Chinese Peril

China’s Silk Road Plan Facing Problems

VOA
In this Dec. 22, 2017, photo, a Pakistani police officer stands guard at the site of Pakistan China Silk Road in Haripur, Pakistan. From Pakistan to Tanzania to Hungary, projects under Xi Jinping's signature "Belt and Road Initiative" are being canceled, renegotiated or delayed. 

China’s plan for a modern Silk Road linking Asia and Europe hit a pothole recently in Pakistan.
Pakistan and China have good relations; some Pakistani officials even call China their “Iron Brother.” China has played an even bigger role in the country since U.S. President Donald Trump decided last week to suspend security assistance to Pakistan.
Yet, plans for the countries to build a $14-billion dam on the Indus River were put in doubt, after Pakistan’s water authority announced China wanted to own part of the project.
China has denied making the demand. 

However, the water authority rejected China’s demand as against Pakistani interests, and withdrew Pakistan from the dam project.

Belt and Road Initiative
From Pakistan to Hungary to Tanzania, projects under Xi Jinping’s “Belt and Road Initiative” are being canceled, renegotiated or delayed. 

Host countries have disputed costs and benefits that they would receive.
The “Belt and Road Initiative” is a plan to build projects across 65 countries, from the South Pacific through Asia to Africa and Europe. 

Such projects include oil drilling in Siberia, new ports in Southeast Asia, railways in Eastern Europe and power plants in the Middle East.
In this Dec. 22, 2017, photo, a Pakistani motorcyclist drives on a newly built Pakistan China Silk Road in Haripur, Pakistan.

The United States, Russia and India view the Belt and Road initiative as a way for China to expand its influence.
Many countries have welcomed plans to build infrastructure that would keep their economies growing. 

Nations such as Japan have given or lent billions of dollars for development through the Asian Development Bank.
China, however, remains the largest or only source of money for many projects.​

Many projects cancelled or delayed
In November, Nepal canceled plans for Chinese companies to build a $2.5-billion dam. 

Officials said building contracts for the Budhi Gandaki Hydro Electric Project violated rules that require offers from numerous bidders.
The European Union is also looking into whether Hungary awarded contracts to Chinese builders for a high-speed railway to Serbia without competing bids.
In Myanmar, plans for a Chinese oil company to build a $3-billion refinery were canceled in November because of financing problems.
In Thailand, work on a $15-billion high-speed railway was delayed in 2016 following complaints that not enough business went to Thai companies.
In Tanzania, the government has reopened negotiations with China and the gulf state of Oman over ownership of a planned $11-billion port in the city of Bagamoyo. 

Tanzania wants to make sure its people get more than just taxes collected from the port.
Even Pakistan, one of China’s friendliest neighbors, has failed to agree on key projects. 

Among them are a $10-billion railway in Karachi and a $260-million airport for Gwadar.
A general view of Gwadar port in Gwadar, Pakistan Oct. 4, 2017. The port is at the heart of the $50 billion Chinese investment in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
Limited success
There is no official list of all Belt and Road projects. 

However, BMI Research has created a list of $1.8 trillion worth infrastructure investments across Asia, Africa and the Middle East.
Christian Zhang is with BMI Research. 

He said, “it’s probably too early to say at this point how much of the overall initiative will actually be implemented.”
Kerry Brown is a Chinese politics professor at King’s College London. 

He said China has faced and may continue to face “a lot of disagreements and misunderstandings.”
Brown added, “It’s hard to think of a big, successful project the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ has led to at the moment.”
Despite the setbacks, Chinese officials say most Belt and Road projects are moving ahead with few problems.
The state-run China Development Bank announced in 2015 it had set aside $890 billion for more than 900 projects across 60 countries in gas, minerals, power, telecommunications, infrastructure and farming. 

The Export-Import Bank of China said it would support 1,000 projects in 49 countries.
And last November, deputy commerce minister Li Chenggang said that work on pipelines to deliver oil and gas from Russia and Central Asia is making “steady progress.”

