India’s relations with ASEAN member countries have come a long way since India launched its ‘Look East Policy’ in the aftermath of the end of the Cold War. The two-day India- ASEAN Commemorative Summit hosted by India at New Delhi on 20-21 December 2012 to mark the 20th anniversary of the dialogue-level partnership and the 10th anniversary of India’s Summit-level partnership with ASEAN stands testament that India now not only looks east but also ‘acts east’.
On the one hand, the first meeting of ASEAN leaders in India is a watershed in India’s efforts to build ties with Southeast Asia, and on the hand, he recently held commemorative summit reflects as to how far both sides have come in areas of common interest – diplomacy, trade and investment, and regional security – and the way forward. The significance that Asean members are increasingly according India can be gauged from the presence of the six Prime Ministers (Cambodia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and Vietnam), two Presidents (Myanmar and Indonesia), Sultan of Brunei and the Vice-President of Philippines in India for the India-Asean summit.
India was admitted as sectoral dialogue partner of the Asean in 1992 and went on to become a full-fledged dialogue partner in 1996. Ever since, India has been actively engaging with ASEAN through ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), Post Ministerial Conference (PMC) 10 + 1, ASEAN Economic Ministers +1 Consultations, the East Asia Summit (EAS), ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting Plus (ADMM Plus) and other regional forums.
Regardless of its historical and cultural links with South-East Asia, India in its post-Independence foreign policy mostly tended to ignore the region. According to one expert, the structural constraints of the Cold War proved too formidable despite India’s geographic proximity to the region and it was the end of the Cold War that really brought this region back to the forefront of India’s foreign policy horizons when New Delhi recognised the importance of engaging with the world’s most economically dynamic region. Since then, India’s ‘Look East’ policy, which originated primarily focused on trade and economics, has now attained a distinct security dimension.
Vision Statement
The underlying theme of this Commemorative India-ASEAN Summit has been “ASEAN-India Partnership for Peace and Shared Prosperity”. While expressing satifaction with the rapid growth and progress of ASEAN-India Dialogue Relations since its establishment as a sectoral dialogue partnership in 1992; the Vision Statement recognizes the successful conclusion of the first Plan of Action for the period 2005-2010 and the implementation of the new Plan of Action for the period 2010-2015 to implement the ASEAN-India Partnership for Peace, Progress and Shared Prosperity.
India’s role is appreciated in ensuring regional peace and stability through India’s accession to the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC) in 2003 and India’s active contribution in the ASEAN+1, the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), the East Asia Summit (EAS) and the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting (ADMM) Plus.
ASEAN’s centrality and its role is reckoned with as the driving force of both economic and security structures and institutions currently emerging in the region, which allow for a stable and peaceful regional environment that is essential to the pursuit of sustainable development.
The highlight of the Commemorative Summit was that it elevated India-ASEAN Partnership to a strategic partnership level. The Vision Statement further reiterated the joint commitment of both sides to strive towards the full, effective and timely implementation of the ASEAN-India Dialogue Relations across the whole spectrum of political and security, economic, socio-cultural and development cooperation, through further strengthening of relevant institutional mechanisms.
India pledged to support and cooperate closely with ASEAN to realise the ASEAN Community in 2015, comprising three pillars, namely, the ASEAN Political Security Community, the ASEAN Economic Community and the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community. To further strengthen this cooperation, it was agreed to establish an ASEAN-India Centre using existing capacities.
Security Cooperation
The Vision Statement reiterated the commitment of both sides to make use of existing ASEAN-led regional processes, such as the ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting (ADMM) Plus to promote defence and military exchanges and cooperation, and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) to foster constructive dialogue and consultation on political and security issues.
It was also agreed to foster greater security cooperation and information sharing in the form of regular and high-level security dialogues to further address traditional and non-traditional security challenges, including transnational crimes, and strengthening the effective implementation of the ASEAN-India Joint Declaration for Cooperation to Combat International Terrorism.
While expressing their commitment to strengthening cooperation to ensure maritime security and freedom of navigation, and safety of sea lanes of communication for unfettered movement of trade in accordance with international law, including UNCLOS, both sides agreed to promote maritime cooperation, including through engagement in the ASEAN Maritime Forum (AMF) and its expanded format, to address common challenges on maritime issues, including sea piracy, search and rescue at sea, maritime environment, maritime security, maritime connectivity, freedom of navigation, fisheries, and other areas of cooperation.
Economic Cooperation
India and ASEAN have combined market of almost 1.8 billion people and a combined GDP of USD 3.8 trillion. India and ASEAN, which already have a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in goods in place, have also targeted a two-way trade of $100 billion by 2015. Currently, trade between India and ASEAN is at $80 billion. India-ASEAN trade has witnessed 22 percent growth every year, and last year it saw 37 percent growth, at a time when the rest of the world was grappling with an economic slowdown.
India and ASEAN commerce officials have been busy working out the details of the FTA in services and investments. A team from the Indian commerce ministry was in Jakarta in early December this year to work out the details, the official said. While welcoming the successful conclusion of the negotiation on ASEAN-India Trade in Services and Investment Agreements, the Vision Statement expressed the hope that the signing of these Agreements would facilitate further economic integration between ASEAN and India, and also contribute to the overall East Asian economic integration.
Agriculture and tourism are other major areas the two sides are looking at to boost cooperation. The two sides have held ministerial level meetings and working groups on boosting agriculture cooperation. Media reports indicate that a newsletter on agriculture as well as exchange visits of farmers to study each other’s farming methods has been launched and the two sides are also planning cooperation in food security.
