Will Balochistan Blow Up China’s Belt and Road?

Violence in the Pakistani province is on the rise—and now Chinese are the target.
BY MUHAMMAD AKBAR NOTEZAI
Pakistani naval personnel stand guard near a ship at the Gwadar port on Nov. 13, 2016. 

Freedom fighters: The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) released a video warning China to stop aiding Pakistan to brutally suppress Baloch people.

In 2015, when Chinese dictator Xi Jinping’s plane entered Pakistani airspace, eight Pakistan Air Force jets scrambled to escort it. 

The country’s leadership warmly welcomed the Chinese leader—and his money. 

On his two-day state visit, he announced a multibillion-dollar project called the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which would form part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative and would revolve around the development of a huge port in the city of Gwadar.
Gwadar, a formerly isolated city in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan province, boomed. 

As soon as the CPEC was announced, tourists, including journalists, started visiting Gwadar. 

The Pearl Continental, the only five-star hotel in the area, had been on the brink of closure. 

Now guests thronged. 

But not everyone was happy about that. 

Baloch nationalists and underground organizations opposed the CPEC from the beginning, on the grounds that it would turn the Baloch people into a minority in their own province. 

They threatened attacks on any CPEC project anywhere in Balochistan.
There was plenty of reason to believe their threats. 

During the tenure of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who led Pakistan from 1999 to 2008, Baloch insurgents killed Chinese engineers and workers in the province. 

One of the incidents took place in Gwadar, where in May 2004, militants killed three Chinese engineers. 

The engineers had been driving to work. 

When they slowed down to pass over a speed bump, a terrorist in a nearby car detonated the barrier with a remote control.
In recent years, violence had waned. 

There were no new projects, and the city seemed to have settled into its own rhythm. 

But following the CPEC announcement, according to the News International, a Pakistani English daily, Pakistan deployed a total of 17,177 security personnel from the Army and other security forces to ensure the security of Chinese nationals. 

In the years since, Gwadar has become something of a military cantonment. 

Army, police, and other law enforcers mill about.
And locals traveling around Gwadar face routine harassment at security checkpoints.
The policing has done little to deter attacks. 

In recent months, two reported incidents have put the province on edge. 

The first attack occurred on April 18, when 15 to 20 Baloch insurgents dressed in military uniforms forms forced 14 passengers off a public bus and shot them, one by one. 

Most of victims were from the Pakistan Navy and Coast Guards, whom Baloch insurgents view as an occupying force.
Then, on May 11, the Pearl Continental in the heart of Gwadar came under fire. 

Situated on a promontory overlooking the port and the Arabian Sea, the hotel is mammoth and a favorite of foreign dignitaries. 

Security there is intense, and since it is near Gwadar’s port area there are already plenty of military personnel in the area. 

Three armed attackers from the Balochistan Liberation Army’s Majeed Brigade nevertheless managed to breach the defenses and open fire on people inside. 

According to officials, five individuals—four hotel employees, including three security guards, and a navy officer—lost their lives.
The Pearl Continental attack in particular bodes ill for Chinese investment in Balochistan.
Before this month, it was hard to imagine that Baloch insurgents would be capable of carrying out the attack in the center of Gwadar, even with the local support. 

But now any sense of security has been undermined.
Established in 2011, the Majeed Brigade, a suicide attack squad within the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), is reportedly named after Abdul Majeed Baloch, who attempted to assassinate then-Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in 1974 in Balochistan. 

In 1973, Bhutto had ordered a military operation against the Baloch because Baloch insurgents had vowed war against the state of Pakistan after Islamabad had dismissed the democratically elected National Awami Party government in Balochistan in February 1973. 

The operation triggered a major insurgency in Balochistan that lasted until 1977. 

Majeed was killed by security forces before he could carry out his plan against Bhutto.
In the first several years after the BLA was formed in 2000, it mostly waged attacks on national security forces, state infrastructure, and Punjabi settlers. 

In more recent years, under Aslam Baloch, who died in Kandahar in December 2018, the Majeed Brigade has focused on Chinese nationals and Chinese-funded projects. 

Such attacks seemed more likely to provoke media attention. 

He tapped his oldest son, Rehan Baloch, for a suicide attack on Chinese engineers in Dalbandin, a city in Balochistan, last August. 

The attack resulted in minor injuries for the engineers. 

He also oversaw an attack on the Chinese consulate in Karachi a few months later. 

Two police officials and two visa applicants were killed.
As these incidents suggest, the Majeed Brigade is gaining momentum. 

And it is joined by new groups, such as the Baloch Raaji Aajoi Sangar, an alliance of Baloch separatist groups specifically focused on attacking CPEC projects. 

From the beginning, the Baloch have been pushed to the wall. 

They have never been treated as equal citizens of Pakistan, nor have they been given equal constitutional, economic, and political opportunities. 

This is why some Baloch protest peacefully, some do nothing, and some have taken up arms against the state.

China’s ‘Belt and Road’ Plan in Pakistan Takes a Military Turn

Under a program China insisted was peaceful, Pakistan is cooperating on distinctly defense-related projects, including a secret plan to build new fighter jets.
By Maria Abi-Habib

A Chinese rocket boosting two Pakistani satellites into orbit from Jiuquan, China, in July.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — When President Trump started the new year by suspending billions of dollars of security aid to Pakistan, one theory was that it would scare the Pakistani military into cooperating better with its American allies.
The reality was that Pakistan already had a replacement sponsor lined up.
Just two weeks later, the Pakistani Air Force and Chinese officials were putting the final touches on a secret proposal to expand Pakistan’s building of Chinese military jets, weaponry and other hardware. The confidential plan, reviewed by The New York Times, would also deepen the cooperation between China and Pakistan in space, a frontier the Pentagon recently said Beijing was trying to militarize after decades of playing catch-up.
All those military projects were designated as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, a $1 trillion chain of infrastructure development programs stretching across some 70 countries, built and financed by Beijing.
Chinese officials have repeatedly said the Belt and Road is purely an economic project with peaceful intent. 

But with its plan for Pakistan, China is for the first time explicitly tying a Belt and Road proposal to its military ambitions — and confirming the concerns of a host of nations who suspect the infrastructure initiative is really about helping China project armed might.
As China’s strategically located and nuclear-armed neighbor, Pakistan has been the leading example of how the Chinese projects are being used to give Beijing both favor and leverage among its clients.
Since the beginning of the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013, Pakistan has been the program’s flagship site, with some $62 billion in projects planned in the so-called China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. 

In the process, China has lent more and more money to Pakistan at a time of economic desperation there, binding the two countries ever closer.
For the most part, Pakistan has eagerly turned more toward China as the chill with the United States has deepened. 

Some Pakistani officials are growing concerned about losing sovereignty to their deep-pocketed Asian ally, but the host of ways the two countries are now bound together may leave Pakistan with little choice but to go along.
Even before the revelation of the new Chinese-Pakistani military cooperation, some of China’s biggest projects in Pakistan had clear strategic implications.
A Chinese-built seaport and special economic zone in the Pakistani town of Gwadar is rooted in trade, giving China a quicker route to get goods to the Arabian Sea. 

