INDIA'S INDEPENDENT POLICY AND THE EMERGING ASIAN

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 07 NEW DELHI 000742 SENSITIVE SIPDIS E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/10/2018 TAGS: PGOV PREL ECON ETRD IN SUBJECT: INDIA'S INDEPENDENT POLICY AND THE EMERGING ASIAN ARCHITECTURE REF: 2008 ASTANA 265 NEW DELHI 00000742 001.2 OF 007 Classified By: Acting Political Counselor Les Viguerie for reasons 1.4 (B,D) India: Looking East to Find its Place in the Asian Architecture -------------- ¶1. (SBU) Summary: India is struggling to find its way among the disjointed, multi-layered regional architecture which exists in Asia today. India's policy toward Asia remains largely ad-hoc, and India's primary goals in Asia appear to be to increase economic engagement and integration and to maximize India's visibility on the world stage at minimal cost. Security cooperation lags, but is gaining momentum. When engaging with multilateral organizations in Asia, India tends to rely heavily on the strength of its bilateral relations with member countries. Similarly, India's engagement in the multilateral organizations in its immediate region are shaped by, and, at times, hampered by, regional bilateral relations. Much of India's engagement in the broader Asian political architecture can be interpreted in the context of the threat and the inspiration India and other Asian countries see in China. India: Waiting With a Foot in Every Door -------------- ¶2. (SBU) COMMENT: India's current Asia policy could be described simply as "be friends with everybody." But as India's economic, political and military power continues to grow, Delhi will be faced with difficult decisions as to which "friends" it will want to be associated with. This problem will become acute if Indian foreign policy is identified with important domestic values such as democracy, human rights, and secularism. Making choices based on these criteria runs the risk of alienating significant bilateral partners. In many ways, India still looks at its relationships with Russia, the EU and the United States to define its emerging global position. In the process of engaging regionally and globally India is simultaneously driven by rivalry with China and inspired by China's example. Although India embraces membership in many multilateral organizations, the bulk of India's productive engagement with its neighbors remains bilateral. For now at least, it appears India's priority is to maximize its international visibility as a "rising star," while avoiding commitment to an architecture that requires unilateral concessions. Post's contacts believe the Indian government sees Japan and Singapore as its closest partners in Asia. It is not yet clear which, if any, organization is the key to engaging with India and Asia; India would probably chose ASEAN as the most promising. The many existing Asian organizations, and possible new ones, offer plenty of opportunities to engage our global strategic partner India in shaping how Asian architecture develops. END COMMENT. Is India Really Looking East? -------------- ¶3. (SBU) India's preoccupation with Pakistan, historic ties with Russia, and strong trade and political relationships with the U.S. and the EU mean India still looks west much of the time. Many Embassy interlocutors believe the MEA lacks the staff and the focus to fulfill its diplomatic goals both in the West as well as in Southeast Asia. However, India has been pursuing a "Look East" policy since the early 1990's, participating at various levels in the major fora of Asian architecture: South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC),the East Asia Summit (EAS),Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO),the Association of Southeast NEW DELHI 00000742 002.2 OF 007 Asian Nations (ASEAN),Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, (APEC),the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA),and the Bay of Bengal Initiative for MultiSectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC),among others. This is in addition to numerous other regional initiatives taken in recent years, such as the India-Russia-China dialogue. ¶4. (SBU) Dr. G.V.C. Naidu, senior fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA),argues that India was initially tentative about regional organizations, but has become more confident and more open to the diplomatic utility of regional groupings and the possibility of cooperation on security issues within them (with the important exception of anything touching on Kashmir). He explained that there has been more rhetoric from India recently about multilateral security cooperation. He cited joint military exercises with Japan, the United States, Singapore, and Australia as examples of growing security cooperation in Southeast Asia. Naidu hypothesized that India is trying to learn from China's example about how careful diplomacy within regional organizations can transform a country's image and relations within a region. ¶5. (SBU) Dr. Arvind Gupta, a former Joint Secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs, believes maintaining prominent, low-cost, regional and global visibility is a top foreign policy objective. He asserts that India is preparing to pull its weight regionally and globally as a rising power. The GOI, from MEA bureaucrats to PM Singh, appears to understand the importance to domestic development of engagement with the global economy. The Indian MEA is committed to realizing economic gains from India's multilateral agreements, and appears to be able to compensate somewhat for its lack of manpower by "subcontracting" much of the work to the Ministry of Commerce and outside technical experts. This means that while MEA may not have a lot of people working on multilateral organizations like ASEAN or SAARC, that doesn't mean the organizations are not important in India's foreign policy. India Inc Looking