One eye on China, India opens up to Japan, Korea

[Isaq Khan]

One eye on China, India opens up to Japan, Korea

As it grapples with the growing influence of China, India is learning to reinvent its friendships with Japan and South Korea and position itself as a democratic counterpoise in the wider south-east Asian community.

But even as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh plans to visit Tokyo for his annual summit from October 25-27 — as part of a journey to Hanoi and Kuala Lumpur — and hopes to sign a landmark civil nuclear pact with his counterpart,

Naoto Kan, Japanese resentment against India’s nuclear ambitions continues to simmer.

It has now come to light that India’s ambassador to Japan, H K Singh, did not attend the anti-nuclear ceremonies at Hiroshima and Nagasaki this year, despite the fact that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon flew in from New York to attend. The ambassadors of the US, Britain and France, all victors in the Second World War, were present.

Along with Singh, conspicuous by his absence at the ceremonies was China’s ambassador to Japan.

Considering India refused to retaliate when Japan cancelled its annual $1-billion Official Development Assistance when New Delhi went nuclear in 1998, instead saying it understood Tokyo’s actions as the “only country in the world to have been the victim of a nuclear bomb,” its current insensitivity towards the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki seem particularly out of place.

This also comes at a time when New Delhi’s stakes in Tokyo are rising exponentially every year. Besides the civil nuclear pact, both sides hope to finally sign an Economic Partnership Agreement, for which Commerce Secretary Rahul Khullar will undertake final discussions during his visit to Japan from September 7-9.

As it seeks to counter a rising China, India hopes to cement a sluggish friendship with Seoul, and is sending Defence Minister A K Antony to South Korea on September 1. This will be the first-ever visit by an Indian defence minister to that country and he is expected to sign a wide-ranging memorandum of understanding on defence cooperation.

The PM will also travel to Seoul for the G-20 visit in November, when the grouping is expected to announce India’s enhanced stakes in global financial organisations, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

India’s keenness to expand ties with both South Korea and Japan comes at a time when China’s rising power is increasingly on Delhi’s mind. The latest incident is the diplomatic row over the Chinese denial of a visa to India’s northern army commander, B K Jamwal, in charge of Jammu and Kashmir, but officials in the Ministry of External Affairs say the issue of stapling visas on the Indian passports of the residents of J&K, as well as the refusal of a visa to an IAS officer from the Arunachal Pradesh cadre are “part of the same game-plan”.

On its part, ministry officials say, India is “diplomatically courting” the wider region. About a month ago, Foreign Secretary

Nirupama Rao took a meeting of all India’s ambassadors and high commissioners in South Asia in Yangon, the former capital of Myanmar.

Present at the meeting were also the ambassadors of China and Japan, and as planned, China’s burgeoning influence in South Asia was one of the chief topics of discussion.

The venue for the meeting — a country where India and China are competing for both economic resources, especially oil and gas, as well as political influence — is direct proof, if any was needed, that New Delhi believes that South-East Asia has become the “newest battle-ground of ideas” with its main rival, China.

Clearly, India seems to be taking several leaves out of China’s success stories in the region, but none are more important than the use of economics to pursue diplomatic intent. The India-Japan economic partnership agreement (EPA), for example, comes in the wake of a free trade agreement between India and South Korea signed this January, and is expected to push currently lowly annual trade at $10.4 billion.

Sino-Indian trade already touches $60 billion, even though the trade basket is heavily weighted in favour of raw materials, such as iron ore, from India.

The EPA has overcome a major sticking point in the manufacture and sale of pharma drugs and agreed to trade in goods — as many as 9,000 products, from steel and apparel to machinery — but it is an agreement on trade in services that remains to be resolved.

Accounting for about 55 per cent of the gross domestic product, exports from India’s services sector were valued at $93.7 billion in 2009-10.

One continuing disagreement over Indian health care workers, especially nurses, working in Japan, is an example of how social norms are hampering the conclusion of an agreement that could otherwise be beneficial to both countries: Japan continues to argue that all foreign workers must pass an exam in Japanese that is said to be exceptionally tough, even though its ageing society needs continually large investments in health care. Indonesia, the Philippines — and now India — have offered to send nurses, but the decision to hire foreign workers stems from a national unwillingness to use outside manpower.

Still, as Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada publicly concurred with External Affairs Minister S M Krishna during his recent India visit, the decision to reinvent the G-4 bid for permanent membership of an expanded Security Council could at least bring both establishments — along with Germany and Brazil — closer together.

India will likely be elected as a non-permanent member of the Security Council in 2011 from the Asia seat, but it is keen to revive the G-4 debate that was pushed into the background these last years as a result of the blooming Indo-US camaraderie over their nuclear deal.