But it also gives Beijing a strategic card to play against India and the United States if tensions worsen to the point of naval blockades as the two powers increasingly confront each other at sea.
A less scrutinized component of Belt and Road is the central role Pakistan plays in China’s Beidou satellite navigation system. 

Pakistan is the only other country that has been granted access to the system’s military service, allowing more precise guidance for missiles, ships and aircraft.
The cooperation is meant to be a blueprint for Beidou’s expansion to other Belt and Road nations, however, ostensibly ending its clients’ reliance on the American military-run GPS network that Chinese officials fear is monitored and manipulated by the United States.
In Pakistan, China has found an amenable ally with much to recommend it: shared borders and a long history of cooperation; a hedge in South Asia against India; a large market for arms sales and trade with potential for growth; a wealth of natural resources.
Now, China is also finding a better showcase for its security and surveillance technology in a place once defined by its close military relationship with the United States.
“The focus of Belt and Road is on roads and bridges and ports, because those are the concrete construction projects that people can easily see. But it’s the technologies of the future and technologies of future security systems that could be the biggest security threat in the Belt and Road project,” said Priscilla Moriuchi, the director of strategic threat development at Recorded Future, a cyberthreat intelligence monitoring company based in Massachusetts.

The Chinese-built and operated port in Gwadar, Pakistan.

An Asset on the Sea
The tightening China-Pakistan security alliance has gained momentum on a long road to the Arabian Sea.
In 2015, under Belt and Road, China took a nascent port in the Pakistani coastal town of Gwadar and supercharged the project with an estimated $800 million development plan that included a large special economic zone for Chinese companies.
Linking the port to western China would be a new 2,000-mile network of highways and rails through the most forbidding stretch of Pakistan: Baluchistan Province, a resource-rich region plagued by militancy.
The public vision for the project was that it would allow Chinese goods to bypass much longer and more expensive shipping routes through the Indian Ocean and avoid the territorial waters of several American allies in Asia.
From the beginning, though, key details of the project were kept from the public and lawmakers, officials say, including the terms of its loan structure and the length of the lease, more than 40 years, that a Chinese state-owned company secured to operate the port.
If there was concern within Pakistan about the hidden costs of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, also known as CPEC, there was growing suspicion abroad about a hidden military aspect, as well.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan, center left, praying during the formal opening of Gwadar port in 2016.

In recent years, Chinese state-owned companies have built or begun constructing seaports at strategic spots around the Indian Ocean, including places in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Malaysia.
Chinese officials insisted that the ports would not be militarized. 

But analysts began wondering whether China’s endgame was to muscle its way onto coastal territories that could become prime military assets — much as it did when it started militarizing contested islands in the South China Sea.
Then, Sri Lanka, unable to repay its ballooning debt with China, handed over the Chinese-built port at Hambantota in a 99-year lease agreement last year. 

Indian and American officials expressed a growing conviction that taking control of the port had been China’s intent all along.
In October, Vice President Mike Pence said Sri Lanka was a warning for all Belt and Road countries that China was luring them into debt traps.
“China uses so-called debt diplomacy to expand its influence,” Mr. Pence said in a speech.
“Just ask Sri Lanka, which took on massive debt to let Chinese state companies build a port of questionable commercial value,” Mr. Pence added. 

“It may soon become a forward military base for China’s growing blue-water navy.”
Military analysts predict that China could use Gwadar to expand the naval footprint of its attack submarines, after agreeing in 2015 to sell eight submarines to Pakistan in a deal worth up to $6 billion. 

China could use the equipment it sells to the South Asian country to refuel its own submarines, extending its navy’s global reach.

The Sahiwal coal power plant in Pakistan’s Punjab Province was one of the first and biggest projects financed and completed under the Belt and Road Initiative. Pakistan has fallen behind on payments just to operate the plant.

Deepening Debt
When China inaugurated Belt and Road, in 2013, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s new government in Pakistan saw it as the answer for a host of problems.
Foreign investment in Pakistan was scant, driven away by terrorist attacks and the country’s enduring reputation for corruption. 

And Pakistan desperately needed a modern power grid to help ease persistent electricity shortages.
Pakistani officials say that Beijing first proposed the highway from China’s East Turkestan colony through Pakistan that connected to Gwadar port. 

But Pakistani officials insisted that new coal power plants be built. 

China agreed.
With CPEC under fresh scrutiny, Chinese and Pakistani officials in recent weeks have contended that Pakistan has a debt problem, but not a Chinese debt problem. 

In October, the country’s central bank revealed an overall debt and liability burden of about $215 billion, with $95 billion externally held. 

With nearly half of CPEC’s projects completed — in terms of worth — Pakistan currently owes China $23 billion.
But the country stands to owe $62 billion to China — before interest balloons the figure to some $90 billion — under the plan for Belt and Road’s expansion there in coming years.
Pakistan’s central bank governor, Ashraf Wathra, said publicly in 2015 that he had no clarity on Chinese investments in Pakistan and was concerned about rising debt levels. 

It still took him months after that to secure a briefing from cabinet officials.

Years after contracting to have China build new power plants, Pakistan still has a problem with severe electricity shortfalls.

“My main question was, ‘Do we have any feasibility studies of these projects and a cost-benefit analysis?’ Their answers were all evasive,” recalled Mr. Wathra, who has since retired.
Ahsan Iqbal, a cabinet minister and the main architect for CPEC in the previous government, said the project was well thought-through and dismissed Mr. Wathra’s account.
“No one wanted to invest here — the Chinese took a chance,” Mr. Iqbal said in an interview.
But the bill is coming due. 

Pakistan’s first debt repayments to China are set for next year, starting at about $300 million and gradually increasing to reach about $3.2 billion by 2026, according to officials. 

And Pakistan is already having trouble paying what it owes to Chinese companies.

Pakistan already builds Chinese-designed JF-17 fighter jets, like this one. Under a secret proposal, Pakistan would also cooperate with China to build a new generation of fighters.

Fighter Jets and Satellites
According to the undisclosed proposal drawn up by the Pakistani Air Force and Chinese officials at the start of the year, a special economic zone under CPEC would be created in Pakistan to produce a new generation of fighter jets. 

For the first time, navigation systems, radar systems and onboard weapons would be built jointly by the countries at factories in Pakistan.
The proposal, confirmed by officials at the Ministry of Planning and Development, would expand China and Pakistan’s current cooperation on the JF-17 fighter jet, which is assembled at Pakistan’s military-run Kamra Aeronautical Complex in Punjab Province. 

The Chinese-designed jets have given Pakistan an alternative to the American-built F-16 fighters that have become more difficult to obtain as Islamabad’s relationship with Washington frays.
The plans are in the final stages of approval, but the current government is expected to rubber stamp the project, officials in Islamabad say.
For China, Pakistan could become a showcase for other countries seeking to shift their militaries away from American equipment and toward Chinese arms, Western diplomats said. 

