National 7 (Spotlight Weekly)

Relations Between China And SAARC:

By Ma Jiali

(Ma Jiali is currently a Research Professor at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations, Beijing. He has been engaged in the study of Indian History for the last several years. His areas of research are focused on South Asian security and relations between South Asian countries including India, Pakistan and Nepal many times during last ten years. He has three books and more than 150 papers published in recent years, including on issues on security in South Asia, India's strategic positions, the relations between China and India and great power policy towards South Asian Countries. He was one of the delegates for Track Two Dialogue between China and India for all of four rounds and a member of China-India Eminent Persons Group Forum.)

South Asia is China's close neighbor. Thus development of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) will have a direct impact on the stability and development of China as well as the good-neighborly foreign policy implemented by the Chinese government. As a result, China has positively evaluated all progresses gained by SAARC since its founding and expressed its willingness to work together with the latter to play a constructive role in promoting peace and development in the region.

Positive Evaluation Given by China on SAARC

Owing to the long-term exploitation and suppression by the imperialists and colonialists, economic growth rate in South Asian countries remained slow and economic foundation poor. The current population of 1.3 billion in South Asia accounts for more than 22% of the world total. South Asia is also one of the most densely populated areas in the world, where the density of population is more than 230 per square kilometer. However, about 40% South Asians are in abject poverty and 52% are illiterate. In recent years, South Asian countries have adopted positive economic reform and opening policies and speeded up regional cooperation in the hope to promote economic development, elevate living standards of the people, narrow the gap with other economies and fundamentally eliminate the poverty and backwardness. And they have made some progress harvested in these aspects. Generally speaking, South Asia is still the most under developed region in the world with Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal and Maldives labeled by the UN as the least-developed nations. South Asian countries used to console themselves by comparing with sub-Sahara African countries. Yet according to a study conducted by the Pakistani human resources development center in 1998, the per capita national income in South Asia was only US$ 309, lower than the per capita national income of US$ 555 in the poorest sub-Sahara countries. That statistics data shocked leaders in the region and made them understand that the only way out was to strengthen cooperation with each other. This is the background why South Asian leaders are calling for South Asian Revitalization and self-reliance. All the SAARC summit meetings have contributed to the regional economic development and poverty-relief. Chinese people as well as its government has been watching closely at the progress made by it since the very beginning. I am always paying attention to this important organization ever since its first summit held in 1985 and have produced five articles in this subject. The latest work was an analysis on the Kathmandu declaration released by the SAARC summit held in January 2002. In that article, I have highly appreciated the contribution of the leaders of both India and Pakistan to the moderation of tension in the region and all the efforts made by SAARC as to eliminating widespread poverty, expanding of economic cooperation, promoting preferential trade, cracking down women abduction and safeguarding/improving children's rights.

Necessity Of Building A Strong Sino-SAARC Relationship

Economic globalization, liberalization, regionalization, and trade liberalization are blossoming trends in the world today. Both China and SAARC countries must answer an important question: how to better cope with our common challenges?

For the part of SAARC: SAARC was established in 1985 with seven members of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. The objectives of SAARC are:

To promote the welfare of the peoples of South Asia and to improve their qualities of life;

To accelerate economic growth, social progress and cultural development in the region and to provide all individuals the opportunity to live in dignity and to realize their full potentials;

To promote and strengthen collective self-reliance among the countries of South Asia;

To contribute to mutual trust, understanding and appreciation of one another's problems;

To promote active collaboration and mutual assistance in the economic social, cultural, technical and scientific fields;

To strengthen cooperation with other developing countries;

To strengthen cooperation among themselves in international forums on matters of common interests; and

To cooperate with international and regional organizations with similar aims and purposes.

