Introduction

Energy supplies are the achilles heel of booming Asian economies such as India and China. Without assured supplies at affordable prices, the Asian economic boom would soon fizzle out. It is obvious that energy supplies are directly linked to geopolitics. Energy issues figure prominently in key relations between The United States-China, Russia-China, Russia-Japan, Japan-China, India-Pakistan (especially pipelines issues), the Middle East- South Asia, Iran-India, as well as in maritime security issues involving sea lanes of communications such as the Straits of Malacca, the Straits of Hormuz, and finally pipeline issues such as TAPI, IPI, the Trans-peninsular across Northern Malaya, from Central Asia outwards, and from Siberia to China and Japan. Much of the competition on energy access is based on a zero-sum game approach. An interesting question is whether (and how) we can turn such an approach into a win/win approach.

THE EAS FRAMEWORK

Both India and Singapore are members of the East Asia Summit (EAS). Singapore was host to the EAS in late 2007, and was looking for ideas to add substance to the EAS. Energy cooperation is one obvious area. In fact, the EAS Cebu Energy Declaration, issued in January 2007, includes mention of such cooperation. One likely area is in energy efficiency.

Between India and Singapore, there are no formal energy cooperation programmes bilaterally. The bilateral Free Trade Agreement, or CECA, has no provision for such energy cooperation. It would seem logical to include such energy cooperation in the next revised CECA, as Singapore has announced plans to focus on clean energy and as India needs to greatly increase its energy production, including that from renewable sources.

At the India-ASEAN level, there does not seem to be any formal energy cooperation, apart from ministerial meetings held at the 25th ASEAN Ministers of Energy Meeting (AMEM) plus Six (which included Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand) in Singapore from 20–24 August 2007. A technical study visit by the SAARC Energy Centre to the ASEAN Centre for Energy in Jakarta was organized in June 2007.