The Chinese recipe for Pakistan, India peace

China facilitating Pakistan-India track-II dialogue?

With Pakistan a major beneficiary of CPEC, India, Iran, Turkey and Afghanistan can also benefit hugely by joining the initiative

With China’s strategy to build new economic corridors to help re-link Asia with the rest of the world, the world’s focus is shifting fast towards rising Asia. And when we talk about Asia, Pakistan is the linchpin for regional connectivity due to its geostrategic location and abundant coastal and mineral resources.

Traditionally, trade routes, economic corridors and pipelines are considered key for development and modernisation in any region. Whilst East Asian states have developed significantly, the countries of Southeast and South Asia linger far behind — where the world’s largest population lives under the poverty line — thanks to poor management of inter-state relations and failure of regimes in conflict resolution, etc.

However, the launch of multi-billion-dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) has opened a new vista of opportunity for the countries of the region that could benefit from the Chinese initiative of regional and global connectivity.

With Pakistan a major beneficiary of CPEC, India, Iran, Turkey and Afghanistan can also benefit hugely by joining the initiative. While Iran and Turkey have publicly announced their eagerness to join, India and Afghanistan should follow suite.

CPEC-Eurasian channels would not only encourage gas and oil pipelines but it would also renew hopes for completion of Iran-Pakistan Pipeline which later could be joined by India and Afghanistan. Similarly, new energy projects like TAPI and CASA-1000 could be materialised through enhanced regional connectivity.

However, negative statements coming from Delhi and Kabul and developments following these statements reflect that both India and Afghanistan have decided to joining hands to abotage the CPEC — a move fatal for their coming generations. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been leading the anti-CPEC drive by publicly opposing the initiative.

What India and Afghanistan need to understand is that China has not only launched CPEC, it has unfolded actually a bigger plan for global connectivity — One Belt and One Road initiative — which would help connect countries of the globe through sea and road trade routes.

Delhi should also understand that the entire South Asia region may benefit from the economic gains of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Nepal, Myanmar and Bangladesh have already expressed excitement to join it.

India and Pakistan, the two de-facto nuclear powers, are perfect example of how poor diplomacy and lack of vision and statesmanship have led two neighbours get involved in three conventional wars over unresolved regional disputes. Regimes in both countries have failed in getting their issues resolved mutually through talks with the hawks on both sides of the border disallowing space for saner elements to help resolve problems mutually or with the support of the international community.

It is more intriguing to note that rather than joining CPEC, knives are out to sabotage the corridor. Media has already reported that hostile intelligence agencies of various countries have become active in the region. The opposition to the corridor is beyond comprehension as it is not centered on Pakistan and rather has prospects to benefit the entire region.

The reference of Baluchistan in some recent but successive statements of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi reflects a change of Pakistan policy in New Delhi.

Experts view the developments taking place in the region with great interest. Some believe that Modi is raising Baluchistan in a preemptive bid to undermine the significance of Premier Sharif’s address at the UN.

One needs to understand that these statements by Modi have been made at international forums with a specific background to Kashmir unrest. Does this means that India is internationalising Baluchistan?

If so, Modi has been ill advised by some of his hawkish advisors. Perhaps the inexperience of Modi in handling state affairs is taking toll on him. His inexperience has been proven recently when Washington distanced itself from Modi’s Baluchistan statement, reiterating US support to Pakistan’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.

Mr Modi’s stance is at a 180-degree shift from the previous stance of New Delhi over the past few decades. In the past, India claimed Kashmir was a bilateral subject and both India and Pakistan had to resolve it bilaterally. But by raising Baluchistan, Premier Modi has provided Islamabad with an opportunity to internationalise the Kashmir issue — a move Pakistan was being denied in the recent past.

With around 100 innocent Kashmiris brutally killed by Indian forces and thousands kids blinded due to the use of pellet guns over the past two months since the protests erupted after the poster boy Burhan Wani’s killing, Islamabad now has enough evidence to take the Indian atrocities to the United Nations where resolution over Kashmir is pending since 1948.

The good news for Islamabad is that its all-weather friend Beijing stands by it in its difficult times. With the launching of CPEC, China has developed stakes in Pakistan’s stability and sovereignty.

Amid Islamabad’s allegations of involvement of Indian spy agency, Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), in terrorist incidents inside Pakistan, China recently issued a public warning to India against destabilising Pakistan.

“China will have ‘to get involved’ if any Indian ‘plot’ disrupts the $46 billion CPEC in restive Baluchistan,” an influential Chinese think tank recently said.

Referring to Modi’s reference to Baluchistan in his Independence Day speech, Mr Hu Shisheng, the director of the Institute of South and Southeast Asian and Oceanian Studies at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), said the Baluchistan reference was the “latest concern” for China and among its scholars.

Experts in Beijing say China is seriously concerned over the efforts being carried out to destabilise Pakistan as well as CPEC. Pakistan’s stability is directly linked to stability and peace in China’s Xinjiang and other provinces, they say.

Some India experts believe that Modi lacks experience of the government’s functioning as he has directly elevated from handling of a province to handling of central government of India. Most of the influential people around Modi are hawks or they are business tycoons who mostly are interest-driven.

