Good neighbours
RISING BHARAT
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It may seem strange for Prime Minister Modi to pay a state visit to Bhutan, at the start of the election season at home. The tiny neighbour where the Indian Rupee is legal tender, and national economic progress is measured by the Global Happiness Index, would seem hardly strategic at a time where the Prime Minister could've attended a BJP rally or visited one of his mega infrastructure projects to highlight the nation's progress under his ten year rule. Yes. But. But China.
China's encircling of India.
Though both BRICS members, China's foreign policy has been one of encircling India wherever it can. A clockwise view of India's geography leaves little to guess. Starting with the one neighbour India sees as most problematic, China controls the Port of Gwadar and the hinterland supply routes in Pakistan and has been pumping millions of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) funds into the military-led country. In Aksai Chin, China's military physically occupies Indian territory. A map recently published by Beijing leaves little room for guessing: Aksai Chin is China, irrespective of international law. In Nepal China is becoming an ever larger and omni-present economic power. In Bhutan, it is building settlements far beyond the border, effectively annexing large parts of Bhutanese territory. A previous map coming out of Beijing had marked the entire Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh as China, with towns and villages renamed in Mandarin. Myanmar's junta relies heavily on China for almost everything the international sanctions prohibit it from obtaining. Militarily, the country has been nothing short of a vasal state of China for decades, and the junta's wars against its own minority populations put pressure in India's borders, especially in Indian states that are conflict prone themselves, including Nagaland and Manipur. The Indian Ocean sees a start increase of Chinese Navy activity. The Port of Hambamtota in Sri Lanka feel into Chinese hands, and the Maldives' "India Out" campaign was quickly followed by a visit of Prime Minister Mohammed Muizzu to President Xi Jinping, and by the signature of a flurry of economic and military accords including permission for China to build a naval base in the Maldives. China's naval base in Djibouti finalises India's maritime encirclement, from Djibouti, to Gwadar, to the Maldives, to Hambamtota to potentially even a Panama style canal through Thailand, the Chinese Navy has a full net around South India, whereas its army eats away at North India and keeps in place military governments in the West and the East.
The threat to India's global security seems real, and thus the impediment for India to conduct a positive and credible Neighbourhood First policy. It is in this light that we should see Prime Minister Modi's close relationship with Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina of Bangladesh as well as the state visit to Bhutan. Losing the Maldives over a war of words, and, let's face it, ego, may prove to be a costly mistake. It was the last pearl in China's string of pearls choking India.