Abstract
Globalisation and market reforms have made foreign policymaking a more inclusive and multilayered process. Para-diplomacy and emergence of empowered federating/component units engaging in international interaction call for recalibration of theories and understating of International Relations. The debate over central control versus unit autonomy raised the concern: whether para-diplomacy will turn out to be an asset or a threat for the sovereign state. While state may reap benefits of economic development, para-diplomacy may yet lead to regional imbalance, ethnic mobilisation and separatism. With the focus being shifted to Asia with respect to expanding market and sphere of influence, this article analyses the experience of para-diplomacy between India and China as well as of both with the USA. In doing so, reference is drawn to the past experiences of the West to understand how para-diplomacy took root and how is it practised in different contexts. Considering the economic, political and social implications of para-diplomatic practices in specific contexts, the article concludes with an attempt to find out the institutional space it may tread and the policy options it may hold out especially for India.
Keywords
Introduction: Emergence of the Idea
Para-diplomacy, as contrasted with formal diplomacy, means a process which enables the constituent units of a sovereign state, to conduct their own diplomatic engagement with another state or its constituent units for the pursuit of their own interests. This obviously introduces a new element in international relations thinking marking nearly a paradigmatic shift from the Westphalian concept of sovereign states as exclusively responsible for the conduct of diplomacy and war. Historically, in Europe especially, the state-making process through several centuries gradually established the absolute authority of the state over the territory and the people both by subduing local communities and cultures on the one hand and the Church on the other hand. This helped the state to arrogate to itself the attribute of sovereign authority with the exclusive and undiluted power to represent and act on behalf of its territory and people under its control in the arena of international relations (Bendix, 1978; Weber, 1976). If conceptually paradiplomacy introduces the idea that the constituent units of a state can independently interact in the international society, it calls for a complete reconfiguration of both the theory and practice of international relations on the one hand and demand rethinking of the idea of stateness on the other hand. It behooves us, then, to inquire into the context of its emergence, how it has been practised so far, whether in practice it really counter-poses the sovereign state or there is a possibility that para-diplomacy can continue side by side with or as a complement to formal diplomacy by the sovereign state and finally, whether its emergence indicates any future trajectory for international society.
The idea of para-diplomacy is in fact located at the cusp of international relations and comparative politics, the two major sub-disciplines of Political Science. How much the constituent units of a sovereign state will want to assert for an autonomous role in the arena of international relations will depend on the constitutional structure of the state, that is, whether it is federal or unitary, the pattern of distribution of power between the central government and the units, whether the units are administrative entities or they have socio-cultural identities with or without autonomy or self-determination claims. It will also depend on whether the international borders of the state are well determined or disputed and whether the people living in its constituent units have ethnic brethren across borders or in other states in the neighbourhood. Depending on such contexts as these, para-diplomacy as defined above will appear as an asset for or as a threat to the sovereign state.
In Europe post-Second World War, the local governments, especially those in France, began interacting with the local governments in Germany through twinning agreements with a view to promoting peaceful coexistence and post-War reconstruction. These processes of cooperation and integration for European peace and development were soon reflected in international relations thinking when, in the 1970s, scholars such as Robert Jervis, John Burton, Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye, picking up from the ideas of Ernst B. Haas and Karl W. Deutsch in earlier decades, began to enrich the pluralist approach as distinguished from the realist approach to the discipline (Burton, 1972). The pluralist approach proposed to unshackle international relations from the straitjacket of realist paradigm in which states were the only actors engaged in pursuing interest through power and argued for looking at international relations as featured by a multiplicity of actors with or without the quality of sovereignty but interacting in manifold ways promoting cooperation and development. In the words of Keohane and Nye,
The analysis of integration processes tended also to undermine another basic tenet of conventional analysis: that students of world politics should limit their focus to nation-states and their interactions. The ‘‘cybernetic’’ approach pioneered by Deutsch focused largely on transactions among societies and on changes in public attitudes within societies; Haas’s ‘‘neofunctionalism’’ stressed the interests of elites and institutions and the extent to which they altered their behavior through learning. Neither took the nation-state as the basic unit of analysis, nor did they rely on traditional notions of ‘‘national interests,’’ although both were criticized on this account. Transnational interactions not controlled by central foreign policy organs of governments were no longer ignored. To the contrary, they were regarded as often being of crucial importance to the integration process. (Keohane & Nye, 1987, p. 363)
As the decade of the 1970s advanced, two important developments further strengthened the pluralist perspective: one was the assertion by ethnic groups within states for all kinds of rights including the right of self-determination and independence, and the second was the onset of the powerful process of globalisation. Both these forces directed our attention to one question: do these developments contribute to the probable erosion of the sovereign authority of the so-called nation-states? If their ‘nationhood’ was challenged by the ethnic upsurge, their statehood was challenged by the prospects as well as threats issuing from a globalised economy. As Susan Strange found it, the authority of the state was leaking away ‘upwards, sidewards and downwards’, and some ‘just evaporated’ (Strange, 1995, p. 56; 1997; 2003). The practice of para-diplomacy perhaps would be a sign of the state sharing its sovereign authority with units or entities which were decidedly subordinate to it.
