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1. India's G20 Presidency: Opportunity to Resume Engagement in the Arctic

Author:
Anurag Bisen
Publication Date:
02-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
The Arctic lies at the intersection of several issues with global consequences such as climate change, increased accessibility to and availability of resources, and global strategic contestation that have made the region increasingly relevant to the world. Temperatures in the Arctic continue to rise at four times the global annual average, driving many of the changes under way there, most prominently sea-level rise and the thawing of permafrost, which impact both local ecosystems and the global climate system. International scientific cooperation and data monitoring and sharing are crucial to understanding the impact of climate change, counteracting its negative effects, and enhancing living conditions and economic activity. Apart from a few limited pockets of cooperation that still exist, cooperation between Russia and the West with regard to the Arctic has largely been put on hold since the start of the conflict in Ukraine. The current absence of research and data sharing among scientists is threatening to jeopardise scientists’ understanding of the warming trends in the Arctic, exacerbating the environmental emergency the region in particular is facing. One of the few channels that still exists for constructive dialogue on a range of Arctic-related issues is the GCSP’s “‘High North Talks”’, through which discreet exchanges on various important issues continue. Among other things, the G20 agenda includes climate change, sustainable development and the environment, all of which are under threat due to the cessation of Artic-related scientific engagement. The G20 also represents a rare platform where engagement between Russia and the West has not yet ceased. The suspension of dialogue and scientific exchange vis-à-vis the Arctic is driven by a deep distrust that needs to be overcome by an interlocutor that is acceptable to all stakeholders. India's theme for its G20 presidency resonates strongly with the Arctic and its impact on the world. The resumption of Arctic-related scientific exchange is an easy deliverable with global benefits that India, which has the necessary legitimacy, credibility and relevance, should use its G20 presidency to strive for.
Topic:
Climate Change, Diplomacy, International Cooperation, Science and Technology, G20, and Sustainability
Political Geography:
India, Asia, and Arctic

2. FACTORING THE SMART POWER IN THE INDIA-EUROPEAN UNION ENGAGEMENTS: A SCOPING REVIEW

Author:
Nippun Gupta, Bawa Singh, Aslam Khan, and Jaspal Kaur
Publication Date:
03-2023
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Research and European Studies (IRES)
Abstract:
Power is a critical factor in several types of diplomacy. India-EU relations are a classic case of how changing geopolitics prompted diplomatic acumen. This scoping review assesses the changing relations of both partners as a manifestation of Smart Power. The dynamic relations from normative-based to pragmatic and inclusive interests based are evaluated. Their value-based relations are put under international relations theories. Their changing factors of cooperation are used to justify their smart diplomacy, where contemporary relations are less likely to be affected by multilateral interests. To solidify claims of smart power in their relations, the recent TRIPS waiver schism illuminated health diplomacy between the two regions. This health diplomacy discourse promotes smart power diplomacy between India and the EU, where new avenues of cooperation emerge despite pandemic disagreements. The article explores how hybrid power is better than soft and hard power in silos by systematically searching and selecting the existing knowledge in the contemporary context.
Topic:
Diplomacy, Health, Bilateral Relations, European Union, Soft Power, Hard Power, and Smart Power
Political Geography:
Europe, South Asia, and India

3. Israel, help India fight COVID-19

Author:
Oshrit Birvadker
Publication Date:
04-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS)
Abstract:
The world is watching India’s coronavirus catastrophe, and it could use any lifeline at this point. Israel could now help this Asiatic power overcome one of the most serious crises in its history.
Topic:
Diplomacy, International Cooperation, Public Health, Pandemic, and COVID-19
Political Geography:
Middle East, India, Israel, and Asia

