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India rediscovers East Asia
By Chietigj Bajpaee

acquiescence by Japan to the US-India nuclear agreement is also a milestone given Japan's staunch opposition to nuclear proliferation.

China, while initially expressing discomfort about the US-India civil nuclear agreement by labeling it as creating a "nuclear exception" and undermining the non-proliferation regime, has recently toned down its opposition to the deal by calling for "innovative and


forward-looking approaches to civilian nuclear cooperation".

Stabilizing India's periphery
India's "Look East" policy also offers potential solutions to South Asia's security concerns. Aside from the increasingly active role by Japan and China in South Asia, the mixed success of countries in South and Southeast Asia in combating Islamic insurgencies offers potential for cooperation and collaboration in finding joint solutions to the wave of Islamic extremism sweeping the region. For instance, Indonesia has managed to quell Islamic extremism, while in the southern regions of Thailand and the Philippines in Southeast Asia and Bangladesh and Pakistan in South Asia, Islamic terrorism is escalating.

In the case of Indonesia, emphasis on local solutions over foreign intervention, the use of effective local law enforcement and intelligence gathering such as the Detachment 88 police unit over military heavy-handedness, and ensuring that syllabi in Islamic schools promote tolerance, non-violence and progressive Islamic education, have effectively marginalized Islamic extremist elements in Indonesian society.

India has a vested interest in ensuring that Islamic extremism does not take grip in the region given its ongoing struggle with an Islamic insurgency in Kashmir, as well as a growing string of attacks on symbolic targets in India's heartland since the December 2001 attack on India's Parliament that have been aimed at igniting communal violence and undermining confidence in India's economy.

The most notable linkage between India's "Look East" policy and attempts to secure the homeland has been seen in New Delhi's shift in policy toward the military junta in Myanmar. Myanmar is the only country in Southeast Asia that shares both a land and maritime border with India. As such, India's foreign policy toward Myanmar has undergone a major shift.

New Delhi has moved from voicing its opposition to the military junta's crackdown on pro-democracy activists to a more pragmatic policy of engagement with the regime since 1993, fueled by India's desire to gain access to Myanmar's energy resources and Southeast Asia's markets, as well as balancing China's influence in the region and obtaining Yangon's support in countering insurgent groups in India's northeast.

As part of this policy, there have been a numerous exchanges of senior level officials, India-Myanmar trade has expanded from $87 million in 1990 to $569 million in 2005, and India has also sold numerous weapons platforms to Myanmar at "friendship prices" with the intention to fight Indian insurgent groups seeking sanctuary in Myanmar's territory.

Promoting South Asian economic integration
India's economic integration with East Asia also offers a potential catalyst for economic integration in South Asia. Intra-regional trade in South Asia accounts for a mere 4% of the region's total trade, even though the South Asia Preferential Trading Arrangement has been in place since 1995 and the South Asia Free Trade Area went into force in July 2006.

In contrast, in 2004 intra-regional trade in ASEAN amounted to 49%; in NAFTA, this figure was 44% and in the European Union this was 67%. The low level of economic integration in the region is not surprising given the adversarial relationship between India and Pakistan; both states account for 90% of the region's gross domestic product and official trade between both amounts to less than $500 million.

Resolving India-Pakistan hostilities and addressing fears by India's neighbors of India's economic dominance of the region are necessary to fuel economic integration. Tying South Asia's economic integration to broader Asian economic integration would help pacify fears of India's dominance of a regional free trade arrangement.

Engagement below expectations
Despite the successes of India's "Look East" policy, India's engagement with East Asia is not without controversy. First, engagement continues to be below its full potential. For example, despite the rhetoric of India and Japan in forming an "arc of freedom and prosperity", bilateral engagement remains low. Japanese investment in India was approximately $2 billion in 2006, far less than the $57 billion that Japan invested in China, while Sino-Japanese trade was more than $207 billion in 2006, far less than Japan-India trade, which amounted to $7 billion.

Similarly, India makes up only 0.67% of Taiwan's total trade and Taiwanese investment in India totals $116 million as opposed to well over $100 billion in China. In Southeast Asia, New Delhi remains second fiddle to Beijing's growing presence in the region as China's trade with Southeast Asia exceeded $160 billion in 2006, while India's trade with the region is less than $30 billion.

