Young Voices

For very long India’s Taiwan policy has been hyphenated with its ties with Beijing. Over the past few years, India however has strengthened economic ties with Taiwan, and a number of Taiwanese companies including Foxconn have invested in India. The Taiwanese electronics maker has promised to invest 5 Billion USD over the next 5 years in a manufacturing plant in Maharashtra. Bilateral trade between both countries, estimated at 5 Billion USD, is of course way below the actual potential, though it has steadily risen over the years.

Since the past couple of years, India is still discussing whether Daesh is a real time threat or is it waning. Interpretations, therefore, depend from person to person. Taking no chances, Indian security and intelligence establishments, under difficult circumstances, have done a commendable job in preventing departures of youth to Syria and Iraq, and most importantly, unearthed modules from a few Indian states.

East Asia is where the Cold War first turned hot, and remained frozen for more than seven decades. Donald Trump’s election in the United States (US) timed with China’s military and economic expansion puts an end to status-quoist policies, as much of the architecture of the region (its values and institutions) now stands challenged. This article thus traces four new shifts in East Asian geopolitics.

Farewell to Liberal Hegemony

India from having primarily a continental strategic outlook for most part of the 20^th century has started to expand its strategic horizon beyond the South Asian and Indian Ocean regions to the wider regions of the Indo-Pacific in an effort to establish itself as a Great Power in the 21^st century.  The Indo-Pacific is important to New Delhi’s strategic outlook as it helps transform India from being a continental power to a competing maritime power in the international system.

In 2015, India was recognised as the main driver of non-OECD oil demand growth at 1.8 million barrels per day (mb/d).  Buoyed by low oil prices, India’s consumer demand witnessed a significant boost, reflecting in its record growth in oil demand, which jumped to 0.3 mb/d in 2015 on a year-over-year basis. India, expected to overtake Japan as Asia’s largest oil consuming nation, had found its budget deficit worsening due to oil prices hovering above $100 a barrel.

If there is one major global governance issue that could take a hit with Donald Trump’s victory, it is climate change.

On July 12, 2016, the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague awarded the verdict over the dispute in the South China Sea between China and Philippines. The tribunal decided in favour of the Philippines by rejecting China’s claims to the South China Sea based on the “nine-dash line” map and specified that it had “no legal basis”.

The 2016 South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Summit was cancelled – throwing light on the fragile nature of relations between nations in South Asia. The Narendra Modi-led government applied substantial pressure on Pakistan and stated a clear intent on highlighting that when push comes to shove, diplomacy has to give way to tougher measures.

Since the Uri army base attack on 18 September 2016, in which 17 Indian soldiers were killed (called the “deadliest attack on the security forces in Kashmir in two decades”), relations between India and Pakistan have been at an all-time low. While India has provided ample evidence to establish the origin of the attack as Pakistan, the latter continues to be in denial.

The ongoing transition in Myanmar has thrown up several issues to the forefront — questions on federalism within the nation state, strengthening the economy to sharing of resources. The decision by Myanmar’s military junta to hold general elections and move the nation-state towards democracy was welcome albeit, underpinned by heavy skepticism. The cynicism stemmed from the long drawn rule by the military which has centrally controlled the politics and economy of the state.