BackPeace from Shangri La
Japan's Shinzo Abe is looking forward to Indian cooperation against Chinese aggression. It is in India's interest to seize the moment
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The annual Shangri La conclave in Singapore is an event where global leaders, especially from Asia, gather to discuss ideas about security and security cooperation. The keynote address for this year’s conclave was delivered by Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Friday. In contrast to the usual speeches delivered every year, Abe outlined a practical vision for security cooperation in an increasingly volatile region where China is the known threat to peace but no country has the courage to voice that concern openly. Even Abe did not mention China as a threat, but he also left no doubts on what he meant.
India under its new dispensation should take note of what Abe said. It is unfortunate that India was not present at this important forum this year. Perhaps this will change the next year.
Leaving aside Abe’s alleged rhetoric against China, his address had two takeaways.
1) Collective security in Asia and elsewhere.
The Japanese Prime Minister said that, “We are in an era in which it is no longer possible for any one nation to secure its own peace only by itself. This is a view shared throughout the world. That is exactly why it is incumbent upon us in Japan to reconstruct the legal basis pertinent to the right of collective self-defence and to international cooperation, including the United Nations peacekeeping operations."
The reasons for this state of affairs vary. In the West, the US’s exhaustion--after a decade of waging wars and counterinsurgencies far away from its territory—have ensured the absence of another power with the same worldwide military reach and power. No country in the world, including the US, has the financial muscle needed to secure global peace.
In Asia, China’s overwhelming military and political might make the idea of single-country defence difficult to imagine. Vietnam, The Philippines and Japan have disputes with China in East and South China Sea. On their own, they are in no position to counter Chinese aggression. Japan is only trying to formalize what other countries have perceived but have not been able to articulate.
At one time, the idea of collective security was derided as being impractical. It was assumed that the leading country in such an arrangement would end up shouldering almost the entire burden—military and financial. Real world events, for example the way the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) functioned with the US assuming the most important and difficult tasks, showed this to be true. Collective security was a myth.
The Asian experience shows that this is not true.
2) The nuts and bolts of creating an Asian security system.
Abe said, “I urge the further enhancement of the East Asia Summit (EAS), as the premier forum taking up regional politics and security. Next year marks the 10th anniversary of the launch of the EAS. I propose that we first create a permanent committee comprised of permanent representatives to ASEAN from the member countries and then prepare a road map to bring renewed vitality to the Summit itself, while also making the Summit along with the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) and the ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting plus (ADMM-Plus) function in a multilayered fashion."
On paper ASEAN has a number of institutions to address virtually all the important questions in its political ecosystem. Security, economic cooperation and political dialogue all have a specific forum. In practice, many exist only on paper. If collective security in Asia is to become a practical and realistic goal, these institutions will need an injection of life, again.
As long as the threat from China remained latent, there was virtually no reason to activate ASEAN’s security forums. But in recent years, China has successfully thwarted ASEAN from collectively dealing with it. Beijing knows its strengths and prefers to keep Asian countries at bay under the garb of bilateral negotiations on disputes and contentious issues. It took Japan to formulate an alternative—collective—approach to deal with China.
India is a member of the EAS. It has its own disputes with China. While the ideas outlined by Shinzo Abe at the Shangri La dialogue may appear to be remote, geographically, from Indian concerns they really aren’t. India is a vital spoke at the western end of the system that Abe has in mind. The Japanese Prime Minister is looking forward to Indian participation. In his address he pointedly said that he looked forward to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Japan and the deepening of ties between the two countries.
It is in India’s interest to quickly seize the moment and become a part of this arrangement. New Delhi should not fritter away this chance.
Global Roaming runs every Tuesday to take stock of international events and trends from a political and economic perspective.
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