Text
of the Hon'ble Foreign Minister's address on
"The
Look East Policy of the Government of Bangladesh"
Distinguished
Public Lecture,
Institute
of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS), Singapore,
12 November 2003.
Your
Excellency Prof. S. Jayakumar
Foreign
Minister of the Republic of Singapore,
Mr.
Barry Desker
Chairman
of the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies,
Excellencies,
Distinguished
Guests,
Ladies
and Gentlemen,
It gives me immense pleasure to be with you
all today here in the beautiful city of Singapore.
I consider it a great honour and privilege that the
Government of Singapore and the IDSS have accorded
me the opportunity of sharing some of my thoughts
on certain aspects of Bangladesh's foreign policy
with such an august gathering. May I therefore, record
my most sincere thanks and gratitude to the Government
of Singapore, IDSS and to you all.
Developments in international relations in
recent years have been dramatic with far-reaching
implications for everyone, Bangladesh being no exception.
The pace of change in foreign policy approaches in
the world has left many with staggering efforts to
adapt and readjust their foreign policy priorities.
New alliances and partnerships have emerged, some
having the potential of creating instability even
in our own region. The challenge for the Government
of Bangladesh has been to respond to the fast shifting
global scenario while remaining firm on the principles
and convictions on which its foreign policy is based.
Ever
since independence, Bangladesh has pursued a pro-active
foreign policy based on the principle of 'friendship
with all and malice to none'. Bangladesh is committed
to peace and friendship in her neighbourhood, in the
larger region, and globally. While cooperative relations
with her immediate neighbours in South Asia have been
a priority focus, Bangladesh has also promoted strong
mutually beneficial relations with countries in North
America, Europe, East and South East Asia, Africa
and Oceania. Multilateralism, centering around the
UN, has been a cardinal point in our foreign policy.
We have been an active and contributing member of
the international community, in promoting global standards
as well as in maintaining global peace and security.
As the leader of the least developed countries,
Bangladesh has actively promoted the cause of the
LDCs and pursued the issues of development and poverty
eradication with all its strength.
Ladies
and gentlemen,
The
Look East Policy of the Government of Bangladesh that
I want to talk about today is not something new, nor
does it mark a substantive change or shift in the
foreign policy of Bangladesh. It basically means a
focused diversification of our relations with countries
in East and South -East Asia. Since Prime Minister
Khaleda Zia formed her new government in October 2001,
there has been a greater realization of the need to
expand our links with these countries and build partnerships
for development and human security, the potential
for which had not been tapped to the fullest. As a
part of this process, our Prime Minister has paid
official visits to Myanmar, Thailand, China and Malaysia.
Heads of State/Heads of Government from China, Indonesia,
Thailand, Myanmar have visited Bangladesh over the
last 2 years. Many more such visits are on the cards.
It is again in this context that the Prime Minister
has expressed keen interest in ensuring that we have
exchange of visits at the highest level between Bangladesh
and Singapore within the next two years. I hope to
work with my distinguished friend Prof. Jayakumar
to realize this desire.
The Look East Policy is not only about exchange
of visits at leadership and other levels. These visits
are basically manifestations of real progress being
achieved in our efforts to intensify co-operation
with these countries. In this new century while globalization,
free trade and IT revolution has opened up enormous
opportunities for many, they have thrown up new challenges
for us as well. While some countries have found it
easy to draw on the opportunities, others are beset
with the prospect of marginalization in the face of
ruthless competition. One thing that we have realized
through all this is that no country, big or small,
rich or poor, powerful or weak can afford to live
in isolation today. Anything that happens in one corner
of the world affects the rest. In order to survive
in this milieu and in order to ensure maximization
of benefits, it is necessary for us to be able to
co-operate in all possible ways, by creating multiple
and diverse systems and channels of co-operation.
The various regional and sub-regional groupings are
the logical consequences of this realization. While
at one time people were apprehensive that the myriad
of regional and sub-regional groupings would create
new conflicts and competitions, it has now become
clear that these groupings have actually provided
greater scope for co-operation within and between
the groupings. However, these also have their limitations.
Ladies
and Gentlemen,
Our
engagement with much of Asia, including Southeast
and East Asia, was built on an idealistic conception
of Asian brotherhood. The rhythm of the region today
is determined, however, as much by trade, investment
and production as by history and culture. By any measure
today, East Asian is redefining the face of Asia as
the centre of growth and economic expansion, not least
of trade, commerce and investment.
