India and Japan, two countries wanting to enhance the quality of their engagement in Africa’s development, have historically taken fundamentally different approaches to the task. But now, both are being guided by geoeconomic imperatives in aligning their strategy in the region— and the Asia Africa Growth Corridor offers many opportunities for synergy at the B2B level.

India and Japan often coordinate their geoeconomic strategies in the Indo-Pacific region. Now they are trying to do the same in Africa, but to succeed they will have to address substantial differences in their traditional economic relationship with the countries of that continent.

For India, the India-Japan dialogue on Africa began in 2010 and ran for a period of three years before a hiatus ensued. It picked up momentum again, following the India Africa Forum Summit (IAFS) III in 2015. The announcement of the concept of an Asia Africa Growth Corridor (AAGC) in 2016, when India hosted a meeting of the board of governors of the Africa Development Bank, has further enhanced relations. Japan had already been engaging with Africa through its five- yearly Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD), launched in 1993 to promote Africa’s development.

The announcement of the AAGC Vision Statement was a new step forward for both India and Japan in Africa, a clear effort to align the priorities of all three nations.It came also as a challenge to increasing Chinese economic activity in Africa, akin to efforts closer home in Asia. The October 2018 Modi-Abe Summit in Tokyo made clear that the two countries now have a similar outlook on projects, with a greater focus on India’s neighbourhood, viz. Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.

This signals a political approach by India. Not having countenanced third party interest in her neighbourhood earlier, India is seeking that the Japanese partnership play a greater role in fulfilling the increasing demand for economic cooperation in many countries, including India’s own North East.
The African initiative does not yet show signs of this approach in practice; the statement of 2018 only discusses the merits of a business platform where Indian and Japanese companies can create a clearing house of interest. The concept is proving more difficult to achieve in the African context.

What form will the Asia Africa Growth Corridor take?

The Vision Document itself is holistic, and doesn’t identify specific avenues for trilateral cooperation that best employ India’s and Japan’s respective strengths in addressing the development priorities of African countries. The reason for this is clear: India and Japan historically have taken fundamentally different approaches to Africa – differences that can’t be resolved any time soon. For example, Japan’s lending programme is focused on eight or ten countries in Africa, most of which are in the high-investment category. India’s expanding programme of Lines of Credit (LOC) has a much larger ambit, covering more than 40 countries in Africa, most of which are Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPCs) and Least Developed Countries (LDCs).[4]

The countries to which India and Japan are both able to lend are few. Japan, through TICAD, has focused on contributing to regional and international institutions for Africa, with fewer bilateral arrangements. For India, on the other hand, the bilateral engagements are stronger. The Indian business footprint in Africa is deeper and more diverse than the larger brand visibility of Japanese entrepreneurship. Rarely have Indian and Japanese companies worked together in Africa. Their manner of doing business varies.

The differences between India and Japan extend to the AAGC too. Indian companies see the AAGC as a source of alternative funding to secure large projects in Africa as they did under the Indian LOC projects. The Japanese companies are more focused on expanding trade and capacity building than investment for large projects on a trilateral basis. The short-term solutions perhaps lie in a B2B approach. While the B2B approach will be easier to achieve than a B2G approach, it will require far greater coordination than India and Japan have achieved in other arenas. The B2G needs government-led planning, funding and matching of procurement processes. The B2B approach can be led more by FDI, the private sector and focus on smaller projects without direct government funding.

In the medium term, the main focus of AAGC will have to be on infrastructure projects. Such projects need coordination between Indian and Japanese lending agencies and also African countries and their development priorities. The approach adopted by the IAFS and TICAD is more pan-African, with the African response too focusing on priorities, such as Agenda 2063, the Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA) and the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme CAAP), among others.

Pan-African and regional projects are more difficult to manage while a trilateral partnership in the infrastructure space can include the possibility of collaboration by Indian and Japanese agencies with an African government agency on a common project. Its design, implementation and operation can create a new matrix of engagement. Projects with a regional hinterland will serve a greater purpose.

Japanese agencies, their offices in India and Africa and Indian companies must work in tandem. An arrangement between the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and EXIM Bank to exchange information on tenders issued is a good initial step.

Meanwhile, the two countries can attempt a greater B2B connect in areas like manufacturing, services and operations of infrastructure projects. Japanese companies in India look at Africa as an expanded market for what they produce in India. Their focus is on automobiles, auto parts, parts for power plants, air conditioners and the like. Several Japanese companies have restructured their Indian operations and brought engagement with Africa, particularly East and
Southern Africa, to their Indian offices: their European offices or Singapore handled them earlier. Yet others, which are engaged with Indian diaspora companies, are trying to expand their market in Africa—and this trend can only grow.

So how do Indian companies in India join the Japanese effort to expand business in Africa? The B2B engagement enables such ideas to be discussed. Indian companies’ primary interest in Africa is in infrastructure. They need to work with those who have invested in and trade in Africa and can bring them in closer engagement with Japanese companies so that a mutuality of interests can be established. The B2B connect among Indian and Japanese companies needs to be diversified, keeping Africa in focus. The Japan External Trade Organisation (JETRO) and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), among others, have tried to network companies through meetings in India, Uganda and Nigeria over the last year. The creation of the business platform, announced by both prime ministers in October 2018, is supportive, but to drive home the point that trilateral engagements can work calls for more effort from the chambers of commerce and industry and other bodies.

