Spooked by China, Kathmandu cancelled public meetings that Narendra Modi was scheduled to address in three Nepali towns on the sidelines of the November 26-27 South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) Summit to raise his profile as the Hindu Big Boss. Modi also wanted to distribute bicycles among the poor in Hindu majority Nepal, but Beijing torpedoed all his self-aggrandisement plans.
Some prime ministers cannot resist the temptation to promote themselves or their partisan goals even on foreign soil. But, thankfully, PMs come and go. In that sense, cancellation of Modi’s meetings in Janakpur, Muktinath and Lumbini is an affront to Modi not India. But India was publicly humiliated when Sri Lanka recently allowed a Chinese submarine and warship to dock in Colombo, ignoring New Delhi’s objections, including frantic calls to President Mahinda Rajapaksa.
India considers Nepal and Sri Lanka within its zone of influence and wants to call the shots in its neighbourhood. But China’s growing presence in India’s strategic backyard is undermining New Delhi’s position. China’s lengthening shadow over South Asia, where India was earlier unchallenged, is straining Sino-Indian ties already bedevilled by decades of distrust and delaying normalisation of relations between nuclear-armed neighbours.
Proof of Beijing’s current clout — and the loss of Indian influence — in Sri Lanka lies in Colombo granting berthing permission to China’s naval assets, violating the 1987 agreement between Rajiv Gandhi and J.R. Jayewardene, which laid down that “no port in Sri Lanka will be made available for military use by any country in a manner prejudicial to India’s interests” and that neither government will allow its territory to be used “for activities prejudicial to each other’s unity, integrity and security”.
Modi would obviously like a pro-India Nepal and Sri Lanka. He does not want them to do China’s bidding. But he cannot even ensure their neutrality because China is investing vast sums of money to develop infrastructure, which India simply cannot match. Modi can harp on India’s historical, geographical and cultural ties with neighbours, but keeping China at bay is proving impossible mainly due to its financial muscle.
India estimates that China has invested a staggering $5 billion (Dh18.39 billion) in Sri Lanka — 80 per cent of it in the last five years after the civil war ended. Besides giving a boost to infrastructure, Chinese generosity is fuelling the property boom in Colombo to the delight of its middle and upper classes. A grateful Rajapaksa inked the Maritime Silk Route agreement during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s state visit to the island nation in September, angering India as the pact “legitimised China as a South Asian power stakeholder”.
Nepal, sandwiched between China and India, has received $32.7 million annually from Beijing in recent years. In addition, China Exim Bank has released $66 million for a string of projects, including $32.7 million for an Armed Police Force academy. And Lobsang Gyaltsen, Governor of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR), who descended on Kathmandu in October, pledged $3.3 million more annually!
Battling anti-China activities tops Beijing’s agenda in Nepal. Chinese fleeing TAR for India, home of the Dalai Lama-led Tibetan government-in-exile, travel via Nepal. Beijing wants Kathmandu to crack down on TAR residents sneaking into Nepal on their way to India, which grants them asylum. This objective, accorded the highest priority by China’s policy-makers, cannot be achieved without curbing India’s political influence in Nepal, which is also the perfect place for spying on India’s military preparedness in the Himalayas, besides tapping water and energy resources.
India accuses China of buying off the Nepal government. China has also invested heavily in Nepal’s powerful Communists who oppose what they call Indian imperialism. They went into overdrive no sooner the government said ‘yes’ to Modi’s unprecedented request for permission to address public rallies. Visiting heads of state usually hold talks with their counterparts, attend banquets and address parliament, think tanks or universities. But Modi wanted to engage directly with tens of thousands of ordinary Nepalis gathered under the blue sky as if Nepal was a part of India.
Communists argued that Modi should not be allowed to stoke Hindu majoritarianism at a time when Nepal is drafting a constitution with secularism as one of its main tenets. But the clincher I am informed was Beijing’s deadpan poser to Nepal officials behind closed doors whether Chinese leaders too would be allowed to deliver public speeches urging Nepalis to counter India and West-backed Tibetan political activity on Nepali soil.
Fortunately or unfortunately, money talks not only in your and mine daily life but in international relations too. New Delhi has no option but to grin and bear Chinese assertiveness because Beijing has committed $20 billion of foreign direct investment in India over the next five years. The promise is being touted as the biggest achievement of the Bharatiya Janata Party government’s foreign policy so far, although it reduces the world’s largest democracy to China’s new low-cost labour hub like Vietnam.
The really bad news is that not content with belittling India in its strategic backyard, China wants to break into Saarc — the regional group floated by India to underline its supremacy in South Asia. At present, China enjoys observer status like the US, Australia and Japan. But at a pre-summit preparatory meeting, Saarc nations wanted to induct China as a member. India managed to avert China’s entry because all Saarc decisions have to be consensual — even one dissenter is enough to maintain the status quo. But for how long?
S.N.M. Abdi is a noted Indian journalist and commentator.
