India Rediscovering East Asia
Drafted By: Chietigj Bajpaee , 24 October 2007, http://www.pinr.com
The visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to India in August; India's multi-nation naval exercise with the navies of Australia, Japan, Singapore, and the United States in September following the trilateral naval exercises with Japan and the United States in April; and the planned visit of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to China following China's and India's first joint counter-terrorism training in November were all events confirming that India's "Look East" policy is in full swing.
While India has a long-standing history of engagement with East and Southeast Asia, which has been couched in shared values, history and culture, it has now been embedded in pragmatism and shared interests, such as resource interdependence and economic integration, to provide a more solid foundation. Fueled by globalization, the liberalization of India's economy and the rise of transnational security concerns, India's "Look East" policy has also been tied to broader interests such as meeting India's energy security and development needs, the ongoing rapprochement with the United States, counter-terrorism, maritime security, combating Islamic extremism and stabilizing India's periphery.
History and Culture Bind India to East Asia
India has a long history of trade and cultural exchanges with East Asia. Trade links with East Asia stretch back two millennia to the Silk Road and Calicut emerging as a major trading port in South Asia. Meanwhile, cultural and religious bonds date back to Emperor Asoka's spread of Buddhism beyond the subcontinent in the third century BCE.
Other notable periods of contact between pre-independence India and East Asia include the Kushan Empire, which built extensive trade networks with China, and the Chola Dynasty, which ruled over much of Southeast Asia during which Rajendra I conducted a naval expedition to Srivijaya (present-day Indonesia) to protect trade with China and Rajendrachola Deva I (Parmeshwara) named the island of Singapore (Singapura) in 10th century AD. Korean legend also tells of an Indian princess that traveled to Korea in 48 AD, whose sons founded the Kingdom of Shilla.
The exchange of pilgrims, explorers, and traders continued until the onset of British rule over India in the 18th century, after which India ceased to be an independent actor on the international stage. India's contact with East Asia became subordinated to colonial rivalry as Indian opium and soldiers were used to gain markets and quash rebellions in other parts of Asia such as China (the Opium War) and Malaya. During the Second World War, the Stilwell Road served as a vital transit route to shuttle supplies from India to the anti-Japanese forces in China, and Subhash Chandra Bose's short-lived Indian National Army formed an alliance with Imperial Japan.
Under India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, India reengaged with East Asia. The Asian Relations Conference held in New Delhi on April 2, 1947 served as one of the earliest attempts to form a pan-Asian identity under the context of the modern nation-state system. Forming a common cause with Asian leaders such as Indonesian President Sukarno and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai on decolonization, Western imperialism, socialism, national sovereignty, equality, and a developing-world solidarity, Nehru helped to forge the "Bandung Spirit" of 1955, which became the precursor for the Non-Aligned Movement and the Asia-Africa Summit.
Nehru also offered to serve as a mediator during the Korean War and French-Indochina War, supported communist China's claim to a seat at the United Nations, expressed pride in Japan's victory in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 and opposed punishing Japan at the post-WWII Tokyo trials. The spirit of Asian brotherhood was most visibly manifested in the slogan of "Hindi-Chin bhai bhai" (Indians and Chinese are brothers), which attempted to forge a familial bond between Asia's two oldest civilizations and Panchsheel (or the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence), which formed the basis for Sino-Indian relations and China's and India's relations with other countries.
However, this phase of India's engagement with East Asia perished with India's war with China in 1962, preoccupation with Pakistan, and inability to meet its development needs, which caused India to turn inward. Coinciding with these developments was the regional architecture in Asia separating along the Cold War divide with the formation of organizations such as the anti-communist, U.S.-led Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (S.E.A.T.O.).
India rediscovered East Asia in 1992 when it launched its "Look East" policy in the aftermath of the end of the Cold War and the start of India's economic liberalization policy. What distinguishes the present engagement with East Asia from previous ones is the fact that it is operating on multiple fronts; India's historical, cultural and ideological links are being complemented by growing economic interdependence and multilateral cooperation from the movement of capital and human resources and a growing number of free trade agreements and cooperative security dialogues.
Former External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha, in a speech at Harvard University in 2003, noted the transformation in India's attitude toward Asia: "In the past, India's engagement with much of Asia, including Southeast and East Asia, was built on an idealistic conception of Asian brotherhood, based on shared experiences of colonialism and of cultural ties. The rhythm of the region today is determined, however, as much by trade, investment and production as by history and culture. That is what motivates our decade-old 'Look East' policy. Already, this region accounts for 45 percent of our external trade."
Economic Interdependence
Economically, India has emerged as Asia's third-largest economy after Japan and China. It has forged numerous free trade agreements with East Asian economies, including a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement with Singapore and an Early Harvest Scheme with Thailand, while it is negotiating agreements with Japan, South Korea, and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (A.S.E.A.N.) member states.
India needs to add as much as US$500 billion in investment into its infrastructure and Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan have expressed interest in diversifying their investment beyond China. South Korea is India's ninth-largest source of foreign investment, with Korean companies such as Daewoo, Hyundai, Samsung, and LG having a significant presence in India. POSCO is investing $12 billion to construct an integrated steel plant in Orissa in India's single-largest inward investment. Meanwhile, Singapore has emerged as India's seventh-largest source of foreign investment with Temasek Holdings making significant investments in India's financial, pharmaceutical, logistics, and information technology sectors.
There have also been a number of Japanese investments in India, most notably in New Delhi's metro subway system and Maruti. The Japanese government and corporate sector will also provide one-third of the funding for the $100 billion, 1,500 kilometer (930 miles) Delhi-Mumbai freight and industrial corridor, which is to begin construction in 2008 and be completed by 2012. Discussions are also proceeding on reaching a bilateral currency swap agreement between India and Japan. India is already the leading recipient of Japanese aid, receiving over $1 billion in 2005.
