The trip this past week of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh should be seen in light of the possible emergence of an India Kazakhstan China geo-economic triangle, similar in nature to the one I pointed out seven years ago, long before Russia twice cut gas supplies to Europe from Turkmenistan, which involved China, Kazakhstan and Russia.

Bases for India China Kazakhstan mutual benefit

India and China together account for one-tenth of world trade, one-tenth of world production, and over one-third of world population. What is even more important for the rest of the world, their economies averaged 10 per cent growth in 2010 whereas the figure for every other country taken together was but 4 per cent.

Indeed, bilateral relations did not go begging for attention even though Manmohan was in Beijing officially for a multilateral BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) summit. A good diplomatic synthesis of these facts was captured in Singh’s comment that India-China relations have themselves transcended bilateral dimensions to achieve global strategic significance.

Manmohan raised the problem of trade imbalance between the two countries and specifically suggested that China might increase its import of Indian goods and technologies in the pharmaceutical, information, and agricultural sectors. Out of $60 billion total trade turnover, the imbalance rose 25 per cent to US$20 billion last year. Chinese President Hu Jintao recognized that there was “a problem” needing to be addressed but was noncommittal concerning concrete measures that might be taken.

Perhaps most notably, military cooperation between the two countries is set to resume this summer after a year’s hiatus occasioned by Beijing’s denial of a visa to an Indian army commander because he had served in Jammu and Kashmir. Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lie told that press that “China is vigorously committed to developing military to military relations with India”. Exploring the possibilities of joint military exercises is now being bruited. A consultation mechanism for resolving border disputes was also discussed, for the implementation of the bilateral 1993 and 1996 agreements.

India China Kazakhstan cooperation in a BRICS perspective

Manmohan held nearly the same discourse following the conclusion of the BRICS summit in Beijing upon his arrival in Kazakhstan, the first visit of an Indian prime minister in almost nine years. Ties between India and Kazakhstan, he told the official newspaper Kazakhstanskaya pravda, “have evolved into a firm strategic partnership”, invoking a joint declaration adopted during Kazakhstan president Nursultan Nazarbaev’s visit to India in January 2009. The juncture for such a visit is propitious, as Kazakhstan is about to assume chairmanship not only of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization but also of the Organization of the Islamic Conference.

As was indicated in this space four months ago, Delhi and Astana signed some agreements for energy-industrial cooperation during the present visit. Perhaps most notable was a commercial accord making it possible for India’s state-run ONGC (actually its foreign arm, OVL) to acquire a 25 per cent stake in Kazakhstan’s offshore Satpaev exploration bloc, which is not far from Kashagan and other significant oil deposits. This deal had been in the works for over three years, delayed by administrative complications arising from various industrial reorganizations and the resulting need for legal and economic clarifications.

Bilateral commercial exchanges have lagged due to transportation difficulties, still under $300 million last year despite Kazakhstan’s economic dynamism, which nearly matches India’s. During his visit, Manmohan held out in particular the possibilities for bilateral cooperation in science and technology, in which India has significant human and capital resources.

Energy components of potential India China Kazakhstan cooperation

He pointed to nano-technologies and space in particular as offering significant prospects for cooperation, in addition to nuclear and renewable energies. India has 20 nuclear reactors and is planning to increase its civil nuclear program; Kazakhstan has significant uranium deposits and already supplies India with nuclear fuel. Having OVL’s investment in Satpaev in mind, he added that India was interested also in cooperation “in construction of oil refineries and other downstream and upstream projects” in the hydrocarbon sector.

As for the Kazakhstan-China leg of the triangle, Kazakhstan was not present at the BRICS summit, but Kazakhstan-China relations focusing on energy and other economic issues have been covered here previously, in particular the relatively recently opened gas pipeline that begins in Turkmenistan and runs into China across Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, which follows by several years the entry into service of the Kazakhstan-China oil pipeline agreed between the two countries at the end of the 1990s.

We should, however, briefly adjoin the Pakistan-India-China triangle to the India-China-Kazakhstan one. It is of interest that the Pakistani media have tended to see Indian-Chinese relations as having the question of Pakistan at their center, and to have emphasized the antagonistic rather than the cooperative aspects of those bilateral relations, for example public statements of threat-perception by Indian military staff.

[A version of this article was first published in Asia Times Online.]