1 The âLook Eastâ policy
India launched its âLook Eastâ Policy (LEP) in the early 1990s as part of a concerted effort to revive the importance of Southeast Asia in the countryâs foreign policy agenda. Several factors have been attributed to the inception of the policy.1 At the global level, the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War divide led India to lose its primary strategic patron on the world stage while prompting the country to diversify its markets and sources of foreign trade, aid and investment.2 Most notable was the improved relationship with the United States, but India also experienced a rapprochement with several countries in Asia, including the member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN).
At the domestic level, the precarious economic climate facing India following a foreign exchange crisis in 1991 forced the Indian government to accelerate its market reform and economic liberalisation agenda.3 This included reorienting the economy by making it more open to foreign investment and trade with the vibrant âtigerâ economies of East Asia.4 Indiaâs engagement with Southeast Asia was also seen as a catalyst for the countryâs embrace of globalisation. Indian Prime Minister Narasimha Rao (1991â96) notably referred to the Asia-Pacific as the âspringboard for Indiaâs leap into the global marketplaceâ while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh (2004â14) noted that the LEP reflected âa strategic shift in Indiaâs vision of the world and Indiaâs place in the evolving global economyâ.5
Related to this was internal political change under the government of P.V. Narasimha Rao that assumed power in 1991.6 This led to the rise of several of liberal, reform-oriented politicians and technocrats that became architects of the countryâs market liberalisation process. Rule by more pragmatic and confident governments in New Delhi also set the stage for Indiaâs growing regional engagement within the context of a bolder foreign policy.
At the regional and sub-regional level, there was also a need to revitalise Indiaâs neglected northeast, which shares a 1,600km land border with Myanmar (Burma) by transforming the sub-region into a hub linking South and Southeast Asia.7 Related to this was growing recognition that economic integration in South Asia was being held hostage to the precarious state of India-Pakistan relations.8 This prompted India to âtranscendâ the region by seeking economic opportunities in its âextended neighbourhoodâ, which includes Southeast Asia.9
The LEP has been surprisingly resilient in the three decades since the policy was unveiled despite a plethora of changes taking place, both at the level of domestic politics and at the broader regional level. At the domestic political level, several administrations have ruled the country since the launch of the LEP. These range from the centre-left Indian National Congress (1991â96, 2004â14) to the Hindu-nationalist BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) (1997â2004, 2014â) and a string of weak coalition governments in the mid-1990s. However, despite their varying ideological orientations, all these governments have embraced the LEP. At the regional level, the LEP has maintained its central tenet of âASEAN centralityâ. As the 2020â21 Ministry of External Affairs report notes, âASEAN centrality has been, and will remain, an important aspect of Indiaâs âAct Eastâ policy which is a central element in Indiaâs Foreign Policyâ.10 This commitment to âASEAN centralityâ has remained despite the fact that the relative importance of Southeast Asia as a driver of regional growth has diminished over time while there has been a broader redistribution of power in Asia.
What accounts for relative resilience of Indiaâs LEP? The prevalent narrative is that Indiaâs commitment to economic liberalisation kept the country committed to engagement with Southeast Asia. Another explanation is the maturing regional architecture in Asia, which led India to be subsumed by the growing web of regional multilateral initiatives (e.g. ASEAN Regional Forum, East Asia Summit, ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting Plus). The growing importance of transnational security threats such as maritime piracy, terrorism and humanitarian assistance â particularly following the launch of the US-led âWar on Terrorâ in 2001/2 and the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 â also led to more coordinated and inclusive regional cooperation between India and Southeast Asia in the security sphere.11
However, none of these explanations sufficiently account for Indiaâs stepped engagement with Southeast Asia from the origins of the policy through its evolution over three decades and across a plethora of functional areas of interaction. For instance, while the US-led âWar on Terrorâ may account for Indiaâs stepped up security engagement with Southeast Asia in the early 2000s, it does not account for Indiaâs economic integration with the region. Similarly, the growing web of regional initiatives is a symptom rather than a specific cause of Indiaâs stepped up regional interaction with Southeast Asia.
