CHINA – PAKISTAN ECONOMIC CORRIDOR: CHANGING DYNAMICS OF SOUTHERN ASIA – ANALYSIS (SOURCE- EURASIA REVIEW / AUTHOR- BRIGADIER ARUN SAHGAL RETD)

Image credits- Xinhua

Source- Eurasia review

Author- Brigadier Arun Sahgal (Retd)

The strategic landscape in Southern Asia is witnessing three major strategic shifts; most important from Indian point of view is the unveiling of China – Pakistan economic corridor linking landlocked Xinjiang region of China to the warm waters of Arabian Sea and further to Middle East, Europe and East Coast of Africa. In many sense it is game changer with long term strategic consequences for the region in general and India in particular.

Second is the prospect of Iran’s integration with international community as a normal nation a process that has already begun. This has made number of regional actors most predominant being China and Russia and to limited extent even Pakistan initiate serious commercial and security dialogue, given the possibility of opening number of geopolitical and economic opportunities.

A third element is the growing Eastern orientation of Russia and the emerging possibilities of Russian – Chinese détente. This needs to be seen within the context of Eurasian competitive geopolitics represented by the Chinese continental power construct backed by supportive Russia, attempting to leverage; continental and maritime space in Central and SE Asian periphery and IOR as the future zone of influence.

China – Pakistan Economic Corridor

Chinese moves to develop the China – Pakistan Economic Corridor is part of Silk Road Economic belt and Maritime Silk Road initiatives aimed at transforming its immediate region and extended neighbourhood thru fashioning strategic corridors that enable a free flow of commerce and energy. This is part of larger geo strategic and economic moves attempting to seek favourable balance of power in Asia through economic engagement, defence co-operation and by its expanding maritime capabilities particularly in the IOR.

The foremost driver of unfolding Chinese strategy is to create an overarching zone of influence in Eurasia at a time and moment when both its main protagonists US is on the defensive having exited substantially from Afghanistan ceding space to China with Pakistan as the proxy. Secondly by clever out pouring of aggressive assertiveness in East Asia particularly in South China Sea it is keeping the US attention focused in Asia – Pacific. Developments in Middle East and Iran have further allowed China strategic space to leverage its development agenda with Chinese characteristics.

Russia on the other hand although a strategic collaborator is under too deep an economic stress consequence of crippling sanctions, faltering economy to be able to create any significant unease to Chinese attempted influence or garner strategic space in Central Asian to its advantage. Consequently it is forced to harmonize its moves with that of China under the rubric of SCO. Nonetheless going by evolving trends in the near term scenario Russia is not only leveraging its influence over Central Asian leaders but Iran as well, this is signified by the sale of S-300 anti ballistic missile system to Iran. Similarly Russia has a formidable energy card in its arsenal, in terms of gas supplies to Europe and China. Thus in near term Sino – Russian etente is likely to prevail with both collaborating to secure their own interests. An interesting manifestation of this is recent agreement between Russian and Pakistani defence ministers to hold first ever joint military exercises as indeed reaching out to national unity government in Afghanistan. Common cause of these developments appears to be is to incrementally deny strategic space to the Americans in the continental Asia.

Apart from geopolitical factors another major driver is to enhance China’s economic connectivity and strategic influence both in IOR and Europe so very important for its regional and global role. China is attempting to preserve its influence and investments in Eurasia,and advance its regional agenda through three important corridors emerging from Urumqi and Kashgar namely the Northern Corridor to Moscow and Germany, Central Corridor to Europe via Iran and Southern Corridor to Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf. 

China geo-strategically restrained by high mountains of Tibetan Plateau looks upon the Southern corridor as a gateway to the Indian Ocean and the Middle East in concert with its Maritime Silk Road. It looks upon this corridor as a strategic necessity to breakout from Eurasian land mass and to assert regional and global influence and secure its primary energy and trade interests in the middle east and beyond to Africa and Europe. It continues to psychologically suffer from Malacca Dilemma from which nearly 80 percent of energy imports flow dominated by American led Asian alliance.

