India looks beyond successful `Look East' policy

India looks beyond successful `Look East' policy

Endy M. Bayuni, The Jakarta Post, New Delhi

Hearing Indian diplomats touting last year's inaugural India-
ASEAN car rally as a milestone in New Delhi's foreign policy, it
was hard to avoid the impression at first that sports,
particularly one involving fast cars, have become an important
dimension in the overall relations between India and the
Southeast Asian regional organization.

That may be so, but it was not the chief reason why the rally,
an initiative first mooted by then Indian prime minister Atal
Bihari Vajpayee in 2003 and taken up by his successor Prime
Minister Manmohan Singh, was held.

Rather, the rally -- 60 cars traveling a distance of more than
8,000 kilometers and covering India and eight of the 10 member
countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
-- culminated 10 years of New Delhi's "Look East" policy.

Given their lifestyle, some diplomats may have a penchant for
fast cars, but the grueling rally was held as part of New Delhi's
conscious policy of building ties with countries to the east,
most particularly with ASEAN countries.

The rally, covering India, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam,
Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and the Indonesian island of Batam,
was an important symbolic opening up of land routes, and hence
trade and economic routes, as well as a chance for more cultural
contacts between India and its Southeast Asian neighbors.

"It brings out a rather dramatic scene of how close we are and
of what is the potential for cooperation, of how we leverage our
geography, our history, our cultural relationships," Rajiv Sikri,
the Secretary for East Asia at the Ministry of External Affairs,
says.

Launched in 1994, the Look East policy was part of an overall
and timely change in India's policy of opening up its economy to
partake in the economic globalization at that time. With the end
of the Cold War, trade and economics have since become the
driving force of India's foreign policy, replacing Third World
non-alignment ideology, tinged with anti-imperialism overtones,
of the past.

India has since joined the various ASEAN meetings; it now
participates in the group's annual summit, along with China,
Japan, and South Korea, to discuss ways of enhancing regional
cooperation; it also takes part in the annual ASEAN Regional
Forum, which also involves the United States and Russia, to
discuss Asian-wide regional security.

Along with the rapid rise of India's economy and its overall
international relations, trade with ASEAN countries has boomed in
the last decade. Two-way trade between India and ASEAN now totals
US$12 billion a year, almost equal to India's trade with China.
Apart from a free trade agreement with the regional group, India
is also looking at similar arrangements with individual member
countries, starting with Singapore and Thailand.

No wonder New Delhi feels vindicated by its Look East policy
10 years after its launching.

"It is to the great satisfaction of all Southeast Asian
countries and India that our relations have developed very
satisfactorily," Sikri said in an interview at his office.

It had not been that difficult to build these relations with
ASEAN countries, since historically, India had never had any
conflict with the region, he pointed out.

"We have always had peaceful relationships with Southeast
Asian countries. We have had trade, cultural and peaceful
interactions," Sikri said. "Our comfort level is much greater
(compared with India's other neighboring countries) on which to
build these ties in the 21st century."

Looking beyond, a more confident India is already pushing the
idea of a long term vision of a broader Asian economic community,
involving initially ASEAN countries, India, China, Japan and
South Korea.

Again both prime ministers Manmohan Singh and his predecessor
Atal Bihari Vajpayee, in spite of coming from ideologically
different political parties, have been selling the idea of an
Asian community at the ASEAN summits.

There is a good reason why ASEAN and the rest of Asia should
pay heed to India.

India is today one of the world's fastest growing economies
second only to China. With a growth rate of 6 percent to 7
percent a year, the Indian economy has already doubled in the
last decade, and will double again in the next 10 years. With
this rapid growth, naturally comes political and economic weight.

India is fast becoming an economic and political power, not
only of Asia, but also of the world.

ASEAN is currently looking at the idea of an Asian community
but it has not decided whether or not to include India in such
discussions.

One forum for this would be the inaugural East Asian Summit,
planned in Kuala Lumpur at the end of 2005. ASEAN has yet to
agree on the countries to be included besides ASEAN, China, Japan
and South Korea.

Indonesia, for one, wants to include India, Australia and New
Zealand.

Sikri recalls that ASEAN had brought India into its
conferences and summits for strategic balance reasons, and
believes that the same reasoning should now be used in any talks
about moving toward an Asian economic community.

"Perhaps it would be a good idea if India is invited to the
first East Asian summit," he said.