East
Asia has arrived on the world stage and its sheer
economic weight has given it a voice and a role. As
recently as 1960, Japan and East Asia together accounted
for 4 percent of world GNP, while the United States,
Canada, and Mexico represented 37 percent. Today,
both groups have about the same share of the world's
GNP (some 24 percent each), but, with more than half
the world's economic growth taking place in Asia in
the 1990s, the economies of North America and Europe
will progressively become relatively smaller.
Increasing
flows of trade within the region over the years and
the determination to deepen them further through more
liberal arrangements have boosted the prospects for
the emergence, for the first time, of an Asian economic
community. The Association of South East Asian Nations
(ASEAN) is negotiating free trade arrangements with
China, Japan, South Korea and India. Coming at a critical
time when the world history is beset with conflicts
and negative developments on several fronts including
religion, security and economics, the IX ASEAN Summit,
held in Bali-a victim of recent act of terrorism,
will go down as a refreshing event promising hope
and aspiration and especially declaring unswerving
commitment to peace, stability and security cooperation
not only among its members but also beyond the region.
Western
schools have not been able to identify the right paradigm
to describe a world where non-Western powers are emerging.
Their natural impulse is to assume that, as they succeed,
these powers will become more like Western societies
or that there will be a "clash of civilizations."
As we can recall, with the end of the Cold War, there
were two famous scenarios about where the world would
go: Francis Fukuyama’s End of History (1989) and Samuel
Huntington’s Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking
of World Order (1996). Fukuyama envisaged an eventual,
gradual spread first of global capitalism, then of
liberal democracy, with the result being a new universalism,
a single culture that would embrace the world.
Huntington
saw something quite different. He saw that modernization
did not mean Westernization, that the spread of global
capitalism would run up against counter-movements,
the resurgence of older and deeper loyalties, a clash
of cultures, or what he called civilizations -- in
short, a new tribalism. Neither is likely. The difficulty
that Western minds face in grasping the arrival of
East Asia arises from the fact that we are witnessing
an unprecedented historical phenomenon: a meeting
of cultures, rather than of conflict -- a positive
assimilation of Western and East Asian cultures in
the Asia-Pacific region. It is this assimilation,
what Singapore's Ambassador Kishore Mahbubani calls
a fusion, and not a renaissance of ancient Asian glories,
that explains the explosive growth of the region and
provides the possibility of continued peace and prosperity.
Ladies
and Gentlemen,
Asians
cannot help but look more and more eastward, at Japan,
as a model for their countries. This causes me to
pay tribute to one of the architects of toady's East
Asia -- a great statesman and the father of modern
Singapore, Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew, who, true
to the meaning of his name is indeed
"the light that shines far and wide".
I admire him for determination and his attitude of
do his best under any circumstance. I recall that
Lee Kuan Yew's comments: "I learnt more from
the three and a half years of Japanese occupation
than any university could have taught me". Of
course his experience was more bitter than one could
possibly think otherwise, but the lesson he learnt
-- that power can make people change their ways of
thinking and acting, helped him to build modern Singapore.
Malaysia is perhaps less bashful and announced publicly
that it intended to look East, to look at Japan mainly
for inspiration and guidance.
As I have already mentioned, Bangladesh is
making extra new efforts to reach out to the countries
in the East since the new government came into power.
This process has seen a flurry of activities as result
of which we have seen considerable growth in our trade
with many of these countries. Entrepreneurs from some
of these countries are showing more interest in investing
in Bangladesh. Bangladeshi entrepreneurs are also
venturing out to some of these countries. More and
more people in those countries are becoming aware
of Bangladesh as a country that has much more to offer
than natural calamities and poverty. They are learning
that like most of the other countries in the East,
the people of Bangladesh are also a self-respecting
and resilient people trying hard, against enormous
odds, to improve their own lives. They are becoming
aware of the innovative ideas of micro-credit, and
non-formal education that we are pursuing for poverty
alleviation, empowerment of the poor and empowerment
of women.
