India is cementing closer relations with ASEAN

India is cementing closer relations with ASEAN

S.D. Muni looks at how common interests are drawing India and
ASEAN closer together.

India's maiden participation in the Jakarta ASEAN Regional
Forum (ARF) and Post-Ministerial Conference (PMC) meetings was
low-key but confident. It could not have been otherwise in view
of India's broad harmony with the ASEAN states on the ARF's basic
agenda and security concerns. India understands the anxieties in
this region emerging from the fluid and uncertain security
situation.

New Delhi is not unfamiliar with the assertive claims made by
China in the South China Sea, as it has experience of Chinese
behavior on the disputed Himalayan border. China's growing
military capabilities and willingness to use force confirm
India's own worries because China not only poses a direct
challenge to India's security through its nuclear missiles
deployed in Tibet, but also continues to arm India's adversarial
neighbors with lethal weapons -- including M-11 missiles.

Yet India agrees with ASEAN that "constructive engagement" is
the best way to deal with China. Even at the cost of displeasing
many of its friends, particularly the U.S., India has been
pleading for such engagement vis-a-vis China since 1949. China's
most unfriendly response in 1962 did not change this.

Even now, while reckoning with the long-term security
challenge posed by China, India is doing its best to engage the
former constructively, on the issues of economic co-operation,
and also on the reduction of troops deployed on their common
border. India's Foreign Minister I. Gujral, pursued the agenda of
bilateral confidence-building with his Chinese counterpart on the
sidelines during the Jakarta meeting.

India was also on ASEAN's side on the question of Myanmar.
Apart from the obvious hypocrisy and public posturing involved in
the Western position, India disapproved of the West using "human
rights" and "concern for democracy" as political sticks to beat
Asia with. Accordingly, India joined ASEAN in drawing attention
to the mockery of human rights in Bosnia. If ASEAN's stance on
Myanmar also reflected its internal political dilemma, or the
desire to secure business niches vacated by European
multinationals in Myanmar, India was not concerned. For India
itself has been pursuing pragmatic co-operation with the junta in
Yangon since 1993.

Without dropping its sympathies for the cause of Aung San Suu
Kyi, to whom India gave the Nehru Peace Award, New Delhi has been
securing Yangon's help in containing tribal insurgences along its
vulnerable north-eastern frontier. India shares ASEAN's
assessment that isolating the generals in Yangon would mean
pushing Myanmar closer to China.

Further, inherent in the Myanmar issue at Jakarta was also the
question of leadership of the ARF. India is firmly committed to
ASEAN leading the ARF's gradual evolution. The idea of the West
dominating it and transforming it to an organization with more
bite than bark, may not serve the long-term interests of either
ASEAN or India.

The ARF is already widening its scope of activities in the
areas of confidence-building as well as "search and rescue" and
"peacekeeping" operations. India has both the capabilities and
the will to actively participate in these activities and it also
welcomes the accent on transparency in matters of defense policy.
In New Delhi's perception, it is still premature to think, as
some Japanese politicians do, that the ARF can undertake security
responsibilities in the Asia-Pacific region in the event of a
retreat or drastic reduction of US military forces.

One issue on which India could have faced serious
embarrassment in Jakarta was that of nuclear non-proliferation,
as India is the only ARF country not to have signed the
Non-proliferation Treaty and has been insisting on a time-bound
link between a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and global
disarmament. India's Foreign Minister said: "India, like others
in this room, remains committed to the elimination of all nuclear
weapons and bringing forth a comprehensive and genuine test ban
treaty that would not only out-law nuclear weapon testing, but
also non-explosive techniques for refinement of nuclear weapons".

ARF Chairman and Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas
remarked: "India's position is born out of a principled
struggle... We knew India's position and some of the basic points
of that stand are shared by all members of the Non-aligned
movement. We want really to work for non-proliferation." He also
endorsed India's emphasis on stopping not only horizontal, but
vertical proliferation as well.

India could not have expected more than this in view of the
clear ARF position that "the on-going negotiations" in Geneva on
the CTBT should "receive support of all concerned parties".

There were two important messages that India wanted to convey
through its participation in the ARF and PMC meetings in Jakarta.
One, that the prospects of governmental instability and political
confusion in India notwithstanding, the process of Indian
economic reforms is irreversible. And secondly, that India,
through active economic and strategic collaboration with ASEAN
and others, is keen in the long run to rediscover its foot-prints
in the Asia-Pacific region that were lost earlier in the
strategic currents of the Cold War. Indian Foreign Minister
Gujral, the eldest among all those present in Jakarta, did his
best to convey these messages.

Professor S.D. Muni is Professor of International Politics at
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and concurrently Duncan
Macneill Fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies,
Singapore.