Reconstructing the idea of South Asia

If problems can be taken care of, the geographical proximity can help to create ‘physical connectivity’ in order to strengthen the regional cooperation in South Asia

Given the traditional definition, we understand region mostly by territorial familiarity and shared cultures. Nonetheless, there is no concrete version of regional understanding as different scholars identify it differently. Karl Deutsch mentions that “integration is a process” whereas a neo functionalist would define it as “integration is linked with international level through a concrete structure” (Tripathi, 2015). Inclusively, regional integration is a process aided with cultural and regional components. Take an example of such element; economic cooperation. If we redefine South Asian region through putting China, Myanmar in a group with Bangladesh and India, we will get one of the most resourceful regions of the world called BCIM (Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, China) in terms of natural resources like minerals and natural gas. This region covers 7.3 per centof global GDP and constitutes of almost 500 million people (The World Bank, 2015). Definitely, this region is expected to have high amount of intra-regional trade relationship which has not been happened. According to World Bank, whereas, ASEAN countries contribute 25 per centto the total trade, this region has less than 10 per centcontribution (The World Bank, 2015). Despite the great potentialities for economic integration, bilateral issues like border conflicts, Trans-boundary water resources, illicit human and drug trafficking as well as historical disputes keep weakening this region. Keeping aside the bilateral issues, Professor Rehman Sobhan, founder of Center for Policy Dialogue (CPD), advocated that infrastructure development and a connected transportation system can reduce transaction costs and stimulate trade and investment in BCIM region.
The first meeting was held by number of representative organizations such as The Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) from Bangladesh, Centre for Policy Research (CPR) from India and Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences in Kunming, China were the civil society initiators for this meeting held in Kunming, China. However, Ministry of Trade, Myanmar was only government participant joined this conference (Bcim-forum.com, 2015) in 1998. Known as ‘Kunming initiative’, merely it aimed to increase efficiency in institutional arrangements for expanding trading relationship among the BCIM countries and its multiple relevant stakeholders. BCIM forum is basically a sub-regional organization navigated from track II level to track I level gradually when the project of Economic Corridor was planned. Demonstrating what an economic corridor is, scholar and historian B K Josi, who is currently working on his book regarding Silk Road of China, says that “A trade corridor is a specific trading route that utilizes common trade agreements and infrastructure of the involved nations to increase the flow and productivity of trade and also strengthen bilateral ties”. This defines economic corridor as a multi-way transportation system that can fit into regional structural development. This economic corridor is consisting of number of units from North-East States of India, Southern province of China, Bangladesh and Myanmar (Uberoi, 2014). EC project of BCIM forum considers the day, 18th December, 2013, Based on its initial design, this economic corridor will start from Kolkata, India and finally ends in Yunnan province, China. Thus, this project is also known as ‘Kolkata-Kunming’  project. In the second meeting held in 2014, each country contributed to the proposal by adding up their concerns regarding by linking seven major areas of development; connectivity, energy, investment and financing, trade of goods and services, social development and poverty alleviation, sustainable development and root level communication .Noticeable thing is that unlikely other regional or sub-regional projects, this project is a track II initiative where role of experts from non-state civil agencies is impressive through Joint Study Group (JSG). Joint Study Group was established in 2013 by the governments of these four countries in order to study the area of improvement and challenges of this project. This JSG team actually fueled this project wherein, this project was announced as announced that the plan would be “advance multi-modal connectivity, harness the economic complementarities, promote investment and trade and facilitate people-to-people contacts” .
