M.D. Nalapat
Manipal, India — During the period when the
Bharatiya Janata Party-led coalition was in office, from 1998-2004, India
launched several initiatives to enhance links with Taiwan. Air links were
expanded and foundations laid for a flow of Indian brainpower to Taiwan and a
ramping up of investment into India. Today trade between India and Taiwan is
close to US$6 billion, heading for $10 billion within the next year.
However, mainly because of a lack of
attention from the Sonia Gandhi-led United Progressive Alliance government,
Taiwanese investment in India, at a little over US$1 billion, is just one-fifth
of what it is in much smaller Cambodia and less than 5 percent of investment in
Vietnam.
This official neglect of Taiwan is motivated
by the hope that kowtowing to China will result in a more accommodating
attitude from Beijing on issues such as the border dispute – a proposition that
has so far proved false.
It would seem that with Taiwan under the
leadership of the Kuomintang, China is unconcerned about links between New
Delhi and Taipei, barring the ritual expressions of dismay at India’s rare
recognition of Taiwan's potential as a major source of investment.
Taiwanese diplomats unfortunate enough to
be posted to New Delhi are subject to restrictions that are absent in the
United States, the European Union, and in most of Asia – excluding countries
such as Syria, Iran or North Korea. For example, the military attaché at the
Taiwan mission in India has been barred by the Sonia-led government from
meeting any – repeat any – serving officer in the three armed forces. He can
meet only retired personnel, the older the better.
Nor are members of the Taiwanese military
welcome in India, even though they would be invaluable as a source of
information about the People’s Liberation Army. Recently, a five-member
military mission that was to fly to India from a stopover in Manila found that
visas were denied to three of its members, thus preventing them from
accomplishing their task of checking on the communications systems at the
Taiwan mission. This despite the fact that such visits are routine in the
United States, the European Union and key Asian countries such as Thailand,
South Korea, Singapore and Indonesia.
Indeed, Indian visas are denied to any
except middle-level officials of the Taiwan foreign ministry or security
services, while visits by Cabinet ministers are banned even for departments
such as economics, education and agriculture. Those who are given permission to
visit find the doors barred to contact with their Indian counterparts.
In January, a scheduled meeting with the
Taiwan vice minister for agriculture was cancelled abruptly because of the
sudden arrival in New Delhi of a vice minister from the People’s Republic of
China. The Sonia-led government decided that such a meeting would annoy their
PRC guests, even though Beijing gave no indication that it even noticed the
kowtow.
That Sonia Gandhi has a soft spot for the
PRC is no secret. Her contacts with Beijing have a history of three decades,
which is why she was treated as a head of state while attending the 2008
Olympic Games, with President Hu Jintao hosting a banquet in her honor.
The Congress Party president has kept a
tight leash on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, preventing him from following
through on his predecessor Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s opening to Taiwan. This is
despite the fact that the KMT government under Ma Ying-jeou is friendly to
India, even while it is cordial to Beijing.
Ma himself has visited India, as have
several key KMT leaders, keeping alive contacts that began in the 1940s when
India became a principal supply route for the battle against Japan. In 1942,
then President of China Chiang Kai-shek and his wife Mei-ling visited India and
openly backed independence from Britain, a stance that they maintained till
freedom was finally secured in 1947.
However, coolness between Prime Minister
Jawaharlal Nehru and the West created a distance between Taipei and New Delhi
after the 1949 establishment of the PRC and the departure of the KMT leadership
to Taiwan. Only in 1994 was this bridged, when the Narasimha Rao government
established formal links with Taiwan as part of its economic liberalization
plans.
Ironically, one of the key architects of
those reforms, Manmohan Singh, has been forced by his party leadership into
adopting a dismissive attitude toward Taiwan since taking office in 2004.
So intrusive is the Indian effort to pacify
Beijing by enforcing restrictions on the Taiwan mission that even its National
Day celebrations are not permitted under that name. Sleuths of the External
Affairs Ministry visit the venue of the annual get-together to ensure that the
Republic of China flag is not hoisted. Only junior officials attend such events
from the Indian side, in contrast to the treatment given to Taiwanese diplomats
by countries such as Singapore, Vietnam, Indonesia and Thailand.
Efforts have been ongoing to get the Singh
government to give the Taiwan mission the same rights and privileges it enjoys
in the ASEAN countries – barring Myanmar – but these have been blocked by Sonia
Gandhi's presumed PRC sensibilities. Contacts in Beijing say that such slights
are not at China’s request, but "purely the policy of the government of
India."
Certainly relations between both sides of
the Taiwan Straits have improved substantially since Ma Ying-jeou assumed
office last year. But this has not persuaded the establishment in New Delhi to
take better advantage of the informational and economic potential of Taiwan.
Today, when the Middle East, Russia and
East Asia are looking at alternative investment destinations, having been
burned by the misdeeds of Western financial institutions, it seems that some
within the Manmohan Singh government would like to ensure that India poses no challenge
to the EU as an investment destination. This they seek to achieve by
blacklisting companies from the Middle East, China and Taiwan on the grounds
that they are "security hazards."
Indeed, several Taiwanese companies have
had their proposals delayed for years on "security" grounds. These
include the giant Delta Group’s power proposal and a harbor development plan by
Eva Shipping. Another example is the estimated US$1.4 trillion in deposits held
by Indians in banking havens. The Manmohan Singh government has rejected
suggestions that an amnesty be declared so that at least some of these funds
can return to India and rejuvenate an economy being made moribund by high
interest rates and a savage direct-tax system.
When will Sonia Gandhi realize that Beijing
will not stand in the way of robust engagement with Taiwan? When will the
Congress president allow her prime minister to treat Taiwan the same way this
major economic player is treated by neighbors such as Singapore, Thailand and
even communist Vietnam? Despite the obvious advantages of opening to Taiwan,
such a day seems nowhere on the horizon.
-(Professor M.D. Nalapat is
vice-chair of the Manipal Advanced Research Group, UNESCO Peace Chair, and
professor of geopolitics at Manipal University. ©Copyright M.D. Nalapat.)
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