Win trust for better Act East policy

"There is a huge trust deficit between India and Malaysia."

The joint statements issued at the culmination of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visits to Malaysia and Singapore underscores the broad bandwidth of cooperation that India has with these two key South East Asian countries. With Malaysia, India signed three memorandums of understanding (MoUs) relating to cyber security cooperation, cultural exchange, and public administration and governance. On the question of cyber security, India and Malaysia will share information pertaining to cyber security incident management and cyber attacks. As for Singapore, India signed pacts that envisage greater cooperation in the fields of urban development, cultural exchange, defence, cyber security, shipping, etc. In Singapore, Modi also sought to woo investment to India by drawing attention to the reforms that his government has carried out. India’s deepening and expanding cooperation with Malaysia and Singapore is heartening. For instance, Singapore is India’s 10th largest trade partner globally and the second largest among ASEAN countries. Trade with Malaysia which stood at US $13.32 billion in 2012 is poised to double by 2020. India’s strong historical and cultural linkages with these countries as well as the presence of a large and prosperous diaspora there have facilitated the growing relations.

Still, ties are below potential. Although defence cooperation between India and Malaysia has grown steadily in recent years, an element of distrust is discernible in Kuala Lumpur’s perception of New Delhi as a partner on security issues. Thus for instance, India’s offer to patrol the waters near the Straits of Malacca – although it is not a Malacca Straits littoral, India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands lie scattered near the mouth of this strategic waterway – a decade ago when the problem of piracy there was intense, was politely turned down by Malaysia and Indonesia. The apprehension of India adopting a larger profile in their waters was apparently behind this less than friendly approach.

Have things changed a decade thereon? The Straits of Malacca are reportedly re-emerging as a piracy hotspot with several incidents occurring there over the past year. Although India’s capacity in counter-piracy operations was evident off the coast of Somalia when piracy spiralled there some years ago, South East Asia is unlikely to agree to India joining monitoring operations in the Malacca Straits. This unchanged perception of India underscores the enormous trust deficit that exists between India and Malaysia. Hand-shakes and harking back to cultural links are undoubtedly heartening. But these need to be grounded in trust and mutual confidence to make ties meaningful. India needs to work on this if it is keen to give meaning and muscle to its Act East policy.