Tsai’s re-election brings new opportunities for India-Taiwan ties
Tsai’s re-election brings new opportunities for India-Taiwan ties
WRITTEN BY SANA HASHMI
20 May 2020
Countries across the Indo-Pacific are facing the COVID-19 threat. India, where the number of cases is rising at an alarming pace, is yet to find its way out of the COVID-19 challenge. A closer look at the region’s response clearly puts Taiwan as the new champion in dealing with this trans-national crisis. Its experience with the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and impeccable health system is something India could learn from. As Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen holds her presidential inaugural ceremony on 20 May, this sets the right context as to why there could not be better timing for India to engage Taiwan.
Like Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Taiwan President Tsai was re-elected to the Presidential office after a landslide victory in January 2020. Tsai is a pro-democracy leader and has been critical of the ‘1992 Consensus’ and ‘One Country, Two Systems’. One of her major contributions is to address the issue of Taiwan’s shrinking international space by launching the New Southbound Policy (NSP). She has been working on Taiwan’s foreign policy outreach through the effective projection of its NSP.
With Tsai’s return as the President of Taiwan, it is clear that the NSP will remain a major focus of her foreign policy agenda. As a part of the NSP, Taiwan sent medical aid to the NSP countries including India. Technically, the NSP is improvising on the previous government’s Go South policy which was initiated to reduce Taiwan’s excessive economic dependence on Mainland China. It would be unfair, though, to say that the NSP is a mere extension of the Go South policy. The two are different in many ways. First, the South Asian countries are also included in the scope of NSP. Among the South Asian countries, a major focus is on strengthening commercial, people-to-people and cultural ties with India. Second, the NSP is less about reducing dependence on China, and more about expanding ties with the NSP countries in economic, people-to-people and science and technology sectors. This is one of the reasons why Taiwan’s representative office in India, the Taipei Cultural and Economic Center (TECC) has four main divisions: ‘the consular, economic, education, and science and technology divisions’.
NSP is in sync with India’s Act East and wider Indo-Pacific policies. This is an opportunity India cannot afford to miss as Taiwan has been proactive in engaging India. A good move in that context was supplying 1 million masks to India under the framework of the NSP. It is vital for India to take reciprocal positive steps.
Tsai’s re-election provides India with an opportunity to strengthen its ties with Taiwan. India-Taiwan relations have long been ignored due to India’s adherence to the One-China policy. It is crucial for India to understand that engaging Taiwan in the commercial sector is not in conflict with its adherence to the One-China policy. While India-Taiwan trade has grown in recent years, it is still far below Taiwan’s trade with other Asian countries such as Japan and South Korea, and of course China. In 2018-19, the volume of two-way trade was US$ 7.18 billion, which was an increase from US$ 6.08 billion in 2017-18. Taiwan has set up four trade offices in India. The problem lies in the investment sector. Taiwanese investors find it rather difficult to get through the bureaucratic apparatus. India and Taiwan are exploring options to expand cooperation in the tourism sector. In 2018, the Taiwan Tourism Bureau office was established in Mumbai and Vistara will soon operate a direct flight between New Delhi and Taipei.
Under Modi 2.0, India’s foreign policy is increasingly defined by several unprecedented developments and bolder moves. In fact, during Modi’s first term, there were signs of steady engagement between India and Taiwan. Taiwan Representative to India, Ambassador Tien Chung-Kwang was invited to Narendra Modi’s swearing-in ceremony in 2014, in which Dr Lobsang Sangay, the elected representative of the Central Tibetan Administration, was also invited. After witnessing initial signs of improvement in India-Taiwan ties, the relations are facing a plateau now. This is primarily because China registered a ‘strong’ protest after the visit of all-women parliamentarians to India in 2017. Since then, India has been careful not to hurt China’s so-called ‘core interests’. What is noteworthy is that India’s China policy is not reciprocated with the same warmth.
While the Wuhan Summit worked as a confidence-building measure and diffused tensions between India and China on the border, the following Mamallapuram Summit between Modi and Xi failed to yield any positive results. If this continues, the third informal summit, as proposed after the second summit, will become irrelevant, to say the least.
The boundary dispute, the massive negative balance of trade and the China-Pakistan economic nexus are the most prominent challenges that continue to haunt India-China relations. Since the abrogation of Article 370, China has been consistently attempting to raise the issue of Kashmir at the United Nations. Its insensitivity towards India’s sovereignty is not new. Repeated incursions at the border and the China-Economic Pakistan Corridor (CPEC) are cases in point.
Consequently, since 2010 India has stopped mentioning the One-China policy in its official discourse. Surprisingly, India did not drop its adherence to the 2006 Joint Communique during the India visit of then Chinese President Hu Jintao which took place immediately after China expanded its claims on the entire Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh. In 2014, India’s former External Affairs Minister the late Sushma Swaraj overtly stated that China must adhere to the ‘One India policy’ if it wants New Delhi to reciprocate with the One China policy.
Taiwan is a strategic vulnerability for China and the election results substantiate the fact that it will remain China’s Achilles heel in times to come. China’s obsession with Taiwan has become a challenge for countries in having working relations with the latter, which are often accused by Beijing as a violation of the so-called One-China policy. India must convey to China that strengthening engagement with Taiwan does not necessarily mean taking advantage of the Cross-Strait tensions. Despite several confidence-building measures in place, India-China relations continue to be marred by irritants. Shunning Taiwan has not served India’s economic interests.
NSP is in sync with India’s Act East and wider Indo-Pacific policies. This is an opportunity India cannot afford to miss as Taiwan has been proactive in engaging India. A good move in that context was supplying 1 million masks to India under the framework of the NSP. It is vital for India to take reciprocal positive steps. For one, administrative changes would help hasten the pace of cooperation. India’s Ministry of External Affairs may assign a separate officer to deal with the Taiwan desk for handling relations. Easy visas for officials and ministers could also be introduced for smoother academic exchanges and dialogues. More interactions at the think-tank and university level may also be encouraged. Such interactions are unofficial in nature and should not result in any protests from China.
India’s Indo-Pacific vision is inclusive and Taiwan is an essential element of the Indo-Pacific. Other major proponents of the Indo-Pacific such as the United States have already declared Taiwan a crucial part of the Indo-Pacific. It is time that India follows the lead from its other major partners and engages Taiwan on multiple levels. Taiwan has been attempting to regain its observer status at the World Health Assembly (WHA). India will be the chair of the WHO decision-making Executive Board at the 73rd WHA. How effectively India handles Taiwan’s participation will determine how committed New Delhi is toward engaging Taiwan.
Advancing ties is easier said than done and implementing these steps will require resources and a dedicated policy framework. In the long-run, a consistent and pragmatic Taiwan policy would be beneficial for India.
DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.
Author biography
Sana Hashmi is Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Fellow 2020 at the Institute of International Relations, National Chengchi University, Taiwan. She is the author of China’s Approach towards Territorial Disputes: Lessons and Prospects. Image credit: Office of the President of the Republic of China (Taiwan)/Flickr.