27/12/2018 - India's Neigbourhood

KEY POINTS

According to World Bank, South Asia is one of the least integrated regions. Intra-regional trade accounts for only 5 percent of South Asia’s total trade, compared to 25 percent in ASEAN.

Factors restraining regional integration

·        High trade costs and investment restrictions

·        Insufficient policy-relevant analytical work on gains of Regional Integration in both trade and investment, to make informed policy decisions

·        Sceptical mindset from previous failures in regional cooperation, misinformation, and lack of vocal champions for regional cooperation

·        Relative asymmetry in size among the South Asian countries

·        Historical political tensions, mistrust, cross-border conflicts and security concerns

·        Limited transport connectivity, logistics and regulatory impediments.

Weak integration Exposing faults in India’s foreign policy

·        Lost a sense of diplomatic balance, for instance, when it tried to interfere with the Constitution-making process in Nepal and was accused of trying to influence electoral outcomes in Sri Lanka.

·        India’s refugee policy went against its own traditional practices, it was found severely wanting on the Rohingya question, and seemed clueless on how to deal with the political crisis in the Maldives.

·        Failing to follow-up on its promises. Eg. Kaladan multi modal project still incomplete.

Commendable measures for strong neighbourhood

·        India must shed its aggression and deal with tricky situations with far more diplomatic subtlety and finesse. The ability of diplomacy lies in subtly persuading the smaller neighbour to accept an argument rather than forcing it to, which is bound to backfire.

·        Neglecting interference in political affairs of neighbouring countries.

·        Rather than competing with china, India must invest where China falls short, especially at the level of institution-building and the use of soft power.

·        India must also look for convergence of interests with China in the Southern Asian region spanning from Afghanistan to Nepal to Sri Lanka. There are several possible areas of convergence, including counter terrorism, regional trade and infrastructure development.

Kindly review.thanks