Asian interests and the myth of ‘balance’
The East Asian Summit process, the proposed Asian energy grid, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation are three pillars of the emerging strategic architecture in Asia. There is no need for the region to turn to outside powers in the name of “balance of power.”
13 December 2005
The Hindu
Asian interests and the myth of ‘balance’
Siddharth Varadarajan
THIS WEEK, the leaders of several Asian countries — India, China, Korea, Japan, and the ASEAN states — will meet in Malaysia for the first-ever East Asia Summit (EAS). Australia and New Zealand, which, like India, are on the periphery of East Asia, have also been invited to the summit since they are considered vital to the economic geography of the region. Many years in the making, the EAS is still something of an unknown quantity. The countries participating know the event is important, even if they are not quite sure why. The only country that is quite clear about the importance of the summit is the United States, which, rightly, sees great strategic significance in the fact that it will not be there. The U.S. has a considerable and growing military presence in the continent stretching all the way from Turkey and Iraq in the west to the Kyrgyz Republic in the north and Okinawa in the east. Its armed forces are fighting two wars on the soil of Asia. Yet, people forget the fact that the U.S. is not in Asia.
When Mahathir Mohammed of Malaysia first proposed an East Asian Economic Caucus in the 1990s, Washington strongly objected to the idea. Japan, under trade pressure from the U.S. through Super 301, initially hinted at support for the concept but quickly backed off. The proposal soon withered. There were sound economic reasons for the Malaysian proposal failing to get traction at the time: China and India were not major players and Asian countries traded more with the outside world than with each other. Nor was Dr. Mahathir’s political agenda an attractive one. The Cold War had ended, there was talk of “multipolarity” and little concern in Asia that the continent would need an organisation to restrain the exercise of American power. Into this institutional vacuum, the U.S., and Australia stepped in with APEC, a forum linking East Asia with the Americas, thereby diluting the concept of Asia.
In the intervening decade and a half, the entire strategic scenario in Asia has changed. There are three distinct elements involved. First, patterns of trade — and the nature of trading arrangements — in Asia and the world have radically altered. Despite the onset of the World Trade Organisation with its emphasis on `most favoured nation’ status, there has been an explosion in preferential trading areas (PTAs) around the world. Asia has its share of bilateral PTAs but there is nothing at the multilateral level to match what Europe, North America, and South America have done. At the same time, intra-Asian trade has risen dramatically. The trade of each Asian country with the group of `Developing Asian Countries’ increased at a much faster rate than its trade with the rest of the world during 1991-2000, notes Ramesh Chand of the National Centre for Agricultural Economics and Policy Research in a recent monograph, Free Trade in Asia (Academic Foundation, 2006). China has supplanted the U.S. as South Korea’s most important trading partner. India’s trade with the DAC went up from 11.8 per cent of its total trade in 1990 to 24 per cent by 2000 (The only major exception to this trend is China, due to the sheer volume of its trade worldwide). This neighbourhood bias in trade suggests Asia is following the same path as Europe did in the run-up to its formal integration as a trading bloc.
Secondly, the growth of China and India and the discovery of oil and gas in Central Asia have transformed the Asian energy scene since some of the largest producers and consumers of hydrocarbons are now located in the continent. However, the dynamics of the world oil and gas markets are still driven by benchmarks set by Europe and North America. The price volatility of recent months — which is more the product of speculative activity on western mercantile exchanges than a reflection of actual supply-demand mismatch — provides an incentive for major Asian producers and consumers to come together and see what can be done to ensure greater stability in the energy market.
Thirdly, a host of new threats and security challenges have arisen in the run-up to 9/11 and its aftermath that require a collective Asian approach. These include terrorism, the stationing of outside military forces in the region, the development of new weapons of mass destruction and doctrines, the notions of `regime change’ and `preventive war’, as well as issues of maritime security and disaster relief.
Each of these three underlying changes — on the trade, energy, and security fronts — poses challenges and presents opportunities that require separate institutional mechanisms. It is not a coincidence that the past year has witnessed serious efforts by several Asian countries to push in this direction.
On the security front, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation is evolving into a broad-based entity linking China, Russia, and the Central Asian countries with India, Iran, and Pakistan — which joined as observers earlier this year. There is also the Russia-India-China initiative that has involved frequent consultations on strategic issues. At its last summit, the SCO called on the U.S.-led coalition forces in the region to specify a timeframe by when they will leave. At the same time, the organisation has begun speaking of developing regional capabilities to deal with the threats posed by terrorism. Joint military exercises between China and Russia, as well as China and India, and India and Russia have been held. The Russians are now speaking of trilateral military exercises involving these three countries. Could the SCO be the harbinger for a pan-Asian confidence-building body based on a new security concept of mutual respect and cooperation rather than the outdated, dangerous idea of “balance of power”? For this to happen, India, China, and Russia have to work closely together but Japan and South Korea too will have to be brought within the ambit of the SCO.
