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Context:
- India will host heads of 10 nations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) for the Republic Day celebrations to boost India’s ties with Southeast Asia.
Where does India lack to strengthen the India-ASEAN relationship?
- India’s capacity to provide development assistance, market access and security guarantees remains limited.
- Also ASEAN’s inclination to harness New Delhi for regional stability remains restricted by its sensitivities to other powers.
- There has been a shift in emphasis, with India moving away from the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) to the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) and asserting its centrality in the evolving geography of the Indo-Pacific.
- India’s economic focus too is not in tune with other regional powers which view ASEAN as an important market for exports and investments.
- India’s export sector remains weak and the government’s focus has shifted to boosting manufacturing domestically.
- As India’s gaze shifts to the Bay of Bengal, Myanmar and Thailand have emerged as key players in its southeastern outreach.
- The hope is to use these nations as a bridge to ASEAN.
- The temptation to prioritise these countries over others in ASEAN may also prevent others from looking at India as a regional stakeholder.
What is the way forward?
- It is important for India and ASEAN to chart out a more operational, though modest, agenda for future cooperation.
- The three Cs of commerce, connectivity and culture have been highlighted but a more coarse perspective is needed in terms of a forging a forward-looking approach.
- India as a facilitator of the ASEAN-wide digital economy would not only challenge China but also emerge as an economic guarantor of its own.
- India needs to focus on more effective delivery of projects it is already committed to.
- In this context, prompt completion of the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway, which will run from Moreh in Manipur to Mae Sot in Thailand via Myanmar, is key.
- With China having three times more commercial flights than India to Southeast Asia, improving air connectivity between India and ASEAN countries should also be high on the agenda.
- While India offers scholarships to students from ASEAN states to study at Nalanda University, this initiative should be extended to the IITs and the IIMs.
- Tourism too can be further encouraged between India and the ASEAN with some creative branding by the two sides
