Over the top

By Erik Wilson

Wen Jiabao drops in to Kathmandu

Lathi charge on Tibetan protest in Kathmandu. Image by Flickr user Buddha's Breakfast.

Saturday’s visit by Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao came as a surprise to many in the Kathmandu Valley. The Nepali Government announced the visit only an hour before the Premier landed at Tribhuvan International Airport, and Kathmandu woke up to increased security measures, particularly in the Tibetan areas of the city. The subsequent meetings with Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai lasted just over 4 hours and resulted in the Chinese pledging more than US $140 million of assistance for everything from finalising the peace process and improving the police forces to assistance for a new international airport in Pokhara and 3 large hydropower projects. US $20 million is to be given immediately for the peace process, with a further US $120 million over the next 3 years.

By now, discussions of China’s increasing influence in Nepal and the inherent interplay and conflict with Indian interests are well hashed out. So are the acknowledgments that much of Chinese policy towards Nepal is contingent on the Nepalese Government taking an unwaveringly pro-China stance on the issue of Tibetan refugees. Indeed, Premier Jiabao was originally scheduled for a 3-day visit to Nepal in December that was cancelled in no small part because of the threat of protests and the potential for self-immolation by Tibetan activists. It has also been noted that Saturday’s whirlwind visit just so happened to coincide with the Buddhist Kaalachakra initiations being given by the Dalai Lama in Bodhgaya. Many Tibetans travelled to India for the event, and upwards of 200 of them were detained on the return trip. This is in addition to the many Tibetans that were detained around the valley on Saturday. These events come as no surprise as the Nepalese Government has been anxiously awaiting the Premier’s visit – and the promise of financial support – since December. So with all of this in mind, what new insights can we take away from the Premier’s trip and China’s monetary pledges?

Let’s start with the numbers. China’s Ministry of Commerce lists the value of China’s overseas non-bond investments in 2010 at USD $57.9 billion (the numbers have yet to be published for 2011). China’s pledge of USD $140 million to Nepal represents a mere one-quarter of one percent of China’s overall foreign investment in 2010. The point here is not that China should be investing more in Nepal, but that distinct consideration should be given to the amount of influence China is able to wield for such a relatively small sum of money. Nepal definitely needs investment, especially if it is to become a successful bridge between India and China, but the societal cost of that investment should be weighed carefully.

Nepal has suffered under the specter of poor security and volatile foreign investment since 1996. The country is finally starting to emerge from this shadow (as evidenced by the recent lifting of the US travel warning and the return of the Peace Corps).  What Nepal cannot afford right now is renewed insecurity. A definite catalyst for conflict has been and continues to be ethnic marginalization. Aggravating Tibetan communities will only stir the pot, not to mention drawing unnecessary attention from countries in the West where many hold a romantic view of Tibetan culture.

Saturday’s events and the actions of the Nepalese Government suggest that crackdowns and arbitrary arrests are likely to continue. Investments like those made by China will help Nepal provide for its citizens, make essential improvements and push the boundaries of development, but citizens must also trust their government. The Government of Nepal therefore must walk a fine line between creating the conditions for a cohesive society and meeting the demands of donors, a process that could have, but unfortunately did not, begin on Saturday.

India’s troubled North East is not only far from the country’s power center it also has an incredibly fragile border with Burma. Northern Burma is, if anything even more chaotic and insurgency riden than the Indian side. As the region grows in strategic importance and as India’s game of brinkmanship with China over strategic influence grows so has her forgiveness and ‘engagement’ with Burma.

This week India’s external affairs minister S. M. Krishna makes his way to Nyapiytaw, Burma’s strange administrative capital for the strangely accornymed BIMSTEC (Something to do with the Bay of Bengal) meeting, a confession is likely to be of more interest in dialogue between the two uncomfortable ‘friends’.

The confession came from the ULFA who put the record straight and confirmed what many had thought; they have bases in Burma and operate out of the country. Whilst even often belligerent and chaotic Bangladesh has been able to rid their territory of the group and detain a few key members, Burma’s near half a million strong military has been unable to.

India has offered joint training excersises, military aid and many other pleasantries but many question whether it is intentions that are arry or capability.