Another important perspective is the stability of restive Xinjiang region and its linkages with Af – Pak seen as inherently destabilizing. The perceived Chinese hope therefore is that such a corridor with its obvious economic benefits will help stabilize Pakistan. China look upon leveraging its close relationship with Islamabad to do more in reigning in terror and radical outfits. Signs of this can be seen in ongoing Pakistani counter terrorism campaign not only in FATA but other parts of the country most noticeably Karachi and Swat Valley. Forcing Pakistan to shun the path of religious radicalization and militancy and force it down the path stability and development created by large scale investments in network of roads, railways, energy is yet another driver.

The corridor per se represents largest single foreign direct investment in Pakistani history that has the potential to lift the country from its current social and economic morass to the path of development. The Proposed economic corridor to be built over next 15 years include 3000 Km four lane highway that will link Kashgar (Xinjiang) – Khunjerab to Gwadar,a1060 Km six lane Karachi – Lahore motorway (alternate route appears to be Punjabi manipulation, as also risk insurance vis a vis Baluchistan), proposed railway line thru Wakhan corridor that will run via Shaksgam Valley (POK territory ceded by Pakistan to China). In addition to communication links a number of power projects are being planned which will see 10,400 MW of power generation added to its grid.

These include; three hydro power projects of which two will be in POK, five coal based power plants, two solar and one wind. Projects also include building a gas pipeline from Gwadar to Nawabshah linking it to national pipe grid.

While proposed infrastructural investments no doubt are impressive, fundamental issues are two; what will be the impact of obtaining security situation on fructification of these projects? It needs to be noted that locations have been carefully selected; nonetheless those in POK will need to be protected as also those in Punjab and Thar from TTP and other militant organizations active in Sind. Interestingly there are no projects in Baluchistan accept for Gwadar – Nwabshah pipeline but large amount of roads and rail infrastructure will pass thru the restive province, enhancing insecurity.

The Pakistani Government has given an assurance to the Chinese that all Chinese personnel and equipment will be secure in Pakistan. As part of this assurance a 12,000 strong special military division backed by civil police wings with highly trained commandoes are to be created. Thus Pakistan will be forced to improve internal security situation in the country and intensify its counter terrorism and counter insurgency operations. Will Pakistan maintain present selectivity in terms of going after TTP and its fringe groups while continuing to protect its strategic assets? Can it afford to adopt the strategy of hunting with hounds and running with hare it successfully adopted with the Americans?

A second issue is absorption capacity in terms of human resources, industrial infrastructure, and capacity to execute mega projects. Going by example of India all most all projects prone to time and cost overruns. In order to speed up things China will most probably induct its own workforce as part of standard model it follows, this in turn will impact local job creation apart from making Pakistan increasingly dependent on China. Some Pakistani analysts are already alluding to lack of policy and administrative capacity together with political resole to undertake such projects.

No doubt infusion of such a huge amount of FDI infusion is music to the Pakistani political and financial establishment, for a country that accounted for mere $ 1 Billion of FDI, management of such a large package of FDI is no doubt a formidable challenge.

Implications for India

These need to be looked from three differing perspectives; first China in Weiqi like moves is cleverly creating tributaries by weaving a web of influence based on economic and trade corridors all around Indian periphery. These include strategic land bridge connecting Yunnan province with West coast of Myanmar in Bay of Bengal thru oil, gas and rail line connectivity. It is proposing to extend this to Bangladesh as part of BCIM project. India has remained reluctant to join this grouping largely on account of its impact on the North East.

Then there are Chinese forays in Nepal, which include a highly publicized project of railway tunnel under Mount Everest, Sri Lanka and the Indian Ocean littorals later being part of Chinese Maritime Silk Road. Thus as the Modi government aggressively pursues its peripheral engagement policy it is being countered by Chinese belt and road policy creating its own zones of influence.