The Necessasry War

Nepal: A battleground for regional supremacy between India, China
AFP

A Nepali child plays in an abandoned railway carriage of the Nepal Railway Corporation Ltd in Janakpur, some 300km south of Kathmandu on June 13.

Three years after its last train hit the buffers, landlocked Nepal is building a new railway network to boost its ailing economy -- helped by the rivalry between its powerful neighbours, China and India.
The railway to India was a lifeline for the small southern frontier town of Janakpur, used to import everything from sweets to clothes and cosmetics and fuelling a vibrant border economy.
But it fell into disrepair after years of neglect and since 2014 the train has sat stationary, its rusting carcass now a playground for local children, while Janakpur’s markets are empty.
“When the train was running, we would have a lot of business. I was easily providing (for) my family,” said Shyam Sah, whose small family-run cosmetics shop has suffered an 80 percent drop in profits since the railway closed.
Now it is being rebuilt with Indian backing, one of three new rail lines -- one funded by China in the north and a third by Nepal itself -- that the country hopes will help boost international trade.
Nepal remains largely isolated from the global economy, dependent on aid and remittances.
Growth slowed dramatically after a 2015 earthquake but is expected to normalise at 5 percent from 2018 -- one of the slowest rates in South Asia -- according to the World Bank.
In recent years it has courted its two large neighbours for investment in an attempt to plug itself into a rail network that links the far eastern reaches of Asia with Europe.
But geography is not on its side.
The Himalayas form a natural border between Nepal and China, leaving it largely dependent on India -- with which it shares a 1,400 kilometre (900 mile) open border -- for the majority of its imports and exports.

Game-changer
In recent years Kathmandu has tilted towards Beijing as part of a nationalist drive to decrease the country’s reliance on New Delhi.
China has responded, ramping up its diplomatic ties with Nepal -- mostly through large-scale infrastructure investments.
In 2017, Beijing pledged $8.3 billion to build roads and hydropower plants in Nepal, dwarfing India’s commitments of $317 million.
Feasibility studies are also underway for a Beijing-backed railway connecting Kathmandu to Lhasa in Tibet, cutting straight through the Himalayas at an estimated cost of $8 billion.
Ankit Panda, senior editor at The Diplomat magazine, said that could be a game-changer for the small country.
“The rail line with China holds potential depending on the demand side of the equation, on how China allows Nepal to leverage that link for commercial growth opportunities,” he said.
But it has strained relations between India and China, who are currently locked in a tense standoff on a remote Himalayan plateau in Bhutan sparked by a new road being built by China.
“China knows that its chequebook diplomacy with the smaller Asian states is a sore point with India, which simply cannot afford to put up the kind of capital outlays that the Chinese promise,” said Panda.
The project is part of its “One Belt, One Road” initiative, a massive global infrastructure programme to connect Chinese companies to new markets around the world that critics see as a geopolitical powerplay.
Regional rival India has snubbed the plan and skipped a summit in Beijing in May.
New Delhi is funding the reconstruction of the Janakpur line, rebuilding the tracks to carry broad-gauge trains that will allow it to connect to the rest of the subcontinent’s expansive rail network.

Battleground
Meanwhile Nepal is building a 945-kilometre line that will cut across the southern plains from east to west.
Nearly a third of the track has been built, but construction has stalled for lack of funds and it is not clear when it work will be finished.
Some experts warn that Nepal has become a de-facto battleground in a geopolitical struggle for regional supremacy between India and China -- a position that Kathmandu must navigate carefully.
“None of them (smaller Asian nations) want to become a de facto satellite state,” said Michael Auslin, Asia expert and fellow with the Hoover Institution.
“But by having both India and China essentially compete over it, from one perspective it makes it a battleground, from another perspective it means that Nepal is playing the two off against each other,” he added.
Meanwhile, the people of Janakpur are eagerly awaiting the rail revival that will connect them to India once again.
“When the train stopped, everything finished. Business has gone down for all of the city,” said bookshop owner Rajendra Kusuwah.
“After the new rail comes, it will open doors for development.”