East - and Elsewhere -------------- ¶6. (SBU) Research and Information Systems' Dr. Ram Upendra Das, a key adviser and negotiator for the Government of India on its regional and bilateral trade agreements with the countries of Southeast and East Asia including ASEAN, stressed the economic interests driving India's Asia policy. Das underlined how the initial Look East policy was crafted in the early 1990s, as a consensus by the Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of Finance (then-Finance Minister Manmohan Singh is the current Prime Minister) to diversify India's trade by expanding economic ties to the East, in contrast to the large established trade ties with the U.S. and Europe. He noted that India first sought a regional link through ASEAN, after which India has pursued closer bilateral ties with Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore. Through the 1990s, Das explained, India joined more regional groupings, including the 1997 Chang Mai Initiative of ASEAN 3 (China, Korea, and Japan),and the more recent East Asia Summit of ASEAN 6. ¶7. (SBU) Das claimed that the potential economic gains from enhanced trade and investment have been a sufficient criterion for the Government of India's pursuit of these trade agreements. He observed how enhanced bilateral ties create "social capital" between interlocutors that gets used at regional negotiations. Das also saw Singapore as a critical partner in bringing India into additional regional NEW DELHI 00000742 003.2 OF 007 groupings in Asia. ¶8. (SBU) Das perceives, based on GOI "stakeholder consultations" with Indian trading companies, that Indian companies' first and foremost worry was the competition in domestic markets caused by free trade agreements. Gains from freer access to other countries' markets was a secondary consideration. It is important to remember that "India Inc." is not a monolith - some businesses are primarily importers of finished goods, others import intermediate inputs to use in their production, while others are manufacturers for export. Das observed that each of these groups has different views and objectives. With no single voice from India's private sector on pursuing trade agreements, Das believes that the government has been the driver on pushing for bilateral and regional trade agreements with Southeast and East Asia. Das also pointed out that, in the short run, India likely will gain less than its trading partners. However, as the agreements are expected to expand to include trade in services and investment, Das expects that net benefits will go to India. This longer term calculation helps maintain the GOI's commitment to furthering economic ties with the region, despite short-term pressure on some Indian firms. India and ASEAN -------------- ¶9. (SBU) India has been a full dialog partner of ASEAN since 1995 and in January 2009 appointed its first ambassador to ASEAN, Neelakantan Ravi. He is concurrently the Secretary (East) in the Indian Ministry of External Affairs. Foreign Minister Mukherjee defined India's interest in ASEAN when he delivered the keynote address at the inaugural "Delhi Dialogue" with ASEAN nations, held in January. Press coverage of his address focused on his emphatic call for the international community to use the mechanisms at its disposal to discipline countries that sponsor state terrorism or that fail to fulfill international responsibilities to prevent the use of their territories for terrorism. In the address Mukherjee also pointed to the friendship of India and ASEAN as a source of strength to draw on in coping with the financial crisis, and called for deepening and broadening the trend of inter-connectivity between India and ASEAN countries. (The entire text of the speech may be found at http://www.ficci.com/media -room/speeches-presentations/2009/jan/jan21-1 .htm) ¶10. (SBU) Das perceives that the GOI feels it is necessary to have a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with ASEAN because not to do so will disadvantage Indian businesses in light of the ASEAN-China FTA. He stated that ASEAN was equally interested in closer ties with India, in a reciprocal "Look West" policy that sought to counter China's growing economic dominance in ASEAN. Das views India's relationship with ASEAN as the central force for India's participation in the region. According to MEA contacts, the Government of India considers ASEAN to have been a major vehicle for India's integration into the Southeast Asian economy. India has exceeded its target of $30 billion in trade with ASEAN this year and anticipates reaching $50 billion in trade by 2010. ¶11. (SBU) Embassy contacts were confident that an India-ASEAN FTA would be signed at the February 2009 ASEAN summit but the agreement was postponed until the April India-ASEAN summit, probably due to upcoming Indian elections. MEA Under Secretary Mukesh Kumar (Multilateral Economic Relations division) explained that India does not anticipate becoming a full member of ASEAN. Asked about the distribution of India's trade with ASEAN countries, Kumar said that while it NEW DELHI 00000742 004.2 OF 007 "misses some small countries," Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia are important trade partners. Kumar downplayed the idea that India assigns more importance to ASEAN than to other regional groups, professing that "each of the Southeast Asian regional forums India participates in is valuable, that's why we're integrating so deeply." Despite Kumar's enthusiasm he was hard pressed to point to concrete results, saying "it is hard to say which (India - ASEAN) projects have been successful because not enough time has passed to see the results." ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) -------------- ¶12. (SBU) India has been a member of ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) since 1996. Despite India's participation in the ARF, security cooperation between India and Southeast Asia is still mostly done bilaterally. Our contacts say that India's leadership has not adequately understood the vital link between security and economics, and most characterize ARF as a discussion forum rather than an effective security grouping. India reaps mostly political benefits from participation in ARF; it is a venue for bilateral talks and provides India visibility as a player on the international scene. SAARC - Does India Have a Strategy? -------------- ¶13. (SBU) India was a cofounder of SAARC (originally Bangladesh's initiative) in 1985. India was reluctant to join such a regional mechanism for fear that security issues, like Kashmir, would be taken up. India joined on the condition that security and bilateral issues not be raised, which stripped the organization of a great deal of substance. SAARC did not capture India's interest until the mid 1990's when India began liberalizing its economy and became eager for economic cooperation with its neighbors. India then proposed the South Asia Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA) and preferred nation status among the SAARC countries. SAARC has increased India's regional trade, but mainly provides Delhi a platform for discussion and bilateral agreements. SAARC has all the ingredients to be a successful regional grouping but is hindered by bilateral tensions between member states, especially India and Pakistan. The upcoming 16th SAARC summit, initially planned in the Maldives during October 2009, may be a dissapointment after last year's enthusiastic predictions that SAARC would finally cut its teeth on a broader range of political and security cooperation. Neither India nor Pakistan sent ministers to the ministerial meetings in February of 2009, sending more junior foreign officials instead. The Maldives has, due to the financial crisis, deferred hosting the summit until at least the first quarter of 2010. ¶14. (C) MEA Director (SAARC) Yogeshwar Sangwan emphasized that India does not bring an agenda to SAARC. Rather, India goes along with the consensus and hopes that any resulting benefits will improve the neighborhood and thus benefit India. Sangwan highlighted successes in the areas of education and food security. India "has not charted any future plans" for SAARC, he maintained. Despite this, Sangwan was optimistic about the future of SAARC and told PolOff that "I suppose an ASEAN model is the future for SAARC. It can't help but get more cohesive. When the governments realize that increased trade and cooperation yield real benefit, SAARC will become more effective. And that will take time." Pressed for examples of how SAARC agreements on security can be put in practice by the South Asian community, Sangwan mentioned only the SAARC convention on terrorism. He described the agreement as non-binding; "on NEW DELHI 00000742 005.2 OF 007 paper, you have it, but it's voluntary and contentious. If it was binding, a country wouldn't agree to it, and so far the agreements have not been used." India - East Asia Summit -------------- ¶15. (SBU) India's long term perspective on the East Asia Summit (EAS) is to view it as preparation for eventually building a community like the European Union. The formation of EAS, according to Dr. K.V. Kesevan of the Observer Research Foundation, revealed the sharp differences between China and Japan on the desired nature of that community. A tug of war ensued in which Japan tried to balance China's influence by including India, Australia and New Zealand. Japan fought very hard for India to be included in EAS. Ultimately a compromise was reached allowing inclusion of the non-ASEAN countries, with provisions to ensure the ASEAN countries would drive the organization at summits and conferences. ¶16. (SBU) India's participation in EAS is officially at the leader level, but is minimal. Follow-ups are conducted at the FM and senior official levels. India appreciates having the U.S. as an observer, as it feels it serves to balance China's influence in the organization. APEC -------------- ¶17. (SBU) India would like membership in APEC but since India's initial efforts to join were snubbed, Delhi will wait behind the scenes for member countries to gain approval on India's behalf. U/S Kumar was optimistic that India might be considered for membership in 2010 and signaled that India is eager to join APEC and contribute more to the organization. Furthermore, he argued that new members should be included in the organization "on the basis of merit." Dr. Kesavan told PolOff that he does not believe APEC's goal of an FTA by 2020 will be achieved. In his view, APEC is not as important to India as it once was, because the members aren't pushing hard for an FTA and are now more concerned with counter terrorism agreements. Dr. Naidu suggested that India considers APEC unwieldy and is no longer particularly interested in participating in the organization, but because India likes visibility it would not turn down an invitation to join APEC. SCO -------------- ¶18. (SBU) India has taken a guarded approach to the SCO, refusing to take full advantage of its observer status and instead attending meetings at the sub-minister level. Contacts have told Post privately that India's participation in the SCO is less about regional integration and more about keeping an eye on China's initiatives in Central Asia. SCO meetings provide a convenient venue for bilateral meetings: at the last summit India took advantage of the forum to conduct meetings with Russian and Chinese counterparts. ¶19. (SBU) Dr. Naidu described the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as China's initiative to engage Central Asia, motivated by China's success in ASEAN. When the SCO was formed, India was not sure how to deal with Central Asia and was primarily concerned with the checking the growth of Islamic fundamentalism, countering China's influence, and gaining access