4. South Korea Beyond Northeast Asia: How Seoul Is Deepening Ties With India and ASEAN

Author:
Kathryn Botto
Publication Date:
10-2021
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
Abstract:
Under South Korean President Moon Jae-in and his administration, Seoul has undertaken its first unified diplomatic initiative aimed at advancing ties with India and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). This initiative is known as the New Southern Policy (NSP). Though Moon’s efforts toward securing inter-Korean peace have received the most publicity, the NSP has arguably sustained more momentum than any of the administration’s other flagship foreign policy initiatives. Looking beyond South Korea’s relationships in Northeast Asia, it is also important to assess the NSP’s progress toward its goal to “elevate [South] Korea’s relations with ASEAN member states and India in the political, economic, social and cultural spheres, among others, to the same level [South] Korea maintains with the four major powers (the United States, China, Japan and Russia).”1 The NSP is an extension of South Korea’s need to diversify its economic and strategic relationships amid the uncertainty posed by competition between its closest ally, the United States, and largest trading partner, China. By elevating ties with India and Southeast Asia, particularly in the economic realm, Seoul hopes to insulate itself from the risks posed by trade and strategic friction between the two great powers. Moreover, it hopes to advance its middle power diplomacy and improve ties with India and Southeast Asia commensurate with their growing economic and strategic importance. Though India and ASEAN countries have strong ties to South Korea and share many of the same values and interests, they have not featured as prominently in Seoul’s diplomacy as major powers around the peninsula in the past. While it has clear logic behind it, the NSP’s implementation and outcomes so far are mixed. Of the policy’s three pillars—prosperity (economic cooperation), people (sociocultural cooperation), and peace (political and strategic cooperation)—the prosperity pillar has received the most emphasis. Under this pillar, South Korea has initiated new negotiations for free trade agreements and launched an official development assistance (ODA) strategy aimed at six NSP partner countries. However, cooperation with India has often lagged while cooperation with Vietnam has outpaced attention to most other ASEAN member states. The peace pillar, by contrast, has been relatively underdeveloped and focused mainly on nontraditional security issues while avoiding sensitive strategic issues confronting the region. This pillar showcases how South Korea’s concerns about Chinese influence both motivate and constrain the policy—though Seoul wants to diversify its economic portfolio and strategic partnerships to mitigate its reliance on China, it also must tread carefully to avoid retaliation from Beijing. Even so, while ASEAN, India, and South Korea share common interests on freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, stability in the Taiwan Strait, and denuclearization by North Korea, South Korea’s main security concerns revolve around Northeast Asia, while those of India and ASEAN do not. Seoul’s hierarchy of priorities in the security realm will continue to differ from that of its NSP partners, posing another obstacle to security cooperation. That said, the policy has made progress in strengthening South Korea’s diplomatic infrastructure and institutional apparatus to devote more attention to NSP partner countries, even in just four short years and after being disrupted by a global pandemic. Considering this short period, many of NSP’s projects will take time to show results. Even so, the broad and far-reaching policy has sometimes struggled to define its goals or unify its wide range of elements under a clear strategy. It would benefit from a more well-branded approach to India and Southeast Asia that highlights core projects under each pillar.2 To that end, the Moon administration should strive to evaluate the outcomes of the NSP in its final year in office. Although it is typically difficult to maintain continuity in foreign policy due to South Korean presidents’ limit to one five-year term, the geopolitical and economic imperatives driving the NSP will remain under a new administration in 2022. Given the staying power of these drivers and the continuously growing importance of India and Southeast Asia, South Korea’s next president will have every reason to keep emphasizing these regional partnerships as well.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Regional Integration, and ASEAN
Political Geography:
India, Asia, and South Korea

5. India’s Strategic Intent and Military Partnerships in the Indian Ocean Region

Author:
Gaurav Sharma and Marc Finaud
Publication Date:
05-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
The Geneva Centre for Security Policy
Abstract:
Due to the importance India attaches to potential threats to its maritime security, its diplomacy has increasingly focused on the Indian Ocean region (IOR) and it has increased cooperation with Indian Ocean states. In the last five years, India has also established security partnerships with major IOR strategic stakeholders such as France and the United States. India has increasingly invested in providing military training, weapons support and disaster relief assistance to “like-minded” states in the IOR. Due to the potential risks of escalation to nuclear-weapons use should conflict occur with other countries in the region such as China and Pakistan, it would be in India’s interests to promote more confidence and
Topic:
Security, Diplomacy, Nuclear Weapons, Military Affairs, and Missile Defense
Political Geography:
Pakistan, China, South Asia, India, and Indian Ocean

