India Worries as China Builds Ports in South Asia
A Chinese construction crew at work in Hambantota, Sri Lanka, in 2008. China has invested millions to develop the port.
HAMBANTOTA, Sri Lanka — For years, ships from other countries, laden with oil, machinery, clothes and cargo, sped past this small town near India as part of the world’s brisk trade with China.
Multimedia
Ships will dock along this long wall and other similar structures nearby once the port in Hambantota is complete.
As trade in South Asia grows, China has been developing port facilities like this one in Gwadar in the southwest of Pakistan.
Now, China is investing millions to turn this fishing hamlet into a booming new port, furthering an ambitious trading strategy in South Asia that is reshaping the region and forcing India to rethink relations with its neighbors.
As trade in the region grows more lucrative, China has been developing port facilities in Pakistan, Bangladesh and Myanmar, and it is planning to build railroad lines in Nepal. These projects, analysts say, are part of a concerted effort by Chinese leaders and companies to open and expand markets for their goods and services in a part of Asia that has lagged behind the rest of the continent in trade and economic development.
But these initiatives are irking India, whose government worries that China is expanding its sphere of regional influence by surrounding India with a “string of pearls” that could eventually undermine India’s pre-eminence and potentially rise to an economic and security threat.
“There is a method in the madness in terms of where they are locating their ports and staging points,” Kanwal Sibal, a former Indian foreign secretary who is now a member of the government’s National Security Advisory Board, said of China. “This kind of effort is aimed at counterbalancing and undermining India’s natural influence in these areas.”
India and China, the world’s two fastest-growing economies, have a history of tense relations. They share a contested Himalayan border over which they fought a war in 1962. India has given shelter to the Dalai Lama, who fled Tibet as China exerted control over it. And China has close military ties with Pakistan, with which India has fought three wars.
But the two countries also do an increasingly booming business with each other. China recently became India’s largest trading partner, and both have worked together to advance similar positions in global trade and climate change negotiations.
Chinese officials deny ulterior motives for their projects in South Asia. And top Indian leaders have tried to play down talk of a rivalry with China, saying there is enough room in the world for both economies to rise simultaneously.
As recently as the 1990s, China’s and India’s trade with four South Asian nations — Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and Pakistan — was roughly equal. But over the last decade, China has outpaced India in deepening ties.
For China, these countries provide both new markets and alternative routes to the Indian Ocean, which its ships now reach through a narrow channel between Indonesia and Malaysia known as the Strait of Malacca. India, for its part, needs to improve economic ties with its neighbors to broaden its growth and to help foster peace in the region. Some of the shift in trade toward China comes from heightened tensions between India and Pakistan, which has hampered trade between the two countries. But China has also made inroads in nations that have been more friendly with India, including Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal.
Moreover, protectionist sentiments have marred India’s relationships with its neighbors. South Asia has a free-trade agreement, but countries that are part of the pact get few benefits, economists say, because India and its neighbors refuse to lower tariffs on many goods and services to protect their own businesses. By contrast, the countries of Southeast Asia have minimal or no duties on most goods and services that they import from one another.
India has had some success in establishing closer ties with Sri Lanka, with which it has a strong bilateral trade agreement. But China has become a partner of choice for big projects here like the Hambantota port. China’s Export-Import Bank is financing 85 percent of the cost of the $1 billion project, and China Harbour Engineering, which is part of a state-owned company, is building it. Similar arrangements have been struck for an international airport being built nearby.
Sri Lankan officials want to turn Hambantota, which was devastated by the 2004 tsunami and is the home constituency for President Mahinda Rajapaksa, into the second-largest urban area in the country after the capital, Colombo. (It is the ninth-biggest today.) The government is also building a convention center, a government complex and a cricket stadium.
Sri Lanka needs foreign assistance to make those dreams a reality, because the government’s finances are stretched by a large debt it accumulated in paying for a 25-year civil war that ended in May. In 2009, the country borrowed $2.6 billion from the International Monetary Fund.
Mr. Rajapaksa has said he offered the Hambantota port project first to India, but officials there turned it down. In an interview, Jaliya Wickramasuriya, Sri Lanka’s ambassador to the United States, said the country looked for investors in America and around the world, but China offered the best terms. “We don’t have favorites,” he said.
Still, Sri Lankan officials have refused to disclose information that would allow analysts to compare China’s proposals with those submitted by other bidders. The country has also kept private details about other projects that are being financed and built by China, including a power plant, an arts center and a special economic zone.
The Sunday Times, a Sri Lankan newspaper, recently estimated that China was involved in projects totaling $6 billion — more than any other country, including India and Japan, which have historically been big donors and investors in Sri Lanka.
