Burma Visit
Highlights Indias
Look East Strategy
By Sarath Kumara
07 April 2005
World
Socialist Web
Indian Foreign Minister
Natwar Singh made a four-day visit to Burma in late March for discussions
with the countrys military junta on closer relations. The trip
was not the first by a top Indian politician, nor was there much media
coverage. But it does highlight a significant, though little publicised,
feature of New Delhis strategy. It is the so-called Look
East policyan economic and strategic orientation to South
East Asia.
Singh met with Burmas
Foreign Minister Nyan Win as well as other senior figures, including
Prime Minister Lieutenant General Soe Win and Than Shwe, chairman of
the ruling State Peace and Development Council. According to Indian
officials, a range of economic and security issues were discussed. A
further ministerial meeting in Delhi was agreed to discuss boosting
trade and improving road and rail connections between the two countries.
Speaking in Rangoon,
Singh declared that India wanted a long-term partnership
with Burma. Current bilateral trade is $1 billion and the two governments
are aiming to double the figure. India has already extended a $7 million
loan to Burma for two telecom projects and announced a grant of $3 million
for IT-related ventures. Indian companies are involved in oil and gas
exploration in Burma.
The developing relations
between India and Burma are a relatively recent phenomenon. Previous
Congress-led Indian governments were critical of the junta, its brutal
1988 crackdown on student-led demonstrations and supported the opposition
National League for Democracy (NLD) led by Aung San Suu Kyi. India provided
sanctuary and financial assistance to fleeing pro-democracy activists
and honoured Suu Kyi with a Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International
Understanding in 1995.
From the mid-1990s,
a shift took place in Indias attitude to the Burmese junta that
was deepened under subsequent Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led government
of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. New Delhi began to shelve its
criticisms. Since the BJPs defeat last year, the new Congress-led
government has accelerated ties with Burma. Junta leader Than Shwe was
given the red carpet treatment last October when he became the first
Burmese head of state to visit India in 24 years. Immediately prior
to Than Shwes arrival, the Indian government attempted to shut
down a conference of pro-democracy Burmese activists in New Delhi and
denied a visa to one of the conventions key figures.
New Delhis
attempts to woo the Burmese generals are based on several considerations.
Not only is India keen to gain access to Burmas oil and gas, but
a land route through the country to South East Asia is an essential
component of its broader Look East policy.
Indias demand
for oil and gas is expanding rapidly and Burma is a potential source.
In January, India signed an agreement in principle with Burma and Bangladesh
to build a pipeline from Burmese offshore gas fields via Bangladesh
to India. The deal is yet to be sealed as Bangladesh is seeking transit
rights across Indian territory to Nepal and Bhutan, on top of annual
pipeline fees of $125 million.
India has also gained
Burmese assistance in cracking down on various armed separatist movements
based in northeastern India. A number of these groups shelter in Burma,
which shares a common 1,640 km border with India. Last November the
Indian military launched a major operation involving 6,000 troops to
hunt down rebels in the northeastern state of Manipur. The Burmese military
sealed the border to block off any escape.
One of the reasons
New Delhi wants to reach a deal with, or crush, the various separatist
groups is to open up the northeast to mineral exploration, including
for oil, gas and coal. The state of Assam currently produces about 15
percent of Indias oil needs. Recently, new gas fields have been
discovered in eastern Assam and others are under survey in the neighbouring
state of Arunachal Pradesh.
Burma is also an
arena of rivalry between India and China, both of which have ambitions
to play a more dominant role in the region. While India joined other
countries in criticising and imposing sanctions on the Burmese junta
after 1988, China strengthened its longstanding ties and became the
regimes main economic, political and military backer. Beijing
provided financial aid, economic investment and helped the Burmese armed
forces to modernise and expand from 180,000 to 450,000 personnel.
For China, Burma
is an important component of its strategy to prevent its encirclement
by the US and its allies and to secure vital naval routes to oil supplies
in the Middle East. For New Delhi, Chinese influence in Burma is a threat
to Indias plans for naval dominance in the Bay of Bengal and an
obstacle to its grander aspirations for economic and strategic influence
in South East Asia.
Indias Look East policy
Indias Look
East policy, first enunciated in 1992, had its genesis in the
end of the Cold War, following the collapse of the Soviet Union. Having
lost the Soviet economic and political support on which it had relied,
the Indian government embarked on a program of free market restructuring
at home and sought new markets and economic partners abroad. India also
began to look for alternate energy sources after US-led Gulf War on
Iraq in 1990-91 destabilised the Middle East.