On the trade front, the EAS process will likely provide answers about the precise institutional shape greater Asian cooperation will take. Along with the creation of an Asian free trade area with developing country safeguards, there is need for Asia to develop its own financial institutions. The absence of such institutions led to the 1997 Asian financial crisis and to its deflationary denouement, as countries like Indonesia and South Korea were forced by the International Monetary Fund to accept irrational conditionalities.
Finally, the energy front has seen two sets of promising meetings between major Asian producers and consumers this year, held at the initiative of the Indian Ministry for Petroleum and Natural Gas. On the agenda are not just financial and inventory-related measures to stabilise prices but, more importantly, the creation of pan-Asian pipeline grids. The proposed $22 billion grid — unveiled in New Delhi at the end of November — will allow gas to be moved around the region more easily, avoiding geopolitically sensitive maritime choke points like the Straits of Hormuz, Malacca, and Taiwan. Pan-Asian energy grids will also give a major boost to regional political cooperation and inter-dependence.
In the light of developments in these three directions, the evolution of an Asian strategic architecture is only a matter of time. The one fly in the ointment is the U.S., which would like to scuttle all such exclusively Asian initiatives.
For years, Washington has thrived on Asian insecurities, often fuelling suspicions and rivalries between countries. The more there is a perception of insecurity — China versus Japan, China versus India, Japan versus Korea, India versus Pakistan, not to speak of `minor’ insecurities — the greater the role for the U.S. as a “balancer.”
While it is understandable for the U.S. to advocate the concept of `balance,’ what is inexplicable is India’s decision to do so as well. In a speech to the India Economic Forum on November 28, Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran offered the U.S. India’s help in this `balance of power’ game. “If we are looking at Asia in the coming years, there is no doubt that there is a major realignment of forces taking place in Asia,” Mr. Saran said. “There is the emergence of China as a global economic powerhouse. There will be increased capabilities that China will be able to bring to bear in this region and even beyond. India also is going to be a major player in Asia … I think India and the United States can contribute to a much better balance in the Asian region.”
Though Mr. Saran acknowledges India’s “strong engagement” with China, he adds: “We believe that in terms of managing the emerging security scenario in Asia we need to bring more and more countries within the discipline of a mutually agreed security paradigm for this region. I think both the U.S. and India can contribute to that.” China, presumably, is the main country needing the “discipline” of a “security paradigm” to which India and the U.S. can “contribute.”
It doesn’t take a lot of analysis to recognise that these ideas run counter to the new spirit so evident in Asia. Taken together with other recent shifts in Indian foreign policy, they suggest India’s commitment to Asia may be less robust than its commitment to the United States.
© Copyright 2000 – 2005 The Hindu
Siddharth Varadarajan 
This bangoloreguy’s post is a crock of s%$t, if you’ll pardon my French! (Just visit his pointless blog and you’ll get the drift…)I think the point of the original article was to point to a number of different or simultaneous trends which are happening in the heartland of Asia, including Shanghai Cooperation, oil and gas pipelines and the like. It is idiotic to say China has “sway” over Russia. China may have more people but the Russkies still have enough nukes to defend their territory and resources.I think we Indians have to wake up to the reality that America doesnt have benign intentions in our region.This is the fundamental point.
what a load of hogwash! I dont expect anything better from the agents of the commies, yet, it defies stupidity, and belief – that people think its an excellent article.The SCO exists only because China wants to exert its influence in Central Asia – and uses its sway over Russia to do that.Russia, wants India in because it fears letting China a free run.And as for the stupid examples of military co-operation. France,UKUSA,RussiaSingaporeChinaSome of the countries we carried our excercies with. Does not mean all of them are friends with each other – or with us! (we carried out excercies for the Chinese before 1962 – in the 50s as well, what did we reap?)
