What to Expect as India Votes
Australia’s Indo-Pacific show; fighter training for Taiwan; South China Sea heat-up
The Big One.
More than 850 million are expected to head to the polls in the coming weeks.
Over the next week, more than 850 million Indian citizens are expected to cast their votes in the country’s general elections—the single largest election in the world. The votes will determine who will fill the 543 seats of the Lok Sabha, or the lower house of India’s bicameral parliament. Voting will take place in phases on the following dates: April 11, April 18, April 23, April 29, May 6, May 12, and May 19.
The 2019 Lok Sabha elections will determine the formation of the next Indian government. 272 seats out of 543 are required for a party to form a government without any coalition partners. In 2014, incumbent Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 282 seats, while the formerly dominant Indian National Congress (INC) saw a net loss of 162 seats.
What are the factors that are driving Indian voters to the polls and determining ultimately which party they vote for? It’s complicated. Broadly, India’s two main national parties—the incumbent BJP and the INC—are running on two very different electoral strategies. As Aman Thakker explores in The Diplomat, the BJP is running on “guns” and the INC on “butter.”
With the release of INC’s and the BJP’s manifestos, the stage is set for a battle of narratives in India’s 2019 general elections. While the BJP looks to advance a vision of safety and security under a second term for Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the INC is positioning itself to present a vision of economic development and welfare. As Indian voters head to the polls and decide who they will vote for in the upcoming elections, they will face a fundamental choice beyond the names on the ballot. They will need to choose between guns or butter.
Modi’s incumbent party is leaning on its national security credentials, partly given the standoff with Pakistan at the end of February. As New Delhi-based writer Harsh Pant argues, in that department the advantage is with the BJP in the eyes of most Indians.
But there’s a lot more to India’s elections, which are certainly far from a simple two-party contest. In recent years, regional parties have surged in importance and may even end up playing a critical kingmaking role should the BJP underperform. For a deeper look, don’t miss Neelanjan Sircar’s cover story for the latest issue of The Diplomat’s magazine, taking a data-driven look at what will stand in the BJP’s path as it looks to reconstitute a second government after five years in power. Sircar explores the landscape for the upcoming election, including the importance of turnout, the BJP’s broad geographic appeal, the specific importance of Uttar Pradesh—India’s most populous state—and the implications of state-by-state results and agricultural distress. For more on agricultural distress, don’t miss a recent video by Vishal Arora and Dev Desai, who take a closer look at farmers in Modi’s home state of Gujarat.
My view surveying India’s electoral landscape is that the BJP does appear well-positioned to muster the seats, along with coalition partners, to form a new government with little trouble. The last-minute surge of nationalism amid the crisis with Pakistan appears to have helped, despite Modi’s lackluster economic record. Now, in mid-April, seat projections appear to be premature, but we’ll find out in the second half of May just whether Modi will have done it again and will get to extend his prime ministerial tenure into a second term. For the Indian National Congress, even if defeat appears likely, growing its seat count in the Lok Sabha will be victory enough to provide an adequate set-up for the 2024 election. After its thrashing in the 2014 elections at the BJP’s hands, the party has been on a course to rebuild itself. That effort appears to remain incomplete.
Bottom Line: As Indians head to the polls, the incumbent BJP appears well-positioned to reconstitute a government for a second term at the center.
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East Asia.
Well, we have a few more data points than we did through most of March regarding the potential future of U.S.-North Korea diplomacy. Kim Jong Un, as expected, delivered two important public addresses in early April. The first was at his guidance of the 4th Plenary Meeting of the 7th Central Committee of the Workers’ Party of Korea. The second was to the first session of the 14th Supreme People’s Assembly in North Korea. The latter was much more focused on foreign affairs. If you’re one for primary sources, you can find a readable official English translation of the speech here [PDF].
Here are the core takeaways:
Relations between Trump and Kim remain positive;
North Korea sees new manifestations of the United States’ “hostile policy” toward it, including a recent missile defense test against an ICBM-class target and the new U.S.-South Korea Dong Maeng military exercises;
North Korea sees continuing old manifestations of the United States’ “hostile policy” toward it, mainly in the form of sanctions;
A third summit is possible if and only if Kim sees some evidence that the United States has made a decision to put sanctions relief on the table for less than North Korea’s complete disarmament.
