China's emergence as a scientific power

BRI is being leveraged as a platform for collaboration in scientific fields. Should India join this specific component of the forum?

The second Belt and Road Forum convened in Beijing over April 25-27 was attended by 40 heads of state/government. From South Asia, Prime Minister Imran Khan of Pakistan and President Bidhya Devi Bhandari of Nepal were in attendance. Other South Asian countries, with the exception of India and Bhutan, sent ministerial level delegations. In the first such Forum held in 2017, the Prime Ministers of Pakistan and Sri Lanka were present.

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been presented as an ambitious Chinese designed and Chinese financed global infrastructure building initiative aimed at creating a network of land and maritime, energy and digital and integrated economic corridors with China serving as the central hub. That remained the focus of the second Forum but the BRI is also being leveraged as a platform for collaboration with partner countries in several other domains 

Recently, the science journal Nature carried articles on how China is utilising BRI to establish an impressive network of institutions and collaborative projects globally covering several areas of scientific research including agriculture, health, water resources, energy systems and artificial intelligence. The Chinese Academy of Science(CAS) which is the apex science policy institution in the country, has established five research facilities in China and nine in other countries, for R&D which is specifically related to the BRI. One such facility in Sri Lanka should ring warning bells in India. The South China Institute of Oceanology based in Guangzhou has set up an Ocean and Climate Research facility at the University of Ruhuna at Matara in Sri Lanka to study the meteorology and geology of the Indian Ocean. A Chinese oceanographic research vessel will be collecting data which may be of use to Sri Lanka but will provide immense volume of strategic data which will support Chinese naval, in particular, submarine operations in an ocean space adjacent to Indian shores. In both Pakistan and Sri Lanka, Chinese researchers are engaged in research in local herbal medicines and traditional knowledge systems, which may be of immense value in the production of new drugs. 

The CAS is spending $268 million on S&T (science and technology) projects under the BRI. This includes an impressive number of scholarships which are on offer to students from partner countries for undertaking research in Chinese universities and research institutes. Currently, there are 7000 Pakistanis being funded each year in PhD courses in China. This number is likely to go up to 20,000 in the next few years. A whole new generation of scientists trained in China are emerging in developing countries, replacing an older generation educated in the West. 

At the latest BRI Forum, China appeared willing to work together with multilateral institutions and some Western countries in undertaking projects in third countries. It has also shown willingness to address some of the growing concerns over the BRI financing methods which could lead to a debt trap for partner countries. President Xi Jinping announced a Debt Sustainability Framework for Partner Countries which would assess the viability of BRI projects in partner countries. In order to address environmental concerns related to the BRI, CAS has set up a Silk Road Environment Programme and has also agreed to partner with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, a think tank, to carry out an environmental assessment of BRI projects. How transparent these actions will prove to be remains to be seen.

While India has stayed away from the BRI, there is little doubt that the Chinese have managed to get most of the world on board. This includes those countries which had expressed serious reservations two years ago and had spurned Chinese invitation to sign up. Japan is one such major country. Several EU countries, the latest being Italy, have also decided to participate. The New Zealand Prime Minister has conveyed to China her country’s willingness to contribute to the adoption of best practices in project design and accounting procedures for BRI projects. What we are witnessing is a Chinese readjustment of BRI to address some of the concerns which have been raised over the past few years. There is also a willingness to bring in international institutions such as the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and UN agencies to add credibility and provide comfort to partner countries.  

Illustration: Binay Sinha

What should be India’s response to this changing context? There is no reason to alter our position of principle that as long as BRI projects violate India’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, as the China-Pakistan economic corridor undoubtedly does, India is unable to endorse it. However, this should not exclude working together with China on projects where there is mutual benefit and benefit to a third partner country. This was implicit in the Wuhan Consensus between leaders of the two countries, which restored balance in India-China relations after the tensions generated by the Doklam stand-off in 2017. In infrastructure development, India’s development of the Chabahar port in Iran and the planned northern rail and road corridor from there into Central Asia and beyond, can link up most usefully with the Eurasian transport corridor which China is developing. The trilateral highway linking India, Myanmar and Thailand could also be integrated with the north-south rail and road links which are joining southern China to the countries of Indo-China and beyond, with Mandalay as a nodal point. Beyond this India should look at the possibilities of S&T cooperation with China in areas of interest using the BRI platform. Despite there being a number of bilateral agreements on promoting S&T collaboration, there has been virtually no practical results so far. China has not even become a member of the International Solar Alliance in spite of solar energy being an obvious area of cooperation. Would it be worthwhile for India to convey to China its willingness to participate in specific BRI infrastructure projects on a case by case basis and to become part of the S&T component of BRI? This may soften the impact of India not signing up to the BRI as a whole, but also open up opportunities of meaningful cooperation in S&T where both countries could bring something to the table.

The writer is a former Foreign Secretary and currently Senior Fellow, CPR