China is expanding its activities in India’s neighbouring countries, including Pakistan and Sri Lanka, with an aim to reduce New Delhi’s influence in the Indian Ocean region and keep it occupied in facing the resultant threats, alleged papers submitted at a recent key security meet in Delhi.
The papers also claimed that China is providing financial assistance to India’s extended neighbourhood in the name of loans for developmental works with the sole motive of becoming not “a global superpower”
The papers on the subject “Chinese influence in the neighbourhood and implications for India” were presented by Indian Police Service (IPS) officers at the recently-held conference of DGPs and IGPs. The three-day annual crucial security meeting was also attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Union Home Minister Amit Shah, National Security Adviser Ajit Doval and about 350 top police officers of the country.
China is investing huge amounts of money in the neighbouring countries of India mainly Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Sri Lanka in the name of infrastructure development and other financial assistance, one of the papers said.
China wants to keep India constrained
The papers written by some top IPS officers of the country also claimed that the sole purpose of China’s rising influence in India’s extended neighbourhood is to keep New Delhi “constrained and occupied in facing the resultant challenges”.
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), infrastructure related investments in India’s neighbouring countries through easy loans, hot borders and Line of Actual Control (LAC) are some of the tools Beijing has been using effectively, the papers claimed, PTI reported.
“All this is being done with the aim to keep India constrained and occupied in facing the resultant challenges, force resolution of bilateral issues on its own terms, modulate India’s growth story, leaving it (China) free to achieve its aim of becoming not only Asia’s pre-eminent power, but a global superpower,” according to the papers.
China helping India’s neighbours for political agenda
The papers underlined that China’s presence in Southeast and South Asia is no longer predominantly economic but involves a “greater, multidimensional effort” to enhance its posture and further its “long-term strategic interests” in the region.
According to one of the papers, China has become far more attentive to its South Asian periphery, moving beyond commercial and development engagements to more far-reaching political and security ones. It also noted that China is the biggest trading partner in goods for Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, and the second-largest for Nepal and the Maldives.
“However, the economic element is increasingly intertwined with political, government, and people-to-people aspects of these relationships,” it said.
It further said that the COVID-19 pandemic gave opportunities to China to work directly with these countries in new ways such as the provision of medical equipment, biomedical expertise, and capital for coronavirus-related needs.
