India uses "development diplomacy" to compete for global discourse

Source: Global Times

"Development" became a key word in Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's recent trip to Papua New Guinea (PNG). At the Indo-Pacific Islands Cooperation Forum (FIPIC) summit with 14 Pacific island nations on May 22, Modi mentioned "development" more than once. He said India was proud to be a "development partner" of Pacific island countries, which could see New Delhi as a "reliable development partner." Modi also proposed 12 development plans. According to the Indian Observer Research Foundation (ORF), a New Delhi-based think tank, India has implemented "development diplomacy" in PNG. According to some scholars, "development diplomacy" is a branch of economic cooperation between countries, involving a series of actions from infrastructure construction to skills development, which can leverage a country's foreign policy and influence the global strategic atmosphere. In fact, India has been implementing "development diplomacy", which is expanding in scope, with the aim of increasing its influence and voice in various regions. Since assuming the G20 presidency, India has been hoping to take this opportunity to establish itself as a leader of the "Global South (developing countries)" and a global power, so to what extent can "development diplomacy" help New Delhi achieve international status?

South Asia is the focus region

Before Modi's visit to Papua New Guinea, Prabhu, an associate researcher at the Indian Observer Research Foundation (ORF), a New Delhi-based think tank, said that India's foreign policy calculations are gradually revolving around the concept of "diplomacy for development". Karel, chairman of Nepal's World Affairs Commission, previously wrote that "development diplomacy" is seen as a new frontier in India's foreign policy, involving long-term cooperation in humanitarian assistance, infrastructure construction, community development and capacity building.

Long Xingchun, an expert on South Asian issues, said in an interview with the Global Times that from the perspective of level, the key areas of India's "development diplomacy" are first of all neighboring countries, especially in South Asia, such as Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives, Afghanistan and so on. India's foreign aid budget confirms this statement. According to the federal budget for the 2023-2024 fiscal year announced by New Delhi in February this year, India's development assistance to Bhutan and the Maldives is still increasing, with aid to Bhutan increasing from 22.6 billion Indian rupees (1 yuan about 11.6 Indian rupees) in the previous fiscal year to 24 billion Indian rupees in the fiscal year 2023-2024, and aid to the Maldives from 3.6 billion Indian rupees to 4 billion Indian rupees.

In addition, India's development assistance to Afghanistan in FY 2023-2024 was the same as in the previous FY2023-2024 at INR 2 billion. In the 2023-2024 fiscal year, India's development assistance to Sri Lanka was INR 1.5 billion, down from the previous fiscal year, but in January this year, Sri Lankan media said that India provided $3.9 billion worth of aid to the country to help Sri Lanka cope with the economic crisis.

Liu Zongyi, a researcher at the Shanghai Institute of International Studies, said in an interview with the Global Times that before the 21st century, Nepal and Bhutan were the countries that received the most aid from India. ANI reported in February this year that since the 60s of the 20th century, India has begun to provide assistance for Bhutan's socio-economic development, and the cooperation between the two countries covers agricultural and irrigation development, industrial development, health, information and communication technology and other fields. India has been Bhutan's main development partner since the launch of Bhutan's Five-Year Plan, for example, during Bhutan's current Twelfth Five-Year Plan (2018-2023), India plans to provide INR 45 billion in aid, accounting for 73 per cent of Bhutan's total external contributions. According to statistics, from 1951 to 2019, India assisted Nepal with more than 559 large, medium and small projects, with a total value of more than 76 billion Nepalese rupees (1 yuan is about 18.7 Nepalese rupees).

Long Xingchun said that India's emphasis on neighboring countries, especially South Asian countries, is inseparable from India's status as the "hegemon of South Asia", and there are also geopolitical considerations. India fears that the powers outside the region will provide more investment and aid to these South Asian countries, causing them to distance themselves from India by being close to other countries. A local person in Nepal told the Global Times reporter that Nepal has long had a dispute over rail standards, and India uses a British broad-gauge railway. If other countries are allowed to help Nepal build railways, then the country's track standards may not match India's rail standards, which will reduce India's influence on Nepal, so India is more active in assisting Nepal Railway.

