PM’s Japan tour: All eyes on the nuclear issue

Indo-Asean FTA set to miss another deadline
Madhur Singh
New Delhi, December 6
WHEN PRIME Minister Manmohan Singh visits Japan from December 13 to 16, strategic cooperation and comprehensive economic partnership will be high on the agenda. However, the real issue worth watching will be civilian nuclear cooperation – whether or not Japan will announce its support for the Indo-US nuclear deal, and whether it will announce any programmes for bilateral civilian nuclear cooperation.
According to Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon, who spoke to mediapersons today before the PM’s tour, nuclear cooperation is an "ongoing conversation" between India and Japan. He did, however, say, "The PM’s visit is likely to have substantive outcomes".
There are reasons enough to be optimistic on this front. Indo-Japanese relations have been on an upswing since former Prime Minister Yoshiro Mori’s visit to India in 2000. The pace has picked up since the announcement of the Eight-fold Initiative during former PM Junichiro Koizumi’s visit in April last year. "India is on Japan’s radar much more than it has been in the past," says Prof Brij Tankha from the Department of East Asian Studies, DU.
Moreover, given the evolving geo-political realities – the growing closeness between India and the US in the light of Japan’s own special relationship with the US, as well as the antagonism between Japan and China over several issues including the Yasukuni shrine and the South China Sea – Japan may be inclined to display this significant gesture. It has been trying to balance China by supporting India in various regional forums, including the East Asian Summit.
Also, given Japan’s nationalist – some analysts say militarist – turn, which precedes the election of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Japan may want to take a less stringent line towards India’s nuclear programme.
However, Prof H.S. Prabhakar from the Centre for East Asian Studies, JNU, opines that given Japan’s history and its unswerving championship of the non-proliferation order, it may refrain from giving a clear nod to India’s nuclear programme and may instead opt for some sort of a half measure.
Whichever way the nuclear issue pans out, India will have reason to smile in the shape of a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA), which will be aimed at boosting not only bilateral trade but also Japanese FDI into India. So far, China gets about thrice as much FDI from Japan ($6.5 bn) as does India ($2 bn). According to a study by Assocham, the visit is likely to push Indo-Japan trade to $ 12 bn by 2010, up from the current figure of $7 bn.
India and Japan will also utilise this tour to further their strategic and military ties. Cooperation on infrastructure projects, S&T and reform of multilateral institutions including the UN will also be on the agenda.
Meanwhile, at the Indo-Asean Summit in the Philippine resort town of Cebu on December 12, the Prime Minister’s pet project, the Indo-Asean FTA, will still be on the negotiating table. After repeatedly hitting roadblocks over negative lists and rules of origin, the FTA is stuck on four main items – crude and refined palm oil, tea, coffee and textiles. According to Dr Nagesh Kumar from RIS, a think-tank, India has ceded more ground in this particular FTA than it has in any other. Asean, however, has refused to budge on issues on which it has compromised in other FTAs. For instance, agricultural goods are excluded from the intra-Asean FTA (AFTA).
Shorn of the FTA, the summit will be a rather lacklustre affair, consisting of a review of ongoing projects under the ‘partnership in peace, progress and shared prosperity’ signed two years ago and discussions on the future directions these should take.
While anti-terror cooperation is expected to be high on the Asean agenda, it does not figure prominently on the Indo-Asean agenda. Neither does energy security.
Energy cooperation will, however, be the highlight of the second East Asian Summit (EAS) on December 13. The EAS brings together the 10 Asean members, plus the three additional members of the Asean Plus Three (APT) – China, South Korea and Japan – as well as India, Australia and New Zealand. Although the organisation has the ambitious goal of creating an Asian Economic Community a la the EU, how much significance members are giving it is evident from the fact that the summit has been assigned only half a day. During this time, the leaders are scheduled to discuss energy as well as finance, education, cooperation in dealing with natural disasters and bird flu.
Overall, it will be the second leg of the PM’s tour which will be worth looking out for.

Maturation of China's South Asia policy

MORE IMPORTANT than the Sino-Pakistan deals made during Chinese President Hu Jintao’s visit is the one not made. There has been no Sino-Pak deal commensurate in ambition and scope to the Indo-US deal, although a number of other agreements on defence, energy cooperation and trade – including an FTA – have been signed.

