It’s a mistake to exclude India from a new South Asian bloc – Nikkei Asia

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1. SS: Summary: “It’s a Mistake to Exclude India from a New South Asian Bloc” – Nikkei Asia (July 21, 2025)

   The article by Salman Rafi Sheikh, a politics professor from Lahore University, argues that excluding India from a proposed new China-Pakistan-led South Asian bloc will deepen regional rivalries rather than foster cooperation.

   🔹 Context:

   On June 19, 2025, diplomats from China, Pakistan, and Bangladesh met in Kunming to propose a new bloc to replace the stalled SAARC, which has been inactive since India boycotted its 2016 summit after the Uri terrorist attack.

   The bloc is backed by China and Pakistan and includes countries like Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh, all of which are moving closer to Beijing’s orbit.

   🔹 Why Excluding India Is a Strategic Error:

   1. Economic Clout: India is South Asia’s economic engine, contributing ~70% of SAARC’s GDP, with strong trade links across the region (e.g., $13B trade with Bangladesh).

   2. Geopolitical Backlash: India could counter this bloc by strengthening BIMSTEC, leading to dual, conflicting regional orders (China-led bloc vs India-led BIMSTEC).

   3. Fragmentation Risk: Overlapping members like Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka would struggle to balance ties between competing groupings, worsening instability.

   🔹 Likely Consequences:

   Heightened Tensions: India may deepen ties with the US and Quad, increasing its military and diplomatic assertiveness against China, especially over Ladakh and Taiwan.

   Marginalizing Pakistan: U.S. support for India may lead to further neglect of Pakistan’s concerns (e.g., Balochistan separatism).

   Stalled Collaboration: Critical regional issues like climate change, water sharing, and counterterrorism require India’s involvement for meaningful progress.

   🔹 Conclusion:

   The exclusion of India risks entrenching geopolitical divides and rendering South Asia even less integrated. A truly effective regional bloc must include New Delhi to build cooperative solutions rather than perpetuate rivalry.

2. Including both Pakistan and India is just a waste of time right now. SAARC Was doomed because of this

3. India and Pakistan together — and especially now after the recent clash? Sounds like a recipe for disaster 

4. As far as India is concerned, the very conception of “South Asia” is a trap designed by USA and China to keep India preoccupied in meaningless territorial disputes with states that are at best half-failed, so that India will not be able to focus on its maritime domain and become the hegemon of Indian Ocean, thus allowing USA and China to run rampant in India’s rightful sphere of influence.

   The other “South Asian” leaders like this, since a equivocation with India elevates them beyond their station. And it keeps India’s ambitions inhibited, which is a nice cherry on top.

   Of course, India realized this, which is why it has gone to great lengths to create and facilitate alternative groupings for itself, everything from the IBSA to Quad to conducting regular Voice of Global South summits. And it has worked hard to destroy organizations that see themselves in terms of South Asia (like SAARC) and replace them with the ones that don’t (like BIMSTEC). Because that gives India an exit from the very architecture of South Asia.

   If you have seen the current leader of Bangladesh trying to walk back from BIMSTEC and focus of SAARC, you might have wondered why was it so important for him to be in the same room as Pakistan. Now you know.

   A new regional grouping that includes China, Pakistan and Bangladesh and excludes India will destroy the very idea of a geopolitical South Asia, thus freeing India from the expectation of certain kinds of behavior. One lesson that was learnt after Op Sindoor was that India no longer have a two-front (or three-front, or four-front, …) challenge, but rather a one-front challenge. Most countries that border India are more than happy to act as satellites of China for some tactical gains, which means that they are much more like medieval levies of China than true sovereigns. The destruction of South Asia gives India the latitude to operationalize those lessons and redefine itself out of the Mughal-British conception of what India is towards a more Maratha-Chola conception.

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