The news of the Iran-China strategic partnership agreement and Tehran’s decision to drop India from the 628-kilometer Chabahar-Zahedan rail project has kicked up a geopolitical storm.
Despite their near-simultaneous coincidence, these two developments are unrelated. However, in the context of the US-China new cold war and the India-China border dispute in the Himalayan region, they provide valuable insights into new geopolitical realignments in Asia with far-reaching implications for the region and beyond. US President Donald Trump’s maximum pressure campaign and crippling economic sanctions have pushed Iran into China’s arms.The negotiations on the Iran-China deal worth $400 billion kicked off during President Xi Jinping’s 2016 visit to Tehran. Not formalized yet, the preliminary details of the agreement indicate that China has pledged $250 billion in Iran’s energy sector and another $150 billion in infrastructural development which includes road, rail and port construction, among others. This is part of President Xi’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In return, Beijing would get subsidised oil from Tehran for the next twenty-five years.Concurrently, Iran inaugurated the tracklaying process on the Chabahar-Zahedan railway project on July 7, which will be extended to Zaranj in Afghanistan, without India’s involvement citing funding delays. Tehran hopes to complete the project by March 2022. This is a major setback to the Indian plan of creating an alternative trade route to Afghanistan and Central Asia to bypass Pakistan and offset the Chinese-operated Gwadar port.India and Russia took Iran’s presence in their joint North-South Transport Corridor (NSTC) for granted. The NSTC was supposed to advance the goal of Eurasian connectivity in which Iran had a key transit role. Despite overhyping the NSTC, India’s main objective was to keep Iran away from the BRI and Tehran-Islamabad ties on the slow boil. On its part, Moscow’s approach to the NSTC was conditional to New Delhi’s reciprocity and tangible investment.Iran sensed Indian lip service to the rail project last year when New Delhi discontinued the oil purchase on the US pressure and further strengthened its military-strategic ties with its arch-foe, Israel. Furthermore, Tel Aviv’s repeated attempts to coax New Delhi to participate in the purported Trans Arabian Corridor with itself and other Middle Eastern rival states of Iran prompted the course-correction in Tehran. Iran’s deafening silence during the China-India border dispute is indicative of Tehran’s drift away from New Delhi. In any case, in light of the above developments, the NSTC is practically shelved now.A part of the China-Iran strategic agreement involves developing several ports, including Jask-e-Bandar situated east of the Strait of Hormuz. This is significant since, for the first time in the world’s strategic history, Beijing would have leverage over one of the seven key choke points in the world. This can potentially undermine US naval dominance in the Middle East which is continuously shifting its marine assets to the Pacific. A foothold in Jask would not only allow China to monitor the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet headquartered in Bahrain but together with a presence in Gwadar and Djibouti ports, it would augment Chinese presence in the Indian Ocean Region.Furthermore, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s plan to operationalise its oil installation along the Gulf of Oman by 2021 includes expanding its existing south-north gas pipelines with a dedicated oil line. The 1,000-kilometer-long oil line will run along Iran’s southern coast from Busher to Jask. If materialised, this would allow Iran to increase its energy production while freeing its hands to close the Strait of Hormuz without losing its ability to export oil and corresponding profits. Iran’s potential capability to disrupt the waterway, the transit route of the world’s 20 percent oil supplies, is a real deterrent tool in the Middle East against its rivals.The Iran-China comprehensive agreement is equally crucial for Beijing in the context of the expected US withdrawal from Afghanistan. After 9/11, Indian political and economic influence grew in Afghanistan under the US security umbrella. Since the February deal between the US and the Taliban in Doha, Indian influence has been shrinking in Afghanistan. With the US exit from Afghanistan, Indian influence will minimise further.Despite Washington’s prodding, Delhi has been ambivalent about opening contacts with the Taliban. Quite to the contrary, China has simultaneously engaged with Kabul and the Taliban, predisposing it ahead of the US withdrawal not only to secure its economic investments and interests in Afghanistan but undercut those of India. This also gives China an edge to potentially connect post-US Afghanistan in the BRI framework.Iran’s inclusion in the BRI framework is good news for Pakistan at many levels. First, China’s involvement in Iran would further open up the strategic space for Pakistan in the region while potentially weakening or eliminating the political and security challenges. Second, the China factor would also be helpful in improving Iran-Pakistan relations, assist in pacifying the insurgency in Balochistan which, by extension, will mitigate the security threats to CPEC. Third, due to Chinese presence, the Chabahar and Gwadar ports would be complementing instead of competing with each other. Interestingly, despite Indian varying narratives, Iran has always referred to Gwadar and Chabahar as “sister ports.” Finally, Indian ouster from Iran also means the transit trade from Afghanistan and Central Asia would continue through Pakistani ports.Pakistan will have to overcome its internal governance and security challenges to optimally benefit from what is appearing to be a favourable geopolitical environment since 9/11.The writer is a research fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore.Email: isabasit@ntu.edu.sg

Though the 21st century was predicted to be the Chinese century, nobody knew the nature and trajectory of Beijing's rise.