In the past seventeen years, peace and stability are treasured and maintained by all regional countries. South Asia occupies huge area of land, accommodates large population, contains plentiful natural resources and holds great market potential. Their mutually supplementary economies provide them with bright future of cooperation. There are also some other advantages for these countries, which are linked by common mountains and rivers, i.e. traditional friendship, common humanist background, frequent personal exchanges and close economic and trade ties. These favorable conditions could become solid foundation for the regional development and stability.

A win-win outcome is not impossible. Nevertheless, due to those unfavorable factors like capital, technology, education, resources and market, South Asia is far from self-sufficient. Therefore, it is a natural demand for SAARC to further develop relations with big countries like China.

For the part of China: The objectives of the Chinese foreign policy are to safeguard world peace and to promote common development. We are willing to work together with other people and devote ourselves to the lofty course of peace and development. Particularly, we shall push the economic globalization to the righteous direction of common prosperity so as to benefit all the countries including the developing ones. The report to the 16th National Congress of the Communist Party of China stated clearly that China would continuously emphasize good-neighborliness, harmonization and peaceful coexistence with surrounding countries and promote regional cooperation and exchanges.

As a neighbor to South Asia, China especially hopes to develop good relations with the South Asian countries and SAARC. Such good relations should include mutually beneficial economic and trade relations, healthy political relations and stable security relations. We would like to contribute to development and progress in South Asia. It is also in the interests of China's own prosperity and stability. China and South Asia are close neighbors linked by common mountains and rivers. We share lengthy common borders with four SAARC members: Bhutan, India, Nepal and Pakistan. We are separate geographically, yet mutually beneficial trade and cultural exchanges could be traced back to the long time ago. The 1.3 billion Chinese population plus another 1.3 billion population in South Asia stands for almost half of the world total population. We should seriously study the question of how to improve the welfare of these 2.6 billion people. I believe one answer lies in the good relationship between the 1.3 billion Chinese and 1.3 billion South Asians.

If we establish mutually supplementary relations and deal with challenges together, we should be able to thoroughly do away with the poverty and backwardness. Let us throw the caps labeled with poverty and backwardness into the Indian Ocean and the Pacific.

Restrictive Factors to the Sino-SAARC Relations

At this moment, there are quite some restrictive factors to the Sino-SAARC relations.

First, the slow-paced cooperation within SAARC as a regional cooperative organization, the progress gained so far by SAARC is not satisfactory. Not all the potentials have been transformed into practical achievements. Current internal cooperation has yet reached the proper level. It is true that South Asian countries are somewhat supplementary in the sense of economic scale and development level. Nonetheless, being the under developed even the least-developed countries, South Asian countries are gravely relying on the assistance and loans provided by the World Bank and the developed countries, which in turn resulted in the heavy burden of foreign debts and shortage of foreign exchanges reserve and investment capitals. That is why it is difficult for them to extend cooperation into the industrial and financial sectors.

Besides, the inner-SAARC trade grew very slow too. There are many reasons behind, among which the most important one is the poor level of mutual supplement. The key export goods of South Asian countries are the same primary and labor-intensive products, i.e. tea, carpet, jute, textile and garments. So they can hardly absorb others exports. On the top of their import list are industrial equipment, fuel and machinery, which they could not provide to others either. According to the statistics, trade among South Asian countries only stood for seven percent of their total foreign trade. In addition, the trade balance within the region is also a problem.

Second, the different perceptions within SAARC - China and SAARC have not discussed over the issue of establishing necessary relations. Because no consensus has been reached within SAARC regarding this matter. When some bilateral relations remain to be tense, certain SAARC members are suspicious of close ties with China, worrying about Chinese partial policies might hurt their political interests. Speaking form the history and reality, China's relations with Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are always very smooth while the Sino-Indian relationship, though in improvement, is far from ideal. Some scholars believe that from the bottom of its heart, India was against any other big power thrusting into South Asia and China was no exception. It should be the reason why India holds negative attitude towards any relations between SAARC and big powers. The absence of diplomatic ties between China and Bhutan is another unfavorable element though we do have much common grounds with each other. According to the SAARC charter, decisions at all levels shall be on the basis on unanimity. In other words SAARC could not come to a decision if any member objects.

