The Problem And Its Background

By Author: Henry Ford
Total Articles: 189
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For a long time, India has viewed its sphere of influence as stretching far beyond the subcontinent itself but has had little ability to project this influence beyond its borders. It is only in the last few years that India has been able to become more influential both in the surrounding regions and the world at large. This was mainly anchored on its ‘look east policy’ initiated in the early 1990s that saw the country focus on the East Asia and Pacific regions as an economic framework for expanding ties and promoting economic growth. With the new expanded strategic vision – “Look East” policy 2, India has broadened the definition of its security interest in its strategic economic endeavors. It is generally seen that India’s partnership with ASEAN have had an impact on India’s economic, political, and security related involvement ‘in these larger, concentric coalitions around ASEAN…in East Asia and in the Asian Pacific’ (Gujral, 1996, p. 12). The look east policy has integrated a larger regionalization framework and strategy encompassing the Asia Pacific issues (Scott, 2007).

The Indians-ASEAN links ...
... do not only have economic frameworks but strategic underpinnings as well. As Scot (2007) has indicated, china has been a factor in all of the India’s initiatives albeit blurred in economic progressions. Some analysts have argued that the growing Chinese economic and military influence in Asia has been the anchorage on the basis of which the strategic molding of ‘look East Policy’ was structured. India’s continued influence has therefore been viewed as providing ‘a balance’ to Chinas growing influence in the region. India’s aspiration to be a major global power is indisputable. For many years, India took pride in its role as leader of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and viewed itself as the primary defender of the rights of less developed nations. With the new expanded strategic vision – “Look East” policy 2, it has broadened the definition of its security interest.

Background
The underlying framework and the tenets around which the growing India’s presence in the East Asia and Pacific region has been anchored around its ‘look East policy’ strategy initiated in the early 1990s, the ramifications of which continue to be felt in the region. This policy while structured on the perceived frameworks of economic empowerment and working in partnership with the ASEAN countries has grown in magnitude such that in the last decade, India has moved beyond such ASEAN, Southeast Asia economic horizons and progressively shifted to play a more active role in East Asia region. The Southeast Asia was the first sphere of influence of the India’s growing influence in Pacific Asia. Towards the fulfillment of its look east policy initiatives, India pursued with vigor and zeal its relations with ASEAN nations. This saw it became a sect oral dialogue partner with ASEAN in 1992 and a full partner in 1995. These relations were to be further strengthened when in 2002 it became an ASEAN summit level partner, the pinnacle of which was attained when the ASEAN- India framework agreement was appended in 2003, laying the groundwork for the formulation of a free trade area by 2012 (Scot, 2007).

This was viewed as a milestone towards even greeter economic and political influence in the region. Several analysts would support this view; with the dynamic economic growth and superiority computer software, engineering and sciences, India started to be a key player in the region taking a keener role in maintaining peace stability and prosperity in the region and the security of the Southeast Asia (Ong, 2004). According to Shahin (2003), the fruits of the policy could be clearly discernible as indicated by the wider influential role being played and as Naidu (2004) intones ‘the policy must be viewed as the blue print for Indian incorporation into the Asia-Pacific Economic Community (APEC) (p. 331).

The Indians-ASEAN links do not only have economic frameworks but strategic underpinnings as well. As Scot (2007) has indicated, china has been a factor in all of the India’s initiatives albeit blurred in economic progressions claims. In-fact, the policy of going east did elicit immediate suspicions from china who saw in this ‘a strategy to attain more power and influence in the region’ (People’s Daily, 2003, p. 23), a point that has been laid emphasis to by Scot (2007) who acknowledges that given the growing Chinese economic and military influence in Asia, strategic molding of ‘look East Policy’ was structured on the tenets of providing ‘a balance’ to Chinas growing influence in the region (p. 3). These views were buttressed by the India’s minister of external affairs, Jaswart Sing, who saw the engagement of a militarily stronger, economically prosperous, democratic and secular India as imparting greater stability in the region (Bahroo, 2000 as cited by Scot, 2007). Within the administration, the general congregation is that India is providing a much needed anchor in the region (Uniyal, 2000). In the opinions of Batabyal (2006) India had carved an important niche in the Southeast Asian region. The congregation among analysts is that as India’s economic and military position grows stronger, ASEAN would certainly lean to utilize this as a counter weight in relations with china (Sundararaman, 2004).

