With the dust uneasily settling down
following the stunning verdict on the South China Sea (SCS) arbitration,
questions are being asked about what New Delhi’s stakes are in the
outcome.
The SCS issue does not impact directly on India’s security. However,
it is an important waterway for Indian trade and commerce with
South-East Asia, Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and China. New Delhi has
routinely signalled its world order concerns by strongly urging the
importance of safeguarding the freedom of navigation of the seas, the
right of overflight and the importance of peaceful settlement of
disputes within the ambit of international law — read United Nations
Convention on the Law of the Seas (UNCLOS). These have come out in
several joint statements with countries like Vietnam, Japan and the US.
New Delhi’s position has been further burnished by the fact that it has
accepted a negative ruling by an UNCLOS tribunal relating to its
maritime boundary with Bangladesh.
India’s stand has been sufficiently
ambiguous for China to declare on the eve of the Tribunal verdict that
New Delhi was supporting its case when it agreed during the
Russia-India-China trilateral meeting in April 2016 that even while the
UNCLOS formed the basis of the legal order of the seas, “all related
disputes should be addressed through negotiations and agreements between
the parties concerned.” This was with reference to the 2002 Declaration
on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (DOC), which the
Chinese claim had committed the Philippines to direct negotiations,
instead of which it went in for arbitration.
Yet, India’s position is more nuanced. Over the years it has built up
an important relationship with Vietnam, both because of an identity of
interests, as well as a kind of pay-off for the Chinese activities in
South Asia. Since 1988, India has been involved in oil exploration in
the seas off Vietnam and has developed a low key, but important, defence
relationship that is mainly focused on capacity building, training and
maintenance of equipment. Indian war ships routinely visit Vietnamese
ports and conduct exercises with their counterparts. India has also
offered Vietnam a $100-million loan to purchase Indian-made defence
equipment.
The Indian Navy had a brush with the South China Sea issue when, in
2011, its warship INS Airavat was warned over the radio to stay off
‘Chinese waters’ by a voice claiming to speak for the Chinese Navy, just
45 nm from Vietnamese coast. No vessel was actually visible and the
Indian ship continued on its path unhindered.
ONGC Videsh has several deals for exploring blocks in the Phu Khanh,
Nam Con and Lan Tay basins. In September 2014, India and Vietnam agreed
to expand their cooperation in oil and gas exploration, overriding
objections by China. The Indian view was that they had been exploring
some of the blocks well before the Chinese decided to place them on
their list of blocks for bidding.
Since 2013, India has made its concerns over the issue of freedom of
navigation explicit through Joint Statements in summits with Japan,
Vietnam and the United States. The India-Japan Joint Statement of 2013
first spoke of the commitment of the two to the freedom of navigation
and unimpeded commerce “based on the principles of international law,
including the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).”
The Modi government went a step further in 2014, when, in an Indo-US
Joint Statement during the Prime Minister’s visit to Washington, it was
noted that the two sides “expressed concern about rising tensions over
maritime territorial disputes” and affirmed the importance of “ensuring
freedom of navigation and over flight throughout the region, especially
in the South China Sea.” This formulation, adding the South China Sea,
was repeated during President Obama’s January 2015 visit, but has since
been dropped.
Countries of the ASEAN have privately expressed their desire for
India to play a greater (read balancing) role vis-à-vis China in the
region. But just how India should do so is not clear. ASEAN itself is a
house divided and, in any case, its constituent nations have much more
important economic ties with China than with India. They are therefore
cautious in their outreach to India and their policy is often one of
hedging, rather than seeking any deeper relationship with us.
But, as part of its ‘Act East’ policy, India needs to boost economic
ties with the region and can do so it if it can participate in the
global production chain into which ASEAN countries are deeply enmeshed
and which are controlled by companies in the US, EU, Japan, Taiwan and
South Korea. At the same time, India needs to build up strategic
networks that do not quite have the status of alliance, with a host of
countries like Vietnam, Singapore, Australia, Japan and the US with a
view of advancing our political interests in checking overbearing
Chinese behaviour, and shoring up our world order concerns relating to
the freedom of navigation and overflight.
Mid-Day August 2, 2016
Saturday, September 10, 2016
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment