Act East Policy : A Complete Circle
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Act East Policy : A Complete Circle

Archive Manager by WEB DESK
May 23, 2015, 12:00 am IST
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Intro: The foreign policy initiative started from Bhutan and ended to South Korea with the completion of Modi’s one year of government is not just a coincidence. Modi visits to these selected countries is a complete circle which was strategically designed.

Indian PM orchestrated his yet another well timed and calculated move in the Asian politics. Well timed because PM Modi referred to his insistence on building a special relationship to project India’s balanced ‘Act or engage east’ policy proposition, a step ahead of ‘look east’. While ‘act or engage east’ symbolises Modi’s intentions to actively engage in the Asian politics and make India’s policies more inclusive. On the other side, Chinese ever since Modi became India’s PM, longed for PM Modi’s visit to China and hoped to use it as a major political conduit to drive the bilateral ties towards new boundaries. In China, gravity of political incentivisation is phenomenal and out of this most of the Chinese scholars wished and expressed their anguish of Modi’s delayed China trip. In the initial period, Modi’s diplomatic initiatives within the South Asian region and in the surrounding countries were not well received by the Chinese. The Chinese bloggers are not simply ready to accept that if India comprehends that its boundary with China is sensitive then what stopped Prime Minister Modi to take so long to visit China? On the economic front as well, China would not attempt to increase its loads of investments to India unless India helps China to inflate its face value by diplomatic bandwagoning.
Just to zip through, Modi’s trip to these selected East Asian neighbours was strategically designed. To start with, during his first few months Modi showed special interest in setting up his priorities around India’s immediate neighbourhood. He chose to travel to Bhutan and Nepal. Earlier this year (2015), Modi also visited the Seychelles, Mauritius and Sri Lanka three Indian Ocean island nations. He also visited Japan and the United States. Every visit of Modi to these countries were also analysed from the angle of ‘China factor’. The latest visit and its analysis carry superfluous potentials to put China at the centre of the whole Asian quantum diplomacy where the state relations are viewed from multi dimensions and they are super dynamic. For example, Chinese have strong belief that India and the United States intends to join forces to contain China’s influence in the Asia-Pacific region. During Obama’s visit to India, the United States and India signed a “joint US-India strategic vision for the Asia-Pacific and the Indian Ocean region”, which emphasise on ensuring freedom of navigation, maritime safety and aviation security in the South China Sea.
Visit to Mongolia was more than symbolic. The Indian Prime Minister Modi left China for Mongolia and year 2015 marks the 60th anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations between two countries and moreover, Modi became the first Prime Minister of India to visit Mongolia. Before Modi, only two Indian Presidents visited Mongolia. Although, primarily, the economics is the guiding principle of India-Mongolia relations, the natural resources (for example Uranium) in Mongolia have potential to enter in India. There seems to be growing understanding between India and Mongolia over the need to deepen cooperation on civilian nuclear energy, such as Mongolia radioactive mineral exploration and exploitation. Apart from this, if we see the timeline, after 2000, India and Mongolia have also maintained active but not so high degree of cooperation in the field of defence and military relations.Currently, India remains one of the suppliers for Mongolian Army’s offensive weapons and equipments. Both the countries have also agreed to strengthen the bilateral defence and security cooperation, decided to hold regular Defence Department and other relevant departments of the organisation’s high-level visits and dialogue, including between the National Security Council, military personnel exchanges between military capacity building, joint military exercises of military technical cooperation, military professional training, special forces and information security, cooperation in the United Nations and international peacekeeping operations. Going by the media analysis and the perception among Chinese, although PM Modi is widely regarded as the one with hard-line approach toward China, especially compared to the previous government but his economic priorities will soften his China opinion. But not all Chinese carry the same opinion, large sections of comments underlined that Modi’s visit to Ulan Bator is more political and nothing but an attempt to make inroads and increase India’s influence in ‘China's backyard’. China News Network carried out surveys and columns criticising India’s Mongolia policy. At the present stage, China may not protest aggressively on India’s interest in Mongolia.
The visit to South Korea can be seen largely from the perspective of industry and manufacturing. Korea is still a small investor in India, although India has a strong presence in Korean companies and its industrial drive, the same has not helped to translate its share in India’s world trade an FDI index is concerned. The Korean companies are still not exploiting the market conditions in India. Although, the two sides have signed 14 agreements for cooperation, prima facie it gives an impression that they is still a lot to be tapped.In addition, South Korea’s importance as a strategic ally for India remains unchanged. India is also South Korea’s one of Five Security dialogue partners.
To sum up this trip, Modi has scored well on the economic front as well as at the strategic level and his primary focus – corrective engagement – did not deviate.
Aravind Yelery (The Writer is Associate fellow, Institute of chinese studies, delhi)

Harmonious Partnership

While economic cooperation took upfront during Modi’s visit to China much of its success depends on follow up mechanisms and political statesmanship.

