From Nepal to Sri Lanka: How does China get along with small South Asian countries under the intensive mobilization of the United States and India?

Since the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative in 2014, South Asia has included many key projects, including the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and the Hambantota port in Sri Lanka. For China, South Asia is gradually transforming from a strange neighbor to an important economic channel. However, in addition to overcoming the tension of the game between big countries, it is also necessary to understand the intentions of small countries. Two recent news outlines this complex situation.

The first is Nepal, which is located at the turn of China and India. On August 11, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin stated at a press conference that China and Nepal will build a three-dimensional inter-Himalayan interconnection network. Send experts to Nepal to carry out reconnaissance. The plan first appeared in the newspapers in 2015, when China and Nepal indicated that they were considering building a railway through the Himalayas, extending from Shigatse to Geelong on the border between the two countries, with a total length of 540 kilometers. The basis for the document was formed in 2018.

The second is Sri Lanka, an island country in the Indian Ocean. On August 6, Indian media reported that Sri Lanka had approved the Chinese military survey ship "Yuan Wang 5" (Yuan Wang 5) to berth at Hambantota Port on August 11, but it was called "Yuan Wang 5" in India. The Sri Lankan side has postponed the visit of the Yuanwang 5 indefinitely due to strong objections for reasons such as dual-purpose spy ships" and "may take the opportunity to spy on Indian military facilities". However, on August 13, Sri Lanka also stated that it had allowed the "Yuanwang 5" to stop at the Hambantota Port from August 16 to 22. China and Sri Lanka also reached a consensus that the "Yuanwang 5" will stop at the Hambantota Port. The identification system will remain on during the mooring period and no research activities will be conducted in Sri Lankan waters.

From a strategic perspective, whether it is Nepal or Sri Lanka, the attitudes of the two countries towards China reflect the general tendency of small South Asian countries: the existence of China not only provides options for national economic and development, but also hedges against India’s dominance in South Asia’s geopolitical pattern. .

Economic dividends and the game between China and India

From the standpoint of Nepal, as a "land-locked country" in the Himalayas, it is sandwiched by India from east, west, south and south. The surrounding Bhutan has been accepted as a "protectorate" by India, Sikkim has also been annexed, and India has repeatedly borrowed less. The issue of ethnic independence and state-building interferes in Nepal's internal affairs, posing a great geopolitical threat to it. But at the same time, India is Nepal's largest trading partner. According to the statistics of International Trade Center (ITC) in 2019, Nepal's main export destination country is India, accounting for 68.7%, followed by the United States only accounting for 10.3%; the main source of imports is also India (63.1%), ranking The next best China is only 15.7%.

Under this circumstance, the rising China has become the fulcrum of Nepal's hedging strategy. First, it hopes to maintain its economic and trade share with India while sharing China’s development dividends; second, Nepal wants to use its economic exchanges with China to create an atmosphere of warming Sino-Nepalese relations and counteract India’s interfering posture.

For many years, if India is not overly oppressed, Nepal has generally maintained its economic dependence on India, while participating in China's development projects, such as signing the "Protocol of the China-Nepal Transit Transport Agreement", using the ports of China's Tianjin, Shenzhen, Lianyungang, Zhanjiang, and Lanzhou. , Lhasa, Shigatse, and trade with third countries; but if India is overly oppressed, Nepal will often turn to China for security assistance to balance India’s intervention force, such as India’s demonstration in 2015 by the Madisi people After interfering in Nepal's internal affairs and imposing an unofficial blockade against Nepal for up to six months, Nepal first held its first joint military exercise with China in 2017, and in 2018, it refused to participate in India-led Bangladesh, Bhutan, and other countries around the Bay of Bengal. In the same year, a joint exercise with China was held for the second time.

Although Sri Lanka's tendency towards China is different from Nepal's, it is also a demonstration of hedging logic.

Since the establishment of Sri Lanka's independence, India has regarded it and the Maldives as its "maritime sphere of influence", and has been highly involved in the bloody civil war in Sri Lanka, supporting the hostile warring parties successively, which has aroused strong dissatisfaction in Sri Lanka, and turned to China and Pakistan for security. assistance. But after the end of the civil war, India's aid promoted Sri Lanka's reconstruction project, and Sri Lanka also "put aside its hatreds" and maintained its "India First" policy background.

On this basis, China-Sri Lanka relations play a more role in the economic field. Once the cooperation between the two sides involves security issues, it will often trigger a rebound in India. For example, in 2014, Sri Lanka had twice approved Chinese submarines to dock at Colombo Port, which aroused strong dissatisfaction from India. After that, Sri Lanka no longer approved Chinese submarines to dock at any port in Sri Lanka. , the key is that its military color is relatively light, and it is not as indicative as submarines.