to energy resources. These remain top objectives for India in the region. India is studying how China uses organizations like SCO to project a favorable image of itself and advance its diplomatic interests with the least political and economic costs. NEW DELHI 00000742 006.2 OF 007 BIMSTEC -------------- ¶20. (SBU) BIMSTEC was India's plan to escape the stagnation of SAARC, caused primarily by disagreements between India and Pakistan. It was envisioned as a bridge between South and Southeast Asia, though for historical reasons, India has never considered Burma part of Southeast Asia, but instead part of South Asia. Within the MEA bureaucracy, Burma is covered by the same MEA division that covers Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and the Maldives. India was particularly interested in countering Chinese influence in Burma, cooperating with Burma to check India's North East insurgency problem, and developing energy cooperation with Burma. Dr. Sreeradha Datta of IDSA pointed out that Bangladesh, which initiated SAARC, has been an obstacle to BIMSTEC and has in past years been hesitant to cooperate in economic issues with India bilaterally or multilaterally, due primarily to internal politics dating back to Bangladesh's independence from Pakistan. Bangladesh blocked an FTA for BIMSTEC in 2005 and has not been able to reach a lasting, functional agreement with India on allowing road and transit rights for shipping goods. The recent elections in Bangladesh brought to power the more pro-India Awami League government, renewing optimism within India on the likelihood of increased cooperation between the two countries through BIMSTEC and bilaterally. CICA -------------- ¶21. (C) The Conference on Integration and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) is yet another forum that India remains involved in, even as it questions its value. Indian diplomats believe CICA to be in its infancy and "lack(ing) meat" (Reftel). However, Delhi was a willing host of the March 2009 CICA Senior Officials Meeting, where Special Secretary Vivek Katju praised the diversity of the group and described its potential to take on regional security issues which other fora don't address. As CICA is one of the few pan-Asian fora, India believes it could both literally and figuratively play a central role should the group move beyond dialogue to action in addressing pan-Asian issues. New Delhi has welcomed Turkey's offer to take the CICA presidency from Kazakhstan and hopefully invigorate the organization, but for now will treat CICA the same as it always has: another low-cost group to be seen in. The Way Ahead - New Orgs Clash With Low Capacity -------------- ¶22. (SBU) India appears to have a tactical interest in participating in just about any grouping it is invited to, but is hard pressed to fulfill its obligations to all of the clubs it has joined. There are simply not enough officials and not enough time to attend all of the meetings. MEA Director Yogeshwar Sangwan told PolOff that India has no policy to pursue further regional groupings at the moment. Bangladesh recently proposed a new counter terrorism working group for the region and India suggested that the group should be conducted under the auspices of SAARC. ¶23. (SBU) Non-governmental interlocutors had many ideas about new architectures that might serve India's aspirations. Ravni Thakur believes that China should be incorporated into BIMSTEC, but it is most likely that India would be more comfortable keeping its current "alpha" role in the group. Dr. Kesavan postulated that a "North East Asia" grouping (China, Japan, Korea, and Russia plus India) would be helpful. Such a grouping could be fairly easily attained by adding on to the existing India-China-Russia trilateral NEW DELHI 00000742 007.2 OF 007 dialogue. Kesevan said that creation of such a group is hampered by Cold War legacies and pending territorial issues. Dr. Alka Acharya recounted that at a trilateral academic conference in November the retired ambassador leading the Chinese delegation suggested a regional, multilateral arrangement for Afghanistan similar to the Six-Party Talks, to include China, Russia, India, Pakistan, the United States and Central Asian neighbors. Parliamentarian B.J. Panda remarked that there was "a buzz on the radar" for an India-China-U.S. tripartite dialog after the civil nuclear deal. Whether it makes sense today or not, it's inevitable within 10 or 15 years, he said. The Quadrilateral Dialogue -------------- ¶24. (SBU) Indian officials in New Delhi are waiting for clear signals on the concept of bringing together Japan, Australia, India and the United States for an institutionalized dialogue process. Should the Quad be pursued, Indians would want to make sure it is done in a way that will not anger Beijing. Strategic Affairs Editor C. Raja Mohan believes India is interested in what the group could accomplish, but is squeamish about the publicity of a formal grouping. He suggests that the U.S., India, Japan, and Australia meet regularly - perhaps on the margins of some of the fora described in this cable - but not call the grouping anything; rather, go about business without publicizing it. Ravni Thakur acknowledged that China might oppose the idea but maintained that it is feasible and could be an effective restraint on China. Thakur emphasized that rhetoric would have to be kept at absolute zero. She suggested that the U.S. should make interactions with the grouping at a "more serious level," suggesting intelligence sharing and technology transfer as focus areas. Naidu postulated that India would be willing to engage such a grouping, including military joint exercises, regardless of China's feelings on the matter. Arvind Gupta reported that despite the widespread apprehension about upsetting China, his Chinese interlocutors did not seem to take issue with the idea of the quadrilateral dialog. BURLEIGH