Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had given another passionate push to the idea of the centrality of India in the emerging world order by promoting the concept of “Indo-Pacific” in his key-note speech at the prestigious Shangri-La dialogue in Singapore on Friday, June 1.
The Shangri-La Dialogue is one of Asia’s most important defence forums attended by leading scholars, strategic experts, and Defence Ministers of participating states.
While Prime Minister Modi was at his diplomatic best by being modest, respectful, and mindful of sensitivities of other players in the region by emphasising on inclusiveness, openness and ASEAN centrality and unity as the key feature of the Indo-Pacific region, the centrality of India were unmistakably visible in the air.
It is important to note that the concept of “Indo-Pacific” has long been in gestation since 2012, when it appeared for the first time in Australian White Paper on Foreign policy, and since then brewing within the academic and strategic community, before receiving major impetus under Trump administration’s vision of ordering the world.
The concept acknowledges the necessity of viewing the two regions, hitherto seen separately – Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean – as one coherent strategic theatre, with an embedded acknowledgement of the centrality of India as a key player within the region.
The United States (US) National Security Strategy (NSS) document by the White House in December 2017 had brought to fore the concept of “Indo-Pacific” from academic interest to strategic reality.
Accentuating further on Trump administration’s backing of region’s changing geopolitics, the US Secretary of Defence, James Mattis, had announced the renaming of the US Pacific Command or Pacom as the Indo-Pacific Command in the in Shangri-La Dialogue.
It was a momentous announcement, given the fact that US Pacific Command has been in existence since last 70 years as a unified combatant command of the US Armed Forces responsible for the greater Pacific region.
Why Modi’s pitch for Indo-Pacific was significant?
Mr Modi presented Indo-Pacific region as the new strategic theatre with world’s most dynamic economies, and world’s most dangerous conflict-prone regions, requiring urgent attention of world leaders and strategic community, with India as the central player of the region.
Such was the appreciation for Mr Modi’s pitch for Indo-Pacific region that The Australian Financial Review (AFR) - an Australian business and finance newspaper published by Fairfax Media – carried a piece titled Narendra Modi just had his big Indo-Pacific moment.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern with his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi in 2017 (Picture: Google)
It seemed that there was a tacit hint in this headline to the fact that Australia was the first major country to articulate Indo-Pacific as a big thing in international relations (as if the rest of the world, including the US and India, were late in catching up the importance of the Indo-Pacific).
While the popular media is going gaga over the political correctness, modesty and sense of inclusiveness embedded in Modi’s vision of Indo-Pacific region, the strategic experts around the world are seeing it as another hint towards India’s gradually evolving will, to play an active role in creating a rule-based order in global politics.
Modi’s pitch in Singapore had that unmistakable hint of willingness to play a significant role in global politics.
New Zealand’s dilemma on Indo-Pacific
Till date, New Zealand has not been able to refine its strategic thinking around the fast emerging Indo-Pacific concept.
For a long-time New Zealand has been comfortable in seeing itself belonging to Pacific Rim countries, which are linked to Asia, through the concept of “Asia-Pacific.”
Over the years, NZ political and strategic community have become comfortable in engaging with two major players of Asia-pacific region – the US and China.
While its relationship with the US is pivoted around defence and strategic cooperation, the relationship with China is driven by economic interests.
New Zealand seems to be reluctant to accede to the idea of opening up the region into the new “Indo-Pacific,” as it essentially brings another emergent big player – India – into calculations, which only adds to its discomfort.
To be fair to NZ, India still has to offer something substantial to NZ in the realm of the economy or strategic gains to garner similar backing.
Increasing global support for “Indo-Pacific” concept
However, despite NZ’s reticence in recognising the changing focus from Asia-Pacific to Indo-Pacific, India has momentum on its side, with the world seem to be warming up to the concept of Indo-Pacific.
The concept of Indo-Pacific as one coherent theatre of action in international relations gets further boost with the revival of the concept of the Quad.
The quad – as is popularly known – is an acronym for the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, a strategic partnership Japan's Shinzo Abe initiated in 2007 during his first term as prime minister – which envisage closed strategic cooperation between India, Australia, Japan and the United States.
These four countries belong to geography which corresponds to Indo-Pacific.
The concept of the quad also got revived when last November, senior officials from Quad countries met on the sidelines of the East Asia Summit in Manila to discuss ways to achieve common goals and overcome challenges in the "Indo-Pacific".
Meanwhile, countries of ASEAN region, being wary of China’s rising assertiveness in the region, have been quick to buy-in the concept of Indo-Pacific, for they see India as a possible bull-work against China’s unilateralism in the region.
Mr Modi, strategically visited Indonesia and Malaysia, the two major players within ASEAN, before reaching Singapore for the Shangri-La Dialogue, where there seems to be much warmth towards the idea of Indo-Pacific.
In a nutshell, the broader opinion is shaping towards the redrawing of Asia-Pacific into Indo-Pacific, which undoubtedly accentuates the centrality of India.
India’s bilateral diplomacy in action in “Indo-Pacific”
It is widely acknowledged within the global strategic community that India for long has been building its naval power and developing strategic linkages with the countries in the Indo-Pacific region to substantiate its position.
Mansukh Mandaviya at Mahatma Gandhi Centre in Auckland
However, walking the talk on Indo-Pacific, the Indian government has put extra focus in recent times on developing linkages beyond its traditional linkages with countries in the broader Indo-Pacific region.
Jaswantsinh Bhabhor (third from right) at Indian Consulate office in Auckland
India watchers and the Indian community in New Zealand would note that just within one month, three Indian Ministers have passed through Auckland en-route to Pacific Island Countries.
Ashwini Kumar Choubey (second from right) with Honorary Consul of India in Auckland, Bhav Dhillion (IWK Picture)
The Indian Weekender readers would recall the recent visits of Indian Union Minister for State, Mansukhbhai Mandaviya, Jaswantsinh Bhabhor and Ashwini Kumar Choubey, who were on a mission to visit countries of Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, and Niue.
In some cases these visits were an inaugural Ministerial visit to the Pacific Island Countries, reflecting upon the current strategic thinking in New Delhi, which increasingly sees Indo-Pacific region as its own backyard.
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