The B2B approach will require substantial adjustments in the way the Indian and Japanese governments coordinate their geoeconomic strategies. The ministry of external affairs in India has, until now, guided the AAGC’s course, with Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), the New Delhi-based policy research institute, leading the Vision Statement effort. To improve the B2B engagement in the short term, the ministry of commerce and industry will also have to get more involved.

Similarly, in Japan, the ministry of foreign affairs took the lead initially, but the ball started rolling because of the promotional efforts by JETRO and the Institute of Developing Economies—both being agencies of the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI). METI itself is now taking keener interest after meeting members of the CII Task Force on the AAGC with whom JETRO engages regularly.

The AAGC is an effort to provide an alternative model of doing business in Africa, using transparent and adaptive measures. India, Japan and other partners may do a great deal, but China has done much more and been Africa’s preferred partner well before the BRI’s appearance. Africa apart, several other countries too have found China’s easy provision of long-term credit with a turnkey approach and few OECD-type conditions, conducive to growth. The AAGC’s aim is to provide greater funding for African development in a way that is more conscious of debt servicing obligations, climate issues and transparency. The idea is to elicit private-sector engagement rather than participation only by state- owned companies: this will call for some innovative coordination so that African countries and businesses are able to find more common ground, collaborating with companies from India and its partners. If this is achieved, several African countries will engage with AAGC as they are more at ease with well-planned projects that have business plans. They are also glad to deal with India or Japan, countries which do not assume a prescriptive pedestal when speaking of their development.

Reports that in the early days after schools reopened across the country following the Easter blasts, VIPs did not send their children to attend classes does not augur well for the system that they are supposed to have put in place for the rest of the citizenry and the Nation as a whole. Coupled with it all is G.L. Pei ris’ charge that the security agencies let nine arrested people walk away from Courts with bail orders, if true, says even less of the post-blasts preparedness in matters of prosecution, leave alone investigations.

‘Call Gota’ seems to be the slogan post-blasts, if one went by the recent Colombo talk of war-time American Ambassador, Robert O. Blake Jr. Speaking in capital Colombo, Blake recalled the tech -team that Gota had put in place during the war years and how he also ensured intelligence -swapping among various agencies (without ‘turf wars’?) which went a long way in ending LTTE terrorism a decade ago.

Blake did not say it, nor does he have to say it, but it is becoming increasingly clear that there is a need for a Gota-mindset in matters of national security, even in peace-time. It raises larger questions about the post-war ‘security state’ that Gota and the Rajapaksas were still supposed to be obsessed with, even five long years after the war.

Designate him ‘Defence Secretary’ or whatever, it is sad that a decade after the end of the LTTE war, the Nation has not been able to produce another ‘security coordinator’ of Gota’s calibre. It is equally pertinent that under the Rajapaksas, no one in the Government spoke out of tune or out of turn. Their compl aints, if any, were that they were not allowed to speak their mind in public, sending out confusing and contradicting signals, before and after Rajapaksa rule.

Leaking like a sieve

When the Rajapaksas ‘reigned,’ no one, including President Mahinda or Def ence Secretary Gota, spoke on matters of security, unless absolutely necessary. If they did not open up entirely to the global leaders and their envoys, permanently located in the country or special visitors, it was possibly because Colombo leaked like a sieve, and they knew it better.

It was possibly thus that ministers, then and now, like Rajitha Senaratne, had little to say in public and muddy the waters. Whether or not there was any fish to be caught was beside the point. It was also thus that when war-time Army Commander Sarath Fonseka spoke out-of-tune, and on policy-matters, which was not his mandated domain, he was chastised, though supposedly in private. Fonseka’s declaration that the strength of the armed forces would be doubled, with hundred thou sand troops added in the first year, came after the war was over, and everyone was convinced that the LTTE too was over with it. Through the last months of the war, Fonseka, as Army Chief, was also quoted by a South African newspaper to the effect that the Tamils were ‘minorities’ in the country, and should behave/act as one, or, words to the effect.

Whether humiliating and cashiering him and sending him to long months in prison was the right way to ‘chastise’ Fonseka is still a question. If there was then more than that met the eye, again, the Rajapaksas have not spoken about it, even long years after the war. Nor was all those post -war heavy-handedness justified, even if not all the allegations were true or even half-true. But one look at what various Government leaders are saying on any given day after the Easter blasts and it would convince every layman about town that there was still no coordination in handling national crises of the kind, leave alone winning them over. Post -blasts, the Nation was brought under emergency, but no one seems to realise that there are powers under the law, to restore order and peace, going beyond Police investigations, arrest more terrorists, and uncover more caches of weapons.

A fortnight and more after the blasts, President Maithripala Sirisena wants foreign Governments to withdraw their ‘travel advisories’ which could hit tourism and the economy hard. Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe
is still talking about the medium and long terms. After chastising Parliament for hol ding back his anti-terrorism draft, he has since underscored the need for better technology to swoop on terrorism.