Pakistan has reason to be disappointed, although Hu has tried to smoothen the ruffled feathers with a commitment to continue to help Pakistan's nuclear power programme – which means little more than that China will complete the six nuclear power plants it has promised to Pakistan.

India, meanwhile, has reason to cheer, but it is more a case of two cheers than three. Says China analyst V.P. Dutt: “Not only has China felt obliged to not announce any new nuclear deal, it has stopped short of making too obvious a tilt towards Pakistan.” However, he adds, “China may have thought it prudent not to announce a new deal and to save it for some time in the future. India also needs to watch out for what China means by playing a ‘constructive role’ in ensuring peace in the region. Also, Hu has used terms like ‘brothers’ for Pakistanis, which betrays a degree of warmth that China and India have never shared.”

This warmth in relationships results in part from their historical partnership as a bulwark against India, as also from the fact that Pakistan was among the first countries to recognise the People’s Republic of China and that it has steadfastly supported China’s stance over Tibet, Taiwan and human rights. Clearly, as non-democratic States, Pakistan and China have more in common than do China and India.

Manoranjan Mohanty, co-chairperson, Institute of Chinese Studies, points out that China has actually taken pains to assure Islamabad that its growing closeness to New Delhi is not at its expense. “The FTA is very significant – China and Pakistan will raise bilateral trade four-fold to reach $15 billion by 2011. Some 18 other agreements on various issues have been signed.” These include the agreement to sell AWACS to Pakistan and expand energy cooperation.

Overall, this visit has cemented the pattern of China’s relationships with India and Pakistan that has emerged over the past decade, which is to cultivate Pakistan as a partner and a lever in South Asia, while forging better relations with India.

Visit significant, but mainly symbolic

Trade, border dispute top agenda; 12 agreements on wide range of issues likely

WHEN CHINESE President Hu Jintao arrives in India for a four-day visit this evening, it will mark the high point of the ongoing India-China Friendship Year. The first visit by a Chinese President in 10 years is symbolically significant, as it comes at a time when India-China cooperation is at a historic high and the two Asian giants want to assure each other that they are partners and not competitors. However, the distrust that has marked the two countries’ modern history will hardly be absent.

At the top of the Chinese President’s agenda will be trade. Bilateral trade is set to cross the $20 billion mark soon, and the two countries are likely to discuss a free trade agreement and/or a regional trade agreement. However, it is early days yet for an agreement, although Alka Acharya, Assistant Professor of Chinese Studies at JNU, says an RTA is more likely in the near future. “The negotiations and the institutional arrangements for an FTA will take some time to be put in place. Something along the lines of China joining Saarc is more feasible in the short term,” she says. India is likely to bring up the issue of diversification of its exports to China, which currently comprise mainly of iron ore and other primary products. China, on its part, will seek liberalisation of visa norms for its businessmen – at present India limits business visas for the Chinese to 3.2 lakh annually.

The other main issue on the agenda is the border disputes – a reminder that while economic cooperation is strengthening, issues of strategic concern have remained unresolved. While the two countries have mostly let sleeping dogs lie, the Chinese ambassador’s untimely remarks re-stating the Chinese claim on Arunachal Pradesh in the run-up to the Hu visit have not gone down well with security watchers in India. Brahma Chellaney, a well-known foreign affairs analyst, warns that Hu is a hardliner who made his name in the Chinese Communist Party as the martial-law administrator of Tibet, and hence, “Beijing may be striving to adopt a tougher stance on the border disputes with India and the presence of the Dalai Lama and his government-in-exile in Dharamsala.”

However, other China watchers point out that China has lately committed itself to the ‘three major tasks’ of modernisation, national reunification and safeguarding world peace. China would, therefore, be unlikely to take a confrontational stance on the border dispute with a country with which it has growing trade relations, especially after New Delhi has taken pains to accommodate the Chinese claim over Tibet. Moreover, at this juncture, China is seeking greater respect in the international arena – as was evident at the recent African summit in Beijing earlier this month – and is actively seeking partners to enable multipolarity and multilateralism in international relations.

Since the China visit of then Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee in June 2003, the two countries have appointed Special Representatives for boundary settlement, who have held eight rounds of talks so far. Nevertheless, Hu’s visit is unlikely to result in an agreement – not the least because any compromise on either side will need consensus at home – and the talks will be along the lines of reaffirming the commitment to find a solution.

Leaders of the two countries are also likely to discuss the India-US nuclear deal, as China is a member of the Nuclear Suppliers Group. India would, then, bring up the issue of Sino-Pakistan nuclear cooperation and re-apprise China of its concerns.