The Look East
policy was aimed at developing closer relations with the so-called economic
tigers of South East Asia. In 1997, India became a full
dialogue partner of the regions main groupingthe Association
of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN). After coming to power in 1998,
the BJP-led government in New Delhi continued the orientation to ASEAN
despite the impact of the Asian financial crisis on the tiger
economies.
At the ASEAN summit
in Bali in October 2003, Prime Minister Vajpayee spelled out new initiatives
for economic cooperation, including air and road links. To demonstrate
the close relations he proposed an India-ASEAN motor rally from South
East Asia through Burma to India. He outlined a program of free trade
agreements with the countries of the region. The Indian prime minister
signed a deal with Thailand to slash tariffs on a range of goods and
offered closer intelligence and military cooperation.
In the lead-up to
the summit, Vajpayees foreign minister Yaswant Singh spelled out
the strategy in a speech at Harvard University. In the past, Indias
engagement with much of Asia, including South East and East Asia, was
built on an idealistic conception of Asian brotherhood, based on shared
experiences of colonialism and of cultural ties. The rhythm of the region
today is determined, however, as much by trade, investment and production
as by history and culture. That is what motivates our decade-old Look
East policy.
The fact that the
speech was delivered in the US was significant. Under the Vajpayee government,
India developed closer strategic and economic relations with Washington.
Singhs remarks were a further assurance that there would be no
return to the anti-imperialist rhetoric of the Cold War days when India
played a leading role in the so-called Non-Aligned Movement. Clearly
India was looking for the backing of Washington, which is also seeking
to block Chinas links to ASEAN, as it pursued its aims of closer
ties in South East Asia.
Since defeating
the BJP in last years election, the Congress-led government has
made no sharp breaks with previous policies. The new foreign minister
Natwar Singh told the India-ASEAN business summit in New Delhi last
October that Look East was more than a political slogan
or a foreign policy orientation. At the ASEAN gathering the following
month, he enthusiastically proposed exploring the possibilities of a
broad Asian Economic Community and signed an agreement for
an ASEAN-India Partnership for Peace Progress and Shared Prosperity.
Part of the expected
pay-off for New Delhi is economic. India has trade agreements with most
ASEAN countries and the region currently accounts for $US13 billion
or about 10 percent of Indias total foreign trade. New Delhi is
hoping to take advantage of ASEAN plans for a single market and to nearly
treble its trade with the region to $30 billion by 2007.
But India faces
competition from China, which is negotiating its own trade deal with
ASEAN that will cut tariffs over the next five years beginning in mid-2005.
A recent article in the Indian magazine Frontline noted that though
India has improved its relationship with ASEAN, it is quite modest
in comparison to Chinas which is now close to $50
billion and the target for 2005 is $100 billion.
India is also seeking
strategic relations in South East Asia. In its maritime doctrine released
last April, the Indian navy shifted its doctrine from defending the
countrys coastline from rival Pakistan to declaring the entire
Indian Ocean Region (IOR), from Persian Gulf to the Malacca Straits,
to be its legitimate area of interest. India is in the process
of acquiring nuclear submarines, the aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov
and 16 MiG 29 K ground attack/interceptor aircraft as part of this strategy.
India wants a major
role in policing the international sea-lanes through the Indian Ocean.
New Delhi has already forged agreements with Malaysia and Indonesia
regarding naval patrolling of the western end of the strategic Strait
of Malacca. The Indian government exploited the December 26 tsunami
disaster to flex its naval muscle in the region. In its largest-ever
peacetime operation, the Indian navy dispatched 32 ships, 22 helicopters,
8 aircraft and 8,300 troops to distribute food, medicine and other relief
supplies to Sri Lanka, Maldives and Indonesia.
India faces competition
from China for influence in South East Asia, but the chief potential
obstacle to its Look East strategy is Washington, rather
than Beijing. During her recent visit to New Delhi, US Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice gave her Indian counterparts a rude lesson in
US diplomacy when she opposed a planned gas pipeline from Iran to India
via Pakistan. While Indian and US interests may coincide at present
in South East Asia and in other regions, there is no guarantee that
Washingtons aggressive drive for world domination will not cut
across other Indian plans in the future.
While India has
strengthened its ties to Washington, sections of the Indian ruling elite
are deeply concerned about the dangers of US militarism for their interests.
As a result, New Delhi and Beijing, while vying for regional influence
in Asia, are being drawn together by a mutual fear of Washingtons
aggressive policies. Significantly, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao is due
to visit India this week to discuss a range of issues, including a free
trade agreement.