Roving Periscope: China, Pak plot a new SAARC-like outfit, exclude India
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: It was expected for a long time.
When China started debt-trapping and subtly ‘colonizing’ Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal, India became aware that the Dragon was plotting to sabotage the very spirit—regional cooperation—in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and replace it with an outfit packed with its toadies.
Founded in 1985 with headquarters at Kathmandu, Nepal, the SAARC is a regional intergovernmental organization and geopolitical union of states in South Asia. Its member states are India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, the Maldives, and Sri Lanka. Afghanistan joined it in 2007.
The plot to replace a defunct SAARC with a pro-China and anti-India outfit gained momentum during a high-level trilateral meeting between Dhaka, Beijing, and Islamabad, at Kunming, China, on June 19, with the ostensible aim to boost trade and connectivity among ‘willing’ SAARC members, the media reported on Monday.
The Kunming meeting followed a trilateral meeting between China, Pakistan, and Afghanistan in May, focusing on expanding the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) and enhancing regional collaboration in the Taliban-ruled Islamic Emirate in Kabul.
Islamabad and Beijing both “are convinced that a new organisation is the need of the hour for regional integration and connectivity.”
Bangladesh has, however, claimed that Dhaka, Beijing, and Islamabad are not forming a new regional alliance, saying the Kunming meeting “not political.”
“We are not forming any alliance,” M. Touhid Hossain, Foreign Affairs Adviser to the Muhammed Yunus-led interim government, said when asked about the meeting.
“It was a meeting at the official level, not at the political level,” he said, adding that there was “no element of formation of any alliance.”
According to Pakistan’s daily The Express Tribune, Islamabad and Beijing are in advanced talks to create a new regional organisation aimed at replacing SAARC.
The proposed organization intends to rope in ‘former’ SAARC members. The Kunming meeting’s aim was “to invite other South Asian countries, which were part of SAARC, to join the new grouping.”
Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and Afghanistan are said to be open to joining the proposed alliance.
Unlike the SAARC, which has remained dormant since 2016 because of India-Pakistan tensions, the new grouping would prioritise economic cooperation, trade facilitation, and infrastructure development across the region.
The SAARC aimed to promote economic, technological, social, and cultural progress among South Asian nations, with a focus on collective self-reliance. Its last summit was scheduled for 2016 in Islamabad, but India refused to participate because of Pakistan’s terror-sponsorship, that escalated tensions. Bangladesh, then governed by pro-India leader Sheikh Hasina, also opted out of the summit, effectively stalling the event.
In October 2024, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar regretted that this regional organization failed to progress in recent years due to one of its member-states (Pakistan) engaging in cross-border terrorism.
“At the moment, the SAARC is not moving forward. We have not had a meeting of SAARC for a very simple reason, there is one member of SAARC who is practising cross-border terrorism, at least against one more member of SAARC, maybe more,” Dr. Jaishankar was quoted as saying.
On the SAARC members’ dilemma, he said: “If you are all sitting together and cooperating, and at the same time this kind of terrorism goes on… it actually poses a challenge for us if you ignore it and go ahead, and in which case you are normalising it, you are accepting it that this is a legitimate tool of statecraft.”
Although the SAARC leaders haven’t met since the 2014 Kathmandu Summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi initiated the first-ever SAARC video conference in 2020 to propose a COVID-19 Emergency Fund, and also pledged USD 10 million as India’s contribution.
The 19th SAARC Summit was scheduled in Islamabad in November 2016, which India boycotted after the Pakistan-sponsored terror attack at Uri in Jammu and Kashmir in which 17 Indian soldiers were killed.
Afghanistan, Bangladesh, and Bhutan also pulled out, citing concerns about terrorism and regional interference. The Summit was cancelled—and it has not been rescheduled since.
Pakistan, who chief saboteur of the SAARC’s spirit, has been a beneficiary of the organization’s Visa Exemption Scheme, which India suspended after the April 22 Pahalgam massacre by Islamabad-sponsored terrorists.
India, as the largest member, significantly contributed to SAARC by providing substantial funding, and spearheading initiatives like the SAARC Development Fund and the South Asian University in New Delhi to promote education and economic cooperation among member states.
However, Pakistan’s actions, particularly its use of the SAARC veto to block initiatives like trade protocols and anti-terrorism mechanisms, hampered the organisation’s effectiveness.
For example, Pakistan vetoed the SAARC Motor Vehicles Agreement during the 2014 Summit in Kathmandu. It blocked the proposed framework for cross-border movement of passenger and cargo vehicles among member states. This obstruction by Pakistan led India, Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal to pursue the sub-regional BBIN Motor Vehicles Agreement in 2015.
