Look East India

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World leaders at the East Asia Summit in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

In year 2012, in almost every national capital around the world heads of government have all been pre-occupied with domestic economic and political challenges. Few have had any time for foreign affairs!

From President Barack Obama to President Vladimir Putin, from Chancellor Angela Merkel to President Hu Jintao, from President Dilmah Rousseff to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, few heads of government (HoG) have had either the time or the political space to take any major diplomatic initiative overseas. Europe's leaders have done a lot of travelling in 2012 but mostly to each other’s capitals in search of a way out of their impasse. 2012 has been a year of domestication for the world's globe-trotting leaders.
In an increasingly multi-polar world HoGs have many regional and plurilateral gatherings to attend and these keep many of them busy, even if most such meetings have produced nothing more than speeches and photos. India’s Prime Minister has had to attend only the summit meetings of the Group of 20 (G20) and the Association of South-east Asian Nations (Asean), but others have had a plethora of such meetings to go to. India itself hosted summit meetings with the European Union (EU) and Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) group.
But it is an indicator of how serious the domestic economic, social and political challenges are that no major world leader has been able to take a major foreign policy initiative anywhere. The worst impacted region, as a consequence, has been the Levant where the crisis in Syria has dragged on through 2012 with no major power willing to dip its toes in these troubled waters. India's membership of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) during this period has willy-nilly drawn India into handling this hot potato, but India has increasingly moved to the margins and has, wisely, kept its powder dry. Syria is too complicated for India to be able to offer leadership or find a solution.
Closer home Prime Minister Singh made two significant forays to the East, to Bangladesh and Burma, underscoring the importance of the eastern flanks of the Indian sub-continent for India's rising profile in Asia to its east. But how vital domestic politics have become for foreign policy came through clearly in Dhaka when Prime Minister Singh's major diplomatic initiative towards Bangladesh, seeking to settle border and other issues, was stymied by the irrepressible MsMamata Banerjee of Bengal.
When Prime Minister Singh’s term in office is evaluated by historians they may well come to regard his diplomacy with Asia, especially East and South-east Asia, as having been of much greater consequence than any other foreign policy initiative he has undertaken. Even the India-United States relationship will be judged by what it has meant for India’s relations with Asia. Therefore, it is just as well that 2012 ended with a major India-Asean commemorative summit in Delhi that marked two decades of renewed economic engagement between India and a region that for a long time was referred to as Indochina!
India's foreign policy has, in recent years, been increasingly shaped by her economic needs and interests. As these needs and interests have changed, so too have her priorities in foreign affairs. Thus, apart from her engagement with East and South-east Asia, even her engagement with West Asia has been shaped more by her economic and energy security needs than any other objective. defence minister A.K. Antony’s quiet visit to Saudi Arabia acquired foreign policy salience as the two nations ended up signing a defence cooperation treaty that has raised India-Saudi Arabia relations to a new level. Indeed, the entire Gulf region has become critical to India's energy and maritime security and this has hastened the pace of diplomatic engagement with the region.
Which is at least one more reason why so many eyebrows were raised when a newly assertive Maldives, now swept by radical Islamist influence, chose to cock a snook at India by serving marching orders on a major Indian business group, the GMR Group. This incident has brought to the fore the importance of more deft and subtle diplomacy in countries that have an economic or a national security importance for India.
No review of foreign policy will be viewed as complete without a reference to Pakistan. Despite the buffoonery and bad odour of Pakistan minister Rehman Malik’s year-end visit to India, the big news was of course the new trade and visa agreement between the two neighbours. But the shadow of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan looms large over the region and India-Pakistan relations will face their real test if and when the Americans finally withdraw.
As the year comes to an end, an old friend has come calling. Russia's Prime Minister Vladimir Putin. But he too is preoccupied with problems at home and has come calling only because he has to!