India’s Taiwan opportunity
Apart from sharing the common threat that China presents in front of these countries, India and Taiwan shares so much in common. India and Taiwan are natural allies both shares the democratic values, uphold rule of law and human rights. India, like other countries also adhered to ‘One China policy’ for long but the shred has become visible after Galwan Crisis when the calls for recalibrating India’s Tibet and Taiwan Policy have become stiffer. However, the protest from China did not prevent India and Taiwan from pursuing economic engagements through trade while people to people connections prevailed through educational and social interaction but this time the wind is suggesting something more, the relationship between New Delhi and Taipei is growing closer.
New Delhi has been one of the few capitols who recognized the People’s Republic of China and its One China Policy, this posture of New Delhi has never provided any chance for India-Taiwan relationship but after the end of cold war and collapse of the Soviet Union, New Delhi internally faced severe economic crisis and at the same time it needed to adapt with the New International Order externally; both the factors compelled India to formulate ‘Look East’ policy designed to strengthen the engagement with East Asia which resulted in the opening of complementary representative office in New Delhi and Taipei. Since then, India and Taiwan gradually acknowledging the importance of cooperation between two countries. Apart from economic and strategic cooperation both the countries are also cooperating in the field of culture and science and technology.
As far as strategic and security domain concerned, China is the infusion point of threat for both the countries. Beijing do not consider Taiwan a sovereign country but a part of People’s Republic and vows to incorporate Taiwan anyway, militarily, or diplomatically. While with India it has a long dispute in the Himalayan border over which India and China also engaged in a border war, in addition, China unabated support to Pakistan and its ambition in Indian Ocean irks India. China has worked assiduously to squeeze Taiwan international space and blocked Taiwan’s participation in the international organization. China has always been factored in repelled collaboration between both the nation but it will be proactive and unrealistic to forge military ties with Taipei at this moment. However, there are other ways in which India and Taiwan works together to shred Chinese hegemonic designs by calling out its bungling in the South China sea and East China sea with a reciprocal intelligence sharing partnership and could nudge the global attention towards South China sea’s freedom of Navigation. Furthermore, India can also provide military training to the Taiwanese forces as it is training the Vietnamese and Indonesian air forces. Moreover, Taiwan National Defense University (NDU) has also offered regular courses on PLA studies to foreign military officers and is keen to host Indian Military officers. Some experts also asked to send military attaché to Taiwan.
A major focus of the Taiwan south bound policy on the increasing ties with the South and Southeast Asian country and India is the attractive location for the investment specially with its 400 million middle class population it appears to be the only alternative of China upon which Taiwan is dangerously dependent. The economic ties between both the countries have increased and investment has been flowing to India from Taiwan, Indian government recognized the Taiwan participation in the "Make in India" campaign by the Foxconn’s investment. Taiwanese companies are now operating more in Indian Markets than ever before as can be seen in telecom sector and helping their partner to be a part of global value chain. Hitched by the Covid – 19 Pandemic, trade volume between India and Taiwan started to show positive trends. TAITRA (Taiwan External Trade Development Council) chairman said, “we could expect to resume at least to the 2019 level, which is USD 5.7 billion.”
Apart from being a trade partner and investment provider, Taiwan is also crucial for India’s Critical National infrastructure knowing that it is the hub for both semiconductors and forerunner in 5G infrastructure. Given the restrictions regarding the Huawei and other Chinese companies, Taiwan could be a potential location from which India can import critical infrastructure ousting China Taipei could prove to be instrumental in India’s economic and national security.
India and Taiwan cooperation in science and technology have also been quite significant both countries have launched Indo-Taiwan S&T cooperation program and cooperating with India in areas its priorities such as ICT, healthcare, agriculture, and food processing sectors. India and Taiwan cooperation in Artificial Intelligence are also visible, ‘start pandemic prevention system’ is the manifestation of the same. Several Taiwanese universities have MOU with IITs for research collaboration and promoting student and faculty exchanges in the sciences.
Taiwan southbound policy also suggests that there has been an opportunity between India-Taiwan educational cooperation especially after the Galwan Crisis that has heated debates about the future cooperation between the two nations. This can be seen in the New economic policy of India; government has taken down the Mandarin from the list of foreign language. The primary agent of Chinese soft power the ‘Confucius Centre’ that teaches the Mandarin is also in scrutiny after the skirmishes in the mountain and fairly because the center also has accused of the espionage but as we have seen the scope to study China has broadened in India, in this respect Taiwan appears to be a better alternative.
Taiwan is not a mediocre country for study, according to the QS Asia university Ranking 2020, twenty-seven Taiwanese universities are in top 300 and in fact mainland China students are also attracted towards Taiwan because of availability of Mandarin in traditional script rather simplified script in China. After the anti-Beijing leadership of Tsai Ing-Wen rose to the power inn 2016 Taiwan see a policy shift with the formulation of New South Bound Policy that designed to diversify Taipei’s economic, cultural education and technological relations to south and south east Asia. The policy shift has created the opportunity to understand China better without going to Mainland China, in 2018 the Indian students enrolled in Taiwanese universities were 2398, a 56% hike compared to the previous year. Taipei present an appropriate opportunity for India to study, learn and decipher China in better way. For this India needs to propagate the Mandarin learning centers across India. The contextual importance of Taiwan Education Center (TEC) has increased, TEC are the center funded by the Taiwanese government specialized in teaching Chinese history, Mandarin and culture and foster international cooperation. Currently, India host 8 TEC in various reputational institutes of India. India needs to grapple the Taiwan opportunity by effectively cooperating with TECs. There has been a MOU signed between the Association of Indian universities and foundation for International Cooperation in higher Education of Taiwan in 2010 for mutual recognition of academic degrees.
To sum up, China factor going to be there for many years to come and it is plausible to admire Taiwan who knows India’s sensibilities regarding China that it cannot suddenly at this moment unsubscribe to ‘One China Policy’. Regardless of anything, at this point of time Indo-Taiwan relationship are better than ever before and both the countries are cooperating on the different front with each other but knowing the scope and need of both the countries the magnitude of cooperation could improve, the trade volume should be more, and the investment flows could also be improved.
Reference
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Pic Courtesy-Rovin Ferrer at unsplash.com
(The views expressed are those of the author and do not represent views of CESCUBE.)
