In the May 27 report on the signing of the gas supply agreement
between seller Turkmenistan on the one hand, and buyers India and
Pakistan on the other, the news-analyst of The Saudi Gazette
particularly noted that on the same geo-strategic arena where TAPI
project lay, there was the other project of the Iran-Pakistan-India
(IPI) gas pipeline. The news analyst surmised:

“The tussle over IPI and TAPI is not mere economic, rather it has
political dimensions too. IPI and TAPI are symbols of “New Great Game”
being played out in the region. The US and its allies want Pakistan to
abdicate IPI and pursue TAPI alone. India has almost done so. As of
March 2012, India has ceased discussions with Iran and Pakistan on the
project. Interestingly New Delhi’s decision to move ahead on TAPI
followed a visit to India by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. And
in the meantime, despite moving ahead on TAPI, Pakistan seems pursuing
the IPI too - with or without India.”

A day earlier, the
Pakistan Today reported: After signing of the gas sale purchase
agreement by Pakistan and India with Turkmenistan, Bangladesh has also
approached the Asian Development Bank (ADB) for inclusion in the four
nation gas pipeline project. Bangladesh has written a letter to ADB
showing interest to join the project. There is no problem of gas supply
and extending the pipeline to Bangladesh, as Turkmenistan has enough gas
reserves. Bangladesh’s demand is small and could be provided as
Afghanistan has given up its share. What is more significant is that “a
new Great Game” has also started in parallel, however benign, with the
competing influences of China and Russia at play in the Eurasian space.
As F. William Engdahl, an analyst of ‘oil politics and new world order’
expostulates in Global Research Articles: “The prospect of an
unparalleled Eurasian economic boom lasting into the next century and
beyond is at hand. The first steps binding the vast economic space are
being constructed with a number of little-publicized rail links
connecting China, Russia, Kazakhstan and parts of Western Europe. 

“Contrary to the dogma of Milton Friedman and his followers,
markets are never ‘free.’ They are always manmade. The essential element
to build new markets is building infrastructure and for the vast
landmass of Eurasia railroad linkages are essential to those new
markets. 

With the end of the Cold War in 1990 the vast under-developed land
space of Eurasia became open again. This space contains some forty
percent of total land in the world, much of it prime unspoiled
agriculture land; it contains three-fourth of the entire world
population, an asset of incalculable worth. It consists of some eighty
eight of the world’s countries and three-fourths of known world energy
resources as well as every mineral known needed for industrialization.
North America as an economic potential, rich as she is, pales by
comparison.

 

China-Turkey railway

“China and Turkey are in discussions to build a new high-speed
railway link across Turkey. If completed it would be the country’s
largest railway project ever, even including the pre-World War I
Berlin-Baghdad Railway link. 

“The proposed rail link would run from Kars on the easternmost
border with Armenia, through the Turkish interior on to Istanbul where
it would connect to the Marmaray rail tunnel now under construction that
runs under the Bosphorus strait. Then it would continue to Edirne near
the border to Greece and Bulgaria in the European Union. 

“The Turkish link would complete a Chinese Trans-Eurasian Rail
Bridge project that would bring freight from China to Spain and England.
The Kars-Edirne line would reduce travel time across Turkey by
two-thirds from 36 hours down to 12. Under an agreement signed between
China and Turkey in October 2010, China has agreed to extend loans of
$30 billion for the planned rail network. In addition a
Baku-Tbilisi-Kars (BTK) railway connecting Azerbaijan’s capital of Baku
to Kars is under construction, which greatly increases the strategic
importance of the Edirne-Kars line. 

“The Turkish-China railway discussion is but one part of a vast
Chinese strategy to weave a network of inland rail connections across
the Eurasian Continent. The aim is to literally create the world’s
greatest new economic space and in turn a huge new market for not just
China but all Eurasian countries, the Middle East and Western Europe.
Direct rail service is faster and cheaper than either ships or trucks,
and much cheaper than airplanes. For manufactured Chinese or other
Eurasian products the rail land bridge links are creating vast new
economic trading activity all along the rail line.”

 

India’s handicap

India is handicapped by the fact that it has no direct access to
the rapidly growing market-network of the vast Eurasian space except
through either Af-Pak territory or through Chinese territory. If the
Af-Pak situation remains unfavourable to India, it will have to seek,
however reluctantly, linkages through its BRICS connections, Modern
India is also handicapped by its preference for Indo-Aryan cultural
ambience to the subordinated “Timur” legacy, and as such may be laboured
in relating to the Eurasian populace. 

For Bangladesh, on the other hand, it is not only fuel supply but
also market access that are important. The closest physical access to
the vast Eurasian space is through China via Myanmar (an alternative
route is a hop over India to Nepal and onward to Tibet and Xingjian).
Culturally, though, Bangladesh may have easier relationship by the
limelight of common “Timur” legacy that left strong imprints of Bangla
self-esteem and witnessed the genesis of “Bangla” nationalism during the
Turkic Sultanate period of our history. 

It is a pity that Sheikh Hasina’s government, having realised early
the importance of Chittagong-Kunming Road and Rail connectivity, has
thereafter put the initiative into cold storage. That initiative must be
revived in full vigour for us to have a role and an access in the
Eurasian theatre, in addition to our recognised role in the Bay of
Bengal after ITLOS award.