There’s a lot more in the address, but those are the big ones. Critically, Kim left the possibility of a third U.S.-North Korea summit on the table, which is what most mainstream news coverage picked up on. That gave off the appearance that things were just fine between the two sides. But the renewed mention of the “hostile policy,” the very conspicuous absence of the word “denuclearization” entirely, and the statement of an effective ultimatum on sanctions relief leave the future of this process ominous.
Trump personally appears to want to keep diplomacy with Kim alive, but what’s far from clear is if his advisers—especially one as hardline as John Bolton, the U.S. national security adviser—will ever see any value in a deal with North Korea that accepts any concession from Pyongyang short of total capitulation. Remember: It was Bolton’s insistence on a Libya-style disarmament deal for North Korea last year that resulted in a pointed outcry by the North Korean Ministry of Foreign Affairs, ultimately derailing the planning process for the first summit.
Amid all this, we may be seeing Kim setting up for Plan B: rapprochement with Russia. I take a closer look at a growing body of evidence that Kim-Putin summit may mark the start of an important period of geopolitical rapprochement between Moscow and Pyongyang.
Bottom Line: Kim Jong Un has left the U.S.-North Korea diplomatic process on life support, putting the ball back in Washington’s court.
Bonus: My colleague Prashanth Parameswaran and I spent time talking about the above issues on the Korean Peninsula on the latest edition of the Asia Geopolitics podcast. Listen here.
Southeast Asia.
South China Sea tensions have bubbled up between the Philippines and China around Thitu (Pag-asa) Island in the Spratly group. This comes just weeks after the United States clarified its commitment to the Philippines under the Mutual Defense Treaty. According to official Philippine government statistics for the first quarter of 2019, there were 657 sightings of 275 distinct Chinese vessels in the waters around Thitu Island, which is not far from one of China’s largest artificial islands in the Spratly group, Mischief Reef. (Thitu itself is the second largest of the naturally occurring features in the Spratlys, after the Taiwan-occupied Itu Aba Island.) These vessels encompass the gamut of Chinese capabilities, including so-called “maritime militia” vessels – commercial ships tasked with asserting Beijing’s interests. In recent years, China also has supported the operation of these vessels with warships and maritime law enforcement vessels.
What makes this bout of tensions different is the reaction of the Philippine government under President Rodrigo Duterte. Since his inauguration in the summer of 2016, Duterte charted a rapprochement with China. That allowed Beijing to smooth over relations with Manila shortly after the July 2016 verdict of the Hague-based tribunal that found Beijing’s maritime entitlement claims in the South China Sea to be legally invalid. This time, Duterte is taking on a bolder stance, promising China pushback if Beijing continues to press its luck near Thitu Island. One possible motivator may be the upcoming midterm elections in the Philippines, which will serve as a referendum on the president even though he won’t be on the ballot.
Bottom Line: Tensions between Manila and Beijing are rising in the South China Sea and Duterte appears to be willing to push back this time.
Elections in Indonesia: There’s a lot at stake as Indonesia heads to vote. Thousands of seats across all levels of government are up for grabs in what is the largest single-day democratic exercise in the world. Expect a detailed follow-up in the next issue of the newsletter.
Don’t Miss It: ABS-CBN reports exclusively on Chinese fishermen harvesting giant clams at Scarborough Shoal.
Oceania.
The Royal Australian Navy (RAN) is making its Indo-Pacific presence known. Beginning with Indo-Pacific Endeavor 2019 and culminating in the bilateral India-Australia AUSINDEX exercise, Canberra is demonstrating its presence in the Indian Ocean. Alongside other major democracies with stakes in the region, including the United States, Japan, and India, Australia has identified the broad region running from the eastern coast of Africa to the western Pacific as an area of strategic priority. As Australia’s Secretary of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade Frances Adamson noted last October in a speech in New Zealand, Australia sees a “major strategic realignment” occurring in the Indo-Pacific. “In particular, the emerging role that China forges for itself will be pivotal to the future of the region,” she added.
