Reaching out to Asean: Better late than never
Author: G Parthasarathy
India's growing economic ties with South-East Asia over the past decades have fashioned a new architecture of cooperation across the ‘Indo-Pacific' region, extending New Delhi’s profile beyond the Indian Ocean
The recently concluded Indo-Asean Summit in New Delhi marked the most notable success of Indian foreign policy over the past two decades. Sadly, no recognition is being accorded to the visionary role of former Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao, who realised the crucial importance of greater economic co-operation and integration of a liberalised Indian economy, with the dynamic economies of Japan, South Korea and India’s South-East Asian neighbours, who are all now members of the Asean regional grouping. Rao’s visionary policies have been carried forward imaginatively by successor Governments, headed by Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Mr Manmohan Singh. It has also to be acknowledged that Rao’s efforts were successful largely because of the recognition of Singapore’s elder statesman Lee Kwan Yew and his successor, Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong, that an economically vibrant India would have an important role in the maintenance of peace and security in Asean’s neighbourhood, extending from the Indian Ocean to the shores of South China Sea.
India’s growing economic ties with Asean over the past 20 years have fashioned a new architecture of dialogue and cooperation across what is now defined as the ‘Indo-Pacific’ region, extending India’s strategic profile beyond the Indian Ocean and across the South China Sea. India’s dialogue with Asean is now not limited to annual summits. There are now annual meetings between the Defence Ministers of Asean on the one hand and its partners like China, Japan, South Korea and India, on the other. Moreover, Asean is today the driving force behind the East-Asian summit, which brings together its 10 members with the US, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand. India has consciously taken a low key posture in Asean forums, stressing the need for Asean to be the driving force for consensual efforts to build peace, security and progress across the entire Indo-Pacific Region, thus linking security in the Indian and Eastern Pacific Regions. Interestingly, the Vision Statement issued at the New Delhi Summit alludes to Asean’s appreciation for “India’s role in peace and stability”. India, in turn, recognises “Asean’s centrality” in “economic structures and institutions currently emerging in the region”. Whether Asean can retain its traditional unity in dealing with external challenges, in the face of an assertive and domineering China, remains to be seen.
While attention is focussed on India’s trade relations with China and the US, what is often overlooked is that India’s trade with Asean, which reached an estimated $ 79 billion last year and is expected to touch $ 100 billion by 2015, has increased 10 times over the past decade. Investment flows in the same period amounted to $ 43 billion. Moreover, with a virtual ‘open skies’ policy governing air travel, more and more Indians now visit Asean countries, notably Thailand and Singapore. While economic integration with Japan, South Korea and Asean has been mutually beneficial, India would do well to tread cautiously on its endorsement of the China backed proposal for a ‘Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership’. This proposal seeks to convert India’s entire eastern neighbourhood including China, into a free trade and investment area. Indian industry is already reeling under the pressure of imports from China. There is a total absence of transparency in China’s fiscal and economic policies and the obvious subsidies to its exports. Further opening out of the Indian economy to Chinese goods and services must be undertaken only when it includes measures that safeguard the development of Indian industry, particularly in key areas like power, communications, electronics and other employment-oriented areas.
Given its strategic partnership with Asean, India can no longer perpetually sit on the fence, on emerging tensions between Asean countries like Vietnam and the Philippines on the one hand and China on the other. Beijing appears ready to use force to enforce its territorial claims, ignoring the provisions of the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas, on its maritime frontiers with South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Brunei and Malaysia. China is also becoming more rigid on its border claims on the entire State of Arunachal Pradesh and in Ladakh.
Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung noted: “I hope India fully supports Asean in the full implementation of the Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea and the six-point principles on South China Sea, in order to settle disputes peacefully, as per International law.” Union Minister for External Affairs Salman Khurshid virtually rejected this appeal asserting: “Sometimes doing nothing about conflict is about not doing something.” This may sound glib, but it wins us no friends and is a recipe for appeasing a China that supplies nuclear weapons wherewithal to Pakistan and seeks to undermine Indian influence across its Indian Ocean neighbourhood.
Despite recent progress in our relations with our eastern neighbours, very little has been done to utilise our ‘soft power’ through the promotion of the ancient Buddhist links between India and its eastern neighbourhood. There are between 150 and 190 million Buddhists in South-East Asia, with an estimated 134 million Theravada Buddhists in Myanmar, Thailand and Cambodia. There are 44 million Buddhists in Vietnam, practising Mahayana Buddhism, and an estimated seven million Buddhists, mainly of Chinese origin, in Indonesia, Singapore and the Philippines, who practise a synthesis of Mahayana Buddhism with Confucianism and Daoism. There are an estimated 90 million Buddhist believers in Japan, who also profess adherence to Shinto. In South Korea, there are 11 million Buddhists linked to 26 Buddhist sects.
While the Union Government is developing the Nalanda University, the Madhya Pradesh Government has undertaken a commendable initiative, establishing an International University for Buddhist-Indic Studies in Sanchi. It is imperative that New Delhi develops a comprehensive scheme for developing and linking the sites of Buddhist heritage across Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh into a global hub for Buddhist tourism and studies. The scheme, which could be implemented within a decade, should include the development of international airport facilities in Patna and Bhopal. There should also be six-lane highways linking various Buddhist sites, and a range of hotels, rest houses and other facilities, for international and domestic tourists.
Countries like Japan should be associated in investment and the development of these facilities. A comprehensive proposal on these lines can perhaps be put forward at the next Asean and East-Asian summits, by the Prime Minister.
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