BCIM by Team Alpha

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North South University

POL101

Introduction to Political Science

Research Project

On

Regional Organization BCIM (Bangladesh, China, India, Myanmar)

Submitted to 

Cynthia McKinney

Course Instructor

Submitted By

Team Alpha

Section: 5

Rumana Hossain 112 0039 045

S.M.Intisar Kabir 121 0453 030

Zarif Tazwar Khan 132 0275 630Masrur Wares Khan 132 0006 030

Mohammad Refaet Rahman 132 0161 030

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Letter of TransmittalDate: 17 April, 2014

To,Cynthia McKinney

Lecturer,North South UniversityDhaka, Bangladesh

Subject: Submission of POL101 report.

Dear Madam,

We are honored and pleased to submit you the report titled “BCIM”. All the members ofthe group have contributed to complete the paper, as a part of our course requirement.

We have picked up valuable experience in the last three months. We would like to thankyou for assisting us throughout overwhelmingly and North South University for givingthe opportunity to do our report task. We believe you will have a positive viewpoint onus as our analysis is genuine and honest. We shall be thankful if you kindly approve oureffort. We sincerely hope that this report will fulfill the requirements suggested by youfor the course POL101.

Thank you.

Yours Sincerely,

Name: Zarif Tazwar khan Name: Masrur Wares Khan Name: S M Intisar

Kabir

Name:Rumana Hossain Name: Refaet Rahman Mehedi

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The path toward completion of a report is hard and often times can seem quite difficult.

Thanks and all praises to Almighty Allah that by his blessing we have managed to

complete our report on “BCIM”. 

Yet it has been an enriching and rewarding experience for us both professionally as well

as personally. We would like to express our thanks and appreciation to the many that

have encouraged and lifted our feelings along the way. Without mentioning the names

of those contributors, the report will be incomplete and the purpose of this part of the

report is to pay a tribute to all of those cooperative people who gave their precious time

to help us and without whose assistance it would have been impossible to finish the

report.

Firstly, thanks to our course instructor Cynthia McKinney, who provided inspiration,

valuable guidelines, suggestions in the early stages of this report through the sense of

enthusiasm that he continually exuded.

Then comes the contribution made by the friends. It helped a lot to gather precious

information about the report. Without their cooperation it would be quite impossible to

pull-off such a task.

Equally, this report is the result of days of hard work by the researchers and regardless

of this report being a success or else, the researchers will always owe thanks to all of

them who helped being noble. Without their help, this report would not have been even

completed within the deadline.

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Introduction 

By definition, BCIM Bangladesh India China Myanmar is a sub-regional organization of

 Asian nations that have joined together for the advancement and expanding trade and

investment between four countries. The main target of this concept was for each

country to be able to co-operate and complement the other country’s vast natural and

economic resources for their advancement.

The “Kunming Initiative” later evolved to be much more crucial to hold the connection

between the two countries, the initiative not only discussed the policies between each

other, but also attempted to research on what can be possibly done for the sustainability

of their resources and maximization of their economic growth. The issue included the

promotion of trade and growth in BCIM region where the country representatives seek

to specific sectors where the country can promote their collaborations and institutional

arrangements and simultaneously deepen the ties between the BCIM members.

With time, the “Kunming  Initiative” was popularly known to be the BCIM forum. BCIM

forums then continued to be held annually to raise a contribution strongly influencing the

later development of raising awareness about the potential benefits that can be

obtained with the BCIM cooperation. BCIM soon started to feature issue between

governments in the form of discussions at the top most political levels as mentioned

earlier. The initial vision of Kunming was to lead what seemed to be a civil society to an

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intergovernmental one. The final output was expected to have political buy-in and

intergovernmental ownership as the key and objective of the initiative itself.

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Historical Background

The BCIM forum or the previously called Kunming Initiative was a form of “sub regionalism”

which was taken from the concept of “regionalism” that was first seen during the World War II.

It was clearly established that regionalism or anything similar to that sort works as a tremendous

guardian of peacekeeping and allows economic growth of all countries participating. The word

“Sub regionalism” is taken in this case because the four regions taking part are members of one

or more regional associations.