India’s sphere of interest has in the recent years expanded outside the geographical contexts of ASEAN to the wider East Asian region, i.e. the Pacific Asia (Singh & Kim, 2002). This was initially viewed as resulting from a pull from the economic allure of Japan and the Asian tigers in the east (Scot, 2007). The move towards the east was therefore seen as anchored on economic pursuits. This is best captured by the expressions of the then prime minister in 1996, Narasimha Rao who noted that the Asian pacific ties would propel India and act as a springboard for the country’s leap to the global market (Jaffrelot, 2003 as cited by Scot, 2007). The leap into the global market was seen as attainable in the new millennium. The analysts within the administrative circles emphasized the need for structuring the economic policies of India to bear cognizance of the dynamisms in the Asian-Pacific region so that they are streamlined and in tandem with regions policies. This had a philosophical underpinning that the region would be ‘the tiger economy of the world’ (Ibid, p. 45). It was generally viewed that India’s partnership with ASEAN would have an impact on India’s economic, political, and security related involvement ‘in these larger, concentric coalitions around ASEAN…in East Asia, in the Asian Pacific’ (Gujral, 1996, p. 12). It was therefore felt that the look east policy should integrate a larger regionalization framework and strategy encompassing the Asia Pacific (Singh, 1998).

The incorporation of the Asia Pacific in the look east policies was based on the realization that developments in the Asian-Pacific regions would impinge on India’s political, economic and strategic intents and hence the need to factor and pay greater cognizance of the region’s dynamics. It is on this grounding that the second phrase of the look east policy is anchored as India makes forays to the east. Towards this, India’s economic and diplomatic drives eastwards have been initiated and complemented by military power projections that have seen India lay expanding stakes in the region (Khurana, 2006), and feature in the wider quadrilateral Asian Pacific balance of power alongside the US, China and Japan (Bateman, 2006). Indeed some analysts view India as an emerging power with capabilities that can extend to the Asian-Pacific regions (Bateman, 2006) and as the only country in the region that can match china in terms of size and military power (Naidu, 2004: Nichol, 2005).

The clear delineation is that India has a unique place to play in the balance of power in the region. It is widely seen that an economically growing India that has cultivated a close association with the increasingly prosperous Asian-Pacific region can play a significant role in the enhancement of regional security (Singh & Kim, 2002). By expanding the outlook of its look east policy in the phase two of its initiatives, an expanded definition of ‘east’ has been encapsulated, literarily expanding from Australia to East Asia. As can be expected, this new phrase marks considerable shifts from trade to wider economic and security issues (Singh, 2003). These forays to the east would appear to have been cemented in the year 2005 with India’s participation in the East Asia Summit. Analysts view the geo-strategic transformation of India as a reflection of India’s ‘strategic muscle’ and as according India an inalienable role in the affairs of Asia-Pacific discourse (Naidu, 2004). The balance of power in the Asian-Pacific region, in the opinions of Naidu (2004), will depend to a large extent on the role that India play. These believe would appear to gain support from the happenings in 2006, where a new impetus on the role that India would play appears to have been injected by the summon of ASEAN countries, china, Japan, Korea and Australia diplomats in a strategic meeting in New Delhi (Bagchi, 2006). This was viewed as an assertive gesture. In any case, it can be argued that the invitation of India in the East Asia Summit (EAS) can be viewed more in the veins of acting as a counterbalance to china rather than its economic prowess (Scot, 2003).

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