And because China is not averse to selling such advanced weaponry as ballistic missiles — which the United States will not sell to allies like Saudi Arabia — the deal with Pakistan could be a steppingstone to a bigger market for Chinese weapons in the Muslim world.
For years, some of the most important military coordination between China and Pakistan has been going on in space.
Just months before Beijing unveiled the Belt and Road project in 2013, it signed an agreement with Pakistan to build a network of satellite stations inside the South Asian country to establish the Beidou Navigation System as an alternative to the American GPS network.
Beidou quickly became a core component of Belt and Road, with the Chinese government calling the satellite network part of an “information Silk Road” in a 2015 white paper.

A model of China’s Beidou navigation satellite network, shown during the China International Aviation and Aerospace Exhibition in Zhuhai in November.

Like GPS, Beidou has a civilian function and a military one. 

If its trial with Pakistan goes well, Beijing could offer Beidou’s military service to other countries, creating a bloc of nations whose military actions would be more difficult for the United States to monitor.
By 2020, all 35 satellites for the system will be launched in collaboration with other Belt and Road countries, completing Beidou.
“Beidou, whatever any users use it for — whether it’s a civilian navigating their way to the grocery store or a government using it to coordinate their rocket launches — those are all things that China can track,” said Ms. Moriuchi, of the research group Recorded Future. 

“And that’s what is most striking: that this authoritarian government will be a major technology provider for numerous countries in Asia, Africa and Europe.”
For the Pentagon, China’s satellite launches are ominous.
China’s military “continues to strengthen its military space capabilities despite its public stance against the militarization of space,” including developing Beidou and new weaponry, according to a Pentagon report issued to Congress in May.
In October, Pakistan’s information minister, Fawad Chaudhry, said that by 2022, Pakistan would send its own astronaut into space with China’s help.
“We are close to China, and we are getting more close,” he said in a later interview. 

“It’s time for the West to wake up and recognize our importance.”

The Pakistani military has been a vital supporter, and securer, of China’s projects in Pakistan.

Wooing Pakistan’s Military
Though the relationship between China and Pakistan has clearly grown closer, it has not been without tension. 

CPEC could still be vulnerable to political shifts in Pakistan — as happened this year in Malaysia, which shelved three big projects by Chinese companies.
Campaigning during the parliamentary elections that made him prime minister in July, Imran Khan vowed to review CPEC projects and renegotiate them if he won. 

In September, after meeting in Saudi Arabia with the crown prince, Mr. Khan said that the kingdom had agreed to invest in CPEC too.
Pakistan’s new commerce minister then proposed pausing all CPEC projects while the government assessed them.
The moves by Pakistan’s new government angered Beijing, which was concerned they could set back Belt and Road globally.
But in Pakistan, China has a steady ally it can approach to smooth things over: the country’s powerful military establishment, which stands to fill its coffers with millions of dollars through CPEC as the military’s construction companies win infrastructure bids.
Shortly after the commerce minister’s comments, the Pakistani Army’s top commander, Gen. Qamar Javed Bajwa, hurried to Beijing for an unannounced visit with Xi Jinping. 

The meeting came six weeks before Mr. Khan made his first official visit with the Chinese president, a trip he had listed as a priority.
Statements from the military said Bajwa and Xi spoke extensively about Belt and Road projects.
Bajwa “said that the Belt and Road initiative with CPEC as its flagship is destined to succeed despite all odds, and Pakistan’s army shall ensure security of CPEC at all costs,” read a statement from the Pakistani military.
Shortly after the Beijing meeting, Pakistan’s government rolled back its invitation to Saudi Arabia to join CPEC and all talk of pausing or canceling Chinese projects has stopped.

Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan went to meet Xi Jinping in China in November with high hopes for an economic deal. But few details have been announced.

But China could face another challenge to its investments: a Pakistani financial crisis that has forced Mr. Khan’s government to seek loans from international lenders that require transparency.
Throughout September, international delegations traveled to Islamabad carrying the same message: Reveal the extent of Chinese loans if you want financial assistance.
In a late September meeting with visiting officials from the International Monetary Fund, Pakistan’s government asked for a bailout of up to $12 billion. 

The fund’s representatives pressed Pakistan to share all existing agreements with the Chinese government and demanded I.M.F. input during any future CPEC negotiations — a previously undisclosed facet of the negotiations, according to communications seen by the Fund and a Pakistani official. 

The fund also sought assurances that Pakistan would not use a bailout to repay CPEC loans.
But the Chinese Embassy in Islamabad stepped up its engagement as well, demanding that CPEC deals be kept secret and promising to shore up Pakistan’s finances with bilateral loans, Pakistani officials say.
Three months after taking office, Khan still has not made good on his campaign promises to reveal the nature of the $62 billion investment Beijing has committed to Pakistan, and his government has backtracked on an I.M.F. deal.
In early November, Khan visited Xi in Beijing, a trip during which he was expected to clinch bilateral loans and grants to ease Pakistan’s financial crisis.
Instead, his government walked away with vague promises of a deal “in principle,” but refused to disclose any details.

A Chinese national flag, center at the Sahiwal coal power plant in Pakistan, which cost about $1.9 billion to build. Pakistan now owes around $119 million in back payments to Chinese companies just for operating the plant.

Australia's plan to challenge China in the South Pacific

By John Lee

Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi shake hands at a news conference at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing Thursday.

On the day Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne met Chinese counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing to signal the beginning of a thaw in the Australia-China bilateral relationship, her boss, Prime Minister Scott Morrison, announced a $2.2 billion infrastructure package as part of the government's "step-up to the Pacific."
Few Australian politicians want to admit that the "step-up" is targeted against another country. 

But it is occurring as Australians are becoming increasingly concerned with the significant Chinese increase of its diplomatic, economic and potentially military presence in the South Pacific, an area that has long been considered by Canberra to be its "backyard."
The motivation for this massive investment is the worst kept secret in Australian foreign policy: Australians know it is about China; the South Pacific Islands know it is about China; even Beijing knows it is about China.
Is Australia over-reacting? 

If not, why now? 

And can an economy less than one-eighth the size of China's really compete with the latter's ambitions in the South Pacific?
For foreigners, the national importance Australia attaches to the Pacific might be difficult to understand. 

In April 2018, Australian media reports claimed China had approached Vanuatu about building up its military presence on the island, and potentially opening a military base. 

Having given the island of around 270,000 people hundreds of millions of dollars of development aid, the reports also indicated that Beijing had been negotiating with Vanuatu about host and even basing rights for People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy ships.
No subsequent proof of these negotiations was released. 

Even so, the reports generated at least as much popular interest and concern as China's well-known island-building program in the South China Sea and militarization of these artificial islands.
In Australian strategic circles, the notion of a supposed naval base around 2,500 kilometers (1,500 miles) from its shoreline did more than raise eyebrows. 