In Africa, Indians "put down roots"

Apart from South Asia, the second focus area of India's "development diplomacy" is Africa, particularly East and Southern Africa. This is because during the British colonial period, many Indians helped the British to manage the area and settle down, so India has always been more "forceful" to the local "development diplomacy".

"Force" is first reflected in India's propaganda of Africa's "development diplomacy". In April this year, Indian Foreign Minister Jaishankar Jaishankar made a special arrangement during his visit to Mozambique: the meeting with Mozambican Transport Minister Magala was scheduled to take place on a train from the capital Maputo to Machava, and a press conference was also held on the moving train. Jaishankar in particular stressed in his tweet that it was a "Made in India" train. In February this year, a reporter from the Global Times saw in Port Louis, the capital of Mauritius, that on a light rail built by India, the flags of the two countries and a group photo of the leaders of the two countries were printed on the body of the speeding train, which was very eye-catching.

Jaishankar "read the business" after riding the "Make in India" train in Mozambique. At the end of his visit, Jaishankar said that the Indian government intends to support Mozambique in building a railway backbone project connecting the north and the south. In response, Mozambican Prime Minister Malaiane responded by instructing the Mozambican state-owned port and railway company to draw up plans and make preliminary preparations for the launch of the backbone project of the North-South Railway.

In recent years, India has not only sold "Make in India" trains to Mozambique, but has also invested more than $10 billion in the country in large-scale projects such as coking coal and natural gas. Indeed, India's investments in Mozambique and Mauritius epitomize New Delhi's continued "development diplomacy" to Africa in recent years. From 2014 to 2019, India's high-level officials, including the Prime Minister, President and Vice President, visited Africa 32 times and introduced various preferential policies. India has also accelerated the process of cooperation with Africa by hosting the India-Africa summit. In addition to development assistance, the Government of India has in recent years provided financial and technical support to Africa through various projects such as the Economic and Technical Cooperation Programme and the New Partnership for Africa's Development. India is also promoting its "Spice Route" and "Monsoon Plan" throughout Africa in an attempt to further strengthen economic, trade, personnel and cultural exchanges between India and African countries. In addition, keen to pull trilateral cooperation and expand economic cooperation with Africa with the help of external forces is another feature of India's implementation of "development diplomacy" with Africa, such as India and Japan and African countries to establish the "Asia-Africa Growth Corridor", and the United States and the United Kingdom to establish a "tripartite training program".

The Global Times' reporter in Africa found that in addition to large-scale cooperation projects between governments, India's private sector and civil society organizations have also played a significant role in diplomatic and economic exchanges between the two sides. In several African countries visited by the reporter, many traces of India can be seen, for example, nearly seventy percent of the population of Mauritius is of Indian and Pakistani origin, and shops selling Indian clothing can be seen everywhere on the streets; Durban, an important port city in South Africa, is inhabited by Indian-Pakistani ethnic groups, and Indian cuisine has become a representative cuisine of the city; In Nairobi, Kenya's capital, many large hotels are run by Indians. Some Indians came to Africa during the colonial era and later branched out here. A Chinese employee who has worked in Uganda for nearly 10 years told reporters that Chinese emphasizes "returning to the roots of fallen leaves", while Indians are "taking root".

Lots of work about "people"

In addition to South Asia, Africa and other regions, India has set aside a separate aid allocation of INR 1 billion for the Chabahar port in Iran in FY 2023-2024. Some Indian media said that this will help New Delhi enter Central Asia. In addition, India has increased its assistance to Latin America from INR 400 million in the previous fiscal year to INR 500 million in FY 2023-2024. During the United Nations General Assembly in September 2019, Modi announced US$14 million in grants for community development projects in Caribbean island countries, as well as an additional US$150 million in credits for solar, renewable energy and climate change-related projects in those countries. In the same year, the Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations, together with Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica and other countries, provided $2 million in assistance to cyclone-damaged Caribbean countries through the India-United Nations South-South Partnership Fund.

