Feng's Insight: India expects 3C plus 2S in cooperating with ASEAN
The 2022 India-ASEAN Foreign Ministers Meeting was held in New Delhi on June 16-17. Coinciding with the 30th anniversary of bilateral dialogue relations, the physical meeting has its own significance.
Photo/ASEAN Secretariat
The meeting focused on impacts of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict and the intensified competition between China and the United States on regional economy and security. With geopolitics facing new challenges and global trends full of uncertainty, the importance of India-ASEAN relations is further highlighted.
India said it supports a strong, united and prosperous ASEAN, fully recognizes ASEAN's centrality in the Indo-Pacific region and highly appreciates ASEAN as a beacon of regionalism, multilateralism and globalization.
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After the establishment of ASEAN in 1967, its relation with India was cold for a long time. It was not until the end of the Cold War that the India-ASEAN relations began to warm up. In 1996, India joined in the ASEAN Regional Forum, and bilateral cooperation expanded from economy to security.
Since 2002, India has been a key partner of ASEAN, with the India-ASEAN summit convened annually. In 2012, the relation between India and ASEAN grew to be a "strategic partnership".
On the Indian Republic Day in June 2018, Modi invited the leaders of ASEAN countries to the military parade, marking the 25th anniversary of India-ASEAN dialogue relations and highlighting ASEAN importance in the eyes of Indians.
Meanwhile, the traditional 3C Indian expectations for cooperating with ASEAN, namely connectivity, commerce and culture, have been increasingly coupled with considerations in 2S: security and strategy.
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At this ministerial meeting, the Indian Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar stressed the land and sea connectivity between India and ASEAN, and put forward the plan of upgrading the India-Myanmar-Thailand expressway.
On the one hand, India uses the transnational highway to link up northeast India and Indochina, strengthening ties with Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam and building up the East-West Economic Corridor.
Photo/Vietnam Times
On the other hand, India launched the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation, the Mekong-Ganga Cooperation and the Indian Ocean Rim Association, in a bid to step up its cooperation with ASEAN countries in infrastructure and city facility.
In 2021, the India-ASEAN trade volume exceeded US$ 78 billion. ASEAN became India's fifth biggest trading partner, India the sixth largest of ASEAN.
India is also keen on emphasizing its religious ties with ASEAN countries, strengthening its cultural influence in the region through movies, music and yoga.
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Apart from connectivity, commerce and culture, India is paying more attention to security and strategic cooperation in its relations with ASEAN.
The past years have seen the Indian involvement in the US-led Quad security dialogue and its absence in the RCEP framework, both cooling down India-ASEAN relation to some extent.
Luckily for India, the recent India-Pacific Economic Framework provided a new opportunity for India and ASEAN to strengthen their relations. But India stills needs an excuse to re-orient the bilateral ties from economy to security and strategy.
During the India-ASEAN meeting, Indian media talked about the "China threat" theory a lot, claiming China had brought substantial threats to India and ASEAN in the Indo-Pacific region.
Photo/Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation
In fact, China and ASEAN have been close partners over the past decades in both economy and politics. Instead of threatening others, China has benefited the neighboring countries through its own development.
What India needs to do is to join hands with both ASEAN and China for more political trust and multilateral cooperation, so that the regional and global challenges could be better addressed.
(The article is trans-edited from a Chinese version by Feng Libing, an associate researcher at the Institute of International Relations, Yunnan University. The Chinese version first appeared on June 23 at the WeChat public account of Southeast Asia Outlook. The view in the article does not necessarily represent that of Yunnan Gateway.)