The Strategic Thinking and Influence of India's Participation in the Asia-Pacific Multilateral Mechanisms

By Shi Xuewei

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The Strategic Thinking and Influence of India's Participation in the Asia-Pacific Multilateral Mechanisms

By Shi Xuewei

Institute of International Strategy of the CPCCC Party School,

In the Asia-Pacific multilateral mechanisms, India’s very active role causes widespread concerns in the international community. At present, India and ASEAN relationship has been gradually becoming mechanized and institutionalized; as a member of the ARF, India plays an important role in the regional political and security dialogue; as a founding member of the East Asia Summit, India’s role and status in the Asia-Pacific region have been recognized by more countries. At the same time, India strives for becoming a full member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. India has its long-term and strategic consideration for the active participation in the Asia-Pacific multilateral mechanisms, trying to enhance its influence in the region through multilateral mechanisms.

I. India's Initiatives and Strategic Considerations of Its Participation in the Asia-Pacific Multilateral Mechanisms

First, vigorously promote the "Look East" policy. The cooperation between India and ASEAN began with the "Look East" policy initiated in the year 1991, and India takes ASEAN for its bridge to expand power and influence in the Asia-Pacific region. Therefore, India actively pursues the mechanization and institutionalization of relations with ASEAN, and deepens all-round cooperation with ASEAN. From the specific reading, India’s increasing cooperation with ASEAN depends primarily on the following elements:

Firstly,the economic interests are the motive force for India to expand cooperation with ASEAN. Within cooperation between India and ASEAN, the economic and trade cooperation is always the biggest bright spot between the two sides. Since India and ASEAN countries began cooperation in 1990, the volume of bilateral trade has increased annually. According to ASEAN statistics, the ASEAN-India trade in goods amounted to US$47.41 billion in 2008, accounting for 2.8% of the ASEAN total foreign trade. ASEAN exports to India was US$ 30.08 billion, ASEAN imports from India US$ 17.33 billion. But in 2010, bilateral trade volume reached US$ 50.3 billion, with India’s exports at US$ 22.52 billion while imports at US$ 27.81 billion. While in 2011, India's exports to ASEAN was US$27.277 billion, accounting for 10.86% of India's total foreign exports, and India's imports from ASEAN amounted to US$30.607 billion, accounting for 8.27% of India's foreign imports,1bilateral trade amounted to approximately US$ 57.9 billion.

Secondly,to deal with non-traditional security threats are common consensus between India and ASEAN. From the security perspective, India and its Asian neighbors have common concerns over the security issues of Andaman Nicobar islands, mainly involving resources, drug trade, gun smuggling and terrorism. As for India, it focus on gun smuggling on the Andaman Sea, for these weapons may fall into the hands of the separatist rebel groups in northeastern India along the entrenched India-Myanmar border. In addition, organized criminal gangs from Thailand, Laos and Myanmar will always take the Andaman Sea as an active base. New Delhi and Southeast Asian coastal countries believe that the criminal terrorist activities disrupt the order of maritime traffic. Besides, India and Southeast Asian countries are also victims of several militant Islamist groups such as "al Qaeda", "Abu Sayyaf", "Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) ", " Mujahideen ", etc.

Thirdly, energy security is a necessity for development of the Indian economy. From energy perspective, India must ensure safety of the energy supply in the Southeast Asian region. With economic development, India's overseas energy demand has substantially grown. In order to reduce dependence on the Middle East energy, India expects Southeast Asian countries such as Indonesia, Vietnam and Myanmar to provide it with energy resources. At present, India is exploring the energy supply from Russian Line, some of which may go through the Pacific, and this makes the safety of sea lanes in the Pacific even more important.2

In addition, India also attaches importance to the East Asia Summit. In 2005, India as a summit founding member participated in the first East Asia Summit and played an important role. India’s active participation in the East Asia Summit, from the long-term interests understanding, is the inevitable requirement of its Asia-Pacific strategy, and a good opportunity to deepen and expand cooperation with the Asia-Pacific countries. In terms of the current interests, this can further consolidate and deepen the relations between India and ASEAN since ASEAN is the core of the East Asia summit. At the same time, India can make use of the East Asia Summit to balance major powers in Asia-Pacific - China and Japan – whose influences are in the process of expansion and extension in the backyard of India.

