THOUGHTS of THE TIMES
India’s growing engagement in East Asia
The recent visit of the Indian Prime Minister to Japan further strengthened the bilateral relationship between the two largest democracies in East Asia. During the visit, Prime Minister Modi succeeded in acquiring nuclear energy technology from Japan, despite the fact that the Non-proliferation Treaty has not been signed by India yet.
Although Japan is the core of India’s engagement in East Asia, Vietnam and Korea have also seen growth in bilateral relationships in recent years. During Modi’s recent visit to Vietnam, both countries upgraded their economic relationship to a comprehensive economic partnership, and signed many defense and military related agreements, which Vietnam had signed only with Beijing and Moscow until then.
South Korea is another country where India has been putting forth serious effort to improve bilateral relations. As a result, their economic relations have quickly grown from a few $100 million at the beginning of the century to $17 billion at the end of 2015. India and Korea are now close strategic partners and working together on many defense-related projects.
As the leadership changes in the U.S., China is expected to continue its economic expansion in the region. Currently it is following a multipronged approach to make the best use of the failure of the U.S.-led Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP). Not surprisingly it is offering its own version of a free trade partnership to the regional countries called the Free Trade Area of the Asia Pacific (FTAAP). This Chinese-led free trade agreement aims to bring 21 countries, including the U.S., under one umbrella. In these changing circumstances, it is important that India prepares effective policy measures to protect its national interests. Strengthening bilateral relationships are essential, but it is not enough to protect core interests in the region. Economic engagement alone cannot save India from looming instability. A broader multilateral approach is needed.
With the change in leadership in the U.S., the TPP has no more chance, but free trade in the region is not lost. Singapore and Japan are determined to take regional economic integration to its logical conclusion. Japan is not ready to give up on free trade so easily and has proposed the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP).
Even though the proposed RCEP is far less ambitious than the TPP, it still keeps the idea of free trade alive. It is important for India to support these efforts so that if the U.S. withdraws, the region will continue to function normally and maintain peace and stability. The consequences of a U.S. withdrawal from the Asia Pacific region could be very disastrous for the region. Already the collapse of the TPP effectively removes the “U.S. pivot “and “rebalance“in the region.
In this situation it is high time countries like India and Japan come forward and build a new Asia-led security and economic multilateral mechanism.