It played into the country's sense of vulnerability.
As reaffirmed in the 2016 Defense White Paper, the highest priority has been given to ensuring that no potentially hostile power is able to approach the Australian continent from Southeast Asia or the South Pacific in its national defense strategy.
Moreover, it has long been unofficial policy between allies that the United States and Japan secure Northeast Asia, the US with Australian support secures Southeast Asia, and Australia takes the primary responsibility for securing the South Pacific. 

Perhaps a naval base hosting PLA vessels in Vanuatu was never in the cards.
But the PLA is seeking to enhance its reach and any permanent Chinese military presence in the South Pacific would allow the its Navy to "break out" into the Western Pacific Ocean. 

That scenario -- or any other base offered to it by a poor and desperate Pacific Island -- would fundamentally undermine Australian strategic policy which has been in place since the end of World War II.
This brings us back to Morrison's multi-billion infrastructure package, which includes funding an infrastructure bank for projects in the region. 

In the previous decade, Chinese funding of Pacific Island countries was part of its strategy of using "checkbook diplomacy" to persuade small island countries to recognize the People's Republic of China rather than Taiwan as the true "China."
At least according to the Australian view, Chinese checkbook diplomacy is now about more than seeking official recognition at Taiwan's expense. 

It is also about winning over these small countries to China's way of thinking, whether it be about basing rights, controlling critical infrastructure in those countries or forcing states to turn a blind eye to controversial Chinese policies such as in the South China Sea.
Beijing achieves this through showering small economies -- which would otherwise find it difficult to attract foreign investment -- with cheap loans. 

As has occurred in Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Laos and Pakistan, the tendency of these small and developing economies to accept far more debt that they can repay allows Beijing to dictate the political and/or strategic terms of any debt-forgiveness or restructuring assistance.
Persistent suspicion that China is seeking to use Hambantota and Gwadar Ports in debt-ridden Sri Lanka and Pakistan respectively for military purposes in the future only raises the discomfort levels for Australia when it comes to China in the South Pacific.

Certainly, China does not take half-measures. 

Since 2011, it has offered at least $1.3 billion in donations and concessionary loans to Pacific Island countries. 

This surpasses the $1.2 billion New Zealand has given over the same period. 

China's amount is second only to the $6.6 billion from Australia.
To be sure, Australia remains the preeminent aid and development contributor to the South Pacific and its decades of working with these small island economies means Canberra is well-positioned to remain the "partner of choice."
Even so, Australia has been largely reactive and playing defense to China offense. 

For example, Canberra signed an agreement with the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea in July to pay for undersea cables between the three countries in a last-minute bid to prevent Chinese firm Huawei from receiving the contract. 

In September, Canberra joined with the US in a last ditch attempt to thwart Huawei winning approval to build the domestic Internet cable network in Papua New Guinea.
These, and other, efforts have been reactive to Chinese overtures.
The point is not to outbid China in terms of short-term generosity or allow Pacific Island nations to play Australia off against China to maximize both countries' largesse. 

Morrison intends to ensure that these small economies will choose an Australian backed funding source which abides by World Bank and other international commercial standards but where access is fast-tracked and not held up by unnecessary regulations (typical of World Bank and Asian Development Bank Loans), and which impose repayment terms that are sustainable and will not endanger the solvency of these economies.
Australia knows it cannot keep China out of the South Pacific. 

But it can warn these developing economies about the price of severe indebtedness to China and offer them a ready alternative when it comes to the funding of critical infrastructure which would have domestic and/or regional security implications.
Most of all, recent Australian policy is belated recognition it needs to compete in a region which has remain benign and free from potentially hostile external influence for over seven decades.

Han Peril: China ensnares vulnerable states in a debt trap

Cheap credits are used to secure influence and grab control of strategic assets
By Brahma Chellaney
A ship departs a port in Zhanjiang, China, in July for Africa's Djibouti to dispatch members of the People's Liberation Army to man a military base there.

"There are two ways to conquer and enslave a country," American statesman John Adams (U.S. president from 1797 to 1801) famously said. 

"One is by the sword. The other is by debt."
China has chosen the second path.  

Aggressively employing economic tools to advance its strategic interests, Beijing has extended huge loans to financially weak states and ensnared some in debt traps that greatly strengthen its leverage.
After establishing a growing presence in the South China Sea, Beijing seems increasingly determined to extend its influence in the Indian Ocean, not least in countries surrounding India, its regional strategic rival.
From Djibouti in Africa to the Indian Ocean island of Sri Lanka, China has converted big credits into political influence and even a military presence.
Now a political crisis in the Maldives has highlighted the fact that China has quietly acquired several islets in the heavily indebted Indian Ocean archipelago.
Mohamed Nasheed, the nation's first and only democratically elected president who was ousted at gunpoint, says the country cannot repay the $1.5bn-$2bn it owes China, equivalent to 80% of the total foreign debt. 

"Without firing a single shot, China has grabbed more land" in the Maldives than what Britain's "East India Company did at the height of the 19th century."
Among the unpopulated Maldivian islands China has acquired on lease are Feydhoo Finolhu, lying close to the capital Male and previously used for police training, and the 7km-long Kalhufahalufushi, with a magnificent reef. 

For Feydhoo Finolhu, it paid $4 million, which is what a luxury apartment in Hong Kong sells for; Kalhufahalufushi was even cheaper.
China is the only country to come out in support of Maldives' embattled authoritarian president, Abdulla Yameen, who came to power in 2013. 

Beijing has also issued an open threat against India, which has traditionally been the dominant foreign influence in the Maldives, since the islands were granted independence from Britain. 

Chinese state-controlled media has warned that if India militarily intervenes in the Maldives, Beijing won't "sit idly by" but will "take action to stop" it.
To be sure, China claims sound commercial grounds for acquiring its Maldivian islands. 

But across the Indian Ocean, port projects that China insisted were purely commercial have acquired military dimensions.
After lending billions of dollars to Djibouti, China last year established its first overseas military base in that tiny but strategically important state, located on the northwestern edge of the Indian Ocean. 

In Pakistan, Beijing has deployed its warships for the security of the Chinese-built Gwadar port, whilst seeking to establish a military base nearby.

Beijing's creditor diplomacy scored a major success in December when Sri Lanka formally handed over its strategically located Hambantota port to China under a 99-year lease valued at $1.12 billion. 

Earlier, after Sri Lanka's $500-million, largely Chinese-owned Colombo Port container terminal opened in 2014, Chinese submarines arrived quietly and docked there.
Further east in Myanmar, there are concerns in India and the West that Kyauk Pyu, a deep-water port to be developed and financed largely by China, could eventually also serve military purposes.
In the Maldives, Beijing has shown interest in turning an uninhabited island into a naval base by cutting through the surrounding coral reefs to create passageways for its warships. 

Or it could create an artificial island and militarize it, as it has done in the South China Sea.
Underscoring Beijing's strategic calculations, three Chinese frigates visited the Maldives about six months ago, docking in Male and at Girifushi Island and imparting special training to Maldivian troops.
Meanwhile, China's stepped-up naval presence in the Indian Ocean in recent weeks might be intended to send a message to India, including seeking to deter it from militarily intervening in the Maldives, as New Delhi did with Western backing in 1988, when Indian paratroopers foiled a coup attempt. 