Can states allow their sovereign authority to be bartered away? The question brings back the discourse on stateness which took place during the second part of the last century with the publication of J.P. Nettl’s seminal paper, ‘The State as a Conceptual Variable’ (Nettl, 1968, pp. 559–572). Nettl argued that the institutional centrality of the state varied from society to society depending on the challenges the state faced from other domestic forces, yet he believed that the sovereign authority of the state was an ‘invariant’ when we look at the state as an international actor (Nettl, 1968, p. 564). The subsequent decades, however, witnessed the rise of the civil society and the market strengthening the argument that the state was not only less important domestically but in the international arena as well because the intensive economic transactions across state boundaries governed by market forces make the state an institution of marginal importance. Peter Evans, however, in a very well-argued paper, ‘The Eclipse of the State?’, has critiqued these arguments. Specifically taking up the issue of the impact of globalisation on stateness, Evans contends that both the structural logic and the experience of globalisation provide enough rationale for ‘high stateness’ as well as ‘low stateness’ (Evans, 1997, p. 64; Evans, Rueschemeyer & Skocpol, 1985).
Evans thus opens up varieties of possibilities through which different states may negotiate the opportunities provided by globalisation as well as tackle its risks including ethnic and other challenges to their own authority and centrality. We believe this provides a very useful perspective to look at para-diplomacy which may be an effective instrument for the state not only to harness globalisation for an internally more diversified and balanced development but to negotiate internal demands for autonomy or self-rule as well.
In the following pages, we intend to look first, into the experience of some Western states which, even before the onset of globalisation, adopted significant para-diplomatic practices in response to the need for maintaining political unity and territorial integrity; this will be followed by the more recent experience of the practice of variants of para-diplomacy by three dyads: USA–China, India–China and USA–India. The concluding section will make a brief assessment of the varieties of ways in which states are making use of para-diplomatic practices to manage their collective interest while at the same time suggesting some policy options for India in this regard.
Para-diplomacy in Practice: Western Experience
It is necessary to point out that the definition of para-diplomacy that we have mentioned in the very first sentence of this piece is a maximalist definition. In such a definition para-diplomacy may be conceived as diametrically opposed to central control over foreign relations by the sovereign state (Figure 1). It achieves conceptual clarity but para-diplomacy in practice does assume varieties of forms, and in no case, it enjoys complete autonomy from the limits and constraints imposed by the foreign policy of the sovereign state to which the constituent unit belongs. After all, the management of external affairs is considered both theoretically and practically as one of the indispensable qualifiers of sovereign authority.
In federal systems, the federated units have played, if not active, a passive role in foreign policy at least on occasions they felt their interests did not overlap with the interests of the federal/central government. In the early years of US federalism, there were instances when the federal government failed to compel the states to abide by the obligations of international treaties it had entered into. In India, some states on occasions have put pressure on the central government for, or to refrain from, engaging in certain acts or agreements in relation to neighbouring countries. But para-diplomacy today means more than that: it means that the constituent units of a federal or unitary state or even cities within a state engage in international relations across borders sometimes for its own sake, sometimes for promoting/executing central government’s policies, mostly for both of these but always within the parameters set by the latter. In the West, it is true of Quebec in Canada, Catalonia and the Basque country in Spain, Flanders and Wallonia in Belgium, several Lander in Germany, some regions in France, the city of Sau Paulo in Brazil and several provinces in Argentina. This phenomenon became part of the academic discussion from the 1990s through the writings of scholars, such as Panayatos Soldatos, Ivo Duchacek and John Kincaid, who have variously called it as para-diplomacy, micro-diplomacy or constituent diplomacy (Duchacek, Latouse & Stevenson, 1999; Michelmann & Soldatos, 1990).
To be sure, in para-diplomacy, there is an element of extra-jurisdictional activity, that is, going beyond its de jure jurisdiction by an entity, or expanding its power de facto. Of course, the extent of such de facto expansion will depend on what sort of activities across borders the sub-state entity engages in. Para-diplomatic activity of sub-state units may range from purely economic and development issues such as seeking investments or investment opportunities to cooperation in areas of culture, education, technology and finally to projection of an identity distinct from the one projected by the central state (Lecours, 2008). While the first one is commonplace in recent times, German Lander of Baden-Württemberg and French region of Rhone-Alps are good examples of sub-state units engaging in cultural and other activities at the international level. For instance, the former has been involved in the North-South cooperation and development assistance and the French region of Rhone-Alps has membership in several trans-border associations with some Swiss cantons as well as relations with sub-state entities in several African and Asian countries.
Comparatively rarer would be the case of sub-state units projecting an identity of its own through para-diplomacy. The case of Quebec is a very prominent example of this kind of engagement. So are also cases of Flanders in Belgium and to a lesser extent of Catalonia in Spain. Both Canada and Belgium have come to recognise and accept that as a condition of their survival as states it is necessary that the conduct of international affairs should be significantly decentralised. As Stefan Wolff points out, the government of Flanders in Belgium has authority over a wide portfolio of policy areas covering language, culture, education, welfare, the economy, environment, employment and infrastructure. In all these areas, the Flanders government can ‘conclude treaties with third parties, enjoy diplomatic representation abroad, have direct presence and input in multilateral negotiation delegations, and participate formally in the process of formulating the substance of the foreign policy position of the Belgian federation in policy areas for which they have been assigned competence’ (Wolff, 2007, p. 8). As a result of these far-reaching competencies, Flanders has more than 100 different representatives abroad, 76 trade and commercial attachés, 11 branches of the Flemish Tourist Office, and seven branches of the Flanders Foreign Investment Office.