Even the emergence of a more confident government in New Delhi or the growth of the Indian economy and the concomitant acceleration of the countryâs economic liberalisation does not by itself explain why India made such a concerted effort to pivot towards Southeast Asia as opposed to other regions that also hold strategic significance to India, including the Middle East (West Asia), Central Asia or its own neighbourhood of South Asia. While Southeast Asiaâs economic vibrancy acted as a magnet for Indiaâs engagement with the region and may have been one of the factors that prompted India to initiate the LEP in the early 1990s, this does not explain why Indiaâs engagement with the region accelerated over time as the relative importance of Southeast Asia to regional and global growth was in decline, or why India has continued to cling to the principle of âASEAN centralityâ in its regional engagement.
2 The âChina factorâ
This study postulates that the âChina factorâ â defined here as Chinaâs regional role, which has been interpreted through the broader prism of the Sino-Indian relationship â presents a more credible explanation for the resilience of Indiaâs post-Cold War engagement with Southeast Asia from the inception of the LEP. While not disputing the relevance of the aforementioned factors, this study seeks to demonstrate that the âChina factorâ permeates key areas of Indiaâs post-Cold War engagement with Southeast Asia, and as such provides a more robust and over-arching narrative for the evolution of the LEP.
The role of China as a catalyst for Indiaâs LEP is not well recognised, both in the origins of the policy and in its evolution as Indiaâs eastward engagement has gained substance and momentum. Rather, official (government) statements have tended to portray Chinaâs role as largely benign or irrelevant to the evolution of the LEP. This is subsumed under the broader narrative that the LEP was rooted in economic compulsions while the strategic dimensions of the policy only gained relevance during its later decades (or phases), particularly after it was reinvigorated by the renamed âAct Eastâ Policy under the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi that assumed power in 2014. For example, during the Shangri-La Dialogue annual conference in May 2018, it was noted that the renamed âAct Eastâ Policy was an attempt at âshifting the emphasis of what had previously been an economic and trade-based policy to one aimed at nurturing political and security relationshipsâ.12 According to this, if the âChina factorâ holds any salience, it is only during the latter part of the policy when the strategic dimensions of Indiaâs engagement with the region gained importance.13
This study seeks to challenge this assertion by examining the importance of China in driving and sustaining Indiaâs post-Cold War engagement with Southeast Asia since the inception of the LEP.
3 Objectives of this study
This study will assess whether China has been raised as a priority in strategic elite discourses of the LEP and how this has varied over time and across key areas of engagement in Indiaâs relations with Southeast Asia. Embedded within this are two more fundamental questions that this study seeks to address on the nature of Indiaâs regional engagement:
- First, is Indiaâs âLook Eastâ Policy real? In other words, does the rhetoric of the LEP match with the reality of Indiaâs post-Cold War engagement with Southeast Asia?
- Second, how does one define the âregionâ? Have the contours of the regional sub-system in Asia been redefined by Indiaâs growing engagement with Southeast Asia and can India and China be considered units operating within the same regional space?
In terms of the contribution to wider conceptual scholarship, this study explores the distinction between what policymakers signal in their official statements and their true or underlying motivations. This alludes to the fact that policymakers may not always reflect true intentions in their official statements given the proclivity for such statements to be diplomatic or non-confrontational in their language. In this case, it is often what is not said or the silences that may reveal more about the true intentions undergirding foreign policy behaviour. As academic Kripa Sridharan notes, it is âvery revealing what is not saidâ in official discourses, adding that âwhen something is never mentioned it is of equal concern that it could be the real factorâ.14
This is particularly true in the case of the Sino-Indian relationship where diplomatic rhetoric often masks more competitive and confrontational aspects of the relationship, especially following the normalisation of bilateral relations in the post-Cold War period. As strategic analyst Raja Mohan notes, âthe quaint-coded formal statements between New Delhi and Beijing often tend to obfuscate the tension between the two rising powersâ.15 Academic John Garver echoes this view, noting that the âconflictual aspect of the Sino-Indian relationship contrasts with the rhetoric of China-India friendshipâ at the official level.16 As this study reveals, this divide between official statements and true or underlying motivations is also evident in the LEP where there is a tendency to downplay the relevance of the âChina factorâ or portray it as largely benign terms.