Go East

Aware of its own growing weight on the Asian stage, New Delhi senses the urgency of looking beyond mere membership of the regional forums towards shaping the structure and direction of Asian regionalism.

That demands a simultaneous expansion of the bases of support at home for the Look East policy, acceleration of cooperation with the region, and above all, a strategy to maximise India8217;s impact in Asia.

That Mukherjee chose to travel to Shillong in the North East and speak on the Look East policy before arriving in Southeast Asia suggests New Delhi is determined to bring new stake-holders into the engagement with Asia.

The effort to raise internal political consciousness on Asia should not be limited to the North East. It needs to encompass the entire eastern region of India. While the foreign minister of Singapore, George Yeo often reminds his audiences that Singapore was ruled from Kolkata until 1865, India8217;s mainstream East is yet to reclaim its historic connectivities with Southeast Asia.

During his visit to Singapore, Mukherjee will release a book on Subhas Chandra Bose8217;s speeches in the region during the early 1940s. If the Indian National Army is a reminder of the more recent links between India and Southeast Asia, the plans to build an international university at the ancient seat of learning Nalanda are about discovering deeper civilisational bonds between India and Asia.

This year, Indian tourist arrivals in Singapore is likely to touch one million. India now needs to leverage this impressive flows to deepen contact with the ten member ASEAN Association of South East Asian Nations as a whole.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh8217;s recent offer to negotiate an 8220;open skies8221; agreement with the ASEAN needs to be quickly translated into a reality. Equally important is to get states like UP, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh to improve their basic infrastructure and make it easier for Asian tourists to come to the many Buddhist sites in northern India.

If the 8220;Buddhist circuit8221; has been crying for an accelerated development, so is an 8216;Indian heritage8221; circuit in South East Asia. From Seam Reap, Cambodia which hosts the spectacular Angkor Wat temples to the remains of the Champa Kingdom in Vietnam to Yogyakarta and Borobudur in Indonesia, the rich Indian cultural heritage in East Asia is yet to make a mark on the Indian middle classes that have acquired a new wanderlust.

If Indian ignorance is part of the problem in restoring the richness of our shared cultural geography with East Asia, so is resistance from vested interests to an expanded economic relationship with the region, especially in the trade domain. India8217;s trade with the 15 other members of the EAS was about US 80 billion in 2006. In contrast China8217;s trade with this group in the first five months of 2007 was more than US 200 billion.

The problem is less with the numbers than with the policy direction. While China is moving quickly towards the conclusion of a free trade agreement with the ASEAN, India has dragged its feet. A section of the domestic industry has been the principal obstacle to progress on free trade with the Asia.

The establishment of a CEO forum with Singapore, to be announced by Mukherjee, is hopefully the first step towards getting India8217;s business act with the ASEAN together. India also needs to tap into the powerful network of Chinese capitalist networks in Southeast Asia, which could become big investors in India8217;s future economic growth.

Meanwhile, India8217;s defence diplomacy has begun to advance in the region. Its defence cooperation agreements with Singapore and Indonesia are finally acquiring some real substance.

At a time when Asia is coming to terms with a rising China and a newly assertive Japan, and an America that appears preoccupied in the Middle East, India will have to contribute more vigorously to construction of an Asian security order.

As India8217;s engagement with Asia acquires many new dimensions, the number of actors involved has become huge. On the ASEAN side ten national governments, the associated national institutions and a variety of multilateral forums are part of the complex bureaucratic play.

From the Indian side, the full spectrum of Union ministries, state governments, and a diverse set of private sector organisations are involved. But they have not always acted in concert. In Singapore, Mukherjee needs to signal that New Delhi is ready to bring greater coherence and strategic purpose to its growing interaction with East Asia.

The writer is a Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore