The Chinese Fandango

 

The Chinese Fandango

 As Prime Minister Narendra Modi goes on his much anticipated Chinese return State Visit, is China in the process of informally annexing Pakistan, in a sort of neo-USSR embrace? Are they building a dragon patterned Chinese Screen, to replace the old Bamboo Curtain of the Cold War years?

This, even as there is great potential of the India-China relationship being ramped up to unprecedented highs, involving billions in Chinese investment and infrastructure know-how. India is also simultaneously cooperating with Japan with equal ardour, ignoring long standing Sino-Japanese antagonisms. She is also joining hands with both Russia and America wherever possible, particularly on her ‘Make in India’ initiative. On this very trip, South Korea too may also get involved with helping India build warships.

In fact, the Modi foreign affairs doctrine that has emerged over the year, stresses bilateral progress with all who can be mutually benefited. This includes Australia, Canada, France, Israel, the UK, and Iran; the SAARC countries on our doorstep, even Pakistan, if only common ground can be found.

And all this, without the traps of Nehruvian non-alignment, and the geopolitical blocks it had created in the past. India is, under Modi, deliberately and pointedly side-stepping the bilateral antagonisms that may exist between some of our re-engaged friends and seeing its own way clear.

But, yes, a big brotherish Chinese move to become the dominant power is afoot in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, all part of a sinuous, metaphorical, new Silk Road dreamt up by President Xi Jinping. All roads do lead to the erstwhile Middle Kingdom.

Could India fall to becoming a Chinese client-state too? It seems highly unlikely, despite massive Chinese competitiveness, because of our size, our engineering and software prowess, our geopolitical importance to others, and the maturity of our democratic systems. We are militarily much weaker today than China, but may not remain so in the decades to come. And our GDP growth rate may be second to none for years going forward.

With Pakistan, there is no contest between itself and China. It has long been the recipient of Chinese largesse by way of infrastructure, nuclear and military hardware, and ‘most favoured nation’ treatment. This, even when it was partnering the US in the Afghanistan theatre.  

But what is the risk involved in an informal annexation of a country bristling with Islamic radicals?  It is one the Chinese seem willing to take, with the newly announced $ 47 billion investment corridor going right through the country in an explosion of fraternal affection. It boldly traverses Pakistan from China’s own restive Xinkiang Province, via POK, the capital Islamabad, and on, across, all the way to  Gwadar Port in Baluchistan, on the Arabian/Persian Gulf.  

The Chinese have earlier, already developed and modernised Gwadar Port to serve as their access to the oil rich Gulf region. And they are also mining for minerals in natural resource rich Afghanistan.

Is this massive ambition only fair and appropriate for a nation like China, with trillions in investible reserves, a slowing domestic economy and manufacturing export market? Why should it not build up its regional and strategic footprint when it has such a compliant ally in Pakistan?

Pakistan, which many call a failed Islamic State, besieged by its own radical fringe,   ever ready to be used for a price, long dependent on hand-outs from both the US and China, will receive vital economic life support, along with the implied military security from this investment.

India is seen to be not protesting the matter, partially because it would be futile. And partly because a Pakistan which is, in any case a semi-formalised satellite state of China’s, brought into a closer embrace, will probably make for a more stable neighbourhood.

It is even likely China will get Pakistan to behave if its India relationship demands it, though it is also free to use it as a pressure tactic, its cat’s paw, as always, through our being part of the Soviet block years. Isn’t North Korea serving a similar purpose for Beijing too, and what can any other country, including the mighty US, do about it?

Pakistan, despite its ever increasing nuclear arsenal, will not want to engage India in formal military confrontation. But it can be an influencer and conduit, even a proxy player in the West Asian region, smarting at the geopolitical shift of the US once again towards Iran, amongst the reduced clout of the oil rich region. The sulking is evident from the reluctant attendance at the forthcoming Gulf Cooperation Region Summit to be held in Washington and at Camp David.

The abiding worry and threat in Xinkiang and Pakistan alike, that won’t dissipate just because China seems undaunted by it, is from domestic, home-grown Islamic terrorism.

In Pakistan it seems to be growing wings, recently bringing down a helicopter with shoulder held missile launchers, downing two Ambassadors in the process. The target however was no less than the Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif himself.

These terrorists, grown powerful under Pakistan’s ‘non-state actors’ policy, are now Frankenstein monsters, with many sympathisers in the Pakistan political, armed, and intelligence establishments.

How long therefore, before these people get their hands on a nuclear weapon? And what will that mean for the Pakistani State and its Chinese patrons? India may be a declared target for being infidel and idolatrous, but it is not really the jihadi’s obstacle on the road to power and influence. And neither is the hoary- bug bear of Kashmir.

The highly militarised Pakistani State and its excellent intelligence organisation, the ISI, has long liked to believe it can use the Pakistani Taliban, the LeT and its affiliates, in Pakistan, across the border in India, and internationally, as a fifth column and to great effect. They are useful, per Pakistani covert policy, to wage guerrilla war and foment subversion wherever they want.

But, increasingly, as the terrorists have gained strength, they are less amenable to being controlled. The Pakistanis and their Chinese masters may be making a very big  conceptual and strategic mistake with regard these non-state actors. They are not bound by any code or protocol.

Kashmir is the flagged issue that these neo- jihadis are happy to keep alive, because it gives them freedom, money, arms, training, and political clout. But, as the time goes on, it is control of the State itself that they want. It is the bigger prize by far, a nuclear armed Pakistani State, won, not via the ballot but by the jihadi bullet; with the infrastructure building Chinese as partners by default.

For: The Pioneer

(1,091 words)
May 12^th, 2015
Gautam Mukherjee