Daily Pioneer: K Yhome and Vibhanshu Shekhar
The possibilities thrown up by two Thai Prime Ministerial visits in less than a year is limitless as Thailand is a neighbourhood economic powerhouse, a good friend and, above all, willing to offer India the integration with ASEAN it badly needs.
Mamata Banerjee, when she was not yet Chief Minister, once said something very revealing. She said, "We are not anti-Left; we are anti-Left-Front”. Somehow this seemingly innocuous, yet very significant, remark did not get the publicity it deserved. Perhaps
many did comprehend its importance, but overlooked the incongruity for fear of rocking Mamata's boat when the priority was to oust the Left Front at any cost.
India and Thailand ushered in a new era of strategic engagement during the visit of Thailand's Prime Minister, Yingluck Sinawatra, as India's state guest on the occasion of Republic Day. The visit gains greater significance for India's strategic positioning
in the Indo-Pacific region since New Delhi, for the third consecutive time, has invited the head of the government from the constituency of its Look East policy.
The growing ties between the two countries have come at a time when significant developments are taking place in the region. First, the region has been undergoing dramatic changes as a result of the increasing geopolitical tussle among major powers over energy
resources and maritime security in the Bay of Bengal region and the South China Sea. The growing tensions over territorial disputes in these regions have already seen regional countries building up their naval forces. Given the geographical proximity of India
and Thailand to these increasing volatile regions, their stakes are high in the emerging regional power dynamics.
Second, Thai politics is gradually returning to stability, after a period of internal political turmoil. The massive victory by Prime Minister Sinawatra's party and since taking over power, there are strong signs the country slowly showing its willingness to
play a leading role in regional affairs, as it has done in the past.
Third, both Thailand and India share long land and maritime boundaries with Myanmar and the ongoing changes towards political normalisation in that country provide immense opportunities. For a long time, despite the desire to strengthen cooperation, the three
countries could not cooperate meaningfully because of Myanmar's political situation.
It is against the backdrop of these regional developments that the recent visit of Thai Prime Minister to India and the strengthening of ties between the two countries gain geopolitical significance.
During the Thai Premier's visit, the two countries signed six agreements relating to defence and security cooperation, speedy conclusion of India-Thailand Free Trade Agreement, building greater connectivity and areas of functional cooperation. The two countries
agreed to conclude negotiations over both bilateral Comprehensive Agreement on Trade in Goods, Services and Investments and the India-ASEAN FTA in services and investment by 2012.
The tenth India-ASEAN Summit will take place in New Delhi in November 2012 commemorating twenty years of India-ASEAN engagement and ten years of India-ASEAN Summit meetings. Meanwhile India and Thailand are also celebrating the 65th anniversary of their diplomatic
relations. The visit has also highlighted an important aspect of India-Thailand cooperation — cooperation in developing larger industrial corridors and townships.
There are three important contributions of Thailand in India's projection of its Look East policy. First, Bangkok has played a substantial role in engaging with the mainland Southeast Asia. Thailand has acted as prime mover in the setting up of two sub-regional
cooperative initiatives — Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) and Mekong Ganga Cooperation (MGC).
Second, Thailand, through various initiatives both bilaterally or under these two forums, have played a significant role to bring India's Northeast onto the map of the Look East policy. Finally, Thailand has supported India's active participation in the ASEAN-driven
cooperative forums, such as ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), East Asia Summit (EAS), or ASEAN Plus Defence Ministerial Meetings (ADMM Plus). India's increasing role in South East Asia, as part of its Look East policy, fits in well to the current growing ties with
Thailand.
India and Thailand have begun working together in matters related to defence and security, such as coordinated patrol, combating transnational crimes, terrorism, and maritime piracy. The inaugural bilateral India-Thailand Defence Dialogue took place in December
2011. The two sides are also working on developing a bilateral legal framework to deal with ‘non-state actors and subversive elements. The two countries also signed an MoU on defence cooperation during the visit of Thai Premier.
India-Thailand relations are often viewed as a confluence of India's Look East policy and Thailand's Look West policy that meets in Myanmar. It is this context that Thailand's invitation to India to join hands while developing the Dawei deep-sea port in the
peninsular Myanmar and build a maritime corridor connecting Chennai with Dawei in Myanmar is vital. Thailand and Myanmar are important in India's efforts to strengthen land and maritime connectivity with the East.
The opening out of Myanmar also provides immense potential for New Delhi and Bangkok to collaborate in the development of Myanmar. As Myanmar moves towards democracy and is readjusting its foreign policy orientation, India and Thailand are well placed in further
strengthening the process of change and in assisting Myanmar's reengagement with the region and beyond.
In cross-border cooperative frameworks such as — the BIMSTEC and Mekong-Ganga Cooperation — Thailand, India, and Myanmar need to work together for joint cross-border trade between the three countries, these would help boost economic activities in the border
region of the three countries.
While the two countries need to build on the growing ties, reaching a compromise formula on bilateral FTA in services at the earliest will add to the efforts currently being pushed. Rubber seems to have emerged as the principal spoiler in the bilateral FTA.
Notwithstanding the mutual willingness to facilitate greater investment from Thai companies in the economies of India's Northeast, nothing significant has been achieved in this regard. The actual implementation and operation of the economic activities have
not occurred despite several MoUs being signed by different Thai companies. The Thai trade and commerce minister had led two large business delegations to India's Northeast in 2008. Since then several such delegations have visited Northeastern states. However,
much remains to be done.
India's Look East Policy would make consequential impact in the border regions only if New Delhi strengthens its ties with the neighbours. Most of the border regions in India, Myanmar, and Thailand share many similarities where much of the border regions are
characterised by issues of ethnic insurgencies, gun running and drugs trafficking. These problems needs joint efforts in finding resolutions. The key to addressing the issues is economic development which can only be assured through increased connectivity
and economic interactions along the borders.
With India and Thailand elevating their relationship to "strategic partnership”, New Delhi and Bangkok may now explore ways to collaborate their approaches on regional affairs with the aim to ensure stability and peace in the region. Such efforts will go a
long way in serving the long term interests of both the countries and the region.
(The views expressed above are the personal views of the author)