BRIC baiting

A new game in the shadow of the ‘Great Game’; Mongolia and Sri Lanka at play

The emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC) have been grouped together as important players in the current world economic and socio political power play and have been branded with the acronym ‘BRIC’ by a strategist at Goldman Sachs, Jim O’Neill, who is now head of its Asset Management Division, to refer to them in a collective sense.

‘Baiting’ is a series of acts or omissions, intended to wear down, irritate or annoy another, to further one’s own interests. Derived from the word ‘bait,’ baiting can also mean among other things, making people do what you want them to do.

The ‘Great Game’ refers to the undeclared war or contest which existed between the British Empire, specifically the colonial administration, the ‘British Raj’ administering Britain’s Indian Colonial Empire, and other expansionary European, West Asian, and Islamic powers, locked in a contest for influence over the territories to the North West of today’s Pakistan, including Afghanistan, and the other ‘Stan’ states of Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan – formerly parts of the USSR.

The Khans

During colonial times these territories, ruled by hereditary Khans, at various times in varied strategic alliances with the Russians, the Turks, the French, etc., were seen by the rulers of British Empire as a threat to the Crown Jewel of the Empire, India.

Secret service and military excursions both overt and covert were undertaken to monitor the activities and the alliances entered into by the Khans, who ruled these mainly Islamic states.

Rudyard Kipling in his classic novel ‘Kim’ has built the whole story around this ‘Great Game’. It is a fascinating read. The Great Game dealt with two primary issues. The first was administering the war like Pathan and other tribes which inhabited the area, and whose independent spirit would not permit succumbing to any orderly administration, as is the situation today in Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province and beyond, where Al Qaeda and its associates operate with impunity, waging war against the foreign forces in Afghanistan, the state of Pakistan itself and perceived anti Islamic forces worldwide.

The British stationed political agents in these areas, who through bribery and intimidation played divide and rule over the various tribes. The punitive power of the British Indian Army was much respected at that time.

Through these machinations, the British Political Agents, officers selected from the Indian Civil Service and the British Indian Army, achieved a semblance of order in the tribal areas.

The second issue was to limit the influence of the Amir of Afghanistan and other nations over the tribes in the area. The British needed a strong and friendly Afghanistan between the Russians and British India.

There was a serious danger of the Russian Empire expanding eastward from the Baltic Sea. This naturally clashed with the British Empire expanding westward from the Bay of Bengal. The frontier tribes were fed with sophisticated weapons through the Arabian Gulf by camel caravan by opponents of the British.

The struggle

Peter Hopkirk, is his truly masterful account ‘The Great Game – The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia’ describes how ‘the great game between Tsarist Russia and Victorian Britain was fought across desolate terrain from the Caucasus to China, over the lonely passes of the Pamir and Karakoram mountains, in the blazing Kerman and Helmund deserts, and through the caravan towns of the Old Silk Road – both powers scrambling to control access to the riches of India and the East. When the game first began, the frontiers of Russia and British India lay 2,000 miles apart, by the end the distance had shrunk to 20 miles at some points.’ (See map titled ‘Great Game’)

David Gilmour in ‘The Ruling Caste – Imperial Lives of the Victorian Raj,’ in the context of Queen Victoria of England, being proclaimed the Empress of India says: ‘The Russian Empire had been galloping southwards and eastwards for decades absorbing the Khanates of Central Asia and by 1876 Russian troops were within a thousand miles of the Indian frontier. It made what became known as the ‘Great Game’ sounds more equal if a Russian Tsar was opposed by an Indian Empress.’

Still going on

Some analysts are of the view that the Great Game never ended and still goes on. The Soviets incorporated the Stan states into the USSR and invaded and dominated Afghanistan for some years.

The USA’s CIA and Pakistan’s ISI combined with the Islamic fundamentalists, the Taliban, drove the Soviet Army out. The Taliban provided a base in Afghanistan for the AL Qaeda to launch the 9 /11 attacks on New York.

Witness the events currently taking place in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Stan states of the former USSR. Russia is trying to re-impose its domination over the former Soviet satellites.

Islamic extremists are at the same time trying to re-impose an Islamic type of governance on the Stan states. NATO and the USA are trying to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan. Pakistan is virtually a failed state.

Political and economic contest

Today, in the shadow of the unending Great Game, a new more sophisticated political and economic contest is developing. It can be labelled as BRIC Baiting. Two nation states are power players in this BRIC baiting contest.

