In July 2022 local time, Sri Lanka’s economic crisis triggered large-scale protests. On July 9, Sri Lanka capital Colombo, a large number of protesters broke into the presidential palace, and the police drove and sprayed tear gas to disperse the protesting crowd. (People's Vision/Picture)
"In 2022, South Asia will see political stability and chaos, some economies will be happy and some will be sad, the industrial chain supply chain will be reshaped at an accelerated pace, the regional security situation will improve, and foreign relations will be increasingly affected by extraterritorial influences." Chen Lijun, vice president of the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences, summarized it with five characteristics.
In 2022, the security situation in South Asia will be relatively stable. It is a year with fewer regional conflicts and less impact in recent years. Although major events such as turmoil in Sri Lanka, political changes in Pakistan, and general elections in Nepal occurred, there were no major contradictions and conflicts internally or externally.
However, this does not mean that the security situation in South Asia has fundamentally improved, and the vulnerability is still obvious.
"India's great power strategy, Hindu nationalism, Indo-US interaction under the Indo-Pacific strategy , changes in regional extremism and counter-terrorism situations, and the stalled economic growth of many countries in the region." Professor Chu Liangyin, vice president of Sichuan University said.
Amid crises and changes, what impact will the regional game in South Asia have? Under new risks and challenges, what kind of complexity will the geostrategic situation face? These issues have become the focus of attention of experts and scholars at home and abroad.
A few days ago, at the "Crisis and Change - South Asia Situation Seminar in 2022" hosted by the Institute of South Asia at Sichuan University, a key research base of the Ministry of Education, and co-organized by the Southern Defense Think Tank, more than 40 experts from 20 domestic universities and think tanks gathered together to review the evolution of the situation in South Asia in 2022 and look forward to the development prospects of South Asia in 2023.
The temperature of the United States and India
On June 11, 2022, US Secretary of Defense Austin stated at the 19th Shangri-La Dialogue that “all resources of the US government will be used” to advance the process of the “Indo-Pacific Strategy” and strengthen relationships with alliance partners.
Ran Jie, a researcher at the Sichuan South Asia Economic and Cultural Exchange Center, believes that the United States regards South Asia as an important part of the "Indo-Pacific Strategy" and strives to bring South Asian countries into its strategic orbit. In 2022, the United States will increase its efforts to win over India, improve U.S.-Pakistan relations, and seek to establish new emerging partnerships with Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and other countries.
On November 29, India and the United States jointly conducted the "Ready for War 2022" joint exercise in Uttarakhand located on the Sino-Indian border. The location of this exercise was in the town of Oli, which is only dozens of kilometers away from the Sino-Indian border. In response to this exercise, the Indian Ministry of Defense stated in a statement that the "Ready for War" joint exercise is held annually to exchange best practices, tactics, techniques and procedures between the armies of the two countries.
Although India is not a member of NATO , nor is it a traditional military ally of the United States, with the implementation of the United States' "Indo-Pacific Strategy" in recent years, India has become one of the countries that conducts joint military exercises with the United States most frequently.
Ran Jie said that in recent years, India has carried out military interactions with the United States at multiple levels. Relying on the "U.S., Japan, India, and Australia" quadrilateral security dialogue mechanism and under the guise of maintaining rules and order, India has participated in and led three multinational maritime military exercises and six bilateral military exercises between India and the United States. Defense cooperation is not only the focus of India-U.S. strategic interaction, but also a key support for deepening the political relations and strategic mutual trust between the two countries.
In February 2022, the Biden administration released the "U.S. Indo-Pacific Strategy" report, expounding its views on the situation in the Indo-Pacific region, proposing ideas and measures on how the United States can advance the "Indo-Pacific Strategy," and clearly proposing to support India's continued rise and establishment of regional leadership.
Li Li, a professor at the Institute of South Asia at Sichuan University, said that in recent years, although the United States has been claiming to impose sanctions on India in response to the S-400 air defense missile system supply agreement reached between India and Russia, it has never been implemented. This shows that the United States attaches great importance to strategic cooperation with India, and many parties are willing to "open up the door" to India.
It is worth noting that since the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, India has chosen to maintain a "neutral" attitude and has not reached a "unified front" with the United States and the West, which has been dissatisfied by Western public opinion.
Zhang Li believes that India’s refusal to take sides highlights its own interests and strategic system. At the same time, it also reflects that India and the United States still have irreconcilable conflicts on some major global issues. Such differences and rifts will also further complicate the geopolitical landscape in South Asia.