Though the business community of India wants normalisation with Pakistan and China due to their monetary interests, some around Modi have a tilt towards the US and they want upping the ante on Baluchistan.

And inexperienced Modi is allowing the pro-US lobby within the Indian establishment to influence his China policy too. The appointment of Subrahmanyam Jaishankar as foreign secretary was a big stride by Modi to distance India from China and into the lap of the United States (US). As Ambassador to US, Mr Jaishankar was a crucial negotiator on the 2008 civilian nuclear agreement between New Delhi and Washington DC.

It was again Jaishankar who influenced Narendra Modi for the recently signed defence pact with the US. Experts believe the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) would badly impact the regional peace.

Under the LEMOA, the two allies would use each other’s military facilities for checking China’s growing influence in Asia and in the fight against terrorists. Now it’s anyone’s guess just why US needs Indian bases more than the Indians.

A 2010 cable written by American diplomats and released by WikiLeaks described a meeting at which Jaishankar “said India would like to ‘coordinate more closely’ with the United States in the face of China’s ‘more aggressive approach’ to international relations”.

While Modi is on a learning curve, it is hard to predict whether he would land India’s policy in the lap of the US or he is actually trying to milk the US as much as he could.

Though Modi’s diplomatic faux pas over Baluchistan has provided Pakistan an opening to internationalise the Kashmir issue, we would have to see whether Modi keeps on talking Baluchistan or he is just raising tensions so he can then pull a surprise by asking Pakistan to talk again.

Being a key regional and international player, China is not silently watching from the sidelines. Signals from Beijing reflect that efforts are silently afoot to bring Islamabad and New Delhi on talking terms — at least on track-II mode.

Since there are complexities involved in Pakistan-India relations, Beijing needs to form a Quadrilatteral Mechanism for peace process by involving India, Pakistan, China and Russia. The track-II process must involve saner elements of the military and civilian bureaucracy of Pakistan to ensure a meaningful and practical breakthrough.

From India’s perspective, eminent journalist and The Hindu correspondent in Beijing, Atul Aneja, believes that in order to make track-II a success, the real boys on both sides of the border need to be engaged.

“I believe that those individuals who have a good equation with the GHQ in Rawalpindi should be taken on board, while on the Indian side, new influential players that have a good channel of communication with the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi should be engaged. In India, new think tanks have emerged such as the India Foundation and the Vivek Anand Foundation, which are widely perceived to be close to the current dispensation in New Delhi,” says Atul Aneja.

He said that the track-II can be bilateral but not necessarily limited to it. Can China play a role in this? Yes, says Atul.

“Because of its influence over Pakistan born out of a longstanding relation of trust. But frankly, I doubt the Indian side will be comfortable with China’s presence alone, because of historical reasons. Consequently, a four-cornered track-II, which also includes scholars from Russia — a country in which India reposes great trust, maybe a more satisfactory arrangement. This would also be in tune with the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) framework, which will soon have India and Pakistan as its new members,” he added.

Removal of all obstacles — geopolitical and otherwise — hindering India’s connectivity to the Eurasian economic corridors via Pakistan can be the focus of this dialogue.

Aneja, himself a vocal advocate of multi-directional economic corridors to help reconnect the region, says that any real progress on the India-Pakistan track will support regional integration.

Many possibilities can emerge such as the revival of the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline, now that sanctions against Iran have been lifted.

“The overall atmospherics will change dramatically once there is a structural change in India-Pakistan relations. Instead of looking at CPEC or the Chabahar route as manifestations of geopolitical rivalry, integration of corridors that would support regional trade and investments, benefiting businesses and people from regional countries, will emerge as profitable and sustainable options. I believe that the enormous economic dividend of an Indo-Pakistan peace deal, on a regional scale, is greatly underappreciated.”

Regarding CPEC, the purpose of the corridor from a Chinese perspective is to impart lasting stability to Pakistan. That is in the national interest of China as well, for a stable corridor in turn will help ease tensions in its Xinjiang province. More Importantly, it would pave the way for a secure New Silk Road corridor, as it enters Central Asia, before it heads towards Europe.

“The core purpose of CPEC is imparting stability to Pakistan as a peaceful, firm and progressive neighbour. If this is achieved, it will not only help secure the Xinjiang region, it would become a critical factor in implementing the One Belt One Road connectivity project that China has initiated. Beijing, on account of larger strategic considerations is therefore determined to support Pakistan through the CPEC channel. To my mind, CPEC is not an India-centric enterprise. But India has naturally got involved because of the unresolved dispute over Jammu and Kashmir, as the corridor passes through a section of this disputed territory. That again reinforces the urgency of a realistic and problem solving dialogue over the Kashmir issue, as its absence is hindering regional economic progress and hampering the natural connectivity of cultures of our region” says Atul Aneja.

China needs to understand that track-II process needs to be started again but with people around Modi involved. Premier Modi is a pragmatist and he can deliver the goods to China and Pakistan. But Islamabad and Beijing would have to take a prudent course so as Modi is not swayed away by pro-US elements.