China is busy developing extensive multimodal connectivity all along the borders and inside the neighbouring countries for facilitating trade flows, energy supplies and movement of arms and armada, says Raghu Dayal
MAOIST China believed power flowed from the barrel of the gun; today it believes power comes from farms and factories sustained by assured supply lines of energy, minerals and materials, supported, in turn, by adequate logistics and connectivity. It seems to demonstrate that industrial power is at the heart of economic power, and economic power at the heart of strategic power.
China has imparted to railways a unique dimension of diplomacy and statecraft. Since 1985, China has channelled large investments into the expansion and revitalisation of its railways to also serve as the new Euro-Asian continental bridge akin to the fabled silk road as much as a lifeline of its economic and military might. Asia to Africa to Latin America.
All around India, China shares land borders with five Saarc countries, looks over the Chicken's Neck at a sixth, and has a long border with Myanmar. From Kunming in its Yunnan province, a network of road, rail and river links fork out to Sittwe in western Myanmar and Thilawa near Yangon on the Bay of Bengal. China would have completed extensive rail links to Myanmar after it builds 232-km Lashio-Muse/Ruili rail line in that country. A Myanmar-Bangladesh rail link will help connect Kunming to Chittagong as well. China is contemplating, among various rail-related projects in Bangladesh, construction of the second Padma bridge and a 130-km rail line from Chittagong to Gundum on Myanmar-Bangladesh border.
China's formidable presence in terms of rail and road projects in India's north is uniquely typified by world's highest 1,142-km Golmud-Lhasa rail line. There seems no stopping it to extend it first to Nyalam on the China-Nepal border, and finally to Kathmandu. A feasibility study is already completed for a new 252-km line from Lhasa to Xigaze. A further 400-km rail link from Xigaze to Nyalam is listed in its rail network programme. Nyalam to Kathmandu will then involve just about 120 km of additional link to be built. The prospect of going by train from Rameshwaram to Beijing via Kathmandu and Lhasa does not appear all that far-fetched any more!
Likewise, on India's eastern flank, Chinese rail and road connectivity speedily knits the south-east Asian land mass. The 5,380-km Singapore-Kunming rail line project pursued by Asean covers the route from Kunming through Laos to Cambodian port of Sihanoukville on the Gulf of Thailand that is being actively supported by China. It is already connected by rail to Vietnam through the 195-km dual-gauge (1,435 mm/1,000 mm) line between Hanoi and Dong Dang. China's comprehensive renovation of the Kunming-Hekou link and construction of 141-km Yuxi-Mengzi line support an early connection of the pan-Asian rail network.
It is busy not only speeding up construction of its own network between Kunming and Singapore but also helping close the gaps across the Asean railways, viz, between Thailand and Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia, Thailand and Laos, Laos and China, etc. With the remaining gaps in the network, when bridged, traffic originating in Singapore or Indonesia would be able to join the main Chinese south-north trunk line that runs from Shenzhen to Erenhot on the border with Mongolia, or its eastwest trunk line that runs from the port of Lianyungang on the coast of China to Druzba on the border with Kazakhstan.
Similar developments on India's western flank have for long been ominous. China-built Gwadar port in Balochistan on Pakistan's southwest coast close to the Straits of Hormuz will be the entry point for energy supplies to China, bypassing the Malacca Straits. Gwadar is proposed to be linked through Khunjerab Pass in the Karakoram to Kashgar (Kashi) which is connected to Xigaze, due to be rail-linked to Lhasa. There are reports of Gwadar being linked by an 800-km standard-gauge (1,435 mm) rail line in Pakistan via Dalbandin along Koh-I-Taftan (on Iranian border)-Spezand-Quetta-Chaman (on Afghan border) and extended to Kashi in China. When completed, it will isolate the broad gauge (1,676 mm) rail network in India while providing a through 1,435-mm network all across China.
CHINA'S frenetic development of infrastructure in central Asian republics (CARs) signifies its long-term strategic and economic stakes in the region. Constituting a virtual bridge between China and Europe, Kazakhstan is keen on developing both a trans-Asian rail route via Iran as well as the Euro-Asian rail route, both enabling Beijing to provide connectivity between Asia-Pacific and Europe. The former comprises a 10,500-km through rail link along Beijing-Almaty-Tashkent-
Another instance of China's engagement in building rail lines in resource-rich CARs is its links to Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Following the rail track between Tedzen (Turkmenistan) and Mashhad (Iran) at Sarakhs, a through rail link would be available from China through CARs to Europe via Turkey. Yet another transit route being considered is through Afghanistan and Pakistan along Ashkabad-Torghundi-Herat-
It is difficult not to infer that these mighty overtures from India's northerly neighbour also aim at strategic encirclement and containment of India, creating a ring of anti-Indian influences. Asserting its ascent through `hard power', for example, China has indulged in ongoing Yunnanisation of northern Myanmar. Be it the road and rail links along and inside Pakistan, Myanmar or Vietnam, again, China is busy developing extensive multimodal connectivity all along the borders and inside the neighbouring countries for facilitating trade flows, energy supplies as well as large-scale movement of arms and armada, subserving its strategic global ambitions. This is real politik.
Against this, a complacent, smug and `argumentative' India remains wrapped in its own bliss of ignorance and masterly inactivity, unable to take forward with good grace even fractional connectivity projects in Myanmar, Nepal and Bhutan. There is tide in the affairs of nations as well as men and India is in danger of having missed it. Small openings of opportunity seized in time can help mend fences and build confidence in our smaller neighbours.
1 comment:
Thanks - interesting article - I got it by searching "india china broad gauge rail"
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