Numerous infrastructure projects also serve to tie India closer to East Asia. India is participating in the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific initiatives for an Asian Highway Network and the Trans-Asian Railway Network. Discussions are also proceeding on reopening the WWII-era Stilwell Road linking India's Assam state with China's Yunnan province through Myanmar (Burma). This follows the reopening of a direct overland trade route along the Nathu La Pass on the border between Sikkim and Tibet in July 2006 after 44 years.
Soft Power Influence
India is also attempting to reassert its soft power influence over the region. Notably, India is attempting to draw attention to its role as the birthplace of Buddhism and a center for learning through the Pan-Asian Nalanda Initiative, which aims to revive its 3,000-year old Nalanda University.
India's democratic credentials have also been a catalyst for India's integration with East Asia. Notably, Japan and Taiwan have sought closer relations with India in the context of their "value-oriented diplomacy." In his speech before a joint session of India's parliament in August, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe described India as part of "broader Asia" that spans "the entirety of the Pacific Ocean, incorporating the U.S. and Australia." Abe noted that these states comprise an "arc of freedom of prosperity" of "like-minded countries" that "share fundamental values such as freedom, democracy and respect for basic human rights as well as strategic interests."
Abe is the third successive Japanese prime minister to visit India after Yoshiro Mori in 2000 and Junichiro Koizumi in 2005, and India is the only country with which Japan will have annual prime ministerial level talks. Prime Minister Singh's visit to Japan in December 2006 culminated in the signing of the "Joint Statement Towards Japan-India Strategic and Global Partnership."
The Taiwanese government under the current pan-Green Democratic Progressive Party has also attempted to forge a closer bond with democratic states such as India in order to raise its international profile and balance Beijing's attempts to contain its role on the world stage. Notably, the visit of Taiwanese presidential candidate and opposition leader Ma Ying-jeou to India in June 2007 was the first by a senior K.M.T. official since Chiang Kai-shek in 1942.
While India has remained a staunch supporter of the "One China" policy and recognized the People's Republic of China on the mainland over the Republic of China authorities on Taiwan, it has, nevertheless, pursued a policy of increasing engagement with the island. Notably, the business community has also taken note of the complementarity of India's software expertise and Taiwan's hardware expertise.
Overlapping Security Concerns
On the security front, India has stepped up engagement with East Asia fueled by its need for cooperation on counter-terrorism, humanitarian relief, anti-piracy, maritime and energy security, confidence-building, and balancing the influence of other powers, notably China. Driven by the fact that more than 50 percent of India's trade passes through the Malacca Straits, the Indian Navy has established a Far Eastern Naval Command (F.E.N.C.) off Port Blair on the Andaman Islands.
India has also been conducting joint naval exercises with Singapore (SIMBEX) since 1993, with Vietnam in 2000 and has engaged in joint patrols with Indonesia in the Andaman Sea since 2002. Japan and India were also members of the tsunami relief Regional Core Group in the Indian Ocean in 2004 along with Australia and the United States.
In an attempt to build confidence, India has also conducted a number of joint military exercises with China in recent years. In addition to their first joint counter-terrorism training in November, both states also held joint naval exercises in the East China Sea in November 2003 and the Indian Ocean in December 2005, as well as joint mountaineering training in August 2004.
Growing Multilateralism
India is also participating in a growing number of East Asian forums on economic, political and security issues. India became a sectoral dialogue partner with A.S.E.A.N. in 1992, a full dialogue partner in 1995, a member of the A.S.E.A.N. Regional Forum in 1996, and a summit level partner (on par with China, Japan and Korea) in 2002. The first India-A.S.E.A.N. Business Summit was held in New Delhi in 2002. India also acceded to A.S.E.A.N.'s Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in 2003.
India is also a member of a number of track-two (non-governmental) dialogues such as the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific and numerous sub-regional forums, including the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, the Ganga-Mekong Cooperation Project and the Kunming Initiative in the Indochina region.
In many cases, India's membership to these forums has been a result of attempts by the region to balance China's growing influence in the area. Notably, Japan brought India into A.S.E.A.N.+6 to dilute the A.S.E.A.N.+3 process, where China is dominant, while Singapore and Indonesia played a significant role in bringing India into the East Asia Summit.
The United States and Japan have also lobbied for India's membership to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation. India's leadership role in numerous sub-regional forums in the Mekong River Delta has also been regarded by some as a reaction to China's growing presence in the region.
East Asia in South Asia
India's growing presence in East Asia has paralleled East Asia's growing presence in South Asia. Notably, China, Japan and South Korea were granted observer status to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation in 2005. Japan's role as Asia's leading and the world's second-largest provider of foreign aid and its growing international peacekeeping role has also made Tokyo an increasingly active player in South Asia. For example, Japan has pledged significant aid to bring an end to the civil war in Sri Lanka and in its first deployment under its new Ministry of Defense Japan sent peacekeepers to Nepal in March to monitor the cease-fire between the government and Maoist rebels. As part of the U.S.-led "war on terrorism," Japan has sent refueling ships to the Indian Ocean.
China has been increasing its engagement with South Asia to the quiet consternation of India. China's free trade agreement with Pakistan went into effect in July this year and China has also emerged as Bangladesh's leading trade partner and arms supplier. Beijing's support for the regime of Nepal's King Gyanendra following his suspension of democracy from February 2005 until April 2006 has been a source of irritation to India.
China's efforts to develop alternative overland routes to transport oil and gas imports by extending the existing Karakoram Highway linking Pakistan and China and developing port facilities at Gwadar in Pakistan's Baluchistan province, as well as through Bangladesh and Myanmar, have been viewed by India as part of a "string of pearls" strategy of economic and military encroachment into South and Central Asia.
