Kishan S Rana: Dealing with the Silk Route merchants

China's president wants to connect India with Central Asia, but India should focus on looking East

China's President Xi Jinping is to visit India and Pakistan in September 2014. His baggage will include magic carpets - offering a "revival" of the Silk Routes in Asia. This is now a major theme in China's new neighborhood policy. How should we deal with such merchandise that evokes our shared history and trans-border connections, which China mobilises to serve its contemporary national objectives? Does it serve Indian interests?

The best known Silk Route is the classic one that commenced in China, and crossing Xinjiang, took a fork; one leg moved southward into Hindustan, while another went on into Central Asia, and thence to Europe. India too used that Central Asian route, for its spices and other merchandise. There was also a Southern Silk Route, as noted scholar Tansen Sen reminded us (Buddhism, Diplomacy and Trade: The Realignment of Sino-Indian Relations, 600-1400, Manohar, 2004): originating in Bihar and parts of east-central India, it went eastwards, crossing into today's Myanmar, and thence to Yunnan, Sichuan and other parts of China. Finally, there was also a maritime route, starting on China's southern coast, looping into South-East Asia, on to Sri Lanka and South India, and thence to Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. India was central in all these belts of commercial, cultural and people-to-people exchanges.

Today, India is already committed to quadrilateral regional cooperation via a modern version of the southern route, i.e. the 'Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar Economic Corridor' announced at the end of Premier Li Keqiang's May 2013 visit ('Why co-operation with neighbouring countries is vital for India's Northeast', BS, June 1, 2013). This operationalises a 'sub-regional' concept discussed among scholars since 1999. It connects India's Northeast with Bangladesh and Myanmar, through roads, river waterways and ports, to mesh together expanded exchanges of goods, services and people. In the past 12 months, the agencies at the Centre (the foreign ministry, the home ministry, and the ministry handling the development of the Northeast); the state governments of the Northeast and West Bengal; and the Northeast Council in Shillong have brainstormed the possibilities and the options. They have been guided by a thought voiced by Meghalaya Governor R S Mooshahary at a Shillong conference in March 2013, on the Northeast's real challenge: "Impoverished and idle people are the greatest threat to security." Development is an antidote to insecurity; for the states of the Northeast, that includes closer economic links with the adjoining countries.

What does this mean in terms of the oft-evoked 'China threat', for our border regions, and for India as a whole?

Since 1962, the notion of security has evolved. Countries still need solid, credible, in-depth military defence capabilities, across the spectrum of land, air and sea. But there exist no less insidious economic, cultural and societal threats, and dealing with these requires other proactive actions. Potential adversaries are also our partners in cooperation. In relation to our triad of Silk Routes, this calls for activism, diplomacy and eco-political initiatives.

First, the development of new transport connections is inexorable. China's rail link to Lhasa will grow southwards to Kathmandu in the coming years, and close to the international frontier at Sikkim; extension from Yunnan into Myanmar will also take place in the future. Modern roads are under construction across Myanmar, some funded by India, others by China. We have been remiss in having delayed action on our own road and rail networks in the Northeast - but that too is now being addressed. These transport routes, plus improved links to and within Bangladesh, offer the Northeast opportunity for development and beneficial exchanges. Roads and rail links, like ports and river transport facilities, are usable by all that are connected, India and China included. The networks of these two large regions, India's Northeast and Yunnan in China, will also connect with one another; expanded India-China trade and investments has to be part of our strategy.

Second, passivity is not India's way, as a threat-guided mindset might suggest. Active diplomacy is our best option, building mutually beneficial relations with the two direct neighbours, Bangladesh and Myanmar, and beyond them to Southeast Asia and with China. Are BCIM and BIMSTEC - the latter a larger grouping that also brings in Thailand, Nepal and Sri Lanka, but leaves out China - in competition as rivals? Hardly. For one thing the road, rail and sea links will connect with many countries, and engender new economic relationships of a non-exclusive character. Let us move forward with all the regional groupings that serve our interests. Let us also bring in Japan (as announced during Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's January 2014 visit), and South Korea as investors in our NE states, widening our options.

Third, within the past year, India has reworked its response. The ministry of external affairs, or MEA, has for the first time a joint secretary dealing with border management, as part of a holistic policy. At the MEA's apex too, regional cooperation is viewed in a new interconnected fashion. The same approach is needed for the backward linkages of our Look East Policy, namely, the way the states of the Northeast pursue their development and infrastructure plans in the midst of this regional connectivity. A policy paper that Patricia Uberoi and I wrote in September 2012 said: '…the way forward is through an empowered task force with the needed financial authority, to act on, monitor and execute all the projects and tasks that have to be carried out, both in New Delhi and in the NE states…to get the many different agencies involved to work together' (Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi, Monograph No.1, 2012).

China's goal is to build a Gwadar-Karakoram-Xinjiang link in the west to the Arabian Sea, and a Yunnan-Irrawaddy link to the Bay of Bengal. India is not in a position to block either of these. India's westward transport routes, to Afghanistan and beyond, remain hostage to relations with Pakistan. To the east, we have open options; our object should be an activist policy producing a long-term benefit. This calls also for internal-external coordination. Let us formulate our plans for working with all the regional players, including China, and to bring in non-regional partners as well, in the openness that is predicated on the logic of the Look East Policy, as also our wider policy of strategic autonomy.

The writer is an honorary fellow at the Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi.

kishanrana@gmail.com