The action reinforced India's claim to be the region's peacekeeper.
The current ruler, Yameen, has facilitated China's island acquisitions in his country by amending the constitution in 2015 to legalize foreign ownership of land. 

The amendment appeared tailored for China; the new rules for foreign ownership require a minimum $1 billion construction project that involves reclaiming at least 70% of the desired land from the ocean.
By also awarding Beijing major Chinese-financed infrastructure contracts, Yameen is saddling the Maldives with mounting debt that is likely to prove unserviceable.
Several countries that have fallen into debt servitude to China are India's immediate neighbors, including Bangladesh, the Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. 

This holds major foreign-policy implications for India, which is seeing its influence erode in its backyard. 

By establishing a Djibouti-type naval base in the Maldives, China could open an Indian Ocean front against India in the same quiet way that it opened the trans-Himalayan threat under Mao Zedong by gobbling up Tibet, the historical buffer.
China's strategy in southern Asia and beyond is aimed at fashioning a Sinosphere of trade, communication, transportation and security links.  

By financially shackling smaller states through projects it funds and builds, it is crimping their decision-making autonomy in a way that helps bring them within its strategic orbit. 

It is even replicating some of the practices that were used against it during the European-colonial period when, in the words of the Chinese nationalist revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen, "India was the favored wife of Britain while China was the common prostitute of all powers." 

One such practice is the long-term lease, an echo of the 99-year-lease through which 19th-century Britain secured control of the New Territories, expanding Hong Kong's landmass by 90%.
The International Monetary Fund has warned that Chinese loans, offered at rates as high as 7%, are promoting unsustainable debt burdens. 

The price that such loans exact can extend to national sovereignty and self-respect. 

The handover of Hambantota was seen in Sri Lanka as the equivalent of a heavily indebted farmer giving away his daughter to the cruel money lender.
In Pakistan, Chinese state companies have secured energy contracts on terms that include ownership of the plants and 16% guaranteed yearly returns, very high by global standards. 

The "economic corridor" that China seems intent on building across Pakistan has become a vehicle for a deep Chinese penetration of the Pakistani state, with most of the investment going into energy, agricultural and security projects often unrelated to a corridor.
Against this background, the word "predatory" is increasingly being used internationally about China's practices. 

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has called China a "new imperialist power" whose practices are "reminiscent of European colonialism."
Mao said, "Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun." 

But with China emerging as the first major power in modern history without real allies, an additional principle is guiding its policy: buying friendship by opening a fat wallet. 

China is co-opting states into its sphere of influence by burying them in debt.

Sina Delenda Est

India, U.S. and Japan Begin War Games, and China Hears a Message
By HARI KUMAR and ELLEN BARRY

American and Japanese ships during the inauguration of joint naval exercises with India on Monday in Chennai, India. 

NEW DELHI — The navies of India, Japan and the United States began a set of war games on Monday with a particular target: submarines capable of sliding unannounced into the deep waters of the Indian Ocean, silently taking positions near the Indian coastline.
It is not a mystery whose submarines are at issue. 

Last month, the Indian Navy announced a plan to permanently station warships to monitor movement through the Strait of Malacca, where many Chinese vessels enter from the South China Sea. 

And in recent weeks, navy officials here have reported a “surge” of Chinese military vessels entering the Indian Ocean.
Routine maritime exercises have long served as a gauge of India’s uneasy relationship with China, prompting a shrug or a blast of condemnation, depending on the circumstances.
The annual series of naval exercises, known as the Malabar series, began in 1992. 

This year’s event was the largest to date, and the first to feature carriers from all three navies. 

The games are unfolding under tense circumstances, nearly a month into an aggressive standoff between Chinese and Indian border forces in the Himalayas.

On Sunday, the Chinese Embassy in New Delhi took the unusual step of warning its citizens to be especially cautious traveling in India for the next month.
Against that backdrop, the influx of Chinese warships into the Indian Ocean is another indicator of Beijing’s displeasure, said retired Adm. Anup Singh, who has overseen the exercises in the past.
“They are deliberately upping the ante in order to flag their posture to people who are concerned,” Admiral Singh said. 

“The Indians, the Japanese and the Americans. So they deliberately do it as a pinprick.”
Though India’s Navy is dwarfed by China’s, India holds a strategic advantage in the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago, which stretches 470 miles to the northwest of the Strait of Malacca, a “choke point” connecting the South China Sea to the Indian Ocean.
This position, which could be used to put pressure on Chinese supply lines, is an increasing focus of cooperation between India, the United States and Japan. 

Monday’s China Daily, an English-language government newspaper, referred apprehensively to the maritime exercises in an editorial, noting that the Indian Ocean is one of China’s main conduits for trade and oil imports.
“It is China that should feel ‘security concerns,’” it concluded.
China’s submarine fleet has expanded rapidly in recent years. 

The country has assumed control of Pakistan’s Gwadar Port, finalizing plans to sell eight submarines to Pakistan, and opening its first overseas military logistics supply facility in Djibouti.
For Indian leaders, who for centuries have focused on contested northern borders, this has required a sudden shift in attention to 4,700 miles of southern coastline, along which much of the country’s security and energy infrastructure is concentrated.
“This is a tectonic shift in India’s security calculus, that it has to protect its southern flank,” said Brahma Chellaney, a professor of strategic studies at the Center for Policy Research. 

One response, he said, would be “a concert of democracies to rein in these muscular activities.”
Both Japan and the United States have expressed eagerness to team up with India on its maritime frontier. 

Last month, the United States agreed to sell India 22 advanced surveillance drones, which could be deployed to the Strait of Malacca and used to track Chinese naval movements. 

The drones can be used in concert with the American-made P-8I Poseidon surveillance aircraft, which are already staged on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
The Indian government has signaled that it is willing, after many years of resistance, to expand security infrastructure on the archipelago. 

In May, a wildlife board approved the creation of missile testing and surveillance facilities on Rutland Island, a project first proposed in 2013.
Last year, Japan became the first foreign government allowed to build infrastructure on the archipelago — a 15-megawatt power plant. 

But it is eager to break ground on a range of other connectivity projects, said Darshana M. Baruah, a research analyst at Carnegie India. 

When Mr. Modi visited Japan last year, the two leaders agreed on a plan to develop “smart islands,” as part of a set of projects in sensitive frontier areas.
This week’s naval exercises will involve the United States’ Nimitz, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier; India’s I.N.S. Vikramaditya, a Russian-made aircraft carrier; and Japan’s JS Izumo, a helicopter carrier, as well as 13 other warships and submarines. 

Japan is participating for the second year in a row. 

A decade ago, China was infuriated when the three countries teamed up with Australia for naval exercises, applying immediate diplomatic pressure that prompted Australia to withdraw.
This year, Australian military officials asked for their country to take part as an “observer,” but India rejected the idea.