Similarly, Quebec has the competence to enter into agreements with foreign countries on all matters over which it has authority domestically, for instance, agriculture, economic development, culture, social services, transportation, etc. It has, consequently, signed several hundred agreements with both states and regions within states since 1964, it has international representation in 25 countries including India, China, the USA and Japan (Lecours, 2008). Of course, in enjoying these competencies expanding into foreign affairs, both Flanders and Quebec have to see that they do not violate or ignore or weaken the foreign policy positions of their respective states.
The Catalan government in Spain similarly enjoys powers to pursue external relations in a number of areas such as economic development, education, tourism even though the Spanish constitution explicitly retains competence in international relations for the central government. This allows Catalonia to enter into agreements with other entities and organisations abroad such as California, Scotland, Quebec, France’s Ministry of Research and others. Catalonia’s participation in the international arena also involves the promotion of relations with their ethnic brethren, that is, Catalan communities outside Catalonia (within Spain, but also in France and the Catalan diaspora around the world) (Wolff, 2007).
The Spanish government is usually reluctant to admit external affairs responsibilities for its constituent units for considerations of national unity and it has resisted similar claims for the Basque community within Spain with the result that considerable tension prevails on this score.
The UK, on the other hand, restricts the devolution of external affairs powers to Scotland which otherwise has extensive powers. The central government reserves the powers over the union of England and Scotland, defence and external affairs. Besides, Scotland is under the obligation to implement international agreements of the government of the UK. The Scottish Executive is competent to promote Scottish devolved policy interests abroad, in and beyond the EU. It has an EU office in Brussels while offices in the USA and China operate from the British Embassies in Washington DC and Beijing. Scottish Development International has offices in 17 countries. While Scotland has similar domestic competencies, such as Flanders and Catalonia, its external competencies are very limited.
As these cases from the West show, there are various ways of meeting the demands for para-diplomacy by constituent units in federations as well as in unitary systems. The idea that management of foreign affairs is a prerogative of the central government is nowhere abandoned but the exclusivity of that prerogative is compromised for some greater collective good. How much of it will be compromised will depend on specific situations. The collective good in question could be the economic development of a region or permitting a distinct ethnic group living in a region to more satisfactorily represent its specific culture or identity. But the assumption behind para-diplomacy is not that sub-national entities and the sovereign state have inherently different interests and policy objectives and therefore, para-diplomacy provides a scope for escaping the political radar of sovereign states.
Arnando Filho’s study of the city of Campinas in Sau Paulo, Brazil reinforces this point. Filho shows how the city of Campinas through its international engagements acts as the point of diffusion of economic activities for the entire metropolitan region (Campinas Metropolitan Region or RMC) and thus takes forward the economic goals of Brazilian foreign policy. He finds in it emergence of new ‘state spaces’ and he argues in favour of such ‘state power rescaling’ through a sharing of the central state’s ability to act internationally with sub-national units. As Filho says,
When considering the paradiplomacy of Campinas, and this is also regional, we check its alignment with the guidelines of Brazilian foreign policy, precisely at the point that marks its risk factor. While the Brazilian foreign policy runs in search of markets for its commodities (comparative advantage), the local paradiplomacy adapts to its competitive advantages, in search of agreements for exporting high value-added products, transferring technology, provisioning specialized services, etc.
In this sense, this paradiplomacy has its foundation in the qualification of RMC as a new state space. And, for this reason, we conclude that the nation-state has an interest in this paradiplomacy because it is a strategic Region for the development of the country, and it is not the Region that is interested in influencing the national foreign policy.
Thus, …we conclude that it would be more logical if the nation-state also put its constitutional exclusive responsibility—as the national foreign policy’s decision-maker—in the state power rescaling, sharing with sub-national governments the legal ability to act in international relations. Thus, it would be the international insertion of the country that would depend on the success of the new state spaces inside the national territory. (Gallo YahnFilho, n.d., p. 22)
It is possible that in some cases it could be used as a tool for furthering the goal of self-determination or independence by a sub-national unit but that is also the route for para-diplomacy to self-destruct itself, for by definition—even by maximalist definition with which we started, it is supposed to be an instrument in the hands of constituent units of a sovereign state. At the same time, it needs to be mentioned that it is hardly likely that a constituent unit which is aspirant for self-determination or independence will depend on institutionalised para-diplomacy to achieve the goal; it will have many other avenues to solicit external support. Post-war cases of splintering of states, from Pakistan to Soviet Union, do testify that.
Arguments for and against Para-diplomacy
The defence of para-diplomacy can come from a number of sources. For instance, in the maximalist case of Quebec, the demand is based on the claim that Quebec’s cultural identity cannot be adequately represented by the central government of Canada. But it is also true that the Canadian system by granting a large measure of para-diplomatic practices to Quebec hopes to prevent Quebec’s separation from Canada. Such also is the case of Flanders. It can be argued then that if conceding constituent unit’s demand for competency in foreign affairs can exacerbate separatist or self-determination claims, the opposite can also be true that through such concession a state may curb separatism and protect unity.
