A partnership on test
The diplomatic excursion to Malaysia by the Prime Minister, Mr. Atal Behari Vajpayee, has revealed a historically rising comfort level in the progressive bilateral dialogue. However, New Delhi will do well not to miss an evolving reality that could be discerned now behind the scenes. Malaysia and, more importantly, the larger Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) can be expected to watch India's geopolitical moves in a new context that is being woven by the Vajpayee administration's latest impetuous decision to support the United States over its missile defense plans.
Surely, several key ASEAN countries generally tend to act in conspicuous U.S.-friendly ways. But the prime ASEAN members are no less wary, too, of China's long-term regional goals. As perceived by most ASEAN members, China is keen to exert influence and gain dominance across Southeast Asia over time. Now, it is a simple proposition that New Delhi's decision to hail Washington's global plans for a new post-Cold War strategic architecture should be of serious concern to China. So, the Sino-Indian equation, as might be determined by the incremental Indo-U.S. strategic dialogue, may be monitored by the ASEAN with a view to fine-tuning its own relationship with New Delhi. In this sense, new imponderables have certainly come into reckoning in regard to the ASEAN-India interaction.
The Malaysian Prime Minister, Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, seems to have taken kindly to India's steadfast willingness, in evidence for over two years, to fashion a suitable legal framework for its commitment to treat Southeast Asia as a nuclear-weapons-free zone. Yet, it is too early for the ASEAN as also Malaysia, a key player within the entity, to sketch out a new road map for ties with India in the emerging ambience of a possible U.S.-China strategic showdown.
India's multi-dimensional partnership with the ASEAN seems headed for a new test, which the organization has not yet had time to spell out either directly or even implicitly. Now, given its collective diplomatic style, the ASEAN may even soften the public semantics of its strategic posers for India. Yet, Mr. Vajpayee's failure to secure Dr. Mahathir's open endorsement of the idea of a periodical ASEAN-India summit is indicative of Malaysia's inclination in the present circumstances to view the dynamics of India's "look east policy" in an altogether new perspective of skepticism as well.
-- The Hindu, New Delhi