MONTREAL - Seven years ago, this
publication printed an article drawing attention
to an "emerging triangle" of relations among
Kazakhstan, Russia, and China and predicted that
their significance would only increase.
The same article pointed out, years before
Russia twice cut gas supplies to Europe from
Turkmenistan, the crucial nature of the triangular
ties among this last-mentioned country, Russia,
and Europe. (See Emerging
triangles: Russia-Kazakhstan-China, Asia Times
Online, January 15, 2004.) So the visit this past
week of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to
China and Kazakhstan should be seen in light of
these triangular patterns.
India and China
together account for one-tenth of world trade,
one-tenth of world production, and over one-third
of world population. What is even more important
for the rest of the world, their
economies averaged 10% growth
in 2010 whereas the figure for every other country
taken together was but 4%.
Indeed,
bilateral relations did not go begging for
attention even though Manmohan was in Beijing
officially for a multilateral BRICS (Brazil,
Russia, India, China, South Africa) summit. A good
diplomatic synthesis of these facts was captured
in Singh's comment that India-China relations have
themselves transcended bilateral dimensions to
achieve global strategic significance.
Manmohan raised the problem of trade
imbalance between the two countries and
specifically suggested that China might increase
its import of Indian goods and technologies in the
pharmaceutical, information, and agricultural
sectors. Out of $60 billion total trade turnover,
the imbalance rose 25% to US$20 billion last year.
Chinese President Hu Jintao recognized that there
was "a problem" needing to be addressed but was
noncommittal concerning concrete measures that
might be taken. Perhaps most notably, military
cooperation between the two countries is set to
resume this summer after a year's hiatus
occasioned by Beijing's denial of a visa to an
Indian army commander because he had served in
Jammu and Kashmir. Chinese foreign ministry
spokesman Hong Lie told that press that "China is
vigorously committed to developing military to
military relations with India". Exploring the
possibilities of joint military exercises is now
being bruited. A consultation mechanism for
resolving border disputes was also discussed, for
the implementation of the bilateral 1993 and 1996
agreements.
Manmohan held nearly the same
discourse following the conclusion of the BRICS
summit in Beijing upon his arrival in Kazakhstan,
the first visit of an Indian prime minister in
almost nine years. Ties between India and
Kazakhstan, he told the official newspaper
Kazakhstanskaya pravda, "have evolved into a firm
strategic partnership", invoking a joint
declaration adopted during Kazakhstan president
Nursultan Nazarbaev's visit to India in January
2009. The juncture for such a visit is propitious,
as Kazakhstan is about to assume chairmanship not
only of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization but
also of the Organization of the Islamic
Conference.
As was indicated in this space
four months ago, Delhi and Astana signed some
agreements for energy-industrial cooperation
during the present visit. Perhaps most notable was
a commercial accord making it possible for India's
state-run ONGC (actually its foreign arm, OVL) to
acquire a 25% stake in Kazakhstan's offshore
Satpaev exploration bloc, which is not far from
Kashagan and other significant oil deposits. This
deal had been in the works for over three years,
delayed by administrative complications arising
from various industrial reorganizations and the
resulting need for legal and economic
clarifications. (See Astana
builds energy depth, Asia Times Online,
December 17, 2010.)
Bilateral commercial
exchanges have lagged due to transportation
difficulties, still under $300 million last year
despite Kazakhstan's economic dynamism, which
nearly matches India's. During his visit, Manmohan
held out in particular the possibilities for
bilateral cooperation in science and technology,
in which India has significant human and capital
resources.
He pointed to nano-technologies
and space in particular as offering significant
prospects for cooperation, in addition to nuclear
and renewable energies. India has 20 nuclear
reactors and is planning to increase its civil
nuclear program; Kazakhstan has significant
uranium deposits and already supplies India with
nuclear fuel. Having OVL's investment in Satpaev
in mind, he added that India was interested also
in cooperation "in construction of oil refineries
and other downstream and upstream projects" in the
hydrocarbon sector.
As for the
Kazakhstan-China leg of the triangle, Kazakhstan
was not present at the BRICS summit, but
Kazakhstan-China relations focusing on energy and
other economic issues have been covered here
previously, in particular the relatively recently
opened gas pipeline that begins in Turkmenistan
and runs into China across Uzbekistan and
Kazakhstan (see Gas
pipeline gigantism, Asia Times Online, July
17, 2008), which follows by several years the
entry into service of the Kazakhstan-China oil
pipeline agreed between the two countries at the
end of the 1990s.
We should, however,
briefly adjoin the Pakistan-India-China triangle
to the India-China-Kazakhstan one. It is of
interest that the Pakistani media have tended to
see Indian-Chinese relations as having the
question of Pakistan at their center, and to have
emphasized the antagonistic rather than the
cooperative aspects of those bilateral relations,
for example public statements of threat-perception
by Indian military staff.
Dr Robert
M Cutler (http://www.robertcutler.org),
educated at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology and The University of Michigan, has
researched and taught at universities in the
United States, Canada, France, Switzerland, and
Russia. Now senior research fellow in the
Institute of European, Russian and Eurasian
Studies, Carleton University, Canada, he also
consults privately in a variety of fields.
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