Day: September 16, 2021

From a new rail and road link that gives China overland access for the first time to the Indian Ocean via Myanmar to infrastructure projects in Sri Lanka’s east and north, concerns are running high in India as its rival, China, edges closer to its coast, analysts have told VOA.

While India has long confronted China along their rugged Himalayan borders, the maritime challenge is also growing as relations with its Asian neighbor have worsened.

Last month, Beijing transported a test cargo by road from Myanmar’s Yangon port on the Indian Ocean to the Chinese border province of Yunnan and by rail onto Chengdu in Sichuan province in southwestern China.

As the new trade route opened, China’s special envoy for Asian affairs Sun Guoxiang visited Myanmar for talks with its military rulers, who ousted the elected government of Aung San Suu Kyi in February.

Beijing, which has not condemned the army coup in Myanmar, is pressing ahead with bilateral projects that include a deep seaport in Myanmar’s Kyaukpyu along the Bay of Bengal.

It would be the third Chinese-developed port in India’s vicinity after Gwadar in Pakistan and Hambantota in Sri Lanka.

“Clearly they are coming closer and closer to India and that is extremely worrying given its adversarial, hostile relations with China,” said Rajeswari Pillai Rajagopalan, director for the Center for Security, Strategy and Technology at New Delhi’s Observer Research Foundation.

“Although these are civil projects, the overall worry is that these countries are falling more and more into Chinese influence,” he told VOA.

China has been building infrastructure projects in Sri Lanka and Myanmar — countries that provide access to the Indian Ocean, the vital sea lanes that ferry Beijing’s oil imports and carry its exports to the Africa, Middle East and Europe.

In Sri Lanka, India’s latest worries center on the Colombo Port City project being built by a Chinese state-owned firm adjacent to the strategic Colombo Port, just 300 kilometers from India. Those concerns intensified after the island country passed controversial legislation in May that critics say will give China virtual control over the approximately 62-hectare reclaimed land that is to be developed as a special economic zone.

Colombo hopes the Chinese development will turn into a financial hub between Singapore and Dubai, create hundreds of jobs and boost its struggling economy.

Sri Lankan geopolitics and foreign policy analyst Asanga Abeyagoonasekera described it to VOA as a “strategic trap.”

“Once you give these on a 99-year-lease, what kind of hold does the Sri Lankan government maintain? The danger is the that these could easily be turned into Chinese colonies or Chinese zones of activity,” he said.

“The hybrid nature of Chinese projects such as the 5G network is a question everywhere in the world,” he said, noting that there are suspicions of expansion of Chinese projects beyond their initial purpose. And that, he added, “represents a serious security threat.”

A $12 million renewable energy project awarded to a Chinese firm to be built on Sri Lankan islands off the northern Jaffna peninsula that lie barely 50 kilometers from India’s coast earlier this year is also causing concern in New Delhi.

While Beijing’s presence has loomed in big infrastructure projects in Sri Lanka such as the Hambantota port, an airport and highways for years, the Chinese footprint has grown since the return to power of President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and Prime Minister Mahinda Rajapaksa – the brothers have long been friendly to China.

“The leaders in Sri Lanka have amplified the pro-China tilt that began during their previous term,” according to Abeyagoonasekera.

Although built as trade routes as part of China’s ambitious Belt and Road initiative, these projects give significant potential military advantages, analysts said.

“It is not simply about protecting their commerce. This is part of China’s broader expansionism and the Chinese vision is of dominating the high seas and being a great maritime power,” Sreeram Chaulia, dean of the School of International Affairs of O.P. Jindal University, said.

Deepening distrust about Beijing in New Delhi following last year’s bruising, nine-month standoff along their Himalayan borders has made India more alert to the maritime threat it faces as it feels increasingly squeezed in the Indian Ocean, analysts say.

It is pushing back by accelerating its naval engagement with other countries also seeking to counter China. Once hesitant, India has now embraced the Quad, the informal alliance of India, the United States, Japan and Australia.

“India will need to step up its own naval capabilities but even if you make the investments today, developing these takes a very long time. So, India is building up its diplomatic muscle by increasing naval partnerships with countries,” Rajagopalan said.

Most recently those efforts were demonstrated during a visit last week to New Delhi by the Australian defense and foreign ministers.

Stating that both countries are working to enhance Australia’s “posture” in the Indian Ocean region, Australian Defense Minister Peter Sutton said that “It is in the sovereign interests of us both to align our strategy, our capability and our resources.”

Since last month, four Indian warships have also been engaged in exercises and port visits with the Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore, Indonesia and Australia in the Indo-Pacific.

However, analysts say despite efforts, India and its allies like Japan have been less successful in helping countries in the South Asian region develop the infrastructure for which they have turned to China.

“They need to do more on this front,” Chaulia said, adding, “If we wait for another five or 10 years, then China would already be in all the prime spots in this littoral region.”

Source: Voice of America

The speaker of the British House of Commons, Lindsay Hoyle, has banned China’s ambassador to Britain, Zeguang Zheng, from entering Parliament until Beijing lifts sanctions it imposed six months ago on five Conservative lawmakers and two peers.

