[Belt&Road]Belt and Road Initiative: Solution for India-Pakistan Security

A multitude of geopolitical factors have long maintained the “zero-sum game” model in terms of the complicated relations between China, Pakistan and India. Since the three established diplomatic relations with each other, virtually every interaction between any two of the three has been marred by the geopolitical security dilemma in which the countries remain trapped. The core of the dilemma has been zero-sum conflict between India and Pakistan that has lasted for centuries and only festered over time. Many issues that have substantially impeded the healthy development of India-Pakistan and ChinaIndia relations, including the conflict in Kashmir, the Tibet issue, and the China-India boundary question, are results of British colonization of the South Asian subcontinent. At the same time, the current security dilemma is an extension of Cold-War-era zero-sum maneuvering by the United States and the Soviet Union in their respective strategies towards India and Pakistan, and was exacerbated by the “pivot to Asia” strategy promoted by the Obama administration, of which an important ingredient was “wooing India to contain China.”

Following the principles of extensive consultation, joint construction and guarantees of shared benefts, China’s Belt and Road Initiative focuses on development, a central issue for China, India and Pakistan. It will expand the three countries’ consensus and cooperation in a wide variety of developmental realms. Such a program stands in stark contrast with the securitycentered practices that other countries, especially major powers, usually take towards India and Pakistan. For China, India and Pakistan, the Belt and Road Initiative will foster friendship and cooperation, build trust and also improve security.

ZERO-SUM DILEMMA IN INDIAPAKISTAN RELATIONS

Since both countries gained independence from British colonization, relations between India and Pakistan have been consistently presented as zero-sum games and conflict. Both countries began seeing each other as the biggest threat to their respective national security. During the Cold War period, three wars broke out between the two. Even after the Cold War, India and Pakistan have frequently fallen into diplomatic conflicts arising from cross-border armed infltration attempts and terrorist attacks. Bloody skirmishes have persisted along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the region of Kashmir and the IndiaPakistan boundary. In 1999, the military conflict in the Kargil area nearly caused yet another war between India and Pakistan. Over the past six decades, the two countries made efforts to achieve reconciliation several times. A series of bilateral dialogues launched in 2002 failed to produce tangible results. During the Pervez Musharraf administration (1999-2008), the two countries nearly ended the Kashmir dispute via “backdoor diplomacy.” However, the intergovernment effort ultimately failed due to the extremely conservative political environment in both countries.

Meanwhile, intervention by countries with close relations with India and Pakistan has aggravated conflict rather than abating it.

The United States and the Soviet Union’s diplomatic policies towards India and Pakistan during the Cold War encouraged the zero-sum model that persists. Both countries attempted to woo India, and eventually the Soviet Union lured India to its side, primarily by keeping a distance from Pakistan: Not only had it supported India in the wars against Pakistan, but it also aided Afghanistan during the PakistanAfghanistan conflict. However, every time the Soviet Union and India inched closer together, Pakistan’s ruling elites felt an existential crisis that motivated more countermeasures against India.

To solidify its antiCommunist and anti-Soviet alliance, the United States took a different approach than the Soviet Union. It helped Pakistan get admitted to the Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) and the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO) and urged India to “show a window of democracy.” However, the strategy of attempting to win over both India and Pakistan didn’t work well because it failed to resolve the countries’ military rivalry. Ultimately, the policy alienated both countries from the United States. When the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the United States abandoned its former policy on India and Pakistan in favor of a more robust alliance with Pakistan to fght the Soviet Union by proxy, a typical Cold War situation in which the United States, Pakistan (and China) faced off against the Soviet Union and India via Afghanistan.

China’s foreign policies towards India and Pakistan also experienced substantial change during the Cold War, shifting from friendlier towards India to supportive of Pakistan in the wake of the 1962 Sino-Indian border war. Prior to the war, India enjoyed a warm relationship with China, while Pakistan was a piece of the United States’ encirclement of China and the Communist bloc. Relations between China and Pakistan became so good after 1962 that the two countries nearly forged an alliance. China-India relations never normalized until the end of the Cold War.

