Page 101 - AEI Insights 2018 Vol 4 Issue 1

AEI Insights, Vol 4, Issue 1, 2018

Penh, Cambodia in November 2012 during the East Asia Summit meeting. The RCEP involves
the ten ASEAN member countries, and their six partners, namely, China, Japan, South Korea,
Australia, New Zealand, and India. Later, in 2013, it was decided by the members to set up the
RCEP Trade Negotiations Committee as the apex negotiating body for RCEP. “The RCEP is
an ambitious project which for the first time intends to bring in Asia’s three biggest economies:
China, India and Japan, into a regional trade arrangement. Concomitantly, the proposed trade
area will be the largest in terms of population, with a combined GDP of around US$ 19 trillion
and when fully established, it will become the largest trade bloc in the world” (Mishra, R.
2013). RCEP is a vital component of ASEAN vision of realising the ASEAN Economic
Community.

India’s ASEAN Policy: From Look East to Act East
At his first India-ASEAN Summit address in 2014, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi
‘upgraded’ Look East policy into the Act East Policy. He remarked, “A new era of economic
development, industrialisation and trade has begun in India. Externally, India’s Look East
Policy has become Act East Policy... Today the world and the region need a strong India-
ASEAN partnership. That is why we believe that we are entering in a new era in the India-
ASEAN partnership” (Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, 2014).
Clearly, since 2014, India’s engagement with countries of Southeast Asia, Northeast Asia,
Mongolia, Australia, New Zealand, PIC (Pacific Island Countries), and regional and sub-
regional organizations thereof, have been included within the ambit of the Act East policy.
Sometimes, deepening engagement with Bangladesh is also included as a part of the Act East
policy (Business Standard, 2014). The emerging concept of Indo-Pacific has further widened
its scope, with the US and Japan actively supporting and encouraging India to play a bigger
role as an international stakeholder. Narendra Modi hinted at widening the scope of India’s
eastward engagement by reaching out even to the western shores of the US, thus signaling that
India’s eastward engagement should reach up to the US. On January, 2015 addressing the
India-U.S. Business Summit, Modi said, “when I look towards the East, I see the western shores
of the United States” (Press Information Bureau, Government of India, Prime Minister's Office,
January 26, 2015). Since 2014, the Act East policy has been projected as India’s flagship policy
to engage countries of the East; with a definite objective to move India’s eastward engagement
to the next level by making it wider, more multi-dimensional and action oriented. As stated by
General V. K. Singh, the Minister of State in the Ministry of External Affairs, in response to a
parliamentary question in March 2016, “in the second half of 2014, LEP was upgraded to Act
East Policy” (Lok Sabha, 2016). Since 2014, the government has been projecting Act East
policy as a fine blend of India’s diplomatic outreach, economic and trade partnerships, and
strategic collaboration with countries of the Southeast Asia and wider Asia-Pacific region.

Following the trends set during the Look East policy years, Act East gives high priority to
ASEAN and its member countries. That ASEAN is and will remain central to India’s eastward
engagement is also evident from the fact that in 2013, during the eleventh India-ASEAN
Summit in Brunei, the former prime minister Manmohan Singh had announced that India
would establish its Permanent Mission and a separate Ambassador to ASEAN. Subsequently,
India’s Permanent Mission to ASEAN was established, and was officially inaugurated by the
current External Affairs Minister, Sushma Swaraj on April 23, 2015.

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