Subject: Bilateral Relations

Context

Recently, Mr. Draghi, Italy’s Prime Minister described Chinese competitive practices as “unfair” and invited the EU to be franker and more courageous in confronting Beijing on various issues. Against this backdrop, a trilateral partnership between India-Japan-Italy could play important role in the Indo-Pacific region.

India’s growing centrality in Indo-Pacific strategic architecture

• Countries that share similar values and face similar challenges are coming together to create purpose-oriented partnerships.
• In the context of the Indo-Pacific, the challenges posed by China’s assertive initiatives clash with a region lacking multilateral organisations capable of solving problems effectively.
• But as a new pushback against China takes shape and as Indian foreign policy becomes strategically clearer, there is new momentum to initiatives such as the Quad.

India-Italy-Japan trilateral partnership

• Recently, Italy has also begun to signal its intention to enter the Indo-Pacific geography.
• It has done so by seeking to join India and Japan in a trilateral partnership.
• Italy has become more vocal on the risks emanating from China’s strategic competitive initiatives.
• On the Indian side, there is great interest in forging new partnerships with like-minded countries interested in preserving peace and stability in the Indo-Pacific.
• The responsibility of keeping the Indo-Pacific free and open, and working for the welfare of its inhabitants falls on like-minded countries within and beyond the region.

Potential of trilateral partnership

• Their compatible economic systems can contribute to the reorganisation of the global supply chains that is now being reviewed by many players as a natural result of the Chinese mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic.
•  At the security level, the well-defined India-Japan Indo-Pacific partnership can easily be complemented by Italy.
• At the multilateral level, the three countries share the same values and the same rules-based world view.

The way forward for trilateral cooperation

• The Italian government must formulate a clear Indo-Pacific strategy that must indicate its objectives.
• But Rome must go beyond that in defining and implementing, at the margins of the EU’s common initiatives, its own policy with respect to the Indo-Pacific.
• The India, Italy and Japan trilateral initiative can be a forum to foster and consolidate a strategic relationship between these three countries, and specifically expand India-Italy bilateral relations.
• A trilateral cooperation can be the right forum for India and Italy to learn more from each other’s practices and interests and consolidate a strategic dialogue that should include the economic, the security and the political dimensions.
•  To consolidate the trilateral cooperation in this field, the three countries need to define a common economic and strategic agenda.

Conclusion

A clear political will is needed from all sides, and Italy, in particular, should recognise its interests in playing a larger role towards the maintenance of a free and open Indo-Pacific. Robust India-Italy strategic ties can be the first step towards the realisation of this goal.

This op-ed analyses the future of India-Africa cooperation in agriculture amid the looming Chinese involvement in African countries.

Agricultural significance of Africa

• With 65% of the world’s uncultivated arable land, employing over 60% of the workforce, and accounting for almost 20% of Sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP, agriculture is critical to Africa’s economy.

China factor behind

• As this relationship enters the post-pandemic world, it is vital to prioritize and channel resources into augmenting partnerships in agriculture.
• This is crucial given its unexplored potential, centrality to global food security, business prospects and to provide credible alternatives to the increasing involvement of Chinese stakeholders in the sector.

Analyzing Chinese engagement

Chinese corporations, small and medium-sized enterprises and entrepreneurs adopt has provided a layered perspective of the sociopolitical, economic and environmental impact of Chinese engagement.

• Trade: China is among Africa’s largest trading partners.
• Credit facility: It is also Africa’s single biggest creditor.
• Infrastructure: Its corporations dominate the region’s infrastructure market and are now entering the agri-infra sector.
• Strategic support: While access to Africa’s natural resources, its untapped markets and support for ‘One China Policy’ are primary drivers of Chinese engagement with the region, there are other factors at play.

China is going strategic in the guise of agriculture

• Increasingly critical to China’s global aspirations, its engagement in African agriculture is taking on a strategic quality.
• Chinese-built industrial parks and economic zones in Africa are attracting low-cost, labour-intensive manufacturing units that are relocating from China.
• Chinese engineers interviewed spoke of how their operations in Africa are important to accumulate global experience in management, risk and capital investments.
• Not only are they willing to overlook short-term profits in order to build a ‘brand China’, but they want to dominate the market in the long term, which includes pushing Chinese standards in host countries.
• Chinese tech companies are laying critical telecommunications infrastructure, venture capital funds are investing in African fintech firms, while other smaller enterprises are expanding across the region.