The ban — the first ever imposed on a foreign envoy by a House of Commons Speaker — is the latest sign that British authorities are growing increasingly frustrated with what they see as Beijing’s aggressive diplomacy. Hoyle consulted with Downing Street and Britain’s Foreign Office before announcing the ban, according to local media reports.

His bar on Zheng came just hours before British Prime Minister Boris Johnson appointed former trade minister Liz Truss as Britain’s new foreign secretary, part of a wider Cabinet reshuffle. Truss is seen as a China hawk and has lobbied for much tougher measures to be pursued against China’s Communist government for rights violations.

In a statement midweek Hoyle said: “I do not feel it’s appropriate for the ambassador for China to meet on the Commons estate and in our place of work when his country has imposed sanctions against some of our members.”

Last week Hoyle met with British lawmakers targeted by the Chinese sanctions. They urged him to impose a ban on the envoy. The Chinese embassy in London described the prohibition on Zheng as “despicable and cowardly.”

Zheng, who was appointed as envoy in June, was scheduled to speak to a British parliamentary group on China, but the invitation was withdrawn.

Souring relations

Relations between China and Britain have become fraught over Beijing’s crackdown on the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong and repression of its Muslim minority in the western Chinese province of Xinjiang, where China’s Communist government has interned more than a million Uyghurs in detention centers, according to rights groups.

The Chinese sanctions imposed in March on British lawmakers, one of whom is a former leader of the ruling of Britain’s ruling Conservatives, were in retaliation for Britain sanctioning Chinese officials and a state-run entity for alleged human rights violations in Xinjiang.

The Chinese sanctions imposed in March on British lawmakers, one of whom is a former leader of Britain’s ruling Conservatives, were in retaliation for Britain sanctioning Chinese officials and a state-run entity for alleged human rights violations in Xinjiang.

China has denied repeated claims that Uyghur Muslims are being held in detention centers. Beijing targeted 10 British organizations and individuals in its March sanctions. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said the British officials were being punished for spreading “lies and disinformation” about Xinjiang.

China’s Global Times newspaper, an English-language outlet of the Chinese Communist Party’s flagship People’s Daily newspaper, reacted with fury to the parliamentary ban on the Chinese envoy, saying in an angry editorial: “It is extremely rare, if not ‘a global innovation,’ for the UK to ban a foreign envoy from Parliament, a public venue for political discussions in the country. It shows brutality, impulsiveness, and the breaking of the rules.”

The editorial added: “London acts as if only it can sanction others, but not the other way around. Given that it simply does not have the strength to deal with China this way, the UK now behaves like a hooligan after having become a loser.” It suggested Beijing bar the British ambassador from entering the Great Hall of the People.

The group of British lawmakers sanctioned by China, which includes former Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith and MPs Tim Loughton and Nusrat Ghani, welcomed Hoyle’s decision, praising the Speaker for “standing up for freedom of speech in the mother of Parliaments by supporting those parliamentarians who have been sanctioned by China.”

Liz Truss

The appointment of Liz Truss as foreign secretary is unlikely to please Beijing. She has been targeted for criticism by China’s Foreign Ministry and Communist Party-run media in the past for lobbying for tough measures against Beijing as international trade secretary. The 46-year-old is only the second woman to hold the post of foreign secretary and is seen as a vigorous champion of free trade and markets and a strong supporter of the transatlantic alliance with Washington.

She faults China for not pursuing fair trade and for engaging in “economic coercion” and warned in a speech last week against Britain becoming “strategically dependent” on China, criticizing Beijing for “unfair” trading practices.

Last December Truss fought a behind-the-scenes battle with Britain’s Foreign Office, her new ministry, over whether Parliament should legislate to allow British courts a role in determining whether the repression of Xinjiang amounts to genocide. The Foreign Office opposed giving British courts preliminary power to determine whether genocide is occurring in Xinjiang, or elsewhere, arguing the decision should rest with international courts.

Nigel Adams, a Foreign Office minister, told a parliamentary panel that there was “credible, troubling and growing evidence” of forced labour taking place on a significant scale in Xinjiang but he feared an “asset flight,” if ministers rushed into enacting measures, warning China could start withdrawing investments from Britain.

Truss backed the legislative proposal.

Commenting on Truss’s appointment, British newspaper The Times said she “is far more hawkish on China than the prime minister, aligning herself with the American shift towards confrontation with Beijing.” Other British commentators said her pick to replace Dominic Rabb will help repair bridges with Washington following the U.S.-led NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan, which was criticized by senior British Conservative lawmakers.

“New UK Foreign Secretary, Liz Truss, is a proper China hawk,” tweeted Sophia Gaston, director of the British Foreign Policy Group, a London-based think tank. Gaston said Truss would be able at the Foreign Office to hold “China to account on values” while “playing a larger role in coordinating diplomatic efforts with our [foreign] partners.”

Source: Voice of America