Asia Matters

As part of China’s enhanced global stature, its growing presence across Asia is increasingly
becoming evident. South, Southeast and Central Asia have not escaped that trend and China’s
influence in India’s immediate neighbourhood has risen to a significant extent. This can be gauged
through policies adopted by Beijing towards countries like Afghanistan, Iran Pakistan, Sri Lanka,
Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and the Central Asian Republics. These countries, barring
Bhutan, have all joined China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). China’s policy in these countries
is visualized as part of its broader geopolitical goal of potential encirclement of India, a country
that has always assumed an influential position in the region and whose soft power and influence
in the neighbourhood has traditionally been considerably more significant than that of China. The
surging requirement for humanitarian assistance, in the wake of the global pandemic and the
concomitant isolationist stance of the United States and Europe, as well as the emergence of nongovernmental soft power in its ranks, has significantly abetted China in rewriting its narrative and
strengthening its hold in these countries