The View from India | A growing India-China divide in South Asia

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While the on-going Line of Actual Control (LAC) crisis has remained at the focus of India-China relations, the downturn in ties between the neighbours extends to events beyond the border.

Only five years ago, when Prime Minister Modi travelled to Wuhan for the first of two “informal summits” with Chinese President Xi Jinping, both sides were looking to come up with a more cooperative model for relations. One of the much-forgotten takeaways from Wuhan was a plan to come up with an “India China Plus” initiative, where the two countries would work together on joint projects in third countries, starting with South Asia.

Fast forward five years, and the landscape has changed entirely and strategic competition has increasingly defined the relationship, going beyond the events at the border. Stepped up Chinese engagement in South Asia is a case in point, and Beijing appears increasingly unapologetic about moving to undercut India’s influence in the immediate neighbourhood.

Events last week underlined the jostling for influence in the region, as India hosted Nepal’s Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal Prachanda while a senior Chinese official who handles South Asia policy, Vice Foreign Minister Sun Weidong, travelled to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka for strategic consultations.

India and Nepal signed a series of agreements on energy and transport including the export of Nepal’s hydropower to Bangladesh through Indian territory. Both sides signed a long-term Power Trade Agreement and India set a target of importing 10,000 MW of electricity from Nepal in the coming years. Prime Minister Modi also announced that a “new pipeline will be constructed from Siliguri to Jhapa in eastern Nepal.”

Mr. Prachanda, as The Hindu’s Kallol Bhattacherjee writes, came to power for the third time in December 26, 2022 and ever since has survived several politically turbulent episodes. His bid for power was supported by former PM K.P. Sharma Oli’s party CPN-UML but in February, the China-brokered alliance broke over differences regarding the presidential election and he then received support from the Nepali Congress.

His visit did stir some controversy in Nepal, coinciding with an uproar over a mural in India’s newly inaugurated Parliament building depicting what some saw as a map of Akhand Bharat or undivided India. Among those who criticised it was former Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai who said it “has the potential of further aggravating the trust deficit already vitiating the bilateral relations between most of the immediate neighbours of India.”

Meanwhile, Sun Weidong, the Chinese Vice Foreign Minister, in Sri Lanka said Beijing would “continue to firmly support Sri Lanka in safeguarding its sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity, according to a statement from the Chinese Foreign Ministry last week. That was also a message delivered by him in Bangladesh, where he said China “supports Bangladesh in pursuing a development path suited to its national conditions and safeguarding its sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity.”

In Sri Lanka, as The Hindu’s Meera Srinivasan reported recently, India and China have found themselves on the opposite sides of the negotiating table in dealing with the debt crisis there. Earlier this month, a 17-member “creditor committee” for Sri Lanka, co-chaired by India, Japan and France, met to discuss Sri Lanka’s formal request for debt treatment. China, which is Sri Lanka’s top bilateral creditor — followed by Japan and India — attended the meeting as an observer. While India and the Paris Club have repeatedly underlined creditor parity, China has demanded that private creditors — who hold the largest share of Sri Lanka’s debt — as well as multilateral lenders “share the burden” of a possible haircut.

In this week’s World View, Suhasini Haidar analysed the state of India-Nepal relations in the context of the latest visit as well as the China factor. India has countered China’s Belt and Road Initiative with a slew of its own projects, and completing existing plans. The government has also put restrictions on power purchasing from hydropower projects built or financed by Chinese companies. And in contrast to Beijing’s role in trying to unite the two Communist factions of Prachanda and Oli in 2022, which failed, India has kept a lower and more inclusive profile in Nepali politics. However, the lasting effects of Indian border trade blockade in 2015 over the Modi government’s opposition to Nepal’s new constitution still rankles. You can read or watch her analysis here.

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