Similarly, despite the ongoing rapprochement in Sino-Indian relations, mutual mistrust persists. Chinese investment in India has lagged as India's national security establishment has opposed Chinese investment in strategically important Indian sectors such as ports and telecommunications. While China has emerged as India's second-largest trading partner, India is only China's tenth-largest trading partner.

Sporadic tensions continue to arise over their long-standing territorial dispute, as highlighted by India canceling the visit of 107 bureaucrats to China in May of this year after China refused to accept the visa application of an official from the disputed territory of Arunachal Pradesh. India has responded by allegedly enhancing its air power on its eastern front. Despite 11 rounds of negotiations between their special representatives since 2003, China and India have failed to make significant progress on the boundary dispute.

Similarly, India's engagement with East Asia remains peripheral to the region's security concerns. India has a vested interest in the two most prominent flashpoints in East Asia, notably the Taiwan Strait and Korean Peninsula. Many have forgotten the fact that India played an important role during the Korean War as a mediator between the United States and communist China.

Nonetheless, India is neither a member of the current six-party or the larger 10-party framework on the North Korean nuclear issue, even though India has a number of vested interests in a peaceful Korean Peninsula; most notably, Pakistan has assisted North Korea with its nuclear program (by providing uranium enrichment technology) through a renegade network in exchange for North Korean assistance to Pakistan's ballistic missile program (by providing it with the Nodong/Ghauri ballistic missile). Beyond this, North Korea's nuclear brinkmanship serves to delay India's formal membership to the nuclear club by demonstrating the "dark side" of nuclear proliferation, even though India has a strong record in nuclear non-proliferation.

With respect to the Taiwan Strait, India has a vested interest in the peaceful resolution of the dispute given India's growing economic interdependence and people-to-people contacts with both sides of the strait. Some quarters of India's policymaking community have even voiced the utility of forging closer relations with Taiwan as a quid pro quo for China's close relationship with Pakistan. Nonetheless, India is unlikely to intervene in cross-strait hostilities in an overt way as Japan and the United States have highlighted in the "peaceful resolution" of the Taiwan Strait dispute as a "common strategic objective" in their 2+2 [US-Japan Security Consultative Committee] statement in 2005.

There has also been, from the Western point of view, a "dark side" to India's "Look East" policy given New Delhi's engagement with regimes such as Myanmar, where it has sacrificed ideological principles such as supporting democracy for pragmatic interests. Most recently, India has incurred the wrath of the West with the intended transfer of its advanced light helicopters, which are built with components from numerous European countries, to the State Peace and Development Council regime in Yangon, which is a contravention of the European Union arms embargo on Myanmar.

Furthermore, despite India's change of approach in dealing with Myanmar, it is not apparent that India has made any significant gains. For instance, while Indian energy companies Oil & Natural Gas Company Videsh Ltd and Gas Authority of India Limited have a 30% stake in Myanmar's A1 and A3 blocks in the Shwe field in the Bay of Bengal, a proposed natural gas pipeline to India has been threatened by an agreement between Yangon and PetroChina to supply China with 6.5 trillion cubic feet (TcF) of natural gas via a pipeline from the A1 block to Kunming in China's Yunnan province.

There are also reports that numerous weapons platforms sold by India to Myanmar may actually be used to arm and assist Indian insurgent groups. While Myanmar took part in Operation Golden Bird in 1995 to clamp down on Indian insurgent groups, efforts have not been as successful as those in neighboring Bhutan in 2003 (Operation All Clear).

India's 'Look East' policy comes full circle
Despite these impediments, India's foreign policy has finally moved beyond the confines of South Asia toward East Asia, as demonstrated by the fact that India's hyphenated foreign policy, which has traditionally been linked to Pakistan, is now increasingly linked to China, Japan and the United States. The India-Pakistan-US triangle has been replaced by the India-China-US triangle, which is complemented by numerous other Asian powers including Japan, Australia and Russia.

While India's engagement with East Asia is by no means new, the fact that India's long-standing cultural and historical links are now being complemented by growing interdependence forged by economic integration and transnational security concerns serves to forge a stronger bond with the Asia-Pacific region. Shared interests are complementing shared values. Pragmatism and realpolitik are replacing Nehruvian idealism in India's engagement with East Asia.

Published with permission of the Power and Interest News Report, an analysis-based publication that seeks to provide insight into various conflicts, regions and points of interest around the globe. All comments should be directed to content@pinr.com

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