It's because CHina took advantage of SL's disagreements with India.
As a result anyone that has an issue with India, which happens to be all our neighbours , Finds a friend in China.
Not all our neighbours; only Sri-Lanka and Pakistan when it comes to nation-wise and Bangladesh with BNP in power and Nepal when Maoists/Communists are/were in power. Other than that Bangladesh and Nepal have been recently quite accommodating to our demands and we have seen some visible results of it. Most of the countries that surround us are either envious of our progress or just cannot digest a defunct 15th century ideology going down in dust. Those neighbours who have been friendly have proven their loyalty to us and we have rewarded them
If those who want to make us their enemies by jumping to Chinese bandwagons--we shouldn't even give them a damn. Our neighbours if you see are barely of any economic, political or military significance barring China. So no matter how much they conspire, if we have a strong defense against them, their whining will be simply drowned by our meaning business.
That's because of 60 years of hard headed diplomacy, to get our way.
And what did that get us , we still have outstanding issues with all of them.
These "issues" will keep going on until they see India crumbling in front of their eyes. Our success has caught them off guard and their envy from such symptoms is clearly visible. China while says that it doesn't even consider us as an obstacle is only lip service. Why the hell would it go this deep to help Pakistan out so extensively? It is simply logic. Same way, SL hates the way IN controls the Palkh Straits and is dominant, with some Sinhala hawks going to the extent of claiming Rameshwaram as theirs! Pakistan as you know claims almost entire north India. Maoists and Communists of Nepal are nothing but CCP puppets just as BNP is a Pakistani/Saudi funded counter initiated to remove the pro-India Awami League in Bangladesh.
There is the bunch of issues you stated.
So no matter what we do, until we literally gift some of these "neighbours" our territory, they will hold out against us. Some people simply cannot be satisfied. They should be ignored, or if posed a threat be eliminated altogether.
Diplomatic ties are a mess , they don't trust us and we don't trust them
जब ज़हर उतारना आता नहीं हमारी सरकार को, तो साà¤à¤ª के बिल में हाथ डालने की कोई आवशà¥à¤¯à¤•à¤¤à¤¾ नहीं । We don't need to gain the trust of paranoid, envious and self-obsessed neighbours. There are countries of greater economic, political and cultural willingness and openness with greater overall clout and business opportunities within our extended neighbourhood to gain from. Think about it; If we can gain $10 billion of trade with Thailand as opposed to $2 billion of marginal trade with hate, jealously and politics clouding their minds against us, why should be even consider SL? Just because it is our neighbour?
Israel is surrounded by enemies all around and is virtually isolated. It is still the most developed and prosperous country in the entire Middle East and has one of the most influential passport reputation in the relevant progressive and developed world.
If your neighbours wish your destruction all the time and expect you to bow to them, then it is better to be isolated and self-strong than appeasing them and weakening oneself.
If we want the stable neighbourhood for India. Those countries they don't have to be our friends , but we should give them a reason not to be our enemies either. Because if we don't countries like China will do just that.
We are giving them a reason to hate us!!? They kill our Tamil people brutally, ravage their homes, destroy their temples and persecute them ruthlessly. And you say we are giving them a reason?! Don't you think that you are showing all those signs that some of our smaller but failed neighbours want us to show; signs of weakness?
Of all the countries in our neighbourhood, Bhutan has been the most economically, financially and militarily dependent on us and STILL they don't feel insecure; why is that? They are 100% reliant on India in terms of everything and we could go to the extent of calling them our virtual 31st state. But never once did Bhutanese king or their PM EVER express insecurities to align with China.
Same goes for Maldives. Despite numerous approaches by Chinese for Maldives to be used as a base, it refused and only allows IN to establish hearing posts. It never feels insecure. Sam applies for Mauritius that has willingly acceded 2 of their territory islands to us. Why is it that they don't "fear our expansionist designs"?
Why only Maoists in Nepal, Jamaatis of Bangladesh, Sri Lankans and Pakistanis say all this nonsense? Even traditional governments of Nepal and Bangladesh are loyal to India barring the funded stooges.
Think about it and tell me.
Now count how many countries around the world have same level of
political comfort with the Chinese compared to us. I am speaking strictly political comfort rather than economic or business ties. Who fares better? We do. China has secured a string of failed states around us as its allies because creating unstable north Koreas all around its neighbourhood is their strategy to rise and compete against capable countries. Without which their own growth and economy could be in bigger strain. Picture a neighbourhood with no Pakistan today; Had we finished that business in 1971 and driven all Pakistanis to middle east, capturing their land; today China won't be growing as easily and as wonderfully as it is now as our attention is towards Pakistan's nuclear blackmail packed terrorism.
This is a tactic we must not bow to. If some insecure paranoid regimes based on stupid ideologies are insecure from such a passive and weak Indian government, then they can as well chivvy off.
It is better to have a clear enemy than a blurry friend.
Sure you can say lets just point a gun at them and take what we want and lay down the rules. That won't work , all we will end up doing is polarising them.
We never pointed a gun at them so that is absolutely an illogical argument you have. In fact GOI ignored the call of our own Tamil people in south India and went ahead to help SL with LTTE. Though I admit that they went rogue than what was initially their plan of peaceful activism, but still we didn't stay adamant. BNP ruled Bangladesh was the most hostile neighbour during its tenure. They virtually turned Bangladesh into mini-Afghanistan, economy got stagnant, Bengali Hindus/Buddhists were attacked on regular basis, encouraged illegal movement of radicals into India and even bloody shot and killed 16 of our BSF soldiers until NDA government threatened military action against them and demanded compensation, which brought them to their senses.
Face it; they are already polarized and they will not leave an opportunity to use anything to see us worn out. It is better to keep them guessing and hence politically neutral than to appease them and lose our own solid ground.
Our outreached to Sri Lanka and Bangladesh, we are just trying to get them to realise their ties with India are just as important as their ties with China.
That is for them to consider since they are smaller and more dependent economies on us than we are to them. If they don't give a jack about it, why should we? Usually smaller neighbours are the ones who have to consider such steps. If they are not concerned neither should we. Have you seen China make concessionary agreements with Tajikistan, Vietnam, Cambodia or Laos?
And we won't get results for stuff like that over night.
We gotta make compromises we have to deal.
We have already made a LOT OF COMPROMISES. Not retaliating to illegal migration that still continues, paying heed to so-called "territorial disputes" that suddenly came up within last 10 years between SL, Bangladesh and us and even the disputes that none of Nepal's kings had ever mentioned but only suddenly landed from Mars when Prachanda took power etc. I think it is time that we learn to hold our guns close to our shoulders and stop compromising our interests for the sake of those neighbours who cannot digest our success and want to choose our wrong side.
This 100 million today , could allow for SLN to buy Ships made in our docks tomorrow.
Not at the cost of Tamil people who are brutalized everyday in their country. We don't need to arm a country that has bosom ties with our enemies. A lot of our fishermen have been manhandled and some even have been killed by these Sinhala hawks.
The basic idea behind is to stop the Lankans to side with China... Even if SL takes a complete side with China then our situation will be so critical - being surrounded with only enemies and not neighboring country.
Who said so? Develop same level of ties with Vietnam, help build and upgrade their facilities; woo Laos and Cambodia away from Chinese dependency and offer the industrial and economic investments and initiate development and upgrade programmes in their countries while promoting our already common cultural ties and tourism in their countries from India and help them develop their industry.
If our MEA is smart and takes these steps fast, steadily and sincerely, China is more likely to be in the same soup that it is trying so hard to create around us.