The aggressive Chinese attitude during the border dispute with India in the Galwan river valley has heralded Beijing's arrival. Not just India, but the entire world was astounded by China's belligerent response.The geopolitical events unfolding in the aftermath of the Covid-19 outbreak compelled Beijing to (re)assert itself more forcefully. Though the India-China border dispute will eventually deescalate, what has transpired during the border crisis has unmistaken implications for the balance of power in South Asia.Exploiting the US retreat from South Asia and India's troubled ties with its neighbours, Beijing has expanded its political and economic influence on New Delhi's detriment. India has considered South Asia as its sphere of influence after the departure of the British Raj in 1947. But this may have changed after the China-India standoff in the Himalayan region.One of the reasons behind the increasing Chinese influence in South Asia is India’s strained ties with most of its neighbours. In his second term, Prime Minister Modi’s "neighborhood first policy" lies in the doldrums. In 2019, India almost went to war with Pakistan and following the unilateral revocation of Kashmir's special status in August last year, the relations nosedived further.Similarly, ties with Nepal are at all-time low after the 2015 blockade and the recently approved map by the Nepalese parliament that includes land claimed by Delhi. Likewise, the Bangladesh-India relations have been frosty since the Citizen Amendment Act was implemented in Assam and Amit Shah termed Bangladeshi migrant workers in India as termites. India's two historic allies, Sri Lanka and the Maldives are drifting towards China as well. Delhi's influence in Afghanistan also remains uncertain ahead of the expected US withdrawal.Bereft of India's bullying attitude, the smaller South Asian nations could not resist the lucrative Chinese lucrative Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Partnership with China offers smaller South Asia nations three distinct advantages. First, an alternative option and bargaining power against India. Second, China is viewed as a reliable partner by the smaller South Asian countries at the international diplomatic forums. Third, the inclusion in the BRI gives the South Asian political elites big-ticket infrastructure development projects to strengthen their political constituencies.South Asia is one of the least economically integrated regions in the world. Due to border disputes, mistrust and security concerns, the intraregional trade is well below the real potential in South Asia. Most of the South Asian states rely on developed nations for exports, and China for imports.The negligibly low intraregional trade and India's decision to weaken the already fragile South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) to wish away Pakistan paved the way for the Chinese economic ingress. There were no real commercial interests at stake for the smaller South Asia states before opting for the BRI. In South Asia, the BRI may replace the dormant Saarc as the new regional economic integration model.Notwithstanding its image as a rising global power, economic powerhouse and a close US ally, Beijing saw through New Delhi's bluff and eventually called it by militarily confronting it in the Himalayan region. During the Pulwama-Balakot crisis, Pakistan blunted India by shooting down its plane in the dogfight and catching the pilot. This projection-reality gap was not lost on the Chinese during the standoff in the Galwan valley.Another critical factor of Chinese success and the Indian failure is of their soft power perception in the calculations of smaller South Asian states. Due to its bullying attitude, Delhi comes across as an aggressor and expansionist power, while Beijing, given its non-intrusive approach, is viewed as a reliable security and economic partner.In recent years, the US’s reputation as a coalition partner has been dented globally. The muted US reaction to Iran-supported drone attacks on the Saudi oil refinery, Aramco, the abandonment of the Syrian Kurds through unilateral