Agricultural landscape

• While many Chinese entities have been active in Africa’s agriculture for decades now, the nature, form and actors involved have undergone substantial change.
• In Zambia, Chinese firms are introducing agri-tech to combat traditional challenges, such as using drone technology to control the fall armyworm infestation.
• They have set up over Agricultural Technology Demonstration Centers (ATDCS) in the continent where Chinese agronomists work on developing new crop varieties and increasing crop yields.
• This ATDCs partner with local universities, conduct workshops and classes for officials and provide training and lease equipment to small holder farmers.
• Chinese companies with no prior experience in agriculture are setting out to build futuristic ecological parks while others are purchasing large-scale commercial farms.

Inducing their soft power

• The exponential growth in the China-Africa economic ties and the emergence of Beijing as an alternative to traditional western powers have motivated change in perceptions across groups.
• Governments and heads of state are recalibrating approaches, media houses are investing more resources for on-the-ground reporting.

Dark Side of the Sino-Africa ties

• Simultaneously, Africa-China relations are becoming complex with a growing, insular diaspora, lopsided trade, looming debt, competition with local businesses and a negative perception accompanied by greater political and socioeconomic interlinkages.
• On occasion, there seems to be a gap between skills transferred in China and the ground realities in Africa.
• In some cases, the technology taught in China is not available locally and in others, there is inability to implement lessons learnt due to the absence of supporting resources.
• Larger commercial farms run by Mandarin-speaking managers and the presence of small-scale Chinese farmers in local markets aggravates socio-cultural stresses.

India’s agricultural engagement

• Diverse portfolios: India-Africa agricultural cooperation currently includes institutional and individual capacity-building initiatives, an extension of soft loans, supply of machinery, acquisition of farmlands and the presence of Indian entrepreneurs in the African agricultural ecosystem.
• Land acquisition: Indian farmers have purchased over 6,00,000 hectares of land for commercial farming in Africa.
• States cooperation: Sub-national actors are providing another model of cooperation in agriculture. Consider the case of the Kerala government trying to meet its requirement for cashew nuts with imports from countries in Africa.
• Civil society: Similar ideas could encourage State governments and civil society organizations to identify opportunities and invest directly.
• Agri-business: There is also promise in incentivizing Indian industries to tap into African agri-business value chains and connecting Indian technology firms and startups with partners in Africa.
• Investment: In the past year, despite the pandemic, the sector witnessed a record increase in investments.

Way forward

• A thorough impact assessment needs to be conducted of the existing capacity-building initiatives in agriculture for India to stand in good stead.
• This could include detailed surveys of participants who have returned to their home countries.
• Country-specific and localized curriculum can be drawn up, making skill development demand-led.
• In all senses, India has consistently chosen well to underline the development partnership to be in line with African priorities.
• It is pertinent, therefore, that we collectively craft a unique modern partnership with Africa.

Conclusion

• While India’s Africa strategy exists independently, it is important to be cognizant of China’s increasing footprint in the region.
• Beijing’s model, if successful here, could be heralded as a replica for the larger global south.
• It is important to note, however, that prominent African voices have emphasized that their own agency is often overlooked in the global discourse on the subject.

The article deals with India’s strategy to deepen the ties with African nations and suggest a critical review of the implementation of India’s strategy.

Need for review of India’s foreign policy for Africa

• Africa is considered a foreign policy priority by India.
•  Even as the COVID-19 era began in March 2020, New Delhi took new initiatives to assist Africa through prompt despatch of medicines and later vaccines.
• But now the policy implementation needs a critical review.

Four factors that explain need for a review of policy implementation

1) Declining trade

• Declining trade: Bilateral trade valued at $55.9 billion in 2020-21, fell by $10.8 billion compared to 2019-20, and $15.5 billion compared to the peak year of 2014-15.
• Decline in investment: India’s investments in Africa too saw a decrease from $3.2 billion in 2019-20 to $2.9 billion in 2020-21.
• The composition of the India-Africa trade has not changed much over the two decades.
• Mineral fuels and oils, (essentially crude oil) and pearls, precious or semi-precious stones are the top two imports accounting for over 77% of our imports from Africa.
• India’s top five markets today are South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya and Togo.
• The countries from which India imports the most are South Africa, Nigeria, Egypt, Angola and Guinea.

2) Covid impact

• COVID-19 has brought misery to Africa.
• As on June 24, 2021, Africa registered 5.2 million infections and 1,37,855 deaths.
• A recent World Health Organization survey revealed that 41 African countries had fewer than 2,000 working ventilators among them.
• Despite these shortcomings, Africa has not done so badly.
•  Sadly though, with much of the world caught up in coping with the novel coronavirus pandemic’s ill effects, flows of assistance and investment to Africa have decreased.
• While China has successfully used the pandemic to expand its footprint by increasing the outflow of its vaccines.
• Unfortunately India’s ‘vax diplomacy’ has suffered a setback. 