The weeklong visit of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to China, Mongolia and North Korea has grabbed anticipated media attention and reflecting Indian foreign policy dynamism vis-a-vis ‘eastern neighbours’. While stay in China largely overshadowed the entire visit, Modi’s visit to Mongolia, first ever by Indian Prime Minister, holds strategic significance as it endeavours to raise the level of mutual tiers to be ‘spiritual friend’ based on reviving ‘old civilisational links’ of Buddhism and ancient religious heritage at large.
Modi appears to be ‘frequent flier’ to China, as this was for the fourth time he was in the ‘middle kingdom’ state. The preparatory ground before the visit reflected the importance both the countries attached to it. In his interview to Time magazine, Modi said, both countries are showing “great maturity and a commitment for economic cooperation”, While Modi’s presence on Chinese social networking site Sina Weibo was ‘warmly cheered’ and headlined as “Cheers for Modi reflect closer links”, China too avoided any ‘diplomatic nuance’ at the contested border line during the visit.
The visit began with PM Modi landing in ancient Chinese city of Xian, capital of Shaanxi province, also native homeland of President Xi Jinping. The reflection of ‘reciprocal courtesy’ as Modi first landed in Xian, native place of President Xi Jinping, made good sense of increased ‘personal rapport’ between both the leaders. The ‘historical wisdom’ was at its best as paid visit to Terracotta Warriors Museum, home of the tomb of China’s first emperor, Wild Goose Pagoda, where the relics and sutras Xuanzang brought from India were housed with a ceremonial welcome in a ‘imperial style’ as like in Tang dynasty rule. The city also hosted serious talks between Modi and Xi, which were termed as ‘’very substantive talks,” by Indian Foreign Secretary S Jaishankar.
The high sense of ‘oriental wisdom’ was evident as PM Modi said in a speech to students of Tsinghua University in Beijing that “We must seek inspiration from the pilgrims of the ancient times who braved the unknown in search of knowledge and enriched us both”. As the events unfolded the official Chinese media took a ‘positive line’ on state of affairs during the visit.
The visit underlined key ‘economic significance’ as 21 agreements worth more than $22 billion in deals were signed in areas ranging from telecom, steel, solar energy and film. The key memorandum of understanding (MoUs) included protocol for establishment of consulates in Chengdu and Chennai, cooperation in vocational education and skill development, action plan for cooperation in railways, space cooperation outline, establishing India-China think tanks forum, Yoga college in Kumning, understanding between NITI Aayog and Development Research Centre of China among others. It also covered enhancing ‘sister city’ agreements and building ‘sister port relationship’.
Speaking at the India-China Business Forum, Modi had reached out to Chinese investors asking them to take advantage of the “winds of change” in India with a much more transparent, responsive and stable regulatory regime. Both the states decided to form ‘Joint Task Force’ to consider India’s concerns on rising trade deficit along with assurances for more access for Indian IT and pharmaceutical industry in China.
Another significance of the visit was ‘convergence of interests’ among both the states on critical issues like rising extremism-led terrorism, uncertainty about energy supplies and global climate change. Both India and China reiterated that bulk of greenhouse gas concentrations originates in the developed countries hence based on ‘common but differentiated responsibilities’, these countries must ‘take the lead’ in tackling climate change at large. It also emphasised providing finance, technology and capacity building support to developing countries.
Despite these positives, visit falls short off any ‘key breakthrough’ on critical bilateral issues like long running border disputes, huge trade imbalance in China’s favour and China-Pak nexus. India was reluctant for China’s plan of ‘One Belt, One Road’ initiative as India’s foreign secretary, termed the plan ‘a Chinese initiative’.
Considering the nature of India-China relationship as PM Modi himself said it is a ‘complex’, the visit marked driving out an ‘economic agenda’ for cementing mutual ties with mutual commitment on ‘containing differences’. The setting up of ‘Military headquarters hot-line connection’ and increasing number of visits between defense personal is a ‘good sign’, but nonetheless visit failed to come with anything like ‘tangible outcomes’ on border dispute considering high hopes raised in context of diplomatic dictum of ‘out of box’ solution.
Abhishek Pratap Singh (The writer is Doctoral Candidate, School of International Studies, CEAS, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi)


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