By C. Raja Mohan
The visiting Japanese prime minister, Shinzo Abe, and his host, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, find their carefully planned party this week to celebrate the worlds newest strategic partnership ruined by their domestic political opponents.
After his big defeat in last months elections to the Upper House of the Japanese Diet, Abe is fighting for political survival. Singh, too, is under pressure from his communist allies for the sin of engineering independent Indias greatest diplomatic victory the liberation of the nation from three and a half decades of nuclear isolation. In politics no good deed ever goes without being punished.
Underlying the political instability staring at Abe and Singh is the deeper challenge of getting Japan and India to overcome decades of reactive foreign policy and end the historic under-performance of the two nations on the Asian and global political stage. As Abe and Singh try to establish Japan and India as great powers, they face strong domestic political reaction.
In Japan it goes by the name of pacifism that has become a cover for avoiding regional and global responsibility. In India it is called non-alignment. When India is well on its way to become the worlds third largest economy, and poised to shape the security order in Asia, our communists want India to stay for ever the third world subaltern mouthing empty slogans.
For different reasons, both Japan and India were unable in the second half of the 20th century to fulfil their national aspirations for leading Asia and securing a seat at the global high table. Defeated in the Second World War, Japan consciously chose to forgo great power aspirations in favour of an undiluted focus on national reconstruction.
Newly independent India had a sense of its own destiny to lead Asia. Its fascination for state socialism, however, saw Indias relative decline amidst the Asian economic boom. Its alliance with the Soviet Union during the Cold War put it at odds with much of Asia, including China.
Since the end of the Cold War, both Japan and India have struggled to elevate their power positions in Asia. Japans emphasis has been on lending political muscle to its well-known economic strengths. Indias in turn was on acquiring an economic foundation to match its strategic ambitions.
The foreign policies of both nations have undergone considerable changes in the last few years. Thanks to the efforts of Abes predecessors, especially Junichiro Koizumi, Japan has begun to liberate itself from many of the self-imposed restrictions of the past.
These prohibitions amounted to eight nos in Japans foreign policy during the Cold War: no dispatch of the armed forces abroad, no collective self-defence arrangements, no power projection ability, no more than 1 per cent of the GNP for defence spending, no nuclear weapons, no sharing of military technology, no exporting of arms, no military use of space.
In post-Cold War Japan, all these taboos, except the one on nuclear weapons, have been either modified or are up for change. Even the difficult question of nuclear weapons is being openly discussed after the North Korean atomic tests last year.
The recent changes in Indian foreign policy have been no less dramatic. If the relationship with the US has grabbed the most attention, the positive evolution in Indias relationships with all the great powers, including China, has been impressive. And it is on the verge of being accepted as a de facto nuclear weapon power.
Indias rising profile in the extended neighbourhood stretching from Africa to East Asia through the Persian Gulf, Central Asia and Southeast Asia has been equally significant. India is also actively seeking to reintegrate its periphery with the framework of regional cooperation.
Despite the rapid transformation of their foreign policies, Japan and India have run into a new political barrier, China. Barring left-wing ideologues, few have difficulty in recognising the fact that China does not want other powers to rise in Asia. It was equally predictable that China would do its utmost to prevent Japan and India from gaining permanent seats in the United Nations Security Council. Nor is it shocking that China is the only nuclear weapon power that opposes the Indo-US nuclear deal.
Chinas clout to limit the political aspirations of India and Japan is not limited to the international domain. Beijing has been adept at leveraging domestic lobby groups in both countries to prevent outcomes it considers unacceptable.
Thanks to the CPM, China does not have to wait for the International Atomic Energy Agency or Nuclear Suppliers Group to kill the nuclear deal. It has got the Indian communists to demand the deal never go before either grouping.
Neither Japan nor India has a desire to contain China. Japan is today Chinas largest trading partner and has a complex but intimate relationship with its neighbour. New Delhis relations with Beijing have been better than ever before.
Yet a much larger challenge confronts Tokyo and New Delhi. Will they accept a subordinate status in a Sino-centric order that has begun to emerge in Asia? Or will Tokyo and New Delhi persist with the construction of a multipolar Asia in the face of Chinese resistance at home and abroad?
If Japan and India want a place in Asia equivalent to that of China, they have no alternative but to impart a strategic dimension to their bilateral economic engagement, deepen their political cooperation on issues ranging from maritime security, high technology transfers, regional stability and global warming.
If they rise to the occasion this week, Abe and Singh will be remembered for their leadership in transforming Asian geopolitics and not by the length of their prime-ministerial tenure.
The writer is a professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore |
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