Another argument in its defence can be that para-diplomacy is consistent with decentralisation and therefore democratisation. It brings diplomatic practices closer to the people, enhances people’s interest in, information about and involvement with foreign policy practices. Of course, whether the constituent units are willing to engage in para-diplomacy will depend on their interest as also on their capability to handle it. In the case of the developing countries in Asia and Africa, the issue of capability is an important one. There are so many issues domestically for the constituent units to handle that they may not simply be interested in para-diplomacy or competencies in external affairs. In the cases of China and India, as we will see below, the central governments may or may not encourage and help the units to take that path.
This leads us to the third argument for para-diplomacy that it can be used for promoting speedier and more broad-based economic development. The constituent units and even cities through para-diplomatic practices like tying up in sister-province/sister-city relations with other countries can invite investment, promote connectivity and trade, and enhance tourist traffic. Of course, much will depend on how the partners are selected, whether such partnership is decorative or substantive producing palpable advantages for both, and whether there is a pay-off for economically weaker states/provinces.
Finally, para-diplomacy can promote cooperation, reduce tension and conflict, thus contributing to international peace. States have both conflicting and cooperative interests in relation to other states which they pursue through formal diplomacy. When sub-units of two states engage in a relationship they can do so only for mutual help and cooperation, not for quarrelling with each other. If there is no scope for such help and cooperation, they will not think even of coming close together, and the external relationship will be left with the central authorities of the two states alone. Similarly, only when two states get positively engaged or intend to do so, will they tend to encourage their sub-units or cities to establish relations with their counterparts in the other state. This has been true of the USA and China as also lately of China and India. Therefore, if there is more paradiplomatic activity in the international arena, there is more opportunity for co-operative interactions and hence a greater chance for international peace.
On the negative side, it can be pointed out that only some units within a state may have institutional capacity to undertake para-diplomacy. Sometimes, especially when in a developing country more even distribution of economic development is the goal the central government may help its constituent units through institutional support to engage in para-diplomatic activity to attract investment, trade and tourism. As we will see below, the Chinese central government by creating foreign affairs offices in the provinces encourages them to take advantage of para-diplomatic practices. Unless such institutional support is provided, especially in the developing countries, and the central government comes forward to coordinate the para-diplomacy of its units, the end result may be more uneven development leading to popular resentment.
Similarly, permitting a unit with strong ethnic or cultural identity to engage in para-diplomacy through autonomous representation may, in a culturally plural society, lead to further ethnic mobilisation and internal conflict. This may indeed weaken the unity of the state.
Third, the central government needs to play a coordinating and regulating role with regard to para-diplomatic practices of its constituents in order to ensure congruence between the central state’s foreign policy and that of the units. Unless the central government has the wherewithal and the willingness to do it, paradiplomacy could be self-defeating.
Before moving into the next section certain remarks appear warranted. It is necessary to recognise that para-diplomacy may be the product of demands coming from the constituent units of a state or it may be encouraged, facilitated and directed by the central government itself. Experience shows that in the Western-industrialised countries it is more often the product of the former process while in the developing countries it is generally a top-down process.
Foreign affairs is almost universally under the domain of the central governments. States such as Canada or Spain, while they admit some external affairs competency for Quebec and Catalonia respectively, does so in practice, not as constitutionally granted competency. Belgium is an exception in this respect. While the federal government formally retains its coordinating role in the area of foreign policy, the government of Flanders enjoys maximal foreign policy autonomy, devolving from the structural arrangement of the Belgian federation, unless it undermines the overall coherence of Belgian foreign policy (Wolff, 2007). In Brazil, the provincial government of Sau Paulo created the Campinas Metropolitan Agency by Complementary Law of 2003, and functions following from that Law vicariously empowers the Campinas city government to take up some external responsibilities in consonance with Brazilian foreign policy guidelines (Gallo Yahn Filho, n.d.).
Therefore, it is expected that para-diplomacy by constituent states/provinces or cities of sovereign states will concentrate on local issues and their foreign aspects under the broad policies framed by the central state. States will not want to parcel out their sovereign authority downward. By themselves, the constituent units will unlikely be counted as international actors, yet their presence in foreign or international platforms will to some extent imply, what Filho calls, ‘rescaling of the state’. Whether in the long run, it will bring about a transformation of the international system of sovereign states is not predictable today.
Finally, it may be mentioned that the central state is more likely to encourage para-diplomacy by the constituent units when it is unitary and authoritarian. Federal systems with high degree of societal pluralism and democratic government will be less enthusiastic in doing so. In the present international system, the state actors are too much sovereignty sensitive. Therefore, in neither case, central states are going to compromise that authority willingly or easily.
Asian Practice of Para-diplomacy: China and India
With the onset of globalisation and felt urgency towards broad-based economic development para-diplomatic practices have come to be regarded as efficient instrument by China and less so by India. Both countries realise that greater freedom for the constituent units for taking development initiatives in relation to foreign countries, especially the USA, would be beneficial for the country as a whole, although China has travelled further along this path compared with India.
