Indo-ASEAN ties have entered 25 years of dialogue

The Indo-ASEAN ties have recently entered 25 years of dialogue. As we look back to our shared heritage and our socio-cultural affinities the inherent oneness becomes readily visible. The binding force between ASEAN and India is of cultural oneness as Rama remains a hero in popular Indian culture, so thus Rama remains an Icon in most of the ASEAN countries. From Kakawin Ramayana of Indonesia to Ramakein in Thailand and to the Burmese version of Ramayana known as Yama Zatdaw to Angkor Wat in Cambodia depicting the Battle of Lanka, India and ASEAN nations remain culturally cohesive. Even the old capital of Thailand established in 1347 was named Ayutthaya after Rama's Birthplace Ayodhya and still stands out as a perfect example of shared cultures that evolved within a time span of thousands of years with very little or almost nil military conquests. Hence the affinity that ASEAN nations share with India is beyond any treaties or pacts. Although in the initial years of ASEAN's formation southeast Asian nations remained reluctant of proceeding with concrete ties with India owing to the latter’s decision of Not siding with either the Capitalists nor Communists block and also later signing of the Indo-soviet treaty in 1971, but with some serious efforts undertaken by senior Indian ministers with regular visits to ASEAN nations broke the ice and paved the rather stagnant ties into an era of dynamic partnerships. Chartering of the Look East policy in 1991 India opened up new avenues for mutual co-operation breaking the logjam and by the end of 1995, India became a full ASEAN dialogue partner followed by India being made a member at the ASEAN led ARF (ASEAN REGIONAL FORUM ).Elevation of India into a summit partner in 2002, signing of the comprehensive economic cooperation Agreement (CECA) in 2003 and establishment of the ASEAN-INDIA economic linkages task force(AIELTF) were few other important undertakings that boosted multilateral cooperation between the two emerging global powers. The importance of INDO-ASEAN ties can be made out from the fact that ASEAN-INDIA represents around one-third of the world’s population and also jointly stands as the third-biggest economy. In 2014 with the appointment of a designated ambassador to ASEAN Secretariat India’s ability of decision making and establishing its interests in the region got a significant boost and India established itself as the fourth largest trading partner of ASEAN in 2015.

 

CHALLENGES: 

While the Indo-ASEAN trade value stands at $76 billion, the China-ASEAN trade stands at a staggering $452 billion which is almost six times that of India. Chinese investment in ASEAN reached around $3 billion while the Indian Investments remain marginalized in comparison at around $ 224 million for the same period of 2015-16. To overcome this Gap, India under the leadership of Narendra Modi had announced a credit Line Facility of $ 1 Billion to ASEAN countries under the newly structured Act East Policy. The announcements were made during the lastly held India-ASEAN summit 2015 organized in Malaysia with a view to decrease the dependency of ASEAN countries on China and to bolster connectivity in ASEAN nations ushering them into a new era of Globalization. But this ambitious Undertaking under Act East Policy hadn’t received any takers even after three years of its announcement as ASEAN countries have raised their reservations on the terms for availing this credit facility and lastly it also remains unattractive as the issues of technology transfer are not addressed properly in comparison to China that offers a more attractive deal with a guarantee of modern technology transfer. If the words of a former Indian diplomat were to be heeded, the $ 1 Billion credit line announced by India towards improving both physical and digital connectivity in the region hadn’t received many takers as neither of the prospective countries had the technical capacity to draft a Detailed project report nor is the EXIM bank of India responsible for releasing the funds had been successful in chunking out all the technicalities necessary for smoother execution of the process. As per procedures defined, the EXIM bank requires having an empanelled telecom consultant in its committee to prepare a detailed project report for projects requested by foreign nations. So far, it only had Infrastructure consultants on the panels as it had mostly dealt with projects of an infrastructural kind. The department of Telecom (DOT) and Telecom equipment’s and services export promotion council (TEPC) the lead agencies from the Indian side are now working closely with EXIM bank officials to finalize the appointment of a telecom consultant. As a significant boost to the credit line facility, Indian Government in January 2018 announced another grant in aid of $40 million for pilot projects in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam or the CLMV countries, the aim of this grant was to kick-start the credit line Facility. A major challenge in progressing with a project within the vicinity of the credit line is issuance of a Sovereign Guarantee that the prospecting country has to offer, but as the telecom sector in the ASEAN countries are predominantly in the hands of private sector no government is willing to provide a Sovereign Guarantee for a loan given by India to a private party. Even Laos though being very forthcoming has also communicated that at best it could issues a letter of comfort as the proposal forwarded by Laos is still under consideration by New Delhi. Experts have stated that while the cumbersome and bureaucratic ways of EXIM bank in India had made the Credit line unattractive, so have the lengthy and cumbersome foreign investment policies in these countries made its implementation sluggish. In a another significant move to enhance the communication and navigation capabilities of ASEAN countries, India had offered access to its Indigenous satellite navigation system GAGAN or GPS aided Geo Augmented Navigation in 2015 , but response of ASEAN countries so far hadn’t been very encouraging in comparison to the enthusiasm that India had showered on its ASEAN Allies.