Even today, the consequences of long-term confrontation still hinder mutual trust on security issues. For a long time after the end of the Cold War, Russia focused on domestic healing and could barely attend to its interests in South Asia. Meanwhile, the United States shifted its focus to NATO’s eastward expansion and Middle Eastern affairs, leaving South Asia neglected. When the region ceased to be the focus of superpowers’ attention, domestic struggles between various political powers exploded in India and Pakistan. Political conservatism, religious extremism and hypernationalism continued impeding Indian and Pakistani governmental efforts to improve bilateral ties. Cold War wounds have constantly been reopened and enlarged.

Despite China’s comparatively strengthened engagement in South Asia by that time, it still focused on the normalization of its relationship with India and maintaining military and political cooperation with Pakistan, lacking the influence to promote reconciliation between the two countries. After the 1999 Kargil conflict, China adopted a comparatively neutral stance on the Kashmir issue to avoid taking the side of either India or Pakistan, as the Cold War era required. However, China still lacked resources and the capacity to facilitate healthy interaction between itself, India and Pakistan.

After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the United States began placing greater importance on its relations with India and Pakistan. Although it took a policy of “decoupling India and Pakistan” in its strategic circulations, the U.S. government still leaned towards Islamabad due to its more robust role in the antiterrorism war in Afghanistan. As a result, U.S.-India relations remained tepid. During the period, the United States realized that the tension between India and Pakistan was a major factor hindering U.S.-Pakistan joint anti-terrorist efforts, so the frst U.S. special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrook, once declared that he was ready to mediate the Kashmir dispute between India and Pakistan, to remove the “powder keg of South Asia” (using the words of former U.S. President Bill Clinton). However, because of ferce objections from New Delhi, Holbrook never set foot in India his entire life.

U.S.-India ties didn’t have signifcant breakthroughs until the invasion of Iraq during the George W. Bush administration, and then this was followed by a severe deterioration of U.S.-Pakistan relations. After Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011, the Obama administration announced that the global war on terrorism was over and began to shift its strategic focus to addressing threats to U.S. global control arising from the rise of traditional big powers, particularly China. Moreover, the Obama government enhanced its efforts to woo India because it believed India’s support was crucial to its “pivot to Asia” strategy, and its dependence on Pakistan to fght terrorism abated considerably after the death of Osama bin Laden. Late in Obama’s last term, U.S.-Pakistan relations continued deteriorating and have not seen noticeable improvement to this day.

COMPLICATED CHINA-INDIAPAKISTAN RELATIONS

Multilateral ties between the Soviet Union (now Russia), the United States, China, India and Pakistan have never been able to avoid the curse of zero-sum games. Considering the complicated ties between India and Pakistan, any trilateral or multilateral interactions concerning the two countries inevitably present some version of the zero-sum game. India and Pakistan cannot resolve the security dilemma, nor can multilateral ties involving the two countries achieve sound development, until security disputes are resolved. During the Cold War, big powers including the Soviet Union, the United States and even China lacked a strong will to increase consensus between India and Pakistan and instead focused on the security sector and issues that inevitably led to zero-sum games.

The two biggest issues that have long plagued IndiaPakistan relations, the Kashmir conflict and crossborder terrorism, seem irreconcilable. If a third party supports one side on issues concerning those two problems, it stands against the other. Pakistan has adamantly demanded thirdparty mediation on the Kashmir conflict, but India frmly opposes any outside intervention. Consequently, anyone who attempts to intervene in the situation will inherently upset India, and countries maintaining relations with both India and Pakistan would have to be in a dilemma over choosing sides on the Kashmir conflict. The same is true of anti-terrorism efforts. Indians constantly blame Pakistan for terrorist attacks that occur in their country, and any non-neutral policies taken by a third party towards terrorism-related disputes concerning India and Pakistan could offend one side or the other.

