Election 2016: The View from Asia

The following article originally appeared in The Diplomat on October 23, 2016.

India

Yelling at babies, walking pneumonia, plagiarized speeches, email leaks…the 2016 U.S. election cycle has had more than its share of absurd controversies. It has also naturally piqued interest around the world, including in India, where the colourful candidacy of Donald Trump and strong views about Hillary Clinton have elicited a great deal of curiosity. Unlike with many U.S. allies or trade partners, India’s relations with the United States may not be significantly affected by the outcome. However, given that the election’s result could greatly alter the United States’ position in international affairs, it will – indirectly – have enormous implications for India’s future.

It is noteworthy that India has not featured prominently in the heated, and sometimes vaudevillian, electoral rhetoric of the past eighteen months. Trump’s criticism of Mexico, Japan, China, and NATO allies has dominated headlines, as has his apparent attraction to Russia. Meanwhile, much has been made of Clinton’s private email server and her Middle East policy during her tenure as Secretary of State.

Nevertheless, India has occasionally cropped up on the campaign trail, sometimes in unexpected ways. Trump mocked an Indian accent during one public appearance and his campaign has accused Clinton of receiving Indian funding in exchange for supporting the India-U.S. civilian nuclear agreement. He has spoken of India both with admiration – “India is doing great. Nobody talks about it.” – and with concern, as a country stealing American jobs. He has also made contradictory statements about high-skilled immigration to the United States, of which Indians are among the biggest beneficiaries.

For her part, Clinton has alleged that Trump’s enterprises have exported manufacturing jobs to, among other places, India. And yet she likely has the most exposure to India of any presidential candidate in history. She visited India as First Lady in 1995, was co-Chair of the Senate India Caucus, and dealt extensively with India as Secretary of State. Her closest foreign policy advisers are well-known in New Delhi, which means that her election would instil a sense of comfort and familiarity. Certain intrinsic differences would, of course, remain under her presidency, but from New Delhi’s point of view those differences are both understood and manageable.

Given the known positions of both candidates, the election outcome is unlikely to transform bilateral India-U.S. relations. In contrast to formal U.S. allies – such as NATO member states, Japan, and South Korea – India is not concerned about Trump abrogating a longstanding security guarantee. And India is outside the mega-regional trade agreements that are awaiting ratification or under negotiation – the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). In fact, commercial relations between India and the United States remain underwhelming, and with protectionist sentiments creeping in in both countries, the direct impact of the elections on bilateral trade is likely to be minimal.

Nonetheless, India should be paying close attention. The 2016 U.S. presidential election, more than any other in recent memory, will determine the United States’ position in the world. Trump has questioned the need for Washington to play the role of global security guarantor. His victory would undoubtedly accelerate America’s reversion to a ‘normal’ power. Given his personality, it would also inject a great deal of uncertainty over questions of American leadership. Trump’s election thus presents the prospect of Chinese preponderance in Asia far earlier than most would have anticipated. This would, in all certainty, force India to consider entering into closer security arrangements with other Asian powers, notably Japan. India would also have to contemplate a greater security role in the Indian Ocean, Middle East, and possibly Southeast Asia, given its large and growing interests in these regions. Indeed, a silver lining of a Trump presidency is that it might compel India to shake off some of its strategic stupor. A more active India with more diversified partnerships could even benefit commercially. As with Brexit, the blank slate presented by Trump’s presidency might enable India to come to terms with the art of the deal.

But for all these possibilities, stability and continuity are far preferable to uncertainty and volatility for a major emerging economy such as India – especially in these already uncertain and volatile times. Over the years, Clinton has made it clear that her natural strategic instincts are interventionist and her natural economic proclivities are pro-trade. Her attitudes have had to be tempered over the last year by Bernie Sanders’ candidacy and the general uptick in isolationist and protectionist sentiments in the United States. As president, she would remain constrained by both Congress and the left wing of her own party.  Nonetheless, Clinton’s familiarity with India, her known positions on the Indo-Pacific – probably best captured in her 2011 Foreign Policy essay “America’s Pacific Century” – and India’s familiarity with her foreign policy team are reasons enough for India to be satisfied if, on November 8, she is elected U.S. president. 

How India Sees the World

The following article originally appeared in The Diplomat on April 21, 2016. 

India’s history of Third Worldism and Nonalignment and its traditional overuse of the term “strategic partnership” have long created the illusion that New Delhi treats all foreign relations on a somewhat equal footing. But beyond bland public statements marked by diplomatic niceties, a lot can be discerned about India’s worldview by other means. Organizational structures are often an excellent indicator of a government’s priorities and concerns. Mapping the geographical divisions at India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) paints a rather revealing picture of how India sees the world.

