Type: op-ed snap

Context

The brief visit by the United States House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, to Taiwan, against stern warnings issued by China, has the potential to increase the already deteriorating relationship between the U.S. and China. For those of us in India watching the events as they unfold around Taiwan, there are valuable lessons to be learnt.

Background

• The crisis that began with the visit of Ms. Pelosi to Taipei is still unfolding and there is little clarity today on how it will wind down.
•  For China, its claims about a rising superpower might ring hollow if it is unable to unify its claimed territories, in particular Taiwan.
• For the U.S., it is about re-establishing steadily-diminishing American credibility in the eyes of its friends and foes.
• For Taiwan, it is about standing up to Chinese bullying and making its red lines clear to Beijing.
• Lessons for India: To be fair, there is growing recognition in New Delhi that it is important to meet the challenge posed by a belligerent China, but there appears to be a lack of clarity on how to meet this challenge.
• To that extent, the Taiwan crisis offers New Delhi three lessons, at the very least.

Takeaways for India

1] Articulate red lines

• The most important lesson from the Taiwan standoff for policymakers in New Delhi is the importance of articulating red lines and sovereign positions in an unambiguous manner.
•  New Delhi needs to unambiguously highlight the threat from China and the sources of such a threat.
• Any absence of such clarity will be cleverly utilised by Beijing to push Indian limits, as we have already seen.
• Stop confusing international community: Even worse, ambiguous messaging by India also confuses its friends in the international community.
• If India does not clearly articulate that China is in illegal occupation of its territory, how can it expect its friends in the international community to support India diplomatically or otherwise?
• In other words, India’s current policy amounts to poor messaging, and confusing to its own people as well as the larger international community, and is therefore counterproductive.

2] Avoid appeasement

• Taiwan could have avoided the ongoing confrontation and the economic blockade during Chinese retaliatory military exercises around its territory by avoiding Ms. Pelosi’s visit to Taipei, or perhaps even keeping it low key.
• Appeasement of China, Taiwan knows, is not the answer to Beijing’s aggression.
•  India’s policy of meeting/hosting Chinese leaders while the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) continue(d) to violate established territorial norms on the LAC is a deeply flawed one.
• Unilaterally catering to Chinese sensitivities even during the standoffs between the two militaries is a mistake.
• For instance, the parliamentary delegation visits and legislature-level dialogues between India and Taiwan have not taken place since 2017.
• Soft-peddling of the Quad was a mistake: During the 2000s, India (as well as Australia) decided to soft-peddle the Quad in the face of strong Chinese objections.
• It is only in the last two years or so that we have witnessed renewed enthusiasm around the Quad.
• In retrospect, appeasing Beijing by almost abandoning the Quad was bad strategy.

3] Economic relationship is a two way process

• Given that the economic relationship is a two-way process and that, as a matter of fact, the trade deficit is in China’s favour, China too has a lot to lose from a damaged trade relationship with India.
• More so, if the Taiwan example (as well as the India-China standoff in 2020) is anything to go by, trade can continue to take place despite tensions and without India making any compromises vis-à-vis its sovereign claims.
• India for sure should do business with China, but not on China’s own terms.

Conclusion

The recent crisis offers valuable lessons for India in its dealing with China.

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Context

There is a stark contrast contrast between the Indian response to the crisis in Sri Lanka and the dawning civil war in Myanmar.

Crisis in Myanmar

• According to UN human rights monitors, over 2,000 people have been killed, around 14,000 are in prison, including 90 lawmakers, over 7,00,000 are refugees and half a million internally displaced.
• Humanitarian aid to coup opponents is blocked.
• The economy is in free fall.
• Though the international community has not accepted the junta or its nominees as official representatives of Myanmar, it has not recognised the unity government as the legitimate successor of the pre-coup elected administration either.
• Its armed wing, the recently-formed People’s Defence Force (PDF), exists in a shadowy limbo.
• If it is too weak to impose significant costs on the junta, one root cause is the lack of support from neighbours.
• As against Europe’s military support for Ukraine’s defence, no Asian country has stepped up to support the unity government and PDF.
• Role of ASEAN:  It is ASEAN which shouldered the responsibility to mediate in Myanmar, whereas India took the initiative with Sri Lanka.
• But ASEAN has been largely unsuccessful.
• The five-point consensus that the junta agreed on with the regional grouping included an immediate end to violence and resumption of negotiations between the ousted administration and the Tatmadaw.
• ASEAN’s reaction has been weak at best.
• The US, EU, Australia and Canada announced targeted sanctions on the junta, and the EU imposed an embargo on arms sales to the country. ASEAN did not.

India’s response and issues with it

• The contrast between the Indian response to the crisis in Sri Lanka and the dawning civil war in Myanmar could not be starker.
• There is no support from the India administration for Mizoram’s aid effort, and apparently there is no Indian policy vis a vis the coup either.
• Cooperation against cross-border insurgency: Given our land and sea borders with Myanmar, and the troubled history of cross-border insurgencies between our two countries, the India’s inertia is alarming, though not entirely surprising.
• Successive Indian administrations maintained relations with the junta in the hope that they would cooperate against cross-border Indian armed groups.
• But these insurgencies have reduced.
• In fact, over the 10 years of Myanmar’s partial democracy, from 2011 to 2021, cross-border support for Indian insurgents dipped sharply.
• Direct security interest: In other words, we have a direct security interest in the restoration of our neighbour’s democracy.

