INDIA AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF A NEW EAST ASIA
1 First let me thank the Indian Government for the honour bestowed on Singapore by inviting me to be the chief guest at this 5th Pravasi Bharatiya Divas. I wish to share my views on India's role in East Asia. I am convinced that India will be an essential part of the emerging East Asian pattern and that India's future will be increasingly bound up with that of East Asia. India's participation will not just be economic; rather, economic growth will inevitably give India a central strategic role.
2 East Asia is on the move. Few regions outside the West can boast of such a record of sustained growth. Of course there have been blips; periods of faster or slower growth, even reverses. But for more than half a century since the end of the 2nd World War, first Japan, then the NICs - South Korea, Taiwan and Singapore followed by Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia - have been on a general trajectory of growth. Since the 1980s, China has emerged as another powerful locomotive of growth, with global and not just regional consequences. Most recently, Vietnam is opening up and moving ahead.
3 Domestically, East Asian growth has been underpinned by the high priority placed by governments and peoples on economic development and their determination to succeed. Internationally, the imperatives of the Cold War gave the West strong incentives to help friendly East Asian countries prosper.
4 For most of this half century or so, India was not at the centre of East Asian development. India had different domestic and international priorities. But after the Cold War, East Asia's perceptions of India have changed and likewise, India's perception of East Asia has also evolved. Since economic reforms began in earnest in the early 1990s, India has increasingly become a part of the East Asian equation, a fact recognised by its admission into the East Asian Summit two years ago. India has settled into a steady growth rate of over 8% for the last three years. Indian companies are making their presence felt in the world economy. Globalisation and growth have created new patterns of trade, investment and production, bringing India into the mainstream of an integrating East Asia.
New Complexities
5 The end of the Cold War and decades of rapid economic growth, in particular the rise of China and India, have created an environment of greater strategic complexity in East Asia, particularly in relations among the major powers, Japan, China and now India. The US too must be considered an intrinsic part of the East Asian equation.
6 This complexity has three primary and inter-related dimensions:
§ Traditional great power behaviour in which rivalry is an inevitable but not exclusive element.
§ Growing economic inter-dependence with social and
cultural interdependence as its corollary; and
§ Efforts at elaborating an East Asian architecture; in effect, 'constructing' a new East Asia.
7 The effort at elaborating a new East Asian architecture both reflects the new complexities as well as the common interest in managing these complexities so as to preserve conditions for stability and growth. It is therefore a crucial enterprise and the overarching strategic issue that will preoccupy the region for many years to come. This is reflected in many efforts at regional multilateralism in the region: APEC, EAS, ASEAN+3, ARF, among others, are all different manifestations. It may be more realistic to conceive of the East Asian regional architecture in terms of multiple overlapping frameworks, in which the EAS, APEC, ASEAN+3 and the ARF, among others, all will have roles to play, rather than a single structure. This would better reflect the diverse East Asian reality. While the final shape of the new East Asia is as yet unclear, the broad parameters within which it should evolve can be stated with some clarity:
§ It should not be conscribed by narrow geographical or racial definitions of East Asia.
§ It should be open, reflecting the fundamental basis of East Asian growth.
§ It should not be hierarchical but multi-polar, reflecting East Asian conditions.
§ The continuing role of the US as the underlying foundation of stability will be crucial; and
§ Precisely because of the complexity and sensitivity of major power relationships, ASEAN as a relatively neutral locus on which a new architecture can be elaborated is essential. An East Asian community will depend on ASEAN's ability to integrate deeper and faster and create a community of its own.
8 India has a central role to play in all these aspects, in particular ASEAN. It is for this reason that Singapore pushed hard to make India a full ASEAN Dialogue Partner. It was also an early advocate of India's participation in the ARF and worked to bring India into the EAS. I was Foreign Minister at that time and I can state that we did so in our own interests and because we believe that a strong India and strong India-ASEAN relations can only strengthen ASEAN. And, as I have argued, a strong ASEAN is crucial to the construction of a new East Asia. This is the broader strategic context of on-going negotiations on ASEAN-India Free Trade Agreement. It is not just another FTA. It is a crucial piece of the overall regional architecture.
India, China and the US
9 The new strategic complexity of East Asia means that it will no longer be possible to manage issues such as energy security or the security of major sea lanes without India's active participation. It is no longer possible to conceptualise East Asia just in terms of US-China-Japan relations or of ASEAN's relations with only these three major power centres. Increasingly, Sino-India, India-Japan and US-India relations will move to the centre of the East Asian equation.
