In Full Dialogue

IT was a double whammy for India at Jakarta this month. New Delhi was elevated as full dialogue partner of ASEAN, and also welcomed as a new member of the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), a two-year-old security organisation. But instead of glasses of champagne, the leaders gently raised tough questions about India not signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).

ASEAN changed its mind at the eleventh hour about popping champagne to welcome India, Russia and China into its fold as full dialogue partners. "Why should we have a special ceremony to make their elevation?" an ASEAN official asked. "ASEAN never had any ceremonies in the past when new dialogue partners were brought in."바카라 웹사이트

But with or without champagne, India cemented its ties with ASEAN. Singapore Foreign Minister Professor S. Jayakumar said the issue of India participating in the ASEAN Free Trade Area, or AFTA, is likely to be taken up at the first ASEAN-India Joint Cooperation Committee meet in New Delhi later this year. Also on the anvil is an ASEAN-India Senior Officials meeting.

India's stand on CTBT is destined to figure at future ARF meetings, but while the West may threaten sanctions, confrontation is not the ARF's style. However, Indonesian Foreign Minister Ali Alatas did appeal to India to sign the CTBT, saying it represented the last chance to outlaw nuclear tests. "We respect India's position, but we think that on CTBT, if we let the opportunity go by, something for which we have fought for the last 50 years, we may not get the same opportunity."바카라 웹사이트

Warren Christopher, US secretary of state, who met External Affairs Minister Inder Kumar Gujral in Jakarta, urged India to support the treaty at the Conference on Disarmament when it reconvenes in Geneva on July 29. In an earlier interview, Christopher had said: "I'll be urging them (India) not to block that approach...it should not be within the capacity of India to block such a treaty." However, he failed to get any commitment on the issue from Gujral after their 40-minute meeting. While Foreign Secretary Salman Haider was quick to retort that

Jakarta was "not the place, the forum, to discuss the issue," Gujral said: "We will try to explain to our friends India's compulsions. We take the enquiries in the friendliest of spirits. There is nothing adverse about it."

Senior American officials, however, were still hopeful, saying both sides were expected to hold further discussions to avoid a stalemate at the Geneva meet.

But the CTBT was not the main attraction at Jakarta, where India's elevation as full dialogue partner made headlines. At a ceremony on July 25, Jayakumar said the upgrading of India's relations with ASEAN underlined a new and stronger partnership.

Identifying specific areas for cooperation like infrastructure, human resource development, science and technology and tourism, among others, Gujral said he saw the full dialogue status as "a window to our progressive participation in other ASEAN-like groupings, like APEC and the Asia-Europe meeting." He felt Indo-ASEAN trade could be trebled to at least $15 billion by the turn of the century, and sought greater investment in India, particularly in the infrastructure sector. The ASEAN could also tap India's sci-entific and technological strengths.바카라 웹사이트

Jayakumar, who is ASEAN's coordinator for the dialogue with India, said India could provide vital links to the Indian Ocean, while the grouping could be the subcontinent's springboard to the Asia-Pacific. "It would be hard to imagine an Asia-Pacific century without India's participation," he said of India, whose GDP of $280 billion is ranked fifth in the world.

Gujral described ASEAN's decision to raise India's partnership status as "farsighted", but warned both sides against "premature euphoria or unjustified cynicism.... Let us follow an 'enrich-thy-neighbour' policy, which will establish what ASEAN leaders have termed cooperative prosperity in which there is place for growth for everyone." He was confident India would be able to slip into the ASEAN culture given their common tradition of "tolerance and gentleness."

As for the ARF, ASEAN officials reckon that given India's ability to control access to the Straits of Malacca and the greater Indian Ocean region, through which much of regional trade passes, New Delhi can affect regional peace and security.

A similar concern was behind Myanmar's inclusion. Many analysts believe that if China brought Myanmar further under its influence, Beijing could exercise a stranglehold over trade routes under southern China's large underbelly.

바카라 웹사이트A divisive debate over Mya-nmar's human rights' record was narrowly averted when the US and the European Union did not act on their planned threat to suggest sanctions on Myanmar. Warren Christopher, however, felt the world ought to use its policy of constructive engagement with Myanmar to pro-mote democratisation, and warned a political stalemate could force US President Bill Clinton to impose economic sanctions.

On ASEAN's way of bringing about political reforms in Myanmar, Alatas said: "We prefer quiet diplomacy, the South-east Asian way—never trying to interfere in their internal affairs, never making them feel cornered publicly. This is a much better approach."