India's rapprochement with East Asia is also tied to a number of India's broader strategic interests, including rapprochement with the United States, ensuring stability along India's periphery, meeting its energy security needs, and fueling economic integration in South Asia.
Rapprochement with the United States
India's ongoing rapprochement with the United States is being driven by India's improving relationship with U.S. allies in East Asia, including Australia, Japan and Singapore. The U.S. commitment to help India emerge as a "world power" by assisting India's military modernization as evinced by the signing of the "New Framework for the U.S.-India Defense Relationship" in 2005 and the "Next Steps in Strategic Partnership" in 2001 has prompted U.S. allies in Asia to step up military-to-military engagements with India.
For instance, in March 2006 Australian Prime Minister John Howard signed a memorandum on defense cooperation with India. In April 2007, Australia and Japan along with the United States held a trilateral naval exercise off the Boso Peninsula in central Japan, and the "Malabar-07" U.S.-India joint naval exercises in the Indian Ocean in September included the navies of Japan, Australia and Singapore as well.
Energy Security
India imports more than 70 percent of its oil consumption and half of its gas consumption. At the same time, India's energy dilemmas are shared by many states in East Asia. Asia accounts for a quarter of the world's energy consumption, meets 41 percent of its energy needs from burning coal, holds 3.5 percent of the world's proven oil reserves while having the world's second-, third-, fifth- and sixth-largest oil importers, namely Japan, China, South Korea and India.
These shared concerns demand a joint, multilateral approach. India, with other major energy consuming countries in Asia, can cooperate on addressing shared concerns to their energy security such as developing regional strategic petroleum reserves, collective bargaining to address the Asian premium on imported oil, encouraging joint development of disputed energy-rich territories, and improving energy conservation and efficiency.
India's growing engagement with East Asia also complements India's increasingly proactive foreign policy with other regions given the converging interests between India and other Asian powers. For instance, in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia, numerous Asian states are attempting to generate goodwill and foster peace and development given their growing dependence on these regions' resources.
In 2004, India took the first step in promoting regional energy cooperation by convening the First Roundtable of Asian Ministers on Regional Cooperation in the Oil and Gas Economy in New Delhi, which brought together the four principal Asian oil-consuming countries -- China, Japan, South Korea and India -- and engaging in a dialogue with major oil-producing countries in the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
Similarly, as the 123 Agreement under U.S.-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act moves from being a bilateral issue to a multilateral one with necessary endorsement from the International Atomic Energy Agency and 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group, India will need to seek approval from numerous states, including pivotal players in Asia. The recent willingness by Australia to sell uranium to India is significant given that Australia holds 40 percent of the world's uranium reserves. The quiet acquiescence by Japan to the U.S.-India nuclear agreement is also a milestone given Japan's staunch opposition to nuclear proliferation.
China, while initially expressing discomfort about the U.S.-India civil nuclear agreement by labeling it as creating a "nuclear exception" and undermining the nonproliferation regime, has recently toned down its opposition to the deal by calling for "innovative and forward-looking approaches to civilian nuclear cooperation."
Stabilizing India's Periphery
India's "Look East" policy also offers potential solutions to South Asia's security concerns. Aside from the increasingly active role by Japan and China in South Asia, the mixed success of countries in South and Southeast Asia in combating Islamic insurgencies offers potential for cooperation and collaboration in finding joint solutions to the wave of Islamic extremism sweeping the region. For instance, Indonesia has managed to quell Islamic extremism, while in the southern regions of Thailand and the Philippines in Southeast Asia and Bangladesh and Pakistan in South Asia, Islamic terrorism is escalating.
In the case of Indonesia, emphasis on local solutions over foreign intervention, the use of effective local law enforcement and intelligence gathering such as the Detachment 88 police unit over military heavy-handedness, and ensuring that syllabi in Islamic schools promote tolerance, non-violence and progressive Islamic education, have effectively marginalized Islamic extremist elements in Indonesian society.
India has a vested interest in ensuring that Islamic extremism does not take grip in the region given its ongoing struggle with an Islamic insurgency in Kashmir, as well as a growing string of attacks on symbolic targets in India's heartland since the December 2001 attack on India's parliament that have been aimed at igniting communal violence and undermining confidence in India's economy.
The most notable linkage between India's "Look East" policy and attempts to secure the homeland has been seen in New Delhi's shift in policy toward the military junta in Myanmar. Myanmar is the only country in Southeast Asia that shares both a land and maritime border with India. As such, India's foreign policy toward Myanmar has undergone a major shift.
New Delhi has moved from voicing its opposition to the military junta's crackdown on pro-democracy activists to a more pragmatic policy of engagement with the regime since 1993, fueled by India's desire to gain access to Myanmar's energy resources and Southeast Asia's markets, as well as balancing China's influence in the region and obtaining Yangon's support in countering insurgent groups in India's northeast.
As part of this policy, there have been a numerous exchanges of senior level officials, India-Myanmar trade has expanded from $87 million in 1990 to $569 million in 2005, and India has also sold numerous weapons platforms to Myanmar at "friendship prices" with the intention to fight Indian insurgent groups seeking sanctuary in Myanmar's territory.
Promoting South Asian Economic Integration
India's economic integration with East Asia also offers a potential catalyst for economic integration in South Asia. Intra-regional trade in South Asia accounts for a mere four percent of the region's total trade, even though the South Asia Preferential Trading Arrangement has been in place since 1995 and the South Asia Free Trade Area went into force in July 2006.
