Manmohan travels East

New phase of India's 'Look-East Policy' begins

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is set to visit Tokyo, Hanoi and Kuala Lumpur next week, and Seoul next month. While he would be attending the India-Asean and G20 summits in Hanoi and Seoul, respectively, there would also be bilateral engagements. He visits Kuala Lumpur for the second time as prime minister, but for his first bilateral summit. This would be his fourth visit to Tokyo but a potentially important one if India and Japan sign their bilateral free trade agreement and if an understanding is reached on the parameters for cooperation in the field of civil nuclear energy development. Taken together, these four visits over the next few weeks could constitute a new phase in India’s “Look-East Policy”, launched less than two decades ago by Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao. India’s engagement of Asia to its east gained momentum only with the end of the Cold War. The initial steps taken towards market integration and greater economic cooperation received a jolt with the Asian financial crisis in 1997. Till Dr Singh revived the idea of an India-Asean free trade agreement in 2005, there was minimal engagement between India and members of Asean. Part of the reason for the lackadaisical progress of India’s relations with East and South-east Asian nations has been New Delhi’s preoccupation with its relations with major powers, especially the United States and China, and partly the pre-occupation with neighbours, especially Pakistan. With very little substantial action on the US, China and Pakistan fronts in the past year, Dr Singh may well have decided to turn his attention to countries where the extant level of engagement is well below par.

The decision to visit Kuala Lumpur and Hanoi, coming after the decision to invite the president of Indonesia to be the chief guest at the 2011 Republic Day parade, shows a revival of diplomatic effort with key member nations of Asean. India has unpardonably neglected Vietnam in recent years. Hopefully, Dr Singh’s visit, coming soon after the defence minister’s visit, will be followed up by increased economic engagement between India and a new Vietnam that is now a rising star on the eastern economic horizon. With Malaysia too, the election of Prime Minister Haji Mohammed Najib bin Tun Abdul Razak has opened the possibility of a new chapter, after decades of an uncertain relationship. During the tenures of the idiosyncratically anti-India Mahathir Mohamad and the duplicitous Abdullah Ahmed Badawi, India-baiting was a favourite sport in Kuala Lumpur. Prime Minister Najib has started off on a positive note and could herald a new phase in this bilateral relationship.

In Tokyo, Dr Singh meets yet another new PM! At each of his bilateral meetings since 2004, he has had to deal with a new Japanese PM. Incumbent Naoto Kan has not yet made his mark in the manner that the charismatic Junichiro Koizumi and the short-lived Shinzo Abe did on India-Japan relations. Former PM Yukio Hatoyama showed interest but hardly had any time. The India-Japan relationship has enormous potential, largely under-utilised and under-tapped. Taken together, this new foray eastwards has the potential to deepen India’s as yet under-developed engagement with Asia to its east. But for this to happen, wider business-to-business and people-to-people contacts are necessary. Getting heads of government together is good and useful, but only a beginning. India’s “Look-East Policy” needs more energy, greater depth, wider relevance and a more strategic and far-sighted approach.