"Despite the differences in US-India relations, they still maintain a certain degree of warmth in frequent interactions." Professor Zhu Cuiping, director of the Indian Ocean Regional Research Center at Yunnan University of Finance and Economics, said that as some compensation for India's relations with India and the United States, India has become tougher in some strategic postures to cooperate with the United States.
It can be seen from this that although the Modi government has repeatedly declared that India's diplomacy will continue to adhere to the principle of independence, India's diplomatic tendency has been very obvious in recent years.
Liu Jiawei, executive director of the South Asia and Western China Cooperative Development Research Center at Sichuan University, analyzed that in addition to actively participating in the US Indo-Pacific strategy and using the US and the West as support for its rise, India has also comprehensively strengthened cooperative relations with the US, Europe and Japan. Although there are many problems between India and the United States, and there are also great differences between India and the West, "India's strategy of continuing to lean towards the United States and the West will not change in the short term."
"Modi believes that India is in a once-in-a-lifetime period of strategic opportunities." Li Li, deputy dean of the Institute of International Relations at Tsinghua University, said.
The anti-terrorism situation in Pakistan is not optimistic
In early March 2022, the Institute of Economics and Peace (IEP), a well-known Australian think tank, released the "2022 Global Terrorism Index Report", which comprehensively summarized the major global terrorism trends and patterns in 2021. The
report pointed out that in 2021, 1,829 people died from terrorist activities in South Asia, an increase of 137 people or 8% over 2020. Pakistan still ranks among the 10 most affected countries, with a slight increase in the number of deaths from terrorist activities to 275.
"Although the terrorist situation in South Asian countries has generally eased, some countries and regions, especially Pakistan, have shown a worsening trend. At the same time, South Asia has once again become the source of international terrorism, and the possibility of exporting terrorism has increased significantly." Zhang Jiadong, director of the South Asia Research Center at Fudan University, concluded that the major terrorist organizations in South Asia have once again expanded in scale and increased rapidly in activity. From the Pakistani Taliban to the "Islamic State" organization and then to the "Al Qaeda" organization, there are signs of resurgence.
On October 16, 2022, Pakistan’s anti-terrorism department stated that during an anti-terrorism operation in the Quetta Matung District of Balochistan Province, the Pakistani security forces killed five terrorists, confiscated a large number of weapons and ammunition, and three policemen were injured during the operation.
In recent years, Pakistan has been mired in the war on terrorism, which has greatly consumed resources that should have been used in other social fields. Terrorism has become a heavy burden on Pakistan's economic development.
The situation of terrorist attacks in Pakistan has been showing a "wavy" ups and downs and continues to reach a "crest", attracting international attention.
Zhang Jiadong said that there are currently a large number of international terrorist organizations in Pakistan that are growing rapidly, and this phenomenon is worthy of alarm.
In the near to medium term, South Asia will exhibit the "three excesses" situation of more terrorist organizations, more terrorist attacks, and more deaths due to fear, which will be the normal state of terrorism in South Asia. The infiltration of extraterritorial terrorist organizations, the confrontation between India and Pakistan, and the game of great powers have all made the regional terrorism situation more complicated.
Agence France-Presse reported on December 2, 2022 that the Pakistani Embassy in Afghanistan was attacked and a Pakistani security personnel was injured. The Pakistani Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement on the same day saying that the target of the attack was Rehman Nizamani, Charge d'Affaires of the Pakistani Embassy in Afghanistan. The next day, the extremist group "Islamic State" claimed responsibility for the attack.
Zhang Jiadong believes that the attacks of terrorist organizations have risen to a relatively high-end political level and are no longer the usual attacking mentality in the past.
In addition, Pakistan seems to have suffered more difficulties in 2022 than in previous years, such as floods, high temperatures, inflation , food crisis, energy crisis , debt crisis , etc.
According to Chen Lijun, deputy director of the Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences, these crises have a greater impact on Pakistan and affect its rating by international institutions.
In May 2022 local time, the United Nations released a report showing that nearly 20 million Afghans faced severe famine. The picture shows a mother feeding a child waiting for treatment in a hospital in Kandahar on November 1, 2022. (People's Vision/Picture)
After the war, the "Afghanistan diffusion effect" highlights
As the international situation changes, Afghanistan seems to have gradually calmed down.
In fact, after the war, the brain drain and foreign exchange shortage caused by the US sanctions on Afghanistan have caused Afghanistan to lack the hematopoietic capacity for its own development, and the economy continues to be depressed. In May 2022, the United Nations released a report showing that nearly 20 million Afghans faced severe famine.
