Opinion - News Analysis

India as a rising global player

P.S. Suryanarayana

Interest in India was evident at the recent Asia Security Conference in Singapore.

POLITICALLY RESONANT across East Asia is the idea that India, not just China, is a potential global player in almost all spheres.

China is widely reckoned to be way ahead of India in the economic domain and in some aspects of space exploration. However, the perceived strengths of India, including its democracy that the West calls a non-threatening attribute, are often assessed, without any itemised comparison with those of China. Unsurprisingly, therefore, a major theme during the Asia Security Summit, organised in Singapore by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in early June, was "India: A rising global player."

Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee projected India as "a core state" whose role would be "crucial for ... long-term peace, stable balance of power, economic growth, and security in Asia." Indicating India's readiness to meet the "security deficit" which marked today's international scene, he argued that New Delhi's emphasis on its "defence preparedness" was not detrimental to its pressing development agenda.

He also outlined the basic principles of India's foreign policy and defence diplomacy: no territorial ambitions and no export of ideologies including democracy. India's current movement towards "a strategic partnership" with the United States, as exemplified by last year's framework agreement on defence cooperation, was traced as a new dynamic within this political framework.

Significant, in this context, is the response by U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to a question from this correspondent on the sidelines of the summit. Asked whether the U.S. was now seeing India as just a dialogue partner, a potential ally or simply a friend in the military domain, Mr. Rumsfeld, who had just completed a round of talks with Mr. Mukherjee, would have none of these diplomatic "code words."

He said: "We certainly expect to see that our areas of common interest will continue to bring us together, from a military-to-military standpoint, in the months and years to come."

As political spin, this formulation reflected the unresolved nature of the future course of U.S.-India defence cooperation. However, Mr. Mukherjee amplified, outside the summit, that neither the Chinese leaders, who he met in Beijing before the Singapore conference, nor the Pentagon chief raised the possibility of India emerging as a factor in the U.S.-China equations now or in the future.

Moreover, Mr. Mukherjee told the summit that India and China were now engaged in a constructive dialogue and they recognised that "there is enough space for developing together, growing together, not at the expense of the other but independent of each other."

In all, reassuring to East Asian leaders was Mr. Mukherjee's presentation of India's world-view on international security issues, which covered aspects of New Delhi's varied cooperation and even differences with Washington on a controversial scheme such as the Proliferation Security Initiative. Significantly, Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, spoke for the region when he told the summit that "a complex web of economic linkages is stitching East Asia together."

Australia's perspective

Unsurprisingly, in such a situation, Australian Defence Minister Brendan Nelson said, after the conference, that "China and India are going to be significant determinants of our [Australia's] place in the region for the foreseeable future."

Such a perspective, which may impinge on the evolving equations among China as also India and the U.S. as Australia's ally, does not contradict the emerging perceptions about a growing bonhomie between Beijing and New Delhi.

What, then, are the ground realities as seen from the West, particularly the U.S. which still is the dominant player? John Chipman, IISS director-general and chief executive, believes that "the dangerous triptych of Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iran continues to dominate the defence and security agenda, as do the wider, now iconic, problems of terrorism and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction."

As for solutions to these or other security issues, Western experts see the relevance of India and China, as also Pakistan as regards terrorism and proliferation. Overall, though, the Western focus looms over the U.S.-China-India interactions.

Tim Huxley, a ranking IISS specialist, rules out, for now, any possibility of a formal security alliance involving the U.S. and India besides Australia as also Japan. However, according to him, Washington might still wish to look at these other countries for "a long-term insurance policy [of] ... hedging against ... a more powerful and assertive China."

Adam Ward, another IISS expert, also tends to discount the possibility of a formal cabal involving Washington, Canberra, New Delhi, and Tokyo.

A dynamic factor in this situation is that China has "not blocked," in the words of American specialist Robert Sutter, the ongoing "fundamental" build-up of military ties between Washington, on one side, and Tokyo and New Delhi, on different tracks on the other. Mr. Sutter traces this reality to China's current policy of seeking ascendance on the global stage through a "peace and development" strategy.

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