Close on the heels of the Tokyo Declaration during Prime Minister Narendra Modi?s recent visit to Japan, Chinese President Xi Jinping will very likely unfold an ambitious agenda for Indo-Sino relations when he arrives here today. One area for China to showcase is its astonishing prowess in railways modernisation. Way behind Indian Railways until some thirty years ago, China’s railways is now the world?s number one. With the world?s largest high-speed rail network, of over 11,000 km, and indigenous technological wherewithal, China is eyeing a large share of the Indian railways pie.

A trans-continental rail connectivity has emerged as China?s unique stratagem of statecraft. Although China is an extra-regional player, it is busy developing extensive multi-modal connectivity all along India’s neighbourhood, be it the road or rail links along and inside Pakistan, Nepal, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Afghanistan. It has thereby wrested significant regional leadership from India and is hailed as a country that delivers . In the west, it has planned strategic linkages to Pakistan, Iran and all across Central Asia, incorporating the Gilgit-Baltistan tract into Xinjiang?s

logistics grid, particularly through a 900-km rail line from Gwadar port in Balochistan on Pakistan?s south-west coast, close to the Straits of Hormuz, to join the line along Koh-i-Taftan-Spezand-Quetta-Chaman onwards through Khunjerab Pass in the Karakoram to Kashgar in China. In the east, its plans include the construction of the second Padma bridge and a 130 km rail line from Chittagong to Gundum on Myanmar-Bangladesh border, as it also plans to build the 232 km Lashio-Muse/Ruili rail line for a strategic link across Myanmar.

In the north, China is busy extending its 1,142-km-long Golmud-Lhasa rail line, that was opened in July 2006, to Xigatse, Tibet?s second-largest city, by adding a 253 km line, a precursor of further extensions?not just to Nyalam, 400 km from Xigatse on the border with Nepal, with a probable 120 km link to Kathmandu, but also to Dromo, close to Bhutan and Sikkim, and further on to Nyingchi, close to Arunachal Pradesh.

India needs to introspect why its own backyard feels alienated, why it has dithered, for example, even with regard to a mere 18 km rail link for Biratnagar, 15 km line for Bhairahwa, and reconstruction of Jaynagar-Bijalpura line in Nepal, another 18 km Hashimara- Phueontsholing line in Bhutan? Hasn?t it been procrastinating on the vital rail-and-road connectivity projects in Myanmar? Even the 13.5 km Agartala in Tripura-Akhaura in Bangladesh rail link?coveted by India for long to provide connectivity to north-east and consented to by the visiting Prime Minister of Bangladesh in January 2010?has seen no progress.

Why shouldn?t India think big, consistent with its own place and potential in the region, and, for example, plan to link its network to Kathmandu and join with the rail line in Tibet, for a seamless rail journey from Rameshwaram to Mansarovar? When China links its rail network to Kathmandu, the only missing link will be the stretch from Raxaul-Birganj to Kathmandu. The ministry of physical planning and works in Nepal arranged, in 2006, for a techno-economic survey for a rail line connecting Birganj with Kathmandu. The survey recommended a 174-km-long, 1,676 mm electrified rail line along Kathmandu-Thingari-Kaveri-Hetuada-Pyramidi-Amlekgunj-Pathlauja-Birganj. The project cost was estimated at Nepali Rupees 2,965 crore.

After SAFTA, South Asia looked at a customs union by 2015 and an economic union by 2020. An ?economic union? implies integration of markets, ease of travel and trade and cultural interaction. South Asia, home to more than 24% of the world?s population, needs greater economic integration. But it remains the world?s least-integrated region: its total global trade was $551.1 billion in 2009 and $623 billion in 2010; intra-regional share was merely 3.5% and 4.4%, respectively. In comparison, ASEAN has a share of 15%. Lack of integration keeps South Asian nations poor. Despite the fact that railways in the region inherently constituted a unified system across India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, the rail connectivity is negligible.

Contrary to some geopolitical analysts? ?isolationist? view of the Indian sub-continent being an ?island? in geopolitical terms, it has been firmly advocated by others that South Asia is indeed the ?crossroads? of Asia, integrated with the land-based and sea-based trade and flow of people across the continent. It would thus oblige SAARC to view intra-regional surface transport connectivity also as part of wider trans-continental connectivity.

The author was the first MD of the Container Corporation of India Ltd