By Ranjit Devraj
NEW DELHI, Dec 21 2004 (IPS)

There is now little doubt that in 2005 the phlegmatic elephant, that is India, will be ready to confront the fiery Chinese dragon in Beijing’s own South-east Asian stomping grounds.

And although much of the visible competition has been over trade and resources there is a security edge to the rivalry between the Asian giants.

”Just as China has been seeking to limit India by cultivating its immediate neighbours like Pakistan and Burma, India is now reaching out to countries like Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia that have borders with China,” Uday Bhanu Singh, China expert at the prestigious government think-tank, the Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses (IDSA), told IPS in an interview.

What is truly relevant, according to Singh, is that the constituents of the 10-nation, Association of South-east Asian Nations (ASEAN) are wary of China and welcome a countervailing Indian influence in the region. ASEAN includes Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Burma, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.

Rivalry between India and China for influence in the Indo-China region was on display this year at the Nov. 29 ASEAN summit in the Laotian capital of Vientiane where Beijing stole the show by inking a trade pact aimed at creating a common market that would economically unite a quarter of the world’s population.

China-ASEAN two-way, trade is now set to cross the 100 billion U.S. dollar mark annually in contrast to India’s bid to increase trade with the grouping from the current 12 billion dollars to 30 billion dollars by 2007.

In Vientiane, India came up with a lame explanation that it planned to concentrate on the poorer cousins of the ASEAN – Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam and Burma. But on closer scrutiny, these countries were anyway left out in the Beijing deal.

China was quicker than India to recognise the potential of ASEAN which has a collective economy worth more than 750 billion dollars and is home to 500 million people.

But India, which announced its ‘Look East’ policy more than decade ago, is determined to catch up by leveraging its strengths in the private sector that has been building up a formidable global reputation in the software and services industry.

In fact, the Indian show at Vientiane was largely orchestrated by the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and included the showpiece Indo-ASEAN car rally which traversed 7,000 kilometers from Guwahati, the capital of north-eastern Assam state, to Batam in Indonesia to prove the feasibility of an overland connection linking the two regions.

According to those who made the grueling the trip, the potential is enormous but the infrastructure is yet to be put into place. ”In many places in Burma, Laos and Cambodia, the roads were practically non-existent and contrasted greatly with the speedways of Thailand and Malaysia,” said Faizal Khan, a journalist who hitched a ride on the rally.

Indian policy makers are in fact worried at the speed of by which China has been developing transport infrastructure in its Yunnan province, whose capital of Kunming is connected to Vientiane and Hanoi by rail.

There are air routes connecting Kunming with Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Hanoi, Rangoon and Vientiane while the Lancang-Mekong river route links China with Laos, Burma and Thailand.

In August, 2001 China signed a deal with India’s rival, Pakistan, to build and finance the multi-billion dollar strategic deep sea port at Gwadar that, when commissioned next year, is expected to provide Beijing access to markets and energy sources in Middle East.

According to Khan the markets of Burma were flooded with Chinese goods and there was much talk of plans by Beijing to build roads and lay down telecoms infrastructure – that made a mockery of western sanctions against the military regime in Rangoon.

Without doubt it was due to these developments that compelled India to lay out the red carpet for Senior General Than Shwe, when he came calling late October in what was the first visit by a Burmese head of state to New Delhi in 25 years.

There were deals signed to build hydro-electric projects and a security agreement to curb insurgency along Burma’s border with India’s turbulent north-east with hardly a mention of the incarcerated, pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi who went to school and college in the Indian capital and has many personal friends here.

Burma returned the favour by increasing pressure on Naga insurgents and helping to get the long-exiled leaders of the powerful National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN), Thuingaleng Muivah and Isak Chishi Swu to the negotiating table that promises a final settlement of the decades old problem early next year.

According to Ganganath Jha, professor of international studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, the good part is that Burma has always valued good relations with India and has, unlike Pakistan, never allowed itself to be turned into a destablising entity even during the days when New Delhi was openly criticising the Burmese generals and demanding the quick release of Aung San Suu Kyi.

But said Jha: ”India’s (pro-democracy) approach only resulted in China making strategic headway in Burma between the years 1988 and 1992.”

The academic believes that India’s whole ‘Look East’ policy hinges crucially on making peace with insurgent groups in the north-east and developing good strategic relations with Burma. ”All it takes is imaginative thinking and a willingness to see the north-east as a window of opportunity which can no longer be kept shut or even partially shut,” Jha said.

Rather than complain about China’s efforts at road-building and developing telecommunications infrastructure, not only internally but also in the neighbouring countries, India could match these efforts by fostering better trade and economic ties to cultivate mutual co-dependencies that could guarantee peace, analysts say.

There are signs that India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a former World Bank economist, is taking the hint. His plans to develop Guwahati as an international commercial hub for India’s ‘Look East’ policy is similar to what China has done for Kunming.

Singh said recently that the proposed 1,400 kilometers Trans-Asian highway between Moreh in India’s Manipur state and Mae Sot in Thailand could be built in two years. In fact large sections of it has already existed since World War II as the Stilwell Road.

The arguments in favour of building the road are compelling. Assam is located 2,000 kilometers from the Indian capital, while Kunming is half that distance along the Stilwell road.

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