withdrawal from Syria, warning to the Afghan government to talk to the Taliban or face aid cuts and acting as a mere bystander in the India-China border dispute has left a lot to be desired.The US retreat from South Asia as the primary security guarantor and interlocutor left a yawning leadership vacuum which is now being filled by China. Washington’s silence on the Delhi-Beijing border standoff is deafening.In retrospect, the US absence was particularly felt during the Pulwama-Balakot crisis between India and Pakistan. Instead of urging both sides to act with restraint and de-escalate, Washington temporarily paused, supporting Delhi's so-called right to self-defence before activating the backchannel. The belated US intervention and partisanship eroded American influence and reliability as a security partner, forcing smaller states like Pakistan to rethink their future options to balance India.Once the India-China tensions de-escalate, the smaller South Asian nations will have to walk a tightrope to balance their relations between the two rival powers. They will most likely adopt a hedging strategy to continue their engagements with China without unnecessarily antagonizing India. In this intricate pattern of bilateral and multilateral relations, cooperation and competition will go hand in hand. Unlike the cold-war era politics, where states were in the capitalist or communist blocks or non-aligned, the countries may cooperate in some areas and may compete in others.Though the situation between Delhi and Beijing will normalize, it will not return to South Asia's old status quo. The New Cold war is here, and we have just seen a glimpse of how it is likely to play out in the South Asian region. Following the US presidential elections in November, the contours of this new rivalry will become more prominent.The writer is a research fellowat the S Rajaratnam School ofInternational Studies, Singapore.Email: isabasit@ntu.edu.sg

Due to the PTI government's mishandling, the Covid-19 situation in Pakistan has gone from bad to worse.
From "the coronavirus is a flu that spreads quickly" to "people are neither taking it seriously, nor following the SOPs" – we can easily sum up the government's bungled policy.According to Johns Hopkins University's coronavirus resource center, Pakistan is the fifteenth most Covid-19-affected country and fifth highest for daily news cases in the world.Notwithstanding Covid-19's Wuhan origins, the pandemic neither has a race, religion nor colour, and nor does it discriminate along these lines. Yet, we believed that the strain of the coronavirus which entered Pakistan was not as lethal as it was in China, Iran, Europe, or the rest of the world. Right from the beginning, a combination of exceptionalism, denialism and incompetence got us off to a wrong start. The result is the exponential growth of the coronavirus cases and deaths across Pakistan.The government's cluttered messaging on Covid-19 is epitomised by the prime minister's various speeches in which he has described lockdowns and social distancing measures as time-buying tools until a vaccine is developed and available in the market.Quite to the contrary, according to the World Health Organisation, lockdown and social distancing measures are implemented to reduce the reproduction rate (RO) of the coronavirus below 1 to keep the pressure off the healthcare system. The RO refers to the measure of virus' transmission or the number of infections generated by each new case.The ‘first wave’ (not to be confused with the global first and second wave of the pandemic) of Covid-19 struck Pakistan in March. The Shia pilgrims returning from Iran and the expatriate Pakistanis coming from different parts of the world, particularly Europe, were the first carriers of the coronavirus in the country. Inadequate quarantine facilities at Taftan and insufficient screening at the main airports resulted in the leakages. The refusal of the Tableeghi Jamaat to postpone its annual gathering at the Raiwind Markaz also undermined the initial efforts to contain the spread of the contagion.The lockdown announced in