Second an assertive China and economically strong nuclear Pakistan have the potential of extending their bilateral cooperation into Afghanistan and subsequently central Asia with Pakistan emerging as the Southern pivot of the “One Belt and One Road” Eurasian connectivity for both the road and maritime silk routes. Attempts to resurrect Iran – Pakistan pipeline and extend it to China no doubt by connecting to the proposed new pipelines in Pakistan will draw Iran into this new concert of political and economic alignment; leaving India with little options.

A third issue is the serious security implications of this development. If in the mind of Indian security planners collusive threat from Pakistan and China is a reality, the infrastructural and arms sales agreement emerging as a result of President Xi visit will make it even more credible. Further in case China is able to prevail on Pakistan to deal with the issue of cross border terrorism and stop using Taliban as a strategic asset (guarantees sought by Xi), it could over time result in greater defence and security cooperation between Afghanistan and Pakistan which could be leveraged for developing trade and commerce relations by an economically effervescent Pakistan, drawing Afghanistan securely into its sphere of influence.

With China developing credible road, rail and infrastructure corridors to be used for trade and transit on its Western and Eastern flanks India will be hemmed in, leaving only the maritime domain as the main route for operational maneuvering. The extension of Maritime Silk Road to Pakistan, development of Gwadar as also sale of advanced Qing Class submarines apart from earlier naval armaments, china in the garb of protecting its Southern pivot together with developing strong naval base facilities in the Arabian Sea appears to be a strategy to constrain maritime space as well.

Linking these with proposed ‘Lily Pods’ in the IOR littoral by 2020 and beyond will provide China strong naval base to project its forces astride strategic SLOC’s in the IOR. India thus will find strong Chinese presence in the East Coast (Bay of Bengal) exhibited by Chinese naval and nuclear submarine patrols to Myanmar and Sri Lanka as also the Arabian Sea (Gwadar).

Conclusion

The above brief analysis highlights that were the Chinese Silk Road plans to fructify and there appear to be little reason they will not these will have serious strategic implications for India which it needs to think thru and in fact raise during PM’s forthcoming visit to China. An important positive development of forthcoming could be winding down of cross border terror, particularly as Chinese breathe down on Pakistani’s to rear its deep state and spoil an economic opportunity of the life time. Were that to happen then linking India to this economic corridor would be a win – win situation; albeit strategic interests would continue to be undermined till such time India develops credible dissuasive capability. Plans to downsize strike corps and delay border infrastructure development will be at Indian peril, unless credible alternatives are developed.

About the author- Brigadier Arun Sahgal, PhD (Retd) is Secretary General of recently established think tank “Forum for Strategic Initiative” focusing on policy initiatives in security and diplomacy.

He is founder Director of the Office of Net Assessment, Indian Integrated Defence Staff (IDS), created to undertake long-term strategic assessments. Other academic pursuits include Head Center for Strategic Studies and Simulation, USI of India and Senior Fellow, IDSA. Research areas comprise scenario planning workshops, geopolitical and strategic assessments related to Asian security, including co-authored books and Net Assessments for IDS, DRDO and National Security Council among other international clients. He has been a member of Task Force on Net Assessment and Simulation, under NSC, consultant with DRDO Institute for System Studies and Analysis. He has been conducting simulation and strategic games at institutions like Integrated Defence Staff, Ministry of Defence, National Defence College, IAS Academy, and International clients among others.

Recent works include co authored books, Reconnecting India and central Asia, Central Asia-Caucasus Institute, Johns Hopkins University, National Bureau of Research, Washington, publication Strategic Asia 2012-13, dealing with Chinese Military Challenge. Other Project include Indian Doctrine of Anti Access and Area Denial, Study on Regional Dynamics of the Asia – Pacific Region (2025) with Specific Reference to China’s Influence in India’s extended Neighbourhood, Report on Defence Technology Vision 2050 and Pakistan’s Tactical Nuclear Weapons: Logic and Use.

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