Way forward

• Stringent sanctions: Sanctions that will starve the junta are a first step that Myanmar’s neighbours are yet to try.
• While ASEAN has the initiative, all Myanmar’s neighbours need to unite on sanctions, especially nations such as Japan, Australia and India that are members of the Quad along with the US.
• Myanmar ought to have topped the recent Quad summit’s agenda and it is shameful that it did not.
• It is still not too late to call a virtual emergency meeting of Quad heads of state, along with ASEAN heads of state, to agree to stringent sanctions.

Conclusion

Our neighbourhood is more unstable today than it has been for decades. Four of our bordering countries are in free fall, while China’s grip comes closer to our shores by the hour. Can India afford to fiddle while wildfires ignite around us?

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Context

The bilateral relationship between India and Bangladesh dominated by endless contentions at the turn of the millennium has transformed into a very productive partnership.

Contrast between India’s relations with Bangladesh and Pakistan

• The persistence of cross-border terrorism, the conflict over Kashmir, the militarisation of the frontier, little connectivity, poor trade relations and no formal inter-governmental negotiations paint a bleak picture of the India-Pak border.
• The inability of successive generations of Indian and Pakistani leaders to bring a closure to Partition in the west makes the talk of a “100-year war” credible.
• The only trend that can counter this pessimism is the good news from India’s eastern frontier with Bangladesh.
• In contrast to the talk of a 100-year war between India and Pakistan, India and Bangladesh have proclaimed a “sonali adhyay” or “golden chapter” in bilateral relations.
• While the unresolved land and maritime territorial disputes constitute one of the main problems in India’s relations with Pakistan, their resolution with Bangladesh transformed the context of bilateral relations.
• For both Delhi and Dhaka, the reinvention of the bilateral relationship has been one of the most significant successes of their recent foreign policies

Rebuilding the Bangladesh-India ties after 2010

• The work on rebuilding ties began in earnest in 2010, when Sheikh Hasina came to India after taking charge of Bangladesh as prime minister for the second time in 2009.
• Addressing bilateral problems: Both sides embarked on an extraordinary effort to address most bilateral problems—including border settlement, river water sharing, cross-border terrorism, market access to Bangladeshi goods, and connectivity.
• The land boundary deal got parliamentary approval in 2015 in India.
• India also accepted the award of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague on settling the maritime boundary dispute between Delhi and Dhaka. 
• Security cooperation: Cooperation on cross-border terrorism that began a couple of years earlier helped build much-needed political trust between the two national security establishments.
• Connectivity: On the connectivity front, we have seen a substantive movement towards reopening the border that was largely shut down after the 1965 war between India and Pakistan.
• Trans-boundary bus services, reopening of railway lines, and the revitalisation of waterways are restoring connectivity in the eastern subcontinent that was severed.
• Bilateral trade: Bilateral trade volumes have grown by leaps and bounds in recent years touching nearly $16 billion last year.
• Bangladesh is one of India’s top export markets.
•  India and Bangladesh have also developed inter-connected power grids facilitating Dhaka’s purchase of power from India.
• It currently buys about 1200 MW of power from India and an additional 1500 MW is in the pipeline.
• Development of the northeastern India: Today the northeastern states have realised the immense benefits of deeper economic engagement with Bangladesh — none of them more important than ending the geographic isolation of the region.
• Assam today is at the forefront of imagining a bolder agenda for deepening economic ties with Bangladesh.
• Peace and prosperity in the region: For India, the expansive partnership with Bangladesh has significantly eased its security challenges and laid the basis for peace and prosperity in the eastern subcontinent.
• For Bangladesh, discarding the temptation to balance India and embark on a cooperative strategy has allowed Dhaka to focus on its economic growth and lift itself in the regional and global hierarchy.

Way forward

• Consolidating the gains: Rather than regret the unfortunate dynamic on the western frontier and bemoan Pakistan’s reluctance to let the SAARC become a vehicle for regional cooperation, Delhi should focus on consolidating the “golden moment” in the east.
• The issues that need resolution are protecting the rights of minorities, sharing the waters of more than 50 rivers, promoting cross-border investments, managing one of the longest borders in the world, facilitating trade and preventing illegal migration, countering forces of religious extremism, promoting maritime security in the Bay of Bengal, expanding defence cooperation, and mitigating climate change in the shared regional environment to name a few.
• Solving problems and tending to the relationship must necessarily be a continuous effort rather than episodic.

Conclusion

Nor can Delhi and Dhaka take each other for granted and let domestic politics overwhelm the logic of bilateral cooperation. The 75th anniversary of independence offers Delhi and Dhaka a special opportunity to elevate the ambition for their bilateral partnership.

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