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.

Chinese Aggressions

India must support Mongolia after China's crackdown post Dalai Lama's visit, imposition of toll tax
By Prakash Katoch

Just after the Dalai Lama visited Mongolia in November 2016 for four days, China’s tail caught fire. There was actually no apparent reason for going hyper since this was the ninth visit of Dalai Lama to Mongolia. 

But then China's comprehensive national power (CNP) has risen since, even as the economy is slowing down. 

China perhaps also wanted to signal strong resolve on Tibet to US President Donald Trump, other than the Communist Party of China (CPC) indicating to the Chinese public that it is in total control and can dictate terms to any country. 

So post the Dalai Lama’s visit to Ulan Bator, China forbade her officials from any interactions with Mongolia. 

But this is not all: Mongolian trucks crossing into China's autonomous province of Inner Mongolia are now charged a toll tax of Yuan 10 (Rs 97.9) per truck, and 0.1 percent of the worth of the cargo if it is beyond Yuan 10,000.
Mongolia’s Buddhist population was some 1,459,983 people during the census held in 2010, which was 53 percent of the total population of 2,753,685. 

As on January 2015, Mongolia's total population was estimated to be 3,000,251 people. 

About 59 percent of the total population is below age of 30 years, of which 27 percent are below the age of 14 years. 

This arbitrary Chinese action of imposing toll tax on Mongolia portrays the pettiness of the CPC; Mongolia being a country with GDP of $11.76 billion (2015 figures) that over the past 20 years has transformed into a vibrant multi-party democracy with booming economy, and is at the threshold of major transformation driven by exploitation of its vast mineral resources as per World Bank. 

China surely is not in penury to require money from such toll tax variety of 'sanctions' but would this be the norm for the much trumpeted one belt, one road (OBOR) project — countries on China’s periphery acquiesce to CPCs diktats or pay toll tax?

Obviously, China decided to "punish" Mongolia in this manner for entertaining the Dalai Lama since Mongolia is landlocked; sandwiched between Russia and China, besides Mongolia being largely dependent on China for transit. 

In addition, Russia has warmed up to China with the Obama administration having gone all out to ‘squeeze’ Russia in every possible manner, economic sanctions included. 

Mongolia sought India’s support against China’s obstructionist move, in the backdrop of such arbitrary Chinese action despite Mongolia always supporting China’s ‘One China’ policy. 

Mongolia till now was dependent on Russian transit rights but China’s imposition of the blockade-like situation will tax the Mongolian economy. 

India has said it is sympathetic to the problems being faced by Mongolia and will help them utilise the $1 billion financial assistance offered in 2015 during the visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to tide over the economic sanctions imposed by China.
As expected China’s Global Post went berserk frothing at the mouth, and in its typically jaundiced language warned Mongolia of dire consequences for seeking financial help from India, dubbing it "politically harebrained", adding, “Mongolia should be alerted that it cannot afford the risks of such geopolitical games." 

But why should be China so mortally scared of the Dalai Lama when she has succeeded in systematic destruction of the Tibetan-Buddhist culture of Tibet and settled seven million Han Chinese in Tibet overwhelming the Tibetans through demographic invasion. 

There is no insurgency in Tibet — quite opposite to Xinjiang. 

Tibetan self-immolators in China include teenagers, nuns and monks, majority in China's Sichuan province, especially around the Kirti Monastery in Ngawa City, Ngawa County, Sichuan, Labran Monastery in Xiahe, and some in Gnasu and Qinghai provinces, besides TAR.
In recent years, CCP’s policy has become harsher against Tibetan monasteries. 