In contrast, in 2004 intra-regional trade in A.S.E.A.N. amounted to 49 percent; in N.A.F.T.A., this figure was 44 percent and in the European Union this was 67 percent. The low level of economic integration in the region is not surprising given the adversarial relationship between India and Pakistan; both states account for 90 percent of the region's G.D.P. and official trade between both amounts to less than $500 million.
Resolving India-Pakistan hostilities and addressing fears by India's neighbors of India's economic dominance of the region are necessary to fuel economic integration. Tying South Asia's economic integration to broader Asian economic integration would help pacify fears of India's dominance of a regional free trade arrangement.
Engagement Below Expectations
Despite the successes of India's "Look East" policy, India's engagement with East Asia is not without controversy. First, engagement continues to be below its full potential. For example, despite the rhetoric of India and Japan in forming an "arc of freedom and prosperity," bilateral engagement remains low. Japanese investment in India was approximately $2 billion in 2006, far less than the $57 billion that Japan invested in China, while Sino-Japanese trade was more than $207 billion in 2006, far less than Japan-India trade, which amounted to $7 billion.
Similarly, India makes up only 0.67 percent of Taiwan's total trade and Taiwanese investment in India totals $116 million as opposed to well over $100 billion in China. In Southeast Asia, New Delhi remains second fiddle to Beijing's growing presence in the region as China's trade with Southeast Asia exceeded $160 billion in 2006, while India's trade with the region is less than $30 billion.
Similarly, despite the ongoing rapprochement in Sino-Indian relations, mutual mistrust persists. Chinese investment in India has lagged as India's national security establishment has opposed Chinese investment in strategically important Indian sectors such as ports and telecommunications. While China has emerged as India's second-largest trading partner, India is only China's tenth-largest trading partner.
Sporadic tensions continue to arise over their long-standing territorial dispute, as highlighted by India canceling the visit of 107 bureaucrats to China in May of this year after China refused to accept the visa application of an official from the disputed territory of Arunachal Pradesh. India has responded by allegedly enhancing its air power on its eastern front. Despite 11 rounds of negotiations between their Special Representatives since 2003, China and India have failed to make significant progress on the boundary dispute. [See: "India-China Competition Revealed in Ongoing Border Disputes"]
Similarly, India's engagement with East Asia remains peripheral to the region's security concerns. India has a vested interest in the two most prominent flashpoints in East Asia, notably the Taiwan Strait and Korean Peninsula. Many have forgotten the fact that India played an important role during the Korean War as a mediator between the United States and communist China.
Nonetheless, India is neither a member of the current six-party or the larger ten-party framework on the North Korean nuclear issue, even though India has a number of vested interests in a peaceful Korean Peninsula; most notably, Pakistan has assisted North Korea with its nuclear program (by providing uranium enrichment technology) through the A.Q. Khan network in exchange for North Korean assistance to Pakistan's ballistic missile program (by providing it with the Nodong/Ghauri ballistic missile). Beyond this, North Korea's nuclear brinkmanship serves to delay India's formal membership to the nuclear club by demonstrating the "dark side" of nuclear proliferation, even though India has a strong record in nuclear nonproliferation.
With respect to the Taiwan Strait, India has a vested interest in the peaceful resolution of the dispute given India's growing economic interdependence and people-to-people contacts with both sides of the strait. Some quarters of India's policymaking community have even voiced the utility of forging closer relations with Taiwan as a quid pro quo for China's close relationship with Pakistan. Nonetheless, India is unlikely to intervene in cross-strait hostilities in an overt way as Japan and the United States have highlighted in the "peaceful resolution" of the Taiwan Strait dispute as a "common strategic objective" in their 2+2 (U.S.-Japan Security Consultative Committee) statement in 2005.
There has also been, from the Western point of view, a "dark side" to India's "Look East" policy given New Delhi's engagement with regimes such as Myanmar, where it has sacrificed ideological principles such as supporting democracy for pragmatic interests. Most recently, India has incurred the wrath of the West with the intended transfer of its Advanced Light Helicopters, which are built with components from numerous European countries, to the State Peace and Development Council regime in Yangon, which is a contravention of the E.U. arms embargo on Myanmar.
Furthermore, despite India's change of approach in dealing with Myanmar, it is not apparent that India has made any significant gains. For instance, while Indian energy companies Oil & Natural Gas Company Videsh Ltd. and Gas Authority of India Limited have a 30 percent stake in Myanmar's A1 and A3 blocks in the Shwe field in the Bay of Bengal, a proposed natural gas pipeline to India has been threatened by an agreement between Rangoon and PetroChina to supply China with 6.5 trillion cubic feet (TcF) of natural gas via a pipeline from the A1 block to Kunming in China's Yunnan province. [See: "Pipeline Politics: India and Myanmar"]
There are also reports that numerous weapons platforms sold by India to Myanmar may actually be used to arm and assist Indian insurgent groups. While Myanmar took part in Operation Golden Bird in 1995 to clamp down on Indian insurgent groups, efforts have not been as successful as those in neighboring Bhutan in 2003 (Operation All Clear).
India's "Look East" Policy Comes Full Circle
Despite these impediments, India's foreign policy has finally moved beyond the confines of South Asia toward East Asia, as demonstrated by the fact that India's hyphenated foreign policy, which has traditionally been linked to Pakistan, is now increasingly linked to China, Japan and the United States. The India-Pakistan-U.S. triangle has been replaced by the India-China-U.S. triangle, which is complemented by numerous other Asian powers including Japan, Australia and Russia.
While India's engagement with East Asia is by no means new, the fact that India's long-standing cultural and historical links are now being complemented by growing interdependence forged by economic integration and transnational security concerns serves to forge a stronger bond with the Asia-Pacific region. Shared interests are complementing shared values. Pragmatism and realpolitik are replacing Nehruvian idealism in India's engagement with East Asia.
The visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to India in August; India's multi-nation naval exercise with the navies of Australia, Japan, Singapore, and the United States in September following the trilateral naval exercises with Japan and the United States in April; and the planned visit of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to China following China's and India's first joint counter-terrorism training in November were all events confirming that India's "Look East" policy is in full swing.
While India has a long-standing history of engagement with East and Southeast Asia, which has been couched in shared values, history and culture, it has now been embedded in pragmatism and shared interests, such as resource interdependence and economic integration, to provide a more solid foundation. Fueled by globalization, the liberalization of India's economy and the rise of transnational security concerns, India's "Look East" policy has also been tied to broader interests such as meeting India's energy security and development needs, the ongoing rapprochement with the United States, counter-terrorism, maritime security, combating Islamic extremism and stabilizing India's periphery.
History and Culture Bind India to East Asia
India has a long history of trade and cultural exchanges with East Asia. Trade links with East Asia stretch back two millennia to the Silk Road and Calicut emerging as a major trading port in South Asia. Meanwhile, cultural and religious bonds date back to Emperor Asoka's spread of Buddhism beyond the subcontinent in the third century BCE.
Other notable periods of contact between pre-independence India and East Asia include the Kushan Empire, which built extensive trade networks with China, and the Chola Dynasty, which ruled over much of Southeast Asia during which Rajendra I conducted a naval expedition to Srivijaya (present-day Indonesia) to protect trade with China and Rajendrachola Deva I (Parmeshwara) named the island of Singapore (Singapura) in 10th century AD. Korean legend also tells of an Indian princess that traveled to Korea in 48 AD, whose sons founded the Kingdom of Shilla.
The exchange of pilgrims, explorers, and traders continued until the onset of British rule over India in the 18th century, after which India ceased to be an independent actor on the international stage. India's contact with East Asia became subordinated to colonial rivalry as Indian opium and soldiers were used to gain markets and quash rebellions in other parts of Asia such as China (the Opium War) and Malaya. During the Second World War, the Stilwell Road served as a vital transit route to shuttle supplies from India to the anti-Japanese forces in China, and Subhash Chandra Bose's short-lived Indian National Army formed an alliance with Imperial Japan.
Under India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, India reengaged with East Asia. The Asian Relations Conference held in New Delhi on April 2, 1947 served as one of the earliest attempts to form a pan-Asian identity under the context of the modern nation-state system. Forming a common cause with Asian leaders such as Indonesian President Sukarno and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai on decolonization, Western imperialism, socialism, national sovereignty, equality, and a developing-world solidarity, Nehru helped to forge the "Bandung Spirit" of 1955, which became the precursor for the Non-Aligned Movement and the Asia-Africa Summit.
Nehru also offered to serve as a mediator during the Korean War and French-Indochina War, supported communist China's claim to a seat at the United Nations, expressed pride in Japan's victory in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 and opposed punishing Japan at the post-WWII Tokyo trials. The spirit of Asian brotherhood was most visibly manifested in the slogan of "Hindi-Chin bhai bhai" (Indians and Chinese are brothers), which attempted to forge a familial bond between Asia's two oldest civilizations and Panchsheel (or the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence), which formed the basis for Sino-Indian relations and China's and India's relations with other countries.
However, this phase of India's engagement with East Asia perished with India's war with China in 1962, preoccupation with Pakistan, and inability to meet its development needs, which caused India to turn inward. Coinciding with these developments was the regional architecture in Asia separating along the Cold War divide with the formation of organizations such as the anti-communist, U.S.-led Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (S.E.A.T.O.).
India rediscovered East Asia in 1992 when it launched its "Look East" policy in the aftermath of the end of the Cold War and the start of India's economic liberalization policy. What distinguishes the present engagement with East Asia from previous ones is the fact that it is operating on multiple fronts; India's historical, cultural and ideological links are being complemented by growing economic interdependence and multilateral cooperation from the movement of capital and human resources and a growing number of free trade agreements and cooperative security dialogues.
Former External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha, in a speech at Harvard University in 2003, noted the transformation in India's attitude toward Asia: "In the past, India's engagement with much of Asia, including Southeast and East Asia, was built on an idealistic conception of Asian brotherhood, based on shared experiences of colonialism and of cultural ties. The rhythm of the region today is determined, however, as much by trade, investment and production as by history and culture. That is what motivates our decade-old 'Look East' policy. Already, this region accounts for 45 percent of our external trade."
Economic Interdependence
Economically, India has emerged as Asia's third-largest economy after Japan and China. It has forged numerous free trade agreements with East Asian economies, including a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement with Singapore and an Early Harvest Scheme with Thailand, while it is negotiating agreements with Japan, South Korea, and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (A.S.E.A.N.) member states.
India needs to add as much as US$500 billion in investment into its infrastructure and Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and Taiwan have expressed interest in diversifying their investment beyond China. South Korea is India's ninth-largest source of foreign investment, with Korean companies such as Daewoo, Hyundai, Samsung, and LG having a significant presence in India. POSCO is investing $12 billion to construct an integrated steel plant in Orissa in India's single-largest inward investment. Meanwhile, Singapore has emerged as India's seventh-largest source of foreign investment with Temasek Holdings making significant investments in India's financial, pharmaceutical, logistics, and information technology sectors.
There have also been a number of Japanese investments in India, most notably in New Delhi's metro subway system and Maruti. The Japanese government and corporate sector will also provide one-third of the funding for the $100 billion, 1,500 kilometer (930 miles) Delhi-Mumbai freight and industrial corridor, which is to begin construction in 2008 and be completed by 2012. Discussions are also proceeding on reaching a bilateral currency swap agreement between India and Japan. India is already the leading recipient of Japanese aid, receiving over $1 billion in 2005.