Director of the Afghanistan Research Center of Lanzhou University Zhu Yongbiao said that Afghanistan's economic linkage effect is actually more about "shouting slogans". In addition, the "Afghanistan diffusion effect" is also reflected in political demands.
In 2021, the Pakistani government delegation and the Pakistani Taliban delegation held peace negotiations in Kabul, Afghanistan, with a view to ending the 20 years of armed conflict in the tribal areas along Pakistan's border. The interim Afghan government acts as a mediator between the Pakistani government and the Pakistani Taliban.
"Bata was inspired and stimulated, and now it has become more united." Zhu Yongbiao said that the strategy of demands put forward by Bata during negotiations with the Pakistani government was to copy Atta 's standards for negotiations with the United States at that time.
In addition, as the Taliban regains control of Afghanistan, the five Central Asian countries located in the north and bordering it, especially Uzbekistan , Tajikistan and Turkmenistan , have also been hit hard.
Zhu Yongbiao believes that the changes in the situation in Afghanistan have stimulated Central Asian countries to a certain extent. For example, Afghanistan has provided a vivid "case" for the effect of "using small to expand big", and it has had an impact in many aspects.
It has been more than a year since Atta seized power in Afghanistan, but internal and external difficulties have become increasingly prominent, and the economic crisis has continued to worsen.
In Zhu Yongbiao’s view, the terrorist forces in Afghanistan have rebounded slightly in the past two years. Although it has not reached the highest level in history, it also reflects the diffusion effect of the situation in Afghanistan.
"Afghanistan's difficulties remain." Chen Lijun said that although Afghanistan will export some agricultural products, the total export volume is not large and cannot drive economic growth. "The problem of poverty is still very prominent."
Sri Lanka is still at risk of losing control
In July 2022, Sri Lanka's economic crisis triggered large-scale protests, and then-President Gotabaya Rajapaksa resigned.
"After the current president Ranil Wickremesinghe took office, the entire situation has slowly stabilized, but the economic problems have still not been solved." Gao Gang, an assistant researcher at the Institute of South Asia at Sichuan University, believes that the root cause of the conflicts in Sri Lanka is that economic problems and people's livelihood issues have caused political turmoil and social unrest.
With the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine war in early 2022, soaring international food and fuel prices became the "last straw" that crushed Sri Lanka's economy.
"Due to this external environment, tourists have decreased and energy imports have also been affected." Gao Gang believes that the superimposed impact of the new crown epidemic, as well as the less successful tax reform, agricultural reform and other policies implemented in the country, have led to a significant reduction in the government's tax revenue, as well as a reduction in the production of food and cash crops.
Sri Lanka used to be the "top student" in South Asia, but now facing Sri Lanka's quagmire, the international capital market has sold rupee assets, and the rupee has depreciated sharply.
On April 12, 2022, Sri Lanka announced a temporary suspension of repayment of all foreign debt, becoming the first country to default on its debt in 2022.On July 13, Ranil Wickremesinghe told Parliament that Sri Lanka had suffered "national bankruptcy".
Talking about the reasons for Sri Lanka's foreign debt, in Zhang Jiadong's view, "This problem is actually common to South Asia, but Sri Lanka is more prominent." He said that South Asian culture has a tradition of borrowing for consumption, and does not consider whether it can afford it.
Zhang Jiadong analyzed that Sri Lanka's economic structure is relatively simple and over-reliant on tourism, resulting in a less resilient country than Pakistan, Bangladesh, India and other countries with relatively more diversified economic structures.
"Since the British colonization, Sri Lanka has been transformed into a country with a dependent economic form. Once there is an external situation, the domestic situation will be affected." Gao Gang said that the current economic problems in Sri Lanka cannot be solved in a short time, and it may also face the risk of losing control in the future and repeat the political turmoil caused by economic problems.
Although the situation in Sri Lanka is turbulent, it is regarded by some Western countries as an important opportunity for the "shuffle" of geopolitical influence.
"The United States and India have successively provided a helping hand. They may take advantage of Sri Lanka's current economic and political crisis and interfere in its domestic and foreign affairs on the pretext of helping Sri Lanka restructure its debt. They have no other agenda." Gao Gang believes.
Looking to the future, Sri Lanka appears to have a difficult road ahead. How the situation in Sri Lanka will evolve depends on how the government is formed and run. However, due to long-term abuses, there is still great uncertainty about the effectiveness of the new government and its policies.
(Southern Weekend interns Yang Jingyi and Li Weiyao also contributed to this article)
Southern Weekend reporter Wang Tanglin
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