However, while keeping a distance from China in the security field, Sri Lanka is highly involved in the “Belt and Road” project. In addition to the Hambantota port, the international airport project, power plant, and Colombo Port City project are also being carried out simultaneously. In the final analysis, the difference in attitude towards China between Sri Lanka and Nepal stems from the different “functional definitions” of China: for Sri Lanka, the role of being close to China is not to counterbalance India in terms of security, but to use China’s resources to promote national development. At the same time, under the Sino-Indian game pattern, India's geographical anxiety has been deepened, so that it can give Sri Lanka more economic injections while avoiding Sri Lanka's "pro-China and anti-India" considerations.

In short, in addition to their desire for development, small South Asian countries also generally face the pressure of domination and interference from India, and will therefore have different attitudes towards China.

Uncertainty facing China

In this context, China has also grasped this pattern, developed relations with small South Asian countries, and maintained an exchange model of active economic exchanges and safe and low-key cooperation. Overall, this policy trend has won the political environment and layout space for the advancement of the “Belt and Road” project.

However, the situation in South Asia is now unstable. At the national level, the economies of small South Asian countries are inherently fragile, and the situation has deteriorated after the outbreak of the epidemic. Take Sri Lanka as an example. Since April this year, multiple economic crises have erupted. Not only has the country gone bankrupt and social unrest has also resulted in the split of the ruling coalition, the prime minister has resigned, the president has fled, pro-India factions and China-friendly centrists. It is even more plunged into debate, and there is no consensus on the solution to the crisis.

At the regional level, the United States and India are mobilizing South Asian countries within the framework of the "Indo-Pacific Strategy", with the intention of beautifying their own geopolitical competition calculations, occupying the moral high ground, and rationalizing the asymmetry between India and other small countries through the discourse of "liberal democracy" power relations. Such a strategic mobilization of "following India against China" will, to a certain extent, impact the original "China-India hedging" tradition here; and the economic crisis in Sri Lanka has given the United States the opportunity to promote "One Belt, One Road is equal to a debt trap" and "China's Investment is like sugar-coated poison.” Although this approach will not disintegrate the pro-China factions in South Asian countries, it may dampen their political voice.

In this situation, China must pay attention to the following two warning signs, and try to buffer and respond.

First, with the general economic downturn of various countries, if a South Asian country forms a power struggle between "pro-China factions" and "pro-India factions", it may cause their China policies to be swayed, making the established projects indefinite. The delay has caused Chinese-funded enterprises and Chinese investment projects to suffer economic losses under the unstable political situation. Second, the economic crisis of various countries coincides with the continued counter-propaganda of the “Belt and Road” by the United States and India, which may also lead to negative reactions in South Asian countries. Public opinion has caused the people to reject Chinese capital and Chinese projects, which may restrain the government's China policy to a certain extent.

Therefore, in the face of the future South Africa game, China should not marginalize itself, but it should also be careful to avoid falling into the zero-sum mentality of competing for geographical dominance. The above-mentioned unfavorable situations generally revolve around the economic and international situation, but the solution to the situation is still man-made.

At the political elite level, small countries are already afraid of India’s excessive interference. If the United States cannot provide more benign public goods than China, such as launching more affordable engineering projects and more favorable aid conditions, it will only resort to “liberal democracy” , "Opening the Indo-Pacific" and other vague words, requiring all countries to obey India's leadership and jointly oppose China, I am afraid that even if it can achieve short-term results, it will not easily change the existing tradition of "China-India hedging" in small countries.

At the level of public opinion, China cannot hope to buy people’s hearts and minds once and for all with bottomless economic aid. For example, in the face of South Asian intellectuals and media's doubts about the Belt and Road Initiative, China should try to mobilize local pro-China think tanks, scholars, and media people to come forward to buffer, even if it cannot reverse public opinion, at least it must be able to make a different voice; facing the grassroots The public's backlash against the project, China can learn from the experience of other countries. In addition to promoting large-scale engineering projects, it plans some small but quick-acting livelihood projects, allowing local people to experience the positive spillover of China's construction, with immediate results.

In the foreseeable future, small South Asian countries will still have a high probability of maintaining the diplomatic tradition of "China-India hedging", but their China policy may be unstable due to internal political difficulties and international games. In this situation, China's South Asian chess game requires both strategic determination and flexibility.

Original published URL:

2022.8.20

From Nepal to Sri Lanka: How does China get along with small South Asian countries under the intensive mobilization of the United States and India? | Hong Kong 01 https://www.hk01.com/sns/article/805680