The US–China Case
The history of provincial relations between the USA and the People’s Republic of China dates back to the days of the establishment of formal diplomatic relations between the two countries in the late 1970s. It took the form of sister-city and sister-province/state relations and was centred around cultural and educational themes. The first sister-city connection between Nanjing in East China’s Jiangsu province and St. Louis, Missouri was established in 1979 (Chen, 2014). It was soon followed by the first sister-state/province agreement linking Maryland, USA and Anhui province of China when in 1980, Harry Hughes, the then Governor of Maryland visited China and together with the Chinese Vice Premier, Wan Li, signed the agreement.
The baby steps in para-diplomatic relations comprising cultural exchanges, opening language schools, building botanical gardens or focusing on art, music or therapy soon gave way to the pursuit of more utilitarian goals concerning the economy. The newer partnerships between Shanghai-San Francisco, Nanjing-St. Louis, or Tacoma-Fuzhou indicate that developmentally front-running cities in China were encouraged to learn from the experiences of well-placed provinces and cities in the USA. For example, while Shanghai and San Francisco began their engagements with exchange of acupuncturists from China in 1982, they were recorded to have completed 200 mutually beneficial projects by 2008. Similarly, Portland, Oregon and Suzhou, Jiangsu expanded their cultural ties to economic engagement to the extent that they won USA–China Sister Cities Award in the ‘economy and trade’ category in 2014. New sister cities were established with similar concerns. Thus, Raleigh, North Carolina and Xiangyang in Hubei province were paired in 2009 and their first major event was a business conference attended by government officials and businessmen from both sides (Chen, 2014). By 2015, 31 Chinese provinces had established 43 sister-province/state relations accompanied with 200 sister-city relations with 50 American states (Ministry of Commerce, People’s Republic of China, 2015).
The renewed direction of sister-city engagement also resonated in Chinese vision. Xi Jinping while delivering his speech at the Third USA–China Governor’s Forum in Seattle in the USA stated that the 13th Five-Year plan would focus on ‘new round of opening up’ and he encouraged ‘well placed provinces and cities’ in China to try out certain reform measures through mutual learning (Ministry of Commerce, People’s Republic of China, 2015, p. 2). From the perspective of promoting collective economic growth, both countries have put forward their well-performing states as partners in steering USA–China bilateral relations. China has converted Shanghai, Guangdong, Tianjin and Fujian to free trade zones to harness economic potential of these coastal cities. But at the same time, China is not restricting the benefits of learning for development only to its forward cities. In sync with her Western Development Plan, China is expediting sister-city partnerships between her less developed western cities and US cities. A slow trend is already visible that US sister cities are moving further into Western China (Leffel, 2010).
The USA demonstrated diversity in not just terms of engagement with China (from cultural to economic aspects) but also in terms of institutions and layers of engaging actors. In 2013, the then Governor of California, Edmund Brown, visited twin province of Jiangsu in China and had set up California-China Office of Trade and Investment which is California’s first foreign trade office in a decade. The US Commercial Service (trade promotion arm of US Department of Commerce’s International Trade Administration) in Wuhan and Guangzhou, China in partnership with American Chamber of Commerce organised first USA–China Business Summit 2016 (American Chamber of Commerce in China, 2016) in Wuhan, Hubei province and in Fuzhou, Fujian province. This summit brought provincial government officials and business entities from Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Henan and Fujian provinces to brief US government on market trend and opportunities in Central and South-East China.
The Midwest US–China Association (Mid-West US China Association, n.d.) is a non-profit organisation that provides an important connection between the Midwestern USA and China. Through government-to-government outreach with corporate and academic support, MWCA’s goal is to expand trade and investments between the Midwest and provinces and municipalities in China. The 12 Midwestern states represented in the MWCA—Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin—are recognised worldwide as the agricultural breadbasket and manufacturing hub of North America. MWCA has chosen counterparts in the six central provinces in the People’s Republic of China: Shanxi, Henan, Hubei, Anhui, Hunan and Jiangxi. These six provinces have a regional GDP of $1.6 trillion (Mid West US China Association, n.d.) and are home to major industries much like the Midwest: agriculture, manufacturing and food production. The US Commerce Department believes this region is prime for new business opportunities, political relationships and educational and cultural exchange. Therefore, USA apart from extensively using economic development as a tool of engagement has evolved region identification approach in practicing para-diplomacy. In other words, USA has taken sub-national interaction to include regions consisting of several states with synergies between USA and China expanding the line of sovereign limits.
As China decided to encourage her provinces and cities to engage in sub-national or para-diplomatic cultural and economic relations with their US counterparts it also began an experiment with a process of decentralisation of decision-making powers (Kurian, 2006). On the one hand, ‘greater degree of decisional latitude over a range of economic policymaking’ was granted to the local governments; on the other hand, they were also bestowed with greater share of revenues from the Centre. While the benefits of such a policy was reaped more by the developed coastal provinces, thus enhancing regional disparities, some attempts to ensure better balance between the provinces were made in 1985 and further in 1993.
As foreign trade has increased, different provinces in China are becoming differentially engaged with the global economy. We find China hosting major global events away from its financial or political capital, demonstrating the capacities of its provincial units to act as international centres: Boao forum in Hainan, South Asia Expo in Yunnan, G20 summit in Hangzhou in 2016, Asian Games in Guangzhou in 2010 are examples.
