The Bay of Bengal as a ‘New’ Region

In Crossing the Bay of Bengal The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants, Sunil Amrith writes

The Bay of Bengal is a large triangular Basin in the Indian Ocean and the largest Bay in the world. It is an enclosed sea surrounded by miles of coastline — an arc stretching from the southeastern edge of India, up and along the coasts of present day Bangladesh and Burma and down to the western coast of Thailand and Malaysia. It is a narrow continental shelf and “islands are scarce and small except for Ceylon” in the west and the smaller Andaman and Nicobar islands in the east.  At the southeastern edge the Bay of Bengal meets the waters of the Southeast Sea—the Straits of Melaka, the Java Sea and the South China Sea — which are by contrast shallower, fresher, warmer and “thickly strewn with small islands”. Ceylon and the southern tip of the Indian subcontinent at Kanyakumari, mark its western boundary with the Arabian Sea.

The Bay had been at the centre of Asian Connections for centuries forged by movements of people and commodities between the eastern littoral of the Bay and the South China Sea. The Bay of Bengal not only linked Sri Lanka, the Coromandel Coast and Bengal to Burma, Thailand western Malay Peninsula and northern Sumatra but also offered indirect access to the rich markets farther west. Both commodity and human traffic moved so frequently between the Bay of Bengal and the South China Sea that they formed part of the wider Indian Ocean trading system. The crucial transit zone here was the Straits of Malacca where three interlocking systems met, one going past the Cape Comorin, the other east to the archipelago and South China Sea while the third reached north into the Bay of Bengal. There were varying rhythms of movements within the interlocking systems that had implications for the life of the Bay, but were also of importance to the larger Indian Ocean system of which it formed an important part.  The Bay was a maritime highway, witnessing the movements of traders and commodities and facilitating economic exchange but also large scale labour migration which encouraged cultural cosmopolitanism and exchange of ways of life. Part of the British imperial empire these linkages remained in operation till the middle of the twentieth century.

In the post-colonial era, these linkages declined as self-sufficiency replaced trade and the mental maps of the region were re-drawn to accommodate national boundaries.  As the centuries old connections that bound South and Southeast Asia together collapsed, the region no longer remained the heart of what was once a global economy. The post war distinction between Southeast and South Asia, later concretized in the two separate regional associations ASEAN and SAARC, further divided the littorals on either side of the Bay. As a flourishing region of trade and exchange the Bay of Bengal disappeared from geopolitical and geo-economic imaginations though not from cultural imagination. However with the increasing importance of the Indo-Pacific region in the contemporary connectivity matrix, the Bay of Bengal is once again acquiring strategic significance with its critical position as a bridge between South, Southeast and East Asia. This has partly been prompted by increasing Chinese presence in the region and the initiation of a series of developmental and connectivity projects in its western and south-western regions, recreating the image of the Bay as a pivotal economic space as well as an alternative to China’s dependence on the Malacca Strait.

The twenty-first century Maritime Silk Road (MSR) was proposed by Chinese president Xi Jinping in October 2013 during a speech to the Indonesian Parliament. The route of this Maritime Silk Road goes through cities of Guangzhou, Fuzhou, Guangzhou, Haikou, Beihai, Hanoi, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Colombo, Kolkata, Nairobi, Athens and Venice. The maritime areas of this Maritime Silk Road include the East China Sea, South China Sea, the Indian Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. Indian strategic thinking identifies the Maritime Route as a repackaging of the ‘string of pearls’ strategy, a position reflected in C. Raja Mohan’s Samudra Manthan: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Indo-Pacific where he argues that that the land competition between China and India will spill now out to the ocean and the Indo-Pacific is becoming a new geographical space for this contest. It has deepened maritime competition between India and China as India is apprehensive about greater Chinese engagements in its neighbourhood. China on the other hand is hampered by the absence of naval bases which circumscribes its capacity to provide security in the Indian Ocean region as well as protect its energy routes.

Conceptually, the up-gradation of maritime connectivity between the Indo-Pacific and extending it further to East Africa and onto the Mediterranean is consistent with India’s own broader maritime economic vision. However, according to the prevalent narrative, MSR should be understood as part of a rising China’s attempt to ‘reorder Asia’. It is argued that China is attempting to create trade and economic relationships with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries through trade, port and continental land bridges to countervail the United States influence and to draw the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) littorals within its sphere of influence. Chinese proposals to develop Kunming Railway that will connect China–Singapore and other countries in Southeast Asia, as also the recently commissioned oil and gas pipelines and proposed railway line connecting the Rakhine coast of Myanmar with Kunming, underscore this thinking. The MSR proposal compliments infrastructural initiatives and enables landlocked south-west China to access markets in Southeast Asia. Some analysts also locate the MSR as part of a Chinese reassurance posture to ‘diffuse the tension’ on China’s maritime periphery after a period of uncertainty over Chinese maritime behaviour. It is also viewed as a policy to complicate the US’ rebalancing strategy by ‘softening’ ASEAN elites renewed interest in reaching out to the US, Japan and perhaps, even India.

