THE recent India-Iran-Afghanistan agreement to develop a trade route
from Chabahar to Central Asia has been portrayed by Indian commentators as
having changed the historical ‘Great Game’ for control of the connection
between South and Central Asia through Afghanistan. It has been claimed that
the agreement will end India’s ‘isolation’ from Central Asia and Pakistan’s
‘stranglehold’ over Afghanistan and create a ‘new security paradigm’ and a
‘geopolitical shift’.
But the Great Game has already changed. It is being played on a wider
canvas with different players and rules. The power contest in Asia is now
mainly between China and America, and, to a lesser extent, between America
and Russia — with India, Pakistan, Iran and others in subsidiary roles. In this
context, the strategic and economic implications of the tripartite agreement
are likely to be limited.
Chabahar port has been on the drawing board for many years. Its main
purpose was and will remain to expand Iran’s oil and other trade including with
India.
Implementation of the trade route to Central Asia will remain
challenging until peace can be restored in Afghanistan. With the collapse of
the inter-Afghan negotiations, Afghanistan is likely to witness a further
escalation of conflict and chaos. Transit to Central Asia via Iran, or
Pakistan, is not viable at present.
Even once the route is operational, its economic significance will
remain modest. India’s oil needs can be met by Iran (and Saudi Arabia). The
Central Asians do not have pipelines to Chabahar; they do to China. New gas
pipelines are being constructed to Europe. Their mineral resources are also
flowing north, east and west; not south.
America is and will
remain a major player in the new Asian Great Game.
With a population of only around 50 million, Central Asia will not
become a huge market for manufactured goods. It will be twice as expensive for
India to send goods to Central Asia through Chabahar than it would be overland
across Pakistan. Indian goods are thus unlikely to be competitive against
Chinese products shipped overland.
Also read: Lessons from Chabahar
The strategic advantages for India are also questionable. Its influence
in Afghanistan will be more dependent on Iran. Pakistan’s cooperation will
continue to be essential to restoring peace in Afghanistan. Indian shipping
lanes to Chabahar will be vulnerable to disruption. India’s limited influence
in Central Asia will not dent that of Russia and China.
The new Great Game will increasingly revolve around China’s One Belt,
One Road vision of land and sea connections between Asia, Europe and beyond.
The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is the first component of this
ambitious project.
In comparison to the Chabahar route, the strategic and economic
implications of CPEC are enormous. It will transform China from a one- to a
two-ocean power; enable a part of its $4000 billion annual trade to circumvent
the Malacca straits and other potential choke points in the Indian Ocean and
shorten China’s supply lines to the Gulf, West Asia and Africa. For these reasons,
if no other, China has a vital stake in Pakistan’s strategic stability and
socioeconomic development. The Chinese commitment of $46bn for CPEC projects is
but the first instalment of the massive capital which China is prepared to
deploy in Pakistan.
Instead of being distracted by the moves of its adversaries, Pakistan
must remain focused on the implementation of CPEC. This strategic enterprise
should not be allowed to be stalled or delayed by external pressure or internal
politics, inefficiency or corruption. It would be wise to create a separate
and independent CPEC Authority which can be a ‘one-stop-shop’ entrusted with
achieving CPEC’s enormous potential for Pakistan’s development. CPEC
projects must go beyond infrastructure development to encompass manufacture,
consumer goods, housing, health, textiles, finance and other sectors. To
this end, the interaction between Pakistani and Chinese private- and
public-sector companies must be actively expanded and intensified. Some of the
externally imposed limitations on CPEC investment projects, such as
restrictions on ‘sovereign guarantees’ for debt finance, need to be removed
expeditiously.
CPEC faces threats from Pakistan and China’s adversaries. These will
have to be met forcefully.
India’s opposition has been announced openly. New Delhi will continue to
utilise Afghanistan as a base to destabilise Pakistan and undermine CPEC. The
recent spate of attacks on Chinese workers in Pakistan is no accident. Pakistan
will have to further enhance security for them and consider direct action to
remove the Afghan-based threat from the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan.
Iran has assured that Chabahar is not designed to compete with Gwadar or
CPEC. Pakistan and Iran can cooperate for mutual benefit: to end terrorism in
Balochistan, expand trade, and construct the Iranian gas pipeline and a
Gwadar-Chabahar economic corridor. However, Tehran often wants to run
with the hare and hunt with the hound. Some recent events have sent disturbing
signals which Pakistan cannot ignore.
To balance the growing Indo-Iranian relationship, Pakistan must maintain
and reinforce its relationship with Saudi Arabia and Turkey. It would be in
Pakistan’s interest to help in giving substance and form to the ‘Islamic
coalition’ hastily formed by Riyadh. It should also convince the GCC states of
the benefits of CPEC as a path to their closer connection with China.
America is and will remain a major player in the new Asian Great Game.
To bolster its strategic contest with China, the US is moving towards a military
alliance with India. The Obama administration is also cooperating tactically with Iran in
the fight against the militant Islamic State group in Iraq and, less clearly,
in Syria. It wants Iran to help in stabilising Afghanistan. But the US-Iran
relationship could again become hostile if new sanctions are imposed by the US
Congress or differences arise over Iraq, Syria, Hezbollah or Israel.
For Islamabad, the major threat now is possible hostile US action to
destabilise Pakistan and disrupt CPEC. Wisely, China has invited US
participation in CPEC. The US has declared, perhaps diplomatically, that it is
not opposed to CPEC. But the signals from Washington, as it hosts India’s Modi,
are ominous. The new Great Game is about to get tougher and rougher.
Published in Dawn, June 12th, 2016
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