More diplomacy, please

Urgent need for actions in Diplomacy ============================ The media is going ga-ga over External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj's efforts to bring back Indian citizens in trouble, outside of the country, back home safely. She has done a wonderful job of making sure that distressed Indians outside of the country, are brought back safely, over the last 22 months. Quite laudable. So much so, that even the normally pugnacious Opposition was all praise for her efforts in this direction, in the recently concluded session of the Parliament. But, in my opinion, while these gestures are welcome, and show that the safety and security of Indians outside the country is taken seriously by this government, and rightly so, there are bigger threats to the country looming, and I expect Sushmaji to move away from tactical initiatives, to more strategic ones. In my view, these "rescue missions" can easily be handled by the minister of state, or even the secretary of the govt, and only the ones that need escalations be brought to the attention of the minister. The minister is better off, spending her precious energy and time on diplomatic affairs that are more strategic in nature. I am yet to see anything concrete on the strategic areas in Diplomacy, something that is the core responsibility of the ministry of External affairs. It is an open secret now that until 2014, the Chinese authorities has been making strategic investments ( money) , to develop and cement relationships with countries that border India. Even a school child will tell you that those investments had been done with two objectives in mind: One, to develop alternative markets for Chinese goods and services over the years, and to reduce over-dependence on the USA/ Euro zone markets, only if only by a little margin. Two, and more importantly, by forging strong partnerships with India's neighbours, China hopes to "checkmate" India geographically and strategically. The Congress government was busy twiddling it's thumbs, even as China invested in the Gwadar port in Pakistan, to extend the silk route, to culminate in an entry port into the Suez area directly. This, they hope, would cut short long route around India/ Srilanka/ Singapore for Chinese goods that need to be exported to Euro Zone. The Chinese, understandably, have also invested in 6 lane expressways across the Paki terrain, to complete the logistics. But even more ominously for India, they are busy developing the Gwadar Naval base at their own expense, blessed by Pakistan. What was our response then? Look the other way! Given our uneasy relationship with Pak all these years, our response to them must be guarded, and this government, in my opinion, is taking the right steps. The Chinese did their best to do an encore with Sri-lanka. And nearly got away with it... until Modiji took over, and reversed some of the earlier SL Govt decision for Chinese cooperation. While the Congress was busy pandering to anti-Srilankan sentiments to capture Tamil vote-banks, the Chinese happily flooded the Srilankan markets, in the meanwhile, with their goods. I expect the government to come up something more substantive , diplomatically, assuage the lankans, and hold their hands, the big brotherly way. They progress, we too progress. Myanmar has had China as their leading trade partner for long now. And China supplies all arms to their military junta. After the NDA govt took over, the Myanmar reversed some of their earlier decisions, which is good for India. In Nov 2014, they cancelled the project to lay 1500 km of railroad from Kunming in China to Yangon. Earlier, China had invested $1B of its own money to lay a pipeline to carry natural gas, from the Andaman sea to Kunming. I understand that the capacity utilization of that is hardly 20%. It is very clear now that Myanmar's every move shows that they want to move away from China. Myanmar also renegotiated the terms harder, for Chinese investment in Hydro power plants in Myanmar. I strongly feel that China is using Myanmar to build it's own maritime reconnaissance system that can spy on India's movements in the region, and also to deny India the strategic space it would have otherwise got. Whether these pushbacks by Myanmar are because of the Indian Government's actions or was it suo moto, is unclear. Nonetheless, it is good for India. The heartening news is that there are multimodal transportation projects, being sponsored by India now, that would run from Mizoram into Myanmar... and a host of similar initiatives, that would bolster India's relations with Myanmar. However, that Myanmar now sees two "suitors", she would try to play one against another, and India needs to do a fine-balancing-act. Which is where I expect the minister to step in, and devise appropriate strategies for the long term. Same story in Bangladesh. With elections in WB and Assam around the corner, xenophobia could reach a crescendo, and that would not be in the best interests of Indo-Bangla relations for the short term. The long term solution lies in India sealing the border, like that with Pak, and actively investing in, and tapping, the manufacturing power of Bangladesh in select sectors like Textiles, something China has been doing very successfully so far. Maldives is being largely ignored by China so far, but if they build another naval base there, a la Guam, then the naval "encircling" of India will be complete- and a huge security threat for India. But the biggest nightmare right now is Nepal. Over the years, China successfully infiltrated Nepal with Maoists, and India did nothing about it ( India is unable to deal with it's own Naxal problems, so , forget helping Nepal). The Maoists overthrew the monarchy and set up their own govt. Today, Nepal is practically a communist ruled country, with big bro across Tibet as the back-room boy. Nepal has been voicing anti-India tirades of late. The Modi govt dared Nepal to blink first, by cutting off supplies of petrol and diesel. Nepal cowed in, but the anti-Modi Indian media was quick to call that a diplomatic blunder, bu in my opinion, in fact, it was the opposite. To add fuel to fire, China now proposes to extend the Lhasa Railway line, all the way into Kathmandu. That, I am certain , will end Nepal's reliance on India. But it will also pose a security threat from China to India, over the long term, for the Maoist puppets ruling Kathmandu can be expected to be sympathetic to any Chinese aggressions. India certainly faces a serious Diplomatic/ strategic challenge in Nepal. It is high time that the ministry starts big measures on these pressing strategic issues. I am sure they already are doing it covertly. This is a government that works, and foreign relations should hopefully see an uptick in the coming months, riding on the hugely successful foreign trips of the PM and the minister.I realize that India does not have the kind of spare forex that China possesses, to invest big-time in neighbours. But it is not always about investments only. It is an issue of how one is able to balance relationships with investments with neighbours, and as responsible "big brother" in the region, what sort of comfort feel we provide them. The sooner we do this balancing act, the better. Else our ambition of becoming a global superpower in the truest sense of it, will remain on paper. P.S.: All information for this article, have been obtained from public domain only.