Compared to the United States and Russia, China faces an even more complicated situation when handling its relations with India and Pakistan. Both countries are neighbors of China, and the Kashmir conflict and terrorism problems are directly related to China. In the post-Cold War era, such geopolitical reality makes it hard for China to take the side of either India or Pakistan, as the United States and Russia did. For a long time, the biggest obstacle hindering the advancement of China-India relations has been China’s relationship with Pakistan. Its importance has surpassed the Tibet issue, boundary question and trade imbalance. China’s relations with India and Pakistan seem to have become trapped in a more complicated situation in recent years. Not only do India and Pakistan still have constant friction, but geopolitical competition between China and the United States is becoming increasingly ferce. China’s policies towards India and Pakistan face severe disturbances from major powers outside the region, especially the United States.

With the continual expansion of its overseas interests and mounting dependence on overseas markets, resources and capital, China cannot and will not “choose sides” between India and Pakistan because no matter which side it chooses, its security and development interests could be threatened. Moreover, the space for China to seek a balance between India and Pakistan is constantly shrinking. As strategic games between China and the United States become fercer, more American elites now consider a stronger India a strategic asset to pin down China’s rise, as former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton once described. The Obama administration dubbed India the “linchpin” (in the words of former U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta) of its “pivot to Asia” strategy. In recent years, the United States risked crossing “red lines” to give preferential treatment to India while continuously suppressing Pakistan. Currently, the United States and India are “close allies” (per former U.S. Defense Secretary Ash Carter), at least in terms of defense cooperation. Furthermore, the United States is actively supporting Japan’s efforts to strengthen strategic cooperation with India.

Consequently, India has begun to expect China to act the same as the United States and Japan. It wants China to place persistent pressure on Pakistan like the United States has done. However, for the sake of the stability of South Asia and border safety, China refuses to give up on Pakistan, especially considering its long-term friendship with its South Asian neighbor. Moreover, considering its increasing overall national strength, China will invest greater resources in promoting its development cooperation and economic ties with Pakistan to shift the focus of their bilateral relationship from geopolitical security to economic cooperation. To this end, China has joined hands with Pakistan to build the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and promote the Belt and Road Initiative. However, in the eyes of New Delhi, China’s efforts aim to trap India in the “bathtub” of South Asia. India even views construction of the ChinaPakistan Economic Corridor as an attempt to forge an anti-India alliance and enhance Pakistan’s capacity to counter India.

In this context, India is becoming more and more inclined to expand its military cooperation with the United States and Japan, which has only increased China and Pakistan’s strategic doubt about India and forced them to take countermeasures. To some extent, China, India and Pakistan are trapped in a security and military dilemma from which no party can beneft. To address their respective security concerns, all three countries have accelerated their paces of military modernization. The greater its security imbalance with India, the more Pakistan values security and military cooperation with China. The same thing happens to India: With its expanding security imbalance with China, India becomes more inclined to strengthen its defense cooperation and promote strategic alignment with the United States, Japan and other countries that have strategic concerns about China. Consequently, strategic distrust between China, Pakistan and India is growing.

BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE: ALL IN THE SAME BOAT

How can the involved parties eliminate the geopolitical curse plaguing China-India-Pakistan interaction? Perhaps China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which aims for win-win cooperation and common development, is the best solution.

In simple terms, the Initiative emphasizes the promotion of “a new idea of security, two developments, and three stabilities.” The “new idea of security” refers STRATEGY 26to the Initiative’s aim for lasting peace through inclusive development of all parties involved, rather than exclusive security via military alliances. In fact, the latter is a major reason behind the security dilemma now plaguing India, Pakistan and other involved countries. “Two developments” refers to the inclusive development of China’s border areas that benefts China’s neighbors. Such inclusive development is an important prerequisite for lasting social stability as well as an effective shield against extremism and a solution to terrorism-related problems plaguing India-Pakistan relations. “Three stabilities” refers to the role that the Belt and Road Initiative will play in maintaining the stability of China’s border areas, its neighboring regions and relations with neighbors. The Belt and Road Initiative follows the principle of “wide consultation, joint contribution and shared benefts” and seeks to expand cooperation for mutual benefts and win-win development. With this spirit in mind, all involved parties should keep in mind the Golden Rule.