China, of course, was a major opponent of that nuclear deal even though it fell in line at the bitter end — meanwhile, memories of Jawaharlal Nehru turning down a US invitation in 1954 to become a permanent SC member, and suggesting that India’s “brotherly neighbour” China be given the seat, are being dredged up again these days in New Delhi.

India is also hoping that when US President Barack Obama visits in November, he will openly voice his support for an Indian seat at the Security Council high table.

Meanwhile, in New Delhi recently, Okada and Krishna also agreed that India and Japan would work much more closely in Africa, so as to jointly push the continent’s 53 nations to vote in favour of the G-4 idea in the General Assembly.

No prizes for guessing which Asian nation is topmost in Africa’s consciousness these days — China.

One eye on China, India opens up to Japan, Korea

 

[huzihaidao12]

Well, I know, India, everything must involve China, you can develop own all ways, but who cares? When did you see any chinese news have a little India, in addition to and directly related to India?

 

[siegecrossbow]

One eye on China, India opens up to Japan, Korea

As it grapples with the growing influence of China, India is learning to reinvent its friendships with Japan and South Korea and position itself as a democratic counterpoise in the wider south-east Asian community.

But even as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh plans to visit Tokyo for his annual summit from October 25-27 — as part of a journey to Hanoi and Kuala Lumpur — and hopes to sign a landmark civil nuclear pact with his counterpart,

Naoto Kan, Japanese resentment against India’s nuclear ambitions continues to simmer.

It has now come to light that India’s ambassador to Japan, H K Singh, did not attend the anti-nuclear ceremonies at Hiroshima and Nagasaki this year, despite the fact that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon flew in from New York to attend. The ambassadors of the US, Britain and France, all victors in the Second World War, were present.

Along with Singh, conspicuous by his absence at the ceremonies was China’s ambassador to Japan.

Considering India refused to retaliate when Japan cancelled its annual $1-billion Official Development Assistance when New Delhi went nuclear in 1998, instead saying it understood Tokyo’s actions as the “only country in the world to have been the victim of a nuclear bomb,” its current insensitivity towards the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki seem particularly out of place.

This also comes at a time when New Delhi’s stakes in Tokyo are rising exponentially every year. Besides the civil nuclear pact, both sides hope to finally sign an Economic Partnership Agreement, for which Commerce Secretary Rahul Khullar will undertake final discussions during his visit to Japan from September 7-9.

As it seeks to counter a rising China, India hopes to cement a sluggish friendship with Seoul, and is sending Defence Minister A K Antony to South Korea on September 1. This will be the first-ever visit by an Indian defence minister to that country and he is expected to sign a wide-ranging memorandum of understanding on defence cooperation.

The PM will also travel to Seoul for the G-20 visit in November, when the grouping is expected to announce India’s enhanced stakes in global financial organisations, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

India’s keenness to expand ties with both South Korea and Japan comes at a time when China’s rising power is increasingly on Delhi’s mind. The latest incident is the diplomatic row over the Chinese denial of a visa to India’s northern army commander, B K Jamwal, in charge of Jammu and Kashmir, but officials in the Ministry of External Affairs say the issue of stapling visas on the Indian passports of the residents of J&K, as well as the refusal of a visa to an IAS officer from the Arunachal Pradesh cadre are “part of the same game-plan”.

On its part, ministry officials say, India is “diplomatically courting” the wider region. About a month ago, Foreign Secretary

Nirupama Rao took a meeting of all India’s ambassadors and high commissioners in South Asia in Yangon, the former capital of Myanmar.

Present at the meeting were also the ambassadors of China and Japan, and as planned, China’s burgeoning influence in South Asia was one of the chief topics of discussion.

The venue for the meeting — a country where India and China are competing for both economic resources, especially oil and gas, as well as political influence — is direct proof, if any was needed, that New Delhi believes that South-East Asia has become the “newest battle-ground of ideas” with its main rival, China.

Clearly, India seems to be taking several leaves out of China’s success stories in the region, but none are more important than the use of economics to pursue diplomatic intent. The India-Japan economic partnership agreement (EPA), for example, comes in the wake of a free trade agreement between India and South Korea signed this January, and is expected to push currently lowly annual trade at $10.4 billion.

Sino-Indian trade already touches $60 billion, even though the trade basket is heavily weighted in favour of raw materials, such as iron ore, from India.

The EPA has overcome a major sticking point in the manufacture and sale of pharma drugs and agreed to trade in goods — as many as 9,000 products, from steel and apparel to machinery — but it is an agreement on trade in services that remains to be resolved.

Accounting for about 55 per cent of the gross domestic product, exports from India’s services sector were valued at $93.7 billion in 2009-10.