From India’s maritime and naval perspective, the full evolution of the MSR would compel her to develop additional access points and facilities astride the proposed Chinese MSR. The government’s decision to expedite Indian involvement in the construction of Chabahar Port on Iran’s Makran coast could also have been partially driven by this quest to seek high-quality transit points in the Indian Ocean Rim. Another implication is that India will need to invest more on long-haul vessels to ensure greater endurance and sustainability for its own power projection and expeditionary roles. Finally, there is an interesting contradiction in Indian perceptions of China’s continental Silk Road and the MSR. In recent years, China has been pushing for a land corridor—termed as Bangladesh–China– India–Myanmar Economic Corridor (BCIM-EC). The BCIM will connect India’s North-East with China’s Kunming province through road initially, and later, through rail connectivity. Initially, given India’s restive north-east and complex relations with Bangladesh and Myanmar, Delhi was lukewarm to the proposal despite an established track-2 BCIM dialogue. Delhi’s reticence was because of two factors: the fear of China’s economic domination of border regions and India’s concerns about the security of its sensitive Northeast. It can be argued, however, that if the BCIM corridor eventually fructifies, this would imply not only enhanced trade and connectivity but could also open the door for China to upgrade infrastructure in port facilities in Bangladesh and Myanmar, key hubs in a potential MSR. In other words, the BCIM would supplement the MSR enabling China an easier political opening in the Bay of Bengal.

China is seeking to link with the Indian Ocean through Myanmar and the Bay of Bengal as well as advocating the cause of the Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar (BCIM) corridor and financing major projects in other littorals like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. India, in contrast, having comprehended the changed geopolitical situation in conjunction with the security architecture of the Bay has begun to engage and pay attention to the problems and anxieties of the littorals. It has adopted a strategy of developing a sense of community among the littorals along the Bay region in addition to its role as the major security provider in the region via regular patrols through the Sea Lines of Communication (SLOC) simultaneously encouraging participation through forums such as the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium and Exercise MILAN (biennial naval exercise) that has ensured participation of the navies of the littorals; Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA), for greater awareness to respond to any maritime challenge particularly due to the existence of important  Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZ) in the Bay region. With the ever increasing strategic importance of the Bay of Bengal region, there is a growing sense of desire among the littorals that India should consolidate its relationships across the expanse. At the same time, India should realize that increased Chinese presence is a given and has to be acknowledged and accommodated even as she continues to mould a Bay of Bengal community.

It is in this context that the demand for empowering BIMSTEC, the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi- Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, has gained ground both within India and among the participant states. The regional multilateral forum was set up in 1997 and is well situated to tackle the challenges faced by the Bay of Bengal region provided the member states, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand remain committed to the cause and invest in the forum by way of time, resources and initiation as well as  implementation of reforms. A conjunction of dynamics has facilitated circumstances whereby the organization can assume a greater role in integrating the bay region. In a globalized, symbiotic world, the states around the Bay region have come to appreciate that their individual economic and security interest are progressively intertwined and dependent on their capacity to collaborate beyond their national confines by way of regional organizations based on the principles of inclusive regionalism. India on its part has come to realize that the most appropriate way to respond to China’s efforts at gaining ground in the region is through the intensification of regional connectivity projects and deepening linkages with South East Asia.

The smaller nations, on the other hand perceive BIMSTEC as a multilateral forum by way of which they could counter the hegemonic practices of China, India and other dominant extra regional powers. However, in order to function effectively BIMSTEC needs to imbibe an attitude of collaboration, reciprocity, respect for norms, rules and instill a spirit of liberalism and multilateralism as an alternative to unilateralism among the constituent member states.  In addition to connectivity by way of logistical and infrastructural development, it is imperative to encourage ‘people to people’ interactions for revitalizing the ‘region’. At the same time, it is important to keep in mind the political limitations of any regional organization and in the context of BIMSTEC it is likely to be the issue of migration of a large number of Rohingya refugees to Bangladesh from Myanmar and its attendant ramifications. The region is also beset with narcotics trade, movement of people and weapons, environmental degradation and exploitation of natural resources and other non-conventional security hazards. All of these would have to be kept in mind while re-envisaging the Bay of Bengal as a region.

References

Sunil Amrith, Crossing the Bay of Bengal The Furies of Nature and the Fortunes of Migrants , Chapter 1 Life of the Bay of Bengal, Harvard University Press, 2015.

2012. Raja Mohan’s Samudra Manthan: Sino-Indian Rivalry in the Indo-Pacific, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2012.

Anita

9 February 2020