In particular, India’s Look East Policy can have a smooth ride only if the India-China relationship improves, and the two giants become good neighbours rather than bitter rivals. At the moment, this seems remote. Although at one level the two neighbours have sweet things to say of each other, at another, the bitter history of conflicting rivalry of the last half century, it seems is not easy to get rid of.
The two continue to play the sinister political game of the enemy of my enemy is my friend. If China continues to befriend India’s known antagonists, Pakistan in particular, India too is out to repay in the same coin by reaching out to Vietnam etc. If these friendship overtures were neutral and devoid of all real politick considerations, everything would have been perfectly fine, but considering the timing of these overtures, it is hardly likely these were driven by trade and commerce interests alone.
Where does this leave the aggregate of absolutely apolitical desire of people in the peripheries to look for a greener future of integrated regional markets? Minus the real politick, the votaries of the Look East Policy were visualising nothing more than the sense of openness and promises of new prosperities for the peripheries of all these nations covered under the policy. An integration at the seams, perhaps is the apt metaphor to describe this vision. Roughly translated, this vision would have been somewhat akin to the experimental integration happening at the Greater Mekong Subregion, GMS, sponsored not by any single country, but largely by the Asian Development Bank and the Japan Bank of International Cooperation, JBIC. Of course these sponsors would have their own interests in the investments they are making in the region, but this is only to be expected. But as long as these external interests are not subsuming the interests of the region totally, should there be any objection? Politics and not real politick can come into play as facilitators here and ensure that the interests of the region where the investments are coming into are not compromised in servicing the interest of the investors. Manipur has some experience of the JBIC, as all of us know of the bank’s part in the Sericulture Project. Does this investment seem so sinister? In any case, what can be so terribly bad about being gifted better and more trans-national roads, bridges, and potent common markets?
We hope the real politicks subside and true and benign, mutually beneficial diplomacy takes over at the soonest between all Asian neighbours. While normalising India-Pakistan relationship is also of extreme importance, from the point of view of the northeast, India’s South East Asian neighbours and indeed China are of more relevance. We are even of the opinion that and integrated and prosperous transnational sub-region in the pattern of the GMS, may hold the key to the return of peace, not just in the northeast, but also the entire trouble torn neighbourhood of northeast India. And yes, there may yet be one more reason for sponsors wanting to invest in such projects. Everybody reaps their own harvest in different ways from peace and prosperity brought to any region in the world. An unstable Afghanistan has consequences even in remote America hence the latter’s involvement in the Afghanistan mess. An unstable Pakistan has similar consequences on India, just as an unstable North Korea is feared by South Korea and Japan. South Korea is even willing to invest in North Korea without any expectation of material returns but just in order to keep its sibling stable enough not to cause it any problem. Our advocacy of India’s Look East Policy is driven by a similar logic. India would have much less bad dreams about the northeast should the northeast, as part of a greater South East Asian greater sub-region begins to find its own economic feet.