One continuing disagreement over Indian health care workers, especially nurses, working in Japan, is an example of how social norms are hampering the conclusion of an agreement that could otherwise be beneficial to both countries: Japan continues to argue that all foreign workers must pass an exam in Japanese that is said to be exceptionally tough, even though its ageing society needs continually large investments in health care. Indonesia, the Philippines — and now India — have offered to send nurses, but the decision to hire foreign workers stems from a national unwillingness to use outside manpower.

Still, as Japanese Foreign Minister Katsuya Okada publicly concurred with External Affairs Minister S M Krishna during his recent India visit, the decision to reinvent the G-4 bid for permanent membership of an expanded Security Council could at least bring both establishments — along with Germany and Brazil — closer together.

India will likely be elected as a non-permanent member of the Security Council in 2011 from the Asia seat, but it is keen to revive the G-4 debate that was pushed into the background these last years as a result of the blooming Indo-US camaraderie over their nuclear deal.

China, of course, was a major opponent of that nuclear deal even though it fell in line at the bitter end — meanwhile, memories of Jawaharlal Nehru turning down a US invitation in 1954 to become a permanent SC member, and suggesting that India’s “brotherly neighbour” China be given the seat, are being dredged up again these days in New Delhi.

India is also hoping that when US President Barack Obama visits in November, he will openly voice his support for an Indian seat at the Security Council high table.

Meanwhile, in New Delhi recently, Okada and Krishna also agreed that India and Japan would work much more closely in Africa, so as to jointly push the continent’s 53 nations to vote in favour of the G-4 idea in the General Assembly.

No prizes for guessing which Asian nation is topmost in Africa’s consciousness these days — China.

One eye on China, India opens up to Japan, Korea

Try not to post in multiple colors next time, it hurts my eyes. Besides everyone here knows what parts you want to emphasis even if you don't bold/underline them.

 

[CardSharp]

This is Justin Joseph Déjà vu all over again.

China, of course, was a major opponent of that nuclear deal even though it fell in line at the bitter end — meanwhile, memories of Jawaharlal Nehru turning down a US invitation in 1954 to become a permanent SC member, and suggesting that India’s “brotherly neighbour” China be given the seat, are being dredged up again these days in New Delhi

WOW talk about journalistic integrity. This has already been proven to be complete BS. India was never ever offered a SC seat.

 

[CardSharp]

The more I read threads like this by Indian Journalists, the more I think Peter Foster was right in his gloomy prediction about China and India

There is a very thorough overview of the fractious China-India relationship in this week’s Economist which describes the face off between the two Asian giants as the “Contest of the Century”.

This might sound a rather hyperbolic title, but when you consider the fact these nations account for roughly a third of the world’s population and an ever-growing portion of global economic heft, the relationship between these two nations is at least as crucial as the US-China relationship that currently fills the spotlight.

As the Economist contends – and correctly, I think – “How China and India manage their own relationship will determine whether similar mistakes to those that scarred the 20th century [will] disfigure this one.”

And yet, viewed from this side of Himalaya, it is extraordinary (to a former India correspondent, at least,) how little importance China attaches to India – in terms of column inches, in academic forums in the basic headspace set aside to consider the relationship. India is the Elephant in the Chinese room, except that you often wonder if China even knows it.

In India, by contrast, China features heavily in the media, looming massively over the endless conferences and academic talking shops set up to discuss, in rather navel-gazing fashion, who’s going to win the race to the top of the Asian superpower stakes.

India, with its favourable demographic and rising household savings rate, likes to fancy itself as the tortoise in a race that at present is being lead by the Chinese hare. Perhaps it is unfair to say so, but India is so far behind it doesn’t have much option but to hope that China’s rise will sink under the weight of its own internal contradictions.

The contrasting attitudes of each to the other reflect on the one hand Indian insecurity and on the other, Chinese insularity. This is a dangerous mix.

Indo-Chinese trade is growing, but as the Economist points out, it is a lop-sided, subservient relationship (Indian iron ore for Chinese finished goods) that deepens Indian fears of Chinese encirclement, as they are outflanked again and again in their own neigbourhood by China – in Burma, in Sri Lanka, In Pakistan.

At the same time, like an irritating little brother, China basically ignores India or treats it with ill-concealed contempt, both at a diplomatic level, but also on the street where attitudes to India are openly dismissive – a dirty, smelly, chaotic Third World kind of place in the view of many Chinese.

(As an aside, it will be interesting to see if the Chinese media and blogosphere can even be bothered to scorn India’s feeble efforts at organizing the Commonwealth Games, a badly handled second-tier event that – when compared to China’s stunningly accomplished Olympics of 2008 – tells you all you need to know about the gap between the two nations.)

In any event, the current state, or rather non-state of the relationship must be a source of serious concern.

