A Peek Into Modi’s Emerging Foreign Policy Perspective

Soon after assuming power in May this year, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj made a flurry of visits to neighbouring countries—while Modi visited Bhutan, Nepal and Japan; Sushma Swaraj made trips to Bangladesh, Myanmar, Vietnam and Afghanistan, in addition to Bhutan and Nepal. This was a clear deviation from historical precedence where predecessors typically hurried to the US and the UK before trying to shake hands with close neighbours. While Modi eventually made hugely successful visits to the US and Australia, the initial trips underlined the Modi-led regime’s ‘Asia first’ policy.

This has also given a new dimension the ‘look east’ policy, initiated by Narasimha Rao in early 90s. Look east aims at strengthening ties with Southeast Asian countries in a bid to counter the increasing regional influence of China—strategically, militarily and economically. Renewed ties between India and Japan, amid similar ones with other SE Asian neighbours, are of significant importance; considering the heightened military manoeuvering China has been initiating of late.

The one key aspect of Modi’s emerging foreign policy approach is clear: re-establish close relationships with Asian neighbours to position India as a strong regional power, and leverage it to counter China’s burgeoning regional influence and economic/military acumen.

In fact, during his Japan visit he took the ‘look east’ policy a step ahead, turning it into ‘act Asia’ policy (as Sushma Swaraj put it recently) by trying to convert rhetoric into actionable steps. Aggressively marketing the ‘Make in India’ campaign and signing pacts leading to Japanese investments worth $35 billion over a five-year period reflected Modi’s resolve to translate foreign visits. Such visits used to be mere photo opportunities for many of his predecessors, but Modi translated it into initiatives that will enhance bilateral trade and help grow the domestic economy.

This was evident in his just-concluded Australia visit where he finalised Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, which is expected to boost trade between the two countries; and Civil Nuclear Cooperation Agreement which will enable uranium export from Australia and provide a much-needed leg-up to India's power-generation capacity. Modi clarion call at the G-20 meet at Brisbane for close cooperation in the fight against black money meant that trade talks are not entirely isolated from larger political issues back at home.

The fact that economic and trade agenda is at the core of Modi’s foreign policy was also evident when his government initiated the visit of Chinese President Xi Jinping to India. It is seen as a strategic move to tilt the relation with the bigger Asian neighbour economic growth.
While China is keen to leverage from India’s strength as a big market, India is looking for significant Chinese investments to build infrastructure critical to long-term economic growth.

While Modi did not rush to the ‘big uncle’ US soon after assuming power, as many of his predecessors did, and despite the strained diplomatic relationship between India and US after the ill-treatment meted out to Indian diplomat Devyani Khobragade, Modi sent a clear message that India is serious about stronger engagement with the US. The decision to attract investment in India’s $250 billion defence sector, which will involve significant US partnership, underlined this.

The fact that despite a tight schedule Modi found time to meet his Israeli counterpart Benjamin Netanyahu during his US visit reiterated the fact that Modi’s Middle East policy is going to be tilted towards Israel than the Arab countries. This also means that alliance with Israel in the field of defence, which grew significantly over the last two decades, is likely to be strengthened. Russia too is going to be a key ally in the field of defence besides space exploration and energy, including nuclear power.

Will Modi mend or break the strained India-Pakistan relationship is another key question. While he shared some camaraderie with Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif soon after assuming power, calling off secretary level talks over Pakistani envoy’s engagement with Kashmiri separatists means Modi can be unpredictable on this front.

Adding Modi’s call for deeper people-to-people alliance among BRICS countries at the recent summit in Brazil, one begins to get a glimpse of the would-be foreign policy perspective of Modi. He is mostly going to stress on closer ties with the US (Obama will visit India in January), Israel and Asian countries such as Japan and Russia(Putin will visit India next month), while positioning India as a counter-force to China and being cautious about how to go about dealing with Pakistan.