Long Xingchun said that generally speaking, "development diplomacy" is the strength of developed countries, but India is a big country among developing countries, so it also has some advantages in "development diplomacy", including talent training, diplomatic voice and experience sharing in specific industries. Long Xingchun explained that India has cultivated a lot of talents for some developing countries by providing scholarships for international students. India also regularly advocated internationally on behalf of developing countries and demanded more assistance from developed countries. In addition, India's software, biopharmaceutical and other industries are well developed and can share their experience with other countries.

Liu Zongyi said that in general, the core of India's "development diplomacy" is centered on people, because in terms of infrastructure assistance, India can not compare with China in terms of capital or technology, so New Delhi has found another way to do a lot of work on "people". For example, the core of the India-Japan Asia-Africa Growth Corridor initiative is local education and training. China's Belt and Road Initiative has helped many countries improve infrastructure, but it is likely that the people responsible for running these projects in the future will be trained by India and Japan.

Neighbors often complain that India "delivers very little."

Ulmi Ta, an Indian scholar who has written India's 'Development Diplomacy': Understanding Development Cooperation as a Tool for Strategic Engagement in South Asia," believes that "development diplomacy" is a means for New Delhi to expand its influence in neighboring countries, a way to strengthen South-South cooperation, and a tool for India to counter China's economic power. Liu Zongyi said that because of the impact of the new crown epidemic, India's economy declined the year before last, with a low base, coupled with factors such as energy prices, so India's economic development performed well last year. India itself sees this state of affairs as a sign that its economy has entered a phase of long-term rise, so it wants to become the leader of the "Global South". In addition, India cooperates with Western countries such as the United States, Japan and Australia in many aspects, and these countries also want to see India expand its influence in developing countries to balance China, so India wants to take advantage of the Sino-US competition and use the strategic power of other countries to expand its own interests.

Long Xingchun said that the "countries of the Global South" have always been the basis of diplomacy between China and India, but now India believes that China is a developed country, and it has more common interests and similar psychology with developing countries, so it should represent developing countries by itself. In this context, India has made the "countries of the Global South" its diplomatic focus, on the one hand, to strive for the status of a world power, and on the other hand, to increase the possibility of becoming a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council.

Liu Zongyi believes that India's "development diplomacy" can help expand its influence in the "countries of the global south", but it is difficult to become the leader of these countries. Long Xingchun also said that although India has the ambition to become the leader of the "Global South countries" and will do its best to achieve this goal, after all, its economic strength is limited, so it will not have much substantive action in foreign aid, and can only "brush the sense of presence" and compete for the right to speak through various summits, which is also a feature of India's diplomacy.

ORF has said in a report that the Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs of the Indian Parliament pointed out in a report that one of the key constraints affecting New Delhi's diplomatic work is the tight budget. In fact, India's aid budget for FY 2023-2024 has been reduced by around INR 8.8 billion to INR 54.08 billion. In addition, the website of the American "Diplomat" notes that India's neighbors often complain that New Delhi promises a lot but delivers little. This is the case of India's assistance and development projects in most countries, such as Nepal, where a police academy was supposed to be built 32 years ago but is still on hold. Some of India's neighbors see it as New Delhi's lack of commitment to it.

In addition, discrimination is also a problem exposed in India's "development diplomacy". In the center of Johannesburg, South Africa, there is a "Gandhi Square" with a statue of Gandhi erected in the square. Kuaku, a senior fellow at the Centre for Africa-China Studies at the University of Johannesburg, said some South Africans wanted to rename the square because of tensions between black and Indian communities. Ndegwa, head of the Kenya South-South Cooperation Think Tank, said that because of the "obvious" racial discrimination of Indians against black groups, many Kenyans do not welcome Indians, "In the field of development, although Kenya has historical ties with India, China is currently Kenya's more important development partner, and India is not too competitive in this regard."

【Global Times special correspondent in South Africa, Algeria and Brazil Yan Yunming, Wang Chuanbao, Shao Shijun, Global Times reporter Chen Zishuai, Yuan Jirong, Global Times special correspondent Li Jing】