The US and its allies love to tout India’s “soft power” as a counterbalance to Chinese influence. While such talk is comforting to Sinophobes, to say that India’s reputation in much of its immediate neighborhood is bad would be an understatement. China, on the other hand, is wooing the region. How these two powers operate in tiny developing countries like Nepal says a lot about the support they will receive in the international field.
India likes to think of Nepal as an ally. Many of us, across the political spectrum, look at India as a meddlesome bully. And with good reason. In June, India stopped the shipment of over 1,000 metric tons of newsprint imported by two Nepali newspapers. India is the only port for getting this newsprint and the action went against the Nepal-India Trade and Transit Treaty. India says the 28-day stoppage was caused due to a routine inspection but many see a link between the critical posture the papers adopted toward New Delhi and the incident. Regardless of what caused the delay, in the soft power battle for whose story wins, India lost.
When Shashi Tharoor, the then State Minister for External Affairs of India said that the 21st century would belong to the country that tells the better story, he was right. Only China seems to be doing it better.
If this were an isolated event, the reaction would have been more muted but it came as a sequel to other incidents. India has come under repeated fire in the Nepali press for encroachments into Nepali territory. In fact those protesting against the encroachment when Indian External Affairs Minister S M Krishna visited Nepal in January greeted him with black flags. India says it does not interfere in Nepali affairs but M K Narayanan, until recently India’s national security advisor, went on television to state that India supported one of the contesting parties in the 2008 election. If that is not interference, what is?
China, on the other hand, gets very different press coverage. In April this year, papers talked of how Nepal and China had come to an agreement on the height of Mount Everest. They did this by saying that both the measurements, though different, were accurate. How that is possible is again irrelevant, what matters is that the big northern neighbor ate humble pie. China moved as early as the 1960s to clear border disputes with Nepal, often to Nepal’s advantage. The goodwill this earned is clear from the fact that in 2008 Nepal was close to seeking Chinese help in settling its disputes with India.
Nepal is not an isolated case. China had, by 2006, settled 17 of its 23 territorial disputes, receiving less than 50 percent of the contested land. What it lost in territory it clearly gained in goodwill.
Moving to our immediate neighborhood, India’s relationship with Pakistan needs no introduction. Pakistan was on the other hand one of the first countries to recognize the People’s Republic in 1950 and remained a strong ally during Beijing’s isolation in the 60s and 70s. Today China is a big economic partner, investing in projects like the Gwadar port. The Indo-US strategic partnership (strategic for whom remains to be seen) is going to probably push Pakistan and China even closer.
Another neighbor Bangladesh was born with Indian support but relationships are now strained. Issues like the Farakka Dam where Bangladesh says India has hurt water flow during the dry seasons and has caused floods during the wet seasons aggravate this. Bangladesh has also taken issue with the treatment of Bengali migrants that live in many of India’s metros. While India’s relationship may be going south, China’s is clearly headed north. In 2002, the relationship between China and Bangladesh turned a page with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao making an official visit to Bangladesh and 2005 being declared as ‘Bangladesh-China Friendship Year’. China was also added as an observer to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) on Bangladesh’s invitation.
And so, across the regions, from Hambantota in Sri Lanka where China is building a massive port to Nepal, China is increasingly seen as a partner for development. When Shashi Tharoor, the then State Minister for External Affairs of India said that the 21st century would belong to the country that tells the better story, he was right. Only China seems to be doing it better. I am not alone in believing that there are great changes in the air. In February 2010, Vikas Bajaj wrote in the The New York Times that China’s expanding sphere of influence could “eventually” undermine India’s pre-eminence in South Asia. I disagree only in that I think it already has. The humiliating run up to the Commonwealth Games in India vis-a-vis the spectacular success of the Beijing Olympics is symptomatic of this change in global positions.
rv22.13@gmail.com
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