Our friends in the East are becoming aware
of the many success stories of Bangladesh e.g. - major
stride in food grain production, considerable reduction
in the rate of growth of population, improvements
in healthcare and sanitation, lowering of infant and
maternal mortality, reduction in illiteracy, achieving
an average annual GDP growth of about 5% over the
last 12 years, manufactured consumer goods and services
overwhelmingly replacing traditional agricultural
products in our export basket, the development of
oral rehydration therapy that saves millions of lives
across the world, and many more.
Ladies
and Gentlemen,
I would now venture to dwell on
a few specific questions on our "Look East Policy"
and attempt to answer them to better understand it.
The first question is why the "Look East Policy?
What are the motivations and rationale behind it?
Much of the answer is evident from what I have said
earlier about how we are pursuing the policy and what
we are achieving. But let me also put a little perspective
to it. In the early years after our independence we
were forced to focus more on aid and assistance for
reconstruction and rehabilitation of a war ravaged
economy. We needed food aid, technical and financial
assistance for building of infrastructures. We naturally
looked more to the developed countries of the West
for all these. Through years of hard work our people
have succeeded in considerably strengthening our economic
infrastructure and production base -- both agricultural
and industrial, as well as in increasing the level
of sustainability and self-sufficiency. The resulting
increase in self esteem and self confidence have given
us the realization that it was neither possible nor
desirable for us to perennially depend on aid. We
have become more aware of the values of development
of domestic production, trade and investment. We have
noticed the great strides in economic development
made by the countries of the East, particularly those
in East and South East Asia, the surpluses accumulated
by them as a result of their success. We realize the
great new opportunities opening up for greater cooperation
among and with the countries of the East. It was definitely
not going to be a one-way traffic. The many successful
countries of the East were looking for new markets
and opportunities for investing their surplus, while
capital starved countries like Bangladesh were looking
for investors. It was a natural match of complementary
interests.
Bangladesh's geographical location at the crossroads
between South and South East Asia and East Asia beyond,
makes it naturally advantageous for Bangladesh to
pursue a well rounded and balanced policy of cooperation
and friendship with all the Asian countries as much
as with India, Pakistan and the other South Asian
nations as with Myanmar, Thailand and other South-east
Asian nations. We share many common values and similar
cultural traditions with the countries of East Asia.
There are natural affinities between our peoples.
The renewed emphasis on the further strengthening
of her relations of cooperation and friendship, therefore,
fits perfectly with our priorities.
Bangladesh
considers ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) as the primary
forum in enhancing political and security cooperation
in the Asia Pacific region. Bangladesh has a clear
stake in the security of Southeast Asia. This ranges
from conventional
security issues to the emerging ones like trafficking
in drugs, arms and the human person. Bangladesh's
commitment and consistent track record of upholding
democracy and human rights made it a rightful partner
for peace and security in region. Furthermore, Bangladesh
has had traditionally very close commercial and other
links with most of the ASEAN member countries due
to her geographic as well as strategic proximity.
These contacts have been reinforced through Bangladesh's
participation in the BIMST-EC and Asia Cooperation
dialogue (ACD) where Bangladesh has been active as
a founding member.
Bangladesh
has, therefore, made it known to the ARF participants
her desire to be a new participant in the forum and
thereby play her rightful role. We are pleased that
the response from ASEAN countries has been encouraging.
Another
vital aspect of our Look East policy could be termed
as physical connectivity to Southeast Asia. Since
there was very little trade with Southeast Asia during
the Cold War, the feeling that the region was part
of Bangladesh's extended neighborhood was not a frontline
issue. Establishing air and land links with the countries
of East and Southeast Asia has therefore, become an
integral priority of our diplomacy. Bangladesh has
been actively negotiating with Myanmar and Thailand
for a direct road link to Thailand through Myanmar.
The next question I would like to answer is
what do we mean by "East" in our "Look
East Policy"? The more traditional concept of
East and West or the Orient and the Occident has a
large geographic orientation. The whole of Asia (including
Japan), Africa and Oceania was considered East and
the rest of the world mainly Europe and the Americas
was considered West. Then there was the period when
the world was seen by many as divided into two influence
blocs. Those influenced by the USA and the developed
capitalist Western countries in one bloc - the Western
bloc. And those influenced by the Soviet Union and
communism in the other or the Eastern bloc. This division
is no more relevant following the demise of the Soviet
Union. However, when we think of the West these days,
we think of countries in Europe and North America
as well as Japan, Australia and New Zealand, who have
achieved high degree of political, economic, technological
as well as socio-cultural modernization and development.