U.S.-India-Pakistan and Russia-India-Pakistan relations can easily become zero-sum games largely because trilateral interaction increases strategic distrust and even confrontations between India and Pakistan instead of defusing hostility. China’s Belt and Road Initiative aims to enhance consensus on development through building a concrete foundation for common development that forges a community of shared benefts and even a community of shared future. Pursuing such a goal within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, China, India and Pakistan will defnitely expand their common interests and constantly reduce their disagreements and disputes, thus forging a sound relationship in which all sail towards the same goals.

It is noteworthy that a key reason the Chinese government launched the Belt and Road Initiative was to break through the geopolitical and security curse impeding the peaceful coexistence of various countries. China is striving to transform the old geopolitical mindset that placed greater emphasis on competition into a philosophy-fostering geopolitical cooperation, as well as aiming for shared development. A country can make use of its neighbors to accelerate development, instead of treating them as obstacles. Amid increasing anti-globalization sentiment, protectionism and extreme nationalism have been prevailing over free trade. As two major powers in the East, China and India are justifed and obligated to actively fll the void in global governance caused by the withdrawal of some Western countries including the United States, and provide more public products and resources for the region’s development.

It is reassuring that China and India have appropriately fulflled their duties as big powers in promoting subregional integration, which has laid the foundation for future regional cooperation, at least in South Asia. Currently, both the ChinaPakistan Economic Corridor and India’s Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal (BBIN) Initiative and Bay of Bengal Initiative on Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) are progressing smoothly. The Ports of Hambantota, Kyaukpyu, Colombo and Gwadar, all constructed by Chinese companies, are witnessing tremendous changes, while Indiaconstructed port projects including Chah Bahar, Chittagong and Sittwe are on their way to modernization. Construction of the Pan-Asia Railway Network linking China and Southeast Asia is gaining steam, and India is increasing promotion of its “Look East” policy.

Despite the Indian government’s persisting skepticism of the Belt and Road Initiative and opposition to the construction of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, breakthroughs are still likely to come considering that the Modi administration’s subregional cooperation plan aligns with the Initiative. More importantly, although Pakistan was excluded from India’s regional integration agenda, the construction of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor is expected to shore up weak links of regional integration between China, India and their neighboring regions, especially Central, West and South Asia. The Belt and Road will lay a solid foundation for China and India to merge their respective sub-regional cooperation strategies in the future. Despite the slow construction progress of the Bangladesh-China-IndiaMyanmar (BCIM) Economic Corridor, major advancements have been made in the construction of BBIN and BIMSTEC. Moreover, many Chinese projects aiming to promote connectivity of the Southeast Asia region have been launched. These factors have facilitated construction of the BCIM Economic Corridor. The “China-Nepal-India Economic Corridor” initiative currently being negotiated is inspiring optimism, along with the stabilization of Nepal’s political situation and the improvement of NepalIndia relations. Experts predict that the sub-regional cooperation platforms that China and India are striving to build together with their neighbors will become a bigger platform integrating development consensus and common prosperity.

Only cooperation and winwin development will foster long-lasting security. China, India and Pakistan will break through the geopolitical dilemma when China and India connect their respective regional cooperation strategies. If China and India, the world’s two most populous developing countries and key emerging major powers, discard Western geopolitical perspectives involving zerosum games when handling regional issues, the region will welcome an era of winwin cooperation, shared development and lasting peace. The progress of human civilization doesn’t require exacerbating geopolitical competition – shared development and better lives for all must be our aim for the future.

 The author is director of the Institute of South and Southeast Asian and Oceanian Studies at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.