By Prashanth Parameswaran
Modi needs to move India beyond platitudes in its engagement with Southeast Asia.
As expected, the South China Sea issue once again grabbed the headlines in the latest round of Asian regional summitry held in Myanmar earlier this month.
Less in the limelight, but no less consequential, was India’s first engagement of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) since its new Prime Minister Narendra Modi was elected last month. Despite India’s oft-cited cultural and civilizational links with Southeast Asia and some notable advances in its much-touted Look East Policy since 1991, both sides agree that ASEAN-India ties are far from reaching their full potential. Southeast Asia – with the exception of Myanmar – had also been conspicuously absent in Modi’s foreign policy statements, which have largely focused on neighboring South Asian states and major powers like China and the United States.
The new Indian government’s first foray into a formal ASEAN gathering produced some encouraging signs. At the India-ASEAN meeting, External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj focused her remarks on “connectivity,” the reigning mantra in Modi’s regional policies which refers to a host of infrastructure projects to speed up Asian integration. That suggests a strong economic bent in the relationship that would both help New Delhi to develop its Northeastern states and Southeast Asia to form a more united ASEAN Economic Community over the next few years. ASEAN, for its part, said both sides will likely sign a long-delayed free trade agreement in services and investments later this month and proposed strengthening cooperation in several areas, including agriculture, energy, and science and technology.
Read the full story at The Diplomat