India, Asean: Talk less, act; keep eye on China

China wasn’t mentioned as India showcased its military might, cultural heritage and demographic diversity with extra gusto this Republic Day for the benefit of its distinguished Asean guests but Xi Jinping must have hovered invisibly over the junketing like Banquo’s ghost at the banquet. President Xi’s interest would have been aroused for two reasons. First, the heads of the 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations states represented Indochina, where India and China met centuries ago and have been in a competitive relationship ever since. Second, the far-seeing Lee Kuan Yew, whose son Lee Hsieng Loong is Singapore’s present Prime Minister, percipiently commented that while India alone or Asean alone might not be a significant global player, together they can look China in the eye.

No Indian ever thought in such sophisticated terms. If an Indian politician looks beyond New Delhi or considers anything save milking power for profit, it is to imagine that the world pays court to India’s greatness. Typical of the Indian attitude to Southeast Asia, a retired IAS officer in New Delhi maintains with a mix of ignorance and contempt that the “Malacca” in the Straits of Malacca between Malaysia and Sumatra is a corruption of the Sanskrit “mleccha”. If India and Asean are now celebrating 25 years of partnership, it is largely because Singapore — this year’s Asean chair — had convinced other Asean countries they needed India to establish a sense of regional balance.

Being overwhelmingly Chinese, Singapore is acutely sensitive to China’s past glory and future aspirations. The senior Lee, who took the lead in nudging an indifferent India into the region, therefore persuaded Indonesia, which had expected to dominate Southeast Asia once the Americans left, that there would be no Southeast Asia, only a Greater China, without India. The United States and Japan also agreed to a bigger Indian role once P.V. Narasimha Rao and Dr Manmohan Singh took over the government.

Narendra Modi may not be aware of this background. He may not even realise that his flamboyant Republic Day hospitality invoked Donald Trump’s National Security Strategy, which sought to revive the Quadrilateral Initiative (India, Japan, Australia and the US) which alarmed Beijing in 2007. After expressing annoyance during the India-US-Japan naval exercises off the Japanese coast, the Chinese sent diplomatic memos to the Quad members, seeking an explanation of Malabar ’07, the Indo-American naval exercises expanded to include Japan, Australia and Singapore.

When a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman asked the Quad to be “open and inclusive” about its actions, Dr Singh, Prime Minister by then, announced he had assured Hu Jintao that “there’s no question of ganging up against China”. The Quad wasn’t “a military alliance”. But, of course, neither assurances nor Lee’s musings would have been necessary if the scope for tension were not inherent in geopolitics, and if China hadn’t seen India’s rise as a possible cap on its own soaring aspirations. There is no other explanation for its obstructiveness over the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the UN Security Council.

Even China could have endorsed the Delhi Declaration issued at the Asean-India Commemorative Summit’s conclusion targeting terrorism — which is a live issue in several regional countries, especially the Philippines — and agreeing to uphold maritime freedom which is threatened by piracy. But the sour note that China’s Global Times struck clearly showed that the message of the joint meeting had gone home. Dismissing both parties as “beginners playing at geopolitics”, the paper asserted that the “Chinese people are not occupied by India”. For people who are not “occupied” by India, the Chinese certainly keep close tabs on everything Indian. And why shouldn’t they? It would be illogical if they didn’t. Indeed, Indians too should as interested in China as in Asean.

With 1.8 million people and a GDP of more than $4.5 trillion, the India-Asean combine can certainly aim high. Asean comprises the world’s seventh-largest economy and hosts more than 200 of the world’s largest companies. While Singapore is one of the main sources of investment in India, Vietnam holds the record for incoming foreign direct investment. If New Delhi’s hopes of pioneering a huge new Asian trade bloc, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership to include all 10 Asean nations, materialises, it would comprise almost 30 per cent of global GDP and facilitate India’s access to key supply chains as well as natural gas and oil.

However, “Act East” is still little more than a counter-productive verbal attempt to upstage P.V. Narasimha Rao’s “Look East”. Six years after the Asean-India Free Trade Area came into existence, it boasted an annual turnover of only $58.4 billion, much of that being India-Singapore trade. Last year India accounted for only 2.6 per cent of Asean’s foreign trade. India feels aggrieved about obstacles to selling textiles and agricultural and pharmaceutical products. The Asean members have parallel complaints. While even US President Donald Trump applauds China’s One Belt One Road Initiative, the proposed 3,200-km highway from New Delhi to Ho Chi Minh City is three years behind schedule. As for pie-in-the-sky schemes to invest $77 million in manufacturing hubs in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam, why can’t a government that makes a mantra of “Make in India” develop domestic manufacturing first?

Prime Minister Modi’s invitation to Asean’s 10 heads of state/government rolled into a single “guest of honour” certainly broke with precedent. So did the invitation to the leaders of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation to attend his swearing-in ceremony in May 2014. The “surprise” visit to Lahore for Nawaz Sharif’s birthday the following year was an even more dramatic departure from convention. But if these grand gestures achieved anything, we have yet to hear of it. It is to be hoped that the Asean invitation will not also be remembered as only playing to the gallery. We need less talk and more action.