And Chellaney’s comments about the manipulation of history and nationalism are outrageously hypocritical, as they thoroughly describe India and especially its Hindutva ideology. For many Indian nationalists, India’s expansitionist ambitions are often based upon asserting what they call <>Akhand Bharat<>–a warped vision of historical greatness to “restore” an Indian Raj that rules over all of South Asia including Aghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, and Pakistan. This Hindutva ideology asserts that Brahmin caste Indians are the desecendents of the Aryan “master” race, who have a natural right to rule over this greater Hindustan. Ideologues of Akhand Bharat even depict other South Asian nations as part of this Hindustan on their maps and often engage in historical propaganda about the “Arctic origins” of the Aryan civilization upon which India is said to be based. This interest in Aryanism is not surprising given that many Hindu nationalists of the 1930s studied and admired fascist leaders like Mussolini and Hitler. http://www.geocities.com/indianfascism/fascism/myths_ancient_history.htmhttp://www.imc-usa.org/cgi-bin/cfm/hindutvaFascistHeritage.cfmNow some Indians are salivating at the prospect of an axis with the USA, Australia, and other Western imperialist nations. They see it as a golden opportunity to expand India’s hegemony against its historical rivals of China, Pakistan, and militant Islam. This is the underlying political context of Chellaney’s article and broader debate about “balance of powers” in general.Under the BJP regime, India was even preparing to send its troops into Iraq and prop up the colonial occupation there, thus abetting the crimes of the great fascist “democracies” like the USA, the UK, Australia, and Japan.Perhaps, it’s only appropriate that India join this Axis of Empire in a geostrategic alliance, as elites like Brahma Chellaney so fervently desire. As evidenced by the Anglo-US wars of aggression against Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, fascism is on the march again–only this time disguised behind the more sophisticated mask of liberal democracy itself.
The only people needing a dose of reality are hypocrites like pennathur and Brahma Chellaney who still peddle the Bollywood Lie of Indian “pacificism” and tired boasts about “the world’s largest democracy” to disguise India’s aggressive ambitions. If militarists like Brahma Chellaney wishes to find an example of ultranationalism and historical delusion, he has only to look in the mirror at India and its continuing brutal wars cloaked behind the mask of liberal democracy.After all, it is India that is waging a bloodstained military occupation of Kashmir for the past 15 years. The same India that has killed tens of thousands of Kashmiri Muslims at the hands of the Indian Army in a colonial pacification war that has been minimized by the corporate media such as IHT. The is also the same India that recently strong-armed Bhutan and Myammar into allowing India invasion troops into those nations to wage war against rebels fighting for independence in Assam, Nagaland, and Bodoland–another issue glossed over by the Western controlled media.And it is India that sent 100,000 “peacekeepers” into Sri Lanka in the late 1980s under the pretext of a humanitarian mission–only to beat a hasty retreat after the Sri Lankans didn’t see India’s invasion as so humanitarian and killed 2,000 Indian troops as a result.And while the amateur historian Brahma Chellaney is correct that the 1962 Sino-Indian war is an example of historical fantasies in the service of nationalist ambitions, he is wrong about the country that is guilty of this agenda. For a more revealing and politically explosive analysis of this war, read Neville Maxwell’s book _India’s China War_ Excerpts of which can be found here: http://www.stratmag.com/issue2Dec-1/kargil.htmhttp://www.rediff.com/news/2002/oct/08max1.htm
A smarter and less sentimental account is to be found here http://www.telegraphindia.com/1051217/asp/opinion/story_5604004.asp courtesy Sunanda K. Dutta Ray.
