ABHIMANU IAS SPEAKS

ASEAN-INDIA MINISTERIAL MEETING

• The ASEAN-India Ministerial Meeting, an annual event, takes stock of the ASEAN-India partnership and deliberates on its future direction.
• India became a Sectoral Partner of ASEAN in 1992 and a Dialogue Partner in 1996. The relationship was upgraded in 2002 to the level of an Annual Summit Level Partnership.
• Venue of 10th ASEAN-India Foreign Ministers Meeting: Phnom Penh, Cambodi

AGENDA:

• China's aggressive posturing on the South China Sea
• Territorial dispute between China and southeastern countries, such as the Philippines and Vietnam

 IMPORTANCE OF MEETING:

• The 10th ASEAN-India Foreign Ministers Meeting is significant as India would be hosting a special ASEAN-India Commemorative Summit in December to mark 20 years of the relationship and 10 years of the summit level partnership.

IMPORTANCE OF ASIA-PACIFIC REGION FOR INDIA:

•  Asia-Pacific region is India’s leading and fastest growing economic partner, vital for its economic security; it deeply impinges on some of its domestic concerns, especially in the Northeast and in the Andaman Sea.
• It is linked to India’s maritime and ecological security and enables a coordinated holistic response in dealing with natural disasters like the tsunami and even pandemics.
• Its space impacts India’s conventional and non-conventional security environment, including threats of terrorism, piracy, transnational crime and spread of weapons of mass destruction in undesirable hands. 

 THURST AREAS FOR INDIA’S LOOK EAST POLICY:

• A major thrust has to be on integrating economic structures and systems with those of the Asia-Pacific and working towards a Pan-Asian economic community.
• Priority will need to be accorded to creating and augmenting all- encompassing regional connectivity and networking stretching from Myanmar to the Pacific coast.
• Myanmar and Thailand are pivotal to our Look-East Policy. Both are members of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Techno- Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC).
• China’s lengthening shadows and growing presence in neighborhood is best countered in this strategically important space through meaningful regional cooperation.
• Maritime security is likely to emerge as a key concern in the coming decades. India’s pivotal role in the Indian Ocean stretching up to the Pacific could contribute to ensuring freedom of the seas, peace, security from piracy.
• Asia-Pacific regional organizations like the East Asia Summit, the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia-Pacific, the Asian Development Bank, the ARF, the Track II Council for Security Cooperation in Asia-Pacific and other dialogue arrangements and the many ASEAN-driven regional forum of which India is a member provide an opportunity to engage with China in the regional context.

India enjoys excellent bilateral relations with almost all the countries of the Asia-Pacific, free of conflict or differences. For the first time in many decades, India is becoming integral to Asia-Pacific peace, progress, security and stability. It is increasingly being seen as one of the pillars of the emerging politico-security and economic architecture of this rapidly changing region on the threshold of a promising century. The commemorative India-ASEAN summit to mark 20 years of the completion of the Look-East Policy later in the year cannot be allowed to be just a milestone event. India will have to give direction and substance to the agenda and priorities for the next decade of partnership. ASEAN, from all accounts, is eager and receptive to deepening and enlarging its engagement with a potentially powerful India.