Round The World

New Delhi, 26 December 2012

ASEAN-India Summit
NEW DELHI EUPHORIC

By Obja Borah Hazarika

(Research Scholar, School of International Studies, JNU)

New Delhi has reason to be euphoric over the recently-concluded ASEAN-India Commemorative Summit. It has aptly inched closer towards the theme of enhancing the “partnership for Peace and Shared Prosperity’.

Indeed, the Summit marks a significant watershed in India-ASEAN relations, which thus far were mostly on trade and commerce. However, the ties were elevated to a strategic partnership and additionally, ASEAN and India committed to strengthening cooperation to ensure maritime security and freedom of navigation, and safety of sea lanes of communication. These commitments were announced against the backdrop of tension with China in the South China Sea, which has become a potential military flashpoint due to overlapping claims of Beijing and some ASEAN nations, vying for gas and oil reserves.

Furthermore, the summit ended with the successful conclusion of the negotiation on ASEAN-India Trade in Services and Investment Agreements, which will facilitate further economic integration between the two. Notably, India-ASEAN trade has grown over ten times since the annual summits were launched. In fact, the Agreements will create favourable conditions for the two sides to negotiate the Regional Partnership, which intends to foster linkages in the fields of air, sea and land transport, digital technology and the building of a Mekong-India Economic Corridor.

Besides, the leaders articulated their commitment to promoting private sector engagement, encouraging business-to-business relations, and collaboration in small and medium enterprises sector. Moreover, they mentioned the value which they attached to strengthening cooperation in the agriculture and energy sectors. The parties also emphasized the importance to increasing connectivity between ASEAN and India.

In his closing remarks, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh did one better. He particularly stressed on the vitality of public diplomacy by enunciating that the durability of the partnership between the two depended not only on Government level exchanges but on greater interaction between their “people, students, scientists, academics, intellectuals, media, entrepreneurs, agriculturists and artists.”

Looking back, enhancing relations with ASEAN has been central to India’s ‘Look East Policy’, which was initiated in 1991. New Delhi became a sectoral dialogue partner of ASEAN in 1992, a full dialogue partner in 1996 and since 2002, has held annual Summits with ASEAN.

The 2012 summit, however, elevated the relationship. Increase in security and military cooperation between India and ASEAN can be comprehended as a natural course of progression of such a relationship. Nonetheless, China’s growing assertiveness cannot be ignored as an external determinant of growing security cooperation between ASEAN and India, both parties immensely concerned with China’s rise in Asia in particular and in the world in general.

Over the past two decades, India’s ‘Look East’ policy initiated mainly with an intention of increasing trade and commercial ties with its eastern neighbours has matured. The new visage of India-ASEAN ties which includes the strategic and military angle makes it a dynamic relationship. The ASEAN nations have enormous commercial links with China but are apprehensive about an increasingly domineering Beijing. 

China’s militaristic posturing has triggered a defensive position in the foreign policy doctrines of most ASEAN nations. Its often uncompromising stand on the negotiating table has led to a string of complaints from nations dissatisfied with its inflexible diplomacy. Thus, India has been seen as a nation which could, to some extent, offset the Chinese behemoth.

The ASEAN also finds itself in the centre of the US rebalance strategy, wherein China is   construing it as a means to clip its wings and prevent its rightful growth in the world. Some sections in New Delhi are apprehensive of the rebalance strategy fearing a potentially adverse Chinese response to New Delhi’s active participation in the US engineered rebalance of the Asia-Pacific.

The Summit signalled India’s own re-orientation strategy. Undoubtedly, as the US’s pivot to Asia was seen as a move to counter China, the ASEAN-India strategic relationship can also be construed as having been formalized with similar considerations in mind. Interestingly, ASEAN and India remain both dependent and wary of China.

This is due to the enormous amount of commercial linkages they have with China but are increasingly wary about its intentions and motives in the security arena. They are unable to gauge the extent to which Beijing would pursue military means to achieve its interests and this uncertainty is a major factor behind the elevation of ties.  

It is important to keep in mind that Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea has become a sore point for the international community as a whole. ASEAN nations and China both continue to eye the vast reserves of untapped energy resources here. China’s galloping economy leads to huge demands for energy, making it necessary for Beijing to explore every possible opportunity to ensure a sustained supply. This compulsion can lead to the outbreak of skirmishes and even larger confrontations among China and other nations in the future.

China’s supposed belligerence and utter neglect of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in the South China Sea has prompted worldwide protests; the affirmation to support and cooperate to ensure open sea lanes of communication, an articulation made in the vision statement of the Commemorative Statement was yet another manifestation of growing frustration over China’s lack of respect for internationally recognized rules and laws of governance and conduct.

Connectivity was another major point stressed during the summit. Undoubtedly, efficient communication and transportation remains a crucial element in the development of a region. India and ASEAN can take up connectivity to much higher levels than what currently exists. Several projects are in the process of being finalized. The North-East region of India will benefit immensely from increased connectivity and cooperation with ASEAN.

However, handicaps of unmanageable terrain and political unrest act as impediments to faster and smoother connectivity of India and the ASEAN. Swift resolution of local unrests will enable better connectivity possibilities, which will lead to enormous economic prosperity of the ASEAN and India in general and for the North-East region of India in particular.

With several fruitful possibilities visible for the future, ties between the two should be further bolstered with a focus on mutually beneficial gains. For one, the extension of the partnership to include the security angle adds a dynamic angle, making the ties more durable. Undoubtedly, these should help India and ASEAN create a resilient arrangement to weather potential political storms and challenges in the future.---INFA

(Copyright, India News & Feature Alliance)