Numerous infrastructure projects also serve to tie India closer to East Asia. India is participating in the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific initiatives for an Asian Highway Network and the Trans-Asian Railway Network. Discussions are also proceeding on reopening the WWII-era Stilwell Road linking India's Assam state with China's Yunnan province through Myanmar (Burma). This follows the reopening of a direct overland trade route along the Nathu La Pass on the border between Sikkim and Tibet in July 2006 after 44 years.
Soft Power Influence
India is also attempting to reassert its soft power influence over the region. Notably, India is attempting to draw attention to its role as the birthplace of Buddhism and a center for learning through the Pan-Asian Nalanda Initiative, which aims to revive its 3,000-year old Nalanda University.
India's democratic credentials have also been a catalyst for India's integration with East Asia. Notably, Japan and Taiwan have sought closer relations with India in the context of their "value-oriented diplomacy." In his speech before a joint session of India's parliament in August, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe described India as part of "broader Asia" that spans "the entirety of the Pacific Ocean, incorporating the U.S. and Australia." Abe noted that these states comprise an "arc of freedom of prosperity" of "like-minded countries" that "share fundamental values such as freedom, democracy and respect for basic human rights as well as strategic interests."
Abe is the third successive Japanese prime minister to visit India after Yoshiro Mori in 2000 and Junichiro Koizumi in 2005, and India is the only country with which Japan will have annual prime ministerial level talks. Prime Minister Singh's visit to Japan in December 2006 culminated in the signing of the "Joint Statement Towards Japan-India Strategic and Global Partnership."
The Taiwanese government under the current pan-Green Democratic Progressive Party has also attempted to forge a closer bond with democratic states such as India in order to raise its international profile and balance Beijing's attempts to contain its role on the world stage. Notably, the visit of Taiwanese presidential candidate and opposition leader Ma Ying-jeou to India in June 2007 was the first by a senior K.M.T. official since Chiang Kai-shek in 1942.
While India has remained a staunch supporter of the "One China" policy and recognized the People's Republic of China on the mainland over the Republic of China authorities on Taiwan, it has, nevertheless, pursued a policy of increasing engagement with the island. Notably, the business community has also taken note of the complementarity of India's software expertise and Taiwan's hardware expertise.
Overlapping Security Concerns
On the security front, India has stepped up engagement with East Asia fueled by its need for cooperation on counter-terrorism, humanitarian relief, anti-piracy, maritime and energy security, confidence-building, and balancing the influence of other powers, notably China. Driven by the fact that more than 50 percent of India's trade passes through the Malacca Straits, the Indian Navy has established a Far Eastern Naval Command (F.E.N.C.) off Port Blair on the Andaman Islands.
India has also been conducting joint naval exercises with Singapore (SIMBEX) since 1993, with Vietnam in 2000 and has engaged in joint patrols with Indonesia in the Andaman Sea since 2002. Japan and India were also members of the tsunami relief Regional Core Group in the Indian Ocean in 2004 along with Australia and the United States.
In an attempt to build confidence, India has also conducted a number of joint military exercises with China in recent years. In addition to their first joint counter-terrorism training in November, both states also held joint naval exercises in the East China Sea in November 2003 and the Indian Ocean in December 2005, as well as joint mountaineering training in August 2004.
Growing Multilateralism
India is also participating in a growing number of East Asian forums on economic, political and security issues. India became a sectoral dialogue partner with A.S.E.A.N. in 1992, a full dialogue partner in 1995, a member of the A.S.E.A.N. Regional Forum in 1996, and a summit level partner (on par with China, Japan and Korea) in 2002. The first India-A.S.E.A.N. Business Summit was held in New Delhi in 2002. India also acceded to A.S.E.A.N.'s Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in 2003.
India is also a member of a number of track-two (non-governmental) dialogues such as the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific and numerous sub-regional forums, including the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, the Ganga-Mekong Cooperation Project and the Kunming Initiative in the Indochina region.
In many cases, India's membership to these forums has been a result of attempts by the region to balance China's growing influence in the area. Notably, Japan brought India into A.S.E.A.N.+6 to dilute the A.S.E.A.N.+3 process, where China is dominant, while Singapore and Indonesia played a significant role in bringing India into the East Asia Summit.
The United States and Japan have also lobbied for India's membership to the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation. India's leadership role in numerous sub-regional forums in the Mekong River Delta has also been regarded by some as a reaction to China's growing presence in the region.
East Asia in South Asia
India's growing presence in East Asia has paralleled East Asia's growing presence in South Asia. Notably, China, Japan and South Korea were granted observer status to the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation in 2005. Japan's role as Asia's leading and the world's second-largest provider of foreign aid and its growing international peacekeeping role has also made Tokyo an increasingly active player in South Asia. For example, Japan has pledged significant aid to bring an end to the civil war in Sri Lanka and in its first deployment under its new Ministry of Defense Japan sent peacekeepers to Nepal in March to monitor the cease-fire between the government and Maoist rebels. As part of the U.S.-led "war on terrorism," Japan has sent refueling ships to the Indian Ocean.
China has been increasing its engagement with South Asia to the quiet consternation of India. China's free trade agreement with Pakistan went into effect in July this year and China has also emerged as Bangladesh's leading trade partner and arms supplier. Beijing's support for the regime of Nepal's King Gyanendra following his suspension of democracy from February 2005 until April 2006 has been a source of irritation to India.
China's efforts to develop alternative overland routes to transport oil and gas imports by extending the existing Karakoram Highway linking Pakistan and China and developing port facilities at Gwadar in Pakistan's Baluchistan province, as well as through Bangladesh and Myanmar, have been viewed by India as part of a "string of pearls" strategy of economic and military encroachment into South and Central Asia.