10 Both China and India understand that a stable East Asia requires stable Sino-Indian relations and are moving to develop their relationship in positive ways. Sino-Indian ties are deepening which can only bode well for East Asia and the world. Both have professed their belief that Asia is large enough to accommodate the two of them and indicated that they want to concentrate on the challenge of development. An India-China Free Trade Agreement may still be many years in the future, but it is a bold vision worth striving for and, if achieved, it will transform the world.
11 A new strategic relationship is also being forged between India and the US, based on deepening economic engagement, closer defence relations and, in time to come, nuclear cooperation. India-US relations are also important for the future of East Asia. For many more decades to come there is no doubt that the US will continue to play an important role in East Asia's stability and growth. The US must therefore be persuaded not to oppose the construction of a new East Asia even if it may not participate in each and every aspect of the emerging architecture. Close US-India relations and an East Asian framework with an India that enjoys close relationships with key US allies firmly embedded in it will give comfort to the US.
India's Contributions
12 India has already made major intellectual contributions into the ongoing efforts to define a new East Asia. At the ASEAN Summit held in Kuala Lumpur in 2005, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had outlined a vision of an emerging Asian Economic Community. He also envisioned a Pan Asian Free Trade Agreement as one of the building blocks of the eventual Asian Economic Community. And India is beginning to explore new initiatives where it can lead the way and play a key role. This includes plans to establish a strategic and global partnership between India and Japan announced during Prime Minister Singh's recent visit to Tokyo and the eventual Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement that India is currently negotiating with South Korea. India's recent proposal, which Singapore actively supports, to restore the ancient Nalanda University in Bihar to its full glory will link Buddhist communities across Asia and add another facet to existing people-to-people linkages between countries in East Asia.
Moving Forward
13 These are promising starts. But India's continued ability to play such a role will be dependent on the sustainability of India's growth and whether there is a national consensus to push through reforms in key areas. As Prime Minister Singh himself pointed out in his Independence Day Speech last August, while India is certainly on the march, it "still has miles to go before it makes its tryst with destiny".
14 But this is a challenge that all East Asian countries, and not just India, must face. The construction of a new East Asia is essentially an effort to transform a group of countries separated by inward looking policies into an open and integrated market. If a new East Asia is to become a reality, each member country must reform its domestic economic and political institutions in ways that will make its economy and society more free and open. ASEAN too has to reinvent itself and ASEAN Leaders later this week will be considering far reaching proposals by an Eminent Persons Group on ASEAN's future directions.
15 Against this backdrop, India's primary advantage is that it is already a far more open society than many other East Asian countries. At the same time, that openness itself is also India's major challenge as it makes reform politically complicated.
The Role of the Diaspora
16 I believe that the Indian diaspora is a key resource which can play a catalytic role to link India more closely to the rest of East Asia.
17 Non-Resident Indians understand India's culture, including its bureaucratic and political cultures. They know where the sensitivities are and how to work the system. They are not merely cultural ambassadors for India abroad; they are also ambassadors of the 'abroad' to India and can help interpret and explain international conditions to India and so contribute to its transformation, just as, among others, the Chinese and the Vietnamese diasporas are contributing to their home countries.
18 The Indian diaspora has already made significant contributions to India and the countries in which they now live. Last October, an Encyclopaedia on the Indian diaspora by the South Asian Studies Programme of the National University of Singapore was launched by President S R Nathan. It vividly documents the history, contributions and development of the Indian diaspora over the years and across the world.
19 Singapore is a small part of this story. Our Indian heritage has made for a high level of comfort between India and Singapore. It is buttressed by similar strategic and security outlooks and many shared interests. Attesting to this high level of comfort, there are now over 2000 Indian companies in Singapore which use us as a base to expand into the region and beyond. Several big names like Tata Consultancy Services and Satyam base their regional headquarters in Singapore. According to a MasterCard survey conducted in 2005, Singapore turned out tops as the most favoured tourist destination in the world for Indians.
20 India can use Singapore as a springboard into the rest of Southeast Asia. Singapore-India trade already makes up about half of total ASEAN-India trade which amounts to approximately US$15 billion a year. Many Indian companies are leveraging on the CECA to root themselves deeper into global business, knowledge and social networks. CECA can also act as a building block for India's closer economic integration with ASEAN. The Indian diaspora has a key role to play in all these respects and can help India to continue to make a significant impact in a new East Asia.
Conclusion
21 Let me sum up: India has a natural and central place in the emerging East Asian order and has key roles to play to shape the emerging regional architecture. Increasingly, Sino-India, India-Japan and US-India relations will become integral to the East Asian equation. These relationships play an important role in maintaining East Asia's stability and continued economic growth. It is in the interests of both India and East Asia that India succeeds in playing these key roles, by staying the course of reform to sustain its economic growth, by accelerating its external links with the rest of Asia and by nurturing its relationships with key players in our region. Thank you.
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