Security experts are also expecting the announcement of more joint military exercises. In all, some 12 agreements pertaining to a range of issues including health, sports and trade are likely to be signed.

So, in all, the visit is unlikely to lead to any historic agreements, although the two countries will reaffirm their commitment to further bilateral ties.

Nice guns, but the butter?

THE GOOD news last week was that the Iraq war cost the Republicans the Congress. The bad news was that it cost the Americans $ 2 trillion. That is, roughly $ 300
for each one of the six billion-plus citizens of the world. Compare that with the $ 3 per head that the United States has been giving as aid to the poorest of African countries, and the scale of the anomaly becomes clearer.
While we shake our heads at the US, let us pause to take a look at some news reports closer home. India, a US Congressional report showed last week, has become the biggest military buyer in the developing world, having bought equipment to “modernise its defence forces” for $ 5.4 billion (roughly Rs 24,000 crore) in 2005. Our 2006-07 budget allocated Rs 89,000 crore for defence. And how much did we spend to modernise our ailing health system? Rs 12,546 crore. That is about one-seventh of our defence budget. Never mind that diarrhoea claims more lives every year in India than all the wars since Independence put together.
What’s going on here? How societies allocate their resources is a reflection of their values and priorities. What does it say about our priorities that we stand in awe of security and strategic analysts, and dismiss and ridicule those espousing social issues as airy-fairy, bleeding heart liberals? Idealism is all very well on paper, we say, but let us not forget that India is surrounded by unstable as well as hostile neighbours — Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and even Nepal. How can we live in such a neighbourhood and not arm ourselves for any eventuality?
So we spend six to seven times more on defence than on health or education because, after all, money is a scarce resource and there’s only so much of it to go around. And then, we’re perplexed at farmer suicides and water riots, and angry at Naxalites and those squatters spreading their filth outside our posh colonies.
This is not to say that defence spending alone is responsible for all our social ills. To a development practitioner, it would be absurd that we are proud to blast off a sizeable chunk of our GDP to send a man to the moon, but
not spend enough to send all our children to school. Just as it is absurd that more money is spent globally on research on cosmetics than on research on health. The global aid spend is $ 50 billion, while the global military spend is $ 950 billion (2003 figures), despite the fact that more people die of HIV/Aids and even malaria around the world each year than they do in wars or armed conflicts.
To cite another example, the UNDP Human Development Report 2006 points out that it would take $ 10 billion annually to halve the number of people without access to clean water and sanitation — which is “less than five days’ worth of global military spending and less than half of what rich countries spend each year on mineral water”.
But, of course, it is not the development practitioner whose voice gets primacy in decision-making and resource-allocation. In the rigid hierarchies of knowledge that all societies create, it is the economist and the security expert whose knowledge we value most. This holds true for almost all societies today. The result, on the one hand, is an obsession with growth figures, with little or no consideration for the quality of growth. On the other hand, astronomically large expenditures get justified in the name of security. And it is assumed that there is only one way of looking at security — as ‘national’ security.
However, for the purpose of solving any of the problems that actually affect people — the citizens in whose name policy is made and budgets allocated — this definition is dangerously constricted and rigid. No one is denying that ‘national’, military security is essential. But what about other kinds of security? Security for the individual means not only security from aggression, but it also means security from structural violence — the violence that pervades the system and prevents an individual from attaining his or her full potential. Security, thus defined, means food security, job security, security from bodily assault, etc. It also means security from exploitation by greedy moneylenders and corrupt officials, from caste oppression, from want and deprivation. And it means freedom to be oneself and to express oneself.
That the world would be a better place if governments laid more emphasis on social rather than military security is obvious. But to effect this change of worldview is the challenge. The insularity and apathy of the Indian middle-classes is rather exceptional, although India is gradually acquiring a more vocal and activist civil society — as was evident at the India Social Forum recently. But we will have to get a lot more vocal and activist, and enlist many more among our ranks, in order to make our government understand that we want cleaner air and water more than — and before — another Kiev class aircraft carrier.

