Recently, it came to attention that China violated Indian airspace in March, with aircraft crossing the militarized border zone.
The border issue, still unresolved as of 1962, is a frequent source of tension and disruptions such as these cause escalations in hostility. Additionally, Chinese buildup on the border is becoming an increasing concern for India.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/India-news/NewDelhi/China-violated-Indian-airspace-in-March-Govt/Article1-849505.aspx
Earlier in April the leaders of Russia, India, and China met in Moscow to rehash the BRICs meeting that was held not to long before. The three countries have now done this seven times, which is a good indicator of attempting cooperation as three of the largest rising powers in the world today. The key topics they hit were disaster relief, agriculture, and public health and safety. The contuance of these meetings will help ensure a firm relationship between the three developing nations.
http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_india-china-russia-trilateral-meet-in-moscow-on-friday_1674071
It is the desire of the two governments to increase trade, and one of the biggest current issues is that the trade between the two countries relies too heavily on government to government trade. The need for a growing trade in the private sector is integral for the increased success of the two countries. It is in both of their best interests to pursue this, and the two governments have recognized this need and will begin furthering talks and making this happen. Until then, trade will not rise at the speed that it needs. This will be a greatly missed opportunity for Russia especially if this occurs. The market growth in India is massive and it is imperative for Russia to jump on the opportunity that is presenting itself.
| Paul Nicklas
As the first Muslim country to recognize Bangladesh as an independent and sovereign nation and given their long history of bilateral cooperation, Dato’ Jamaluddin bin Sabeh, the high commission of Malaysia in Dhaka, would likely understand the international significance of the recent Dhaka Art Summit given recent Bangladeshi cultural policy and the stark similarities in artistic expression between India and Bangladesh. Malaysia has traditionally used their close ties with Bangladesh to offer economic and technological assistance in return for a cheap Bangladeshi labour workforce. Additionally, Malaysia is the largest ASEAN investor in Bangladesh and their trade balance is overwhelmingly in Malaysia’s favor. Indian High Commission in Dhaka Bangladeshi High Commission in New Delhi High Commission of Malaysia in Dhaka Bangladesh High Commission in Kuala Lumpur |
| Paul Nicklas
The recent push by the Indian Department of Commerce to normalize their bilateral trade relations with Pakistan, their exchange of exports lists and their push to take advantage of their economic potential, likely serves as a reminder to Nguyễn Việt Hưng, the Vietnamese Ambassador to Pakistan, of the initial stages of Pakistani-Vietnamese economic relations and the great trade potential that should be addressed with enhanced cooperation between Hanoi and Islamabad. Although, Vietnam and Pakistan have enjoyed diplomatic relations since 1972, both their political and economic relations remained rather modest until the mid 1990s. In fact both countries had to close their embassies to each other within 10 years of its opening because of their own economic difficulties. The Pakistani embassy to Vietnam opened in 1973, but was already closed by 1980, while the Vietnamese embassy to Pakistan was established in 1978, but was already locked up by 1984. High Commission of India in Pakistan High Commission of Pakistan in New Delhi Vietnamese Embassy of Pakistan Embassy of Pakistan in Vietnam |
| Paul Nicklas
As a small regional economic powerhouse that is also surrounded by larger Muslim countries and a partner in the trade and development of military technology, Honorary Consul-General, Dr. Yehoshua Gleitman, would not be surprised that the Israeli booth was the largest and most popular at a recent Indian Defense Expo given their past participation in Singaporean defense expos and airshows as well as the Israeli role in the creation of Singapore’s Ministry of Defense and their Armed Forces. In fact, Singapore’s founding father, Lee Kuan Yew, turned to both India and Israel shortly after independence to help his nation in the development of their Foreign Ministry and their Armed Forces, with India only initially assisting in development of the former. While their relationship with Israel should be considered just as critical to Singapore’s rise into the developed city-state of the present, their cooperation was not public knowledge. In comparison, while Indian-Israeli relations not established until 1992, their extensive military relationship has always been internationally known and the Israeli exhibition at the 2009 Aero India Show was also the largest and most popular. Currently, India is the largest customer of Israeli military equipment, while the extent and specifics of the Israeli-Singapore defense relations are largely kept a state secret. Embassy of India, Tel Aviv Israeli Embassy, in India Consulate-General of Singapore in Tel Aviv Embassy of Israel in Singapore Article about Israeli Defense Minister’s visit to an international defense expo in Singapore Article about Israeli Presence at the most recent Singapore Airshow |
| Paul Nicklas
As a recent established strategic partner of India and the largest trading partner of Russia Southeast Asia, Ambassador Itti Ditbanjong, the Thai Ambassador to Russia, would argue that any discussion of strategic partnerships should be considered on a more regional basis then a global basis to avoid constant debate over the importance of only the United States, China, Russia, Japan, India, Brazil and Western Europe (mostly France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Italy) to a particular country. In other words, nearly every sovereign country has a strong ‘strategic partnership’ with the United States, and those that do not tend to have a ‘strategic partnership’ with either Russia or China. As the world’s most powerful and influential nations, the listed powers would dominate any global investigation of relations; when evaluated by the totality of their economic, defensive and political-diplomatic ties. Thailand might not have a strong opinion on Indian policy in Kashmir or the Russian difficulties with Chenchnya, but those political situations also has very little relevance to their mutual cooperation on security, economic, academic, cultural or political-diplomatic issues with either Moscow or New Delhi. Embassy of India in Bangkok Russian Embassy in Bangkok Royal Thai Embassy in New Delhi Royal Thai Embassy in Moscow |
Paul Nicklas
After India signed its fourth bilateral Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA), their trade with Malaysia should be boosted from about $10 billion last year to about $15 billion by the year 2015 and allow for the development of another close bilateral relationship between India and one of their maritime neighbors in the ASEAN. India has traditionally always had close relations with the people of the Malay Peninsula, dating back to their time as colonies in the British Empire and even earlier to maritime trade with Indian traders in antiquity. Another reason for their close relations is the large population of Indian nationals in the Malaysia and their presence guarantees that India will always play a prominent role in Malaysian foreign policy, similar to large influx of Chinese nationals also found in Malaysia. Notable is the majority of Indian settlers of Malaysia are ethnically Tamil and the Malaysian Indian Congress has been dominant political presence in Malaysian politics. The four official languages of the neighboring city-state of Singapore are in fact, Malay, English, Chinese and Tamil.
