Page 3 of
3 The Great Game
moves south By Zorawar Daulet
Singh
transport West Asian
hydrocarbons through Pakistan into China
eliminates the possibility of naval interdiction
and enhances Beijing's energy security.
In
addition, a 1,500km corridor would also enable
direct transport of East African commodities vital
for industrialization of Xinjiang, situated
3,500km from China's east coast. The linkage is
two-way. The economic rejuvenation of western
China would then
imply
an outlet for Chinese exports into
imports-dependent Pakistan and wealthy markets in
the Persian Gulf.
China's assistance to
Pakistan to establish and modernize its
transportation infrastructure from Kashgar through
the Trans-Karakoram Highway to the deepsea port at
Gwadar is the initial manifestation of an
envisaged geo-economic trail, perhaps no less
dramatic than the historical silk routes across
Central Asia.
With Pakistan offering to
provide China "a window to the sea", the envisaged
US-sponsored opening of Afghanistan holds little
interest for China, which is able to pursue a
shorter route to the Arabian Sea.
The
next 'Great Game' The United States today
is facing an uphill task in shaping regional
politics, as all the relevant actors are reluctant
to accept the US role of a geopolitical
arbitrator. The once intricately poised US advance
northward in the aftermath of September 11 has
become a defensive tactical retreat to steer
Afghanistan toward an uncertain fate.
Remarks in February by Evan A Feigenbaum,
US deputy assistant secretary for South and
Central Asian Affairs, perhaps reflect best
America's belated acknowledgement of geopolitical
reverses in the north:
We reject the notion, once again so
fashionable, that Central Asia is merely an
arena for outside powers to compete for
influence. Central Asians are not the objects of
our struggles with others. They are the very
focus of our policy. And if Central Asians
themselves are the focus of our policy, then we
have every incentive to help them tap economic
opportunity in every direction on the compass:
west, east, north, and south. In short, our
policy is not "anti" anyone. Nor is it focused
in any single geographic direction to the
exclusion of any other.
A far cry
indeed from the late 1990s and early 2000s, when
pipeline blueprints were drafted solely on
exclusive US-led plans for evacuation of Central
Asian hydrocarbons. Feigenbaum went on:
We are not talking about severing
the region from other long-standing ties. And
how could we, anyway? An existing - and
extensive - network of pipelines, power lines,
railroads and highways to Russia and other
Commonwealth of Independent States countries
provides the current backbone of Central Asian
trade and commerce.
Putin's latest
Central Asian tour is perhaps the final nail in
the coffin. Well, that "Great Game" is indeed
over! In the US geostrategic calculus, South Asia
has evolved from a possible bridgehead into a
vital theater for geopolitical influence in its
own right.
The emerging trend to watch out
for is how the now-transformed "defensive"
strategic posture of the United States in
Afghanistan and Pakistan will shape out. Given its
substantial investment in blood and money, the US
is likely to try to consolidate its leverage over
South Asia, and especially over Pakistan, and hope
to retain a long-term strategic foothold to ensure
that a countervailing presence to growing Chinese
influence in South Asia in general and Pakistan in
particular is preserved.
Should New Delhi
be worried?
Zorawar Daulet
Singh, who holds a master's degree in
international relations from the School of
Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins
University, is an international-relations and
strategic-affairs analyst based in New Delhi.
E-mail: zorawar.dauletsingh@gmail.com.
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