India : A Rising Global Player

Pranab Mukherjee

India’s role is crucial for ensuring and maintaining long-term peace, stable balance of power, economic growth and security in Asia. It is a core state whose role is crucial for the economic well-being, institution building, collective and cooperative security, economic integration and trade expansion and political and civilisational dialogue, essential for a growing Asia. It straddles the land and maritime spaces between East and West, and provides potential energy and trade corridors to Central Asia and the Indian Ocean region. Responding to the challenges of globalisation is one of the key issues faced by all nations today. As a pluralistic, democratic and English-speaking society, India is well placed to respond.

Those of our neighbours like Sri Lanka and Bhutan, who have chosen to leverage India’s engine of growth, have benefited significantly. Those who have held back have done so to their detriment. Regional growth has significant security implications because prosperity and pluralism are today key pillars for global security. East Asian development took place in three phases – Japan initially, the Republic of Korea and Taiwan later and now China. Southeast Asia has also made remarkable progress. In our quest for an Asian century, can South Asia afford to lag far behind? This obviously calls for a regional and global effort to facilitate the South Asian region to catch up. India is making every effort in that direction mainly through the vehicle of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).

India’s ties with Southeast Asia, Japan, Korea, China and Australia is creating a more stable strategic environment and enhancing independence and institution building in Asia. Coupled with the simultaneous improvement in strategic ties with the United States, the European Union and Russia, this is enabling India for the first time in its diplomatic history to forge significant strategic ties with both West and East Asia. India’s rapid economic and social development and growing confidence in responding to the challenges of globalisation is already leading to the restoration of our historical connectivity with Southeast Asia as also West Asia.

As a founding member of the United Nations, India has been firmly committed to the principles and purposes of the United Nations and has consistently and significantly contributed to all aspects of its functioning. India has a long and illustrious history as one of the longest serving and largest troop contributors to the UN peacekeeping operations. India has also played a great role in seeking to address the deficiencies, inequities and problems in the existing global institutional arrangements. As we observe the 60th anniversary of the United Nations, there is unanimity among the member states that the United Nations is in need of urgent and comprehensive reform, in order to deal with myriad challenges of today’s world more effectively. We believe that the reform and expansion of the United Nations Security Council, in both permanent and non-permanent categories, is central to the process of UN reform. The representation of developing countries from Africa, Asia and other regions, as permanent members of the Security Council is essential in this context. In this framework, India is pursuing its candidature for permanent membership of the Security Council.

China is India’s largest neighbour and, therefore, developing friendly cooperation with China is one of the priorities of our foreign policy. With frequent high-level exchanges including my just concluded visit to China, the process of building trust and understanding has gained momentum and our relations have diversified across a wide range of areas. Our ties with China have reached a certain degree of maturity where we are determined to build upon our existing commonalities and identify newer areas of mutually beneficial cooperation. At the same time we are striving to address our differences in a proactive and purposive manner, without allowing them to affect the comprehensive development of our relationship.

Our ties with Japan are also expanding rapidly and not just in the economic and investment sphere. Japan, of course, plays a major role in our development programmes through the Overseas Development Agency (ODA). In recent years, we have stepped up our defence and security ties, based on the view that all countries and regions need to cooperate actively in order to tackle effectively the evolving global challenges. I have also recently concluded a visit to Japan where I had the opportunity to discuss in detail all these issues with my counterpart and some of his senior cabinet colleagues. Not long ago, India’s Minister of State for Defence visited the Republic of Korea and Mongolia where our defence ties are also in the process of being upgraded.

India’s trade, security and energy ties with East Asia and the Pacific region is set to grow rapidly in the coming years. Southeast Asia and China are already two of our largest trading partners in this region, and Korea and Japan among the leading investors in our country. These ties will grow manifold in the coming years and would need sustained political, economic and security dialogue mechanisms for institutionalised support. The EAS, ARF and bimstec and emerging strategic partnerships are elements of India’s engagement with East and Southeast Asia, the core of its “Look East Policy”.

Singapore is today an important investment and trading partner and also provides the base for other East Asian countries to invest in India. It is our hope that the full implementation of the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) signed with Singapore in 2005 - the first of its kind for India - will further generate economic integration between India and Singapore, and provide the base for new and wider opportunities for trade, investment, energy and defence ties with all of ASEAN. New areas of defence cooperation including joint training facilities are emerging and supplementing existing cooperation between India and Singapore in the naval, maritime and counter-terrorism spheres.

India welcomes the three-nation initiative on monitoring shipping through Compulsory Pilotage project of Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. Subject to the desire of the littoral states, as a major user-state, India would be willing to assist the project in whatever capacity is deemed suitable. India has developed capabilities in various aspects of maritime security and would be most willing to share its expertise with countries of the region. India is taking steps to join the Container Security Initiative and has identified the Nava Sheva port for purposes of executing this initiative. The Indian Navy has initiated several maritime security and capacity building measures such as countering piracy by joint exercises (specifically with Indonesia); it returned the Allondra Rainbow ship to the Japanese authorities from pirates and participated in Tsunami relief measures in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Maldives. The establishment of a Regional Marine Training centre has been discussed at the ARF Workshop and the ARF Senior Officers Meeting. We believe that such a Centre would go a long way in establishing common understanding and common procedures. India would be happy to be associated with this initiative. Consistent with their global strategic partnership and the new framework for our defence relationship, India and the United States have committed themselves to a comprehensive cooperation in ensuring a secure maritime domain. Similar initiatives have been taken with other maritime partners.

(Excerpted from Defence Minister’s speech at the fifth International Institute for Strategic Studies Asia Security Summit in Singapore on June 3.)