Third, the poor-communication and SAARC. China is now devoting itself into the course of modernization. To improve the level of the material and cultural life of the people and to realize well-off society are the utmost important and overriding strategic task for China in the next decades. In order to ensure this goal, China pays great attention to building up a secure and stable surrounding environment. Therefore, China attaches great importance in developing and improving relations with its neighbors and strengthening relations and interactions with regional cooperative organizations. The guidelines for China are to carry out good-neighbor diplomacy and be a responsible, reliable big power. This will not be only in Chinese interest but also in the interest of its neighbors and the whole region. China only wants to establish good relations with surrounding countries and regional organizations, we have no intention to interfere in other's internal affairs. China has already set up a good tie with ASEAN and built the Shanghai cooperation organization together with Russia and Central Asian countries, which plays an important role in stabilizing regional situation, promoting economic and trade cooperation and fighting against terrorism, religious extremes and ethnical separatism. China always appreciates initiatives conducive to the sub-regional development and stability. This is why China holds a positive attitude towards building a dialogue and cooperative mechanism with SAARC.

Some people do not quite understand Chinese foreign policy; some even misunderstand Chinese security strategy; and still some are taking a wait-and-see attitude towards Chinese good-willingness of developing political and economic relation with its neighbors. These unnecessary concerns and suspicions have directly affected communication, exchange and mutual trust between SAARC and China.

Principal and Fields of Sino-SAARC Relations

To observe basic principles: To build up a constructive relationship, which is based on mutual respect, equal consultation, progressiveness, mutual benefits and win-win outcome, between China and SAARC will serve the interests of both. Mutual respect means to respect each other's sovereignty and collective decision and not to interfere in other's internal affairs and foreign policies. Progressiveness means to adopt the guideline of easier part first and starting from the lower level respecting the reality and respecting the common desire of our people. Mutual benefit and a win-win outcome means to apply those well-recognized international norms to bilateral cooperation, to benefit both sides by supplementary means and to strive for mutually satisfactory effect.

Tasks at the moment: I think both China and SAARC should make efforts to promote the mutually beneficially relationship between them in order to serve the fundamental interests of their 2.6 billion citizens. On the one hand, I hope good bilateral relations could be achieved within SAARC. This will create a kind of favorable atmosphere for peace, stability and development in the region, clear away political obstacles for internal unity and lead to a consensus to develop relations with China. On the other hand, China must fully recognize the importance of developing relationship with SAARC and show out more sincerity in every aspect. To this end, China should enlighten its business circle and encourage its scholars to explore the fields and means of cooperation with SAARC.

To build some mechanisms step by step: Today's conference is a good beginning. In the future the Secretariat of SAARC should sponsor more Track II dialogues with China. We might create a forum for senior officials from both sides first, inviting people from different departments, should we share the common desire to develop official relations. Then we could even hold summit meetings at a mature time.

To explore the cooperation fields: China and SAARC will find many fields to cooperate with each other. At this stage, we could conduct some study on the feasibility of cooperation in agriculture products processing, infrastructure, exploitation of water resources, information technology, education and training, family planning, environmental protection, tourism cultural exchanges and creating a cooperation fund, etc.

Prospects on Future Sino-SAARC Relations

To simply discuss the issue of building relations between China and SAARC is very meaningful. Today we have talked about the resources as well as the difficulties for building such a relationship. I hope follow-up discussion might one day turn our words into deeds. I also hope the proposed cooperation could be realized as early as possible so that people in the region, in Asia and in the whole world would be blessed. China wants to make good neighbors, respectful friends and cooperative partners with SAARC. Bearing in mind the goal of mutual benefits and a win-win outcome, we are willing to work hand in hand with SAARC to contribute to the peace and development of our region.