Harsha de Silva, a prominent economist in Colombo and an adviser to the country’s main opposition party, said the Sri Lankan government appeared to prefer awarding projects to China because it did not impose “conditions for reform, transparency and competitive bidding” that would be part of contracts with countries like India and the United States or organizations like the World Bank.
Other analysts say China is winning big projects here and elsewhere in the region because its companies offer lower costs. Chinese companies are also competitive because they have acquired a lot of expertise in building large infrastructure projects in China, said Jerry Lou, Morgan Stanley’s China strategist.
In 10 years, Chinese companies have become the biggest suppliers to ports of cranes used to move shipping containers, displacing South Korean and Japanese companies, he said. “They are running at very high efficiency and at the lowest costs,” Mr. Lou said. “China is a game-changer, rather than a new player in the world’s construction industry.”
India is starting to respond to China’s growing influence by becoming more aggressive in courting trade partners. India recently signed a free-trade deal with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and South Korea. Officials have even begun talking about signing a trade deal with China to bolster exports.
India’s chief trade negotiator, D. K. Mittal, acknowledged that the country’s economic ties with its neighbors were not as strong as they should be and blamed political distrust between the countries. But he said leaders were now determined to improve economic relations, something he said was highlighted in a recent agreement with Bangladesh.
In that deal, India agreed to sell electricity to Bangladesh, provide it with a $1 billion line of credit for infrastructure projects and reduce tariffs on imports. Bangladesh agreed to allow Indian ships to use a port that is being redeveloped by China. “The political leaders have to rise above and say, ‘I want this to happen,’ ” Mr. Mittal said in an interview. “That’s what the leaders are realizing.”
中國南亞建港口 印度憂心被圍堵編譯魏國金／特譯
中國目前在巴基斯坦、孟加拉與緬甸開發港口設施，並計畫在尼泊爾興建鐵路線，分析家認為，這些計畫是中國意圖在經貿發展遠為落後亞洲其他區域的南亞，打開並擴展其市場的努力。
然而這些計畫卻令印度疑慮，印度政府擔心中國正藉由在印度圍上「珍珠串」來擴展其區域影響力。印度國安顧問委員會委員席巴說：「他們設置港口與中途站的地點看似瘋狂，其實有其道理，這類的努力旨在抵銷、侵蝕印度在這些地區的固有的影響力。」
中國勢力深植 凌駕印度
一九九○年代，中國與印度在斯里蘭卡、孟加拉、尼泊爾與巴基斯坦四個南亞國家的貿易旗鼓相當，然而過去十年，中國在深化相關關聯上已凌駕印度。對中國而言，這些國家同時提供了新市場與往來印度洋的另外航線。
印 度與巴基斯坦的緊張，讓巴國將貿易轉向中國，然而中國也在較親印度的斯里蘭卡、孟加拉與尼泊爾有長足斬獲。以斯里蘭卡為例，雖然印、斯簽署牢固的雙邊貿易 協定，但中國卻成為斯國漢班托塔港等重大建設的開發夥伴。漢班托塔港重建計畫高達十億美元，中國進出口銀行給予融資八十五％。半國營的中國港灣工程攬下工 程，兩國並達成在該區附近興建國際機場的協議。
漢班托塔是斯國第九大城，○四年在南亞海嘯中遭重創，由於斯國債台高築，因此亟需外援才重建有望，斯國總統拉賈帕克薩曾表示，他第一個求助的對象就是印度，但遭拒絕，斯國轉向美國，並尋找全球投資人，結果中國提供的條件最優惠。
斯國官員拒絕透露中國提出的條件，以及中國投資、建設的電廠、特別經濟區等其他工程的詳細計畫。不過斯國媒體「週日時報」估計，中國涉及的工程總經費達六十億美元，遠超過印度、日本等傳統的投資主要國。
斯國經濟學家席瓦指出，政府樂於給予中國重大開發案，因為中國不會像印度、美國或世界銀行等其他國家與單位，會在協約中要求落實「改革、透明度與公開競標等條件」。
印度決加強與鄰國經貿
印 度的首席貿易談判代表米塔爾承認，印度與鄰國的經濟關聯已不若往昔般強固，不過也強調政治領袖已決心促進與鄰國的經貿，他說，印度最近與孟加拉簽訂一個協 議，據此印度同意售予孟加拉電力，並提供十億美元基礎建設貸款、降低進口關稅，孟加拉則同意印度船隻使用中國修建的港口。 （取材自紐約時報）
沒有留言:
張貼留言