ABSTRACT
The Introduction proposes that regionalism is a means through which national economies participate in the process of globalisation. It is expected that geo-political concerns of nations would give way to geo-economic goals as the forces of globalisation would bind them inextricably in a global economy. Unlike the old regionalism that developed in Europe following WWII out of geo-political compulsion, economic regionalism, the new regionalism – as it is often called – is the product of the geo-economic perception of the nation states who constitute the building blocks of the international system.
A series of sub-regional cooperation fora have sprung up particularly in Asia involving cross-border areas of neighbouring countries where economic growth has become a hostage to geographic peripherality. Unlike the European model of integrationist regionalism, the new regionalism is built on common economic interest of the constituent members loosely governed by principles of cooperation and benefit sharing under the supervision of international agencies. While the construction of transport corridors and then their subsequent transformation into economic corridors have generated gains in trade due to the reduction in transport and transaction costs on the one hand, mobilisation of cross-border resources and establishment of regional value chain have resulted in gains in production in them on the other.
Encouraged by the success of new regionalism in Asia, think tank institutions in Bangladesh, China, India and Myanmar (BCIM) took the initiative for the establishment of a cross-border sub-regional cooperation – popularly known as the “Kunming Initiative” which, after 14 years of civil society dialogue, has dramatically transformed into an intergovernmental initiative (Track I) in 2013, under the rubric of BCIM Economic Corridor (BCIM-EC). However, fast change in Sino-Indian relations after 2014 seems to have widened the geo-political differences between them to outpace the perceived geo-economic gains for India from BCIM-EC. As a result, progress on BCIM-EC has suddenly lost momentum and the Indian strategic community appears to have gone into the mode of geo-strategic calculation. Following the adoption of Chinese One Belt One Road (OBOR) project, the deeper geo-political intention behind the inclusion of BCIM-EC at inter-governmental joint declaration became clear. Indian strategic community is not comfortable promoting an overland pathway to Maritime Silk Road (MSR) that intends to strengthen Chinese influence in the Indian Ocean – the traditional Indian strategic space. This volume intends to weigh between geo-economic gains and geo-political apprehensions arising out of the proposed BCIM-EC sub-regional cooperation in order for the stakeholder countries to arrive at an informed decision in this regard.
