The present Indian government, which assumed power under Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, from its first day has challenged the hegemony of China in the region by coming together with ASEAN partners.
Right from the 12th India-ASEAN summit in Myanmar in 2014 to the Republic Day diplomacy of last year and thereafter, the Modi government has made concerted efforts to turn the gathering of ASEAN leaders into an opportunity to explore the possibility of a new Asian order conducive to India’s economic and strategic interests.
He set up a new benchmark for symbolic growth, with an aim to obtain “shared values, common destiny free from contest and claims.”
He also called for a “common vision for the future, built on commitment to inclusion and integration, belief in sovereign equality of all nations irrespective of size, and support for free and open pathways of commerce and engagement.”
In this changed atmosphere, most of the ASEAN members started looking at India to come forward not merely to checkmate an encroaching China, but to secure and accelerate trade and security for their countries.
In 1991, considering the regional and global environment of the time, India enacted its Look East Policy, which represents its efforts to cultivate extensive economic and strategic relations with the nations of Southeast Asia to bolster its standing as a regional power and a counterweight to the strategic influence of the People’s Republic of China.
The policy marked a strategic shift in India’s perspective of the world. The qualitative and structural changes brought about by the end of the Cold War led to new orientations in the foreign policies of India and countries of Southeast Asia.
The new policy was started with the aim to enhance economic relations with the ASEAN members, but expanded to bolstering strategic, political and institutional linkages. India moved toward Southeast Asia to build multidimensional ties with the countries. In response, the Southeast Asian countries left all inhibitions of the past and came closer to India to develop warm and friendly relations with it.
Perhaps, contrary to China, the rise of a democratic, pluralist and secular India has been viewed by ASEAN and East Asia with more welcoming optimism. China is still trying very hard to enhance its soft power image in its relations with ASEAN members, but due to its authoritarian nature and a bitter war-torn past, its rise makes them suspicious.
India has consistently pursued the policy since its initiation and in the early 1990s, with a lot of vigor and glare, witnessed a good gesture from the other side: India became a sectoral dialogue partner with ASEAN in 1992 and a full dialogue partner in 1995.
In July 1996, then-Indian minister of external affairs Inder Kumar Gujral attended an ASEAN conference in Indonesia for the first time and expressed the new Indian government’s approval of the policy.
“We see the full dialogue partnership with ASEAN as a manifestation of our Look East destiny… [India] would work with ASEAN as a full dialogue partner to give real meaning and content to the prophecy and promise of the ‘Asian century’ that is about to draw upon us,” Gujral said.
With gradual development, India-ASEAN relations gained wider dimensions toward the end of 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s.
In 1998, then-Indian prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee intended to accelerate India’s Look East Policy. During the National Democratic Alliance’s (NDA) first period in government from 1998 to 2004, the concept of “external neighborhood” was popularized by Indian leaders such as Gujral and then-Indian minister of external affairs Yashwant Sinha.
After almost a decade of initiation, the policy assumed a more pronounced strategic flavor and expanded to non-ASEAN members, such as Australia, Japan and South Korea.
Sinha heralded the second phase of the Look East Policy in 2003, when he said: “The first phase of India’s Look East Policy was ASEAN-centered and focused primarily on trade and investment linkages. The new phase of this policy is characterized by an expanded definition of ‘East’ extensively from Australia to East Asia with ASEAN at its aim.”
“It also marks a shift from trade to wider economic and security issues including joint efforts to promote the sea lanes and coordinate counterterrorism activities,” Sinha said. “On the economic side, phase II of [the] Look East Policy is also characterized by arrangement for FTA [Free Trade Agreements] and establishing institutional economic linkage between the countries of the region and India.”
Beyond the concept of immediate neighborhood, there are two other concepts: The countries of East and Northeast Asia are perceived as “far eastern neighbors,” while ASEAN members are seen as “near eastern neighbors.” Expansion of the “neighborhood” has most importantly served India’s economic and security interests, especially after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the US.
The 1991 economic reforms saw the birth of a new role for international economic and trade relations. India suddenly had to engage with the post-Cold War world and reassess its foreign-policy priorities. The opening up of the economy to international players also meant that foreign relations had an economic dimension and trade became a foreign policy tool.
Leaving the doctrine of swadeshi, or economic self-sufficiency, behind and engaging in international trade was India’s new way forward. Especially under the first NDA government, India’s foreign policy formulation was conducted on the basis of trade and power priorities as a mechanism to hegemony.
At a larger level, this move fit in with globalization and the increasing power of business in government policy formulation, not only in Asia, but in the world at large. In the economic realm, the Look East Policy provided a tremendous boost to economic ties between India and the ASEAN members, resulting in the constitution of a number of institutional mechanisms to promote economic exchanges.
Interactions with Malaysia and Singapore emerged as the 10th and 11th-largest respectively in terms of approved investment received by India in 2002. Thailand was 18th, and Indonesia and Philippines were in 33rd and 35th place respectively.
India’s exports to Malaysia grew from US$773.69 million in 2001-2002 to US$3,956.98 million in 2010-2011, and exports to Thailand grew from US$633.13 million to US$2,792.80 million over that period.
Singapore has remained the largest market in ASEAN for India’s merchandise exports, followed by Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand. Cumulative foreign direct investment (FDI) from Singapore to India increased from US$1.3 billion in 2005-2006 to US$17.15 billion as of March 2012. Similarly, FDI from India to Singapore increased from US$3.1 billion to US$23.41 billion from 2004-2005 to 2011-2012.
Policymakers wish for India’s economic integration with East Asia to gradually grow. Over the past few years, it has assumed a greater economic dimension.
Given India’s economic reforms and the attendant efforts to integrate with the regional and global economy, it is but natural that Indian diplomacy, particularly in its relations with ASEAN members, is to focus more on economic issues such as trade, investment, goods and services.
Rajkumar Singh is professor and head of the Postgraduate Department of Political Science at B.N. Mandal University, West Campus, in Saharsa, Bihar State, India.
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