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India - Myanmar

Highlights of the Visit

• Foreign Secretary reaffirmed India’s strong and consistent support to the ASEAN initiative and expressed hope that progress would be made in a pragmatic and constructive manner, based on the five-point consensus. 
• Handed over one million doses of "Made in India” vaccines to the Myanmar Red Cross Society.

Asean – Five Point Consensus Formula
The ASEAN five-point consensus states that there shall be an 

1. Immediate cessation of violence in Myanmar and all parties shall exercise utmost restraint. 
2. Constructive dialogue among all parties concerned shall commence to seek a peaceful solution in the interests of the people. 
3. A special envoy of the ASEAN Chair shall facilitate mediation of the dialogue process, with assistance of the Secretary General of ASEAN. 
4. ASEAN shall provide humanitarian assistance through the AHA Centre. 
5. Special Envoy and delegation shall visit Myanmar to meet with all parties concerned. 
6. Junta has refused to cooperate with this formula.

Military Coup in Myanmar

• Military coup in Myanmar had set off civil unrest and protests. India had criticised the violence, while following a policy of non-interference on the matter of the coup keeping in mind the strategic importance of Myanmar to India, which is - a bridge to Southeast Asia and ASEAN; important for security in Northeast; crucial for Neighbourhood first and the Act East Policy.

India’s Approach Towards Military Coup

• Calibrated approach of India: India has followed a calibrated approach since the military coup. Initially it followed a wait and watch approach, only now has called for a return to democracy. It is reflective of the regional realities. It is different from the West’s approach of condemnation, threats and sanctions.
• China which had close relations with the Su Kyi government has tried to expand its cooperation with the Junta. 
• Myanmar has refused to cooperate with the ASEAN five-point formula. 
• India has assisted Myanmar through capacity-building programmes for strengthening the transition to democracy. However, it is not an offer of mediation by India in the military-NLD conflict. 
• Myanmar has renewed the previous pledge that its nation’s territory would not be allowed to be used for any activities inimical to India. 
• Foreign secretary was received by Senior General Min Aung Hlaing (who is Chairman of the SAC and Prime Minister) which is departure from the past visits of foreign secretaries from India. Such special gesture clearly shows that China is not the only Friend of Myanmar.

Implications of Myanmar’s Military Coup

1. Border security 
   • Refugees fleeing the military crackdown are entering Mizoram. This has led to disagreement between centre and Mizoram which supports refugees. 
   • Centre’s instruction of sealing border with Myanmar has irked ethnically and culturally connected communities on both sides. Ex – Chin community. 
2. Strategic concern: India cannot upset the Myanmar junta by providing refuge to the officials fleeing military crackdown. 
3. Containing China: Myanmar being crucial in containing China, India will have to take a calculated steps to not push Myanmar closer to China. 
4. Insurgency: Several ethnic armed organisations (EAOs) are active within Myanmar. Being opposed to Junta, EAOs can lead to escalation in violence across the border. 
5. Indian Investments: Instability would threaten India’s investments in Myanmar. Ex – Kaladan Project, Sittwe port, IMT trilateral Highway, Special economic zone in Rakhine. 
6. Opportunity to reduce influence of China: The Myanmar army has enjoyed a relatively strong relationship with India. It played a key role in handling the insurgency and Hot Pursuits of India. Su Kyi led democratic government was closer to China. China supported it on Rohingya crisis.

India's Myanmar Policy

1. Non-interference in internal politics: Since 1990s, India has supported democratization of Myanmar, driven from within the country. This has allowed Delhi to engage both with the military and the party in power, whether the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party or the pro-democracy National League for Democracy. 
2. Engagement rather than criticising: India is cognizant of the geopolitical dimension of Myanmar’s democratization. For Delhi, engaging rather than criticizing is the most practical approach to finding a solution. 
3. Balancing influence of China: There was inauguration of liaison office of the Embassy of India in Naypyidaw recently. This is significant as only a few countries have set up such office in Myanmar. Interestingly, China was the first country to establish a liaison office in 2017. 
   • Myanmar's growing closeness with China and the China Myanmar Economic Corridor is a cause of concern for India amidst growing India-China tension. 
   • India also has taken significant step towards establishing its embassy in Nay Pyi Taw. India has its embassy in Yangon, the former capital. 
4. Strategic Infrastructure development 
   • India has also proposed to build a petroleum refinery in Myanmar that would involve an investment of $6 billion. It shows India’s competitive dynamic with China. 
   • Commitment has been made to operationalise of the crucial Sittwe port in Myanmar’s Rakhine state by March 2021. 
5. The two sides are collaborating on the ongoing Indian assisted infrastructure projects such as the India Myanmar-Thailand trilateral highway and the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project. The project will link Kolkata to Sittwe in Myanmar and then from Myanmar’s Kaladan river to India’s northeast.
6. Border security and development: Both countries believe in mutual commitment not to allow respective territories to be used for activities inimical to each other. Both have been collaborating in the development of border areas with the understanding that it is the best guarantee to secure their borders.

