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"The Asean-India relationship has reached a high point"

P.S. Suryanarayana

A "strategic approach" is the best way to clinch the difficult trade pact between India and the Association of South East Asian Nations by the July timeline. Asean Secretary GeneralOng Keng Yong, in an exclusive interview in Singapore on Sunday, said the two sides cannot do without such an accord. Excerpts:

— PHOTO: AFP

Ong Keng Yong: "We have gone beyond the categorising of China as the best economy for us and India as a secondary economy. We take it that India has emerged as a strong economy."

Do you expect the Asean-India trade-in-goods agreement to be signed by July as announced after their mid-January meeting at Cebu in the Philippines?

Everything we do in politics has a magical moment. Once that magical moment passes, it is very hard to rewind. Right now, the Asean-India relationship has reached a high point.

Are we at the magical moment? Was Cebu the magical moment?

At the top political level, enthusiasm is there. From time to time, we get a sense [though] that the magical moment might have passed. We are bogged down in bureaucratic tussle.

Is there a possibility of winding up the show if an agreement is not reached?

Can the Asean and India do without the [proposed] free trade agreement (FTA)? My answer is: `No.' I do not know whether we should speculate on what would be the possibility if we don't get anything by July.

Is it something like a war of attrition?

No. It is just that there is a doubt, on both sides, about how this FTA will impact on our own national economies. Take palm oil. The Indian position is that the reduction in tariff would be undertaken in a step-by-step way. [For the Asean, though] it makes no sense to have FTA with India and a high level of tariff for a product which India itself does not produce in any substantial quantity. We will have to bring this issue to equilibrium. Then, there are other products like coffee, pepper, Again, the same story.

I don't think it is a war of attrition. [But] our negotiators come out with baby steps in some concession [in response to the call from political leaders on both sides]; and you go back into a stalemate. If you talk about FTA between 10 Asean countries and one big economy called India, if you just focus on the details, product by product, it would take many, many years. So, it is better to take what our leadership has called `the strategic approach.'

So, are you banking on just the political will to crack the puzzle?

I am banking on political will to crack the puzzle. Now, it is really a piece-by-piece kind of move.

Becomes a chess game ...

Yeah. It is very time-consuming. Political goodwill is what we are banking on. Maybe, it is not a smart idea to just depend on that. We are hoping that certain other things will evolve. Indian Prime Minister has made some interesting offers. Education is an area we can work on. He offered to look at how India can work with the Asean on energy security. So, we say [to ourselves in the Asean]: `Grab these kind of issues which can become very good credit chips for both sides; and, then, we establish a stronger cooperative spirit at the base and move our FTA [talks] at the same time.'

Indian negotiators keep saying the Asean negative list is also too large ...

My latest instruction from our [Asean] leaders is: `The job for negotiators is to get the best deal for both sides; and, in doing so, we must remember there is a timeline. You can get the best deal over 25 years of negotiations. Then, it is no longer a good deal.' The thing that divides us is only a bogey that, if we give too much to the other side, our domestic constituency will whack us. We have been talking about the Asean-India FTA for almost three years.

In comparison with China, with which Asean has already done a deal for trade in both goods and services, does Asean see India as a probationer major-economy?

No. We have first of all avoided comparing India and China, because we are talking about apples and oranges. Secondly, the Indian economy has its own merit. We have gone beyond the categorising of China as the best economy for us and India as a secondary economy. We take it that India has emerged as a strong economy.

Does Asean still regard China and India as the two engines of Asean, viewed as a jetliner?

Yes. Most recently, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh talked about India's experience in producing cheap energy, affordable energy, and most recently, nuclear power. There is much more than just the FTA for the Asean-India relations. Where do you find good, inexpensive, English teacher? In India. And, so on, information and communications technology and all that.

What is the future direction of the one-year-old East Asia Summit (EAS), which includes India and China but not the United States? In what respect does the EAS differ from the Asean Plus Three (which has in it China, Japan, and South Korea, besides the 10 Asean countries, but not India or the U.S.)?

The U.S. is not kept out by any of our initiatives. The EAS is open, but there are certain requirements. We [ask an aspiring participant]: `Have you acceded to the [Asean's] Treaty of Amity and Cooperation?' Now, America, being a big country, is basically saying: `We sign treaties only when it is in our national interest. Not when you tell me to sign, in order to be in the EAS.'

The Asean Plus Three started in 1997. At that time, it was inconceivable to have an EAS. Almost 10 years, the world has changed. [However,] it will be quite foolhardy of us to insist that the 16 [participants of the EAS] should now be the nucleus of a `community' in this region.

So, the EAS is still more of a brains trust than an action group?

Yes. On the other side, the Asean Plus Three was designed in such a way that they build on the similarity in culture, in society, in our economic workings. And, to a certain extent, contiguous geography. And, over the last 10 years, there are many cooperative mechanisms in many sectors. But now, we have reached a point where we ask ourselves: `Is this going to give us a community?' And, the answer is, still, a very tentative `maybe' only. Because, we have not yet developed the habit of cooperation.

Whose initiative was the EAS?

It is our Asean initiative. It is driven by the desire to have one aeroplane [called the Asean] with two jet engines: India one jet engine, and China one jet engine. But when we first started, India was not easily persuaded. And, some of our countries were not [also] easily convinced that India would like to be the jet engine. So we started with Plus Three. And, when it grew and India's economic development [was] validated, then we said: `It will be in our Asean's strategic-survival interest to have one big aero-plane and two jet engines.' Australia, New Zealand will provide, maybe, the special fuel. And America's [military] presence and strategic involvement [in East Asia] would provide the security environment. We always say to the Japanese: `You provide us the fuselage with the wings.' The Asean will be the pilot for the time being. Maybe, after some time, we will rotate our piloting.

What then is the expectation about the proposed Asean charter?

To use the analogy of jet-plane, as a pilot we [the 10 Asean countries] are still speaking in different languages. How are we going to communicate with the towers of airports around the world [that is, the larger international community]? So, we said: `Let us speak one common language of coherence and cohesion among the Asean 10.' The way forward is a new branding. Democracy is the foundation. No one [not even military-ruled Myanmar or Thailand] challenges this principle now.

Internal democracy and democratic functioning of the Asean are two different things ...

Internally, they [the Asean leaders] believe that there should be democratic basis. And, as the Asean, we should also become more transparent. Our thinking is that we should work towards getting the draft [charter] adopted by the leaders in November in Singapore. This branding exercise cannot be [done] at leisure.

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