The Diplomat on Decision Time for Bangladesh:
In its 45-year history as an independent state, Bangladesh has never built a new port. While $60 billion of annual trade currently pours through the country’s two existing seaports, Chittagong and Mongla, both are too shallow for large container ships and require costly load transfers to smaller vessels to get cargo in and out — an added step that can cost an additional $15,000 per day and severely decreases the ports’ global competitiveness.
However, finding solutions to this problem has proven problematic for Bangladesh. But this isn’t because of a lack of options, a deficit of investors, or even a dearth of international support, but exactly the opposite: too many powerful players are pushing for too many contending plans. This has left Bangladesh geopolitically stalemated, making and breaking deals, going with one project and then changing position and going with another. Ultimately, this plethora of options has pitted China, Japan, and India in direct competition with each other to build Bangladesh’s first deep sea port.
Although a small country, Bangladesh is of clutch geopolitical importance, being located in the armpit of India and right on the Indian Ocean. The Indian Ocean region contains 25 percent of the world’s land, 40 percent of its oil and gas reserves, and a third of the global population. It hosts one of the world’s busiest and most important shipping lanes, which supplies East Asia with the bulk of its Middle Eastern crude oil. Dhaka is still politically and economically pliable–like a ball of clay–and has become one of the preeminent global staging grounds of interests from east and west, which are trying to mold the country to be what they want it to be and not get pushed out of the game. Bangladesh is a keystone nation in the region, balancing together the contending influences of India, China, the United States, and Japan.http://thediplomat.com/2016/06/bangladeshs-deep-sea-port-problem/
Swarajya on India's Stake in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor:
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| http://www.hindustantimes.com/world/from-china-to-pakistan-a-well-thought-out-3-000km-lifeline/story-ms4IozCLW0IPwwsLAvMYWI.html |
Looking at the CPEC corridor from an economic perspective, CPEC offers a huge potential in terms of leveraging connectivity due to India’s unique geographical position. India can use CPEC to increase its access to the Middle Eastern as well as the Central Asian countries. The Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline could be constructed under the aegis of CPEC, which can provide it with the requisite funds and geo-political support. China’s Iran railway project is one project which will increase connectivity between India and Iran, an initiative which India has been unable to pursue on its own due to resistance from Pakistan. Connecting CPEC with the International North South Transport Corridor can further gravitate an economic power shift from the US-EU axis to an Asia-EU axis, which will immensely benefit India.
Strategically, India needs to be cautious about joining CPEC as it passes through the China-annexed parts of Jammu and Kashmir, and joining it can weaken India’s claim over these territories. India does not have the option to sit in isolation because that will further increase Chinese influence in Pakistan as well as in the Middle East and Central Asia. Increased cooperation between Russia and China, under the auspices of CPEC, can further distance Russia away from India and bring it closer to Pakistan, which is a potentially troubling scenario for India.
Plus SCMP on US losing its way at the Security & Economic Dialogue:
“The current format of the dialogue has turned into an extremely large gathering of officials and it is not efficient to have so many ministers and deputy ministers involved at the same time,” said David Dollar, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Brookings Institution.
He said President Xi Jinping had consolidated most economic decision-making power, limiting the role of ministries. “This has resulted in a slow pace of economic reform and makes the dialogue between the US and Chinese technocrats less relevant,” he said.Scott Kennedy, of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, also based in Washington, said he expected the new US leader would rework the format.
“The strategic and economic dialogue has become less focused on genuinely strategic issues, and spends too much energy on quotidian issues that should be managed through the regular bureaucratic process,” Kennedy said.http://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy-defence/article/1968698/building-better-table-what-next-china-us-strategic-and
And The National Interest on Japan's Return to Heian Diplomacy with China:
Japan, having understood its precarious position vis-à-vis China as early as the 9th century found it prudent to buffer and nullify (防范/Fángfàn/予防) itself against the power and might of the Sino-centric system by distancing itself from the cultural, political and economic largess of ancient China. Returning to this one thousand years old, well-practiced statecraft can ensure Japan avoids an arms race with China, maintain its post World War II pacifist tradition and continue engaging with China on its own terms while not being vulnerable to China's size and the influence that comes with that size.
Today, Japanese foreign policy makers seem to be applying a similar choice vis-à-vis China. We can see this at several different levels including economic, political and security relations. At the economic level, Japan is both engaging and reorienting its interactions with China to secure market access, to dampen the potential for political friction affecting Japanese business profits and avoid being dominated by the expansion of the Chinese market. It is doing this at several levels. First, as a result of anti-Japanese sentiments following territorial incidents in 2005, 2010 and 2014 which negatively impacted Japanese businesses in China, Japanese business have shifted their manufacturing strategy to one in which the Chinese production network was a platform for global exports of Chinese made Japanese products to one in which products are made in China by Chinese for Chinese with Japanese technologies. This strategy enables Japanese businesses to continue to profit from the Chinese market while importantly it insulates them from the potential problems associated with souring Sino-Japanese relations like we witnessed following the nationalization of the Senkaku Islands.http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/revealed-japans-new-china-strategy-has-ancient-roots-16478
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