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 630

Masrur Wares Khan

132 0006 030

Mohammad Refaet Rahman

132 0161 030

Letter of Transmittal
Date: 17 April, 2014
To,
Cynthia McKinney
Lecturer,
North South University
Dhaka, Bangladesh
Subject: Submission of POL101 report.
Dear Madam,
We are honored and pleased to submit you the report titled BCIM. All the members of
the 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 thank
you for assisting us throughout overwhelmingly and North South University for giving
the opportunity to do our report task. We believe you will have a positive viewpoint on
us as our analysis is genuine and honest. We shall be thankful if you kindly approve our
effort. We sincerely hope that this report will fulfill the requirements suggested by you
for the course POL101.

Thank you.

Yours Sincerely,

Name: Zarif Tazwar khan

Name: Masrur Wares Khan

Kabir

Name:Rumana Hossain

Name: Refaet Rahman Mehedi

Name: S M Intisar

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.

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 countrys 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

intergovernmental one. The final output was expected to have political buy-in and
intergovernmental ownership as the key and objective of the initiative itself.

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 peoples 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 1960s.
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 Sobhans 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

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 cooperation.

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. Indias engagement with Myanmar will
contribute to Indias energy security as India is currently heavily dependent on Gulf oil
imports. Moreover, through BCIM there will be a link within Kolkata to Kunming, the
capital of Chinas 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 SinoIndian 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:

Effective communication between New Delhi and other member-states and the
various Indian state governments involved

Consensus between all important players

Meticulous coordination.

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.

China: Kunming Initiative- Reflects the role of the countrys border provinces in that
countrys involvement with its neighbor country and also the linkage of Chinas 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.

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 doesnt have
their best relationship with India, China, Bangladesh. Adding to recent unrest in ChinaUSA conflict at sea, USA-India arguments and USAs interfere on Bangladeshs war
criminal tribunal, USA diplomats wont be the happiest seeing Bangladesh, China, India
and Myanmar merging together for economic progress.

Russia:

Russias 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, Pakistans
economy might have some effect as well.

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.

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).

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

unique natural resource advantage. Here, all the companies from different countries will
be having the same access of the natural resources.

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 BCIMs 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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