3) Global competition for influence

• Africa experienced a sharpened international competition, known as ‘the third scramble’, in the first two decades of the 21st century.
• A dozen nations from the Americas, Europe and Asia have striven to assist Africa in resolving the continent’s political and social challenge.
• These nations, in turn, stand to benefit from Africa’s markets, minerals, hydrocarbons and oceanic resources, and thereby to expand their geopolitical influence.

4) Geopolitical tensions in Asia

• Geopolitical tensions in Asia and the imperative to consolidate its position in the Indo-Pacific region have compelled New Delhi to concentrate on its ties with the United Kingdom, the EU, and the Quad powers, particularly the U.S.
• Consequently, the attention normally paid to Africa lost out.
• This must now change.

Way forward for India-Africa relation

• For mutual benefit, Africa and India should remain optimally engaged.
• The third India-Africa Forum Summit was held in 2015.
• The fourth summit, pending since last year, should be held as soon as possible, even if in a virtual format.
• Fresh financial resources for grants and concessional loans to Africa must be allocated, as previous allocations stand almost fully exhausted.
• The promotion of economic relations demands a higher priority.
• Industry representatives should be consulted about their grievances and challenges in the COVID-19 era.
• To impart a 21st-century complexion to the partnership, developing and deepening collaborations in health, space and digital technologies is essential.
• India should continue its role in peacekeeping in Africa, in lending support to African counter-terrorism operations, and contributing to African institutions through training and capacity-enhancing assistance.
• To overcome the China challenge in Africa, increased cooperation between India and its international allies, rates priority.
• The recent India-EU Summit has identified Africa as a region where a partnership-based approach will be followed.
•  When the first in-person summit of the Quad powers is held in Washington, a robust partnership plan for Africa should be announced. 

Conclusion

India should review the policy implementation and make changes in line with the changing geopolitical realities.

Pandemic know no borders. So, dealing with it has necessited global cooperation. The article introduce us to some of the cross-country collaborations in dealing with the pandemic, igniting the hope for new era social partnership to the advantage of South Asia.

Regionally-coordinated strategy against pandemic

• Containing Covid pandemic has necessitated global cooperation.
• The deadly pandemic surge in 2021 makes a regionally coordinated, evidence-driven strategy critical.
• It is necessary to construct multi-stakeholder regional coalitions to devise new solutions and frugal innovations that can be applied across South Asia.
• Given our shared and mostly similar social, economic and cultural contexts, local successes must be amplified across South Asia.
• Despite wide variation in how nations have responded to the pandemic, the most successful strategies find commonality in their adherence to science and attention to local context.

How successful interventions could be applied across the subcontinent

• Beliefs, priorities, traditions and aversions to behavioural change are more similar across South Asia.
• This means that interventions that are successful in changing behaviour in one place are highly likely applicable in other parts of the subcontinent.
• For example, Community-Led Total Sanitation (CLTS) campaigns to solve the problem of open defecation, developed by Bangladeshi NGOs in partnership with an Indian consultant is now broadly applied across South Asia and beyond.
• The Grameen Bank microcredit model was an indigenous South Asian innovation that spread rapidly.
• India’s digitised social protection ecosystem with Aadhaar ids and Jan Dhan accounts serves as a model for the region.

Changing social norm around mask-wearing

• The new pan-South Asian consortium in response to Covid-19 evolved out of an experiment conducted in Bangladesh around mask-wearing in rural communities termed as NORM.
• It was observed that a combination of no-cost distribution, information, reinforcing the message, modeling and endorsement by community leaders (NORM) leads to large, sustained increases in mask usage.
• NORM implementation teams based in Lahore, Ahmedabad, Peshawar, Hyderabad, Dhaka, Kathmandu and Delhi are learning from each other’s successes and failures.
• The Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) quickly implemented the model to reach over one million members in Gujarat.
•  Additional 1.5 million masks were shipped from Bangladesh to support SEWA’s outreach to other states.
• Lahore’s commissioner worked with the research team to adapt the NORM model to an urban setting.
• To manage mild and moderate cases of Covid-19 in rural India, where institutional health care access is limited a host of physicians, scientists and community-based organisations created the Swasth Community Science Alliance.
• The Masking-Treatment-Vaccine Preparation (MTV) approach offers a sensible strategy to mitigate the pandemic until universal vaccination is achieved.

