Look To The East

INDIA'S "look East" policy finally appears to be paying off. India is not only attending the 10-day ASEAN summit in Jakarta as a full dialogue partner, it has also been invited to join the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), a security grouping, for the first time this year. For New Delhi, this marks a major diplomatic achievement.

Says External Affairs Minister I.K. Gujral who will represent India at both meetings: "I look at these meetings with a great deal of optimism. It shows our perception levels are widening beyond the confines of SAARC."

 But while the ASEAN post ministerial conference—whose agenda is limited to broad, not specific policy discussions—is likely to pass off peacefully, fireworks are likely at the ARF, which comprises Australia, Cambodia, Canada, China, the European Union, Japan, Laos, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Russia, South Korea, the US and ASEAN nations, and now India and Myanmar. 

The July 22-23 meeting is expected to be acrimonious mainly because western nations will use this forum to pressure India to sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. US Secretary of State Warren Christopher, who is scheduled to meet Gujral in Jakarta, is expected to express Washington's reservations about India's refusal to sign the CTBT. He may urge other nations to put pressure on New Delhi to do so. China will also be urged to stop further nuclear tests. Another bone of contention is Myanmar's entry into the ASEAN and the ARF, which the West objects to on grounds of human rights abuses.

The ARF, set up by ASEAN in 1993 as a ministerial forum to discuss security issues in the Asia Pacific Region, has a three-pronged strategy vis-a-vis security, say ministry of external affairs (MEA) sources. The first involves confidence-building, the second calls for preventive diplomacy and the last is conflict resolution. This stage-by-stage consensual approach is radically different from the western perception of security, which involves "getting into the act", like in Somalia and Haiti, say sources.

This difference in approach means that while ASEAN nations may pay lip service to western demands, they are unlikely to actually ask India to sign the test ban treaty. Besides, Gujral can justifiably point out that despite their avowed non-proliferation objectives, none of the five nuclear powers are willing to subscribe to the South-east Asia Nuclear Weapons Free Zone treaty.

India's entry into the ARF, according to Charan D.Wadhva, a research professor at the Centre for Policy Research, will serve two important purposes. One, it will affirm New Delhi's role in promoting peace and stability in the region and removing misconceptions about its hegemonistic intentions or offensive designs. Two, it puts India officially at par with western nations and China vis-a-vis regional security.

Wadhva, however, warns against complacency. After all, the ASEAN motive behind inducting India into the ARF was to try and counterbalance China's overwhelming grip over regional security. And even though China has image problems of its own, "everyone is afraid of China." To consolidate its position, adds Wadhva, India should play up its economic strength.

MEA sources agree with this perception. While trade with ASEAN members has risen by over 125 per cent over the past three years—one of the reasons that India was upgraded from sectoral dialogue partner with the ASEAN to full dialogue partner—bureaucratic and policy bottlenecks prevented a far more dramatic growth. However, considering the number ofmissed chances since the formation of ASEAN in 1967, India has reason to be proud.

It was only after the collapse of the Soviet Union that India and the ASEAN stopped looking at each other through the paranoid prism of major power perceptions. But after the reforms process began, New Delhi showed an interest in the neighbouring trade bloc. The ASEAN, too, realised that India had a massive market. In 1993, India was invited to join ASEAN as a sectoral dialogue partner. This entailed collaboration in fields like trade, investment and tourism. Not one to be left behind, Pakistan lobbied for and got a similar status.

But while India moved with surprising speed, chalking up commendable performances in most of the fields of cooperation, Islamabad preferred to sit back. So when Benazir Bhutto went on a whirlwind tour of South-east Asia sometime ago, demanding that Pakistan be upgraded to full dialogue partner, she was met with a polite but firm no. Soon after, India was invited to join the ARF. Pakistan was not.

Both the ARF and the post-ministerial meeting are important in their own right. While full dialogue status with the ASEAN puts India firmly on the world trade map, the ARF will give New Delhi a chance to express its security concerns in a sympathetic forum. But, warns Wadhva, India should be realistic in its expectations. For instance, entry into the ARF is unlikely to help India gain support for its bid to join the UN Security Council, simply because the other contender is a super-economic power: Japan. So while India's induction into the ARF is a positive step, it is the beginning, not the end of the road.