The China Factor

China is making deep forays into South Asia with the twin objective of surrounding adversary India and to reach the Indian Ocean. And the South Asian neighbours of India, awed by China’s clout and lured by its ‘assistance’, are only too willing.

The latest examples of Chinese effort at making forays into South Asian region, with the willing help from the region’s nations, are Bangladesh’s proposal for a road that links it to China’s Kunmin via Myanmar and to develop Hambantota in Sri Lanka.

With the influence that China wields in Myanmar, and Bangladesh’s desire to open new connections and routes that cannot really be faulted, the road it has proposed could materialise in the coming years.

Taking a political look at Dhaka’s move, it is not difficult to see that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, although friendly to India and working closely on a large array of issues and projects, also wants to be seen exercising her other options so as not to be seen as falling into Indian arms by her political adversaries.

In Bangladesh, India factor is strong in politics and Hasina has been criticized for getting too close and signing five deals with India when she visited New Delhi in January. She followed this up with a visit to China in March, even as media critical of her approach noted that her rival, Begum Khaleda Zia had made it a point to visit China first when she took office.The media did not report that Zia had visited India, rather reluctantly, only towards the end of her tenure in March 2006 and that visit had not gone off too well.

The latest China-Bangladesh move came when Chinese Vice President, Xi Jinping, paid what was called “a return visit” to Hasina’s March visit to Beijing. He agreed to implement a Bangladeshi proposal for a road link via Myanmar, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina herself announced in Parliament after Xi’s visit.She said that a project financed by Bangladesh government called “Study and Design for Bangladesh-Myanmar link road” was underway. The road project will be implemented in two phases. In the first phase two kilometer of road will be constructed from Ramu to Gundum inside Bangladesh and 23 kilometer will be constructed between Taungbro and Bolibazar inside Myanmar.

In the second phase, the Myanmar authorities will construct 110 kilometer of road link between Bolibazar and Kyanktow in Myanmar. There is a road link between Kyanktow and Kunming. She said her government has actively been trying to link Bangladesh with members of the Association of South East Asian Nations (Asean) and China “in the interest of the people of this country.””Effective roads and rail communications will be set up among the Asean countries once the proposed project is implemented,” she said, adding: “Political, economic, commercial and cultural relations with China and other south-eastern countries of Asia will be interrelated.”

Hasina has on her returning to power in January last year also sought to reach out to India and other South Asian neigjhbours like Nepal and Bhutan seeking road and rail links and greater trade.

Her deal with India that allows the latter partial, project-based access to the isolated northeastern region has been criticized by main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) and her Islamist ally, the Jamaat-e-Islami Bangladesh. She hoped that she would take up the road link project again with the top Myanmar leaders in the near future.

Among other proposals discussed during the visit of the Chinese vice president were development of an international level deep sea port in Chittagong and help Bangladesh’s space programme. There seems a hitch about the proposal for developing the Chittagong port. China is still to make up its mind on the request from Sheikh Hasina, Prime Minister of Bangladesh, made during her visit to China in March last for Chinese financial and construction assistance for the expansion and modernization of the Chittagong port.

While the Chinese have agreed to consider her request sympathetically, they have not yet come out with a concrete project. Expectations that they would make a firm announcement during the Xi visit (June 13 and 14, 2010) to Dhaka have been belied. Local news agencies did report that during his talks with Sheikh Hasina, Xi “proposed to give assistance to Bangladesh for building a deep seaport in Chittagong and installing the country’s first space satellite” and that “Beijing also agreed to quickly disburse its assistance for the Pagla Water Treatment Plant and the Shahjalal Fertiliser Factory”, but there was no official announcement.

China is already Bangladesh’s largest supplier of defence hardware. During Xi’s visit, both Hasina and her rival Zia made fervent pleas for continued Chinese help in building up Bangladesh’s defence capabilities. Turning to developments in Sri Lanka when Chinese vice premier visited, China has agreed to give another soft loan of US $ 200 million towards the cost of construction of the second phase due to start early next year.

It is already meeting in the form of a soft loan from its Ex-Im Bank 85 per cent of the cost of construction (US$ 360 million) of the first phase  of the Hambantota port in Southern Sri Lanka, An agreement in this regard was signed by the concerned officials during the visit of Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Deijing to Colombo from June 10 to 12.