Indian Council of World Affairs

CICA Secretary General Kairat Sarybay 

Chairman, AIR Centre Farid Shafiyev

President, SIIS Chen Dongxiao and Chair of CICA TTF

It is my pleasure to represent the Indian Council of World Affairs, member think-tank of the CICA TTF from India, at this session of the 13th Meeting of the CICA TTF.

2.  As we are all aware, Asia, unlike other regions, lacks a pan-continental security cooperation framework. At the same time, our continent’s security, development and overall well-being continue to face challenges from persistent conflicts and tensions. Situation in the Indo-Pacific, South East Asia, Afghanistan, and West Asia is evident to all, with human insecurity emerging as the biggest challenge. The current geo-political churn of global scale is causing shifts in the behaviour of states and their security postures in unprecedented ways. With the belief that crisis situations, geopolitical turmoil and turbulence also present opportunities for creative solutions inspired by new energy and renewed vigour, perhaps now is the time to focus on CICA and what it can potentially achieve in sync with the call for reformed multilateralism and enhanced regionalism, especially from the countries of the Global South.

3.  I represent here today the New Delhi based think tank Indian Council of World Affairs. It is India’s leading and oldest foreign policy think tank. In 1947, synchronized with the Independence of India from colonial rule and close on the heels of the Council’s establishment in 1943, the ICWA hosted the seminal first Asian Relations Conference in New Delhi. This Conference, addressed by Mahatma Gandhi, the Father of the Nation, laid the foundation of the idea of ‘Asian Unity’ as well as the subsequent ideas of ‘Afro-Asian Solidarity’ and ‘Global South’. The Conference was, in fact, the first major attempt to collectively analyze Asia’s challenges and look for cooperative solutions. Participants in this CICA Think-Tank Forum will be pleased to note that the 1947 Asian Relations Conference saw participation from many of the present CICA members including the former Soviet Central Asian Republics, as well as from Azerbaijan, which had sent two delegates from the Academy of Sciences, Baku. It is this legacy that the ICWA seeks to carry forward today. The 40’s and the 50’s, you would all agree, was the golden era of Asian solidarity. This was rekindled somewhat post-Soviet collapse with the initiative of a key Central Asian country Kazakhstan that sought to take the ‘Asian Relations Spirit’ forward through the consensus-based and inclusive platform of CICA. As is known to everyone, India is a founding member of CICA and has been a supporter of this organization since its inception.

4.  India does not see an Asian Security architecture as being in competition with other architectures or security compacts in the world that have been put in place especially over the last century or so and maybe currently evolving or facing stress. We see an Asian Security architecture as a “building block” of a future global security compact. India finds value in the CBMs approach of CICA with their essential agreed characteristics being ‘incremental’, ‘gradual’, ‘voluntary’, ‘consensus-based’, and ‘recommendatory’. India also believes that multilateral CBMs are meant to ‘supplement’ and not “supplant” mutually agreed bilateral CBMs. India currently actively participates in CBMs in CICA in the areas of counter-terrorism, connectivity, energy security and the human dimension. We have recently hosted workshops for CICA member states on de-radicalization and misuse of internet. India’s engagement with CICA initiatives have been consistent and substantive and takes into cognizance the rising spectrum of traditional and non-traditional security challenges that member states of CICA are currently facing. Crime ranging from arms and drugs trafficking, terrorism, money laundering, human trafficking, sexual trafficking need to be a central human insecurity concern of CICA.

5.  We at ICWA are of the view that the world has already become multipolar and that a new multipolar world order is also in need of robust global and regional institutions with their own norm-setting and operative mandates capable of upholding multipolarity and a rules-based international order. Effective multilateralism reinforces multipolarity and India views CICA as a vital platform to advance effective multilateralism in a diverse and multipolar Asia.

6.  Recent years have seen consolidation of two trends in India’s foreign policy and diplomatic outreach: One, India’s evolving role as a security provider from the Indian Ocean to the Indo-Pacific. Under its vision of SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region) and MAHASAGAR (Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions), India is steadily making strides in building development, security and defense partnerships in its immediate and extended neighbourhood and the surrounding maritime space. These partnerships are proving to be useful, for instance, in meeting non-traditional threats to security such as counter-terror, anti-piracy, climate and natural disaster emergencies, etc. Second, India’s renewing leadership of the Global South as seen through the recent Voice of the Global South Summits hosted by India and India’s expanding development partnership programme focused on the neighbourhood and Africa but also expanding to South East Asia, Pacific Island Countries, Central Asia and Latin America.

7.  As the world transitions between Orders, CICA member States are too experiencing layers of transition simultaneously: the broader international and regional transformation, the processes of national rejuvenation within their societies, and the institutional evolution of CICA itself. In this backdrop, by fostering inter-dependence and cultivating shared values, strengthened regional cooperation can generate a virtuous cycle where development reinforces security and security sustains development. CICA has the potential to shape and uphold an Asia that is politically stable, mutually secure, economically inter-dependent and culturally inter-connected based on the foundations of dialogue, diplomacy and trust.

Thank you!

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