Importance of Myanmar for India

• Myanmar is key link between South Asia to Southeast Asia. It is a member of both ASEAN as well as the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) which bridges South and South-East Asia. 
• Myanmar stands at the confluence of India’s Neighbourhood First and Act East Policy and India Myanmar partnership is at the heart of India’s vision to create a connected and cooperative neighbourhood. 
• Connectivity projects through Myanmar help India overcome its Chicken-neck dilemma (Siliguri Corridor). Myanmar is also necessary for the development of North-Eastern India. 
• Good relations with Myanmar are central to keep the North-eastern states peaceful. 
• Myanmar is important for both Neighbourhood first and the Act east Policy. 
• Vital Trade Partner

India – Central Asia

India – Central Asia Dialogue

• Highlighted the need to work on 4Cs- Commerce, Capacity enhancement, Connectivity and Contacts. 
• Both stated a “broad regional consensus” on Afghanistan 
• Agreed to further increase engagement on the connectivity Projects including INSTC, TAPI pipeline etc. 
• Agreed to enhance economic cooperation.

About Central Asia Countries
Central Asian countries are a group of five countries Kazakhstan (largest), Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. All these countries were earlier part of the USSR and became independent sovereigns after the fall of USSR. 

Some features of these countries are: 

• Doubly Landlocked: All five countries are doubly landlocked because their neighbours are also land locked. For these countries to integrate substantively with the world economy and develop fruitful economic relations with the outside world, they need to have access to warm-water seas. 
• Mineral rich region: All five countries are richly endowed with natural and mineral resources. These countries have vast stretches of unexplored minerals including uranium, oil and gas making it an important region for India's economic interest. 
• Political stability: All five republics have been by and large peaceful and stable throughout the 25 years of their independent existence. 
• Extremism: Although terrorist groups like Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Hizb-ut-Tahrir and others are present in the Ferghana valley, they have not been very active or effective in creating disturbances. This could however change if violence due to the Taliban's resurgence in Afghanistan increases and spreads to other countries in the region. The five republics have been largely secular and liberal so far. Religious extremism, fundamentalism and terrorism pose challenges to all these societies and to regional stability. 
• Drug trade and Great Game: CARs face serious threat from illegal drug trade emanating from Afghanistan. Traditionally, Central Asia has been an arena of ‘’great game’’. The modern version is being played out even today. Russia, China, US, Turkey, Iran, Europe, EU, Japan, Pakistan, India, Afghanistan have substantial security and economic stakes in the region.

Great Game in Central Asia

• Central Asian region stretches from the Caspian Sea in the West to China and Mongolia in the East, and from Afghanistan and Iran in the South to Russia in the North, including the former Soviet republics of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. 
• The geopolitical scenario is undergoing a sea change in the last few years in Central Asia. These radical transformations in the geopolitical front of Central Asia are taking place largely due to the interplay of both global and regional forces and their subsequent impact on the region. 
• Taliban takeover in Afghanistan has renewed focus on these republics to tackle the new challenges of rising extremism in the region. 
• US hopes to use Central Asia as an important region in its Indo-pacific strategy to counter Russia and China. 
• Russia considers this region to be its backyard and has considerable leverage given the Soviet past of these countries. 
• CARs are crucial for China given the high level of economic engagement and the BRI which passes through this region.

India - Central Asia Relations

• Historical & cultural relations: India has several millennia old historical, cultural and civilisational links with Central Asia. The region related to India through the silk road through which Buddhism spread in the region and economic and cultural ties bloomed. India enjoys good reputation and soft power in these countries. Bollywood movies and songs are particularly popular in the region. Also, many Indian students go to these countries to pursue higher education. 
• Strategic Importance: The region is considered to be extended neighbourhood of India. The countries are centrally located in India's continental neighbourhood. 
• Geopolitics: Geopolitically the region is important for India to counter the increasing Chinese influence with its Belt Road Initiative in India's continental neighbourhood. With Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan, Central Asia can play a crucial role in India's strategic calculations in the region. 
• Energy needs: India is an energy deficit country. This region is extremely well endowed with hydrocarbon resources and other mineral and natural resources. These countries are also rich in strategic minerals such as Uranium. 
• Connectivity: Because of presence of Pakistan and China on the norther borders and hostile Taliban in Afghanistan, India does not have direct access to these Central Asian republics. 
• Trade: Despite enormous potential, India's trade with this region has been minimal because of lack of direct connectivity. Largest trading partners of this region are still Russia and China owing to geographical proximity.