Many Buddhist monasteries including Dron-na, Tarmoe and Rabten have been forced to shut down in Driru County, Kham Region of eastern Tibet in TAR, where monks have been forced to vacate — all under the garb of CCP's "patriotic re-education" campaign, even issuing orders for the Chinese flag to be put atop private homes. 

Some closed monasteries have been converted into prisons and as per reports filtering out despite total clampdown on media and communications in TAR, least details of the cultural genocide gets revealed. 

There is little chance of Tibetan rebellion overthrowing the Chinese regime in Tibet. 

So why be scared of the Dalai Lama who has never even talked of independent Tibet? 

On the other hand, if the west conspires to orchestrate an implosion of China, which may well happen in case the CPC’s aggression crosses western redlines, it is unlikely to centre on Tibet considering the multiple fault-lines that China has.
What China is mortally scared of is a group of any people getting together that may set them thinking in one direction; call it phobia of the CPC devolving around its own insecurity. 

That is why a simple exercising group like Falun Gong was banned in China. 

And that is why the atheists of CPC abhor any religion because religion implies gatherings at the place of worship, leave aside gatherings at religious ceremonies and other activities. 

That is why the clampdown on Buddhists in Tibet, beating of monks and Buddhists gathered to celebrate Dalai Lama’s birthday, and the genocide in Xinjiang. 

But China makes exceptions in portraying a benign face for religious tolerance where her strategic interests override CPC’s inherent phobias. 

Prominent example is China’s $3 billion investment in Nepal’s Lumbini project that would help China achieve its long-term strategic goal of bringing Nepal irrevocably under its influence. 

China has already expanded its railway to Shiatse (Xiagze), seat of Panchan Lama in 2014 in Tibet, which is some 450 kms from Kyirong. 

By 2020, China plans to extend this rail link to Kyirong which is a mere 26 kms from the Nepal border. 

Former Nepalese PM Oli during his visit to Beijing in March 2016 had requested China that the Chinese rail link be extended to cross the China-Nepal border. 

Nepal is also seeking China’s assistance in constructing a monorail in Kathmandu.
The China-Nepal rail line and the Lumbini project is the Nepalese version of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. 

China’s Confucius Institute in Kathmandu University, co-established by Hebei University of Economics and Business, with full support from Office of Chinese Language Council International is spearheading China’s soft power invasion. 

China is investing in hydropower and tourism development in Nepal. 

During 2015, Nepal endorsed FDI proposal worth $360 million by China to establish a cement plant in Nepal. 

This is over and above the numerous ongoing development projects and three star hotels in Kathmandu over past several years manned by PLA disguised as civilians. 

In recent years, hundreds of Buddhists in Kathmandu have been holding demonstrations to protest authorities stopping them from building a Gompa in the jungles of western Nepal. 

Ironically, Buddhists make up about 10 percent of the population in Nepal but yet are under severe restrictions because of China’s subjugation of Nepal.
Nepal, under Chinese pressure, stopped issuing refugee identity cards, leaving many Tibetans unable to get higher education or jobs. 

In recent years, Thinley Lama raising his voice for rights of 20,000 Tibetan refugees in Nepal was put behind bars. 

Anything Tibetan or Buddhist is anathema to China and the lives of Tibetan refugees in Nepal is turning into hell with Chinese pressure. 

China is going full hog to crush Tibetan activities in Nepal. 

Since 2010, Nepal commenced deportation of Tibetans crossing the border — handing them back to Chinese authorities. 

Nepalese authorities prohibit Tibetan residents from gathering in groups, whether to mark the birthday of the Dalai Lama or just to picnic.
China continues to occupy large parts of Mongolia calling it ‘Inner Mongolia’. 

In her dream of becoming a ‘Great Power’ on fast track, China’s behavior towards her neighbours can expected to be highly irrational and bullish, with the exception of Pakistan that has surrendered her sovereignty to China. 

It is only ethical for India to support Mongolia in every possible way including in fields of defence and security.