Modi needs a strategy for post-Trump world

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s two-day visit to Sri Lanka this week had been crafted quite differently from a normal trip to a neighbouring country.

Mr Modi was in Colombo as chief guest at the celebration of the International Vesak Day to mark key moments in the life of Lord Buddha. His visit to Kandy in the highlands, the abode of Tamils of Indian origin who migrated in the 19th century as indentured labour at tea plantations, sends a clear political signal to Tamil Nadu. These Tamils are distinct from the Tamil population of Jaffna and Eastern Sri Lanka, who constitute a much older presence. There were no agreements or memoranda of understanding to be signed on this visit.

That had been taken care of by Sri Lankan Prime Minster Ranil Wickeresinghe during his India visit last month when a MOU was signed for cooperation in projects that involved energy, infrastructure and connectivity. The MOU was detached from Mr Modi’s visit as political backlash had erupted in Sri Lanka over its signing as the Opposition there alleged a surrender of sovereignty.

Significant among those projects is the creation of a strategic oil storage hub at Trincomalee, a beautiful natural harbour with a narrow entrance and a crescent of hills protecting it. From the British era there exist a hundred-odd oil storage tanks, of strategic advantage during the Second World War for battles in the Indo-Pacific maritime region against the Japanese, of which some are already controlled by a Sri Lankan subsidiary of Indian Oil. Now the plan is to expand this cooperation to over 70. An oil refinery is also proposed, which would make sense as at present one of the major items of export from India is oil products.

Sri Lanka leaked the news on the eve of Mr Modi’s visit that it was denying permission to a Chinese submarine to dock in Colombo. This was in bold distinction to the wrong signal sent out when such docking had taken place in 2014 soon after Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to India.

Like the Chinese sensitivity over the South China Sea and their first island chain, India too has red lines regarding the military activities of foreign powers in maritime nations on its Indian Ocean periphery — such as Sri Lanka, the Maldives and to some extent Mauritius and the Seychelles. China has tested these red lines as its economic and naval strength has increased.

The meeting in China on May 14-15, to be attended by officials of 150-odd nations and over two dozen heads of government or state, is to market its vision of One Belt One Road, or overland and maritime connectivity.

The Sri Lankan government of President Maithripala Srisena realises that it needs to rebalance relations with India and China as former President Mahinda Rajapaksa had tilted excessively towards the latter. The submarine incident aside, Sri Lankan Prime Minister Ranil Wickeresinghe heads to the Chinese meeting on OBOR the day after Mr Modi returns home. Thus it is clever diplomatic see-sawing by Sri Lanka.

India also must realise that the Chinese presence in its neighbourhood is a reality, which at best can be balanced, but not eliminated, by appropriate carrots and sticks. For instance, while the Chinese presence in Hambantaota may now be unavoidable, India’s footprint in Trincomalee enables a strategic toehold both to ameliorate the economic condition of the Tamil populace by providing jobs and stimulating the local economy but by marrying Indian and Sri Lankan strategic interests. Among other things, the local production of petroleum products would balance bilateral trade, now largely in India’s favour since the 2000 Free Trade Agreement.

Mr Modi, it is argued, is effectively using Buddhism as the new magic wand of Indian diplomacy. That is neither a new approach nor may it eventually prove effective to counter the Chinese influence, which rests on financial clout and the ability to deliver massive projects quickly using China’s state-owned enterprises. These ventures have often caused a political backlash as the immediate benefit to the local population is slow, or if done without proper due diligence are debt traps. That has happened in the case of Hambantaota and may dog Indian ventures too.

Effectively, China has managed to split the 10-member Asean to India’s east, and its demise may be a matter of time, unless the United States under President Donald Trump discovers the political will to counter it.

Similar dissonance has been created by China in the Saarc region. The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), passing through what India considers as Pakistan-occupied parts of the erstwhile Kingdom of Kashmir, puts India in a diplomatic dilemma. With the massive attendance at the OBOR meet, including by Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka, Indian attendance at a high level would lend legitimacy to CPEC.

India’s absence would isolate India. Perhaps the middle path would be low-level participation, even by a junior diplomat from the Indian embassy in Beijing.

The advent of Donald Trump is challenging the Indian strategic calculus, which has been based in this century on the assumption that the US sees an empowered India as a counter-balance to a rising China. Additionally, Pakistan had been slowly put on the backfoot on the terrorism issue and largely isolated in the Saarc region.

Both premises are under challenge now. Mr Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, chaperoned by old China hand Henry Kissinger, is creating a Sino-US re-engagement in which there may be reduced space for India. Pakistan is to attend the Trump-Saudi Sunni conclave in Riyadh on May 21 to peddle its military utility to an anti-Iran alliance.

In this context, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s neighbourhood forays are valiant attempts of a tactical nature. What he needs is a major rejig of assumptions, aides and tactics in line with a grand strategy for post-Trump and post-Brexit world.