Initiatives Taken by India to Strengthen Relations with Central Asian Republics

• India's 'Connect Central Asia' Policy is a broad-based approach, including political, security, economic and cultural connections. 
• India is stepping up multilateral engagement with Central Asian partners using the synergy of joint efforts through existing fora like the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, Eurasian Economic Community (EEC) and the Custom Union. India has become a member of the SCO of which majority of the central Asian countries are members. 
• India looks to Central Asia as a long-term partner in energy and natural resources. Central Asia possesses large cultivable tracts of land, and it sees potential for India to cooperate in production of profitable crops with value addition. 
• India is setting up a Central Asian e-network with its hub in India, to deliver, tele-education and telemedicine connectivity, linking all the five Central Asian States. 

2. Connectivity 

• As for land connectivity, India has reactivated the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC). 
• India is modernizing the infrastructure of the Chabahar port in Iran, which could become an important link in trade and transport communications between the markets of Central and South Asia. 
• India recently joined the Ashgabat Agreement, which was instituted in April 2011 to establish an international multimodal transport and transit corridor between Central Asia and the Persian Gulf. Its objective is to enhance connectivity within the Eurasian region and synchronize it with other regional transport corridors, including the International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC).

3. Economic and Humanitarian engagement 

• First meeting of India-Central Asia Dialogue was held in 2019 in Samarkand (Uzbekistan) which established a platform for strengthening cooperation between India and the Central Asian countries 
• India has provided humanitarian medical assistance to these countries for COVID-19 relief. 
• India has provided US$ 1 billion Line of Credit for priority developmental projects in fields such as connectivity, energy, IT, healthcare, education, agriculture in the region. 
• India-Central Asia Business Council (ICABC) has also been launched for boosting business to business engagement. 

4. Other areas of cooperation 

• The joint statements on the India-Central Asian dialogue also focused on the need to combat terrorism by destroying safe havens, infrastructure, networks, and funding channels. 
• Connections between our peoples are the most vital linkages to sustain our deep engagement. 
• India already has a robust exchange of students. India will encourage regular exchanges of scholars, academics, civil society and youth delegations to gain deeper insights into each other’s cultures.

Challenges in India's Outreach to Central Asia

• India has no direct connectivity with this region. 
• The takeover of Afghanistan by Taliban has severely altered India's strategic calculations in the region. However, India can leverage its relationship with the CARs to engage with Taliban. 
• China’s open-handed outreach to the region in the form of big-ticket connectivity projects under the Belt and Road Initiative, reduces space available for India. 
• China has been expanding its regional presence, as seen in the ‘5+1 format’ launched in 2020 to further its influence. Its advances are causing concerns of ‘debt-trap diplomacy’ given the economic situation of Central Asian countries. This provides India with an opportunity to leverage its good relations to counter the fears of 'Chinese Debt diplomacy'. 
• Being part of the erstwhile USSR, Russia still has considerable influence on these countries. However, to counter the Chinese influence, Russia has been promoting its own Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) to pursue regional and economic integration. 
• Connectivity projects not materialising: US sanctions on Iran and increasing Chinese presence has caused delay in operationalising the Chabahar port fully. 
• INSTC project has witnessed slow growth due to a combination of factors including low trade volumes, incomplete infrastructure, and sanctions. 
• India must redouble its efforts connectivity to further its regional presence. This becomes more important in the context of China’s Belt and Road Initiative, with two of its six corridors running through Central Asia. 
• Limited Economic Partnership: India has been a latecomer and has turned its attention to the region only in recent years. 
• India’s trade with the region amounts to US$ 2 billion, owing to limited connectivity and low economic engagement with the region. This amount is less than 0.5 percent of India’s total trade, whereas the region’s trade with China amounts to US$ 100 billion.

