Offer CARICOM’s good offices to China, India

IF ONLY for enlightened self-interest, Jamaica and the other countries of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) have a stake in China and India ratcheting down tensions in their disputed Himalayan region. So CARICOM shouldn’t assume a posture of mere bystander to these events.

The fact is that one the protagonists is a global economic and political power. The other is advancing relatively quickly. Both are nuclear-armed. Serious conflict between them would lead to global instability. Importantly, both are not only friends, but economic partners of the Caribbean.

The dispute between the two countries has its roots in a series of territorial settlements between Britain, during the time of the Raj, and countries surrounding colonial India, including China. The contention, though, now revolves mostly around the ownership of vast swathes of territory in what is today’s India’s north-easterly state of Arunachal Pradesh, the bulk of which China considers to be southern Tibet, and the disputed Kashmiri region of Indian controlled Ladakh and Chinese administered Aksai Chin in the western Himalayas.

In Kashmir, the Sino-Indian quarrel is further complicated by a dispute between India and Pakistan over ownership of portions of the territory since the country was partitioned in 1947. That issue is made even knottier with Pakistan ceding of 750 square miles of the Shaksgam Valley to China in 1963, the year after India and China fought a brief, but bloody, war over their territorial dispute. The Sino-Pakistan exchange essentially drew a line under their territorial discord although the agreement provided for a reopening of talks when India and Pakistan settle their issue.

Despite the periodic tensions and occasional skirmishes between Indian and Chinese troops along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the 2,100 mile often ill-defined border between the two countries, they have largely kept the peace for 58 years since the war. Indeed, no shots have been fired since the 1975 incident when four Indian soldiers were killed in disputed circumstances in Arunachal Pradesh. The silenced guns are in faith with a 1996 protocol against firing, by either side, within two kilometres of the LAC.

More significantly, the two countries, each with more than a billion people, have expanded economic engagement. For instance, from a little over US$1 billion in 2000, China-India trade reached nearly US$90 billion by 2019, although the COVID-19 induced slowdown in what was, hitherto, two of the world’s fastest growing economies, would have applied substantial brakes to their bilateral trade.

RISE IN BORDER TENSIONS

Coincidental with the economic downturn has been a rise in border tensions, which, analysts believe, has been exacerbated by both sides expanding infrastructure, especially in Kashmir, that could support military activity. In May, there were hand-to-hand clashes between Indian and Chinese soldiers in Ladakh as well as hundreds of miles away in the region of the northeastern Indian state of Sikkim. These were followed by last week’s brawl in the Ladakh area, where, according to Indian officials, 20 of their soldiers were killed. The Chinese side didn’t give a number for injuries or deaths among their troops.

Beijing and New Delhi each blamed the other for the violence. The initial sounds from the capitals made this newspaper fearful of an escalation. More recently, the bellicosity has been dialled down. We hope only that we are right, but this perceived shift in posture will be followed by new confidence building efforts.

China, the world’s second largest economy, has, over the past decade, emerged as perhaps the largest financier of infrastructure in the Caribbean, and its direct investments and low interest loans have been critical to debt burdened regional economies, which are without the capacity to enter private capital markets to fund big, development projects. Indeed, Beijing has been an important counterweight to traditional sources of capital for the region and has been principled in its bilateral engagements.

India’s historic links with the Caribbean apart, its attraction to the region is on two fronts. One is its continued emergence in recent years as a significant economic player by dint of its size and its fast pace of growth. The other is that it is a developing economy that is still in transformation from a colonial relationship, which, should make India sensitive to the dynamics of power that confront small countries like CARICOM’s in their global relations. In other words, India’s history, and the inclination of its leaders, has, up to now, made it partial to the rules-based multilateralism in which small countries find protection, and on whose maintenance – with appropriate retrofitting – CARICOM should wish to partner with New Delhi.

We, therefore, hope that Sino-Indian relations don’t deteriorate to the point that it distracts from the major global issues and poses a threat to the world. CARICOM’s chairman, Barbados’ Mia Mottley, should, therefore, offer Beijing and New Delhi the community’s good offices, as friend and honest broker, in helping them through a tense, and potentially dangerous, period. Indeed, the diplomatic skills within CARICOM are often out of proportion with the sizes of the countries within which they reside. THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER. To respond to a Gleaner editorial, email us: editor@gleanerjm.com or fax: (876) 922-6223. Responses should be no longer than 400 words. Not all responses will be published