The field of tourism holds excellent promise for cooperation. India and ASEAN inked in January this year a MoU on tourism. They have decided to launch a joint website on tourism, which is expected soon. Some experts opine that India’s Buddhism circuit holds great potential for boosting ASEAN-India tourism ties.
Tourist arrivals from ASEAN to India in 2010 stood at 439,000, up from 276,000 in 2009, tourists from India to the 10-member bloc stood at 2.2 million in 2011, up by nearly 10 percent compared to 2010. India has also inked a visa on arrival with seven of the 10 ASEAN countries.
India’s role in the ASEAN region is dwarfed by that of China, which enjoyed trade worth a record $363 billion with ASEAN countries in 2011 in an already established free trade area. According to India’s Minister of External Affairs, Salman Khursheed, what is needed at this juncture is far greater connectivity in terms of roads, railways and flights. Stating that there was still lot to be done, he hoped that coming years would see considerable improvement.5 India was contemplating to double its diplomatic presence in the region to reflect India’s growing global ambitions.
Some ASEAN member countries, particularly Singapore and Indonesia, have been the important source of FDI for India, which has seen 200 percent growth in FDI outflow to the region. ASEAN’s ongoing economic integration and robust economic growth promises numerous economic opportunities for India. Also with the economic decline of its traditional trading partners Europe and the United States, ASEAN seen as an economically vibrant region provides and alternative market for India.
China Factor
Unlike with China where several ASEAN member states were embroiled in territorial disputes in the South China Sea, ASEAN could take comfort that it has no serious outstanding issues with India. What is nice about the relationship is that there really have been no problem areas for India. In the wake of India’s growing economic linkages with various countries in the region, demands have grown for a gradual strengthening of security ties at a time of China’s rapid ascendance in the global hierarchy.
The regional countries can ill-afford to ignore China’s economic clout and military strength. Nevertheless, the states in China’s vicinity are now seeking to expand their strategic space by reaching out to other regional and global powers. Concurrently, India is being looked upon by the Smaller States of the region to act as a balancer in view of China’s growing influence and a broader leadership vacuum in the region, while larger states see India as an attractive engine for regional growth.
Experts feel that India walks a delicate line to balance its increasingly close partnership with Washington as President Barack Obama steps up the US presence in Asian, and the reality of living next door to China, Asia’s fastest-growing superpower.
While playing down the possibility of any tension with China, India’s External Minister Salman Khurshid has reiterated that India had no territorial claims in the South China Sea. He further added: “I don’t think this is something that will reach hostility or conflict, there are differences obviously – China has a very clear perception about its sovereignty and it also has a very clear idea of how it wants to resolve these issues.
India’s External Affairs Minister opines that it’s not something that cannot be resolved, it is certainly not something in which India is directly involved and India has said categorically that there should be compliance and respect for the law of the sea. However, keeping in view the parameters of India’s “Look East” policy and its quest for locking down energy supplies for its rapidly growing industrial sector, New Delhi is constrained to gradually step up military activities in the region with more joint exercises and visits.
India is exploring an oil and gas block with Vietnam in the disputed waters and in future is likely to bring more liquefied natural gas through the Malacca Straits. In the opinion of India’s Minister for External Affairs, along with counter-terrorism, energy security was among India’s top foreign policy priorities:”We have become far more resource orientated because development is of course heavily dependent on resources. We import 80 percent of our fuel.”
Conclusion
For India, improved relations with ASEAN nations will facilitate its entry into one of the fastest-growing economic regions in the world and a source of raw materials needed for its own growth. However, the lack of adequate infrastructure, especially the broken-down roads between India and the nations to its southeast, a shortage of direct flights and constraints such as India’s tiny diplomatic corps – comparable in size to New Zealand’s – mean India trails China in relations with the region.
According to Harsh Pant, to live up to its full potential and meet the region’s expectations, India will have to do a more convincing job of emerging as a credible strategic partner of the region. He further opines: “India, for its part, would not only like greater economic integration with the fastest growing region in the world but would also like to challenge China on its periphery. But India will have to do much more to emerge as a serious player in the region. After all, China’s trade with Asean in 2011 was a whopping $363 billion and it remains far better integrated into the region.”
Ian Storey, senior fellow of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, has observed: “India has yet to impress many ASEAN partners, despite strong ties to Vietnam. India is not a serious player in Southeast Asia, it has aspirations to be a player, but it has a long way to go,” he said. “A common view is that India talks the talk but doesn’t walk the walk.”
India is called upon to adopt a pragmatic approach by assuring the ASEAN member countries of its reliability not only as an economic and political partner but also as a security provider. In the wake of changing regional balance of power in Asia and as the very coherence of the ASEAN coming under strain, there will be new demands on India. While the past two decades in India-ASEAN ties have been fruitful, the ensuing two decades are going to be more challenging. India is called upon to act more pragmatically to augment bilateral and multilateral ties in this rapidly evolving regional context.
Notes
- Harsh V. Pant, “Filling the strategic space in South-East Asia”, The Hindu, 22 December 2012.
- Full text of Vision Statement—ASEAN-India Commemorative Summit is available at http://www.aseanindia.com/speeches-and-statements/2012/12/20/vision-statement-asean-india-commemorative-summit.
- Ibid.
- IANS, “India-ASEAN ties on growth trajectory ‘with no problem areas.’”, in Business Standard, 19 December 2012.
- Reuters, “Southeast Asia looks to India amid tensions with China”, in ibnlive.in.com, 19 December 2012, available at http://ibnlive.in.com/news/southeast-asia-looks-to-india-amid-tensions-with-china/311314-3-244.html.
- Harsh Pant, n. 1.
- Reuters, n. 5.
- Ibid.
- Harsh Pant, n. 1.
- Cited in Reuters, n. 5.