In fact, China is more decentralised now than ever in her post-revolution past. A large degree of autonomy is today enjoyed by the mayors as is indicated by ‘sister-city approval process, local foreign affairs governance, provincial reporting’, etc. Some have even expressed fear that the weakening of the Chinese central government’s capacity to implement policy at lower-levels over the past decades ‘could create risks that Beijing may not be able to implement some domestic policies jeopardizing international agreements on trade and environment issues…’ (Leffel, 2010, para. 11). However, it will be premature to conclude that such move towards decentralisation is reducing the power of the Centre vis-à-vis the provinces, especially the rich ones. The centre while retaining its control over the provinces permits them to become internationally active to carry forward the objectives of the country as a whole. It retains enough power to reward and punish the provinces through its policies of preferential revenue transfer, distribution of incentives for economic development and skilful use of personnel policy, such as frequent movement of officials across provinces (Kurian, 2006).
Central control is constant in Chinese para-diplomatic efforts. China’s institutional history associated with sub-national activism testifies to the extension of central control on foreign interaction of its provincial units. Post opening up, Chinese coastal provinces reached unprecedented levels of growth. While in 1981, the coastal provinces’ share in Chinese economy was just 15 per cent larger than their share in China’s total population by 2003, these provinces, with a 41 per cent share of the Chinese population, contributed almost 70 per cent of China’s GDP. However, as pointed out by Chen, by 1990s this internationally oriented decentralisation emanated a sense of ‘strong localities and weak center’ (Chen, p. 7). The central government responded in 1994 by introducing a new tax sharing system to ensure that it regains a bigger share of government revenue. Further in China, the provinces have a local bureaucratic system of external relations. The system includes two major offices: Foreign Affairs Office (FAO) and Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation Commission (FTEC). While the former manages politically related external relations, the latter steer economic foreign relations. However, all of these local bodies through deputy system have significant representation in the National Party Congress (Chen, n.d., p. 7). Therefore, there remains enough room for securing compliance of the provincial units by the national government.
Primarily driven by economic concerns, the richer provinces have championed or have been encouraged to champion the para-diplomacy game leaving the under-performing ones behind. Xi Jinping in his official declaration has welcomed this as an element of policy. While this may enhance regional economic imbalance or may even generate provincial discontent against the centre, the latter retains enough ammunition to compensate for such imbalance or at least to control manifest discontent. Till now para-diplomatic practices have not left any decisive mark on the state of development of US states. If it does happen at some point in future, it could be more difficult for the federal government to manage discontent given her democratic political culture.
India–China Sub-national Links
Compared with China India is a late comer in the arena of para-diplomacy. Following her adoption of economic liberalisation and with greater commitment to economic growth, India felt that bilateral ties with China needed to be decentralised. What followed, however, were very hesitant steps marked more by promises than by action. While in 1999, the idea of a Kolkata-Kunming relationship was mooted through the Kunming Initiative, it took 14 years to finalise the formal twinning of the two cities during the then Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to China in 2013 (Ministry of External Affairs, 2013). During that visit two more twinnings, between Beijing and New Delhi and Chengdu and Bengaluru (Bangalore), were also formalised (Boosting Sister Ties with China: Cities to Learn from Each Other, 2013). Meanwhile, in 2001, former Chinese Premier and the then Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress in China, Li Peng, visited Bengaluru. While since then interactions between Indian states and Chinese provinces and cities became more visible as were mutual visits by heads of provincial/state and city governments not much of substance really happened on the ground. However, with Narendra Modi as prime minister, it looked like new blood would be injected into the sub-national relationship of India and China.
Modi as chief minister of Gujarat had already set his eyes on China as a source of investment for his state when in 2011 during his visit to China he declared that ‘the two great countries will make Asia the centre stage of global economy’ (Maini, 2015, para 2). Prime Minister Modi visited China in May 2015 following Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to India a year earlier in September 2014. During Modi’s visit, both China and India agreed to establish a State/Provincial Leaders’ Forum to add institutional heft to para-diplomatic exchanges between the two countries. During the talks, the two leaders agreed to support the local governments in fostering trade and investment relationship as well as promoting border exchanges through border trade or pilgrimage so much so that border turns into a bridge of cooperation between the two countries. In a bid to augment border trade through Nathu La, Lipu-Lekh and Shipki La points, the list of traded commodities were expanded.
In the first meeting of the State/Provincial Leaders’ Forum, launched jointly by both premiers, Modi declared that in India ‘the states have a vital role to play in the national development’ and appreciated that both countries are ‘taking our relationship outside our national capitals to state capitals and cities’ (PM India, 2015, para 9).
Prime Minister Modi signed 24 agreements with Li Keqian, the Chinese Premier, during the visit. These included the agreement to establish sister-state/province relations between Karnataka, India and Sichuan, China and agreements on sister-city relations between Chennai (India) and Chongqing (China), Hyderabad (India) and Qingdao (China), and Aurangabad (India) and Dunhuang (China) (Tawade, 2015).
