Go East, Young Modi

When India first initiated its “Look East” policy in the early 1990s, Asia looked remarkably different than it does today, but the broad contours of what was to come in the region were already in place. Namely, it was evident that just given its sheer size the People’s Republic of China was an emerging global powerhouse. Accordingly, India sought to add ballast to its standing as a regional power by cultivating relations with East and Southeast Asian countries.

Still, it was not until the 2000s that this new strategic outlook began to pay dividends. As China developed its strength and began to become embroiled in disputes with its neighbors, India found it considerably easier to build deeper strategic ties to its east. Today, India enjoys closer strategic and economic ties with countries like Japan, South Korea, Australia, and several ASEAN states.

While most of the groundwork for India’s contemporary relations with the states to its east were laid during the administrations of Atal Behari Vajpayee and Manmohan Singh, the new Modi government saw fit to symbolically recast India’s “Look East” policy as an “Act East” policy in late summer 2014. (Incidentally, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had alluded to a need for India to “act East” during a 2011 visit to New Delhi.) Speaking in Hanoi – the capital of a country, Vietnam that spent the better part of this year engaged in a bitter bilateral dispute with China – Indian External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj minced no words when she said that it was time for India to “not just look but act. Under the [Narendra] Modi government, we will have an Act East Policy.” The implication was clear: Narendra Modi’s government wants to inject a bout of dynamism into India’s eastward diplomacy. So far, though, beyond the change in verbiage, the policy seems largely unchanged.

Swaraj’s bold declaration that India will begin acting east under Modi’s tenure will likely begin to affect Indian foreign policy in the near future. After five months in office, India’s prime minister has shown that he not only attaches great importance to India’s relations with other countries, he also places special importance on India’s place within Asia. India’s recent diplomacy with China, Japan and Vietnam offers a glimpse of how India’s pivot to East Asia might take shape during Modi’s tenure. Additionally, while analysts of Indian foreign policy suggested that Modi’s top priority was reestablishing India’s regional leadership within South Asia – exemplified by his decision to invite South Asian leaders to his inauguration, and making his first trip abroad to Bhutan and Nepal – there are good reasons to believe that both economic and strategic necessity will keep East Asia on the top of India’s diplomatic agenda.

First, shifting winds in the India-China relationship and a new diplomatic normal between the two countries will form the foundation of India’s impulse to “Act East.” India’s relationship with China has always been characterized by a shifting balance between cooperation and competition. Generally, both sides have focused on overplaying and overemphasizing the cooperative aspects of the relationship in their diplomacy and downplaying the competitive aspects. Between their territorial disputes, resource rivalry, strategic competition for influence in Southeast Asia, and imbalanced trade, there are plenty of points of contention between Asia’s two giants. As was evident during both Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to New Delhi and India-China diplomacy earlier this year, Swaraj and Modi have shifted Indian diplomatic rhetoric in a more realist direction. Swaraj, for example, acknowledged ahead of Xi’s trip to India, that the “relationship is that of cooperation and competition.”

Xi’s visit to India in September was marred by a border standoff between India and Chinese troops. Even if he’d wanted to, Modi couldn’t have let Xi leave India with the usual platitudes and concluded agreements. Instead, he addressed the border issue point blank with Xi. There are other reasons to believe that the Indian leadership will “Act East” by airing its disagreements with China more publicly. Modi, for example, has seized other opportunities to condemn China’s “expansionist” behavior, notably in Japan. Additionally, for the first time India has been including language promoting the freedom of navigation in the South China Sea in its joint statements with China’s regional rivals. India’s recent joint statements with both the United States and Vietnam included statements to this effect.

Second, as Indian diplomacy with Vietnam and Japan demonstrates, New Delhi is gradually accepting that if it is to act East, it will have to step on Beijing’s toes. With Japan, New Delhi is constantly expanding on the Strategic and Global Partnership that was laid out in 2006. With a free trade agreement in place, yearly head of government meetings, and more recently, India-bound defense trade from Japan, Tokyo is the closest thing New Delhi has to an ally. It just so happens that Japan is also the closest thing Beijing has to an arch nemesis. Since Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s return to power in December 2012, relations between China and Japan have deteriorated on issues such as the Senkaku/Diaoyu dispute in the East China Sea. Meanwhile, India and Japan have grown closer than ever.

With Vietnam, India may be looking to establish an analog for what China enjoys in South Asia with Pakistan. After a tense summer where the threat of kinetic conflict between China and Vietnam loomed large, New Delhi swooped in with a spectrum of cooperative proposals. Pending Russian approval, it may offer Hanoi its supersonic BrahMos cruise missile to bolster Vietnam’s attempts to defend its waters from China in the future. Vietnamese submarine operators are training in India as well. Under Narendra Modi, India’s diplomacy with Vietnam is advancing with little regard for Chinese perceptions.

Third, despite strategic competition with China, Modi will likely look to cast India’s “Act East” policy in terms of measures that will boost trade and benefit India’s economy. To this end, his government will look to re-energize attempts to boost connectivity between India and her eastern neighbors. India-ASEAN cooperation, the Mekong-Ganga Cooperation (MGC), the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economy Cooperation (BIMSTEC), and the ongoing Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RECP) process are all areas in which India has ample space to stretch its arms eastward. In addition to independently yielding economic dividends for India, these attempts at increasing connectivity come at a time when China is pitching its own Maritime Silk Road initiative for increased regional connectivity with Beijing as a hub.

Despite New Delhi’s recent impulse to act East instead of merely looking that direction, it’s worth recalling that Indian foreign policy has traditionally been characterized by continuity rather than change. It could very well be the case that continuing domestic economic malaise bogs down any burgeoning strategic creativity and innovation in India’s eastward diplomacy. To avoid this, Modi will have to maintain the high level of diplomatic momentum he has generated in his first five months in office. Otherwise, where India once was content to just look East, it may find itself instead looking at acting East – hardly an improvement.