India is gradually losing South Asia to rival China

As the most powerful state in South Asia, India for decades has wielded considerable influence throughout the subcontinent. In some places, like Bhutan, it essentially controlled the country’s foreign policy for decades and still has massive influence. 

In Nepal, India has wielded so much power, through investments in the country and dominance over its economy, that it often seemed like a vassal state. 

At least until the late 2010s and early 2020s. In others, like Sri Lanka, New Delhi had tried to build on old ties with new deals, such as plans to upgrade the port of Colombo. 

ln Bangladesh under the long rule of Sheikh Hasina and the Awami League, the country was too big for India to directly control policy. But it did build security ties.

This cooperation, which was matched with a sharp uptick in bilateral trade, at times led Sheikh Hasina’s government to battle insurgents from northeastern India who had fled into Bangladesh, hoping for a safe haven. 

Hasina’s government aggressively jailed and often deported such fighters back to India, pleasing the New Delhi government. 

Defense systems

Yet, in roughly the last two years, the tide on the subcontinent has shifted dramatically against India. Pakistan, of course, has long been its adversary while also being one of China’s closest partners in the world. 

Now, as China modernizes, that partnership benefits Pakistan in its balancing act against India. In a recent ourbreak of hostiles, Pakistan used modern Chinese air-to-air missiles, defense systems, and advanced fighter planes to significant effect. 

Other parts of the subcontinent that had enjoyed close ties to India have also quickly shifted to build warmer links to China. Sheikh Hasina and her pro-India government no longer rules Bangladesh. 

Last year, she was ousted by massive protests against rising authoritarianism and corruption. 

The hastily formed interim government led by Muhammad Yunus quickly turned to China, which has offered billions in aid and infrastructure projects. 

It came as anti-India sentiment spiked in Bangladesh as people were able to speak out to condemn New Delhi’s ties to Hasina. India gave her asylum, which further rankled Bangladeshis. 

In the past two years, leaders who favored India also have lost power in Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and Nepal. Last year, the party of Maldives president Mohamed Muizzu won a landslide victory in parliament. 

He had won the presidency the year before on a platform of “India out,” a campaign against the country’s longstanding influence over the island nation. 

Muizzu has openly welcomed much closer links to China, and made a visit to Beijing to meet President Xi Jinping earlier this year. 

The indebted state badly needs external financing and is looking to China for it, even though it already owes much of its debt to Beijing. A former top Maldives government official told Al Jazeera that “China may now be more amenable. 

[It] has a lot of leverage, and will likely seek favors in return, including the ratification of a Free Trade Agreement [with the Maldives] that has languished since 2014 and access to key East-West trade routes that Maldives straddles. 

Domestic politics

“Indian and Western diplomats have previously expressed worries this access may pave the way for China to secure an outpost in the Indian Ocean,” the official said.

In Nepal and Sri Lanka, too, Indian influence has shifted amid changes in domestic politics. In a shocking victory in Sri Lanka last year, a leftist alliance, the National People’s Power or NPP, won both the presidency and control of parliament. 

The alliance has not stoked the sort of anti-India sentiment that occurred in the Maldives or Bangladesh, as this year it signed a defense cooperation agreement with India. 

Still, the NPP clearly favors Beijing and has aggressively wooed China. After being elected president, NPP leader Anura Dissanayake lavished praise on China. 

The Sri Lankan ruling alliance held a pro-China rally on May 1 with guests from the CCP. Moreover, the president has regularly emphasized that Sri Lanka should follow Beijing’s economic model. China has reciprocated with aid, investment, and closer links. 

And in Nepal, K P Sharma Oli, the head of the Communist Party of Nepal, has been prime minister since last July. He is a true believer in communism – probably much more than most Chinese senior officials.

The last time he was PM in the mid-2010s, he rapidly upgraded ties to China and was vociferously anti-India.

This time, Oli has already visited Xi in Beijing, even though Nepalese prime ministers traditionally make their first foreign trip to New Delhi. So far, he has yet to visit India. 

Oli has also relaunched joint military drills with China and a framework for significant  investment from the Belt and Road Initiative into Nepal. 

India is still an enormous force on the subcontinent, and far beyond. 

Close partner

Indeed, it is a major strategic and economic factor in Southeast Asia, an increasingly powerful player in global multilateral institutions, a close partner of the United States and the fastest-growing major economy in the world.

It has has already surpassed Japan to become the fourth-largest, by GDP, on earth. 

But even with all of this growing global might, the fact that India is losing its neighborhood to China limits its ability to project power further afield. Now, it has to invest much more in resources and diplomacy to win back neighbors to boost the feeling of stability at home.

Joshua Kurlantzick is a senior fellow for Southeast Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations.

This edited article was published by the Council on Foreign Relations under a Creative Commons license. Read the original here.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy of ChinaFactor.