Function over Form

One clear pattern that emerges is that MEA’s geographical organization is primarily functional. Take India’s immediate neighborhood, where whole divisions are devoted to just two or three countries. Landlocked and mountainous Nepal and Bhutan are grouped together, while Myanmar is coupled with Bangladesh, rather than with the rest of Southeast Asia. Sri Lanka and the Maldives are considered as part of the Indian Ocean. And Iran is grouped with Pakistan and Afghanistan, indicating how much India sees policy toward those three countries as interconnected. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has only bestowed a name  – “Neighborhood First” – on what has clearly been a longstanding approach, although the articulation of that policy may have helped give it momentum and direction.

There is often a concern – as at the U.S. Departments of State and Defense – that foreign policy becomes uncoordinated because countries fall under different geographical bureaus. At first glance, this appears to be the case for India in the Middle East (or West Asia, to use India’s preferred terminology), where the region’s major actors – Turkey, Iran, Israel, and Saudi Arabia – fall under different divisions. However, this structure also confers certain advantages, allowing India to simultaneously advance various objectives with multiple actors, such as defense and space ties with Israel, energy and infrastructure considerations with Iran, and diaspora and counterterrorism priorities with the Gulf Arab states.

The imposition of functional interests over neat geographical divisions is perhaps most readily apparent in Africa. Eastern and Southern Africa are areas that are not just more proximate to India, but also enjoy deeper historical and people-to-people ties. Large Indian communities, including merchants and traders, thrived in South Africa, Tanzania, Kenya, and Uganda, all – like India – former British colonies. By contrast, India had far fewer historical contacts with Western Africa, which falls mostly within the Francophonie. Instead, from India’s standpoint, that region is defined by commodities and resources including energy, of which Nigeria and Angola have become increasingly important suppliers.

The Rajamandala

Just as revealing as how India divides up the world is how much attention it pays to each region. The number of countries in each division offers one point of comparison. The fact that 30 countries in Western Africa receive roughly the same resources and attention at MEA as two Indian neighbors indicates the greater attention that India devotes to its immediate periphery. Another factor is the number of diplomatic missions – embassies, high commissions, and consulate-generals – that India has in each region. Nine missions catering to 25 countries in Western Africa points to Indian diplomatic resources being spread far thinner than, say, the same number in just the United States and Canada. The Lowy Institute’s delightful Global Diplomacy Index, which catalogues and maps the global diplomatic presence of all G20 and OECD countries, helps to generate a pretty clear picture about India’s diplomatic priorities.

Based on the number of countries per division and the number of missions per country, three tiers are readily apparent. In the top tier – the first circle of the Rajamandala, to riff on the Kautilyan term – are divisions that cover India’s immediate neighborhood, encompassing the members of the South Asians Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) plus Myanmar and Iran. The importance India places on relations with the United States and, increasingly, China is also clear. India’s relations with the two biggest global powers are similar but fundamentally unequal. The United States shares space with only Canada, whereas China does with Japan, South Korea, and North Korea, and Mongolia. The presence of five Indian consulates-general in the United States is also indicative of the importance of the Indian-American diaspora. Despite growing commercial relations with China necessitating Indian consulates-general in Shanghai and Guangzhou, people-to-people ties between the two most-populated countries still clearly lag behind political and economic relations.

Beyond India’s immediate neighborhood, the United States, and China, a second tier includes bureaus covering some of India’s most important strategic and defense partners, including Russia, Western Europe, and Israel. It also includes India’s extended neighborhood: Southeast Asia, the Gulf, Central Asia, and Eastern and Southern Africa, regions with historical and civilizational ties to India and large number of overseas Indians. All these regions represent areas where a rising India could potentially devote more resources in the future.

Finally, a third tier is home to a number of important countries such as Turkey, Brazil, Mexico, and Nigeria, but includes regions that are neither strategically significant for India nor home to large numbers of ethnic Indians (excepting, perhaps, the Caribbean). Relatively speaking, India’s diplomatic resources in Central Europe, Western Africa, and Latin America are stretched thin, and in all these areas, India’s diplomatic corps is focused more on commercial relations than on strategic or consular matters.

Reallocating Diplomatic Assets

The decisions taken over the years at MEA to divide of the world into certain units and establish a physical presence in various parts of the world may have been organic, but has not been arbitrary. While there is a clear logic and sense of priorities, certain shortcomings in India’s global diplomatic presence are also apparent.

