The Indian subcontinent has been so named for a reason. India’s large, diamond-shaped landmass sits squarely between West Asia and East Asia. Its southern peninsula extends significantly into the Indian Ocean, and to the north lie the resource-rich but landlocked countries of Central Asia. This geographic location at the literal crossroads of Asia makes India a potential linchpin in the building of an Asian Century. A century in which the energy suppliers of West Asia feed the energy consumers of East Asia and the resource-rich but landlocked countries of Central Asia find export markets through the dozen ports that India has on the India Ocean. Moreover, India sits astride some of the most critical Sea Lanes of Commerce (SLOC’s) that run from West to East and visa-versa. Also India’s extremity in the Andaman Nicobar Islands, Indira Point, lies mere 675 kilometres from the Straits of Malacca, dominating the six-degree channel.
The Indian Ocean region (IOR) also contains China’s most important SLOCs. As much as 75 per cent of China’s oil imports come from the Middle East and Africa. China imports more than 11.28 million barrels daily. The interplay between India, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea constitutes the economic fulcrum of the Asian power dynamic. There are, of course, other rising powers in Asia that have carved out vital niches for themselves. Asia’s has been the fastest growing economy in the world this century, and will continue to be so for the foreseeable decades. Trade between Asian countries has boomed and grown faster than world trade in every year in the past quarter century, driven in part by the aggressive growth of China and in part by an East Asia linking its markets and supply chains.
But there is a giant piece missing in the story: To realize its full potential, an Asian century requires India as a connector, as a processor of goods that Asia requires, as a provider of services such as transport and logistics, efficient trading markets and bourses, and financial services that underpin trade, such as credit and insurance, and as a continent-sized consumer market for the products of Asian countries. This connection has been the missing piece that can exponentially power India’s growth provided it is able to shed the baggage of history qua Pakistan and find a modus vivendi with China on the unsettled border question that in its latest manifestation has been bedevilling the relationship between these two countries over the past four years now.
What does the realisation of India’s Asian potential require? It would require a mind shift by India to start viewing its neighbours as opportunities rather than threats. A leap of faith that to make is easier said than done. It would requires cooperation rather than competition among Asian and Indian Ocean countries; it requires a strategic approach to building the Asian economy of tomorrow, including infrastructure that will connect Asia through India, regulatory frameworks, and the international alliances and border settlements that will allow the economic potential to be realised peacefully. This would be a major shift from India’s present thrust. Currently, the United States and Europe are India’s largest and second largest markets for its exports. Asian countries’ share of India’s trade has grown in recent years with the economic growth of those countries, but there is both much more potential, and the need for a systematic effort to fully realise India’s potential at the centre of Asia.
After India opted out of the RCEP, many leading voices in East Asia expressed disappointment, but also argued that an Asian century will go ahead in some form, with or without India. But an Asia without India is fragmented into an East Asia and a West Asia, a Central Asia and an Indian Ocean Asia. India brings all of these together and therein lies the genius of India. There are 28 countries have a coastline on the Indian Ocean. Together, they have a GDP of almost $11 trillion, and a population of almost 2.8 billion. Add to these the six landlocked countries of Central Asia which cover a vast resource-rich territory and are sparsely populated, and Mongolia, Russia’s Siberia, as well as China would benefit from having energy and resource routes through to the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea. The Himalayas are an inhospitable environment in which to build infrastructure, but the technology to do so, including the boring of tunnels, is now fairly well-developed.
But first, to build the connecting infrastructure, Asia must ensure peace. In the current geopolitical environment of great power rivalry, that is becoming increasingly challenging. But there are concrete steps that India can take. The first is to settle its disputed borders so that infrastructure to connect it to its north can be built and maintained. The second is to ensure that the maritime security of the Indian Ocean is the responsibility of participant Asian countries rather than that of outsiders. The third is to design India’s infrastructure with Asia in mind rather than just India. This will require India to think in terms of Asian supply chains and markets, rather than just India, and may require India to integrate its projects with those of other countries that are also looking to synergise in the region.
The capital to build such an ambitious vision is available in both West and East Asia, and the benefits would accrue over decades to the entire continent. However, what this alternative vision requires is re-imagination of the entire geo-political architecture of Asia. India obviously cannot do it alone when faced with belligerence and China’s desire to dominate Asia. This was the original conception of a peaceful Asia going back to the end of the Second World War when large parts of Asia, Africa, Latin and South America liberated themselves from the vestiges of imperialism, colonialism, exploitation
and sheer pillage by the European powers that had enslaved them for two centuries plus. Somewhere along the way, that vision got blurred and Asia again got caught up in the grist of great power rivalry. The principal Asian powers need to step back and reassess their respective trajectories to build a more secure and prosperous future for their coming generations.
