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China Courts the Maldives

Originally published as Jabin T. Jacob, ‘China’s Maldives Strategy: How Much of a Threat to India?’, Policy Wonks, 9 September 2015.

Indian analysts have long considered the Maldives as a potential pearl in the ‘string of pearls’ strategy that they believed China is engaged in. There was even a name for the specific island in the Maldives – Marao – which saner minds however, have dismissed as a figment of the imagination. Nevertheless, all the concern about the Maldives falling into the Chinese embrace was not enough to generate a coherent Indian policy towards the island nation with policy even held hostage by private Indian entrepreneurial interests. While it is true that the Maldives’ domestic political dynamics – political contestation as well as the gradual rise of Islamist forces – left New Delhi in a vulnerable and sticky situation, China has used the same interregnum to ramp up its ties across a range of issues.

Upswing in China-Maldives Ties Continue reading “China Courts the Maldives”

China and the Modi Visit to Bangladesh

China-Bangladesh relations have progressed significantly over the years. China has been Bangladesh’s largest trading partner for several years now and is also increasingly a major investor in the country with commitments to various physical infrastructure projects ranging from bridges and railways to water and sewage treatment plants. After the World Bank withdrew from the project of building of a bridge over the River Padma in Bangladesh’s southwest, it is the Chinese that have agreed to step in.

There was little coverage of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Bangladesh in June this year but it is worth noting that China sent Vice Premier Liu Yandong to Bangladesh in late May to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between China and Bangladesh. Continue reading “China and the Modi Visit to Bangladesh”