One obvious weak point is Pakistan and Bangladesh. It is faintly ridiculous that India should have wider consular networks in Indonesia, Vietnam, South Africa, Turkey, Iran, Japan, Germany, Brazil, and Thailand than it does in two of its most important neighbors. The diplomatic principle of reciprocity means that just as India has no consulates-general in Pakistan, Pakistan has none in India. Despite repeated provocations against India supported by Pakistan’s military and no indication that Pakistan has stopped sponsoring terrorism, both Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif have indicated a clear desire to normalize bilateral relations between their countries. Establishing consulates-general in both countries would be an obvious place to start. Despite some evident challenges, such as security considerations, Indian consulates in Lahore and Karachi (with reciprocal Pakistani consulates in, say, Mumbai and Amritsar) would help expand commercial and social engagement between the two countries, strengthening the constituencies that favor normalization. Meanwhile, there is even less of a reason for India not to have a wider diplomatic presence in Bangladesh, particularly given that relations are set to improve following the conclusion of the historic land boundary agreement between the two countries.

A second possibility involves rethinking Europe, which has rapidly fallen in India’s list of priorities, but is also undergoing monumental changes of its own. The old divisions of east and west are no longer particularly useful. Germany, given its economic performance, its growing leadership role in European affairs, and its importance for India’s development, is deserving of greater attention, along with France – with its competitive defense, nuclear, and space sectors – and Britain, which enjoys longstanding cultural and economic links with India. In other words, it makes sense to give priority to Europe’s Big Three. Meanwhile, other bilateral relations in Europe, as well as those with the European Union, could be consolidated, to the benefit of India’s uneven relations with the EU.

Third, despite India’s Act East policy, the Southern division – which covers Southeast Asia, Australia, and the Southern Pacific – appears increasingly unwieldy, and involves the largest number of diplomatic missions, with 21. The division oversees relations with several countries that are of growing importance to India, such as Australia, Singapore, Vietnam, and Indonesia. MEA does have a dedicated ASEAN division focused on multilateral affairs but, nevertheless, hiving off Southeast Asia from Australia, New Zealand, and the South Pacific would nicely complement Act East.

The final area to possibly consider is Eastern and Southern Africa, a region that has been developing greater strategic and economic significance as part of the Indian Ocean basin. Currently, South Africa is the only African economy with which India has broad diplomatic dealings and a diversified economic relationship. But given their geography and traditional connections to India, Tanzania, Kenya, Uganda, and Ethiopia could be bigger priorities in the future, India’s gateways into what is already the fastest growing continent.

While a lot has been made of the small size of India’s diplomatic corps – an important problem, but one being addressed – few appreciate the reach of India’s diplomatic presence. Only nine countries (the P-5, Germany, Japan, Brazil, and Turkey) currently have more foreign embassies and high commissions than India. Identifying weaknesses and priority areas deserving of greater diplomatic attention will be necessary if India is to strategically expand its diplomatic footprint, and thereby leverage its commercial relations, widen its strategic ambit, and provide better consular and other services to overseas Indians.

1962′s Other Crisis: India and China go to War

My article on the 50th anniversary of the Sino-Indian border war originally appeared in The Diplomat on October 20, 2012. An excerpt is included below. Click here for the full text.

Fifty years after their border war, China and India remain locked in their dispute over territory the size of Greece, populated by well over a million people. It makes the disagreements over the Senkaku/Diaoyu Islands and the South China Sea Islands – both recently in the news – pale by comparison. The clash over the Sino-Indian frontier has complex origins, rooted in the non-demarcated boundaries of British India, differing interpretations of sovereignty, and the legitimacy of Chinese claims to Tibet. While border negotiations between Beijing and New Delhi continue periodically behind closed doors, Chinese and Indian maneuvering manifests itself publicly in subtle but deliberate shifts in policy concerning mundane activities such as military interactions, the printing of official maps, and the issuing of visas. While meaningful, such messaging is occasionally exaggerated by irresponsible and ill-informed members of the media in India and nationalist bloggers and commentators in China.

Yet for a number of reasons, the prospects of history repeating itself are slim. India is far better equipped today along virtually every dimension of military preparedness. In recent years, India has expanded its mountain warfare units, redeployed its most sophisticated fighter aircraft to its northeast, and enhanced its naval capabilities as a deterrent against possible Chinese adventurism. The presence and responsible stewardship of nuclear weapons by both sides has also contributed to stability. Additionally, China and India are increasingly economically interdependent, with China now among India’s largest trade partners and foreign investors, and India an important market and source of raw materials for Chinese manufacturers. And the international environment today is far more conducive for India, which now enjoys cooperative diplomatic, economic, and military relations with most major states in the international system.

Despite China’s rapid military modernization, ongoing leadership transition, and newfound assertiveness, New Delhi is reluctant to become part of any overtly anti-Chinese military alliance. It has cooperated closely with China, and against developed states, on several matters of multilateral diplomacy, notably climate change. Multilateral cooperation has also extended to the BRICS summit, the various ASEAN-centered multilateral groupings, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (of which India is an observer). But it would be a mistake to interpret any such tactical cooperation as the emergence of a Sino-Indian bloc that seeks to undermine the power and influence of the United States and its allies.