6. Indo-Japan Dialogue in the 20th Century and Cultural Heritage in the New World Order

Author:
Rekha Yadav and Anisha Deswal
Publication Date:
11-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
India International Centre (IIC)
Abstract:
The paper presentations on the second day of the conference on ‘Rethinking Cultural Heritage’ continued the trend of research-based studies, as evident on the first day of the meeting.1 Professor Amiya P. Sen began with a note of apology, stating that after reflection, he had changed the title of his presentation to ‘Japan and India as Ontology: Negotiating Modernity, Culture and Cosmopolitanism in Colonial Bengal’. The paper was divided into two parts. The first part of the paper focused on the broad introduction of the structure and arguments which he developed about 19th century Bengal, as the site where the first crop of a Westerneducated Hindu intelligentsia, creatively and actively engaged in a two-way, quite contrary, intellectual enterprise. While it produced some of the greatest supporters of Western modernity, it also created its sharpest critics. The second part of the paper examined changing Indian perceptions of Japan over a period of time, through the writings of two prominent intellectual figures of Bengal, that is Swami Vivekananda (1863-1902), and the poet, Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941).
Topic:
Diplomacy, History, Bilateral Relations, Culture, and Dialogue
Political Geography:
Japan, South Asia, India, and Asia

7. North East, Act East

Author:
Gautam Mukhopadhaya
Publication Date:
11-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
India International Centre (IIC)
Abstract:
Let me first locate the North East within India's 'Act' or 'Look' East Policy. Constrained as we are by a revanchist Pakistan, a disturbed Afghanistan, an Iran for long under sanctions, and instability and turmoil virtually all over West Asia and the Arab world, India has for nearly three decades now, looked east towards economically dynamic South East Asia for more economic and diplomatic opportunities. These are areas where Indic civilisation had a profound impact in some areas well into the second millennium before it was eclipsed and overlaid by the development of indigenous cultures, and later, the advent of Islam and the Europeans.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Economics, and Regional Politics
Political Geography:
South Asia and India

8. Don’t be rude, don’t be docile! How to manage freedom of manoeuvre in tense bilateral diplomacy

Author:
Hans Mouritzen
Publication Date:
11-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)
Abstract:
Bilateral diplomacy has become increasingly important in today’s multipolar world. A number of cases are analysed in this DIIS Working Paper, where Nordic countries have been ‘disciplined’ in bilateral diplomacy by the emerging great powers of Russia, China, or India. Compared to the immediate aftermath of the Cold War, with US unipolarity and EU normative power, the Nordics have experienced a narrowing of their freedom of manoeuvre. It is no longer possible, without significant costs, to criticise these great powers’ internal affairs or foreign policies based on allegedly universal values. In general, it is crucial for decision-makers not to overstep their state’s freedom of manoeuvre. But on the other hand, they should not be too docile and desist from occasionally challenging its limits. Trial balloons or parallel action with related countries might do exactly that.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Power Politics, and Bilateral Relations
Political Geography:
Russia, China, India, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, and United States of America

9. Implications of the Proposed China-Iran deal for India

Author:
Sruthi V.S.
Publication Date:
08-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on International Policy (CIP)
Abstract:
The ambitious $400 billion deal between China and Iran has garnered worldwide attention. The 18-page draft proposal says that China will facilitate the infusion of about $280 billion to Iran. This major economic and security partnership between China and Iran has raised India’s concerns against the backdrop of its ongoing border conflict with China. According to the New York Times report, the proposed China-Iran deal talks about expanding China’s presence in Iran’s “banking, telecommunications, ports, railways and dozens of other projects”, and in return China will receive a steady supply of oil from Iran for the next 25 years at a discounted price. There are more than 100 projects listed in the draft that will see Chinese investments; these include building Free Trade Zones and several very significant ports. The Chinese will also help Iran build infrastructure for 5G networks and come up with an internet filter like the Great Firewall in China. The stronghold of China in Iran could also result in undermining US policy in the Middle East.
Topic:
International Relations, Diplomacy, International Trade and Finance, and Conflict
Political Geography:
China, Iran, Middle East, India, and Asia

