SOUTH ASIA’S STRATEGIC GAMES
South Asia’s strategic games
As China and India vie for dominance in the region, how is the struggle playing out in terms of security concerns and raw economic power? Amit Agnihotri reports.
The South Asian region presents a unique challenge for New Delhi: resisting and normalising relations with the Asian Dragon simultaneously.
Over the last few decades, China has been trying to expand its presence in South Asia in an attempt to weaken India, its main rival in Asia. This has mostly been done through the ‘string of pearls’ strategy, which has involved encircling India with strategic assets in the South Asian region.
The last five years have been particularly difficult as India and China engaged in the worst conflict to date, following the violation of the LAC in eastern Ladakhby Beijing, and the subsequent killing of 20 Indian soldiers in the summer of 2020. Only recently has China taken steps to ease its strained ties with India, but New Delhi still deeply distrusts the Asian Dragon.
Meanwhile, India has carefully stuck to its plan, countering the Asian Dragon through various strategic moves, be it in the Indian Ocean nations like Sri Lanka and Maldives, or bordering Himalayan nations such as Nepal and Bhutan. Of late, New Delhi has been able to wean Sri Lanka away from China’s influence by means of a defence deal with Colombo, and is hopeful that a growing demand for the return of the Kingdom in Nepal would curb the Chinese Communist party’s influence in the Himalayan nation.
Bangladesh, however, remains a tough nut for India to crack, where a US-backed interim regime, headed by Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus, appears to be tilting towards the Asian Dragon.
Sri Lanka has woken up to geopolitical reality after its economy was left almost in ruin, as a result of the debt trap laid by China, in the guise of its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative, which funds mega infrastructure projects in host nations. During this time, Sri Lanka got a new port in Hambantota ‒ built by China, and hosted Chinese naval ships, irking India in the process.
The realisation, however, that Beijing had a role to play in Colombo’s financial mess, along with a helping hand from New Delhi, helped Sri Lanka see through China’s game.
This paved the way for a Defence Dialogue in 2023, and finally led to the first-ever defence cooperation agreement between India and Sri Lanka, sealed when Indian prime minister Narendra Modi visited Colombo in April following a visit to New Delhi by Sri Lankan president Dissanayake in December 2024.
Bangladesh, however, remains a tough nut for India to crack
For India, the defence pact was part of its broader Neighbourhood First policy and Vision MAHASAGAR‒ both designed to counter balance the growing influence of China in the Indian Ocean region.
Both India and Sri Lanka acknowledged that their national security was interlinked and announced that the defence pact would include high-level military exchanges, joint exercises, capacity building, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief, naval port calls and exploratory discussions on defence industry cooperation.
However, the key element of the agreement was that Sri Lankan territory would not be used or be allowed to be used in any manner that would be harmful or detrimental to India’s interests.
Prior to this, the 1987 Indo–Sri Lanka Accord dealt with security cooperation, but the deployment of the Indian Peace Keeping Force in Sri Lanka’s North-East was aimed only at restoring order, following violence between the ethnic Sinhala and the Tamil settlers.
The story was similar in Nepal, where the Chinese Communist party’s influence brought left wing parties to power in 2017 and again in 2024. In 2017, two communist parties united to form a government headed by Pushpa Kamal Dahal, alias Prachanda.
Sri Lanka has woken up to geopolitical reality after its economy was left almost in ruin
Although Prachanda was closer ideologically to the Chinese Communist Party, he was sufficiently astute to make his first overseas visit to India after taking office in December 2023.
While China was happy that a friendly regime had come to power in Nepal, Beijing realised it wasn’t possible for it to dilute the cultural links that Kathmandu and New Delhi shared. So the Asian Dragon then pursued a strategy to invest in big infrastructure projects such as airports, highways and hydro-power projects in Nepal in order to expand its presence in the Himalayan nation.
India has traditionally been uncomfortable with left wing governments in the region but has maintained diplomatic relations with them in accordance with protocol. As a result, India has been able to counter China’s strategy and is constructing 10 hydro power plants in Nepal, in comparison to China’s five.
Lately, pro-monarchy voices, seen by Kathmandu as anti-establishment, have been gaining ground and causing unease in the Himalayan nation,struggling to balance its ties with India and China over the past years. The reality is that such social unrest may be an indication of public dissatisfaction with the system and an expression of a desire for change.
Bangladesh, which was carved out of Pakistan in 1971 with the active support of India, is the latest headache for New Delhi.
Months after the spate of attacks on Hindus and Christian minorities in Bangladesh, the recent visit of Yunus to China to mark a new chapter in the Dhaka-Beijing ties, which will have endured for 50 years in 2025, has raised eyebrows in New Delhi.
Of the various agreements that Yunus reportedly discussed with Beijing, the most troubling for New Delhi was his invitation to China to build an airfield at Lalmonirhat, close to the India-Bangladesh border. This comes on top of Yunus’ comment that Bangladesh was the guardian of the Indian Ocean,angering the Indian establishment further.
To counter balance this overt overture to China, Yunus, the economist, ensured that the US was kept in the loop. A day before leaving for Beijing, he hosted US Army Pacific deputy commander Lt Gen Joel P Vowell and signalled his commitment to cooperate with Washington at all levels.
India, however, which had been watching the developments in its neighbourhood with alarm, treated both Bangladesh and Nepal graciously at the recent BIMSTEC Summit in Bangkok, with prime minister Modi shaking hands with both Muhammad Yunus of Bangladesh, as well as his Nepali counterpart, Kp Sharma Oli.
Oli, chairman of the Nepal Communist Party-UML, the largest party in Nepal’s Parliament, was appointed Prime Minister in July 2024. In an obvious indication of his priorities, Oli made his first official overseas visit to Beijing, rather than New Delhi, as is tradition. Indeed, it was during Oli’s regime that a territorial border dispute with India flared up in Nepal, adding to the existing friction between New Delhi and Kathmandu.
Against this background, the Modi-Oli meeting in Bangkok signalled a reset in India-Nepal relations, but how this evolves going forward remains to be seen given that a land-locked Nepal isentirely dependent on India for its oil supplies,while also receiving significant investment from New Delhi.
Bhutan is no different either. India has helped Bhutan deal with a border dispute with China in the strategic tri-junction Doklam area,since it could compromise New Delhi’s security interests. Modi also travelled to Thimphu in March 2024,a week after Bhutanese Prime Minister Tshering Tobgay was in New Delhi to discuss mutual ties, to reassure the neighbouring country ruled by King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuk. Meanwhile, like Nepal, India is building two rail links in Bhutan, including the Kokrajhar-Gelephu and Banarhat-Samtse sections, and will also supply oil to the nation and promotespace cooperation with its neighbour.
Amit Agnihotri is a Delhi-based journalist who has worked with several national newspapers and focuses on politics and policy issues