India and China are at the brink of war Afghanistan needs a wise decision

Since some time China and India are warming up to contain one another China has kicked off Belt and Road Initiative. This initiative (BRI) puts China at the heart of the new pan-Eurasian economic order the effort has drawn commitments from over 60 countries and international organisations and has been described as China’s project of the century.

The massive undertaking is divided into two main components: the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road. The “Belt” is a series of overland routes that will collectively connect China with Western Europe through the resource-rich countries of Central Asia. The “Road,” counter-intuitively, refers to a dizzying sea route that flows around Southeast and South Asia, through Africa, and into the Mediterranean.

In countermeasures India has a continent-crossing plan of Washington-Tokyo oriented (South-Central Asia policy) which is called North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC), the objective is to link India with Central Asia, Caucasus and Europe thru Iran and possibly Afghanistan. India has been trying to interweave itself deeper within the infrastructural and economic fabric of Eurasia.

The NSTC is a multimodal trade corridor which extends from India to Caucasus, linking the India Ocean and the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea, which lies from Jawaharlal Nehru and Kandla port in western India to the port of Bandar Abbas in Iran, then go road and rail north thru Baku to the Caucasus and beyond.

The second route goes along the eastern side of the Caspian Sea, connecting the new Kazakhstan-Turkmenistan-Iran railway to amalgamate with the North-South Transnational Corridor.

The third route linking India with Chabahar port of Iran then goes to Afghanistan extends to Central Asia. India is a big driver of enhancements to Iran’s Chabahar port. The country (India) is also backing a 218-kilometer road connecting the heart of Afghanistan with a border to Iran, the Kaladan multimodal project in Myanmar, the Trans-Asian Railway (TAR), which goes all the way from Dhaka to Istanbul, the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway, and, possibly, developing Trincomalee port in Sri Lanka as well as Delhi-Kabul Air Corridor in order to bypass and debase Beijing-oriented Pakistani Corridor.

There are some speculations India is considering to deploy around 15 thousand troops to Afghanistan to deter threats posed by Pakistan and to safeguard its strategic projects in the region. Meantime India and China are pushing the blame game accusing one another of aggressive actions at the border points which revitalise the Sino-Indian border dispute.

The sovereignty over two large and various smaller separate pieces of territory have been contested between China and India. The westernmost, Aksai Chin, is claimed by India as part of Jammu and Kashmir and region of Ladakh but controlled and administered as part of Chinese autonomous region of Xinjiang. The other large disputed territory, the easternmost, lies south of the McMahon Line.

It was referred to as the North East Frontier Agency and is now called Arunachal Pradesh. The McMahon line was part of 1914 Simla Convention between British-India and Tibet an agreement rejected by China which caused Sino-Indian war in 1962. The border dispute was in somehow resolved in 1996 as part of Confidence-Building measures.

But tension recently has risen as India has stationed sophisticated military hardware at the border, namely after receiving green signals from Washington and Tokyo, meanwhile India accuses China of acts of aggression at border, India claims, that China has ordered its military units to be positioned at the crossing line, therefore India has taken reactionary steps.

According to the geostrategic spot of Afghanistan, the country would be in one way or the other involved in a struggle of leadership between Delhi and Beijing, on one hand, there is America-Japan-India pact which is to be coming to existence, on the other hand, China-Pakistan-Russia accord makes its way forward.

It is really inflexible for the landlocked country (Afghanistan) to position itself between the above-said giants. If Afghanistan complies with Chinese initiative, it will risk the loss of its strategic partners; America, India and Japan.

Afghanistan totally depends on Washington and in somehow on Delhi without the direct assistance of Washington and Delhi-Kabul regime would collapse in a twinkle eyes.

In addition, America is critically in opposition to Chinese initiative (BRI) according to the intelligence speculations; China is endeavouring for the Dedollarization of the world market, which contradicts the national interest of America and its allies. It is assumed to be a strategic threat to a global forward policy of America.

If Afghanistan obeys Indian initiative which backed by Washington and Tokyo, the nation will face serious security challenges as part of China-Pakistan-Russia countermeasures.

The countries (China, Pakistan and Russia) would thrust their military and political proxies to overthrow the Washington and Delhi backed regime in Kabul.

In this concern, Kabul needs solemn diplomatic steps to take in order to establish the proper balance between the two giant blocs.

Kabul lacks a diplomatic capacity to portray the national interest of the country and meantime to balance, the relations with the two gigantic, geo-economic & geopolitical initiatives.

It requires a third neutral state or non-state entity to play “Shuttle-Diplomacy” to pursue a national interest of the country in one hand on the other institute steadiness amid the mentioned Blocs.

As per the assessments of the “Counter Narco-Terrorism Alliance” the state of Switzerland would be a better choice to carry out the shuttle-diplomacy for Afghanistan.

Switzerland has proven its neutrality to resolve numerous disputes among scores of countries; the nation has hosted several dialogues among a number of governmental and non-governmental bodies for decades.

Afghanistan necessitates rethinking and reformulating of its foreign policy objectives to put up with the national interest of the nation and the interest of its strategic allies.