Burma is said to be trying to play off these two Asian giants. Both India and China are competing for gas and oil concessions and so far it seems that China is winning in terms of strategic influence. They have famously tabled less for gas fields than India and still won bids. Some argue its to do with China’s Security Council Seat which has made repeated western attempts at a resolution against Burma’s generals impossible. Others still maintain that there exists a historical memory that runs deeper.

Burmese political analyst Aung Naing Oo put two compelling historical points to me. The first was the colonial history. Britain annexed Burma in a muddled affair a lot later than most of India and despite this it became incredibly prosperous. The British imported a great deal of labour, many Tamils and Bengalis were brought in as labourers and merchants; this influx Naing Oo explained was partly viewed as a ’second occupation’. It was also run as part of British India, not as a separate entity.

The second of note is India’s prior position. Like a role model democracy India initially was heavily supportive of Burma’s democracy movement. India’s intelligence is said to have supported a number of groups including the student army the All Burma Student Democratic Front (ABSDF) who, after the protests in the early 90s were violently crushed and the election results ignored, moved into the jungle to fight. Meanwhile the democracy leader; Daw Aung San Suu Kyi was bestowed the Jawaharlal Nehru Award, which incidentally was first awarded to another Burmese, U Thant, the first Asian Secretary General of the UN, who also ended up on the wrong side of the ’senior general’.

This early Indian support for the democracy movement apparently still lives vindictively in their memory. The whiff of that western humanism and internationalism still apparently lingers on the Indian breath despite years of ‘looking east’ and counter insurgency against Burmese political dissidents.

Another, perhaps even more sinister motive for choosing China is an apparent racism that exists and can perhaps be viewed in conjunction with the first point about ‘the second occupation’. The ‘Kala’ as Burmese colloquially call Indians or people with a dark complexion have lived in Burma probably almost as long as Lord Buddha has been followed. These communities such as the Rohingya in western Burma are often subject to awful, shameless persecution from the military. The Rohingya ‘crisis’ earlier in the year prompted the consul general in Hong Kong to light heartedly dismiss them to a journalist as ‘ugly as ogres’. These communities are no doubt some part of a divide and rule tactic that the generals skillfully adapted from their colonial predecessors and added a personal touch too. Wherever it came from or whatever the issue, it prompted a racial purge in the 60’s and what little we hear from the Rohingya today it is usually of despair and torment.

It is hard to imagine Indian changing her tack anytime soon. The political imperative for competing with China is too great, this macro issue twinned with energy supplies trumps just about everything. Yet the instability flowing in seems no sign of stopping; UNODC recently highlighted India and western routes out of Burma as a growing venture for Burma’s number one entrepreneurs, drug barons.Whilst the same smuggling routes are reportedly of use to another apparent thorn in India’s side the Maoists. Like alot of things in this area much is adorned with mystery and murk, yet threatens to prompt a very Confucian ‘interesting time’

Joseph Allchin

author can be reached at ja@dvb.no

The Sunday Pioneer seems to have outdone itself today. It features op-eds by two of the finest observers of Indian political and social trends.

First, we have Swapan Dasgupta on the anniversary of the November attacks on Bombay. My favourite sentence from the piece is -

If initial trends are any indication, it is likely to become another occasion for media-sponsored indignation by celebrities — the spurious enough-is-enough syndrome until the fire next time. It will also be the occasion for some mindless repetition of meaningless homilies such as the mantra that “terrorists have no religion”.

Second, we have Ashok Malik on Sachin Tendulkar’s completion of twenty years as an international cricketer. Malik is at his persipacious best with this line -

Great individuals often need, and sometimes build or summon, great contexts. Sachin has been the fulcrum of Indian cricket’s greatest generation — five good men, Tendulkar and Dravid, Ganguly and Laxman, and Anil Kumble. This was a Band of Brothers like no other. They rescued Indian cricket from the swamp of shame, renewed its spirit, taught it how it win — everywhere, in all conditions.

Finally, Martin Jaques writes what I think is a paradigm-defining piece on China for the LA Times. He pierces through to the heart of the neo-liberal contention – that an embrace of free-marketry will necessitate an embrace of political modernity – and denies it its philosophical premise. His characterisation of China as a civilisation-state rather than the nation-state of European imagination is convincing. Perhaps, it is time for the Gurcharan Das’ of this world to stop villifying China and realise the potential of the Chinese model as a template for third-world development.

- Vijay Vikram