Nurturing India-SE Asia ties
Nurturing India-SE Asia ties
Salman Haidar, Former Foreign Secretary, The Statesman, Asia News Network, Calcutta
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee has just been on a visit to Singapore and Cambodia. He follows hard on the heels of his minister for external affairs, who was in several other countries of the region just a few days ago. Once more, there is an eastward look to Indian policy. Another step has been taken in the decade-long, fitful quest to become seriously engaged in Southeast Asia.
This is an important neighborhood for India and it needs continuous attention. Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong of Singapore is an old friend and a consistent advocate of stronger ties between ASEAN and India.
He took the initiative in obtaining dialog-partner status for India against considerable opposition from some members of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), who called for simultaneous acceptance of Pakistan in the same capacity.
Enhanced status as a dialog partner enabled us to be part of the Asian Regional Forum where security matters relating to Asia are discussed between members of the ASEAN and a select few regional and non-regional countries. That, more or less, is where our venture into Southeast Asia has remained. Efforts by successive Indian administrations to find space in the economic grouping of the Pacific Rim countries APEC or the Asia-Europe Summit ASEM have failed to bear fruit.
The only important new move will be the forthcoming top-level meeting called ASEAN-plus-one, which provides for concentrated dialog between the regional organization and one selected partner at a time. This slow evolution of institutional links properly reflects the very gradual progress in substantive relations. Singapore long ago identified India as a partner for the future, and India welcomed the prospect of sizable investment from that quarter.
Some promising projects were identified, like the possible entry of Singapore Airlines, in collaboration with a local party, into the domestic civil aviation sector. That did not survive a resourceful rearguard struggle by vested interests in India. Others have done better, including some infrastructure projects and joint projects for scientific collaboration, especially in information technology.
Goh has been patient despite the many roadblocks. Even today, despite all the reforms since the first eastward venture a decade ago, India's economy is much less open than those of Southeast Asia. This is the essential constraint in the rapid growth of relations. One can expect a much larger and freer flow of economic exchanges with the region as the reform process in India gathers momentum. The visit to Cambodia had an altogether different character.
Through the 1980s, when Kampuchea (as it was known as then) was ostracized by most of the world, India was one of the few that continued on friendly terms with Phnom Penh. We helped restore and preserve the great temple complex of Angkor Vat, for which we received bitter criticism from European agencies that felt this was their reserved domain.
The visit to Southeast Asia has given rise to some comments about a new strategic vision that drives us eastward. What is seen as an emerging security partnership between us and the U.S. is believed by some observers to have opened up a whole new area of opportunity in the region. Such thoughts are vague and nebulous and should be put away.
No such role is asked of us in the region. ASEAN is practical and down-to-earth in its ways, not given to the airy projections that sometimes overtake our policy makers. We need to adjust our own ways to secure better openings for ourselves in the region. If Vajpayee's visit did something along those lines, it will have achieved as much as should be asked of it.