As the governments in Delhi and Beijing have taken steps to facilitate state/province and local level interactions, mutual visits of sub-national leaders and functionaries continue to take place. Chandrababu Naidu, chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, visiting China more than once, has tried to engage Chinese companies in the state’s industrial and infrastructural development. Guizhou Inter-national Investment Corporation is undertaking a detailed Master Plan for Amravati, the new capital of Andhra Pradesh. It may also help developing a materials park in Vijayawada airport area to cater to the demands of the state’s construction material needs. Negotiations are also advancing between Guizhou Kailin Group and India’s Coromandel International Limited for establishing a fertiliser plant in the Kakinada Special Economic Zone (Aneja, 2016).
Similarly, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar visiting China in 2011 attempted, in addition to exploring economic possibilities, to establish linkages between Bihar and Shandong province which was once home to a strong Buddhist tradition (Maini, 2015). Similarly, in January 2016, Haryana’s Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar during his visit to China signed eight MOUs with many top Chinese companies such as Wanda group, China Land Development Co. and ZTE Corporation. Haryana expects to set up a USD 10 billion industrial park and smart cities in the state (‘Haryana CM Delegation’, 2016).
Similar MOUs on economic investment have also been signed by the Chief Minister of Gujarat for developing smart cities in the state. Other chief ministers of Indian states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Punjab have visited China with similar ideas just as many Chinese delegations have visited states and cities in India to express interest in partnership in development. China’s economic success story and Chinese investment were considered profitable propositions for India (Khanna, Najib & Verma, 2016). However, much of such expressions of interest and signing of MOUs still remain at the exploratory stage. Oftentimes, India’s chief ministers have pursued economic goals vis-à-vis Chinese companies but not within the format of sister-state/province relations.
The trajectory of para-diplomatic connections between the two countries evinces China’s forthcoming approach to the concept. Despite being a more centralised system, China seems to be encouraging and capacitating its constituent units to build province to province relationship. India’s approach on the other hand has been more measured and circumspect and often mooted by central administration. Therefore, the nature of political system (centralised/federal) does not impact para-diplomacy in any straight forward manner. China’s unitary system of command is more confident in promoting provincial activism in the international arena than India’s federal system wherein central control over federating units is subject to ups and downs depending on numerous factors. In the case of India–China dyad, it is also necessary to consider the texture of overall relationship which is characterised by lack of mutual trust. Without a strong foundation of trust and confidence in each other’s behaviour and intentions, it is unlikely that para-diplomatic exchanges between them living in close and tense proximity will find a conducive atmosphere.
India–US Sub-national Relations
Despite sharing democratic political system and many similar political values, Indo-US relations have always been roller-coaster. Whether it was during Cold War bipolarity or post-Cold War unipolarity, across political parties India had reservations about US foreign policy. It was after globalisation and the technological revolution marked by the World Wide Web that, in addition to the presence of a large number of Indian students, a huge inflow of Indian software engineers began to happen who made the US their semi-permanent or permanent home. Meanwhile, market liberalisation within India led to the quick growth of states, such as Gujarat and Maharashtra, or IT hubs, such as Bangalore and Hyderabad. They looked up to the USA as a source of investment and expertise on the one hand and as market on the other. Thus, the stage was set for a thicker relationship—economic, political and strategic, between the two countries.
With the emergence of strong regional parties in India’s states and coalition politics at the centre, the federal principle was getting reinforced generally within Indian political process which found reflections on the making and implementation of her foreign policy as well. These created a window of opportunity for sub-national interactions between India and the USA which, however, still remains under-utilised.
US president Bill Clinton during his visit to India went to Agra, Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Jaipur, and President George W. Bush visited Hyderabad while President Obama took a trip to Agra. Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, visited Chennai and Kolkata. But those visits outside the national capital were meant at best for familiarising the leader with the representatives of particular segments of the economy or society; they had nothing to do with promoting the idea of sub-national level diplomacy between the two democracies. Yet such high-profile visits probably highlighted the importance of certain state capitals or cities in India.
Only as recently as January 2015, Bill Boernum, Chairman, and Mary D. Kane, President and CEO of Sister Cities International, visited India. They discussed possible partnership of Jaipur city of India with cities in the USA apart from a trilateral partnership with Agra (Uttar Pradesh, India), Temple (the USA) and Cusco (Peru). They also visited All India Institute of Local Self Government in Nagpur (Maini, 2015). Discussions are also going on about the possibility of the USA helping India with three smart cities: Vishakhapatnam, Ajmer and Allahabad by engaging US Trade and Development Agency (USTDA) to help with technological solutions (Maini, 2015). USTDA has also partnered with a consortium of leading US companies and state government of Andhra Pradesh, India to provide a planning framework and a list of high priority investment projects for smart development in Visakhapatnam. Currently, US presence, in terms of foreign investment, is largely concentrated in India’s southern and western parts, and the NCR Region.
In 2016 the USA had proposed launching a Chief Ministers’ Conclave (Office of Press Secretary, White House, 2016) on the lines of US–China Governors Forum. The US–India State and Urban initiative aims at establishing connections between US and Indian sub-national leaders, local governments, practitioners, scholars, universities and investors to share policy alternatives and solutions to build a sustainable energy future (Office of Press Secretary, White House, 2016).
