NEW DELHI—In the new emerging global world order, both India and Taiwan, two key countries in the Indo-Pacific region, face Chinese aggression and the increasing need to cooperate, experts say.
Although both countries have made efforts over the past few years for greater cooperation, India needs to rethink its policy toward Taiwan, experts told Pezou.
“re is no better time than today to remind ourselves that the engagement between India and Taiwan is mutually beneficial, and there is so much that could be achieved in the relations without making adjustments to their respective China policies,” Sana Hashmi, a visiting fellow at the Taiwan–Asia Exchange Foundation told Pezou in an email.
Hashmi, based in Taipei, Taiwan, said the India–Taiwan relationship has a lot of potential, but hasn’t matured yet, and India needs to be more proactive toward Taiwan.
“Of course, there have been monumental achievements in the relations such as the signing of several agreements in the fields of education, economics, and culture, and then the revival of the India-Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Forum, etc. However, a vision for a sustainable and long-term framework for advancing ties is missing. Without implementing a long-term plan, the relations will only achieve short-term results,” she said.
India–Taiwan Parliamentary Friendship Forum was formed by Indian and Taiwanese lawmakers in 2016 and was revived in October 2020 for the “cherished ideals of democracy.”
Hashmi wrote in a Nov. 4 op-ed published in multiple Indian media outlets that India had previously been cautious toward its dealings with Taiwan because of China, with whom the country shares more than 2000 miles of the land border. But now the situation has changed.
“This [caution] came at a time when India and China were trying to manage tensions and India was hopeful of achieving a breakthrough in its border dispute with China. However, now, much has changed not only in India–China relations but there is also a remarkable shift in India’s Taiwan policy,” she wrote.
Hashmi mentioned a 2020 incident involving the Chinese Embassy in New Delhi. embassy tried to issue a diktat to Indian media outlets demanding that they not refer to Taiwan as a nation, but the Indian government sided with the media outlets. se shifts aren’t momentous, but they do reflect a “definite policy rethink,” and further engagement needs to be more meaningful, she said.
Professor Madhav Das Nalapat, director of the Department of Geopolitics and International Relations at Manipal University, told Pezou in an email that a lot is happening between India and Taiwan.
“India is on the right path but without fanfare,” Nalapat said regarding India’s policy rethink on Taiwan.
He said the current Indian government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has started paying more attention to Taiwan.
“ first government to reach out to Taiwan was when P. V. Narasimha Rao was PM [prime minister]. He knew the country was a business power and normalized relations with Taipei. After that, further steps were taken during the [former Prime Minister Atal Bihari] Vajpayee period, until visas on passports were given on both sides rather than paper copies stapled to the (Indian) passport,” Nalapat said.
Rao was the ninth Indian prime minister from 1991 to 1996 and Vajpayee, a three-term Prime Minister was last in power from 1999 to 2004.
“Significant attention is being paid to Taiwan under PM Narendra Modi. In particular, India would like investment,” Nalapat said, noting that in the new world order characterized by the “Cold War 2.0 with the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” Taiwan is a critical component.
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About Indo-Pacific
Taiwan is among nations such as India and the United States that seek a free, open, and inclusive Indo-Pacific and that don’t want the region to be dominated by any single power. China is attempting to do just that by claiming 80 percent of the South China Sea and 60 percent of the East China Sea, according to Nalapat.
“In particular, Taiwanese tech is crucial in the development of defenses, especially in the fields of Artificial Intelligence and cyber warfare. PRC would immediately have the advantage in the South and East China seas were Taiwan to be brought under its control in the manner that Manchuria, Tibet, Xinjiang, and Inner Mongolia have been during the period in the power of Mao Zedong,” he said.
quad—the quadrilateral alliance between the United States, Japan, Australia, and India—understands Taiwan’s significance very well, according to Napalat, who also stated that even though “Delhi is not as vocal about the importance of keeping Taiwan from PRC control as Tokyo, Canberra, and Washington are,” it’s taking note of how China is attempting to bully Taiwan into submission through intrusions into its airspace and seaspace.
Hashmi said COVID-19 has brought a lot of sociopolitical and geoeconomic changes throughout the world, and in the past two years, like-minded countries with common concerns and shared interests are coming together.
“Taiwan is a like-minded country in the Indo-Pacific that propagates a rules-based order,” she said. “India is an important country in the Indo-Pacific region. Given India and Taiwan share similar values, common interests, and shared concerns, it is important for the two countries to cooperate and collaborate to contribute towards the peace and stability of the region.”
Hashmi believes that Taiwan’s participation in the Indo-Pacific shouldn’t be seen as an attempt to aggravate China, but it should instead be considered for several issue-based reasons.
“It is a robust democracy, an important country in the regional supply chain resilience, and has the potential to meaningfully contribute to the region,” she said.
In this context, the India–Taiwan relationship has multiple factors contributing to it, and China’s aggression is just one of those contributors, she said.
“In the past two years, Taiwan has also attempted to reach out to India and its people. Some of the examples include Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen’s use of social media for reaching out to Indian netizens, Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Diwali celebrations for the Indian diaspora in 2020, Taiwan’s donation of masks, PPE, oxygen cylinders, and concentrators to India in 2020–21, and so on,” Hashmi said.
Taiwan’s Investment
India is important for the success of Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy, an effort for Taipei to expand its presence in the Indo-Pacific, as deepening economic cooperation is an important part of that strategy, according to Hashmi.
“For Taiwan, India presents a huge market. When both India and Taiwan are attempting to reduce their dependence on China, it is beneficial for the two countries to work towards advancing their bilateral commercial ties,” she said.
Both India and Taiwan are known as IT hubs, and cooperation in the tech industry is an important part of the growing relationship between India and Taiwan, according to Nalapat.
“Tech parks by Taiwanese tech companies will help India in such crucial areas as chipmaking. Taiwan played the biggest role in developing China into an economic powerhouse, the way Japan and the U.S. did. Now all three are at the receiving end of Beijing’s hostility and are looking to set up their manufacturing and servicing units in a country that is not part of the Sino–Russian alliance in the manner that Pakistan, for example, is,” he said, noting that India is emerging as an attractive alternative because of its talent pool and because of the potential of its market.
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Hashmi said India and Taiwan are discussing advanced cooperation in the field of semiconductors, and Taiwan is likely to play an important role in helping India set up a semiconductor plant.
“With Taiwan’s successful handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and India’s vaccine Maitri [friendship], the two countries have proved their mettle. y need to combine their efforts to promote health cooperation,” she said.
Nalapat described the future of India–Taiwan relation to be bright, and he said that agreements regarding Taiwanese investments in India, made possible by relocations from China. can be expected by 2022.
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Pezou : India Should Rethink Its Taiwan Policy and Be More Proactive: Experts