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Push to India’s “Look East Policy” : Three South East Asia PMs on visit to India |
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Harjit Singh
After playing host to the Thai Prime Minister, Gen. Surayad Chulamont, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, will be receiving leaders of Vietnam and Cambodia who are coming to New Delhi on official visits. In what is being described as a boost to India’s “Look East” policy, External Affairs Minister, Pranab Mukherjee in June, visited Indonesia and Singapore, the two other South East Asian countries with home India has forged stronger political and economic ties. India is close to signing a Free Trade Agreement with Thailand even as another FTA with ASEAN as a whole is being negotiated and differences sorted out.
Vietnam Prime Minister Nguyen Tan dung’s visit early July will be followed by a trip by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen a few days later.
The architect of India’s Look East Policy was the then Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao, who felt that this economic power house in its backyard was being ignored by India at a huge cost. He embarked on the Look East policy which is now bearing fruit. India's engagement with ASEAN as a part of the Look East Policy began with a sectoral dialogue partnership in 1992 that was upgraded to a full dialogue partnership in 1995 and a membership of the ASEAN Regional Forum in 1996. The first summit-level interaction in November 2002 in Cambodia was a milestone in this growing partnership. India's Look East Policy was perhaps a response to the growing recognition that Asia was emerging as the centre of gravity rapidly.
When the then Prime Minister Narasimha Rao outlined India's Look East policy a decade ago, it was tentative and greeted with some scepticism within the country and in South East Asia. During the Cold War, India and ASEAN drifted apart, and the Look East Policy sought to reconnect economically to the region. As India's economic reforms unfolded, there was no let-up in the pace of diplomacy towards the region, which saw steady gains throughout the last decade. Neither the controversial Indian nuclear tests of 1998, nor the economic crisis in East Asia in the late 1990s, came in the way of rapid expansion of India's relations with the region. Trade between India and ASEAN has multiplied fourfold — from $ 3.1 billion in 1991 to about $ 12 billion in 2002. India has now set an ambitious target of $ 30 billion by the year 2007. The free trade agreements with the ASEAN as a whole and individually with Thailand and Singapore are part of the new goals of Indian policy towards Asia. New economic trade arrangements of which the framework agreement for a free trade area with ASEAN by 2011 is a key component, holds out the prospects of an expanding geo-political relationship underpinned by geo-economics. Bilateral agreements provide additional strength to the steps on which to move forward, building on the experience gained in the process. Security linkages in an increasingly globalising and interdependent world assume equal importance. The Indian Navy has been patrolling the Malacca Straits for years now in cooperation with the countries of the region where joint naval exercises heralded the “Look East’ policy.
Further, the fact that China, Japan and Korea are also partners in the ASEAN cooperative engagement processes opens up many opportunities. Multiple linkages and sub-groupings offer new opportunities to work for mutual benefit and enhance the quality of life in all the developing countries in the region. Proposals like the Asian Highway and the Chinese idea ensconced in the Kunming Initiative now must get a fresh look and impetus.
India’s Look East Policy has now entered the second phase under the UPA Government of Dr. Manmohan Singh. Phase one of the policy was characterized by trade and investment linkages. Phase two is marked by arrangements for FTAs and establishing of institutional economic linkages between the countries of the region and India. The other features that define Phase two of India's Look East policy are: the larger geographic scope of the initiative — from the initial focus on South East Asia to include East Asia and the South Pacific. Phase two is further characterised by an expanded definition of `East' extending from Australia to China and East Asia with ASEAN as its core. South Korea has emerged as a major economic partner of India; while economic ties with Japan need to be upgraded, there has been dramatic growth in Sino-Indian linkages in the last few years. The potential with Australia and the South Pacific remains to be tapped fully.
The other is the movement away from exclusive focus on economic issues in phase one to a broader agenda in phase two that involves security cooperation, including joint operations to protect sea lanes and pooling resources in the war against terrorism. The military contacts and joint exercises that India launched with ASEAN states on a low key basis in the early 1990s are now expanding into full-fledged defence cooperation. India has also quietly begun to put in place arrangements for regular access to ports in South East Asia. India's defence contacts have widened to include Japan, South Korea and China. Never before has India engaged in such multi-directional defence diplomacy in Asia.
The Look East policy in phase two has opened the door for the first time since Independence to break out of the political confines of the subcontinent that have severely limited India's grand strategic options. The Look East policy has allowed India to break the artificial political barriers between the subcontinent and South East Asia. A summit of a new economic grouping called BIMSTEC will bring five nations of the Subcontinent (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal and Sri Lanka) and two countries from South East Asia, Myanmar and Thailand, together with a view to promoting regional cooperation. With this, India will be in a position to finally trump the veto that Pakistan has exercised over economic cooperation in the subcontinent through the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is serious in pursuing the country’s Look East policy. The gains that have accrued to India will definitely multiply further by the regular interaction and the annual summits between India and Asean as well as the Free Trade Pact, once it is finalised, signed and implemented.
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