This concept of economic co-operation was first suggested by Professor Che Zhimin of the

Yunnan provincial people’s government during a visit to India in 1998. The idea was later

 backed up by Professor Rehman Sobhan who was a Bangladeshi economist, a Freedom fighter of

the Liberation War in 1971 and was a crucial part of the Bengali Nationalist in the late 1960’s.

Professor Rehman Sobhan rationalized his theoretic suggestion as to the fact that a type of a

transport connectivity, which is now called “multi-modal transport connectivity”, and other

initiatives along with the development of an internal infrastructure of this organization will be

able to help us reduce the transactional and industrial costs of many aimed purposes and will thus

in time will support the aim of the decrement of poverty throughout these countries. He

mentioned these ideas for the first time in the books: “Rediscovering the Southern Silk Route”,

2000 and “Transforming Eastern South Asia”, 1999. 

Professor Sobhan’s concept of co-operation lead to the birth of the aforementioned initiative,

named as the “Kunming Initiative”. Kunming had the first conference of this initiative on 17th

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August 1999. The authority of the meeting was held by multiple representatives, including

organization like “Centre of Policy Dialogue” (CPD), Bangladesh,“Center of Policy Research”

(CPR), India, “ministry of Trade”, Myanmar, and of course the hosts, “Yunnan Academy of

Social Sciences in Kunming”, China.

The following was an excerpt from the first meeting:

“It was agreed that regional cooperation should be guided by the Five Principles of Peaceful

Coexistence, emphasizing equality and mutual benefit, sustainable development, comparative

advantages, adoption of international standards, and infrastructure development in order to

enhance connectivity and facilitate widest possible economic coo peration.” 

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Roles Among the Countries 

India: India is most likely to concentrate on energy and trade and will they will want to

identify potential areas and some specific projects, with the aim of deepening economic

cooperation among the four nations. The BCIM Corridor allows India with a vital chance

not only to improve ties with China but also to give a fillip to its Act East Policy, and

further improve ties with Bangladesh, and also to show that it has the ability to

successfully implement ambitious projects. India’s engagement with Myanmar  will

contribute to India’s energy security as India is currently heavily dependent on Gul f oil

imports. Moreover, through BCIM there will be a link within Kolkata to Kunming, the

capital of China’s Yunnan province, passing through Myanmar and Bangladesh, with

Mandalay and Dhaka among the focal points. Other than these more Indian firms are

going to be set up in Myanmar. An upgrade of the 312 kilometer stretch of the Stilwell

Road, which connects Northeast India with Yunnan through northern Myanmar, will

eventually lower the transportation costs between India and China by 30 per cent and

escalate already growing Sino –Indian trade through the BCIM Corridor. Yunnan and

West Bengal can cooperate in sectors like agro-processing. The fact that the capitals of

the two provinces, Kunming and Kolkata, are the two ends of the BCIM Corridor only

add to prospects for greater exchange.

For India to become really proactive in the BCIM project, it must fulfill three important

pre-requisites:

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  Effective communication between New Delhi and other member-states and the

various Indian state governments involved

  Consensus between all important players

  Meticulous coordination.

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Bangladesh: BCIM is going to play a role for Bangladesh such that the initiative of

BCIM is potential to help Bangladesh to transform its geographical advantage into

economic benefits. The Regional connectivity network might help Bangladesh to

emerge as the transportation hub in the Asia Pacific region. There will be energy

cooperation which would help Bangladesh to get rid of the energy and power

insufficiency and establishment of special economic zones would attract huge

investments from home and abroad and contribute to a more balanced trade for

Bangladesh. Furthermore, free trade facilitation will be really beneficial for Bangladesh

as the country will get easy access to huge markets in China and India. It is estimated

that in the next five years, China will invest an additional $500 billion in other countries,

import over $10 trillion of products and send 400 million tourists abroad. Bangladesh, as

China's close neighbor and trusted friend, shall take an even more favorable posture to

make good use of “Chinese opportunities”. 

The ports of Chittagong and Mongla have huge surroundings to serve, and these ports

will serve the purpose of various export and import taking place. Thus improving the

state of connectivity within regions, and mobilizing of some potential infrastructure must

be seen as the perspective of long term development.

