New regional power bloc? Pakistan, China planning to replace Saarc; what report said

Pakistan, China, and Bangladesh are developing a proposal for a new regional organisation, which seems to be planning to replace the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc), according to the Express Tribune, citing diplomatic sources.

The regional grouping comprises Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

According to the news report, both nations have progressed significantly in their discussions, recognising the urgent requirement for a new platform to facilitate regional integration and connectivity.

The recent three-way meeting between Pakistan, China and Bangladesh in Kunming, China, was a strategic step in this direction.

The Kunming meeting on June 19 aimed to extend invitations to other former Saarc member countries to join this new alliance.

However few days back, Bangladesh foreign affairs adviser M Touhid Hossain dismissed the notion of any emerging alliance among Bangladesh, China and Pakistan saying a recent meeting between the three countries was not of political nature.

“We are not forming any alliance,” he told reporters at the foreign ministry as he was asked for comments about the trilateral meeting in China’s Kunming on June 19.

Hossain added, “It was a meeting at the official level, not at the political level”, where there was “no element of formation of any alliance”.

According to the report, China and Pakistan are planning to invite India for this proposal. Other nations, including Sri Lanka, Maldives, and Afghanistan, are also likely to receive the invitation to participate in this new grouping.

The initiative focuses on fostering regional engagement through improved trade and connectivity.

The last Summit took place in Kathmandu, 2014 as the 2016 Summit was dropped after a terrorist attack on an Indian Army camp in Uri in Jammu and Kashmir on September 18 that year. India expressed its inability to participate in the summit due to "prevailing circumstances". And later, the summit was called off after Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan also declined to participate in the Islamabad meet.