JOIN USCrucial upgrade in ties with ASEAN
India and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have upgraded their relationship to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership (CSP). The elevation of ties will see the two sides enhance focus on maritime security, joint implementation of projects in the Indo-Pacific, cybersecurity and interoperability of digital financial systems, new technologies for sustainable development, and joint efforts to promote peace and stability across the region.
They have pledged to speed up the review of the ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement to make it more user-friendly and trade-facilitative, and to cooperate to build resilient supply chains. The CSP is expected to deepen cooperation in the space sector, enhance India’s maritime profile in Southeast Asia, and pave the way for better coordination between India’s Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative and the ASEAN Outlook on Indo-Pacific.
Southeast Asia lies where the Indian and the Pacific Oceans converge and is therefore at the centre of the Indo-Pacific region, which means that the key to India’s Indo-Pacific strategy is the success of its engagement with ASEAN, especially in the realm of security. This is the significance of the CSP.
Although India and Southeast Asia take pride in their centuries-old economic, cultural and civilisational ties, relations are way below potential in economic and strategic terms. The Cold War came in the way of Jawaharlal Nehru’s attempts to unite Asia as India and the Southeast Asian countries found themselves on opposite sides of it and India’s foreign policy became more focused on the West than on countries to its East.
This changed in the 1990s when Delhi adopted a ‘Look East’ policy. In 1992, with India becoming a sectoral dialogue partner of ASEAN, the two began a focused engagement. In 2002, India became a summit-level partner of ASEAN in 2002, and in 2012, the two sides began a strategic partnership. With the CSP, relations are moving in the right direction but still remain below potential.
Like India, several ASEAN member-states are locked in territorial disputes with China, and are wary of Beijing’s growing belligerence and uneasy with their own deep economic dependence on China. While they are looking to the US to counterbalance China’s rise, they are apprehensive about getting locked into alliances.
As a Comprehensive Strategic Partner, India could help ease this dilemma by working with the regional grouping not just on traditional security issues but to counter non-traditional threats as well, including climate change and its impact on agriculture, water contamination, migration, poverty, etc. India has much experience in working on people-centric, bottom-up, participatory initiatives in Africa, and should share these with ASEAN. Importantly, India must avoid forcing its ASEAN partners to take sides in its rivalries with Pakistan or China.