Way Forward

• India needs to direct investment to the region to reap the economic benefits of the strategic location of Central Asia that puts it at the crossroads of key trade and commerce routes. 
• India must increase its developmental and humanitarian aid to the region and promote closer people-to-people ties through education, knowledge transfer, medicine and health, culture, cuisine, and tourism. 
• Multilateral organisations like SCO, EAEU, and CICA can serve as platforms for sustained engagement and regular exchange of ideas. 
• The SCO is a crucial grouping that provides India a strategic convergence with Russia and China on addressing new security challenges, enhancing infrastructural development projects, and creating a network of regional oil and gas pipelines for the larger benefit of the Central and South Asian region. 
• Regular meetings with the leaders of the region at highest political level. 
• Quick and effective operationalisation of connectivity projects such as Chabahar Port, INSTC agreement and Ashgabat Agreement to give connectivity a push. 
• Coordination with the region in especially checking rising extremism and terrorist groups. This is especially important in the wake of rise of Taliban in Afghanistan.

Eu – Connectivity Program

Global Gateway Program – European Union

• EU has unveiled its €300 billion ($340 billion) Golden Gateway Program which is an alternative to China's Belt and Road initiative.
• The program aims to help underpin the global recovery by mobilizing investments in digital, clean energy and transport networks, as well as boosting health, education and research systems across the world. 
• It aims at creating strong and sustainable links, not dependencies (a reference to Debt Trap of Chinese BRI projects), between Europe and the world and build a new future.

Need for Connectivity Program

• China has been accused of Debt trap Diplomacy via its Infrastructure development under the BRI. 
• Addressing Infrastructure investment gap: Low and middle-income countries were already facing a $2.7 trillion infrastructure investment gap before the pandemic, according to World Bank estimates. 
• It will be financed by a mix of €18 billion ($20 billion) in grants and €280 billion ($317 billion) in investments from member states, their development banks, the private sector and EU financing bodies, including the European Investment Bank. 

Focus Areas of Golden Gateway Program

• Digitalization: European Union will invest in fibre optic cables between countries, satellite communications and cloud infrastructure to better facilitate global cooperation, data sharing and AI development.
• Clean energy 
  • Integrate EU’s energy systems, transition to renewables and partner with other countries to boost renewable hydrogen production. 
  • It will also work to eliminate barriers to the international trade of hydrogen. 
• Transport: In the most direct challenge to China's initiative, European Union will invest in transport infrastructure — railways, roads, ports, airports and border crossings — to help develop countries and diversify their supply chains. 
• Health: In response to the pandemic, the new EU plan aims to help countries develop local vaccine manufacturing capacity and diversify their pharmaceutical supply chains. 
• Education and research: European Union wants to further invest in education globally, including the expansion of online learning. 

India - Eu Connectivity Partnership
The partnership has been built upon EU-India Strategic Partnership: A Roadmap for 2025, and ties into the larger European pivot towards Asia, conceptualised in the EU Indo-Pacific strategy released in 2021.

Objectives of India-Eu Connectivity Partnership

• EU-India cooperation on connectivity is based on shared values of “democracy, freedom, rule of law, and respect for human rights” and operational principles of transparency, viability, inclusivity, and sustainability. 
• Strengthening and expanding the existing network of economic, social, and political bonds that tie the two regions together, as well as bringing in thirdparty countries, through a combination of soft and hard connectivity initiatives. 
• Focus Areas: Digital, transport, energy, and people-topeople connectivity. 
• Financing: Financing is expected to partially originate from European and Indian public agencies, but significant emphasis is put on the essential role that the private sector is poised to play, to ensure diversity in investment streams and achieve mutually beneficial gains. EU has created a financing instrument for external action into one budgetary mechanism known as the “Neighborhood, Development and International Cooperation Instrument” (NDICI). 
• Implications: It can change the dynamics in the Indian Ocean region by establishing fairer, and more transparent framework of infrastructural investment. India - EU closeness can provide alternative third pole to the US-China binary.

Challenges To the Program

• Such initiatives will be difficult to implement because of the bureaucratic overgrowth that has stifled EU global action so far. 
• Over-reliance on involving Private sector and financial institutions as a form of financing is going to lead to the EU losing control of their connectivity initiatives to their partners on the ground. Such financing would also impact political visibility of such projects specially when it comes to countering Chinese BRI. 
• Internal divergences among the EU members will further slow down decision-making and implementation. 
• China is becoming assertive with its BRI initiatives, which will be difficult for EU to counter. Chinese projects move faster, due to a general lack of due process in the bidding phase, they are backed by readily available loans, and they do not entail the kind of conditionalities that EU would apply. 
• The notion of sustainability, comprehensiveness, transparency, and fairness—could be perceived as additional costs or impossibly high standards by developing countries. It can lead to unnecessary Global competition. 
• Originate projects that respond to macro-level strategic considerations rather than on the ground connectivity needs.