All the other countries who are either still
greatly influenced by more traditional political,
economic and socio-cultural values or are at different
stages of transition to modernization are seen as
the East. Almost all countries of Asia (except Japan)
and Africa fit into this category. In many ways West
coincides with the North and East coincides with the
South.
In our "Look East Policy" East has
two connotations. One is all the countries of the
East, which coincide closely with the developing world.
The other is all the countries of Asia and Oceania,
which are located in the geographical East from our
country. While we seek closer cooperation with all
countries of the East, in our present policy we are
looking more at the countries of Asia and Oceania
located to the East of Bangladesh.
Ladies
and Gentlemen,
The next and last question that I would like
to try to answer in my presentation is what are the
contents or scope of this "Look East Policy"?
To put it simply, the contents are basically three
- political, economic and cultural.
Politically, the idea is to intensify cooperation
and coordination with our partners in the East on
various issues bearing on international peace and
security; to intensify coordination in fighting terrorism,
the scourge of narcotic, diseases, smuggling and illegal
trafficking, particularly in contrabands, small arms
and human beings -- especially women and children.
Economically, the policy emphasizes on more
fully tapping the potentials of greater cooperation
in trade, investment, technology and employment. As
I said earlier, our new policy has seen considerable
increase in our trade with many of our partners in
the East. There is a lot more that could be done in
this respect. Each country may have its comparative
advantage in certain areas. Investors in different
countries in the East could avail of these advantages
and opportunities in the other countries. Investors
from our partner countries in the East can invest
in areas where we enjoy relative advantage and similarly
Bangladeshi investors could join others in tapping
the opportunities and advantages in other countries
in the East. Already the process is in progress. Investors
from Singapore, Japan, Korea, China, Malaysia and
Thailand are investing in various mutually beneficial
projects in Bangladesh. Similarly Bangladeshi businessmen,
although in smaller numbers and scale, are opening
businesses in Singapore, Myanmar, Vietnam and other
countries in the East. Bangladesh is cooperating closely
with countries like Singapore, Japan, China, Korea,
Thailand and Malaysia in the field of technology and
in acquiring many modern and appropriate technologies
from them. Many Bangladeshi skilled and semi skilled
workers are finding employment in Singapore, Malaysia,
Japan and Korea contributing to the economies of these
countries as well as that of Bangladesh, while improving
their own lives.
Culturally, we hope to encourage greater interaction
among our peoples at all levels through exchanges
in education, arts and sciences, social and inter-religious
activities to foster greater understanding of each
other. We hope to help each other in emphasizing the
strengths of our great traditions and using them to
forge greater unity and friendship among the nations
to face the challenges of the modern world more effectively.
Ladies
and Gentlemen,
I have spoken at some length. But I was only
able to speak about a few basic questions that one
might have about our present "Look East Policy".
You may have many more questions. I shall try to attempt
to answer some of them during the question answer
session following my presentation. I do not plan to
tax your patience any more by further prolonging my
monologue. However, let me recapitulate the broad
parameters.
(1)
Our Look East Policy is not something completely
new and does not mean any substantive change or shift
in our policies;
(2)
It is only a kind of internal adjustment to
accommodate greater
emphasis
on further strengthening of our relations with our
friends in the East;
(3)
"Look East" is about diversification,
a conscious effort to optimally enhance the potential
of engagement with our extended neighbourhood;
(4)
This does not presuppose any reduction in our
emphasis or efforts in continuing to pursue sustained
and increasingly intensifying relations with our other
neighbours and other countries;
(5)
Our relations with our immediate neighbours,
the USA, Europe and other developed countries, the
OIC countries, countries in Africa and Latin America
remain as important as they have always been.
In
conclusion, let me reiterate that our thrust on consolidating
the prospects and gains from the Look East Policy
has not resulted in looking away from our traditional
engagements. We remain constantly engaged at various
levels with India, Pakistan and our other neighbours.
Our relationship with India is a central element in
our foreign policy. We share with our South Asian
neighbours similar challenges and socio-economic aspirations
reflected in our initiative to institutionalize regional
co-operation through SAARC. Therefore, while we endeavour
to give a firm footing to our links with countries
in the East, we remain committed to fostering the
closest relations with our neighbours in South Asia,
and our traditional friends around the globe.
I
thank you, ladies and gentlemen.
*
* * * *
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