Second, actively participate in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Since its inception, Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) has played an important role in regional affairs. India has shown its high concerns with the organization. At Astana Summit in 2005, India became an observer of the SCO. On the eve of the Astana Summit in June 2011, India proposed to accede into the SCO. This is determined by India’s awareness of the status of Central Asia in its economic benefits, safety concerns and geo-strategic interests. Central Asia is India’s important "extended neighbors". The strategic position of Central Asia, India’s demand for energy and competition for oil and gas pipelines and other factors ensure India’s plenty of reasons to given particular concerns to Central Asia and refine its Central Asia policy.3India has following main concerns in Central Asia: to promote regional stability in Central Asia - South Asia; to eliminate Islamic terrorism; to completely defeat Pakistan in Central Asia and stall China’s growing power and influence in Central Asia; to ensure India’s energy resource security; and to expand new opportunities for the bilateral trade and economic growth through regional cooperation.

Concretely speaking, India has three main considerations for its active expanding cooperation with Central Asian countries: Firstly, the strategic location of Central Asia carries significance for India. For example, Tajikistan's strategic position and geographically close to the Pakistan-controlled Kashmir prompt India to look at Central Asia from a new perspective. India’s most important strategic concerns in Central Asia are that Pakistan tries to gain strategic depth in Central Asia. India argues that since the 1990s Pakistan advances its objectives by supporting Taliban, and facilitates for the extreme and terrorist organizations in Kashmir and Central Asia. Therefore, India's policymakers believe it is necessary to have cooperation with the Central Asian countries to respond to terrorism, and at the same time bring under effective control the complex situation in the region. The Aini air base built by India in Tajikistan is mostly to confront Pakistan.

Secondly, rich oil and gas reserves in Central Asia are very attractive to India. In recent years, the rapid development of Indian economy increases its demand for oil and gas resources many folds. According to reports, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan have about 300 trillion cubic meters of natural gas and 90-200 billion barrels of oil reserves.4The planning and advance of the two energy pipelines projects -- "Iran – Pakistan - India pipeline and Turkmenistan - Afghanistan- Pakistan - India pipeline" reflect this demand by India.

Thirdly, the need to pursue a regional power balance. In Central Asia, China and Russia through the SCO continue to expand their influence in the region. India is particularly worried over the Chinese-controlled Central Asia, so it actively expands cooperation with Central Asian countries in attempt to shape a Russia – China – India pattern restraining each other.

Third, pay close attention to the multilateral mechanisms such as the APEC and others. Since the mid-1990s, India has expressed strong interest in the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), and in 1997 expressed its willingness to become a partner of the organization. However, due to India’s lack of APEC internal strong supporters, plus India’s limited political influence and domestic political instability, and the APEC has not given India the identity of full membership. Nowadays, APEC important members such as the United States and Australia expect it to join the organization but India has no strong desire to become an APEC member state. The main reasons are that: the vitality brought by India's rapid economic development and India's vast market are already there. India has established a good relationship with all APEC member states in variety of ways and means. At present, some Indians also call on India to join APEC as soon as possible. The main consideration is that the cooperation of India with the Organization member states can be further optimized and marginalization of India by the organization be prevented in the institutional framework.

