Relations With East Asian Nations
Although it had traditionally supported Burma's pro-democracy movement for many years, India's policy changed in 1993, making friendly overtures to the military junta. India signed trade agreements and increased its investments in Burma; although private sector activity remains low, India's state corporations have landed lucrative contracts for industrial projects and the construction of major roads and highways, pipelines and upgrading of ports. India has also increased its competition with China over the harnessing of Burma's significant oil and natural gas reserves, seeking to establish a major and stable source of energy for its growing domestic needs, countering Chinese monopoly over Burmese resources and reducing dependence on oil-rich Middle Eastern nations. Although China remains Burma's largest military supplier, India has offered to train Burma's military personnel and has sought their cooperation in curbing separatist militants and the heavy drug trafficking affecting much of Northeast India. China's winning of contracts harnessing more than 2.88-3.56 trillion cubits of natural gas in the A-1 Shwe field in the Rakhine State and development of naval and surveillance installations along Burma's coast and the Coco Islands has provoked great concern and anxiety in India, which has stepped up its investment in port development, energy, transport and military sectors.
India has also established strong commercial, cultural and military ties with the Philippines, Singapore, Vietnam and Cambodia. India signed free trade agreements with Sri Lanka and Thailand and stepped up its military cooperation with them as well. It has numerous free trade agreements with East Asian economies, including a Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement with Singapore and an Early Harvest Scheme with Thailand, while it is negotiating agreements with Japan, South Korea, and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states. Ties have been strengthened with Taiwan, Japan and South Korea over common emphasis on democracy, human rights and strategic interests. South Korea and Japan remain amongst the major sources of foreign investment in India.
While India has remained a staunch supporter of the "One China" policy and recognised the People's Republic of China on the mainland over the Republic of China authorities on Taiwan, it has, nevertheless, pursued a policy of increasing engagement with the island. India has stepped up engagement with East Asia fueled by its need for cooperation on counter-terrorism, humanitarian relief, anti-piracy, maritime and energy security, confidence-building and balancing the influence of other powers, notably China. Driven by the fact that more than 50% of India's trade passes through the Malacca Strait, the Indian navy has established a Far Eastern Naval Command off Port Blair on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. India has also been conducting joint naval exercises with Singapore (SIMBEX) since 1993, with Vietnam in 2000 and has engaged in joint patrols with Indonesia in the Andaman Sea since 2002. Japan and India were also members of the tsunami relief regional core group in the Indian Ocean in 2004 along with Australia and the United States.
Read more about this topic: Look East Policy
Famous quotes containing the words relations with, relations, east, asian and/or nations:
“The land is the appointed remedy for whatever is false and fantastic in our culture. The continent we inhabit is to be physic and food for our mind, as well as our body. The land, with its tranquilizing, sanative influences, is to repair the errors of a scholastic and traditional education, and bring us to just relations with men and things.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“If one could be friendly with women, what a pleasure—the relationship so secret and private compared with relations with men. Why not write about it truthfully?”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“Richard. Give me a calendar.
Who saw the sun today?
Ratcliffe. Not I, my lord.
Richard. Then he disdains to shine, for by the book
He should have braved the east an hour ago.
A black day will it be to somebody.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Morals are in all countries the result of legislation and government; they are not African or Asian or European: they are good or bad.”
—Denis Diderot (1713–1784)
“Poetry is the most direct and simple means of expressing oneself in words: the most primitive nations have poetry, but only quite well developed civilizations can produce good prose. So don’t think of poetry as a perverse and unnatural way of distorting ordinary prose statements: prose is a much less natural way of speaking than poetry is. If you listen to small children, and to the amount of chanting and singsong in their speech, you’ll see what I mean.”
—Northrop Frye (1912–1991)