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SPEAKING
FREELY
And don't forget
Bangladesh
By Farid Bakht
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click here
if you are interested in
contributing.
Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is
on a wide-ranging tour, set to visit Dhaka on
April 7 for a couple of days before flying to
India for a four-day visit. We need to look at the
Sino-Bangladesh relationship within the larger
dynamic of China and India. Over the coming days,
the real action will be between the Indians and
the Chinese, putting the border disputes to bed
once and for all. Removing irritants from their
stop-start relationship will lead to bigger
things. Over 55 years, they have moved from
"Hindi-Chini bhai-bha
i" (India-China
brotherhhod) to hot war in 1962, to strategic
rivalry over Bangladesh in 1971 to trading
partners in 2005.
Bangladesh is not in
the unenviable position of Nepal. One of the latter's kings
once said that Nepal was a "yam between two
boulders" (India and China). Dhaka has much more
leverage and more options than Kathmandu.
Nevertheless, it needs to appreciate that India
and China are two superpowers in the making,
accounting for 40% of the global population. Being
in the neighborhood, Bangladesh is in the path of
any waves and will feel the full impact. Yangon is
working closely with Delhi and Beijing. Dhaka
needs to approach these two nations in a similar
way. Friends to both, enemies to none.
Dhaka's 'irritants'
Bangladesh
needs to close that irresponsible chapter of
opening a Taiwanese consulate in 2004. What else
would you call an outlet handing out visas? One
wonders what could have been the thought process
behind that embarrassment. Surely, Dhaka
understands the significance of Taiwan to the
longevity of the Communist Party in China.
Sticking its nose into that matter does not fit in
with its national interests. As an aside, the
Chinese are keen on funding infrastructure
projects, especially "friendship bridges"
(particularly useful in a riverine country). As it
is, the trip will see the conclusion of hard
negotiating over the financing structure for two
stalled power projects.
The Sino-Indian
bandwagon
Bangladesh is conveniently
situated on the path of this bandwagon. It needs
to work out how to gain from this relationship.
Sino-Indian trade is up to US$14 billion per year.
It is growing fast and has major implications as
it binds the two nations together. They have
formed a Sino-Indian joint study group on trade
and economic cooperation. With this, they will
explore the potential for sub-regional
cooperation, such as the Kunming Initiative.
During the visit to Dhaka, the two leaders
should sign an accord. This will mean that for the
first time passengers will be able to fly direct
to Kunming, southwestern China. Can that be a small
start culminating in the Eastern Quadrangle of
eastern India, Bangladesh, Myanmar and southwestern
China?
I was in Kolkata recently and read
a piece in one that city's broadsheets. The writer was
advocating the resurrection of an old military
road, called the Stilwell Road. He wanted to
revamp it into a modern all-weather highway to
transport billions of dollars' worth of trade
between India and China. Most of the current trade
moves the long route by ship, taking two weeks
extra and costing a lot more. Bangladesh was not
in the writer's sights since he was envisaging a
road from Assam, through Myanmar to China's
Kunming in Yunnan province. Presumably, the road
from Assam to Kolkata and Delhi would go through
the "chicken-neck" Siliguri corridor of West
Bengal, bypassing Bangladesh.
It
would be in Bangladesh's
interests to support this venture and tag
it on to the Trans-Asian Highway so that trade
flows through Bangladesh on the way to Kolkata.
India is opening a sparkling, air-conditioned,
new cargo airport and also looks as
though it will revamp the backward port of Haldia.
Dhaka needs to think ahead and get its seaports to
similar international container standards and not
in the outdated feeder-vessel system as it is
today. That way some containers will enter its
territory to use its ports.
If it
is acceptable to contemplate a tripartite
gas pipeline linking Myanmar, Bangladesh and India, it
is logical to get the most out of Bangladesh's geographical
position in other ways. We need to ask why
"transshipment" is such a controversial issue,
since military movement has to be out of the
question.
Visionary leadership could see
this as a booming region or the New World
Frontier.
There needs to be more focus on
that vision. Bangladesh should encourage
Sino-Indian cooperation to blossom. It then
follows that there will have to be peace and
stability in the Seven Sister States of the
northeast. India should pour in more investment
and make some confidence-building gestures to get
the ball rolling. Blaming its neighbors for
alleged involvement in providing sanctuary to
rebels is not a viable policy. It just leads to a
slanging match with no end. It has to tackle its
domestic problem at its social, economic and
political roots.
The China
card
A small
nation in South Asia could fantasize about playing
China off against India. It might come up with a
ruse to make China a full member in the South
Asian Association for Regional Cooperation to
"balance" India. It could bluff its way as in
some game of poker. But it is unlikely to work in
the world of realpolitik
. Instead, we
need to assume there will be closer relations
between the two giants and the rest need to ride
that wave. It means putting economic policy above
all else at the center of foreign policy. Playing
the Great Game when half of one's population lives
under the poverty line is self-defeating and out
of date.
Farid Bakht belongs to
an independent think-tank, Futurebangla Network.
He is based in Dhaka and London.
(Copyright 2005, Farid Bakht)
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click here
if you are interested in
contributing. |
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