April, despite less-than-ideal implementation, insufficient testing and underreporting, kept the number of coronavirus cases and casualties below an alarming threshold. For instance, intensive care facilities and occupancy at the government hospitals during this time were not choked.The second bout of Covid-19 hit Pakistan hard in early June, and most of these cases are of local community transmission. The decision to lift the lockdown, particularly the week before Eidul Fitr, proved fatal. Following this decision, the number of daily cases rose from hundreds to thousands and deaths jumped up from the daily average of 15-20 to the 80-100 mark. For instance, from May 9 to June 8, after the lockdown was lifted, as many as 78,825 new coronavirus cases were added to the national tally. The same figure for the preceding month was 28,000. The lockdown and social distancing measures, no matter how imperfect, still worked.The life versus livelihood debate, in the context of Covid-19, required a humanist rather than capitalist approach: without lives, there will be no livelihoods. This debate further politicised an already polarised polity, sowed confusion and created a policy paralysis.A timely and efficient lockdown would have enabled the government to gradually open the economy with specific SOPs and save precious lives. Right now, the pandemic is destroying whatever is left of the struggling economy and consuming precious lives.After Eid, the rapid explosion of coronavirus cases has taken a toll on our fragile healthcare system, and exposed our medical fraternity to the pandemic. At present, as many as 3,400 healthcare workers, including 1,750 doctors, 400 nurses and 800 other supporting staff, have been infected across Pakistan.In the future, the security challenges to nation-states will come from environmental degradation, such as rising temperatures, high sea levels and coronavirus-like pandemics as well as insecurity over resources. Given future challenges, cutting-edge technological advancement grounded in a culture of scientific learning and data-driven policymaking is the roadmap to smart statecraft. Knowledge-driven economies and technologically skilled human resources are going to be the two main pillars of state power. The more accommodative and innovative a state becomes, the more resilient the state-society bond is – to cope with future challenges.The coronavirus pandemic has been a great equaliser which has exposed the redundancies, archaic bureaucratic practices and ugly realities of Pakistan's governance system. The most telling has been the state-society disconnect and divergent priorities. The coronavirus pandemic, the locust attack endangering the agriculture sector, glacial melt causing seasonal flooding and dengue outbreak necessitate expanding and re-conceptualising the notion of security in Pakistan by making it more inclusive and human-centric.In addition to conventional security, the non-traditional security sector involving health, food, human and economic security requires dedicated resource allocation, investment in institutional capacity and development of human expertise.Under a whole-of-state-and-society approach, a coordinated and bipartisan national response is needed for flattening the Covid-19 curve. In hindsight, even if one area or neighborhood is compromised, it can potentially neutralise the entire national effort. Likewise, consistent and articulate strategic communication is equally important to dispel the infodemic which has been spreading in the form of conspiracy theories and fake news.Finally, a philanthropist like PM Imran Khan who created a state-of-the-art cancer hospital despite enormous challenges and scepticism needs to put on his philanthropist hat to steer the nation out of this pandemic.The writer is a research fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore.Email: isabasit@ntu.edu.sg

Since the February agreement between the US and the Taliban, the Islamic State of Khorasan Province (ISKP) has unleashed a string of high-profile attacks in Kabul and other Afghan cities to derail the intra-Afghan peace process.