India's rapprochement with East Asia is also tied to a number of India's broader strategic interests, including rapprochement with the United States, ensuring stability along India's periphery, meeting its energy security needs, and fueling economic integration in South Asia.
Rapprochement with the United States
India's ongoing rapprochement with the United States is being driven by India's improving relationship with U.S. allies in East Asia, including Australia, Japan and Singapore. The U.S. commitment to help India emerge as a "world power" by assisting India's military modernization as evinced by the signing of the "New Framework for the U.S.-India Defense Relationship" in 2005 and the "Next Steps in Strategic Partnership" in 2001 has prompted U.S. allies in Asia to step up military-to-military engagements with India.
For instance, in March 2006 Australian Prime Minister John Howard signed a memorandum on defense cooperation with India. In April 2007, Australia and Japan along with the United States held a trilateral naval exercise off the Boso Peninsula in central Japan, and the "Malabar-07" U.S.-India joint naval exercises in the Indian Ocean in September included the navies of Japan, Australia and Singapore as well.
Energy Security
India imports more than 70 percent of its oil consumption and half of its gas consumption. At the same time, India's energy dilemmas are shared by many states in East Asia. Asia accounts for a quarter of the world's energy consumption, meets 41 percent of its energy needs from burning coal, holds 3.5 percent of the world's proven oil reserves while having the world's second-, third-, fifth- and sixth-largest oil importers, namely Japan, China, South Korea and India.
These shared concerns demand a joint, multilateral approach. India, with other major energy consuming countries in Asia, can cooperate on addressing shared concerns to their energy security such as developing regional strategic petroleum reserves, collective bargaining to address the Asian premium on imported oil, encouraging joint development of disputed energy-rich territories, and improving energy conservation and efficiency.
India's growing engagement with East Asia also complements India's increasingly proactive foreign policy with other regions given the converging interests between India and other Asian powers. For instance, in the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia, numerous Asian states are attempting to generate goodwill and foster peace and development given their growing dependence on these regions' resources.
In 2004, India took the first step in promoting regional energy cooperation by convening the First Roundtable of Asian Ministers on Regional Cooperation in the Oil and Gas Economy in New Delhi, which brought together the four principal Asian oil-consuming countries -- China, Japan, South Korea and India -- and engaging in a dialogue with major oil-producing countries in the Middle East and Southeast Asia.
Similarly, as the 123 Agreement under U.S.-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act moves from being a bilateral issue to a multilateral one with necessary endorsement from the International Atomic Energy Agency and 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group, India will need to seek approval from numerous states, including pivotal players in Asia. The recent willingness by Australia to sell uranium to India is significant given that Australia holds 40 percent of the world's uranium reserves. The quiet acquiescence by Japan to the U.S.-India nuclear agreement is also a milestone given Japan's staunch opposition to nuclear proliferation.
China, while initially expressing discomfort about the U.S.-India civil nuclear agreement by labeling it as creating a "nuclear exception" and undermining the nonproliferation regime, has recently toned down its opposition to the deal by calling for "innovative and forward-looking approaches to civilian nuclear cooperation."
Stabilizing India's Periphery
India's "Look East" policy also offers potential solutions to South Asia's security concerns. Aside from the increasingly active role by Japan and China in South Asia, the mixed success of countries in South and Southeast Asia in combating Islamic insurgencies offers potential for cooperation and collaboration in finding joint solutions to the wave of Islamic extremism sweeping the region. For instance, Indonesia has managed to quell Islamic extremism, while in the southern regions of Thailand and the Philippines in Southeast Asia and Bangladesh and Pakistan in South Asia, Islamic terrorism is escalating.
In the case of Indonesia, emphasis on local solutions over foreign intervention, the use of effective local law enforcement and intelligence gathering such as the Detachment 88 police unit over military heavy-handedness, and ensuring that syllabi in Islamic schools promote tolerance, non-violence and progressive Islamic education, have effectively marginalized Islamic extremist elements in Indonesian society.
India has a vested interest in ensuring that Islamic extremism does not take grip in the region given its ongoing struggle with an Islamic insurgency in Kashmir, as well as a growing string of attacks on symbolic targets in India's heartland since the December 2001 attack on India's parliament that have been aimed at igniting communal violence and undermining confidence in India's economy.
The most notable linkage between India's "Look East" policy and attempts to secure the homeland has been seen in New Delhi's shift in policy toward the military junta in Myanmar. Myanmar is the only country in Southeast Asia that shares both a land and maritime border with India. As such, India's foreign policy toward Myanmar has undergone a major shift.
New Delhi has moved from voicing its opposition to the military junta's crackdown on pro-democracy activists to a more pragmatic policy of engagement with the regime since 1993, fueled by India's desire to gain access to Myanmar's energy resources and Southeast Asia's markets, as well as balancing China's influence in the region and obtaining Yangon's support in countering insurgent groups in India's northeast.
As part of this policy, there have been a numerous exchanges of senior level officials, India-Myanmar trade has expanded from $87 million in 1990 to $569 million in 2005, and India has also sold numerous weapons platforms to Myanmar at "friendship prices" with the intention to fight Indian insurgent groups seeking sanctuary in Myanmar's territory.
Promoting South Asian Economic Integration
India's economic integration with East Asia also offers a potential catalyst for economic integration in South Asia. Intra-regional trade in South Asia accounts for a mere four percent of the region's total trade, even though the South Asia Preferential Trading Arrangement has been in place since 1995 and the South Asia Free Trade Area went into force in July 2006.