Started from the advocacy of CPD, these experts are currently working to identify the challenges and effective mechanism for the successful implementation. Recently, Ren Jia, President of the Yunnan academy of Social Science, suggests that “a strong institutional approach can address the non-traditional threats like ethnic conflict, smuggling illicit drug issues to promote the convenience of BCIM EC project” .  While these countries are already m embers of other regional organizations like SAFTA, BIMSTEC or APTA, several initiatives have already been lunched by these countries to promote the regional cooperation.  For example, BIMSTEC has established charter to promote ‘free trade zone’ in this region. Keeping other initiatives into consideration, how the BCIM grouping can help promoting South Asian Regionalism is really an issue to look into deeply. Interesting fact is that this BCIM grouping includes two developing countries with faster growing economy (India, China) and two Least Developing Countries (Bangladesh, Myanmar).
The recent meeting in Dhaka has made remarkable success in comprehending the inclusiveness and participation from every country. This grouping is one of the few which includes China and India both at track II initiatives. However, a good domestic infrastructure is required for such cross border transportation. For BCIM project, the member states must have to have favorable geographical location as well. However, these countries especially Bangladesh needs lots of improvement in terms of roads construction for required connectivity. Due to huge expenditure that this country is unable to afford, poor infrastructure progress will hinder this project at great level.  Due to unfavorable relations between neighbor countries like China and India or India and Bangladesh, role of India has been inconsistent while China prefers to be functional model. There is a challenge because a small portion of this corridor in Arunachal Pradesh which is a disputed area between India and China and it is insurgency-prone area. Therefore, these small territorial issues also need to be taken care of to make this a success. Moreover, this project is at risk of dealing with security dilemma, regional dominance, migration and illicit drug business. Regarding this, Dr. Ren Jia thinks that BCIM countries can address these issues by setting up a “joint enforcement”
It appears to be a tough hurdle to overcome the bilateral issues and asymmetries to create a favorable environment for fostering the project.
However, the distinctive feature of the BCIM grouping is that the economic corridor aims to create a ‘growth zone’ covering the important yet disconnected regions of these four countries. A study presented in one of the BCIM meeting also says that “The corridor is expected to unlock parts of the four countries towards reaping greater economic synergies, complementarities and upscale manifold economic opportunities.”.  Apparently, both the experts and states are hoping that this project of economic corridor will help to enhance the economic development in this region. Why this project will helps to integrate this region is because every country will have certain benefits from this economic corridor. For example, Bangladesh shares a long border with India including North-East of India. So far, Bangladesh can connect with that part and easy transport will make it a target for foreign investment. India will be benefitted by expanding their business to East Asia through Myanmar. Definitely, this economic corridor may have potential to put every country into the chain of regionalism. This corridor has brought the focus to North-Eastern side of India which was always out of state focus. It will not be only used for trade but social and political integration among these countries like bilateral enmity between China and India or Bangladesh and Myanmar is expected to be reconciled over a good diplomatic relation because an appropriate border management is needed for successful execution of this project.
Obviously, if problems can be taken care of, the geographical proximity can help to create ‘physical connectivity’ in order to strengthen the regional cooperation in South Asia.
The writer is a freelancer