Conclusion

We need to come together to solve problems that affect us all. Let the lasting legacy of this pandemic be a new era of partnership in social innovations that can benefit all South Asians.

What happened in Galwan?

• The Indian and Chinese armies are engaged in the standoff in Pangong Tso, Galwan Valley, Demchok and Daulat Beg Oldie in eastern Ladakh.
  • A sizable number of Chinese Army personnel even transgressed into the Indian side of the de-facto border in several areas including Pangong Tso.
  • The actions on the northern bank of Pangong Tso are not just for territorial gains on land, but enhanced domination of the resource-rich lake.
• The stand-off at Ladakh’s Galwan Valley has escalated in June 2020 due to the infrastructure projects that India has undertaken in the recent years. India is building a strategic road through the Galwan Valley – close to China – connecting the region to an airstrip.
  • China is opposed to any Indian construction in the area. In 1962, a stand-off in the Galwan area was one of the biggest flashpoints of the 1962 war.
• The border, or Line of Actual Control, is not demarcated, and China and India have differing ideas of where it should be located, leading to regular border “transgressions.” Often these don’t escalate tensions; a serious border standoff like the current one is less frequent, though this is the fourth since 2013.
  • Both countries’ troops have patrolled this region for decades, as the contested 2,200-mile border is a long-standing subject of competing claims and tensions, including a brief war in 1962.
• Reasons: The violent clash happened when the Chinese side departed from the consensus to respect the LAC and attempted to unilaterally change the status quo.
  • It is part of China’s ‘nibble and negotiate policy’. Their aim is to ensure that India does not build infrastructure along the LAC. It is their way of attaining a political goal with military might, while gaining more territory in the process.

The current situation in Ladakh

•  With a continued deployment of 50,000-60,000 soldiers, the Indian Army has been able to hold the line to prevent any further ingress by the PLA.
• There has been no progress in talks after the disengagement at Pangong lake and Kailash range in February.
• Outside of Ladakh, the Indian Army remains in an alert mode all along the LAC to prevent any Chinese misadventure but the bigger change has been its reorientation of certain forces from Pakistan border towards the China border.
• The Ladakh crisis has also exposed India’s military weakness to tackle a collusive threat from China and Pakistan.

External balancing

• To deal with the threat of combined China and Pakistan, the Government opened backchannel talks with Pakistan which led to the reiteration of the ceasefire on the Line of Control.
• The Ladakh crisis has also led the Government to relook external partnerships, particularly with the United States.
• The U.S. military officials have earlier spoken of the intelligence and logistics support provided to the Indian forces in Ladakh.
• The military importance of the Quad remains moot, with India reportedly refusing to do joint naval patrolling with the U.S. in the South China Sea, the two treaty allies of the U.S., Japan and Australia, also refused.

Challenges for India

• India attempts to counter the growing Chinese influence in the neighbourhood have faltered, exacerbated by the mishandling of the second wave of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
• With the widening power gap between New Delhi and Beijing, the challenge is as much economic as it is geopolitical.
• Despite the border crisis and the Indian restrictions on Chinese technology companies, China displaced the U.S. to be India’s biggest trade partner in 2020-21, up to nearly 13% of India’s total trade compared to 10.4% a year ago.
• For the past few decades, Indian planners operated on the premise that their diplomats will be able to manage the Chinese problem without it developing into a full-blown military crisis.
• Militarily, Chinese incursions in Ladakh have shown that the idea of deterrence has failed.
• India has learnt that it can no longer have simultaneous competition and cooperation with China.
• A new reset in bilateral ties, àla the early 1990s, is difficult because China is now in a different league, competing with the U.S.

Conclusion

The events of the past one year have significantly altered India’s thinking towards China. The relationship is at the crossroads now. The choices made will have a significant impact on the future of global geopolitics.

B2BASICS

Line of Actual Control

• Demarcation Line: The Line of Actual Control (LAC) is the demarcation that separates Indian-controlled territory from Chinese-controlled territory.
• LAC is different from the Line of Control (LoC) with Pakistan:
  • The LoC emerged from the 1948 ceasefire line negotiated by the United Nations (UN) after the Kashmir War.
  • It was designated as the LoC in 1972, following the Shimla Agreement between the two countries. It is delineated on a map signed by the Director General of Military Operations (DGMO) of both armies and has the international sanctity of a legal agreement.
  • The LAC, in contrast, is only a concept – it is not agreed upon by the two countries, neither delineated on a map or demarcated on the ground.
• Length of the LAC: India considers the LAC to be 3,488 km long, while the Chinese consider it to be only around 2,000 km.