China Woos India's Neighbours With Aid, Business

As India’s neighbourhood gets increasingly slippery, New Delhi will have to step up its game to keep the Chinese influence and other factors at bay

- Rekha Dixit

This summer, if the conflict in the Galwan region brought out simmering hostilities with China, fault lines also became visible in India’s ties with other neighbours.

Nepal has been in a blame-India-for-almost-everything mood. Bangladesh is having friendly conversations with Pakistan, even as it denied an audience to India’s high commissioner in Dhaka. To the west, Afghanistan’s peace process with the Taliban is narrowing the space India has there. Investments for an alternate route to Afghanistan, via Chabahar in Iran, are also facing an uncertain future.

In a world where the dynamics are changing rapidly, with a new cold war emerging between the US and China and countries having to recalibrate ties as multilateralism crumbles, a combination of wrong timing, India’s domestic developments and the China factor have made the neighbourhood rather slippery for India. “The rise of China poses new threats in the immediate neighbourhood, though we have extended our Neighbourhood First approach to Together We Grow,” said Ram Madhav, BJP national general secretary at a virtual discussion. Farash Uddin, economist and former governor of Bangladesh Bank said: “In international politics, there are no permanent enemies. China opposed our independence, but now wants to befriend us. We have limited funds and India should not mind if China does projects with us.’’