In contrast, in 2004 intra-regional trade in A.S.E.A.N. amounted to 49 percent; in N.A.F.T.A., this figure was 44 percent and in the European Union this was 67 percent. The low level of economic integration in the region is not surprising given the adversarial relationship between India and Pakistan; both states account for 90 percent of the region's G.D.P. and official trade between both amounts to less than $500 million.
Resolving India-Pakistan hostilities and addressing fears by India's neighbors of India's economic dominance of the region are necessary to fuel economic integration. Tying South Asia's economic integration to broader Asian economic integration would help pacify fears of India's dominance of a regional free trade arrangement.
Engagement Below Expectations
Despite the successes of India's "Look East" policy, India's engagement with East Asia is not without controversy. First, engagement continues to be below its full potential. For example, despite the rhetoric of India and Japan in forming an "arc of freedom and prosperity," bilateral engagement remains low. Japanese investment in India was approximately $2 billion in 2006, far less than the $57 billion that Japan invested in China, while Sino-Japanese trade was more than $207 billion in 2006, far less than Japan-India trade, which amounted to $7 billion.
Similarly, India makes up only 0.67 percent of Taiwan's total trade and Taiwanese investment in India totals $116 million as opposed to well over $100 billion in China. In Southeast Asia, New Delhi remains second fiddle to Beijing's growing presence in the region as China's trade with Southeast Asia exceeded $160 billion in 2006, while India's trade with the region is less than $30 billion.
Similarly, despite the ongoing rapprochement in Sino-Indian relations, mutual mistrust persists. Chinese investment in India has lagged as India's national security establishment has opposed Chinese investment in strategically important Indian sectors such as ports and telecommunications. While China has emerged as India's second-largest trading partner, India is only China's tenth-largest trading partner.
Sporadic tensions continue to arise over their long-standing territorial dispute, as highlighted by India canceling the visit of 107 bureaucrats to China in May of this year after China refused to accept the visa application of an official from the disputed territory of Arunachal Pradesh. India has responded by allegedly enhancing its air power on its eastern front. Despite 11 rounds of negotiations between their Special Representatives since 2003, China and India have failed to make significant progress on the boundary dispute. [See: "India-China Competition Revealed in Ongoing Border Disputes"]
Similarly, India's engagement with East Asia remains peripheral to the region's security concerns. India has a vested interest in the two most prominent flashpoints in East Asia, notably the Taiwan Strait and Korean Peninsula. Many have forgotten the fact that India played an important role during the Korean War as a mediator between the United States and communist China.
Nonetheless, India is neither a member of the current six-party or the larger ten-party framework on the North Korean nuclear issue, even though India has a number of vested interests in a peaceful Korean Peninsula; most notably, Pakistan has assisted North Korea with its nuclear program (by providing uranium enrichment technology) through the A.Q. Khan network in exchange for North Korean assistance to Pakistan's ballistic missile program (by providing it with the Nodong/Ghauri ballistic missile). Beyond this, North Korea's nuclear brinkmanship serves to delay India's formal membership to the nuclear club by demonstrating the "dark side" of nuclear proliferation, even though India has a strong record in nuclear nonproliferation.
With respect to the Taiwan Strait, India has a vested interest in the peaceful resolution of the dispute given India's growing economic interdependence and people-to-people contacts with both sides of the strait. Some quarters of India's policymaking community have even voiced the utility of forging closer relations with Taiwan as a quid pro quo for China's close relationship with Pakistan. Nonetheless, India is unlikely to intervene in cross-strait hostilities in an overt way as Japan and the United States have highlighted in the "peaceful resolution" of the Taiwan Strait dispute as a "common strategic objective" in their 2+2 (U.S.-Japan Security Consultative Committee) statement in 2005.
There has also been, from the Western point of view, a "dark side" to India's "Look East" policy given New Delhi's engagement with regimes such as Myanmar, where it has sacrificed ideological principles such as supporting democracy for pragmatic interests. Most recently, India has incurred the wrath of the West with the intended transfer of its Advanced Light Helicopters, which are built with components from numerous European countries, to the State Peace and Development Council regime in Yangon, which is a contravention of the E.U. arms embargo on Myanmar.
Furthermore, despite India's change of approach in dealing with Myanmar, it is not apparent that India has made any significant gains. For instance, while Indian energy companies Oil & Natural Gas Company Videsh Ltd. and Gas Authority of India Limited have a 30 percent stake in Myanmar's A1 and A3 blocks in the Shwe field in the Bay of Bengal, a proposed natural gas pipeline to India has been threatened by an agreement between Rangoon and PetroChina to supply China with 6.5 trillion cubic feet (TcF) of natural gas via a pipeline from the A1 block to Kunming in China's Yunnan province. [See: "Pipeline Politics: India and Myanmar"]
There are also reports that numerous weapons platforms sold by India to Myanmar may actually be used to arm and assist Indian insurgent groups. While Myanmar took part in Operation Golden Bird in 1995 to clamp down on Indian insurgent groups, efforts have not been as successful as those in neighboring Bhutan in 2003 (Operation All Clear).
India's "Look East" Policy Comes Full Circle
Despite these impediments, India's foreign policy has finally moved beyond the confines of South Asia toward East Asia, as demonstrated by the fact that India's hyphenated foreign policy, which has traditionally been linked to Pakistan, is now increasingly linked to China, Japan and the United States. The India-Pakistan-U.S. triangle has been replaced by the India-China-U.S. triangle, which is complemented by numerous other Asian powers including Japan, Australia and Russia.
While India's engagement with East Asia is by no means new, the fact that India's long-standing cultural and historical links are now being complemented by growing interdependence forged by economic integration and transnational security concerns serves to forge a stronger bond with the Asia-Pacific region. Shared interests are complementing shared values. Pragmatism and realpolitik are replacing Nehruvian idealism in India's engagement with East Asia.
