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In the media Daily news, Sri Lanka's National news paper since 1918 - 23rd September 2009

The SAARC component of trade and energy in the Indian Ocean security architecture.
Madanjeet SINGH

The suggestions made by two former Foreign Secretaries, Shyam Saran and Shiv Shankar Menon, that India should initiate a discussion on a collective security arrangement between the major powers whose bulk of energy and trade flows through the Indian Ocean, is laudable. Menon made the suggestion while speaking on “Maritime Imperatives of Indian Foreign Policy” at an event organized by the National Maritime Foundation. This security architecture evidently includes the land-based economies of the BRIC countries, Brazil, Russia, India, and China, as well. According to a 2003 Goldman-Sachs report, “BRIC countries would emerge as dominant economies by 2050; India and China would dominate world markets in services and manufacturing, while Brazil and Russia would dominate in the supply of raw materials.”

It was not without significance that Menon and National Security Adviser M.K. Narayanan accompanied Manmohan Singh on his first visit abroad as second-term Prime Minister to attend the BRIC conference at the Russian Urals city of Yekaterinburg on the Europe-Asia border. In today’s globalized world, trade and commerce cannot be isolated from national security, which in turn can be strengthened by national as well as inter-state land-based transport infrastructure.

Singapore Foreign Minister George Yeo who visited Tibet last month wrote in a recent article that Tibet is part of a much larger Asian drama that is “changing from being a barrier to a region linking China and India together.” He added: “Economically, there was much to be gained by improving road and rail links between Tibet and South Asia. Indeed, the Chinese have suggested that Lhasa and Kolkata be linked by rail.” Yeo explained that “the rapid growth of China-India trade in the past 10 years and the emergence of China as India’s biggest trading partner marked just ‘the beginning’ of new economic linkages between the two Asian neighbours.” Common economic interests are driving the two countries into closer political cooperation, both bilaterally and internationally and how they “relate to each other in the coming decades will affect everyone,” Yeo wrote.