II. India's “Major power dream" and the Asia-Pacific multilateral mechanisms

A “Major Power Dream" has always been the relentless pursuit of the successive leaders of India. Even before India’s independence, Nehru pointed out that India is to become the world's "Very Impressive" major power. After the independence, Nehru planned to turn India into a unified and powerful world-class power that is highly respected by the international community and can play an important role.5during the period of Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, India pursued regional power politics and hegemonism diplomatically for guaranteeing the Indian hegemony in South Asia, and laying the foundation for India to become a world power. During the Vajpayee period, India made the development of nuclear weapons, gaining the permanent member of the UN Security Council and the development of Indo-U.S. relations as the three most important indicators to become a world power. Therefore, India, withstanding international pressure, carried out five nuclear tests, India and the United States established "Natural alliance", and India together with Brazil, Germany and Japan actively planned the UN reform program, and officially proposed to become permanent members of the UN Security Council. Just as Prime Minister Vajpayee noted in 2004 that the India’s goal is to gain a foothold in the international arena.6During the Singh Administration, India proposed a major power concept of "the 21stcentury being the India century", actively carried out the full range diplomacy with major power diplomacy as the core and vigorously worked for becoming a world-class economic, military and political power.

India has been on the road of pursuing "major power dream", the multilateral mechanism has always played an important role. During Nehru period, India had actively advocated the Non-Aligned Movement, maintained diplomatic independence in the system of bipolar confrontation, promoted the Five Principles of "Peaceful Coexistence", and expanded India’s influence in the international arena through the development of state-to-state relations with Asian countries and the Bandung Conference. During the Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi periods, India's premier strategic goal was to establish regional hegemony, but it still insistently played a role in the international multilateral mechanisms, such as "Group -77", the United Nations and the Non-Aligned Movement Summit. In the Vajpayee period, the attention given to multilateral diplomacy by India was more and greater than any previous period. The most prominent manifestations are the mechanization of the India-ASEAN relations and India’s formal proposal to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Currently, the Singh Administration has come up with new breakthroughs and innovations on the basis of continuing its attention to the international multilateral mechanism, and India plays a role that should not be overlooked in the ASEAN Regional Forum, East Asia Summit and other regional mechanisms. At the same time, in global multilateral mechanisms such as the United Nations, the G-20, the BRICS, the "Development-15" and "Doha negotiations", the voice of India can be heard and the presence of India be felt. Through multilateral mechanisms, India’s influence gradually extends to the global stage from the region.

The basic thinking of India’s "major power dream" is to dominate South Asia, rise from the Asia-Pacific region, and ultimately become a world-class major power. To some extent, India’s goal of leading South Asia has been basically achieved. To rise from the Asia-Pacific region carries decisive significance on realizing India’s "major power dream". Therefore, India pays close attention to development of the situation in the Asia-Pacific region, and actively carries out all-dimensional diplomacy with regional countries and vigorously expands its presence in the Asia-Pacific region. And the multilateral mechanisms have played an important part in the process. At present, the relationship between India and ASEAN develops in-depth on the basis of the mechanization and institutionalization, and India has become an important member of the ASEAN Regional Forum and the East Asia Summit, and now it actively seeks to become a full member of the SCO. India tries to enhance its influence with painstaking efforts in Asia-Pacific multilateral mechanisms, and its fundamental purpose is to achieve India's "major power dream". India's "major power dream" is basically reflected in the following four perspectives:

From the economic perspective, to achieve economic development carries decisive significance on India’s realization of the "major power dream". Since economic backwardness directly affects the development of domestic situation, thus affecting the formulation and implementation of its national foreign strategy. In the early days of the Republic of India, the poor and weak economic situation limited its building of armed forces and economic liberalization, and had a negative impact on the domestic political stability. Today, India's economic liberalization reform has achieved rapid growth, but still faces poverty and inequality. According to the 2009 report by the Planning Commission of India, India still has over 400 million population living on less than US$ 1.25 a day- this is the absolute poverty indicator as defined by the World Bank and the United Nations.7For India, it is very important to change the status quo of the domestic backwardness for its realizing the "major power dream". The Asia-Pacific economies are full of vitality, and the majority of the regional multilateral mechanisms identify achieving development as the purpose. It is the best choice for India to expand economic cooperation with Asia-Pacific countries through a multi-lateral mechanism.