Mongolia is baiting Russia against China. Sri Lanka is baiting China against India. Consider the international ramifications of the activities of two states, Mongolia and Sri Lanka, on the international stage.

Landlocked and long ignored, Mongolia was for long years under the domination of the USSR. The Soviets, pumped in resources and subsidies into Mongolia in a competition with the People’s Republic of China, which ruled Inner Mongolia, as an integral part of China.

Both China and the USSR wanted to show the people of inner and independent ‘outer’ Mongolia within the sphere of Soviet influence, that they were better off than the ‘other’ Mongolians.

In ancient times, the Chinese had built the Great Wall of China to keep the marauding Mongolian tribes, who they called Xiongnu, out of the Middle Kingdom. In around the year 1206 Genghis Khan, meaning universal king, united most of the Mongol Tribes, and set out on a conquest that by 1227, when Genghis died, had established an empire ranging from Beijing to the Caspian Sea.  Ogden, Genghis’ son, pushed further west ward to Hungary. Genghis’ grandson Kublai Khan finally subjugated the Middle Kingdom (China). His empire stretched from Korea to Hungary.

Marco Polo visited Kublai Khan’s China and wrote about its wonders. But by 1350 the Mongol empire was disintegrating. The strained feelings between the Mongolian people and their neighbours in China and Russia exist to this day, as a spinoff of the Mongol empire, its expansionism and recent Soviet domination. The governments which run Russia, Mongolia and China today have no love lost between them, relations are strained.

Mongolia

Today Mongolia is one of the countries most unsettled by the rapid rise of China. Having freed themselves form Soviet rule just two decades ago, the Mongolians are playing a very sophisticated game of BRIC Baiting pitting China against Russia for Mongolia’s gain.

Mongolia is blessed with mineral natural resources which the world’s industries crave. In the South Gobi desert is the coal reserve of Tavan Tolgoi, a vast and largely untapped reserve of coal located less than 200 km from the Chinese border. Southern Mongolia also boasts Oyu Tolgoi, a huge deposit of copper and gold.

China is currently taking around 70% of Mongolia’s exports. There is only one railway line crossing the Chinese border. Alternatively goods have to go by truck along precarious roads.

In a classic case of BRIC baiting, Mongolia recently ceremonially despatched a train with 30 coal wagons from Ulan Bator (the capital) to the Russian port of Vostochny, on Russia’s Pacific coast. The distance is 4,769 km.

The coal came from Tavan Tolgoi, located less than 200km from the China’s border with Mongolia! The new track uses the Russian 1,520mm gauge rather than the smaller standard gauge used in China! All symbolic gestures of BRIC baiting!

Elbegdorj Tsakhia, Mongolia’s President, says: “We need more doors to our neighbours.” The Prime Minister Sukhbtaar Batbold says: “The opportunity to go to an eastern Russian sea port provides us with some comfort. We want to create a balance of interest among the partners working with Mongolia.”

Sajaasuren Oyun, a former Foreign Minister, says: “China’s growth brings us a huge chance to develop and prosper, but we do not simply want to become the raw material supplier to just one country.”

Munkh-Ochir Dorjjugder, a researcher at the Institute of Strategic Studies in Ulan Bator, puts it succinctly: “Mongolian society has a sense of cultural alienation from China and fears that growing economic dependence on its powerful neighbour might evolve into political subservience.” Hence the cuddling up to Russia.

This is classic BRIC baiting. Mongolians remember how they suffered under Soviet dominance, but they also remember centuries of conflict with China. The instinct to play the two giants of against each other is deeply ingrained in the Mongolian psyche. It is also manifest in current policy initiatives.

Indo-Lanka relations

In this context of an example of BRIC baiting by Mongolia, the reader is invited to consider Sri Lanka’s dealings with China and India.

