India and Southeast Asia: Towards Security Convergence

2. Growing Security Convergence?

Growing Security Convergence? 45 2 GROWING SECURITY CONVERGENCE? India, in South Asia, and the ten countries of Southeast Asia are large demographic entities and close neighbours with religious and sociocultural diversity, political pluralism, and also problems of socioeconomic underdevelopment and disparity. However, they do not live in an isolated world. They are part of the same geopolitical and geoeconomic environment pushed closer by the forces of globalization. The extent to which the countries of Southeast Asia and India will actually interact with each other on the range of issues will be largely determined by their own national needs and priorities. What is pertinent, however, is that even a broad convergence with respect to internal and external security goals can have a significant bearing on the stability of the AsiaPacific region to which they both belong. Of course, there will not only be points of convergence but also divergence with respect to the perceptions and priorities or ways to address the relevant issues. Any difference of views is, however, natural and should help to develop better understanding and a mature relationship. The evolving global and regional politico-security situation and the response of India and Southeast Asia form an appropriate backdrop for the analysis of such convergence or divergence. Southeast Asia itself is still far from being fully cohesive when it comes to security issues, both intramural or external. Priority to the issues of security varies within ASEAN itself. While Indonesia, the largest member of the grouping, has from the time of ASEAN’s inception attached primary importance to the consideration of security, others have different viewpoints.1 ASEAN, unlike the European Union (EU), can be described as a “process regionalism” as against “product regionalism”, which does not have a common security policy.2 This can be understandable since there are vast differences in political systems and economic development among the member countries in ASEAN. Until ten years ago, countries which 03 India&SEA Ch 2 11/11/05, 8:18 AM 45 46 INDIA AND SOUTHEAST ASIA: TOWARDS SECURITY CONVERGENCE were on the opposite sides of the ideological divide have come together to form the Association. This was to some extent true of EU as well. The rejection of the EU’s constitution by the voters in France and the Netherlands in May/June 2005, United Kingdom’s suspension of the legislation to hold a referendum, and the collapse of the EU’s budget have shown how national aspirations and sensitivities of the people in individual countries can place limitations on the goals of regionalism. Security convergence implies the existence of commonality or a perception of commonality on issues of security. Commonality should not necessarily mean exactly identical concerns or situations, but broad similarity. The larger the convergence, the greater the facilitation for co-operation. The identification of convergence on issues or concerns would itself need a clear understanding of the basic philosophies of the two sides — the values the nations of Southeast Asia and India stand for, their aspirations, and the means and priorities adopted to achieve them. Any commonalities with regard to the challenges they face would also constitute a convergence. Since the domestic and external concerns faced by both would develop independently of each other, any convergence of issues can also be coincidental or driven by similar factors or circumstances. The hypothesis of convergence would have to be tested on empirical grounds and should stand scrutiny on political, economic or sociocultural considerations. Similarly, the points of divergence would also require analysis of causes and effects. In terms of the domestic political ideologies, today most Southeast Asian countries and India are largely centrist where political management is generally conducted through broad-based policy consensus while taking into account the public opinion. In foreign policy, “engagement” seems to have become the watchword for Southeast Asian countries as well as for India which are embarked on engagement across a wide spectrum of countries. It can be said that today both India and Southeast Asian nations enjoy good relations with all major powers of the world. The essence of their approach is to avoid military confrontation, promote dialogue and maximize areas of agreement so that socioeconomic progress can be achieved peacefully. This foreign policy orientation is an extension of their domestic approach to peaceful co-existence and stability, considered sine qua non for socioeconomic progress. In the economic field, globalization has had a strong impact on Southeast Asia and India, with the former having been particularly hit hard during the Asian financial crisis...