Neither of them are addressing the short and immediate term. President Sirisena acts as if normalcy had already been restored and the Nation should be addressing medium-term concerns like the blasts’ impact on the economy. Premier Wickremesinghe seems to be already there, talking about what the Nation lacks and not what the Nation could have done with whatever was there.

If nothing else, Premier Wickremesinghe should be talking, and talking behind the scenes, about what went wrong with the early ‘Indian alert’ on Easter blasts, which he had acknowledged on day one. The way investigations seem to be going about, and the way public statements are being made, it looks as if no one is just now concerned about past lapses, and the repeat of the same. What the SLPP’s G.L. Peiris said in terms of bail-for-nine belonged here. Fighting the war with the LTTE, with the determination to end it in their time, the Rajapaksas did everything that might have qualified for a ‘police raj.’ Yes, the urban elite had every reason to complain on specifics, but the rural poor did not – or, that is what the general belief was until Elections -2015 acknowledged the emergence of a ‘rural elite,’ who could also be influenced by social media.

Needing explanation

Today, when Premier Wickremesinghe is talking about a new anti -terror law to deal with the post-blasts situation, the Rajapaksas are shouting themselves hoarse, in their turn. It is another matter that the Premier has not explained why he had to withdraw the earlier anti -terror law, or why he introduced a new piece of legislation in Parliament when there was nothing on record to show that whatever terrorism was re aring its ugly head, after all!

The question is if this is going to be the new norm for Sri Lanka, all over again? If so, the Government needed to educate and enlighten the people at large, take the polity, the public and more so Parliament, into confidence. It could well re-activate the National Security Council (NSC), and the Premier cannot stay away without complaining, but blame it all on the President for keeping him out. Neither can make their inefficiency and ineffectiveness an excuse in the cover of ulterior political motives that had nothing to do with the larger concern of national security. It is another matter, neither the President, nor the PM or any of the other participants in the NSC meetings, for instance, have said if the ‘Indian intellig ence inputs’ on the Easter Sunday blasts, were shared in the forum, discussed, and a decision was taken.

That is to say, what if Premier Wickremesinghe continued to participate in the NSC meetings since October, when alone such invitations/intimation ceased to come his way. Or, what is the statutory/Executive mandate of the NSC and is it a personal property of the President of the day, that the incumbent could trifle with set procedures, if any, at least on matters that could be put on record, and are usua lly put on record. Under the circumstances, the President’s Office has to explain if the Indian intelligence, or from wherever the early alerts came, was shared with the NSC and other appropriate authorities? If so, how, if not why? There is nothing in the public domain to support or contradict any rumours on these claims.

In context, the President’s Office, for instance, cannot take umbrage under the authority of the three -man commission appointed by incumbent Sirisena, to bring out the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, about the Easter blasts. Without casting aspersions on the honourable members of the panel, headed by a serving Justice of the Supreme Court, the technical argument still could be that the President is both the appointing authority of the Commission and also the recipient of the panel findings. Caesar’s wife, it need not be reiterated, has to stay above board and early on.

Owing responsibility

It is not about anyone owing responsibility alone. There is much more to the political instability that the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe duo have inflicted on the collective responsibility to Parliament and the people, which they have been flouting with gay abandon, almost from the very moment they took over. The question of accountability cannot be replaced by fact-finding of any kind.

But then, the idea is not to reopen selective targeting of political opponents as and when the panel report appears. In the past, on the infamous ‘Bond Scam’ Report, the Government hedged tabling the whole report on the Table of the House in Parliament. Everyone found every reason and justification, not to table the same, though it was all about political corruption and nothing to do with national security, in the conventional and not-so-conventional sense of the term.

Today, after Colombo was allowed to burn, the Neros of present-day Sri Lanka cannot have their way still and continue to fiddle in the middle of nowhere, taking th e Nation down with them. There has to be a sensitive and sensible approach to terror-management at the Government and the people’s levels, and nothing can be achieved unless someone wants to address the core issues and concerns, without hedging and hawing, if only to save his own skin or to peel off the other man’s! Who then can be entrusted with the responsibility – whether on the new-terrorism of the post-LTTE kind, or specific to Wickremesinghe’s new anti-terror law, or both, comprehensively? With the presidential polls in the offing, and incumbent Sirisena as much to blame for the security lapses per se as his Prime Minister Wickremesinghe, an empowered parliamentary select committee, sworn to secrecy if required, could be entrusted with the task.

Whether the panel, if and when appointed, needs to wait for the findings of the presidential commission or not is something that Parliament alone should be allowed to decide. No one should, however, be surprised if the Nation’s divided polity begins trivialising the work of this committee or that committee, this report or that report, if only to score a debating point, to the entire exclusion of the job of national security at hand!

The question is who is to bell the cat, when and how. But one can be sure, no c at wants to bell itself, but only the others – as the mice dance around merrily, LTTE, IS or even the long -forgotten JVP, or something else that may be hiding in the shadows still, and who knows?