Indo-Lanka relations go back to pre history, the mythological legend of Ramayana, the numerous migrations from the Indian sub continent, Indian invasions during the Anuradhapura period, Emperor Asoka and the arrival of Buddhism, the Chola influence over the Polonnaruwa kingdom, King Gajaba’s foray into southern India, the Malabar influence on the Kandyan Kingdom, the behaviour of the Indian Maratha troops during the communal disturbances in the Kandyan Provinces, the arrival of indentured labour from India to work on the plantations, Indian corporates and high net worth individuals investing in our economy, abrogation by Ceylon of the British Defence Agreement, the Sirima Shasthri Pact, the recognition by Indira Gandhi’s Government that Kachchativu belonged to Sri Lanka, the JVP and Rohana Wijeweera’s lecture on Indian Expansionism, Indian support to put down the 1971 insurrection, Indian covert and over support for terrorism, the Indo Lanka Agreement and the Indian Peace Keeping Force, issues with Indian fishermen in the Gulf of Mannar and the Sri Lanka Navy, the Indo Lanka Free Trade Agreement, the lease of the Trincomalee Oil Tank Farm, the covert Indian role in the elimination of the LTTE, Indian assistance for housing in the north, for road development and for a coal power plant at Sampur and expressions of opinion of normalcy of conditions and the status of Tamil speaking citizens of the north and east of Sri Lanka and of Indian plantation workers of recent Indian origin, the pressure on the proposed Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement with India, opening of Indian Consular offices at Jaffna and Hambantota, Indian assistance for rail road projects and the development of Palaly airport and the Kankesanthurai Port.

What is recited is a veritable litany of interaction of a sub regional super power dealing with a small neighbour.

Sri Lanka-China relations

Regarding Sri Lanka-China relations too, there is a long history. Starting with international trade at the emporiums of ancient Anuradhapura, to which Chinese traders arrived from the ancient port of Gokanna at today’s Trincomalee, Admiral Cheng Ho and his fleet of huge sea going Sampans arriving at Galle and Kalutara, the Rubber Rice Pact, the Sri Lankan peace initiative after the 1959 Indo China border war, the Bandaranaike Memorial Conference Hall, the Sirima Bandaranaike Exhibition Hall, the Bandaranaike Centre for International Studies building, the support to Sri Lanka during the 1971, 1989 insurgencies and the post 1986 terrorism, in the supply of arms and equipment through NORINCO and other Chinese agencies, including the ubiquitous Type 56 automatic weapon, the Mahinda Rajapaksa Magampura Port, the international conference centre and airport at Hambantota, the National Cultural Complex in Colombo, the Norochcholai Coal Power Plant, numerous road construction and rail road development projects by Chinese State-owned contractors and Chinese labour being implemented at the present time, the outright sale of state land or the 99-year lease for an upfront payment to the China National Aero Technology Import Export Corporation.

Clearly this small island, which is the southernmost point in the Indian Ocean, there being no other land mass between Dondra Point in South Sri Lanka and the South Pole, through which 80% of the oil and raw material which China procures from Africa and West Asia is transported, has been of inordinate interest to China, although located some distance away from the Chinese mainland. (See map of Sea Route)

But place this relationship in the context of China’s relations with Pakistan and Myanmar and the problems China is having with India on the North Eastern border and with Tibet, with the Dalai Lama living exile in India at Dharmasala, one clearly sees the need and the intent to cultivate a potential rival’s vulnerable neighbour. The logic seems to be the ‘weak and vulnerable neighbour of my enemy is my friend’.

Playing India against China

Sri Lanka also has deftly, sometimes not too deftly, played India against China in the best Mongolian tradition of BRIC baiting. Indeed there may be case for the Sri Lankan and Mongolian authorities getting together to share their experiences in how to deal with big bullying neighbours using a third nation as a counter foil!

In the days of the Soviet Union, analysts spoke of the Finlandisation of other nation states. This was a reference of the real politic of Finland, which shared a long land border with the Soviet Union having to adjust its behaviour so that it did not irritate or annoy its giant powerful neighbour.

One can think of many nations who would be looking at methods of playing up to third nation to avoid bullying by a big neighbour, like Bangladesh vis-à-vis India, Mexico vis-à-vis the USA, Viet Nam vis-à-vis China, etc.

Indeed, as long as the USSR was around, Cuba used it to ward off the USA’s unwelcome attentions. Uruguay, a small neighbour of another BRIC heavy weight – Brazil – will also be interested in how to handle the neighbourly pressure. BRIC baiting by Sri Lanka and Mongolia may in time become the subject of a case study in the curricula at schools of diplomacy.

(The writer is a lawyer, who has over 30 years experience as a CEO in both government and private sectors. He retired from the office of Secretary, Ministry of Finance and currently is the Managing Director of the Sri Lanka Business Development Centre.)