India Should Rethink its Taiwan Policy and Be More Proactive: Experts

Read More

NEW DELHI—In the new emerging global world order, both India and Taiwan, two key countries in the Indo-Pacific, face Chinese aggression and the increasing need to cooperate.

Experts told The Epoch Times that though both countries have made efforts in the past few years for greater cooperation, there’s a need for India to initiate a major rethink about its overall policy towards Taiwan.

“There 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, visiting fellow at the Taiwan-Asia Exchange Foundation told The Epoch Times in an email.

Taipei-based Hashmi said that the India-Taiwan relationship has a lot of potentials but it hasn’t matured yet and India needs to initiate a policy rethink and be more proactive towards 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.

The 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 in an op-ed published in a few Indian media on Nov.. 4 had that India was earlier cautious towards Taiwan because of China with whom it shares over 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. She brought up last year’s incident when the Chinese embassy in New Delhi tried issuing a diktat to the Indian media to not refer to Taiwan as a nation, but the Indian government supported its media.

These shifts according to her are not momentous but they do reflect a “definite policy rethink” and further engagement needs to be more meaningful.

Professor M. D. Nalapat, director, Department of Geopolitics and International Relations, Manipal University in India told The Epoch Times in an email that a lot is happening between the two countries, and it’ll be known soon in the future.

“India is on the right path but without fanfare,” Nalapat said about the policy rethink in India regarding Taiwan.

He said the current government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi has started paying more attention to Taiwan.

“The first government to reach out to Taiwan was when P. V. Narasimha Rao was PM. He knew the country was a business power and normalized relations with Taipei. After that, further steps were taken during the Vajpayee period, until visas on passports were given on both sides rather than paper copies stapled to the (Indian) passport,” said Nalapat.

Rao was the ninth Indian Prime Minister from 1991-1996 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,” said Nalapat adding that in the new world order characterized by “Cold War 2.0 with the PRC [People’s Republic of China],” Taiwan is a critical component.

About Indo-Pacific

Taiwan is among those nations like India and the United States that seek a free, open, and inclusive Indo-Pacific and don’t want the region to be dominated by any single power like the way PRC is attempting to by claiming 80 percent of the South China Sea and 60 percent of the East China Sea, said Nalapat.

“In particular, Taiwanese tech is crucial in the development of defenses, especially in the fields of Artificial Intelligence and cyber warfare. The 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,” said Nalapat.

The quad or the quadrilateral alliance between the United States, Japan, Australia, and India understands Taiwan’s significance very well, said Napalat adding 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 a note of how China is attempting to bully Taiwan into submission through intrusions into its air and sea spaces.

Hashmi said COVID-19 has brought in a lot of socio-political and geo-economic changes at all levels 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. 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,” she said.

Hashmi believes that Taiwan’s participation in the Indo-Pacific should not be seen as something aimed at China but instead should 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,” said Hashmi.

Shih-Chung Liu, vice chairman of Taiwan External Trade Development Council, and Chung-Kwang Tien, the representative of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Center in India, attend a news conference in New Delhi, India on Sept. 20, 2019. (Sankalp Phartiyal/Reuters)

Taiwan’s Investment

Hashmi said that India is important for the success of Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy and deepening economic cooperation is an important part of it.

“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.

Nalapat said both India and Taiwan are known as IT hubs and cooperation in the tech industry is an important part of their growing relationship.

“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 US 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.,” said Nalapat adding that India is emerging as an attractive alternative because of its talent pool and due to the potential of its market.

Hashmi said India and Taiwan are talking to advance cooperation in the field of semi-conductors and Taiwan is likely to play an important role in helping India set up a semi-conductor plant.

“With Taiwan’s successful handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and India’s vaccine maitri [friendship], the two countries have proved their mettle. They need to combine their efforts to promote health cooperation,” said Hashmi.

Nalapat described the future of the India-Taiwan relationship to be bright and said that agreements regarding Taiwanese investments into India, made possible by relocations from China. can be expected by next year.