Moving Into The Vortex Moving Into The Vortex

KhinKhin ZawZaw WinWinTampadipaTampadipa InstituteInstituteYangon, MyanmarYangon, Myanmar

Deepening ASEAN-India Strategic Partnership

2ND Round Table of

ASEAN-India Network of Think-Tanks (AINTT)

Vientiane

10 September 2013

Global Growth CentersGlobal Growth Centers

Connectivity and Axis of Partnerships

Future direction of relations between China and India, continental-sized states that together account for more than a third of humanity and, in coming years, an even greater fraction of world economic output.

Like the US–China equation, China–India interactions uneasily combine the competitive dynamics of power politics with the cooperative impulses of growing economic engagement. Leaders in Beijing and New Delhi make a point of touting their potential for joining economic forces while downplaying notions of incipient strategic rivalry.

Others, in contrast, believe that the countries are already embarked on a struggle for economic leadership of the dawning Asian Century – what New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof calls “the great race of the 21st century” and what The Economist dubs the “Contest of the Century

In 2010, China became India’s largest trading partner, with two-way trade amounting to some $60 billion, and the conferees reiterated plans to elevate trade flows to the $100-billion mark by 2015. Indeed, according to some estimates, Beijing and NewDelhi could well form the world’s largest trading combination by 2030.

If anything, the economic and strategic stakes today are even larger. In much of the 20th century, whoever dominated Europe, with its economic and industrial base, could aspire to global pre-eminence. Britain and America fought two world wars and then a Cold War to prevent Germany and then the Soviet Union to achieve such a position. In the 21st century, although global power will be more diffused, whoever dominates Asia could still aspire to be globally pre-eminent. As Ron Huisken has argued, the US has repeatedly signalled to China its determination to play an important role in the Western Pacific and that if, neces­sary, due to financial constraints, it would be content to be a Pacific power rather than be a global power.

More cooperative US-China relations would be positive for Southeast Asia and ASEAN as they mitigate strategic tensions and enable the smaller countries to avoid having to choose between the two powers. However, a US-China duopoly or a classical European-style concert of powers which includes the major powers (say US, China, Japan and India) will be resisted unless perhaps it is modified to suit East Asian realities, for example by using an ASEAN-centred forum like the East Asia Summit to consult and inform.

Pivoting Asia, Engaging China—American Strategy in East Asia Today By Daljit Singh

A strategic partnership connotes that issues of concern to one or more partners cannot be side-stepped.

India has a less-burdensome past than the other ‘external powers’, and the possibility exists that it can play a more positive role.The India-ASEAN strategic partnership shall proceed with caution, but it will proceed all the same.