China's new Silk Road will lose to India-Pakistan hostilities
In 634 AD the Emperor of China, Taizong of the Tang dynasty, sent an army to discipline Songtsen Gampo, the ruler of the Tibetans.
Taizong was consolidating control on the western areas of China, especially over the oases located in current-day Xinjiang. This was part of the great Silk Road, which had been a source of wealth for China – and whichever warlord managed to capture a part of it – from the second century BC, when the Han dynasty first started to trade in silk. Songtsen Gampo’s rising power threatened Chinese prosperity, and Taizong thought that his armies would teach the Tibetan "red-faced barbarians" some manners.
He totally misjudged his opponent. The Tibetans soundly beat the Chinese regiments, and established themselves as the pre-eminent power in the region north of India, and west of China. As part of his victory, Songtsen Gampo also received a Chinese princess as a wife, showing how power allowed him to be treated at a level equivalent to the famously snobbish Chinese empire.
The Silk Route flourished for more than a thousand years, enriching those that traded alongside it, and empowering all – Chinese, Tibetan, Hun, Mongol, Persian or Arab – who managed to capture parts of it. It was only with the arrival of deep-bottomed sea-faring vessels that the Silk Route slowly disappeared, as the European nations remapped the world, and sea-borne trade now accounts for over 90 per cent of all trade.
This massive change in wealth and power is written across the world map, as the countries that captured and controlled seaborne trade became rich and prosperous, and those cut off from it, dwindled.
The great gold mines of Timbuktu, so rich that when Mansa Musa of the Malian Empire made the Hajj, he gave away so much gold, prices of gold fell across the world, are now forgotten. Timbuktu is now a name we use when we mean somewhere far away and forgotten.
Tibet dwindled too, its empire and wealth disappearing until all we know of it is saffron-robed monks cut off from the world.
Today, China is trying to turn this around with its One Belt, One Road network, or the new Silk Road, as it is often called. Part of this is driven by internal pressures.
Almost half of all new buildings built in the world in the last two decades have been in China, with a disproportionate amount of them being built in western China, after China started its Western Development Strategy in 2000. Nobody knows the exact amount spent, but until 2006, approximately a trillion yuan ($126 billion) had already been spent, so the estimate is somewhere close to three or four times that, or about half a trillion US dollars.
All this infrastructure has to be put to some use. Many of the buildings stand empty, and the construction crews will be unemployed, unless they build beyond the borders. This is one reason why CPEC is so important to China.
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| Sea-borne trade now accounts for over 90 per cent of all trade in the world. (Photo: Reuters) |
Given that many of the richest people in China – who have their fingers in these big building companies – are deeply linked to the Chinese Communist Party, there is an added incentive for the government to support such projects.
Whatever its compulsions, China is committed to this project, and it potentially has a lot to gain. If it can connect its population, that of central Asia, Pakistan, Russia, straight to Europe, it would be able to link up some of the biggest economies on the planet with the sources of energy, minerals and rare earth metals.
If India could be involved, half of the world’s population would be part of this network.
Historically this would be natural, it is not for nothing that the Silk Road was linked to the spice trade, emanating from India. And it would be tremendously beneficial to India, which had more than 270 million people living under the poverty line in 2010 and 15 per cent - around 180 million people still undernourished in 2015.
Unlike the economic growth that has accompanied liberalisation creating so few jobs that it is called "jobless growth", trade provides many, many avenues for employment.
There is, though, a fly in the ointment, so to speak. To access the new Silk Road India needs to go through Pakistan. In fact, the thing about CPEC is that it should have ideally gone from Lhasa to Leh to Srinagar to Islamabad and Lahore. This route has the best roads, best weather, natural linkages, and would promote much more trade.
Except, of course, it cannot. There is Kashmir in the middle of all that.
As Pakistan continues its policy of supporting militants, and exporting militants to Indian governed areas, India is raising the ante – first with Narendra Modi bringing up Balochistan (smack dab on the CPEC route) and then by publicising, for the first time ever, its cross-LoC raids – signalling a willingness to destabilise the region further.
In this endeavour it has the support of key SAARC countries – Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan – and apparently the US. Only one of these, Afghanistan, would benefit from the new Silk Road. Trade with none of them would be able to offset potential trade India could have with the new Silk Road countries.
The potential loss to the new Silk Road countries is immense, which is one of the reasons that Russia, which supplies and has contracts to maintain the majority of our large weapons systems, is going out of its way to "mediate" between India and Pakistan.
Although Kashmir is off the table in such "mediations", this is not an ideal position for India. If it allows third countries to intrude, it loses its ability to play its strengths against Pakistan. If it ups the ante, and encourages greater destabilisation, it not ends up directly undermining Chinese and Russian interests, it loses the potential benefits from accessing the new Silk Road – something that will lower life chances for our poorest citizens.
This is not ideal for Russia or China either – without Indian participation the new Silk Road will lose a large positive force. It is in the self-interest of all those living in the region to make this initiative work.
Unfortunately the dysfunctional relationship between Pakistan and India and within India (vis-à-vis J&K) may mean that we all lose.
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