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China: “Kunming Initiative”- Reflects the role of the country’s border provinces in that

country’s involvement with its neighbor country and also the linkage of China’s strategy

of economic outreach. Chinas constitution and authority breaks down powers in its

border areas to carry out relations with foreign countries, especially where it searches

for economic diplomacy with neighboring States. In China foreign relations is completely

centralized with the Central Government. China plays an important role as it faces

economic slowdown and China now needs to enter new market segments.Thus, it is

very vital for China to maintain a positive political relation with India and also maintain a

good relationship with Myanmar and Bangladesh. 

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United States of America: BCIM has got a big potential trade future and

every developed country may have a look this, so does the USA. The USA doesn’t have

their best relationship with India, China, Bangladesh. Adding to recent unrest in China-

USA conflict at sea, USA-India arguments and USA’s interfere on Bangladesh’s war

criminal tribunal, USA diplomats won’t be the happiest seeing Bangladesh, China, India

and Myanmar merging together for economic progress.

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Russia: Russia’s has trade relation with India and Bangladesh, especially war

weapon, nuclear energy project, etc. And Russia always knows that these two countries

are always with Russia, where Russia has a conflict with the USA. So Russia will take a

look on these countries, sharing their border for trade. Russia will think that they can

share the route in future, and of course, in case of emergency.  

Pakistan: Pakistan has a life- long conflict with India and in many aspects with

Bangladesh as well. But China was always been to Pakistan to counter India. So

Pakistan will be frustrated by seeing China sharing their corridor along with India and

Bangladesh. If the economy of India and Bangladesh get benefit from BCIM, Pakis tan’s

economy might have some effect as well.

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Effectiveness

The effectiveness of an organization is one of the most important things to run an

organization. Effectiveness of BCIM is discussed below:

Economic Corridor:

Economic corridor is the fruitful outcome of BCIM. This corridor will connect India and

China and it will pass through Bangladesh and Myanmar. This corridor will cover 1.65

million sq. kilometer and will influence 440 million people. In terms of both sectors and

products, BCIM Corridor will allow its member countries to exploit existing

complementarities in trade. 

Increased mutual communication:

Due to BCIM, communication among the countries has increased and all of the

countries are determined to honor each others view. On December of 2018, all of the

countries had a meeting and they emphasized on more flexible communication among

the member countries.

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Cooperation:

BCIM connects ASEAN Free Trade Area, ASEAN-China Free Trade Area and the

 ASEAN-India Free Trade Area. So it will create one of the largest free trade area.

Economic development:

FDI inflow of the member countries has significantly increased over the last decade.

India and China have increased their investment in the Export processing zone (EPZ)

and the Domestic Tariff Area (DTA).

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Future of the organization

In our opinion, we think it is a brilliant idea to develop the organization by building an

expressway between Bangladesh, China, India & Myanmar. In this way, the

communication between these neighbor countries can be very strong. The inhabitant

can enjoy the presence of greater market and can go with mass production for the huge

market.

Removing trade barriers between countries can help the business tycoons to bring

economic growth to the joint economy. Such concept of encouraging the trade between

four countries will reduce the rate of unemployment. This is because, when the markets

grows in size, it triggers more competition in the market. As a result, the firms of these

four countries will try to improve their product with quality and price. To carry on such a

process, industry needs the involvement of labors.

Investment in infrastructure development will enable these countries to come out of the

bad traffic system. Such development will encourage tourist to visit this chain of

countries. Not only that, it will help the inhabitant to maintain their life in a systematic

and easy manner. When four countries are working together as a group and trying to

help each other to access natural resources the growth of those members are bound to

increase.

Currently, these countries have comparative advantage and the constitution of BCIM

will undoubtedly convert it into a competitive advantage. Therefore the companies will

compete each other to prove themselves better without any discrimination of having a

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unique natural resource advantage. Here, all the companies from different countries will

be having the same access of the natural resources.

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Conclusion: 

Overall, we think it is a brilliant idea to create a good relationship between these four

countries. The future of the organization is very bright from my point of view, as we

strongly oppose the policy of “Divide and Rule”. Implementation of such thought will

lead to improvement with no shadow of doubt, unlike any political parties between

country exchange bad practices between them.Though BCIM’s initial goals are trade,

energy sector and corridor sharing, but this regional organization may look at many

other things than just trade. Last but not the least, BCIM can be a game changer for the

member countries.

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