India–ASEAN Relations

Abstract

The terminology of the Indo-Pacific is beginning to gain more relevance in recent times with several countries referring to this term in their official pronouncements. Widely understood to be the region that stretches from the western Indian Ocean to the western Pacific Ocean, this term has come to mean different things to the states that constitute this strategic and geopolitical concept. For India, its foreign policy initiative called the Look East and Act East policy is centred around the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and extends to the countries beyond the ASEAN region to East Asia and the Pacific. This article attempts to understand the Act East policy as the core of India’s engagement eastwards, focusing on four broad themes: first, how do regional states look at the terminology of the Indo-Pacific? Second, what constitutes India’s core understanding of this term, and what are India’s overarching priorities in the region? Third, how does the Act East policy towards the ASEAN form the core of India’s Indo-Pacific strategy, and in the fourth concluding theme, how does the return of the Quadrilateral Dialogue (Quad) implicate the future of India–ASEAN relations?