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In foreign secretary’s London speech, a message on Indo-Pacific and ‘rise of China’
Shringla outlined New Delhi’s plans to work with other countries across the region to ensure a rules-based order, maritime security and stability.
The rise of China and the need for global rebalancing have contributed to the current focus on the Indo-Pacific, a region through which 90 percent of India’s international trade travels, foreign secretary Harsh Shringla said on Tuesday.
Speaking at the think tank Policy Exchange in London on the theme “India’s vision of the Indo-Pacific”, Shringla outlined New Delhi’s plans to work with other countries across the region to ensure a rules-based order, maritime security and stability.
“The Indo-Pacific ocean system carries an estimated 65 percent of world trade and contributes 60 percent of global GDP. Ninety percent of India’s international trade travels on its waters, he said, noting that the shift in the economic trajectory from the Atlantic to the Indo-Pacific has been “hugely consequential”.
He added, “The rise of China and the imperative for a global rebalancing have added to the mix. A rules-based international order is achievable only with a rules-based Indo-Pacific.”
India, he said, will work for an “Indo-Pacific guided by norms and governed by rules, with freedom of navigation, open connectivity, and respect for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of all states”.
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Shringla, who is in the UK as part of a three-nation tour that also took him to France and Germany, focused on the growing cooperation between India and its neighbours as well as countries such as the US, Australia and Japan across the Indo-Pacific, both to protect freedom of navigation and to boost trade.
“We have sought to strengthen security and freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific by becoming a net security provider – for instance in peacekeeping efforts or anti-piracy operations in the Gulf of Aden,” he said. In the past six years, India has provided coastal surveillance radar systems to Mauritius, Seychelles, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Myanmar and Bangladesh, and all these countries, as well as Mozambique and Tanzania, use Indian-made patrol boats, he said.
Mobile defence training teams have been deputed to 11 countries, from Vietnam to South Africa and Myanmar, and the Indian Navy’s Information Fusion Centre for the Indian Ocean Region has enhanced maritime domain awareness among partners.
India has also developed capacities for humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR), and notable missions in the Indo-Pacific included “Operation Rahat” in Yemen in 2015, when India evacuated 6,710 people, including 1,947 citizens of more than 40 countries.
Amid the pandemic, India sent rapid response medical teams to countries as far apart as Kuwait and the Maldives and maintained food supply lines for Gulf nations and smaller island states such as Seychelles and Comoros.
In a tacit reference to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, Shringla said India has promoted infrastructure, connectivity, economic projects and supply chains while “prioritising the needs of the host community and the ethic of equity, environmental sustainability and social viability”. Like Germany, India too believes in fair competition, avoiding over-indebtedness on the part of recipient countries and ensuring transparency and sustainability while developing connectivity, he added.
For India, the Indo-Pacific stretches from the western coast of North America to the eastern shores of Africa, and the country’s strategy for the region was spelt out by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in a speech in Singapore in 2018 as the “SAGAR” or “security and growth for all in the region” doctrine, Shringla said. This includes securing supply chains, “no disproportionate dependence on a single country” and ensuring prosperity for all stakeholder nations,” he said.
