China to join SAARC as Observor
Nepal responds at recent SAARC meeting in Dacca, China asked to join SAARC as an observor
China's fleet will reach Pakistan on Nov. 21, on the 600th anniversary of Admiral Cheng Ho's 1405 A.D. visit, to hold week-long joint Naval exercises with the Pakistan Navy, off Karachi, in the Indian Ocean
China very much a part of South Asia
Washington, D.C., Wednesday, November 16, 2005 - The 13th SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation) meeting which concluded in Dacca (Bangladesh) on Sunday November 13, 2005, will be remembered for the extra ordinary demonstration of China's geo-political shadow over the South Asian countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan, and the Maldives and the pettishness of the hallucinatory Indian leadership who think that India is China's equal, which thinking, if not corrected, will ultimately result in another 1962 like debacle, if the Chinese decide to 'teach a lesson'.
One must remember the overwhelming fact that geography casts a large Chinese shadow over most of the South Asian urban centers (like Kabul, Islamabad, Lahore, Chandigarh, Jalandhar, Ambala, Delhi, Dehradun, Meerut, Cawnpore, Lucknow, Agra, Allahabad, Patna, Khatmandu, Thimpu, Kolkatta, Dacca, Guwahati et. al,) in general, and all the towns/cities of the Sikh Homeland of Punjab in particular, as these cities are no more than two hundred odd miles as the crow flies or less than five missile minutes from China and therefore very vulnerable to missile attack against which Russian SU30's, French submarines, aircraft carriers and Swedish bofor gus are useless.
China, without even being present at the Dacca SAARC meet, tore up, (with help from stubborn Nepal) India's much touted hegemonic doctrine (read copycat version of the 'Monroe' doctrine) for the Indo-Pak-Khalistan-Bangladesh subcontinent under which many jingoistic Indians - mental midgets all - see their Bharat Mata (India) as the ONLY regional super power in South Asia. To India's discomfort, and despite its efforts to pigeonhole the issue, it was finally agreed at Dacca, that China will be invited to become an observor/ associate member of SAARC for which Bejing had expressed a desire. This is very good news for the moribund South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) which has been floundering for nearly two decades under the weight of Indian jingoism, and the Indo/Pak feud, with no light visible at the end of the tunnel, while the world goes by.
The above geo-political hegemonic ambition of India's jingoistic rulers, (articulated by their 'body language', acquisition of huge amounts of expensive state-of-the-art armaments, and various statements of different spokespersons which lay claim to India’s exclusive sphere of influence in the sub-continent) has been trumpeted in India's media as being based on the ancient Hindu book of state craft, Arthasastra - more on Arthasastra later. The Indian rulers expect that every neighboring country ought to address Delhi 'respectfully' as the proverbial 'Uncle'. This exclusive hedgemonic desire is India's copycat formulation based on the Monroe doctrine which was spelled out by the 5th U.S. President James Monroe (1758-1831), in a December 1823 message to the U.S. Congress. In that message President James Monroe served notice to Europe that, "Washington would regard as an unfriendly act, any attempt by any European power to interefere in the affairs of the countries located in the South and North American continents." President James Monroe occupied the White House from 1817 to 1825. India's dim witted rulers have similar grandiose plans for the Indo-Pak-Khalistan-Bangladesh subcontinent located in South Asia.
The Arthasastra, mentioned above, is an ancient (4th century B.C.) Hindu guide to statecraft and kingship and is said to have been written by a Brahmin minister to Emperor Chandragupta Maurya (Sandracottas to the Greeks) who was placed on the North Indian Magadhan throne in 321 B.C. after he married a sister of a Greek General of Alexander the Great. That Brahmin minister of Emperor Chandragupta Maurya is variously known to Hindu historians as Kautilya or Chanakya or sometimes Vishnugupta. "To achieve unity within the state and dominance over its neighbors," Kautilya had advocated, "treachery, extensive aspionage, the use of agents provocateurs, fraud, forgeries, rumormongering, poison, torture, and the ruthless use of force when necessary."
This Arthasastra, it should be remembered, became the 'Bible' of India's morally repugnant, oligarchic, Brahmin-caste-dominated, ruling elite as soon as it inherited the instruments of state power (along with the palaces in New Delhi built by the British on stolen Sikh Gurdwara Rakabgunj lands) from the departing British Colonials in August 1947. This explains the pattern of frequent use of force by India against its neighbors (most of them weaker entities except China) in Junagadh, Kashmir and Hyderabad in the late 1940's, Goa, Nagalim and China in the 1960's, Sikkim in the 1970's, Punjab, Khalistan, Maldives and Sri Lanka in the 1980's and in Kashmir from the 1990's todate.