Chinese Aggressions

Countering China's Submarine Presence in the Indian Ocean
By Abhijit Singh

As Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Sri Lanka earlier this month, reports emerged that the Sri Lankan government had turned down China's request for a submarine docking in Colombo harbor. 

Beijing, apparently, wanted one of its submarines (ostensibly on its way to the Gulf of Aden for 'anti-piracy' patrols) to make a logistical stopover at a Sri Lankan port, but Colombo is believed to have quietly declined, after which the submarine is supposed to have been diverted to Karachi.
The Sri Lankan government's decision to nix the Chinese request is likely to have been shaped by an experience three years ago, when the docking of a People's Liberation Army Navy (PLA Navy) submarine in Colombo resulted in a firestorm of protest from New Delhi. 

Acutely conscious of India's strategic sensitivities around Chinese naval presence in Sri Lanka, Colombo this time around moved quickly to avoid a repeat of the incident.
If rejecting China's proposal made for startling optics, the message seemed directed at the political class in New Delhi. 

Indian observers found it curious that Sri Lankan sources cited in initial media reports were eager to portray Colombo's refusal to allow the submarine's docking in Colombo as an act of Sri Lankan solidarity with India. 

More strikingly, however, Beijing's request for the submarine docking nearly coincided with Modi's visit to Colombo, raising doubts about China's intentions in raising the matter in a manner that would ensure it soon went public.
Indeed, there seemed something strange about the whole affair. 

China's maritime managers are likely to have drawn up a passage plan for the submarine visit to the Indian Ocean many weeks in advance. 

At a time when Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickramasinghe was preparing to visit Beijing for the Belt and Road Summit, PLA Navy commanders would presumably be wary of raking controversy by bringing up a submarine visit. 

Indeed, if such a request were to be made, Chinese planners would have reached out to Colombo weeks before the arrival of the submarine in Sri Lankan waters. 

That China's naval elite chose to overlook political sensitivities by making a request which they knew had little chance of being accepted indicates an act of strategic signalling by Beijing – the delivery of an explicit message that the PLA Navy doesn't really care about New Delhi's nautical redlines.
This is not to underplay China's tactical imperative for sustained undersea operations in the Indian Ocean. 

The expansion of PLA Navy submarine activity in South Asia is quite in keeping with a powerful navy's need to familiarise itself with alien operating conditions. 

The pattern of Chinese submarine visits reveals that the PLA Navy has been incrementally raising the complexity of its deployments, sending both conventional and nuclear submarines to learn more about the Indian Ocean's operating environment.
Indian observers note a rise in the docking of submarine tender ships in Sri Lankan ports, suggesting the presence of PLA Navy diesel-electric submarines (SSKs) in Sri Lanka's near-seas. 

The deployments seem aimed at fine-tuning standard operating procedures for coastal operations, in particular the collection of vital hydrological and bathymetric data and the training of submarine crews. 

Indian imagery experts report the possibility of Yuan-class submarines in Sri Lanka's littoral seas, optimised for shallow water and littoral water operations. 

Chinese submarine crews appear to be assessing the variable 'thermocline' in the Indian Ocean, a phenomenon that directly affects SONAR performance. 

The prolonged deployment of Chinese conventional submarines around Sri Lanka is strongly suggestive of an attempt by PLA Navy crews to master shallow water operations in the Indian Ocean.
The PLA Navy's emphasis on 'theatre access' in distant littoral spaces seemed modelled on the US Navy's blueprint of global operations. 

Since May 2015, when China released its military strategy white paper, the Indian Ocean has been a focal area of interest for PLA Navy commanders. 

The Chinese navy has accordingly expanded its anti-piracy patrols and increased the stationing of ships and marines at an overseas outpost in Djibouti. 

Beijing's primary instrument for exerting coercive influence in Asia's western and southern rim, however, has been its submarines. 

With Beijing continuing to expand naval engagement with regional states, there has been a dramatic rise in PLA Navy submarine visit in the region, with Indian analysts reporting at least seven deployments since 2013, including three nuclear submarines. 

China's growing undersea presence in the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal, Indian naval commanders say, is meant to display increased naval capability and strategic intent in India's near-seas.
More disquieting for Indian analysts has been the strengthening of the China-Pakistan maritime partnership in the Indian Ocean. 

After the announcement of a special taskforce to protect the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, there is a possibility that Beijing might set-up a maritime logistics facility on the Makran coast. 

With eight Chinese submarines planned for transfer to Pakistan, it is highly likely that the PLA Navy may eventually establish a dual-use commercial/military facility at Gwadar. 

China's interests in securing its sea lines of communications in the northern Indian Ocean has resulted in a partnership with Pakistan in modernising the Pakistan Navy, including the sale of Azmat-class fast attack craft, new frigates and Type-022 Houbei catamaran missile boats.
Despite denials by their regional leaders, Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Bangladesh are poised to witness a substantial expansion of China's maritime footprint. 

With more than 80% of assets at Hambantota under the control of Chinese state-owned companies, it seems to be a matter of time before the PLA Navy sets up a maritime repair/replenishment facility in Sri Lanka. 

After delivering two Ming-class submarines to Bangladesh and announcing the sale of three submarines to Thailand, Beijing has already announced its maritime ambitions in the Bay of Bengal region. 

In Myanmar too Chinese companies are set to acquire majority stakes in Kyaukpyu port, with the PLA Navy expanding its naval engagement with the Myanmar Navy. 

Indian observers fear that Sri Lanka's reluctance to allow basing facilities for PLA Navy warships and submarines immediately will lead Beijing to consider Gwadar, Maldives, Chittagong (Bangladesh) or Kyaukphu (Myanmar) as alternate basing options. 

For New Delhi, China's growing maritime involvement with these states indicates a tightening strategic stranglehold over the South Asian rim, a traditional Indian sphere of geo-political influence.
How then must the Indian Navy respond to the PLA Navy's enhanced undersea presence in maritime South Asia? 

To begin, India must take urgent measures to boost its submarine capability. 

With delays in the Scorpene construction program and a lack of critical armament, the Indian Navy isn't ready to face up to China's rapidly growing conventional and nuclear submarines fleet. 

While New Delhi has been looking to expand aerial capabilities in countering assertive PLA Navy manoeuvres in the Indian Ocean, the Indian Navy is constrained by the absence of anti-submarine warfare (ASW) assets. 

Despite the induction of ASW capable P-8Is, the shortage of multirole ASW helicopters on frontline warships has been telling. 

The awareness of ASW weakness is, in fact, a key driver for India's improved naval cooperation with Japan, in particular a proposal to set-up communication links and a line of undersea sensors in the Eastern Indian Ocean. 

But even here, formal approval has only been given to the installation of a submarine optical fibre cable between Chennai and Port Blair.
Meanwhile, New Delhi is yet to develop the Andaman and Nicobar Islands into a truly strategic outpost to comprehensively monitor Chinese naval activity and launch operations against threatening PLA Navy manoeuvres. 