From the perspective of maintaining national interests, independence is the guarantee of national interests. India's independence is hard to have achieved, so independence is the core content in India diplomatic strategy. In order to maintain the diplomatic independence, India has implemented a policy of nonalignment, safeguarding national interests and expanding its influence in the international arena by multilateral mechanisms. Successful use of multilateral mechanisms serves as an important reference for its future multilateral diplomatic activities. Nowadays, India is active in the Asia-Pacific multilateral arena, and its role attracts attention and wins over praises by Asia-Pacific countries thanks to India's long-term adherence to the independent foreign policy.

From the perspective of security, to ensure security is the guarantee for activities conducted inside and outside the country. India believes that its security environment is relatively complex, internally facing threat by Islamic militancy, terrorism and left-wing Naxalite separatism and externally facing the powerful challenges by neighboring Pakistan and China, especially China seen as the biggest challenge. While internal threats are mostly caused by poverty, inequality and religious factors, so the Indian Government often adopts non-violent ways of resolving them, and in some individual cases uses force to crackdown. For external challenges, India's strategy is to respond powerfully on the basis of rising national strength as a whole, and even resorts to conflicts at any costs. Nowadays, India although views China as the biggest challenge to its security, the adopted corresponding strategies involved more restraining, and the mechanism of the India-ASEAN relations is also conducive to India for showing dissatisfied attitude to China through territorial disputes between China and ASEAN members.

From the perspective of social effects, a country's international status and the degree of respect are reflection of the strength and influence recognized by the international community. After independence with its international status and influence, India once became a leader of the Third World. Currently, the Indian economy has achieved rocketing development, continuously improved the level of modernization of the military forces and political influence continued to expand. However, India has not won the recognition by a large number of global multilateral mechanisms and regional organizations. In addition to the significant changes in current international pattern, India should really calm down, and make some in-depth thinking and reflection seriously in terms of its own problems.

III. The Strategic Impact of India's Participation in the Asia-Pacific Multilateral Mechanisms

At present, India's performance in the Asia-Pacific multilateral arena is very active and positive, and India plays an increasingly important role. India is not only an indispensable partner in ASEAN and an important member of the ASEAN Regional Forum and the East Asia summit, but also is invited and supported by relevant member countries (the United States and Australia argue for India becoming an APEC member, and Russia strongly supports India to become a SCO member) of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). According to the logic of India's national strategy, cooperation with the Asia-Pacific multilateral mechanisms is the inevitable road and choice for India to achieve its "major power dream". Through its participation in the Asia-Pacific multilateral mechanisms, India promotes its own changes while promoting changes in the Asia-Pacific region and of course generates a challenge to China's periphery strategy.

First of all, India is changing the power composition, the balance of power and pattern of the Asia-Pacific region. During the cold war, the Asia-Pacific region was an important stage for rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union, the United States and the Soviet Union led the cold war. Then the Asia-Pacific region witnesses "one superpower and multi-strong powers" situation, the United States as the superpower is in a dominant position in the Asia-Pacific affairs, while the significant change is the "multi-strong powers" in the Asia-Pacific region. These multi-strong powers have developed to the current posture of China – Japan - India - Russia advancing hand in hand. From the evolution of the regional pattern, the emergence of India is undoubtedly exerting impacts on the formation of regional power. India has no intention to challenge the U.S. dominance in the Asia-Pacific region, but to achieve an equal footing with the regional powers is the adopted objectives of India Asia-Pacific diplomacy. The use of multilateral mechanisms is the priority choice to achieve its planned goals, on the one hand, it can prevent the excessive focus of the superpower on India, and on the other hand, can help to shape a certain kind of constraints by making use of the expansion of regional powers, furthermore can bring India practical interests. Regardless of Indian subjective motivation, it has contributed to the changing pattern of the Asia-Pacific region.