With this background and history the seven member SAARC, (soon to be eight member with Afghanistan as the 8th member) was going no where, since its founding on December 7, 1985. Even the establishment of a Secretariat (with a Secretary General and twelve sub-committees) in Khatmandu, Nepal, in early 1987, did not improve matters. This, despite the excellent example of the E.U. (Europeon Union) and ASEAN which have, in the same period, prospered and expanded their international roles. In the nearly twenty years of its existance the annual Heads of States SAARC meetings have become channels of bilateral and multilateral negotiations under a media glare - a big photo opportunity someone called them.
The presence of an economic giant like China, (even as an observor or associate member) could have a salutary and positive effect on the economies of dirt-poor SAARC member countries including India. These South Asian countries are apt to forget that China's Hainan province ia located at about the same latitude of 17* as Mumbai or Pune in India. China can rightly call itself a part of South Asia. China (3, 705,404 sq. miles) three times larger than India (1, 269, 345 sq. miles) with a two thousand miles long border with the Indo/Pak/Bangladesh subcontinent is geographically much more a part of South Asia than Afghanistan (located between the latitudes of 30* and 38* North) or far away Japan in the Far East. A full membership of China in SAARC, like India or Pakistan, would have been for the good of the nearly billion and a half people living in squalor in South Asia.
Nepal’s articulate King Gyanendra was therefore, right when he held up the consensus at the Dacca summit last week on Afghanistan’s membership for two days - to India's frustration - when he linked it to China’s request for an associate membership with the SAARC which India was stoutly opposing. Nepal's stand left India’s long-standing claim of an exclusive sphere of influence in the sub-continent in tatters. Without even being present at the SAARC summit, China, as a great power, thus significantly influenced the outcome of the Dhaka debate on expanding SAARC membership. On the eve of the SAARC summit, an invitation for Afghanistan to become the eighth member of SAARC was considered a done deal. That the decision on Afghanistan could not be taken without a simultaneous one on China indicates that India can no longer treat the sub-continent as its little backyard and it will have to reckon with the reality of Chinese power south of the Himalayas.
China, which has been a super power for over two thousand years and is not called the Middle Kingdon for nothing, and knows how to flex its muscle with subtlety, has announced that it is holding a joint naval exercise with the Pakistan Navy in the Arabian Sea, off Karachi, from November 21 to 24, 2005 after a refueling stop at Kochi. A Chinese naval fleet comprising a number of ships, missile destroyers, submarines and helicopters entered the Bay of Bengal on November 12, 2005, for an engagement with the Royal Thai Navy, as if the Chinese Naval fleet's arrival was synchronized with the SAARC summit in Dacca. Incidently, this will be the first ever full scale combined maritime drill undertaken by the Chinese navy in the Indian Ocean since that great Chinese Admiral and navigator, Zheng He (also known by his Muslim name of Admiral Ma He) a Muslim, visited the Persian Gulf, Jeddah, East Africa and what is present day Pakistan in 1405 A.D. exactly six hundred years ago, with a fleet of 317 ships carrying 27, 870 soldiers. Anyone interested in reading in detail about China's Muslim Admiral Zheng He and his epic adventures can do so in Louise Levanthes’ book, ‘When China Ruled the Seas’ (Oxford University Press, 1996, ISBN 0-195-112075).
In recent years, China has been explicitly suggesting its strong interest in joining the SAARC, a la ASEAN, as either an 'observer' or a 'dialogue partner' as it is interested in expanding trade. Like it has in all its other neighbouring regions, China is keen to deepen its cross-border economic and transportation links with the subcontinent - South Asia. China's Kunming city (capital of Yunnan province in South China bordering Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, about the same latitude as Karachi or Jhansi or Allahbad or Benares) for example is closer to Dacca, Bangladesh, than Mumbai or Chennai or Delhi. That way Bejing increases two way trade and also protects its oil/gas supply route from the Middle East and Africa. It will be foolish for India's hallucinatory rulers to think that pinpricks like denying full membership of SAARC to China or establishing a useless Indian Airforce base on the earthquake prone Nicobar Islands, astride the entrance to the Malacca straits opposite the Thai Isthumus of Kra bordering Malaysia, will bother or scare Bejing, given China’s long Himalayan border with India's vulnerable major urban population centers lying prostrate, vulnerable and defenceless at China's feet as pointed out in paragraph one above. Let us hope good sense prevails among the seven SAARC members - specially India - and they upgrade the invite to China to join the SARRC as a full member, which will benefit the whole region.