Ukraine Crisis

Roots of this Conflict

• Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union until its 1991 collapse.
• In 2004, Orange Revolution began after reports of widespread vote-rigging in presidential election nominally won by pro-Russian candidate Viktor Yanukovych.
• In 2014, Revolution of Dignity began in Ukraine, which saw months-long protests which toppled pro-Moscow Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych.
• Russia used the power vacuum to annex Crimea Crimean Peninsula.
• Conflict broke out between the Ukrainian government and Russian-backed separatists who declared two regions in eastern Ukraine, Donetsk and Luhansk, known as the Donbas, self-proclaimed republics.

Countries formed by Disintegration of erstwhile USSR
Strategic Calculations of Russia

• Russia, the world’s largest country by land mass, lacks natural borders except the Arctic Ocean in the north and the Pacific in the far east.
• Geopolitics of Russia’s insecurity: Russia’s heartland runs from St. Petersburg through Moscow to the Volga region lies on plains and is vulnerable to attacks. Also, there is lack of natural boundaries between Russia and Eastern Europe. The experience of Napoleon’s invasion, WWI and WWII when Russia got attacked is always heavy on Russia’s strategic calculations. But the disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1990s, threw its security calculations into disarray, deepening its historical insecurity.
• This makes Russia to claim strategic influence in its Eastern European neighbours as a guarantee of its security.

Response to Nato's  Expansion

• Russia’s view on NATO: Russia claims that the end of the cold war and the disintegration of the USSR led to the end of animosities between the Western Europe and Russia. Thus, there was no security threat for Europe and thus, no need for NATO that is a vestige of the cold war. The continued expansion of NATO wherein smaller countries part of Eastern Europe joining Russia enhances the insecurity of Russia. Russia, thus is, uncomfortable with this situation and demands stopping of eastward expansion of the NATO alliance.
• Continued Expansion of NATO: The West had promised that NATO would not expand in the east. But despite the Promises the expansion has continued. In 1999 the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland (all were members of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact) joined NATO. Five years later, seven more countries — including the three Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, all of which share borders with Russia. Further out of the countries that surround Black Sea - Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania are NATO members.
• Russia’s insecurity on Ukraine joining NATO: Russia does not want Ukraine to fall into the hands of NATO, which would threaten its heartland. If Ukraine and Georgia join NATO, Russia’s gateway to Mediterranean Sea would be narrowed. Thus, Russia annexed Crimean Peninsula to secure its access to the Black Sea.

Russia's Focus on Rimland Countries

• South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the self-proclaimed republics that broke away from Georgia, are controlled by Russia-backed forces.
• In Ukraine, the eastern Donbas region is in the hands of pro-Russian rebels.
• Russia has supported the President of Belarus against the protests that erupted in 2020.
• Russia sent thousands of “peacekeepers” to end the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, re-establishing its strategic dominance.
• Belarus with Russian support had manufactured a migrant crisis on the Polish border of the European Union.
• In the recent protests in Kazakhstan, Russia dispatched troops (under the banner of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, or CSTO) to quell the protests

Western Response

• US withdrawal from Afghanistan has left the Central Asian Republics under the Russian influence.
• Europe has been opposing Russia’s aggressive moves, but its options are limited because of its dependence on Russian gas.
• The West could not do much when Russia annexed Crimea.
• NATO is unlikely to pick a war with Russia over Ukraine.
• Western policymakers are likely to impose economic sanctions. However, Russia has not been deterred by such sanctions to meet its strategic aims.

Ukrain Crisis and India

• The crisis can complicate India’s relations with the US, Russia and European powers.
• It could also have a bearing on the standoff with China in Ladakh and the situation in Afghanistan.
• The situation is like Cuban Missile Crisis when China launched an attack on India in 1962.
• Both the US and Russia are strategic partners for India. Thus, India would not want to take sides in case of war.
• A conflict could also push Russia much closer to China— which would not be in the larger interest of India.
  

Locations of Importance in the Black Sea

• Countries surrounding Black Sea are: Ukraine, Russia, Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania.
• Important rivers falling in the Black Sea: Danube, Dneiper, Don.
• Bosporus strait in the South of Black Sea to Sea of Marmara which through the Dardanelles strait connects to the Black Sea to the Mediterranean Sea.
• In the north of Black Sea, Kerch strait connects the Black Sea to the Sea of Azov.