A Bite of Reality for your friends.Beijing ‘s historical fantasies Brahma Chellaney International Herald Tribune Tuesday, DECEMBER 13, 2005 NEW DELHI China has succeeded in putting the spotlight on Japan’s World War II history. But while harping on that distant war, Beijing refuses to face up to its own aggressions and employs revisionist history to rationalize its assertive claims and ambitions. As the fairy-tale Middle Kingdom, China claims to be the mother of all civilizations, weaving legend with history to foster an ultranationalistic political culture centered on the regaining of lost glory. It sees a historical entitlement to superpower status, publicly enunciating its ambition to be a “world power second to none.” With fervent nationalism replacing Communist ideology, the scripted anti-Japanese mob protests earlier this year were one blatant case of the Chinese rulers’ open mixing of history with their politics. Another case in point occurred more recently at a seminar in Mumbai, after Pranab Mukherjee, the Indian defense minister, fleetingly cited the Chinese invasion of 1962 as a defining moment that set in motion India’s new thrust on defense production, and referred to the still-festering border problem with China, which he said had resolved its land-frontier disputes “with all its neighbors except India and Bhutan.” In contravention of diplomatic norms, which would have involved consulting the Chinese ambassador in New Delhi, China’s Mumbai-based consul general castigated Mukherjee on the spot for using the term “invasion” and claimed that “China did not invade India.” Later, the ambassador, too, criticized the defense minister’s reference to 1962, telling the Indian media, “Whatever happened in the past is history, and we want to put it back into history.” The incident revealed how China contradictorily deals in history vis-à-vis its neighbors to further its own foreign policy objectives: While it wants India to forget 1962, it misses no opportunity to bash Japan over the head with the history card. Its aim is not to extract more apologies from Tokyo for its World War II atrocities but to continually shame and tame Japan. In fact, visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao used Indian soil last April to demand that Japan “face up to history squarely,” setting the stage for his country’s orchestrated anti-Japanese protests. Another way China manipulates history is by reconstructing the past to prepare for the future. This was illustrated by the Chinese foreign ministry’s posting on its Web site last year a revised historical claim that the ancient kingdom of Koguryo, founded in northern Korea, was Chinese. This was seen as an attempt to hedge China’s options with a potentially unified Korea. Then there is China’s continued use of what it presents as history to advance extravagant territorial or maritime claims. Its maps show an entire Indian state — Arunachal Pradesh — as well as other Indian areas as part of China. While the Chinese-Japanese rivalry has deep roots, dating back to the 16th century, the Chinese and Indian military frontiers met for the first time in history only in 1950, when China annexed (or, as its history books say, “liberated”) Tibet, a buffer nearly the size of Western Europe. Within 12 years of becoming India’s neighbor, China invaded this country, with Mao Zedong cleverly timing the aggression with the Cuban missile crisis. Beijing has yet to grasp that a muscular approach is counterproductive. Had it not set out to “teach India a lesson,” in the words of then Premier Zhou Enlai, this country probably would not have become the significant military and nuclear power that it is today. The invasion helped lay the foundation of India’s political rise. This has a reflection today. Just a decade ago, Beijing was content with a Japan that was pacifist, China-friendly and China’s main source of low-interest loans. Now, it is locked in a cold war with Tokyo, with its growing assertiveness and ambition spurring a politically resurgent Japan. Even the Chinese consul general’s outburst has counterproductively returned the focus onto an invasion that Beijing wishes to eliminate from public discussion and about which it hides the truth from its own people. The impertinence only draws attention to the fact that China remains unapologetic for the major stab in the back that shattered India’s pacifism and hastened the death of its first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru. Japan certainly needs to come to terms with its brutal militaristic past. But just as Japanese textbooks and the museum attached to the Yasukuni Shrine glorify Japan’s past, Chinese textbooks and the military museum in Beijing distort and even falsify history. The key difference is that Chinese foreign policy seeks to make real the legend that drives official history — China’s centrality in the world.
I agree with midnightedition and humblesoul and not with the anonymous post above. The analysis in this blogpost (and more generally in this blogsite as a whole) is perceptive but I am not at all hopeful of anything in Asia pulling together as long as Japan is a part of it. They will always play out an American agenda. I mean, what was the need for them this february to get involved in raising the Taiwan issue as a core security interest? That was like waving a red rag to the Red Chinese, who anyway need no excuse to pick a quarrel with the Japanese.
Excellent! The writer shows clarity and depth with a maturity, in clarifying the geopolitics of 21st century Asia; those who tends to think that nothing can be achieved without hyper-power participation, is about to watch the radical, and swift collapse of imperial US empire – just like the Britts realized this bitter reality during WW-II. If we happen to be on the wrong side, we will also be thrown into the dustbin of the history.Britts were lucky to have a world power on their side, overnight; what I essentially mean is that US represents the same hemispheric culture – the Europeans. Asia, clearly is on the rise, and it would be foolish to side with the Europeans at this juncture, where sun is about to set.
As always, absolutely awesome. A right person in the right newspaper, atlast!I couldnt agree with you more. India and China need to come together to transform the enerygy scene. But do u think the US will ever allow that?Then you wrote “the price volatility of recent months — which is more the product of speculative activity on western mercantile exchanges than a reflection of actual supply-demand mismatch”I absolutely agree. Power can only be controlled by the powerful. You need a powerful group here. Oil is too essential to be allowed to be played by a few speculative hands. But thats purely an academic agrument. I wonder if India will ever have the independence to pursue its own agenda.
IMHO, India has no option but to go with the United States in the short and even medium run because that is the only way for it to build up its economic strength. Then it cann challenge Pakistan and China properly and push for an Asian Union along with Japan on its own terms. All this talk of Asian energy is rubbish. The Americans will never allow it and India is just waisting its time.