Council on Foreign Relations

Report Part Title: INDIA AND THE BRI

Report Title: China and the Belt and Road Initiative in South Asia
Report Author(s): Manjari Chatterjee Miller
Published by: Council on Foreign Relations (2022)
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 INDIA AND THE BRI
India sees China as its biggest geopolitical threat, and any possible
benefit of the BRI is outweighed by the fact that it necessitates and
contributes to a stronger Chinese presence in South Asia. China has
been unable to persuade India to join any BRI project and has failed
to change public perceptions in its favor. The expansion of the BRI in
South Asia has even spurred India, typically a slow actor, to initiate its
own connectivity projects in the region. In the long run, it is difficult
to see how the BRI, at its core a connectivity project, could succeed
in South Asia without drawing in India, not only the biggest actor in
the region but also the only country in the region that is the most geo-
graphically connected to the other South Asian countries, as it shares
a border with four of the continental countries (Bangladesh, Bhutan,
Nepal, and Pakistan) and is the closest in distance to the two island
countries (the Maldives and Sri Lanka). Fully developing alternative
connectivity projects in the region that bypass the BRI would be a win
for India in South Asia.
Despite high volumes of trade, the bilateral relationship between
China and India is marred by a serious trust deficit. This can be traced
to the unresolved border dispute between India and China, which was
the consequence of the Sino-Indian War of 1962. Although for China
the border dispute is not central to its foreign policy calculations or
geopolitical outlook, India considers the dispute a central focal point
and precondition for improving relations—in fact, India cited China,
not Pakistan, as its reason for undertaking nuclear tests in 1998. The
perception that China is India’s most important threat regionally and
globally is pervasive in Indian policy, academic, and media circles.
Periodic border skirmishes—most recently in 2017 at the tri-junction
India-China-Bhutan border on the Doklam Plateau and in 2020 in the

10 China and the Belt and Road Initiative in South Asia

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Galwan Valley, which resulted in the first Indian and Chinese troop
casualties along the border since 1975—heighten India’s security con-
cerns even more. In addition to exacerbating bilateral India-China ten-
sions, border clashes have accelerated India’s strategic partnership with
the United States, with India rushing to sign several security agree-
ments with the country.
India also worries that with the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the
United States will no longer have a presence in South Asia and there-
fore little moderating influence on Pakistan. This is critical for India,
which fears a resurgence of Pakistan-funded terrorism within its bor-
ders. Although India does not necessarily believe that China condones
Pakistan-sponsored Islamist terrorism (given China’s vulnerability in
Xinjiang Province), neither does it feel China will publicly condemn
Pakistan for it. Moreover, China has exhibited little concern for India’s
worries about sovereignty and territorial integrity in Kashmir.
India is the regional hegemon in South Asia. Geography makes it
the only country in South Asia to border most of the other countries
of the region. It is also demographically the largest country in South
Asia, with the largest economy and the most powerful military. It has
often taken a paternalistic attitude toward its smaller neighbors and
prioritizes maintaining its diplomatic leverage over other South Asian
countries. India fears that China will attempt to dominate the Indian
Ocean region and transcontinental littorals by exerting pressure on the
smaller countries with maritime borders in South Asia such as Bangla-
desh, the Maldives, and Sri Lanka. Finally, India’s domestic politics in
its northeast are volatile. India’s four northeastern states are connected
to it through a narrow fourteen-mile corridor, and they also border
China. Since 1958, when it imposed the Armed Forces Special Powers

