India’s Snub to China on OBOR: Unwise to Ignore Economic Interests
Out to isolate Pakistan on the issue of terrorism, India finds itself
isolated in the bigger game reshaping the geopolitical map of the
world. China’s ‘One Belt One Road’ scheme will have momentous
consequences, yet New Delhi has refused to even engage China on the
issue by staying out of the Belt and Road Forum that took place in
Beijing on Sunday and Monday.
The Chinese work on long-range
plans; many of their achievements of today are a result of the effort
that has gone into them in the past thirty years. Take Shenzen, the
greenfield city that today powers China’s economy. It began as a rural
backwater opposite Hong Kong on the mainland 40 years ago. Or, the six
Chinese high tech zones – which started with a dozen or so
establishments in the 1990s and today typically feature 30-40,000
businesses, including the leading companies of the world.
Why is China Seeking an Economic Embrace?
What does this have to do with OBOR? Everything. Having
achieved the status of the world’s largest manufacturer and exporter,
China is now in the process of transforming itself once again. The
benchmarks are 2021, the centenary of the founding of the ruling
Communist Party of China, and 2049, which will mark hundred years of the
People’s Republic of China. The first involves the doubling of the GDP
as of 2010, and making China a “moderately prosperous society”, and the
second is to take China to the level of a “moderately developed
country”, which means a per capita GDP of $55,000.
To achieve this, China needs to maintain an annual
per capita growth rate of at least 6.3 percent till 2021 and 5.8 percent
through 2049. Both these are daunting targets and China is facing
severe challenges in meeting them, in part because of the headwinds of
the global economy, and, in part, the excesses of the past, which
include over-investment, overcapacity in certain industries, and
indebted state-owned enterprises (SOEs).
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, left, is greeted by Chinese
President Xi Jinping during the welcome ceremony for the Belt and Road
Forum in Beijing on 15 May 2017. (Photo: AP)
China can no longer depend on an investment and export driven
model. Instead, it must enhance domestic consumption and enhance
productivity through innovation-driven growth. This is where OBOR comes
in.
Using its vast monetary reserves to invest in developing
infrastructure and economies around its periphery, China is
simultaneously seeking to get rid of its excess capacity in areas like
steel and cement while drawing large swathes of its neighbourhood into a
closer economic embrace.
Raising the Stakes
The actual Chinese target is Europe with its affluent economy,
high levels of technology and lifestyle products that the Chinese
middle class crave for. China is reaching out to the affluent West
through high-speed rail links and enhanced maritime connectivity.
Simultaneously,
China is upgrading its own industrial capacities through R&D and
acquisitions. In the past year, China has acquired the Swiss
agribusiness giant Syngenta and the world’s foremost automotive robotics
company, KUKA. It has spent over $150 billion in acquiring companies in
the area of integrated circuits or chips, though in the past year, the
regulators have prevented companies like Micron, Western Digital,
AIXTRON and Toshiba from selling their chip businesses to China.
Western
assessments are that in areas like artificial intelligence, biotech and
electric cars, Chinese technology, backed by an enormous amount of
government funding, is already amongst the best in the world.
Distracted by Pakistan
We in India are distracted by the China-Pakistan Economic
Corridor or the activities of China in Sri Lanka, and are taking our eye
off the ball in the main game. The Indian Ocean activity is a
side-show, albeit understandably important for India because it’s in our
neighbourhood and its military elements are all too clearly visible.
OBOR is a Chinese national project, aimed at fulfilling Chinese goals.
The government of India cannot
but formally protest the CPEC going through Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir.
But the tone and tenor suggests that, perhaps, we are protesting too
much.
And that the remonstrations are a pretext to adopt a
needlessly confrontationist stand against China. At least thrice in the
past 70 years, India has been willing to formalise a border along the
Line of Control in Jammu & Kashmir, so to make out that Chinese
projects in Gilgit-Baltistan are the cause of Indian ire is to truly
miss the wood for the trees.
A security official walks by a pagoda at the Yanqi Lake
International Conference Center, where the Belt and Road Forum was being
held, in Beijing on 15 May 2017. (Photo: AP)
A Missed Opportunity
A more sophisticated policy would use OBOR for Indian purposes
where it can. India cannot stop OBOR, neither can it ignore and nor
will it be immune to its effects. While it’s true that pipelines and
railroads hardwire a destination, ports do not, and can be used by
anyone. If China promotes an economic zone in Sri Lanka or East Africa,
Indian businesses are free to utilise them for their own ends.
India
is a member of the Chinese-led Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and
the New Development Bank. What is to stop it from seeking funding there
to hardwire its own connectivity schemes to South-East Asia and across
Iran to Europe?
Focus on Implementation of Projects
New Delhi has two problems — first, India’s own hopeless
internal infrastructure, setting which right should be its priority.
Second, it lacks the structure of capable state-owned enterprises which
can execute projects in quick time. The 19.2-km Kamchiq tunnel in
Uzbekistan built by the China Railway Tunnel Group was completed in 2016
in exactly three years, the 756-km Addis Ababa-Djibouti railway in five
years by the China Railway Group. These are just random examples of the
accomplishments of Chinese companies.
As far as India is concerned, the Chabahar scheme,
the Kaladan Multimodal project and the International North South
Transportation Corridor have been in the works since the 2000s and none
of them are complete and the last-named has not even begun.
The same is the case with the India-Myanmar-Thailand highway project begun in 2001.
Beyond
the issue of connectivity, India needs to up its economic game by doing
more, rather than less planning. As we see, China’s achievements are a
result of sophisticated planning by outfits like the National
Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). A slogan a day like IT+IT=IT,
or Smart cities, Start-up India, Make in India and so on, are not going
to work. We need a sustained strategy of promoting economic growth and
qualitatively better governance, and a dose of modesty. The Quint May 15, 2017
Professional journalist interested in national security affairs, currently Distinguished Fellow with the Observer Research Foundation, New Delhi looking after their national security programme
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