There is no denying the fact that Taiwan has become newly aware of India’s potential as an economic partner. In the words of Hsiao Bi-kim, who in January 2006 led the first delegation from Taiwan’s parliament to visit India, “It is in Taiwan’s strategic interest to promote India as an alternative investment centre to China.” In February 2006, the Taiwan-India Co-operation Council was launched in Taipei. Chaired by Yu Shyi-kun, a former prime minister, it is intended to raise India’s profile among Taiwan’s businesses and help persuade them to diversify away from China. Subsequently, as part of this drive, a second delegation of parliamentarians from Taiwan arrived in Delhi. This delegation was followed by a 24-strong business delegation that attended the annual conference in Mumbai of India’s IT and outsourcing industries.
Unlike South Korea, Japan, Singapore and China, Taiwan has not made significant direct investments in India.
Even strategically, many Taiwanese scholars and policy makers openly talk of courting a “democratic” India to counter the threats of a “dictatorial” China. Their sensible rationale is that powerful democracies in Asia-Pacific such as India, Japan, South Korea and Australia, along with “democratising” Southeast Asian (Asean) nations can thwart the designs of the rising Communist China which, while talking of the virtues of a multipolar world, is trying to impose a unipolar Asia under its hegemony – see China’s growing antipathy towards Japan and its best efforts to keep away India from the first ever East Asia summit, held in December, 2005. That India did participate in the summit of 16 nations (10 Asean countries, China, Japan and South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand), Chinese opposition notwithstanding, has been widely welcomed in Taiwan. In fact, Hsiao Bi-kim makes this point well while emphasizing why India and Taiwan should come closer when she says New Delhi and Taipei are “co-religionists”—that is, both of them are vibrant and raucous democracies.
However, all told, India’s bilateral trade with Taiwan is only about US$2 billion (0.67 percent of Taiwan’s total). Unlike South Korea, Japan, Singapore and China, Taiwan has not made significant direct investments in India. Superficially, India offers an attractive alternative and its economy is booming. But, as Taiwan’s government has been finding when it tries to persuade its businesses to diversify into Vietnam and other South-East Asian countries, let alone India, China has a bigger magnetic pull: culturally, linguistically and geographically.
Fears over Chinese Displeasure
China is also a huge limiting factor for India in its dealings with Taiwan. China will balk at anything that smacks of “official” dealings with Taiwan. In February 2006, for instance, the Chinese ambassador in Delhi issued a statement warning India “to refrain from sending any wrong signal to ‘Taiwan independence’ forces”. Maintaining the recent improvement in relations with Beijing is a foreign-policy priority for India’s government—and its firms. So India invariably is overcautious on anything that may offend China, though that is clearly avoidable. That is why despite being the world’s largest democracy; India has always neglected Taiwan, the first Chinese society ever to reject authoritarian government in favour of elected leaders and a free society.
India does not realise that developing a healthy relationship with Taiwan will not only further New Delhis strategic and economic interests but also checkmate Chinas expansionist designs in the region.
India is extremely sensitive to China, ironically, the principal obstacle to the cause of democracy in the region. So much so that India has virtually compromised principles and pragmatism in relations with Taiwan. India does not realise that developing a healthy relationship with Taiwan will not only further New Delhi’s strategic and economic interests but also checkmate China’s expansionist designs in the region.
As a role model for further democratisation, the preservation of Taiwan’s freedom is, in more senses than one, essential for democratic evolution in China and for further democratisation and peace throughout the Asia-Pacific region. The fall of Taiwan would be a potential death knell for democracy in the region. But when this society’s Vice President, Ms. Annette Lu wanted to visit the earthquake-affected people of Gujarat in 2001 with relief material worth more than one million US dollars, the Indian government disallowed her. And this was apparently due to the fear that Communist China would not like her visit to India.
In fact, what Ms. Lu found more insulting was the undue delay on the part of New Delhi to grant a visa to Dr. Parris S. Chang, the then Chairman, Committee of Foreign Relations of Taiwanese Parliament (Legislative Duma) – he is Taiwan’s national security advisor at present. Worse still were the conditions attached by India’s Ministry of External Affairs while issuing the visa. Dr. Chang was told that not to bring any Taiwanese journalists. He was also asked to keep the visit absolutely low profile and not to meet representatives of the Indian media and Indian ministers throughout his India – trip. This was rather strange, considering the fact that China’s total relief-help for Gujarat was 60, 000 dollars whereas the one million dollars worth relief material that the Taiwanese Vice-president was sending in her “personal capacity” was the gesture of a single voluntary organisation called “Love and Care” whose chairperson happened to be Ms. Lu. The whole idea was not to give any scope for belittling or offending China.
The Taiwanese carrier, which runs thrice a week between Delhi and Taipei, is carrying so many passengers that one has to book one-to-two months in advance.
That the relief material did come despite Government of India’s hesitations was the proof that the people of Taiwan love India. This is further evident from the following example. When Taiwan managed to get a permission from India to operate a direct flight between New Delhi and Taipei from April 1, 2002, China went an extra mile to ensure that a similar direct flight between New Delhi and Beijing operated, too. Indeed, Beijing scored a symbolic victory over Taipei by managing the inauguration of its flight four days earlier on April 1. But within less than a year, it is Taiwan that was having the last laugh.
The Taiwanese carrier, which runs thrice a week between Delhi and Taipei, is carrying so many passengers that one has to book one-to-two months in advance. On the other hand, the Chinese carrier, which, to begin with, shuttled thrice a week between Delhi and Beijing, now runs twice a week, and that, too, mostly empty.
This small example only proves how the people of India and Taiwan want to interact with each other, even though the Indian government is highly susceptible to Chinese pressure on matters pertaining to Taipei. There are tremendous restrictions from Indian side on the official-level exchanges between the two sides. In the absence of formal diplomatic relations, believe as New Delhi does like all other major world-capitals in “one-China” policy, India and Taiwan coordinate their relations through their respective Economic and Cultural Centers in each other’s capitals.
But unlike in “a democratic Taiwan” where the Indian representative is free to meet any political or official functionary at any level, his Taiwanese counterpart in India, the world’s largest democracy, is required to operate through India’s ministry of external affairs only.
This is all the more regrettable given the fact that India is not the only major country in the Asia-Pacific region with which Taiwan does not have diplomatic relations. Japan, South Korea, the ASEAN countries, not to speak of the United States, do not recognise Taiwan‘s sovereignty. And, their engagements with Taipei are multi-dimensional. Why cannot the case be the same between India and Taiwan? There are many compelling reasons why the relations between New Delhi and Taipei should grow better. One may attempt to identify some of them.
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