Kishan S Rana: India and China - Managing mistrust?

China is an arrived major power, the world's second largest. India is an emerging power aspiring to major status. We can apply different metrics to compare the two; all these show China several times larger than India, in economic capacity or real strength. As neighbours sharing the same Asian space, we have seen that old and new disputes greatly complicate relations. If former prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru were to witness the tangled maze of real and illusory issues in which New Delhi and Beijing have lost themselves, might he not wonder at his legacy, even shattered as he was by the border war of 1962? Is it not a paradox that against the civilisational Asia vision of this founding father of Indian foreign policy, corrosive mistrust permeates the way the two countries look at each other across the Himalayas?

Let me commence with China's "One Belt One Road" (OBOR), which first emerged as a policy master plan in 2013, before getting to other issues. Chinese interlocutors are at pains to stress that OBOR is an initiative and not a strategy or project. They imply that it is a flexible framework; implementation depends on finding commonalities with partner countries. It is a catch-all phrase for land- and sea-based actions that leverage China's enormous currency reserves, currently $3200 billion, to develop connectivity, infrastructure and related actions, including railway lines, pipelines, roads, ports, logistic hubs and digital networks, to serve China and link other countries closely to its economic network. But most transport links, once built, can serve different users. Take Central Asia. These investments valourise the region's energy resources, with China a new export destination; other pipelines will run to Europe. A new Asia-Europe line is under development, on a southern axis; like the pipelines, it will bypass Russia, ending Moscow's monopoly on gas and oil supply to Europe. The "right of way" created may bundle pipelines, railways and roads; it will also host a new fibre-optic digital backbone linking China to Europe, reducing Beijing's dependence on global undersea cable networks that lie outside its control.

What are China's other OBOR objectives? 1. A quasi-landlocked China (with sea access only to its East), now creates two major and one potential routes: Karakoram-Gwadar to the Arabian Sea; Yunnan-Myanmar to the Bay of Bengal; and potentially, via Tibet-Nepal-India, to the Indian Ocean (C Raja Mohan anticipated this brilliantly in Samudra Manthan, 2007). 2. This new access serves its interior provinces, fitting into regional balancing of development, also taking advantage of an already built internal connectivity infrastructure. 3. Xinjiang, Yunnan and Tibet gain salience as bridgeheads to these new external links. 4. Access to Afghanistan and Iran adds to its strategic clout in the region, besides diversifying connectivity options, reducing future dependence on Pakistan. Example: A train travelled from China to Tehran some months back. 5. In 2015, China took a train to Spain, a two-week proving run of 10,000 km (via Moscow and Germany), and demonstrated the viability for low-bulk, high-value shipments, to reach Europe in 10 days. 6. A network of ports and other infrastructure in the Indian Ocean would anchor its political and economic hold in this vast littoral, from South Asia, the Gulf to eastern Africa.

How should India react? The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) involves an $8-billion Chinese grant for the Gwadar-Karakoram rail and road link, the remainder of the announced $46 billion is a loan, mainly for power projects. We hold that this traverses POK, which legally is Indian territory. But, having announced for decades that we can accept the Line of Actual Control in Kashmir as the international border, is that position credible? Is it in our interest to take this posture, when we cannot hinder CPEC? It is questionable if Pakistan can absorb these huge investments, much less generate profitability, given its domestic security and other hazards. An uncertain outcome can lead to Chinese rethinking.

On OBOR our interests are congruent with China in three ways. First, for its own reasons, China supports a non-Taliban Afghanistan, which is at odds with Islamabad's manipulations. China is a victim of Islamist terrorism in Xinjiang. Expanding networks of Central Asian railway, road and pipeline networks are vulnerable to that same threat, for which the breeding ground is Pakistan. Second, our investment in Iran's Chabahar port is part of a connectivity axis in which China is also an investor, not the least because it cannot afford to place all its eggs in Gwadar. Further, the axis gives extensive Central Asian connectivity to us, and to China. Third, where in Asia can Beijing find a haven for safe, profitable investments that matches India, offering a vast array of viable projects? Given that we want Chinese infrastructure investments, why not a peninsular Indian port project in which it is a lead investor? OBOR throws up an opportunity for selective joint actions; managing such contestation-collaboration is the name of today's global game.

The India-China trade balance sheet has been dismal, with a persisting, even widening, unfavourable bilateral imbalance for us. We must be more persuasive in demanding access for our exports, say software services and pharmaceuticals, when China puts up non-tariff barriers. But should we blame China a poor range of Indian products that has also resulted in a secular, month-by-month decline in our exports for the past two years? Chinese investments into India are now gaining momentum, and deserve encouragement.

The resumption of a foreign secretary-level dialogue, announced during Foreign Minister Wang Yi's August 2016 visit to New Delhi, is welcome and timely. It is odd that this discussion track, a part of the standard diplomatic toolbox for managing major relationships, was overlooked for some years. We might borrow ideas from Japan: The country surely has the most fraught relationship with China. They too conduct such a dialogue, called "private" vice foreign minister talks, i.e. they meet annually at resorts outside the capitals, without the paraphernalia of accompanying delegations and set agendas. That produces informality, and often candour as well.

Management of complex, contested relations involves building credibility, and working patiently to overcome mistrust. New Delhi has gradually built experience with the nuances of its "swing state" role, not locked into tight embrace with any power. It is best to leave these delicate diplomatic tasks to the Ministry of External Affairs .
The writer is a former ambassador, author, and teacher
kishanrana@gmail.com