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| Can India play a balancing role for the US in the Asia Pacific Region? |
 PRINTABLE VERSION |
This does not mean that India will become a foreign policy instrument for the United States, although it is in the latter's interest to prevent Asia from being dominated by any single power that has the capacity to crowd out others (The Economist, 2006). In fact, India has its very own agenda and vision for the world and, ever since its hardly won independence from Britain; it will refuse to put itself in Japan's current security position. Neither does it want to loose its reputation of an independent power, for it would compromise its good relations with Russia, Iran and other Middle-Eastern countries.
This desire not to depend on a Western power to dictate its foreign policy does not mean India will be an isolated entity in the 21st century. To the contrary, India has increased its presence internationally, concluding many bilateral deals – with such a diverse set of countries as Sri Lanka, Chile, Singapore, South Africa and Egypt (Bilateral.org : India, 2006 ).
It recently improved its relations with Japan, as the US ally now sees India as a positive force balancing out China, at the same time as it seeks to gain from trade with the booming Indian economy (Chung, 2005). On the other hand, India is choosing partners that the US disapproves; for example, it is consolidating dialogue with the dictatorship in Myanmar to gain access to their gas, minerals and military bases (Batabyal, 2006). It also was amongst the first country to establish relations with the Republics of Central Asia (Chaturvedi, N.A.), a strategic move which can now be seen as a way to counterbalance China and Russia's actions through the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), of which India is simply an observer. All in all, there is no overt, one-sided policy that is either pro or against the Americans.
Most importantly, India appears at the negotiation table of many regional and sub-regional groups, whose careful analysis go beyond the scope of this paper. Rivalry with China is a persistent cross-cutting theme of India's Look East Policy. At the same time as India's increased dialogue with the Association of South-East-Asian Nations (ASEAN) is welcomed by many small countries that distrust Japan and are scared of China. Its ascension to the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) in 1996 and the East Asia Summit (EAS) in 2005 was seen negatively by China, who considers India as too remote to become involved in these groupings.
Although India failed to join the Asia Pacific Economic Forum (APEC), it has pursued its own interests on the South-Asian subcontinent through strengthening ties with its neighbours, partly through the establishment of the BIMSTEC (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation), the Mekong-Ganga Cooperation Forum and the SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation), all of which exclude China. There are good reasons to think that the current US administration welcomes India's ''expansionism'', as it switched from seeing its rival, China, as a ''strategic partner'' but rather as a ''competitive rival''. There is nevertheless no consensus within India as whether India should want to become part of the Big Three Alliance as suggested by Russia (Chaturvedi, N.A.); there is in fact a lot of controversy with regards to modernization, liberalization and adoption of Western values from many factions in India.
In conclusion, I do not believe that India will become a puppet of the United States in the near future, although I do not think that it will antagonize it either, in its efforts to catch up to China. Its rise as a regional power is likely to mitigate the US influence by consolidating ties between countries in the APR; truthful to its reputation of a lone actor, it is likely that India will adopt some policies in line with the Americans', and some others that do not, depending on its own national interests and those of the countries it has the strongest ties with. Although it is hard to predict future internal or external events that will impact on their position, it would not be surprising that the Indian foreign affairs and diplomatic trends will be subject to periodic modifications, as it was the case during the Cold War, which is argued to have never ended in the APR.
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Je suis étudiante en économie du développement au Canada, présentement volontaire en prise en charge socioéconomique des personnes vivant avec le VIH SIDA au Burkina Faso. Je m'intéresse particulièment aux mouvements sociaux et aux questions d'équité et d'oppression.
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