The ISKP is projecting itself as the only defiant jihadist group committed to jihad in the hope of attracting hardline factions of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda opposed to the peace agreement.At the same time, the ISKP, through these attacks, is pitching itself to 8,000 foreign jihadists in Afghanistan, 6,500 of whom are Pakistanis, who are looking for new organisational platforms to continue their militant careers. The terror group is also aware of the existing divisions between the Taliban’s political and military commissions. Fighting and ousting the US from Afghanistan has kept the Taliban’s organisational coherence intact. Once the US exits from Afghanistan, the military and political commissions’ divisions will come under a lot of strain. Outside of Afghanistan, some dissident Taliban leaders opposed to the US-Taliban deal have already created a new group Hizb-e-Wilayat-e-Islami.The ISKP has exploited the vacuum created by the Taliban’s commitment to reduce violence in Afghanistan’s urban areas, particularly Kabul, to create a conducive environment for intra-Afghan negotiations. Some of the ISKP’s devastating attacks include the May 30 roadside bombing that killed a broadcast journalist and his driver, the June 2 attack on the Akbar Wazir Khan mosque assassinating the influential religious cleric Maulana Mohammed Ayaz Niazi.Similarly, on May 12, the terror group targeted a funeral in the Nangarhar province killing 24 mourners. On the same day, a devastating assault on a maternity hospital in Kabul claimed 24 lives, mostly mothers and their newborns. Though the ISKP did not claim the attack, it bore all the hallmarks of its violence – attacking noncombatants of ethnic Hazara Shia minority in a city. Prior to this, the terror group hit a Sikh temple in Kabul with a suicide bomber killing 25 members of the Sikh community.Notwithstanding the arrests of two of its top leaders, Emir of Khorasan Sheikh Aslam Farooqi and leader for South Asia and the Far East Zia-ul-Haq, coupled with territorial and organisational setbacks, the terror group has shown unmistakable resilience, regenerative capacity and the capability to mount attention-grabbing attacks in Kabul. A recent UN report has put the residual numerical strength of the ISKP around 2,200 fighters clustered in small cells in and around Kunar, Nuristan and adjoining areas.So far, most of the research on the ISKP has focused on the strength or weakness of the group by examining its organisational capabilities, quality of the leadership and financial resources, while ignoring two critical factors: a) ideological appeal of Jihadi-Salafism in Afghanistan’s urban, educated youth; and b) and its ability to form alliances with like-minded militant groups.The traction of Jihadi-Salafism among Afghanistan’s educated youth of urban middle and upper-middle class lies at the heart of the ISKP’s remarkable resilience and regenerative capacity. A recent report of the United State Institute of Peace observes that the majority of the ISKP’s recruits in Afghanistan’s urban areas are non-Pashtuns, mostly ethnic Tajik. They are mainly drawn from Afghanistan’s three universities: Kabul University, Al-Biruni University and Nangarhar university.Unlike Afghanistan’s rural hinterland, where the Taliban have consolidated their control, educated youth of the urban areas have been torn between the democratic practices introduced after the 2001 US intervention and the Islamist model introduced by different modern Islamic evangelical outfits like Hizb-ut-Tahrir. This has resulted in an identity crisis among the educated youth of urban areas.In this identity vacuum, these youth were looking for a meaning, purpose and a sense of belonging in life. This search for identity pushed them towards the ISKP which offered them a strong in-group solidarity, ideological purity and a greater cause – the Caliphate to serve, live and die for.Second, the ISKP’s ability to strike alliances and cooperative arrangements with like-minded extremist groups such as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, Jundullah and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan in addition to attracting some factions of the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban has also added to its resilience and longevity. The greater the number of alliances and forms of cooperation, the larger is the resilience and longevity of a terrorist group.Moreover, the group operates in Afghanistan’s urban landscape in the form of discreet cells making its detection and complete elimination a daunting task. These cells are scattered throughout Kabul, Kapisa, Panjshir and Parwan. The cell structures have enabled the ISKP to survive, plot and execute attacks. Post-attack arrests and investigation of different ISKP members in Kabul have revealed that members involved in logistical operations and execution of the same attack neither knew each other, nor were they aware of each other’s presence.It is important to mention that both IS central and the ISKP have been unforgivingly critical of the Taliban for striking a deal with the US. The IS spokesperson Abu Hamza al-Qurashi has termed the Taliban as “apostates” for signing a deal with the “Crusader” America and launching a campaign against ISKP in Nangarhar. This statement is a clear gibe at the Taliban and an attempt to paint them as a nationalist group masquerading as a jihadist entity.Even if the Taliban and Kabul reach a political compromise, long-term peace in Afghanistan would remain elusive as long as structural causes of violence in the country are not addressed comprehensively. The single most important demographic factor critical to Afghanistan’s peaceful and stable future is its youth. Constructively engaging the Afghan youth in the nation building by moving beyond the securitised kill and capture approach is urgently needed.This approach will also be an effective neutraliser of the ISKP’s ideological appeal among the Afghan educated, urban youth.The writer is a research fellow at the S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Singapore.Email: isabasit@ntu.edu.sg

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