India’s Look East Policy: Issues Ignored

By Vibhanshu Shekhar
Research Fellow, IPCS
August 10, 2007

Since 2005, the geographical canvas of India's Look East Policy (LEP) has expanded considerably, with the formation of East Asia Summit and India's increasing involvement in the East Asian Community, bringing into its ambit new players and diverse priorities.

Similarly, India's engagement with the ASEAN region, the central focus of the LEP, has become much more varied and intense, whether it is in the realm of political, economic or security cooperation.

While the expansion of the focus and multiplication of responsibilities have been hailed as the success of India's LEP, they also bring into focus the level of India's preparedness in engaging on such a wide scale in a nuanced manner, and the methods and strategies being pursued.

The last point brings up an important question facing the LEP. While the geographical focus of the LEP has increased manifold, its existing format caters only to the needs of ASEAN. Does the LEP have an appropriate policy framework or the requisite mechanisms to address the emerging complexity of engagement, as the frames of reference expand and given the strategic importance of these players in Asia?

On the one hand, India's engagement with the northeast Asia has been either bilateral or based on an ASEAN-centric framework, while the rules of engagement as outlined under the East Asian Summit have been dominated by the ASEAN+3 framework.

In such a case will India rely only on bilateral mechanisms or try to address the need for a bigger platform to engage its new Look East members? Furthermore, though India has been able to engage China and Japan bilaterally on issues of larger concern, it has not been able to do so in the case of South Korea.

One of the largest investors in Myanmar and the Mekong region and a member of OECD, South Korea is also a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group and a reluctant Korea will not help Indian case in the NSG. Another related issue is how ASEAN members perceive India's growing strategic presence in the region. India has not been able to engage effectively with some of the key ASEAN members.

Despite being the coordinating country for the India-ASEAN FTA, home to the largest number of Indian Diaspora in Southeast Asia, and India's second largest ASEAN trading partner, Malaysia has remained out of the central focus of LEP.

Given Malaysia's preference for an Islamic outlook in its foreign policy, there is a need to approach Malaysia as the second largest Muslim democracy in the world. Such an approach can help in removing the misgivings between the two countries, facilitate greater people-to-people contact between the two countries and also connect the Indian Diaspora with the mainstream host society and economy.

The Philippines, another important ASEAN player, also seems to have slipped off the radar of India's LEP. The forthcoming visit of the Philippine President, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, to India will show how seriously India is engaging this country. Another important issue, which needs immediate attention, is the issue of Myanmar.

During the last five years, India's Myanmar policy seems to have revolved around three important issues - engaging the military junta and arresting its drift towards China, securing energy, especially natural gas, and connecting to mainland Southeast Asia. India, however, seems to have failed in achieving any of these objectives.

Today, China is more effective, even in persuading the military junta to move towards democratic transition and in preventing human rights violations. Despite doing all the exploration work, India lost to China when it came to receiving the supply of natural gas from the A1 and A3 blocks of Arakan gas-field. India's infrastructural projects connecting northeast with Myanmar and other Mekong countries suffer from time-lag, incomplete projects and lack of resources.

Furthermore, despite Singapore Foreign Minister, George Yeo's call in July 2007, for a greater Indian role in Myanmar, India has not been able to develop a coherent approach to address the challenge of Myanmar.

There is a great urgency for India's LEP to recover from the slipups and to address the gap between the intent of a regional player and its actions on the ground, in order to make its engagement with ASEAN much more meaningful. The sooner this is done, the better.