SPEAKING FREELY Europe's Asian love misplaced By Andrew Bishop
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Throughout the Cold War, India adopted and refined a strategy of non-alignment
in world politics, thereby trying to free itself from what its leaders
perceived as the dangerous bets of a bipolar era.
After its 1965 war against Pakistan - fought over the yet-to-be resolved issue
of Kashmir - India nevertheless felt the need to find
new allies to nurture its arsenal.
In the context of a growing relationship between the United States, Pakistan
and - after 1972 - China, India turned to the Soviet Union to fulfill its
needs.
Since the end of the Cold War, however, India's leaders have tried to
rediversify their country's economic and political partnerships by taking a new
look at such ancient rivals as China and by making the best of all
opportunities available to them, most notably in the Indian Ocean where their
efforts to promote cooperation have gone as far as Madagascar.
Wisely, the United States quickly understood how important India - the world's
largest democracy - would one day become in a region where transnational
threats coexist with traditional tensions among nuclear-armed states.
In 2000, a US president - Bill Clinton - made a formal visit to New Delhi for
the first time in 22 years. This was a groundbreaking step towards mutual
understanding which President George W Bush felt was important enough to
reiterate in 2006.
In fact, with India and Pakistan going to war in 1999 and Pakistan once again
becoming a military regime the same year, the United States easily built its
case for getting closer to New Delhi.
This US decision to find a new grip in South Asia became even more acute after
Bush launched his "global war on terror" in 2001.
Yet another step was taken in the US-Indian relationship in 2005 when
Washington signed onto a civil nuclear cooperation agreement which allowed US
businesses to help India in its civilian nuclear endeavors.
Despite much criticism and a fragile history, this deal is evidence of the
United States' willingness to court India in the early years of the 21st
century.
The recent history of Europe's ties with India, on the contrary, shows very
little enthusiasm for this would-be superpower on the part of both individual
European states and the European Union (EU) as a whole.
India shares extensive trade flows with the United Kingdom, Germany, and the
Benelux countries. In addition, the EU has become India's first trading partner
and investor.
However, relations between the two communities are far from having reached
their potential peak, and neither India nor the EU seems to be in a hurry to
remedy this shortfall.
In fact, it seems Europe has rather become obsessed with China in recent years,
as it seems to bet on this Asian giant's ultimate rise to a superpower status.
Many in Europe appreciate China's economic complementarity with their own
markets as well as the country's relative openness to foreign direct
investments.
To the contrary, India remains a difficult destination for European investors
to feel at ease.
Only recently has New Delhi renounced most of its socialist economic principles
- some of which still reappear from time to time, with damaging consequences.
For the most part, in addition, India's undeniable economic dynamism is
privately driven and locally owned, thereby lacking the kind of state-run
incentives offered to outside investors by China's leadership. [1]
This has bumped India to a noticeably lower rank in Europeans' short-term
priorities.
A prime example of this European lack of interest in India can be found in the
Indo-EU Free Trade Agreement (FTA) project which was first debated in October
2006.
Despite risking that a separate Indian agreement with Japan might hurt the EU's
prime position in New Delhi's trade structure, the European Commission does not
seem to be intent on solving the issues which brought the FTA scheme to a
serious slowdown in early 2008.
Instead, reports have been made that EU Commissioners have now scrapped 2008 as
a deadline for concluding the FTA. [2]
This lackluster process is evidence of Europe's relative indifference towards
its South Asian partner.
Such indifference, however, will sooner rather than later prove to have been a
strategic error. And so will Europe's current obsession with China.
Indeed, while Beijing may seem like a great bet today as its rulers provide
just the amount of infrastructure and legal security needed to invest in their
country, China's long-term political stability might fail Europeans when they
expect it the least.
India, on the other hand, appears to be the country where what you see is what
you get.
While New Delhi has yet to bring broader infrastructure, property rights and
political consensus to its partners, there is little risk of its efforts
suddenly slipping back in the years to come.
In fact, despite some punctual populist measures, all Indian governments since
1991 have pursued the path of managed liberalization with quite some success.
So, why the bilateral holdback?
One widespread theory has it that while India is desperately trapped in a web
of "old school" geopolitical dilemmas, its European partner remains
self-obsessed, caring only about its own economic advancement, and disregarding
India's regional woes. [3]
In this context, it is said, Indians find it hard to entrust Europe with a
larger stake in their destiny, especially as they know the United States has
more to offer and can better defend their positions in the region.
Judiciously, other observers have pointed out that as New Delhi gets closer to
Washington, its leaders will most likely attempt to balance this rapprochement
with increased ties to Brussels, as India remains much attached to its doctrine
of non-alignment. [4]
This will represent a window of opportunity for Europeans to reassess their
bets in Asia.
Already it appears the EU has begun to make its case for adopting India as a
"strategic partner" since the two signed a formal partnership agreement and a
joint action plan in 2005.
Europeans have also proved their relative openness to India by allowing it to
participate in two high-tech endeavors: the next generation global positioning
system Galileo and the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor.
However, few of the Indo-European projects currently underway hold a
significant amount of political relevance.
In order for this to change, it will be necessary for the EU to undertake a
truly political strategy of engagement in South Asia.
Currently, Europe's main strategy in the region has been focused on promoting
either bilateral trade - with China ranking high - or inter-regional talks,
most notably through the limited Asia-Europe Meeting which was created in 1996.
This sub-optimal strategy will soon look short-sighted unless Europeans face
the need for both a more evenly spread gamble among Asian nations and a more
aggressive defense of India's essential political significance in the 21st
century.
There is no reason why such a new policy could not take root in the years to
come. After all, India was one of the first nations to recognize the European
Economic Community back in the 1960s.
Notes
1 Yasheng Huang and Tarun Khanna, "Can India Overtake China?" Foreign Policy,
July/August 2003.
2 Indronil Roychowdhury, "EU won't push India on FTA." The Financial Express,
March 3, 2008.
3 Rajendra K Jain, "India and the European Union - Building a Strategic
Partnership." In Subrata K Mitra and Bernd Rill, eds, India's New Dynamics in
Foreign Policy (Munich: Hanns Seidel Stifung, 2006), pp. 83-92.
4 Charles Grant, "India and the EU: Strategic Partners?" CER Bulletin, issue
46, February/March 2006.
Andrew Bishop is a graduate student of European politics at Sciences-Po
and at the London School of Economics. He is also an active blogger and
commentator on international affairs. Read more of his work on his blog:
WhatYouMustRead http://whatyoumustread.blogspot.com
(Copyright 2008 Andrew Bishop.)
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say.
Please click hereif you are interested in contributing.
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