If the US-China relationship is often described like a bad marriage, then the China-India relationship is like that of two very different brothers, who need to get on but at deep, deep level (far deeper than the territorial disputes that the Economists dwells upon far too heavily) are perhaps just incompatible.

The negative personal chemistry – Chinese insularity and Indian insecurity – is no platform for resolve the crunches that surely lie ahead – over water (Chinese dams on the Brahmaputra), over oil and natural resources (both nations have limited supplies and compete the world over to secure others) and in the Asian arms race that is now firmly underway

 

[EjazR]

@CardSharp

It is mainly China to blame for your gloomy predictions.

India unilaterally offerred two major concessions by recognisisng Taiwan and Tibet as part of China. It also allows a $60B in trade heavily in favor of China.

In return China all China need to do was stop needling India. But sadly someone in China is not happy with good India-China relations.

 

[CardSharp]

India unilaterally offerred two major concessions by recognisisng Taiwan and Tibet as part of China. It also allows a $60B in trade heavily in favor of China.

These are not concessions. The entire world recognizes one China and Tibet as part of China and trade is in favour of China not because it's some generosity on India's part, it is only because India hasn't anything that China needs in terms of trade other than natural resources.

This is complete fallacious thinking. I've seen this a couple of times now, where Indian members pretend India does everything out of the kindness of its heart.





India like any other country on God's green earth acts out of self-interest and any concessions it makes comes out of diplomacy, not some sense of self-delusional moral superiority.

 

[huzihaidao12]

@CardSharp

It is mainly China to blame for your gloomy predictions.

India unilaterally offerred two major concessions by recognisisng Taiwan and Tibet as part of China. It also allows a $60B in trade heavily in favor of China.

In return China all China need to do was stop needling India. But sadly someone in China is not happy with good India-China relations.

In addition to shaking head, I can not say anything.

 

[CardSharp]

This is the victim mentality of some Indian members here I cannot stand. Please for the good your own nation, drop this mentality which says "we are such well-intentioned babes in the woods, if only the mean old world would treat us better"

You have to fight for your own in this world, nothing is handed to you on a plate. I'd be ashamed of this kind of weak behaviour if I were a Indian nationalist.

 

[huzihaidao12]

These are not concessions. The entire world recognizes one China and Tibet as part of China and trade is in favour of China not because it's some generosity on India's part, it is only because India hasn't anything that China needs in terms of trade other than natural resources.

This is complete fallacious thinking. I've seen this a couple of times now, where Indian members pretend India does everything out of the kindness of its heart.





India like any other country on God's green earth acts out of self-interest and any concessions it makes comes out of diplomacy, not some sense of self-delusional moral superiority.

In fact, Tibet corresponds to Sikkim, we also recognize the people of Sikkim, and even more clearly.

 

[somebozo]

India has a Pak-China fetish..not healthy if you want to grow as people will get sick of your ranting against the two alll the time!

 

[CardSharp]

I am really not trying to slam India. A strong and healthy India is good for Chinese trade but I just see this obsession and poor us thing way too often.

 

[Desi Sher]

India has a Pak-China fetish..not healthy if you want to grow as people will get sick of your ranting against the two alll the time!

Ok Then We will Tolerate You atrocities Instead and destabilize Ourselves..... Sounds a Good Idea Isnt it???

 

[EjazR]

These are not concessions. The entire world recognizes one China and Tibet as part of China and trade is in favour of China not because it's some generosity on India's part, it is only because India hasn't anything that China needs in terms of trade other than natural resources.

This is complete fallacious thinking. I've seen this a couple of times now, where Indian members pretend India does everything out of the kindness of its heart.





India like any other country on God's green earth acts out of self-interest and any concessions it makes comes out of diplomacy, not some sense of self-delusional moral superiority.

It is a major concession considering that Dalai Lama is based in India. Same thing with Taiwan. I'm surprised that China can't see that.

Let me put it this way, what has China done to improve its relationship with India and adressing its core concerns?

I never said India did this out of kindness, but it does deserve reciprocity.

Do you think China is "helping" Pakistan because they love Pakistan?

Just like US used Pakistan for its own interests so is China. Nothing wrong with it, unfortunately Pakistani people --talented thought they are-- suffer from weak and shortdighted leadership and that makes them vulnerable to being used by anyone.

 

[EjazR]

I am really not trying to slam India. A strong and healthy India is good for Chinese trade but I just see this obsession and poor us thing way too often.

You probably don't know this but among the Indian people there enormous good will for China or atleast has been historically. Unlike Pakistan were the leftists movements were all killed off systematically, India has a strong leftist movement that is Pro-China and who were even part of the ruling coalition government in the previous regime.

With needless tactics like stapling visas and non-issue of visas,China is just shooting itself in the foot rather than capitalising on the good will it could have generated with them.

Nothing about "poor us" but just some awareness about the issue.