Militarily, Canberra’s interactions with India are back in the spotlight at a critical time. Delhi sparked frustration in Washington and Tokyo in recent years when it balked at the prospect of inviting the RAN to participate in the trilateral U.S.-India-Japan Malabar exercise, but it has continued engaging Australia in the meantime. As The Diplomat’s Grant Wyeth observes, “It is likely that India would see Australia as a compatible partner in its attempts to defend this space (the Indo-Pacific), and its idealized place within it.”
Wyeth adds, however:
While Australia’s Indian Ocean capabilities remain limited, these capabilities multiply significantly in partnership. That’s true both in a bilateral manner, as will be on display with the AUSINDEX exercise, or within a multilateral framework should the tentative steps toward the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue — incorporating the United States and Japan alongside India and Australia — ever become strides.
AUSINDEX concluded on April 14. This year’s iteration included American and New Zealand personnel on RAN vessels participating in the exercise.
Bottom Line: Australia continues to make its presence felt in the Indo-Pacific region.
Asia Defense.
A recent issue of this newsletter discussed the prospect for a blowup in the U.S.-China relationship over a possible sale of new F-16V fighters to Taiwan, which has confirmed that it made a formal request to the U.S. side. While we aren’t quite there yet, the State Department’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency announced, days after the 40th anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act, that it had approved a Foreign Military Sale to Taiwan “for the continuation of a pilot training program and maintenance/logistics support for F-16 aircraft currently at Luke Air Force Base, Arizona for an estimated cost of $500 million.”
A bit more detail on the training from DSCA:
TECRO (Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office, which serves the function of de facto embassy in the United States) has requested a possible sale for the continuation of a pilot training program and maintenance/logistics support for F-16 aircraft currently at Luke Air Force Base, Arizona, to include flight training; participation in approved training exercises; inert/dummy training munitions; supply and maintenance support; spares and repair parts; support equipment; program management; publications; documentation; personnel training and training equipment; fuel and fueling services; engineering, technical, and logistics support services; and other related elements of program and logistical support necessary to sustain a long-term CONUS training program. The total estimated program cost is $500 million.
The decision is significant in what it does and doesn’t do. First, this does not transfer any significant materiel to Taiwan that would augment its deterrence capabilities against China. In this way, it falls short of triggering any major Chinese red lines. Second, it definitely serves as a symbolic and significant show of U.S. support for the Taiwanese military—a welcome gesture at the 40th anniversary of the Taiwan Relations Act, which governs the nature of the unofficial U.S.-Taipei leadership. The announcement came shortly after the arrival of a high-level U.S. delegation to Taipei to mark the anniversary of the TRA.
Bottom Line: The United States isn’t selling Taiwan fighters just yet, but it’s making an important show of support at a critical time.
In Case You Missed It: Abraham Ait takes a look at the divergent military aviation pathways of China and Russia and whether the latter can really offer the former much today. Things get particularly interesting in the space of so-called sixth generation fighter technologies: “Should the Russian military follow through on its announced plans to integrate sixth generation technologies onto the Su-57, which have been tested on its airframe in the past, the fighter’s attractiveness to the PLA would only increase. The opportunity to acquire these technologies is particularly valuable given the growing perceived threat posed by the United States’ development of sixth generation air superiority fighters of its own, which are expected to enter service by 2030 and be heavily tailored to the operational requirements of the Pacific theatre.”
On the Horizon: The U.S. Army is planning a major Pacific exercise to focus on contingencies in the South and East China Seas. “The exercise will deploy a division-sized force to the South China Sea to augment army forces already stationed forward in the Western Pacific and operate in traditional U.S. partner-nations like the Philippines and Thailand, but also may go to Malaysia, Indonesia, and Brunei.”
Extras.
I touted Neelanjan Sircar’s cover article on the Indian election above, but don’t miss the rest of this month’s magazine, which includes a look at the past, present, and future of the Taiwan Relations Act, the barriers to lasting peace in Myanmar, and the fallout from the Hanoi summit for U.S.-North Korea relations. Read and subscribe here.
Please do feel free to reach out with comments, tips, and feedback at ankit@thediplomat.com and follow me on Twitter at @nktpnd and The Diplomat at @Diplomat_APAC.