Second,through participation in the Asia-Pacific multilateral mechanisms, India has not only enhanced its own strength, but also expanded its influence in the Asia-Pacific region. Through cooperation in the Asia-Pacific multilateral arena, India to its economic development has brought huge amount of capital, resources and technology, and its economic strength has improved significantly. Goldman Sachs predicts the Indian economy in 2050 may become the world's third-largest economy next to the United States and China.8In Southeast Asia, India, under the premise of institutionalized mechanism, has signed a free trade agreement with ASEAN, and cooperation in the field of security has also steadily moved on. In East Asia, India is invited to participate in the East Asia Summit, an important multilateral organization for the region, which is a "major breakthrough" for the Indian diplomacy. More importantly, the United States of America and Australia, the two important members of the region's largest economic cooperation organization -- the APEC-- have extended the invitation to India. At the same time, India has been applying to join the SCO, another important multilateral mechanism of the Asia-Pacific region and has been strongly supported by Russia, a key member of the organization. All these show that India’s activities in the Asia-Pacific multilateral arena have won more international attention and recognition, and India has become an indispensable factor of the Asia-Pacific region.

Finally, through its participation in the Asia-Pacific multilateral mechanisms, India has brought about challenges to China’s peripheral strategy. Through the Asia-Pacific multilateral mechanisms, India has been expanding its influence eastward to Southeast Asia, East Asia and the western Pacific, and northwestward to Central Asia. Strategically, Central Asia is not only China's important energy supply, but is also related to the security in western China; Southeast Asia is China's strategic hinterland and its important channel to the Indian Ocean; East Asia is not only related to China's economic prosperity, but also its important channel to the Pacific. To some extent, India’s efforts from Central Asia across Southeast Asia to reach west coast of the Pacific Ocean form some kind of strategic restraints for China. The underlying reasons are:

First of all, India for a long time takes China as its strategic counterpart. In addition to the 1960s Sino-Indian border conflict, more importantly, China’s rise and influence in the Asia-Pacific and the world are far greater than that of India, so India feels uneasy about it. At the same time, the Indian leadership views that India and China are competing for the regional leadership in Asia. Then, China's rapid economic development, and the upgrading modernization of the military forces and political influence have stimulated neighboring countries to appeal for external forces to balance China. The gradual rise of India in the Asia Pacific has the strength to play the role. This also coincides with India established strategic objectives. Thirdly, India purposely takes advantage of the concerns of a rising China

The strategic goal of the United States in the Asia-Pacific region is to prevent emergence of a regional hegemony, and the strategic goal of Japan in the Asia-Pacific is to fight for the discourse, while the rising influence of China in the Asia-Pacific region is undoubtedly viewed as their strategic challenges. Therefore, the United States, Japan and India share consensus in responding to China. However, it is true that India will not directly counter and confront China in the Asia-Pacific region, but will restrain China by means of bilateral diplomacy, great power diplomacy and multi-lateral mechanism. So, a correct understanding of the role of India in the Asia-Pacific multilateral mechanisms will help smooth the development and implementation of China's peripheral diplomacy.

1．Government of India, Ministry of Commerce＆Industry Department of Commerce，Export &Import Data Bank(ASEAN)，http：／／commerce． nie．in／eidb／default．asp．

2. Arabinda Acharay, “India and Southeast Asia in the Age of Terror. Building Partnerships for Peace”, in Contemporary Southeast Asia, Vol. 28, No. 2, 2006, pp.310-311.

3. G. Sachadeva, “India’s Attitude towards China’s Growing Influence in Central Asia,” The China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly, Vol. 4, No. 3, 2006, pp.23-24.

4. H. Sud, “India Looks to Central Asia for Energy.” UPIAsia. Com, June 17, 2008, http://www.upiasia.com/Economics/2008/06/17/india-_looks_ to_ central_ asia_ for_ energy/5733/.

5. Stephen Philip Cohen, “India：Emerging Power”, Brookings Institution Press, 2001, p.69．

6. Atal Behari Vajpayee, “India’s Future：Building An Indian Century”，India Today, March 16, 2004．

7. “100 Million More Indians Now Living in Poverty”, Reuters， April 18, 2010．

8. Dominic Wilson etc., “Goldman Sachs Dreaming with BRICS：The Path to 2050”，cited in Mark P Thirlwell，“India:The Next Economic Giant”，Canberra, Lowy Institute for International Policy，2004, p.3.