WASHINGTON: The US and India must develop a plan to counter a possible effort by China to strengthen its position in the Indian Ocean by deepening ties with Pakistan and Sri Lanka by taking advantage of their economic woes due to the coronavirus pandemic, an American think-tank has said.
There have been considerable concerns in India over China’s growing presence in the Indian Ocean region. India has been trying to expand maritime cooperation with countries of the region including Sri Lanka, Maldives, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar and Singapore, primarily with an aim to check the growing Chinese assertiveness.
According to the Hudson Institute think-tank, the coronavirus pandemic threatens not only lives and livelihoods in South Asia; it could also be the precursor of significant political and strategic shifts in the region.
The Bangladesh and Indian economies will survive the devastation, but their governments will have to restore growth by protecting and encouraging investment, the think-tank said in a report jointly authored by Indian-origin Hudson research scholar Aparna Pande and former Pakistan Ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani.
“Pakistan and Sri Lanka will likely move in the direction of negative growth and will need debt relief from their international creditors. Without it, Sri Lanka faces the prospect of a sovereign debt default. Both countries are likely to look to China as their benefactor, as their leaders have tended to do for a while,” it said.
According to the report titled “Crisis from Kolkata to Kabul: COVID-19’s Impact on South Asia”, China will most likely press its advantage by bailing out South Asia’s indebted governments, “in exchange for its pound of flesh“.
“This would come at the expense of India’s security and US influence in the region. India and the United States must develop a plan to counter efforts China will likely make to strengthen its position in the Indian Ocean by deepening ties with Pakistan and Sri Lanka,” said the Hudson report, released this week.
Pakistan and Sri Lanka have been a target of Beijing’s ambitious Belt and Road (BRI) scheme, criticised for creating ‘debt traps’ by burdening fiscally weak countries with unsustainable debt.
The BRI is Chinese President Xi Jinping’s signature global infrastructure policy. First announced in 2013, the project promises to build ports, roads and railways to revive the ancient Silk Road and create new trade corridors linking China to Asia, Africa and Europe. The BRI also includes the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), which India opposed as it goes through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).