UNDP Report

IT IS rarely that India wins kudos for its performance in the social sector. The UNDP Human Development Report 2006, entitled Beyond Scarcity: Power, Poverty and the Global Water Crisis, gives India a pat on the back for being on track to meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of halving the number of people without access to clean water by 2015. However, the report points out, India lags behind the target for halving the number of people without access to sanitation by that date. Lack of clean water and sanitation facilities (wat/san, as they are called in development terminology) are not only a result of poverty, they perpetuate and exacerbate poverty. For instance, water-related diseases lead to loss of productive workdays and heightened private and/or public expenditure on health services. The extent of the problem can be gauged from the fact, pointed out in the report, that at any given time nearly one in three Indians suffers from a water-related health problem.

To break this vicious cycle of poverty and wat/san deficit, governments need to make an intervention by investing in better wat/san facilities. India, with its growing economy and population must take urgent steps to ensure water security in the medium and long terms. To make the most of its favourable demographics, it must also ensure adequate human resource development and enhanced standard of living, for which provision of clean water and sanitation are prerequisites.

The UNDP’s calculations show that $1 spent on water and sanitation can yield returns to the tune of $8 in terms of increased productivity and reduced health costs. It recommends an annual expenditure of 1 per cent of the GDP, and also calls for enhanced international aid. Further, it urges governments to make water a human right, and to systematically integrate of wat/san into overall development policies. This, however, requires a paradigm shift at the policy level. For instance, India’s prevailing subsidies structure and general infrastructure deficit, which entail the poor spending much more on water than the rich, will have to be changed. Over-drawing of groundwater and pollution of rivers must be checked. Poor demand-side management, which translates into a tendency to over-use, must be improved. How it tackles such issues will show how serious the government is about its commitment to equitable and sustainable development.

Farewell to arms

AFTER MONTHS of stalemate and two failed peace deals, there’s good news at last from Nepal. The trilateral negotiations between representatives of the Maoist rebels, the seven leading political parties and the UN have finally resulted in an agreement acceptable to all parties, and one that tackles almost all the crucial issues facing the country. The two main stumbling blocks before the earlier peace deals were disarmament and the future of the monarchy. Under the deal signed on November 7, the Maoists have agreed to disarm under UN supervision, in return for 73 seats in the interim parliament. Significantly, the Maoists’ share in the interim parliament is just one short of that of the largest party, Nepal Congress (NC). It reflects the government’s recognition of the Maoists’ strength, and should go a long way in mainstreaming Maoists’ political agenda. The future of the monarchy, it has been agreed, will be decided by a constituent assembly, which is expected to be in place by June 2007 once elections are held under the interim government. All royal property, meanwhile, will be sequestered.

The agreement, however, cannot be expected to be a magic wand that will wipe away strife and divisions overnight. The interim government, after all, will require former enemies to work together. Many of the leading mainstream political players – including Sher Bahadur Deuba of the Nepali Congress-Democratic and the NC’s Girija Prasad Koirala – are known to be moderately pro-monarchy and stridently anti-Maoists. The Maoists will be heavily outnumbered in the 330-member legislature. For the agreement to hold, all parties concerned will have to exercise restraint and work together to create conditions and institutions that will enable the people’s will to prevail.

Nepal is torn along linguistic, cultural, religious, regional and class lines. The Maoists led by Prachanda were able to gain a stronghold because they were seen to espouse the cause of the downtrodden peasants and workers, pitting their ‘democracy from below’ against the ‘democracy from above’ of the ruling elites. For a genuine people’s democracy to flourish, it will be important to ensure political economic empowerment of all sections of the population. This is a huge challenge for an impoverished, land-locked hill-State. Undoubtedly, the task ahead is uphill. However, the agreement is a promising start.

An opening chapter

THE DECISION of the Central Information Commission to allow right to information activist Arvind Kejriwal to inspect all cabinet files and notings on foreign direct investment in brand retailing is a landmark decision. This is for the first time that cabinet papers have been accessed under the Right to Information Act, 2005. By over-ruling the objections raised by the central public information officer on the issue, the CIC has sent across the right signal to the public and to public servants. One of the many impediments before the implementation of the RTI – in spirit, and not just in letter – has been the attitude of the bureaucracy. While corrupt officials have a stake in trying to keep potentially damaging information secret, many honest officials also resent having to divulge information due to an ingrained culture of secrecy that views answering the public’s questions as an attack on their personal power and esteem.

