Growing China-South Asia ties

South's Asia's potentials for forging and enhancing multi-faceted cooperation with this important neighbour are enormous. But not much concrete ideas and steps were taken before exactly in this direction even though nations of this region felt that such interactions with China could be extremely fruitful. China, the largest country in the world in terms of population, is presently catching global attention as an emerging economic power. The politically socialist country has adopted innovated open economic programmes and is establishing itself as a strong economic power in a rather amazing speed by maintaining a commendable steady annual growth over the last several years. The country is also open to economic and other cooperation with neighbours. Being a vast country, some of its provinces are close to South Asia and central Chinese government has encouraged these provinces to forge closer regional cooperation.

China and its neighbours are now coming together with specific measures to promoting cooperation in economic, trade and business, communications and other fields. A conference in Kunming, capital of Yunan province, late last year, which was termed as " China-South Asia Business forum" has shed enough light in this area and the ball seems to be now rolling. Yunan province, seen as China's gateway with South East and South Asia, had lunched the "Kunming Initiative" a few years ago, but without much progress. However, the idea has been praised by all parties concerned and of late concrete steps are being considered and discussed for multi-faceted cooperation under this initiative. The matter was discussed during Chinese prime minister's visit to South Asia and with the countries which have great stakes in the idea. Bangladesh and India among the SAARC family are involved in the "Kunming Initiative". The other country in this venture is Myanmar, which is not exactly in South Asia but in the neighbouring South East Asia.

Tap here to add The Daily Star as a trusted source

The welfare oriented programmes of SAARC need interactions with and assistance from outside world. Nearly twenty years later, the forum has made modest progress, but many feel that it is time that SAARC swings into more concrete action oriented programmes. The last and 12th SAARC summit in Islamabad felt that the regional grouping now needs to swing more into effective action oriented welfare activities. The signing of agreement on South Asian Free Trade (SAFTA) and stronger emphasis on unremitting efforts for poverty alleviation in world's one of the worst poverty-ridden regions on one hand reflected the forum's eagerness to tackle critical issues inextricably linked with economic emancipation and protocol on curbing terrorism, on the other, underlined the willingness to improve overall climate in the area as far as possible. But it is the core economic matters that will help improve the socio-economic conditions of the member countries, particularly the lesser developed ones should now catch the imagination of the SAARC leaders in a far bigger way in their future programmes. Here SAARC can be benefited from greater links with nearby ASEAN and big neighbour China.

Against this background, the "China-South Asia Business Forum" meeting in Kunming was an event in right direction and top business leaders from the region attended it. Bangladesh's strong team was led by FBCCI president. What was noteworthy is the support from China's central government towards Beijing's economic cooperation with South Asia. China's assistant minister for foreign affairs Shen Guofang, traveled to Kunming from the central capital and assured the forum that his government would go all out in encouraging cooperation with South Asia initiated by the Yunan province, whose vice Governor Shao Qiwei is a driving force behind the regional and sub-regional cooperation. He was also keen for bilateral cooperation with Bangladesh and led a high powered team here last year to discuss concrete issues. A Dhaka-Kunming direct air route is now a bright possibility and may take shape by the middle of 2005.It it finally does, this will help Sino-Bangladesh cooperation in addition to the regional framework. The Chinese ambassador in Bangladesh Chai Xi told a seminar here sometime ago that his country is very enthusiastic to push the "Kunming Initiative", but deplo-red that same spirit is not exactly noticeable among other countries linked with the enterprise.

The visit of the Chinese premier to four South Asian countries took place at a right time and this is expected to provide the much needed push to Sino-South Asia cooperation and also the "Kunming Initiative", which has several concrete programme on hand, like road and air communications, to pave the way for regional and sub-regional cooperation that will help economic and social advancement for all involved. Interactions with China can serve rightly in that direction and what is required is the follow up actions both at bilateral and multilateral levels. There should be no slackening in this effort since regional cooperation holds the key for progress of developing countries. Bangladesh should pursue follow up actions on areas of agreement reached bilaterally during the Chinese premier's visit and also spare no efforts to carry forward the "Kunming Initiative" as well as on Beijing's collaboration with South Asia collectively.

Zaglul Ahmed Chowdhury is a senior journalist.