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The Indian Analyst
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NEWS
ANALYSIS India
turns
east |
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Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh’s visit to Bandung and Jakarta, for summits that seeks to
foster friendship between Asian and African nations, is turning out to be a
reassertion of positions India has held for a long time What is India News Service 24 April 2005 Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Bandung and Jakarta, for summits that seeks to foster friendship between Asian and African nations, is turning out to be a reassertion of positions India has held for a long time. Fifty years ago, Nehru was among the very few leaders in the world to foresee a glorious future for regions then considered irredeemably backward. Africa and Asia, in Western eyes, looked beyond hope of transformation, and the two continents were ignored completely, talked down to condescendingly, or just paid lip service. The present conclave comes at a time when the tide is turning. Given the honour to speak on behalf of Asian countries at the 50th anniversary of the commemoration of the historic Bandung Conference, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said that development process of a nation cannot be planted from "without". In other words, he was suggesting that nations need to develop their own models of development and not rely excessively on Western ideas of how things ought to be conducted. "We must realise that if development is to be sustainable, it cannot be transplanted from without. It must be intrinsic and appropriate to our societies," he told representatives leaders from 106 countries from Asia and Africa who had come to the historic West Java provincial capital Bandung for the commemoration. |
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At the 1955 conference there were only 29 Asian and African leaders and they
included India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, whose speech cautioning
developing nations against aligning with big power blocs, led to the birth of
the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Advocating democratisation of international institutions, including the UN and financial bodies, Singh declared that Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) remains a "valid and effective instrument" to ensure creation of "a more just and fair" global order and stressed for its revitalisation. Now comes news comes that India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru and President Sukarno of Indonesia have been posthumously conferred South Africa's highest award in recognition of their pioneering work in Afro-Asian solidarity. A concrete outcome of the present summit is that Asian and African leaders on Sunday signed a new Strategic Partnership to ensure peace, stability and security in the two continents by boosting trade and stepping up cooperation in war against terrorism and transnational organised crimes. Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and South African leader Thabo Mbeki inked the four-page declaration on the New Asian-African Partnership (NAAP) in this historic town where the countries from the two continents got together for the first time in 1955 and subsequently created the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). The leaders from over 100 Asian and African countries, including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, had adopted the declaration at their two-day summit in Jakarta which ended on Saturday. |
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hrough the strategic partnership "we will pool together the vast resources
and the tremendous creative energies of Asia and Africa to solve some of the
most persistent problems of development," Yudhoyono told the signing
ceremony. The formation of a critical triangular relationship among regional powers Iran, India and Pakistan -- both cooperative and adversariaal -- has accelerated in the past months. Iran is trying to shore up alliances with its neighbors in the face of escalating tension with the United States, even as Pakistan and India seek to disengage from the increasingly tight control that Washington exerts over the region by engaging in fence-mending. At the same time, Pakistan and India are attempting to extract further benefits from US patronage, namely advanced weapons systems. After the relative policy success of a Shi'ite-majority government coming to power in Iran's Arab neighbor Iraq, Tehran is now looking East, keen to normalize relations with its neighbors in the hope that their support will blunt the edge of the US military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq. The issue of rescheduling the SAARC summit was raised by Morshed, whose country is the current chairman of the forum. Manmohan Singh also met Nepal king Gyanendra on Saturday, and broke ice with the head of nation India is watching warily. India had earlier refused to attend the summit in February citing "disturbing developments in the region", a reference to royal takeover in Nepal on February 1. In fact, soon after the Singh-Gyanendra meeting, India |
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agreed to resume military aid to
Nepal to counter insurgency by Maoist rebels, ending its two-month tough
posture against the Himalayan Kingdom in the wake of the imposition of emergency
in February. Not that everything is ending well: China and Pakistan are opposed to India obtaining a permanent seat at the UN Security Council. China is determined to prevent Japan from becoming a permanent member and appears all set to quietly back efforts by countries like Italy, South Korea, Pakistan, Mexico and Argentina that are opposed to one or other of the four main contenders for permanent membership -- Japan, Germany, Brazil and India. China has not backed our candidature for membership of forums like the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation or the ASEAN-East Asia Dialogue. While we may share common interests with China in maintaining peace and tranquillity along our borders and in forums like the WTO, we should stop pretending that the Middle Kingdom is ready to welcome us on the hightables where it dines. Meanwhile, China and Japan are engaged in a war of words. The anger the two nations display as they demand apologies that neither will make is a clear expression of the rebalancing of power throughout Asia that is occurring as China ascends, Japan responds and India reaps benefits from the clash of the two other Asian titans. But India’s positions on many fronts are being vindicated, and hopefully, India’s non-aggressive policies and newfound economic vigour will make it Asia’s most favoured nation for trade and geo-strategic partnership. Things are looking brighter in Asia, considering the way India is mending fences with China, as reflected in the just-concluded Wen visit, and with Pakistan, as evidenced by the positive sentiments on both sides. |
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