Thursday, August 11, 2005

Taiwan and India

I have long been an advocate of close ties between India, the natural counterweight to China, and Taiwan. The Times of India came out with an article the other day arguing that India can learn a lot from Taiwan:

"Apart from its manufacturing and hardware might, Taiwan is strategically important for India as it controls the Itu Aba otherwise called the Taiping Island. The island can have military installations and forward bases. The Indian Navy can only operate with the help of Taiwan to conduct exercises", says Dr Kondapalli.

Indian strategic experts feel Taiwan has the best intelligence on China. "India doesn't know anything about China. There may be a handful who know about China in India. And Taiwan is the only way through which we can know about China. This realization has dawned on the Indian establishment", says a retired senior intelligence officer.

It is increasingly being seen that a strong relationship with Taiwan will be of immense help to India's interests.
You bet. India is a democracy, inherently more stable, and besides, has some kickass food and some fabulous cultural relics. And more direct flights from here to there will make it easier for me to travel there!

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree, but I've had relatively little success in trying to get Taiwanese interested in India. Those who are more cosmopolitan want to go further afield - to Europe or the Americas, even Africa (anywhere but Asia), while the less adventurous prefer to stick to East and Southeast Asia.

Michael Turton said...

I thought that the Hsinchu science park and the growth of the IT industry had solved the brain drain problem.....

Yeah, I've had the same experience with Taiwanese and India, Kerim. I show my slides sometimes, but rarely is there anyone who wants to go.

Michael

Chaon said...

Travel agents still recommending vaccinations for diphtheria and Hepatitis for travelers to India. I'll be going next month, and while I don't mind the injections, I'm not taking those damn malaria pills.

Jason said...

So what you're saying is that India would do well to...curry favor with Taiwan?

Thank you folks, I'm here all week. Try the 牛排!

Michael Turton said...

Damn! I made it all the way to August 11th without a single bad pun! Now I'll have to take down my "guaranteed pun-free" sign....


Michael

77 UP THE WOLD said...

Although India has grown surprisingly, It still hasn't gotten The Mystery of Capital . Let most of people in India have their ownership of where they've lived hereditarily for thousands of years. Of course, those so-called suzerains won't agree with this proposal unless their right can be exchanged equally.

Anonymous said...

Good blog. Keep it running!

Anonymous said...

As Mr. Turton said in his website, Taiwanese have a serious racism problem and it is not recognized. I am a Taiwanese who apparently is more interested in India more than other Taiwanese. About 2 years ago, I started to realize that India will be natural economic partner in the future. But there aren't many books about India in Taiwan and Taiwanese society remains ignorant about India. Racism plays an important role in such a refusal mentality. However, businessmen already took action in this global economic movement.

Anonymous said...

I am a Taiwanese and I am also very much fascinated by the diversified Indian culture. In Taiwanese terms, I am Ha-India Class (Taiwan romanisation: 'ha yin' zu), of which the 'ha' stands for 'craving for', 'eager for', 'a fan of',... et al.

I found that both India and Taiwan have intensified the approaches to each other in many ways in the past 12 months. And I do look forward to further cooperations or ties in between the like-minded nations.

The strong points for the promising relationship between India and Taiwan are the multi-valued, multi-cultural, multi-religious aspects in both sides, plus another vital fact that both are democratic countries. However, we may somehow disappointed by the not-so-fast-paced development in between the two, which is also a result/downside of democracy. Isn't it?

I am still very much optimistic about the good relationships between India and Taiwan though, and I'm working on it through the promo in the internet at this moment (actually I am setting up a new site to promote the India- Taiwan connections, which will be unveiled later on). Also I will be visiting India later this year in the hope that I may bridge up the NGO's in both India and Taiwan.

In a nutshell, my concepts to develop ties in between India and Taiwan are through the NETWORKS.

I'll unveil more details later! Cheers!

Anonymous said...

Hello, would anyone like to write a coherent well-informed article on why India and Taiwan should draw closer for a major Indian op-ed page? The Chinese President is visiting India next week (Nov 2006), and it would be a nice greeting for him! If so, please email S. Devsharma at HVFTBMN@yahoo.com.

nauti said...

India have a history of going slow in making relationships, but if it does, it is constant in maintaining those....not like China and US which make friends and foes at their will.
Specially in case of Taiwan India can't move that fast...the reason being; left parties of India are the part of current government and they have this brotherhood feeling for China, so anything that might go against China is not acceptable to them.

Let's hope for best though

Cheers

Shurik said...

A very nice post, Taiwan can be really very helpful to India. India and Taiwan are already enjoying the bilateral trade but it hasnt reached to the maximum potential. As China has surrounded India militarily from all the sides (http://enewsreport.blogspot.com/2009/06/chinese-string-of-pearls-theory.html), India can do the same by making sweet relation with Taiwan. by recognizing Taiwan and tibet India can give China a big shock. But can India do it? India's politics is not that strong to take such action and if India does this, China will never allow India to get permanent membership for UN security Council which is needed by India very much to improve the world governance which is mainly dominated by west and the communist china. May be that's the one of the major reason why India is quiet.

Anonymous said...

But taiwanese companies have to improve the quality of engineering goods supplied to India.
I have peronally had a very bad experience with the quality of equipment supplied to the company i work in , and we are now wasting thousands of dollars in replacing the components with locally procured components, after just a year .
Bad for Taiwan's image.