The Hindu : Commercial diplomacy: A slow boat?

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Mar 25, 2002

Opinion

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Commercial diplomacy: A slow boat?

By C. Raja Mohan

NEW DELHI, March 24. After cancelling his visit to the Commonwealth Summit earlier this month, thanks to Gujarat and Ayodhya, the Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, resumes his travels abroad. He heads to Singapore in the first half of April. The long-pending idea of a bilateral free trade treaty with Singapore is said to be among the key issues on Mr. Vajpayee's agenda. But the real substance in that initiative, which might be endorsed by the two Prime Ministers, will of course depend on the good will of the Commerce Ministry that has emerged as the key obstacle to putting India's trade diplomacy on a fast track. When the Singapore Prime Minister, Goh Chok Tong, came here, the Government promised him that the Free Trade Treaty should be in place within two months. That was two years ago!

But the Commerce Ministry might look like a speed boat, when we consider the fact that direct air links between New Delhi and Beijing are being unveiled this week. That is more than 50 years after the world's two largest nations and neighbours established diplomatic relations! Now instead of spending nearly a day to reach Beijing via Hong Kong or Bangkok, you could get there in six hours flat.

The External Affairs Minister, Jaswant Singh, will be on the inaugural flight that takes off on Thursday. This is his first visit to China after Mr. Singh travelled there in June 1999 at the height of the Kargil crisis with Pakistan. After meeting top leaders in China, Mr. Singh moves on to engage two key nations in the region, South Korea and Myanmar.

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What's wrong with the Europeans? Have they forgotten to think strategically? European diplomats never cease to complain that India pays too much attention to the U.S. and ignores the European Union. But as a collective, the EU seems so out of depth when it comes to issues of core concern to India. A few days ago, Spanish Ambassador handed over, on behalf of the EU, a demarche demanding that India sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

CTBT? The very mention of this abbreviation was once enough to whip up a political frenzy in New Delhi; but it has fallen off the Indian diplomatic

agenda a long while ago. The Americans, who spent much of the 1990s pressing India to negotiate and sign the CTBT, gave up after the U.S. Senate rejected in 1999 and the Bush Administration has posted obituary notices for the Treaty in early 2001.

The EU takes a long time getting it, or forgetting it. It is just about a decade behind the U.S. on how to deal with non-proliferation.

Meanwhile, the nuclear discourse between New Delhi and Washington has moved on to a different set of issues such as missile defence and counter-

proliferation. The Indian Government, of course, treats the EU demarche with all the political contempt that it deserves. And the smart and big players in the EU dissociate themselves, privately, from the collective demarche which they explain as a bureaucratic move from Brussels.

* * *

India's strategic profile in Eastern Asia keeps rising. Following the American War on terrorism after September 11, India agreed that its Navy will cooperate with the U.S. forces in patrolling of the Malacca Straits.

Now the U.S. might have plans to invite India to send observers to a multinational military exercise in the Philippines, called the ``Team

Challenge''. Other key states from East and South East Asia are also expected to participate. This could be the beginning of a more visible Indian presence in the unfolding security architecture of the Western Pacific region.

* * *

Zahir Shah, former king of Afghanistan exiled in Rome, has postponed his much anticipated return to his homeland. The ex-King, who was ousted in 1973, was all set to arrive in Kabul this Tuesday. The formal reasons being cited by his Italian hosts for the delay focus on inadequate arrangements for his security in Afghanistan. But the head of the interim government in Kabul, Hamid Karzai, has been quoted as saying, ``there is no problem with security; we were ready to go and collect the King''.

The conditions in Afghanistan look murkier by the day. The continuing military challenge from the Al-Qaeda and the Taliban has pointed to the many sources of instability in the country. Others include the return of war-lordism and the deep political divisions within the interim set-up.

And Zahir Shah himself was quoted as saying a few days ago that the U.S. was being stupid in continuing its war in Afghanistan. The aides of the ageing ex-King, who will owe everything to the U.S. when he does return to Kabul, downplayed the significance of the remarks which apparently were not meant for the press but were part of a general conversation.

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