Manoj Joshi: Looking to India for a sea change

With the dust uneasily settling down following the stunning verdict on the South China Sea SCS arbitration questions are being asked about what New Delhirsquos stakes are in the outcomeThe SCS issue does not impact directly on Indiarsquos security However it is an important waterway for Indian trade and commerce with SouthEast Asia Japan Taiwan South Korea and China New Delhi has routinely signalled its world order concerns by strongly urging the importance of safeguarding the freedom of navigation of the seas the right of overflight and the importance of peaceful settlement of disputes within the ambit of international law mdash read United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas UNCLOS These have come out in several joint statements with countries like Vietnam Japan and the US New Delhirsquos position has been further burnished by the fact that it has accepted a negative ruling by an UNCLOS tribunal relating to its maritime boundary with BangladeshA file pic of a Chinese Coast Guard ship patrolling in the middle of the South China Sea which remains locked in an international territorial dispute PicGetty ImagesIndiarsquos stand has been sufficiently ambiguous for China to declare on the eve of the Tribunal verdict that New Delhi was supporting its case when it agreed during the RussiaIndiaChina trilateral meeting in April 2016 that even while the UNCLOS formed the basis of the legal order of the seas ldquoall related disputes should be addressed through negotiations and agreements between the parties concernedrdquo This was with reference to the 2002 Declaration on the Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea DOC which the Chinese claim had committed the Philippines to direct negotiations instead of which it went in for arbitrationYet Indiarsquos position is more nuanced Over the years it has built up an important relationship with Vietnam both because of an identity of interests as well as a kind of payoff for the Chinese activities in South Asia Since 1988 India has been involved in oil exploration in the seas off Vietnam and has developed a low key but important defence relationship that is mainly focused on capacity building training and maintenance of equipment Indian war ships routinely visit Vietnamese ports and conduct exercises with their counterparts India has also offered Vietnam a 100million loan to purchase Indianmade defence equipmentThe Indian Navy had a brush with the South China Sea issue when in 2011 its warship INS Airavat was warned over the radio to stay off lsquoChinese watersrsquo by a voice claiming to speak for the Chinese Navy just 45 nm from Vietnamese coast No vessel was actually visible and the Indian ship continued on its path unhinderedONGC Videsh has several deals for exploring blocks in the Phu Khanh Nam Con and Lan Tay basins In September 2014 India and Vietnam agreed to expand their cooperation in oil and gas exploration overriding objections by China The Indian view was that they had been exploring some of the blocks well before the Chinese decided to place them on their list of blocks for biddingSince 2013 India has made its concerns over the issue of freedom of navigation explicit through Joint Statements in summits with Japan Vietnam and the United States The IndiaJapan Joint Statement of 2013 first spoke of the commitment of the two to the freedom of navigation and unimpeded commerce ldquobased on the principles of international law including the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea UNCLOSrdquoThe Modi government went a step further in 2014 when in an IndoUS Joint Statement during the Prime Ministerrsquos visit to Washington it was noted that the two sides ldquoexpressed concern about rising tensions over maritime territorial disputesrdquo and affirmed the importance of ldquoensuring freedom of navigation and over flight throughout the region especially in the South China Seardquo This formulation adding the South China Sea was repeated during President Obamarsquos January 2015 visit but has since been droppedCountries of the ASEAN have privately expressed their desire for India to play a greater read balancing role visagravevis China in the region But just how India should do so is not clear ASEAN itself is a house divided and in any case its constituent nations have much more important economic ties with China than with India They are therefore cautious in their outreach to India and their policy is often one of hedging rather than seeking any deeper relationship with usBut as part of its lsquoAct Eastrsquo policy India needs to boost economic ties with the region and can do so it if it can participate in the global production chain into which ASEAN countries are deeply enmeshed and which are controlled by companies in the US EU Japan Taiwan and South Korea At the same time India needs to build up strategic networks that do not quite have the status of alliance with a host of countries like Vietnam Singapore Australia Japan and the US with a view of advancing our political interests in checking overbearing Chinese behaviour and shoring up our world order concerns relating to the freedom of navigation and overflightThe writer is a Distinguished Fellow Observer Research Foundation New Delhi