The particular subject on which access to information has been allowed – brand retailing, which is part of the larger process of reform – is also significant. With newer and more far-reaching reforms being introduced rapidly, the public deserves to know why and how decisions are reached so that an informed debate can take place and the citizen can have a greater say. Countries with strong right to information traditions have a more active and effective civil society. The path-breaking class action suits against tobacco companies in the US could happen because members of the public could access critical information, both in the public and the private sector. In Europe, de-classified documents from the past are routinely used by the academia to re-visit and re-construct historical ‘truths’.

The latest ruling will give a fillip to the fledgling system that has been put in place since the right to information law came into effect in October 2005. The RTI 2005 has been hailed around the world as one of the best of its kind. While it is necessary to entrench the existing system, the authorities must not lose sight of the fact that more wide-reaching provisions are required in the long run. These include information from the private sector, de-classification of old documents, and de-classification of information of a non-critical nature included in Section 8 (information about the armed and paramilitary forces, for instance).

Dragon on safari

Africa, it said, is the continent of the future. Is it any wonder that the only country that recognizes this is the superpower of tomorrow—China. The forum on China-Africa Cooperation that begins in Beijing on Friday, brings together 48 African leaders in what is being billed as the largest summit in China’s modern history. The event is a declaration of China’s intention to assume a leadership role in international relations. The forum’s agenda leaves almost nothing out – debt cancellation, aid, tariff reductions, investment, technology transfers and human resource development. It will bring China rich economic rewards and brownie points by effectively appropriating the aims of American initiatives like the African Growth and Opportunity Act and the EU’s Lome and Cotonou Conventions.

Compared with China’s initiatives in Africa, India’s seem puny. While China is canceling African debt to the tune of $10 billion, the India-Africa Fund aimed at development aid has a corpus of $200 million. China is Africa’s third largest trading partner – after the US and France – and China-Africa trade has risen four times in as many years, reaching $40 billion in 2005. India-Africa trade, on the other hand, was $9.14 billion in 2004-05. China’s foreign direct investment in Africa was $900 million in 2004, while India’s is $330 million. Given their geographical proximity, shared colonial past, and cultural links by virtue of Africa’s large Indian diaspora, India can do much more. This will not only be in India’s interest, but also in Africa’s.

Experts are already warning that China’s large-scale exploitation of Africa’s primary resources, especially oil, may lock Africa into a situation of poor and declining terms of trade while creating a dangerous dependency relationship. China’s amoral – some would say immoral – decisions like supplying weapons to Sudan and Zimbabwe may further destabilise the continent and worsen its human rights situation. China's ignoring of environmental and corporate governance standards when lending to African countries may lead to chaos and long-term decline. Moreover, African States themselves are decrying the influx of cheap Chinese goods. As against China, India’s commitment to democratic and human rights ideals does keep it on the straight and narrow path. But the while the world does not live on bread alone, poor and backward African nations are also looking at ways and means to get ahead. This is a need that India, too, needs to address.

Finally, some data to chew on

THE NATIONAL Sample Survey Organisation’s (NSSO) count of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) has confirmed two facts. First, the various guesstimates regarding the proportion of OBCs, including the Mandal report’s figure of 54 per cent, have been incorrect. Second, the policy of across the board reservation is flawed. With the exact proportion of OBCs in the population of the country unclear, the government’s attempts to reserve seats in jobs and educational institutions for OBCs have been tantamount to putting the cart before the horse. After all, only when you know the extent of the problem can you fix it. Earlier this year, this had prompted the Supreme Court to seek an explanation from the government on three issues: the basis for fixation of 27 per cent reservation norms for OBCs, the rationale for determining who does or does not belong to an OBC, and the modalities for implementing the reservation policy.

Now the NSSO’s 2004-05 survey puts the OBCs’ share of population at 41 per cent. It also presents a varied and nuanced picture of the status of the SCs, STs and OBCs vis-à-vis the rest of the population. For instance, it finds that the literacy rate among the STs is 52 per cent, among the OBCs, 65 per cent, and among forward communities, 78 per cent. However, the buying power among OBCs and forward communities in rural areas is about the same. In rural areas, the proportion of the chronically unemployed is the highest among the forward communities, while in urban areas it is among the SCs.

By bringing to light the nature and extent of the problem, the survey fixes one part of the question. The other part is: given that some form of affirmative action is required, what form is the most suitable? Clearly, a one-size-fits-all reservation formula is not the solution. The survey points out many gradations among and within the various castes and classes with respect to literacy, employment and income. Therefore, the problem cannot be macro-managed. What is required is a series of targeted, context-specific and result-oriented policies that provide a helping hand where needed.