India and the BRI 11

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 Act in the region, India has been concerned about quelling insurgencies
in the region and is deeply worried about Chinese meddling and aid to
various insurgent groups.
India’s geopolitical concerns and domestic interests make its atti-
tude toward the BRI largely suspicious and hostile, even while it rec-
ognizes some of the initiative’s benefits. CPEC encapsulates possibly
one of the biggest objections that India has to the BRI. On the one
hand, India recognizes that a political and financially stable Pakistan is
in India’s interest. Theoretically, CPEC promises to work toward this
goal. On the other hand, CPEC runs through the disputed territory of
Kashmir—the Karakoram Highway crosses Gilgit-Baltistan, which
is a part of what India calls “Pakistan-occupied Kashmir” (PoK)—
connecting it to Xinjiang Province in China.30 This violates a core Indian
claim of sovereignty and territorial integrity. In addition, Gwadar port
is another thorn; if completed and operationalized, it will link China’s
landlocked western regions to a port closer than the Chinese eastern
coast, offer China access to the Strait of Hormuz, through which about
40 percent of global daily oil trade transits, and also reduce the distance
China’s energy imports from the Middle East have to travel.31 India is
also worried about Pakistan’s financial dependency on China and how
it could translate into political concessions that China could extract
from the Pakistani government.
Finally, given India’s big-brother attitude in the region, its reaction
to BRI projects in its smaller neighboring countries—Bangladesh, the
Maldives, Nepal, and Sri Lanka—can be best described as nuanced
suspicion. For example, India sees the BCIM economic corridor as
possibly beneficial by opening India’s northeast region through con-
nectivity routes. Thus, in 2013, India welcomed Chinese premier
Li Keqiang to launch the BCIM corridor. However, once the BCIM
corridor was folded into the BRI in 2015, Indian attitudes toward it
cooled. The Chinese port in Hambantota, Sri Lanka, which became
the poster child of China’s alleged “debt-trap diplomacy”—that is,
extending credit to a vulnerable country for political purposes—
presented a huge concern. Not only did it signify Colombo’s indebt-
edness to Beijing, but the port was a red flag symbolizing how the
BRI’s Maritime Silk Road could also function as China’s India-
containment strategy. In 2014, a Chinese submarine and warship
docked in Colombo Harbor (a mere 152 nautical miles separate
Colombo from India’s southernmost port, Thoothukudi), prompting
the Indian government to register its concerns with the Sri Lankan
government. In Nepal, India is worried about China’s proposed

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Trans-Himalayan Economic Corridor (THEC), which began as a
bilateral connectivity corridor between Kathmandu and Beijing, but
later transformed into a trilateral proposal when China, aware of
the difficulties posed by the natural geographic barrier of the Hima-
layas, invited India. India has evaded the proposal because it would
likely reduce Nepal’s reliance on Indian ports for trade and the tran-
sit of goods.32 BRI initiatives in the Maldives, such as the Sinamale
Bridge or the China-Maldives Friendship Bridge, could symbolize
growing ties between Male and Beijing, and India frets that this tiny
island nation could offer a maritime base for China in exchange for
investment. Finally, in the northeast region, India perceives that Chi-
na’s connectivity initiatives could offer economic benefits through
cross-border trading routes to a part of India that is not only geo-
graphically but politically distant and economically underdeveloped.
However, China’s alleged “meddling” in the various insurgencies, as
Indian National Security Advisor Ajit Doval put it, means that even
if local groups and interests would welcome an infusion of cash and
infrastructure from the BRI, the Indian government would not.33
India’s concerns have meant that the BRI has failed in India. China
has repeatedly attempted to draw India into various connectivity proj-
ects, such as the BCIM corridor and the THEC, without much success.
In 2017, not a single Indian delegate attended the first BRI forum in
Beijing. Nor did India attend the second forum in 2019. India’s refusal
to buy into the BRI remains one of the biggest obstacles to China’s and
the BRI’s success in South Asia. Simply put, India’s geographic loca-
tion is such that a region-wide initiative to build and boost connectivity
in South Asia, placing China at the center, is not feasible in the long
run without some Indian involvement. Moreover, India continues to
maintain capital with its smaller neighbors, which are geographically
much closer to India than China. For example, in 2017, in deference to
Indian concerns, Sri Lanka refused to allow another Chinese subma-
rine to dock at Colombo.34 Paradoxically, in some ways, even though
the BRI has not been a success in India, it has been a success for India. In
response to the BRI, India, which is often slow to pivot on foreign policy
issues, has ramped up its own connectivity initiatives: Prime Minister
Narendra Modi has devoted considerable time and energy to a “Neigh-
bourhood First” policy, including investing in India’s neighbors, such as
the Maldives, where it is funding a Greater Male Connectivity Project
by providing a $100 million grant and a $400 million loan; rebooted
the failed “Look East” policy of the 1990s to “Act East” to facilitate
connectivity between India and Southeast Asian nations; launched

India and the BRI 13

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 the Security and Growth for All in the Region initiative to boost mari-
time diplomacy and cooperation between Indian Ocean Region (IOR)
states; and spearheaded the Mausam (monsoon) initiative to link his-
torical trade partners and establish an “Indian ocean world.”35 In a nut-
shell, India is the largest factor currently standing between China and
the BRI’s domination in South Asia.

14 China and the Belt and Road Initiative in South Asia

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