At a time when India has launched an Act East policy and ambitious initiatives such as Make in India, it is time to highlight the importance of Taiwan for an emerging India and bring the India-Taiwan relationship into focus.
The new government formed in India in May 2014 under the charismatic leadership of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, bolstered by its majority, remains in a position to take bold steps in the domain of foreign policy along with India’s earlier Look East policy, framed in response to a unipolar world and marked by the end of the Cold War and the demise of Soviet Union.
It was officially announced in 1992, as part of India’s reassessment of its role in the wider region, and looking at Southeast Asia as a neighbor that mattered for the country, strategically, politically as well as economically.
From the beginning, India’s foreign policy has evolved as a “dual” pattern, encompassing a global, as well as a regional role. The two roles continue to date with very different bases, as relations with India’s neighbors have been conducted on a much more realistic policy course, as opposed to the moralistic international policy.
In the present global strategic scenario of the 21st century, Taiwan is essential for India, because China’s rise has made the Asia-Pacific region the most dynamic part of Asia and Beijing seems eager to challenge the erstwhile pre-eminent US role in this region. In these contexts, Taiwan could be viewed as the strategic linchpin of the Asia-Pacific region.
Simultaneously, for obvious and compelling reasons, Taiwan’s continued separate existence is of vital importance to the entire world to prevent China’s acquisition of virtually unchallengeable hegemony over the Asia-Pacific region. Even on the strategic and security front, both India and Taiwan have serious and deep concerns about China’s growing assertiveness in the region. Thus, the China factor can become a medium to bring the strategic communities in New Delhi and Taipei closer.
However, Taiwan does not expect India to be some kind of a military ally, but believes that India’s presence in the region will provide some sort of balance. As a result, regular information exchange between the militaries and the intelligence agencies of Taiwan and India would benefit both.
Earlier, when Modi assumed India’s premiership, Taiwan welcomed it as a vital opportunity to further upgrade the relationship between the two entities. Modi is one of the few Indian politicians who have visited Taiwan, in 1999 as the general secretary of the Bharatiya Janata Party, and also hosted the largest-ever Taiwanese business delegation in India as the chief minister of Gujarat in 2011.
Now, the Modi government is giving more attention to developing quadrilateral and triangular coalitions with the US, Australia and Japan as part of its regional security strategy. The insertion of Taiwan can prove to be essential in this endeavor. Improving strategic ties with Taiwan will also provide a useful card for India to play to bargain with China.
On the other hand, Beijing has intensified its efforts to further isolate Taiwan diplomatically and as a result, Taipei should also broaden its security ties with regional powers beyond its long-standing relationship with the US.
Bilateral relations between India and Taiwan in the spheres of politics and diplomacy are also improving day by day, along with understanding and focus on commercial, cultural and people-to-people contacts.
Even though New Delhi is constrained by its acceptance of a “one China” policy, which means it is in no position to establish direct diplomatic relations with Taipei, the two sides have cooperated with each other in improving through non-governmental agencies.
The first such effort was started in the early 1990s. By that time, as a part of the country’s Look East foreign policy, India sought to cultivate extensive ties with Taiwan in trade, as well as working together on weapons of mass destruction issues, the environment and fighting terrorism.
The India-Taipei Association (ITA) was established in Taipei in 1995 to promote non-governmental interactions between India and Taiwan, and to facilitate business, tourism and cultural relations between the two countries.
The India-Taipei Association has also been authorized to provide all consular and passport services. In 2002, India became the 28th nation to sign an investment protection agreement with Taiwan and in 2006 both nations established the Taiwan-India Cooperation Council.
As a further development in relations between the two, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center was established in Chennai in 2012, which represents the Taiwanese government’s interests in the southern states of India, as well as Sri Lanka and the Maldives.
In addition, there is the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center in New Delhi, which is also responsible for relations with Nepal and Bhutan, and it has joint responsibility for Bangladesh with the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Bangkok.
In the coming days, it is likely that India’s strategic and diplomatic relations with Taiwan will improve, keeping in view China’s growing power and influence in the region. Deepening of the relations between the two will provide a new and dynamic dimension to their relations in more than one sphere.
Rajkumar Singh is professor and head of the Postgraduate Department of Political Science at B. N. Mandal University, West Campus in Bihar, India.
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