Page 95 - AEI Insights 2018 Vol 4 Issue 1

Mishra, 2018

East Asia Summit (EAS)

The East Asia Summit is a manifestation of an idea originally propounded by Mahathir
Mohammad, the former prime minister of Malaysia, in December 1990. What Mahathir had
proposed as the East Asian Economic Group (EAEG), finally materialised as the East Asia
Summit in 2005 with the adoption of the Kuala Lumpur Declaration. With the establishment
of the East Asia Summit, “which has been seen by historically minded Indian policy makers as
a redefined derivative of the old Nehruvian strategic concept of “Eastern Federation”, the scope
of stronger Asian regionalism has certainly gone up” (Muni and Mun, 2012). In 2005, EAS
comprised ASEAN and its six dialogue partners: Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea,
and New Zealand. With the inclusion of Russia and the US, EAS now has 18 members. The
decision to establish EAS was taken during the tenth ASEAN Summit and ASEAN Plus Three
(China, Japan and South Korea) Summit, 2004 in Laos. India was one of the founding members
of the EAS. However, India’s membership to the EAS was initially opposed by China and a
few other members. China opposed India’s membership because it was apprehensive that India
was invited to counterbalance against China. There was another reservation by countries which
just wanted it to be a mechanism between ASEAN member states and East Asian countries.
However, India’s membership was made possible with the support of countries such as
Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand.
India’s participation in the EAS allows it to engage not only the ASEAN countries but other
major powers too. Muni (2006) argues that, “India’s stakes in building East Asian Community
are indeed deep and there is a growing realization in the region that India’s participation in
EAS is a positive factor”. From India’s perspective, the eagerness to join the EAS was
underscored by clear strategic and economic motives and the fact that India is one of the major
players, both economically and strategically, in the region makes it all the more important for
the member countries of the EAS to focus attention towards India (Zamir, 2014).

ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting (ADMM) Plus
India is one of the founding members of ADMM Plus, which was initially confined to the ten
ASEAN members as the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting (ADMM). Consistent with the
ADMM guiding principles of being an open and outward looking grouping, the second ADMM
in Singapore in 2007 adopted the Concept Paper to establish the ADMM-Plus, which was a
platform for ASEAN and its eight Dialogue Partners to strengthen security and defence
cooperation for peace, stability, and development in the region (ADMM Plus-ASEAN, 2017).
The Inaugural ADMM-Plus was convened in Ha Noi, Viet Nam, on October 12, 2010 where
the member countries decided to keep working together on five priority areas of cooperation,
namely: Maritime security, counter-terrorism, humanitarian assistance and disaster relief,
peacekeeping operations and military medicine (ADMM Plus-ASEAN, 2017).

So far as India’s role and participation in the ADMM Plus is concerned, past seven years bear
testimony to the fact that ‘India is no longer shying away from playing a role on the regional
and international stages and is willing to don a bigger role in regional politics. It is showing
traits of a responsible stakeholder in the regional security dynamics’ (Mishra, R. 2016). India
has been playing an active role. In 2016, India hosted the Exercise Force 18, a six-day long
joint multilateral exercise, conducted under the framework of the ADMM Plus, which was held

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