Organisations like the Indo-US Chamber of Commerce have been helping Indian states to reach out to prospective investors in the USA. Unlike the USA and China, India and USA are yet to see structured dialogue at the sub-national level. For instance, Chennai has two American sister cities, Denver and San Antonio, but the relationship exists ‘only on paper’, according to a report in the Times of India. City leaders told The Times they had not arranged any recent exchange of delegations between the cities, nor had they adopted any civic programmes from their far-flung partners (Jaffe, 2013, para 1).
According to an East-West Center report, there is a total of 23 sister cities and 5 sister-states between India and the USA (Table 1) (Asia Matters for Americans, n.d.). However, more than the number, the quality of the relations is significant. And on that, there is much to be achieved: the functional aspect of India-USA sister cities/state relations remains largely symbolic like hoisting the Indian flag by San Jose (California), a sister-city of Pune (Maharashtra) or sponsoring the largest Diwali festival by San Antonio (Texas), a sister-city of Chennai (Tamil Nadu).
US-India para-diplomatic relations
Mary Kane, president and CEO of Sister Cities International, which formally recognises the partnerships, however, is optimistic. She says that as with actual siblings, there is no one way to define the relationship. ‘Sometimes they’re just student exchanges, sometimes they’re professorial exchanges, sometimes they’re medical exchanges, sometimes it’s humanitarian systems, and other times it’s economic development’, says Kane. ‘But it all starts out with building the relationship’ (Jaffe, 2013). Keeping this in mind, India and US para-diplomatic relations may be considered to be at a rudimentary stage but bearing the promise of a fruitful future.
Conclusion
The above narrative shows that para-diplomacy as a new institutional phenomenon in international relations has made its appearance widely across the globe— in the Americas, in Western Europe, in Asia but its expressions so far are very diverse. Sometimes, constituent provinces or states establish cultural or trade offices in foreign countries or participate in negotiations with foreign sovereigns, sometimes they connect with their counterparts in other nation-states on issues ranging from educational, sports or cultural exchanges to trade and investments, exchanging delegations or inviting participation from foreign countries in international fares they organise, and sometimes sub-national interactions are kept restricted to mere formalities. Similarly, oftentimes sub-national entities— provinces/states or cities—have reaped enormous developmental benefits out of such para-diplomatic activities, like Brazil or China for instance, or expanded trade and investment opportunities, like the USA.
On the political plane, some states have utilised para-diplomatic opportunities for handling ethnic/cultural dissensions like Canada or Belgium or Spain while China has directed attention exclusively to economic development and extending the fruits of development gradually to her backward regions. In some states, like Canada or Belgium or Brazil, para-diplomacy operates on agreed upon legal-institutional foil to keep the benefits or risks within acceptable limits while China relies more heavily on structural arrangement of its political system which allows the central state to oversee para-diplomatic initiatives of its provinces through centralised party control. To facilitate provincial activism on this score China has instituted foreign office units in provinces which are extensions of the central foreign affairs department. Thus, in addition to party control, there is also bureaucratic control over provincial activity. It is also important to notice that if in the Western countries para-diplomacy is more the product of sub-national initiative or demand, in the Asian case it is the outcome of the central state’s initiative and encouragement.
India which is a late entrant to the arena of para-diplomacy has much to learn. As we have shown, her sub-national relations with either the US or China are at the stage of infancy. Because of its democratic and multiparty system, federal political structure, societal pluralism, diversity of parties controlling the centre and the states, and occasional presence of separatist/autonomy demands the central state probably feels uncertain about the gains and losses that might be implicit in encouraging substantial para-diplomatic activism at the sub-national levels. During the last days of UPA-II, the then foreign secretary Ms Sujatha Singh convened the first ever meeting of state chief secretaries in March 2014 (Jacob, 2014). Some suggestions were floating about opening External Affairs Ministry’s offices in the states following the Chinese model. But nothing ultimately came of it. In fact, more than such knee-jerk steps are needed. The efficacy of the concept of sub-national activism ultimately lies on the centre’s willingness to give concessions to the states as well as to consider the states as ‘partners’ rather than subordinates in bilateral decision-making. As William Antholis pointed out, the paradox of power in both India and China is that central government must give away some power, yielding economic freedom to the private sector and political responsibility and accountability to localities (Antholis, 2013). Perhaps his view applies more to India than to China.
It is also necessary that the states not only are granted some competence to work at the international level but also need to be provided with the wherewithal for acting on such competence. Here the states in India have a responsibility as well: if they want to enjoy some autonomy in respect of entering into relations with similar entities in other states, they need to direct some of their limited resources to creating the institutional apparatus to do so. Till now most states in India are either unwilling or incapable of entering into substantive dialogue with the consular staff of foreign countries interested in promoting investments. It is also pertinent to mention that the constituent states in India need to create a knowledge base for the relevant states/provinces of the countries with which they want to enter into para-diplomatic relations. So far as para-diplomatic relations with Chinese provinces or US states are concerned most Indian states are presently lacking in all these aspects.
To reap the benefits of this emergent phenomenon in international relations the central state in India needs to generate the courage to build a consensus about the extent and limits within which its para-diplomacy would operate in a substantial sense. The central state also has the option of starting it on an experimental basis with one or two states. It is necessary for India to see that in addition to fulfilling developmental goals, para-diplomacy also has the promise of effectively mitigating autonomy demands without slicing the central state’s sovereign authority.