While there has been some progress is creating naval air stations and deploying P8-Is for maritime patrols, the Indian Navy is yet to develop existing facilities into full-fledged military centres with active A2/AD capabilities, perhaps on account of a lack of consensus in adopting too aggressive a combat posture in the Bay of Bengal.
In friendly Indian Ocean states too, New Delhi's initiative to set-up an integrated surveillance network through the installation of a chain of radars has made limited headway. 

Indian maritime planners realise tracking Chinese submarines will need coordinated search operations with other friendly navies, only made possible through a formal agreement to allow Indian, American, Japanese and Australian warships to share data with each other.
On the operational front, progress has been steady but slow. 

As a response to growing Chinese submarine deployments in its maritime neighbourhood, India has moved to include Japan in the India-US 'Malabar' series of maritime exercises. 

But a request by Australia for observer status has been turned down by New Delhi. 

It will, at some, point need favourable consideration. 

With Canberra and Tokyo keen to partner India in the Indian Ocean, New Delhi will need to take a clear position on seemingly controversial proposals such as the maritime 'quad'. 

To counter Chinese maritime presence in the Indian Ocean, India realises it needs to raise its operational coordination with other friendly Indo-Pacific states.
Ultimately, China's submarine operations in the South Asian littorals portend greater Chinese force projection in the Indian Ocean. 

This is detrimental to New Delhi's geopolitical influence and strategic leverages in the region. 

If India does not move to protect its equities, South Asia could soon fall under the sway of Beijing's rapidly expanding maritime power.

China's Strategic Encirclement Of India’s Core Interests

By Bhaskar Roy

Having failed to constrict India within South Asia with its “String of Pearls” Strategy, China has now embarked on a new initiative to trip India’s growing comprehensive national power (CNP) and influence beyond South Asia.
India’s neighbours swam with China periodically, depending on the government in those countries. For example, the Mahinda Rajapksa government in Sri Lanka jumped into China’s lap for their own political reasons. 

The Mathiripala Sirisena government has restored the balance.
The BNP led four party alliance government (2001-2006) in Bangladesh brought relations with India to the lowest ebb. 

The alliance had parties like the Jamaat-e-Islami which were beholden to Pakistan and actively complicit in the savage rape and attempted extermination of the pro-liberation Bengalees in 1971. They were natural allies of not only Pakistan but also China which supported Pakistan. 

The return of the Awami League to power changed this policy drastically. 

The Awami League government, due to practical necessity and real politics, crafted a friendly relationship with China, but not at the expense of their relationship with India. 

China, however, is trying to entice Dhaka, but this does not worry India because India-Bangladesh relationship has more than political market imperatives. 

There is a cultural and historical conjunction.
Nepal has been vacillating between India and China. 

Lodged between the two giant countries, they are trying to get the best out of the two. 

China recognises India’s influence in Nepal, but has been consistently trying to weaken the India-Nepal relationship.
Pakistan has emerged as China’s mainstay in the region and extends to the Gulf, the Central Asian region, and now they are trying to draw in Russia in this ambit. 

Weakening India-Russia relations is one of its aims. 

With its promised 46 billion investment in Pakistan for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), Control of the Gwadar Port (a military project), primary arms and defence equipment supplier and recent acquisition of 40 percent of the Pakistan stock market by a Chinese conglomerate, Pakistan is fast emerging as a country under Chinese suzerainty. 

Evidence suggests Pakistan may soon become a platform for the projection of both soft and hard power for being along the route envisaged for the “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) project. 

China is unlikely to declare Pakistan as one of its “core” interests, but it is already acting as such.
Lately, China has been expressing concerns about achieving the full potential of the CPEC. 

In an article in the Communist Party affiliated newspaper Global Times (Dec. 28, 2016), Wang Dehua, Director of the Institute of Southern and Central Asian Studies, Shanghai Municipal Center for Internal Studies, wrote that the CEPC was facing challenges. 

He went on to describe the project as having “significant economic, political and strategic implications for both China and Pakistan”.
Wang wrote this in the context of a spat between the Chinese Chargé d'Affaires in Islamabad Zhao Lijian and a journalist of the Pakistani newspaper Dawn. 

The concerned journalist asked Zhao some uncomfortable questions including use of Chinese prisoners as labour. 

The senior Chinese diplomat lost his cool in a public place, which is very uncharacteristic of the Chinese.
Wang Dehua revealed that Chinese investment was raised to $51 billion from the initial $46 billion. The Chinese party media have extolled the virtue of the CPEC not only for China and Pakistan but other countries of the region including India, Iran, Afghanistan and Russia. 

The emphasis has been more on India, suggesting that India joining the project could help reduce tensions between India and Pakistan. 

Simultaneously, there is a suggestion to link Gwadar and Chabahar ports as sister ports and sister cities.
The CPEC is the flagship project of the larger OBOR strategic conception of extending China’s circulatory system far and wide. 

It has political and strategic penetration as significant benefits. 

Most important is the fact that it is Xi Jinping’s prestige project. It cannot be allowed to fail at any cost. 

It is also part of China’s great power signature.
At the same time, Beijing is ramping up pressure on India in a shower, trying to destabilise India’s emerging foreign policy. 

Beijing’s stand will have serious negative implications especially on the biggest threat to the world at this moment, terrorism. 

In the last week of December, China vetoed India’s move to designate Masood Azhar, head of Pakistan-based terrorist organisation Jaish-e-Mohammad as a “terrorist” at the UN Committee 2167 on terrorism. 

This, when the organisation itself is designated as a terrorist organisation by the same committee.
This one move by China has hit at the very roots of the global movement against extremism and terrorism. 

Read plainly, China will use terrorism as a political weapon against perceived enemies, in this case India.

It also encourages Pakistan to use terrorism with impunity against India, Afghanistan and even, perhaps Bangladesh.
India is determined to continue its efforts to bring other Pakistani-based and backed terrorists in front of the 2167 committee. 

China is the only member of their 15 member committee to oppose the move against Azhar. 

In a manner China stands isolated.
China took umbrage and accused India of interfering in China’s internal affairs after the Indian President met His Holiness the Dalai Lama at a function which was totally non-political. 

Their official media threatened India of retaliation of the kind they subjected the tiny country of Mongolia after Dalai Lama’s visit to Mongolia that was a purely religious one. 

Mongolia is a Buddhist Country, mostly of the Gelugpa sect of Buddhism which the Dalai Lama heads spiritually. 

This is a stupid threat. 

Mongolia a tiny land locked country, with a population of around two million, is dependent on China for outside access. 

Such threats do not impress the Indian government and the Indian people. 

The Chinese threat appears to be an act of frustration.
Nevertheless, Tibet is a declared core interest of China, hence the Dalai Lama. 

The 80 year spiritual leader has withdrawn himself from politics, but his influence and reverence among Tibetans inside China and outside is palpable. 

