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Regional Overview: South Asia
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| 27 October 2006 |
Sino-US competition
South Asia is increasingly becoming a geopolitical competition ground between China, India and the US. Perhaps the most important international development has been the Indo-US June 2005 10-year defence agreement and the July 2005 agreement on nuclear co-operation reached between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President George W Bush. The agreement appeared to represent a growing Indo-US alliance, reflected in India's voting for Iran's reference to the United Nations Security Council for its nuclear programme in September 2005 and February 2006 in an apparent abrogation of its avowed non-aligned foreign policy.
India's burgeoning relations with the US may also be an attempt to lessen China's policy of 'strategic encirclement', whereby Beijing has forged alliances with India's neighbours, notably Bangladesh, Myanmar, Pakistan, and to a lesser extent Sri Lanka. Since the royal coup in Nepal in February 2005, China has also increased its influence in the Himalayan kingdom, transferring USD1.1 million of military aid in late 2005. This relationship has been curtailed, although not ended, by King Gyanendra's withdrawal from absolute power in April 2006, and Kathmandu has since then attempted to maintain a more nuanced foreign policy between its two overwhelming neighbours in contrast to its historical alliance with India.
These developments have confused the post-Cold War delineation of South Asia between Chinese allies (Bangladesh and Pakistan) and Indian allies (Bhutan, Nepal and Sri Lanka). Afghanistan's foreign policy has shifted hugely depending upon the country's domestic political situation. To an extent, this division remains, as Pakistan remains mistrustful of its current alliance with the US in the 'war on terrorism' and hence seeks to rely on Beijing in the long term. However, China's growing influence in South Asia, India's increasing economic and military power, and the US' determination to forge an alliance with India will complicate the region's alignments over coming decades.
Regional prospects
Given the vagaries of each security factor within the region, it is impossible to accurately predict an improving or deteriorating trend in South Asia. However, unless diplomacy improves in the near future, continued transnational non-state attacks appear certain to undermine peace negotiations between India and Pakistan, although the two nuclear-armed neighbours remain far from large-scale conflict. Sri Lanka's three-decade war is set to worsen, while Nepal's decade-long insurgency is currently in abeyance, although the possibility of a collapse in negotiations is possible. Afghanistan's insurgency shows little sign of abating, although Bangladesh has reacted surprisingly effectively to an Islamist threat that most dramatically demonstrated its capabilities with nationwide bombings in August 2005.
Essentially, South Asia's ethnic, linguistic, cultural, fiscal and religious variety among the region's 1.8 billion inhabitants, combined with the prevalence of small arms and light weapons, ensures that the region will remain one of the least stable in the world, while the presence of nuclear weapons makes any possible state-based conflict (however unlikely) potentially catastrophic.
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© 2006 Jane's Information Group
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