10. Prospects for India-Taiwan Relations

Author:
Niranjan Jose
Publication Date:
08-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Council on International Policy (CIP)
Abstract:
This year’s border stand-off in the Galwan Valley between China and India following China’s encroachment into Indian territory, is a reminder of India’s perennial problems with Beijing. The latest violation is an example of the staunch stance China has adopted against India. Neither nation is interested in a full-fledged confrontation. In this scenario, New Delhi has no option but to engage with Beijing to resolve the dispute through dialogue; however discussion and confidence-building initiatives by itself will not lead India towards problem-solving. China’s confrontational approach towards India and the border disagreement set the right background as to why it could not be a better opportunity for India to meaningfully engage with Taiwan. India and Taiwan both are Asian democracies pursuing an effective resolution of dynamic social and ethnic problems, and both face aggressive Chinese security policies aimed at establishing regional hegemony. From a strategic security perspective, both India and Taiwan are deeply concerned about the rising assertiveness of Beijing in the region. The China element can become a tool for moving closer to the strategic communities in New Delhi and Taipei. India and Taiwan have a variety of mutual concerns, ranging from controlling China’s growth to a political and economic partnership. For Taiwan, China’s current trade war with the US has made several Taiwanese firms keen to reduce their vulnerability on China. Indian government initiatives such as Smart Cities, Make in India, Digital India, and Start-up India were launched to increase India’s viability for foreign investors, making it an attractive destination for Taiwanese corporations.
Topic:
International Relations, Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, and Regional Cooperation
Political Geography:
China, India, Taiwan, and Asia

11. Devising an Indian policy on Sanctions for Pakistan

Author:
Ambika Khanna
Publication Date:
04-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations
Abstract:
India must consider new strategies that can be put in place to manage Pakistan's ongoing military aggression and security threat. One policy tool that has been used effectively by many countries but remains unexplored by India is the imposition of sanctions. This paper analyses the feasibility of imposing sanctions on Pakistan and the strategies India should consider to execute this effectively. It makes recommendations on how to establish a legal framework, amend existing laws, include Indian stakeholders with business interests in Pakistan, get government departments to collaborate on implementation, and considers diplomatic measures India can undertake.
Topic:
Security, Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, Government, Bilateral Relations, and Sanctions
Political Geography:
Pakistan, South Asia, and India

12. The Future of India-Israel Arms Trade

Author:
Alvite Singh Ningthoujam
Publication Date:
07-2020
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS)
Abstract:
Israel’s state-of-the-art weapon systems and technological expertise are a mainstay of India’s drive for a self-reliant defense industry.
Topic:
Security, Diplomacy, Military Strategy, Arms Trade, and Defense Industry
Political Geography:
Middle East, India, Israel, and Asia

13. The Role of the Philippines in the World

Author:
Kyra Lüthi
Publication Date:
11-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Institute for Development and International Relations (IRMO)
Abstract:
First association most people have when they think about Asia are countries like China, Japan or India, as they are big countries, present for a long time on the world map. During the past decades, Hong Kong and Singapore have also gained a lot of attraction worldwide as business comprise the world’s most ancient civilizations. So regardless of a country’s geographical size and sustainability, each one is vital in playing a role in the global economic and political order. Unfortunately, more often than not, the South East Asian countries and most specifically and finical hubs of Asia. These are indeed the key players in Asia but the biggest continent in the world is not only composed of these few states. It is home to 48 countries and 4.5 billion people with different ethnicities and cultures that the Philippines, if not forgotten, is commonly underestimated in the contribution that it provides in the international arena due to the multiple misconceptions about the country’s general conditions. But in reality, the Philippines has always been in the global scheme from the earliest times up to today, therefore it is important and relevant to learn more about its history, involvement and influence on relations in Asia and globally.
Topic:
Foreign Policy, Diplomacy, International Cooperation, and Military Strategy
Political Geography:
Japan, China, India, Asia, Philippines, Singapore, and Hong Kong

14. Israel Would Welcome Ties With Pakistan. Should India Worry?

Author:
Efraim Inbar
Publication Date:
09-2019
Content Type:
Working Paper
Institution:
Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS)
Abstract:
The recurrent debate about Israel in Pakistan reflects the former’s improved international standing. The Muslim giant could become the next success in Israel’s growing acceptance around the world
Topic:
Diplomacy, International Cooperation, Conflict, and Rivalry
Political Geography:
Pakistan, Middle East, India, Israel, and Asia