The Chinese have not been able to come to a firm conclusion whether the living 14th Dalai Lama or deceased 14th Dalai Lama will be to their interest.
The Chinese leadership has tried to denigrate the Dalai Lama in all possible ways, calling him a ‘splittist’ (separatist), ‘devil’, ‘wolf in sheep’s clothing among other things, but these have not impressed anyone. 

Beijing suspects India is using Dalai Lama as a ‘card’ against China.
India has accepted Tibet Autonomous Region as a sovereign part of China (2003). 

The Tibetan refugees in India are not allowed political activities. 

Successive governments in New Delhi have bent over backwards to accommodate China’s concerns. But if China continues to attack India on this issue, India will be forced to fight back: Allow the Dalai Lama and the generally accepted Kargyupa head Ughen Thinley Dorjee freedom to move around India including Tawang and the rest of Arunachal Pradesh.

China is trying to push the OBOR to and through Nepal and Bangladesh. 

They hope that through persuasion from these two countries India may succumb and agree to join the OBOR in the interest of its good neighbourhood policy. 

If India does not relent China may seek alternative policies in India’s neighbourhood to constrict India. 

The Global Times has already hinted at this.
Beijing remains determined to keep India out of the Nuclear Supplies Group (NSG). 

It has now objected to India’s successful testing (Dec. 16, 2016) of the 5000 kms nuclear capable ballistic missile Agni V. 

In a sharply worded statement Chinese foreign ministry spokespersons threatened to take this issue to the UN Security Council resolution 1172 after the 1998 nuclear tests by India and Pakistan. 

The resolution passed at the heat of the moment and engineered by China and the US calling on the two countries to stop further nuclear tests, cap their nuclear weapon programmes, cease all fissile material production, and end development of ballistic missiles capable of carrying nuclear weapons. The resolution, however is non-binding. 

China’s threat falls through the floor.
Since then, India has come a long way on the nuclear issue. 

It issued a moratorium on nuclear testing, announced no first use of nuclear weapons policy and signed the India-US nuclear deal. 

India, however, will have to counter Chinese pressures in several such areas in the future.
The Chinese spokesperson also said that “China maintains that preserving the strategic balance and stability in South Asia is conducive to peace and prosperity of regional countries ‘and beyond’. Basically, the statement implied that India may have disturbed the strategic balance in South Asia and beyond, without counting its own intercontinental nuclear capable ballistic missiles and other weapons. 

As China its military development is defensive and not aimed at any country, so is the official India position.
But things between India and China may get worse if the CPEC and OBOR falter seriously. 

This is closely linked to Xi Jinping’s politics and stature of “core” leader of the Chinese Communist Party. 

The 19th Congress to the party will be held in autumn this year and major leadership changes will take place. 

Xi cannot have any chinks in his armour.

Things don’t look good for China

By Balbir Punj

The US Congress has come up with a fresh report saying that China is intent on using Pakistan to thwart India at every turn. 

This is to obtain a unhindered path in the world, especially in the Asian context, adds the report. 

The report has come at a time when a new American president is taking over — one who will have a nononsense policy towards China and has pledged to assert American leadership globally. 

Donald Trump has said that the very first day he assumes office as the 45th President of the United States (on January 20), he will scrap the American membership of the Trans Pacific Partnership. 

TPP was signed in February in view of protecting America’s interests in global trade.
The deal also proposed to work with China in cooperation with countries in the Pacific rim, in the backdrop of the South China Sea divide. 

But those very countries including Japan, Philippines, Vietnam etc. were apprehensive of China’s ambitions as it sought to assert its claims on the Pacific islands. 

These islands are claimed by as many as seven other countries in Asia. 

Not many in the US were happy with TPP either. 

Trump during his election campaign itself had pledged that the US would leave the partnership. 

China had even proposed a partnership with America, but Obama rejected it. 

In his eight years in office, Obama sought to limit China’s ambitions by working with it. 

He strengthened US ties with the countries in Pacific and Indian oceans. 

Obama struck an alliance with Japan, India and Australia to keep the maritime trade corridors free, even as China was pursuing the “One Belt, One Road” initiative. 

Thus the Congress report on US-China relations comes at a time when Trump is setting up a team to take over the US administration.
The report has warned that in the last ten years, Chinese influence has spread in and around South Asia — traditionally seen as India’s sphere of influence. 

Beijing has also sought to build a secure push for itself in the Indian Ocean and block India’s play in that region. 

This is why it is using a ‘wholly willing’ Pakistan to thwart India’s rise as a challenger to China’s ambitions. 

It wants to cement its place as the sole leader of Asia. 

The report, however, also points out that the rise of terrorism is a major threat to China’s security, thus prompting a shift in the country’s strategic calculations. 

In China’s western provinces, there has been a significant rise in radicalisation of Muslim minorities. For decades, authoritarian regimes in several Muslim majority states bordering China in Central Asia have kept restive regions under control.
The US report terms, “checking India’s rise, primarily exploiting India-Pakistan rivalry” as an important agenda for China. 

New Delhi clearly sees that Beijing supports Pakistan on all major regional issues. 

“The overall balance of power between China and India currently is in China’s favour, and Beijing intends to keep it that way. China’s primary mechanism in this regard is its support for Pakistan.” 

For India, it is no news. 

New Delhi has seen Beijing backing Pakistan on crucial issues like declaring Masood Azhar as a globally designated terrorist and blocking India’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group. 

It has harassed Indian businessmen seeking to expand Indian exports to China and has been showing evident hostility to Indian diplomacy in Southeast Asian countries such as Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. 

In addition, China is pushing a $51 billion investment in Pakistan. 

The Chinese Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is an initiative to build a rail, road and industrial corridor from its southern provinces through Pakistan occupied Kashmir.
It creates a corridor between the new port that China is building at Gwadar in Balochistan and Kashgar in Xinjiang. 

China is also seeking to oust regimes in Nepal, Maldives, Myanmar and Sri Lanka — governments it thinks could be friendly to India. 

No doubt, the US Congressional report seeks to show that the threat of terrorism to China is forcing certain changes in Beijing’s South Asian policy that is centred on favouring Pakistan to thwart India. “Counter terrorism has become an increasingly important facet of Beijing’s engagement with South Asia,” the US report claims. 

The response from India to these developments would be watched keenly. 

But the Modi government, with its numerous initiatives, has already built strong bonds with all the Southeast Asian nations. 

Under Prime Minister Modi, India now has a friendly regime in Nepal and Sri Lanka, close relations with Bangladesh and a partnership with Bhutan and Afghanistan.
As a counter to CPEC, India is building a port in Iran. 

Chabahar is being built by India linking Afghanistan, central Asian nations with rich oil and gas fields. 

The port has a huge development potential. 

Whether the Trump administration will join India in all these ventures is to be watched. 

Right now, the expected protectionist trade moves by the incoming Trump administration could further weaken China which has built a huge fortune by exporting globally, mainly to the US. 

This is also a time when the growth rate of China has sunk to six per cent. 

The country’s devalued currency has threatened economic growth thus forcing its migrant population to return to rural areas amidst growing distress. 

Xi Jinping is certainly not riding the silk road without any challenges.