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India plays it safe at the East Asia Summit

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In Brief

India has been an integral part of the East Asia Summit (EAS) ever since the first meeting took place in 2005, when 16 countries — the 10 ASEAN member states, China, South Korea, Japan, India, Australia and New Zealand — were in attendance.

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Membership of the EAS marked a high for India’s ‘Look East’ policy, a strategy launched in the aftermath of the Cold War that aims to re-energise India’s age-old ties with the countries of Southeast Asia and East Asia. The economic importance of these two regions also weighed on the minds of Indian policy makers, especially after the enunciation of India’s economic reforms in the early 1990s.

The run-up to the EAS, held in Phnom Penh on 20 November, was marked by a series of territorial disputes between China and countries like Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines. The summit also showed a deep divide between EAS member countries. The Japanese prime minister, Yoshihiko Noda, referred to the importance of the United States–Japan alliance in the light of ‘Asian security issues’, a thinly veiled remark aimed at China. President Barack Obama, fresh from his election victory, also attended the summit, thereby signalling that his ‘pivot’ toward Asia would continue in his second term at the White House. The United States and Russia were invited to join the EAS in 2010 and Obama attended his first EAS last year in November. While at the summit, however, Obama did not openly back allies like Japan and the Philippines in their disputes with China, but urged all claimants in the South China Sea to exercise restraint.

For India, a major priority continues to be closer economic ties: in his speech at the summit, Indian prime minister Manmohan Singh lauded the start of negotiations on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership. He knows all too well that economic integration with the vibrant EAS member economies is critical for India at a time when the Indian economy has slowed down with an annual growth rate of 5.5–6 per cent, which is in sharp contrast to the period between 2004 and 2008, when it averaged an annual growth rate of more than 9 per cent. Singh also emphasised that ‘for India, ASEAN has been the bridge to the East’, laying to rest any doubts that India was more interested in dealing with Southeast Asian nations bilaterally, rather than through ASEAN.

Prime Minister Singh also met President Obama at the EAS for the first time after Obama’s re-election. Singh commented in his earlier congratulatory message to the US president that he hoped to continue the personal rapport the two leaders have built. He also stressed the need to improve connectivity between the member countries of the EAS and called for the implementation of the EAS Declaration on ASEAN Connectivity, which was adopted at the last summit in Bali, Indonesia. It should also be mentioned here that with Myanmar now moving down the road to democracy, the biggest impediment to India’s connectivity with Southeast Asia has been removed. Before Singh left for the EAS, India hosted Aung San Suu Kyi, who referred to the age-old ties between the peoples of the two neighbouring countries. Although Aung San Suu Kyi chided India for not doing enough for the pro-democracy movement in Myanmar in the past, it was clear from her visit that she intended to put the past behind her.

The Indian prime minister in his address to the summit also referred to the EAS–India Workshop on Building a Regional Framework for Earthquake Risk Management, which was held in early November. India successfully worked with countries like Sri Lanka, the United States, Thailand, Japan and Australia in the aftermath of the disastrous Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004, and the workshop aimed to help the EAS countries pool their efforts when faced with natural disasters. Prime Minister Singh also mentioned that India is taking the prestigious Nalanda University project, to which many of the EAS member countries have contributed financially, to its logical conclusion: teaching at the University will commence from 2014–15. The Nalanda University was a historic university in India that attracted students from all parts of Asia during its heyday.

It is clear from Singh’s speech that India did not want to make any reference to its tensions with China, with which it has a long unsettled border, or for that matter the contentious issues in the South China Sea. Although many of the EAS countries would like to see India take a more active role in the region and to some extent stand up as a bulwark to China, it seems New Delhi does not intend to act on these expectations. This clearly shows that New Delhi is in no hurry to wade into the rough waters of the South China Sea and be seen as taking sides either with or against any one country or group of countries.

Dr Rupakjyoti Borah is an Assistant Professor of International Relations at the School of Liberal Studies, Pandit Deendayal Petroleum University, India. The views expressed in this article are his own.

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