STANLY JOHNY
It should play hard to get, as China and US seek to dominate the Asian stage. Both need India’s support
In his first television interview since taking office in May, Prime Minister Narendra Modi told CNN on September 21 that India has the diplomatic bandwidth to accommodate both the US and China.
The statement could not have been better timed. Chinese President Xi Jinping only recently concluded his three-day India visit, while Modi’s US tour has just begun. Modi said India doesn’t see rising China as a threat, and added that “India and the US are bound together, by history and by culture. These ties will deepen further”.
The Government seems to be preparing a roadmap for bilateral engagements with great powers based on mutual benefits, and trade and economic cooperation, while keeping itself away from geopolitical power games.
Earlier this month, the Prime Minister had visited Japan and signed agreements to deepen economic and defence ties. Economic cooperation was a major theme during Xi’s India visit as well, and is high on the agenda during Modi’s five-day US trip. From an economic point of view, relations with both China and the US — India’s largest and second largest trade partners — are equally vital, while Japan is a major investor in India’s infrastructure sector.
This multidirectional diplomacy driven by economic interests seems to be paying off, at least for now, with key global leaders showing keenness to win over India’s new leader.
During Modi’s visit to Japan, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe offered to invest $35 billion in India over five years, speed up talks on civil nuclear deals, and step up bilateral maritime security cooperation. The Japanese Prime Minister travelled from the capital Tokyo to the historic city of Kyoto to personally welcome his Indian counterpart, indicating the importance his government gives to the visit.
During Xi’s India visit, both sides signed 15 agreements in the fields of trade, finance and culture. The Chinese leader has offered $20 billion investment in India over the next five years. This is a significant amount given that India received just $400 million, or 0.18 per cent of its foreign investment inflow, from Chinese companies in the last 14 years. China has also offered to back India for full membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, a group of Asian nations formed after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and support India’s “aspiration to play bigger role… including in the UN Security Council”.
Likewise, the US is also keen to strengthen ties with India. Secretary of State John Kerry and Secretary of Defence Chuck Hagel had visited India recently to try and woo Modi by promising improved economic and strategic ties.
Why this sudden love for India? The answer lies in the evolving Asian power game.Geopolitics of Asia
According to the Asian Development Bank, trade between Asian countries accounted for 50 per cent of their total trade in 2013, up from 30 per cent in 1985. Asia’s developing economies’ share in the global GDP is expected to reach 22.2 per cent in 2017 from 19.9 per cent in 2012, according to the IMF.
The clear winner of this march is China, the world’s second largest economy which is on its way to displace the US to become the largest. But with China flexing its political and economic muscle, its traditional rivals and the small powers are coming together against an ambitious Beijing.
This has split Asia into two camps — China on the one side and Japan and other countries such as South Korea and the Philippines backed by the US on the other. While the US-Japan bloc wants to contain the rise of China, Beijing seeks to prevent the further strengthening of this alliance. Both sides want powerful allies. This new geopolitical power game makes India, as Time magazine’s Michael Schuman noted, “a key wild card”.
The Chinese look at India as a “swing state” and it doesn’t want New Delhi to swing to the other side. The US sees India as a “natural ally” but wants it to play a greater role in its Asian agenda. Shinzo Abe seeks to forge a “democratic security diamond” with the US, Australia and India.India’s options
India should play its cards carefully. With the tensions between China and the US rising, the pressure on India will also mount. Realists will argue that India should join the US-Japan alliance, given the bitter experiences it had with China in the past. This is, however, a dangerous proposition. Getting sucked into a global conflict in its own backyard is the last thing India needs now, at a time when the country is focused on solving its own economic problems.
The focus should be on economic cooperation with multiple powers and peace and stability in Asia, not on joining any kind of “democratic security diamond”. Such a multilateral approach will give India more space for diplomatic manoeuvring in international politics, and help it address its own problems in the neighbourhood such the border dispute with China. India should set its long-term foreign policy agendaon the basis of its necessities.
(This article was published on September 28, 2014)
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