Although, India and Malaysia established diplomatic relations in 1957, similar to the rest of Southeast Asia their relations were almost nonexistent until the end of the Cold War (the only exception was Vietnam and Cambodia, while it was under Hanoi’s control). Presently, Malaysia is India’s third largest trading partner with the ASEAN and India is Malaysia’s largest trading partner in the greater South and Southeast Asia region. The recent CECA between New Delhi and Kuala Lumpur will do nothing but, facilitate and encourage further development of bilateral trade between the two countries. Indian bilateral trade will Singapore, Japan and South Korea did in fact skyrocket about their CECA’s with India were signed into force due the liberalization of trade in goods, trade in services, investments, and many other areas of economic cooperation. Overall, the India-Malaysia CECA can only be viewed in a positive light as the deal take the tariff liberalization beyond the India-ASEAN free trade agreement of 2009 into the next level of effective commerce.
http://www.smetimes.in/smetimes/news/top-stories/2011/Jun/30/india-malaysia-ceca-comes-into-force-from-friday625735.html
Paul Nicklas
A recent joint negotiation of a treaty that should of came into effect about 2 years before hand, call attentions to the limited bilateral relations of the Philippines and India when compared the Indo-Indonesian relationship or Indo-Singaporean relationship and that both countries need to take advantage of the current geopolitical situation and work towards improving their bilateral relations to the advantage of the greater Asia-Pacific region. Unlike many of their peers, the Philippines has never been a close partner of India, despite their official establishment of diplomatic ties way back in 1949. Although, various treaties and agreements wee signed between 1949-1969 on a variety of sectors, bilateral cooperation never truly got started with India and the Philippines. As Cold War politics gradually shaped Southeast Asia into two hostile camps, Manila and New Delhi found themselves on opposite sides of the table. Despite, not having any major points of contention, the American-aligned Philippines developed minimal bilateral relations with the Soviet-learning India.
Although, Indian-Philippines dialogue has steadily grown since the early 1990s, their relationship is not considered to be critical by either nation and their limited bilateral trade of $865 million is the best evidence for their comparatively small relationship (in contrast to $11 billion total with Malaysia, $20 billion total with Indonesia and $3.9 billion total with Vietnam). Another area where their relations have not seen substantial growth is their investment in each other’s markets, again when compared to the Philippines’ peers in ASEAN. Although, there has been a significant exchange of pharmaceuticals and the cooperation against counter-terrorism has grown significantly over the last few years, their relationship will likely continue to take a ‘backseat’ to India’s bilateral relations with other Southeast Asian nations for near future. Because of the established framework between Manila and New Delhi, their rather limited relationship can be assigned to the lack of incentive for further expansion and a lack of governmental priority from each country.
http://www.embindia.org.ph/pr_fta.php
http://cbec.gov.in/customs/cs-act/notifications/notfns-2k11/cs-tarr2k11/cs46-2k11.htm
Paul Nicklas
Last Month, Indonesia and India held weeklong anti-terrorism and anti-insurgency exercises in the Northeastern province of Mizoram and these joint training sessions of the two most populous countries in the Greater South and Southeast Asia region speaks volumes of the strength of their strategic partnership and the future of counter-terrorism. Since the implication of their ‘Look Easy Policy’ in 1990s, India’s relations with a handful of Southeast Asian nations have been diversifying and growing at an extraordinary rate. One of those countries has been Indonesia and of all of the members of the ASEAN; Indonesia has the most in common with their Hindi counterpart. An unfortunately problem that both India and Indonesia have recently had to deal with is homegrown Islamic insurgencies and terrorism. Fortunately the leadership in both New Delhi and Jakarta are wise enough to recognize that bilateral cooperation is an effective way of combating their mutual security threat and an excellent way of taking advantage of their ‘strategic partnership’ agreement of 2005.
Even since India and Indonesia have jointly started to hold bilateral naval action in the early 1990s, Indonesia has seen the advantages in maintaining close defense ties with India for both the management of their armed forces and the expansion of their defense infrastructure in terms of training and manufacturing. Ever since 2002, Indo-Indonesian patrols have leading coordinated patrols of the Six Degree Channel of the Andaman Sea, a primary conduit for international shipping through the Malacca Strait. Perhaps most importantly, the first platoon-level joint counter-terror exercises of last month might just a preview of the future action of the Indonesia-India Strategic Partnership, that recently had an action plan or ‘a vision statement for 2025′ drawn for it during the 2007 Joint Indonesia-India Commission Meeting.
http://news.outlookindia.com/items.aspx?artid=753778