Reconstructing the idea of South Asia

If problems can be taken care of, the geographical proximity can help to create physical connectivity in order to strengthen the regional cooperation in South Asia

Given the traditional definition, we understand region mostly by territorial familiarity and shared cultures. Nonetheless, there is no concrete version of regional understanding as different scholars identify it differently. Karl Deutsch mentions that integration is a process whereas a neo functionalist would define it as integration is linked with international level through a concrete structure (Tripathi, 2015). Inclusively, regional integration is a process aided with cultural and regional components. Take an example of such element; economic cooperation. If we redefine South Asian region through putting China, Myanmar in a group with Bangladesh and India, we will get one of the most resourceful regions of the world called BCIM (Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, China) in terms of natural resources like minerals and natural gas. This region covers 7.3 per centof global GDP and constitutes of almost 500 million people (The World Bank, 2015). Definitely, this region is expected to have high amount of intra-regional trade relationship which has not been happened. According to World Bank, whereas, ASEAN countries contribute 25 per centto the total trade, this region has less than 10 per centcontribution (The World Bank, 2015). Despite the great potentialities for economic integration, bilateral issues like border conflicts, Trans-boundary water resources, illicit human and drug trafficking as well as historical disputes keep weakening this region. Keeping aside the bilateral issues, Professor Rehman Sobhan, founder of Center for Policy Dialogue (CPD), advocated that infrastructure development and a connected transportation system can reduce transaction costs and stimulate trade and investment in BCIM region. The first meeting was held by number of representative organizations such as The Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD) from Bangladesh, Centre for Policy Research (CPR) from India and Yunnan Academy of Social Sciences in Kunming, China were the civil society initiators for this meeting held in Kunming, China. However, Ministry of Trade, Myanmar was only government participant joined this conference (Bcim-forum.com, 2015) in 1998. Known as Kunming initiative, merely it aimed to increase efficiency in institutional arrangements for expanding trading relationship among the BCIM countries and its multiple relevant stakeholders. BCIM forum is basically a sub-regional organization navigated from track II level to track I level gradually when the project of Economic Corridor was planned. Demonstrating what an economic corridor is, scholar and historian B K Josi, who is currently working on his book regarding Silk Road of China, says that A trade corridor is a specific trading route that utilizes common trade agreements and infrastructure of the involved nations to increase the flow and productivity of trade and also strengthen bilateral ties. This defines economic corridor as a multi-way transportation system that can fit into regional structural development. This economic corridor is consisting of number of units from North-East States of India, Southern province of China, Bangladesh and Myanmar (Uberoi, 2014). EC project of BCIM forum considers the day, 18th December, 2013, Based on its initial design, this economic corridor will start from Kolkata, India and finally ends in Yunnan province, China. Thus, this project is also known as Kolkata-Kunming project. In the second meeting held in 2014, each country contributed to the proposal by adding up their concerns regarding by linking seven major areas of development; connectivity, energy, investment and financing, trade of goods and services, social development and poverty alleviation, sustainable development and root level communication .Noticeable thing is that unlikely other regional or sub-regional projects, this project is a track II initiative where role of experts from non-state civil agencies is impressive through Joint Study Group (JSG). Joint Study Group was established in 2013 by the governments of these four countries in order to study the area of improvement and challenges of this project. This JSG team actually fueled this project wherein, this project was announced as announced that the plan would be advance multi-modal connectivity, harness the economic complementarities, promote investment and trade and facilitate people-to-people contacts . Started from the advocacy of CPD, these experts are currently working to identify the challenges and effective mechanism for the successful implementation. Recently, Ren Jia, President of the Yunnan academy of Social Science, suggests that a strong institutional approach can address the non-traditional threats like ethnic conflict, smuggling illicit drug issues to promote the convenience of BCIM EC project . While these countries are already m embers of other regional organizations like SAFTA, BIMSTEC or APTA, several initiatives have already been lunched by these countries to promote the regional cooperation. For example, BIMSTEC has established charter to promote free trade zone in this region. Keeping other initiatives into consideration, how the BCIM grouping can help promoting South Asian Regionalism is really an issue to look into deeply. Interesting fact is that this BCIM grouping includes two developing countries with faster growing economy (India, China) and two Least Developing Countries (Bangladesh, Myanmar). The recent meeting in Dhaka has made remarkable success in comprehending the inclusiveness and participation from every country. This grouping is one of the few which includes China and India both at track II initiatives. However, a good domestic infrastructure is required for such cross border transportation. For BCIM project, the member states must have to have favorable geographical location as well. However, these countries especially Bangladesh needs lots of improvement in terms of roads construction for required connectivity. Due to huge expenditure that this country is unable to afford, poor infrastructure progress will hinder this project at great level. Due to unfavorable relations between neighbor countries like China and India or India and Bangladesh, role of India has been inconsistent while China prefers to be functional model. There is a challenge because a small portion of this corridor in Arunachal Pradesh which is a disputed area between India and China and it is insurgency-prone area. Therefore, these small territorial issues also need to be taken care of to make this a success. Moreover, this project is at risk of dealing with security dilemma, regional dominance, migration and illicit drug business. Regarding this, Dr. Ren Jia thinks that BCIM countries can address these issues by setting up a joint enforcement It appears to be a tough hurdle to overcome the bilateral issues and asymmetries to create a favorable environment for fostering the project. However, the distinctive feature of the BCIM grouping is that the economic corridor aims to create a growth zone covering the important yet disconnected regions of these four countries. A study presented in one of the BCIM meeting also says that The corridor is expected to unlock parts of the four countries towards reaping greater economic synergies, complementarities and upscale manifold economic opportunities.. Apparently, both the experts and states are hoping that this project of economic corridor will help to enhance the economic development in this region. Why this project will helps to integrate this region is because every country will have certain benefits from this economic corridor. For example, Bangladesh shares a long border with India including North-East of India. So far, Bangladesh can connect with that part and easy transport will make it a target for foreign investment. India will be benefitted by expanding their business to East Asia through Myanmar. Definitely, this economic corridor may have potential to put every country into the chain of regionalism. This corridor has brought the focus to North-Eastern side of India which was always out of state focus. It will not be only used for trade but social and political integration among these countries like bilateral enmity between China and India or Bangladesh and Myanmar is expected to be reconciled over a good diplomatic relation because an appropriate border management is needed for successful execution of this project. Obviously, if problems can be taken care of, the geographical proximity can help to create physical connectivity in order to strengthen the regional cooperation in South Asia. The writer is a freelancer