harpoon
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Entry of new member need unanimity. So China is out as long as India does not acquiescence to its entry in SAARC.
And after soft coup done by India in Sri Lanka, be sure that nobody except you would go sharply against India.
And how much is CAR worth to India. A billion? 2 billion? 10 billion!!
The point I am making is that CAR has no economic potential except being a source of natural gas to India; a sector in which China has massively outbid us; and frankly why it should not! CAR gas is on its borders thus accruing very low transportation costs . It would be like Bangladesh having large deposits of gas.
The very small leverage of access to CAR that Pakistan has over India is very very small due to lack of economic potential of CAR. Had it been Europe or USA ,instead of CAR, things would have been different.
Also India could gain access to CAR via Iran. The current Chahbar project that India is executing is more of a "fцck Pakistan/Gwadar" project. On purely economic basis, it does not make any sense for India to invest in Chabhar for aforementioned reasons. India is financing it to ensure that Pakistan would not have a chockhold on Afghanistan and getting access to CAR is more of an afterthought.It also create competition for Gwadar, Gwadar which already hs to compete with Dubai for maritime traffic would be further undermined in another major port comes up just 170 Km away from its current location.
This is the reason that GoI never bartered any concession for gaining access to CAR , with Pakistan.
I had always wondered at the CAR obsession of PDF Indians. Let the Russians and Chinese have it, after all its in their background. Lets concentrate on places like Africa which has real growth potential rather than chasing the CAR mirage.