Would it be to India’s benefit if it were to pursue a more serious relationship with South-East Asia? Critically evaluate. (2010, 40 Marks)
In 2010 India’s ties with Southeast Asia were broad but shallow. The goods agreement with ASEAN had just entered into force, India sat in the East Asia Summit, and Barack Obama had urged India to “engage East” rather than merely look. A more serious relationship meant moving from presence to commitment: deeper economic integration, security cooperation and finished connectivity. The balance of argument favours it, but its costs need managing.
The case for a more serious relationship
- Realist: the Malacca Strait carries much of India’s seaborne trade and most of China’s energy imports, so it is both an Indian vulnerability and Indian leverage. Partnerships with Vietnam, Indonesia and Singapore extend India’s reach where Chinese power is concentrated. This is balancing in Stephen M. Walt’s sense, against threat rather than power alone. David Brewster (India as an Asia Pacific Power, 2012) traces how India became a strategic actor east of Malacca.
- Regional demand: Evelyn Goh shows that ASEAN practises omni-enmeshment, drawing every great power in so that none dominates. India is invited, not intruding.
- Liberal: ASEAN, close to 700 million people, offers markets, a place in China-plus-one supply chains, and Singapore as a channel for investment into India.
- Constructivist: Amitav Acharya (Constructing a Security Community in Southeast Asia, 2001) shows that ASEAN-led forums confer standing. They let a non-allied India sit at Asia’s tables without joining a containment coalition, on civilisational ties (Buddhism, the Ramayana traditions, Angkor) it did not have to invent.
- Domestic: the North-East could stop being a dead end and become a land bridge.
The costs and risks
- Economic exposure. Once AITIGA took effect, imports grew much faster than exports. The deficit rose from about US$5 billion to US$45.2 billion in 2024–25, partly through Chinese goods using loose rules of origin. This shaped India’s exit from RCEP in 2019.
- Entanglement. Deeper security ties draw India toward the South China Sea disputes, where ONGC Videsh’s blocks off Vietnam already irritate Beijing. China can answer on the Himalayan border.
- A divided partner. ASEAN works by consensus, and Cambodia and Laos lean toward China, so the bloc cannot contract security commitments. India has to work state by state.
- Opportunity cost and the North-East. India’s diplomatic and financial bandwidth is limited and its own neighbourhood unsettled. Thongkholal Haokip (2015) and Rubul Patgiri and Dilip Gogoi (2022) warn that corridor diplomacy can bypass the people of the North-East.
Weighing the record since 2010
India chose seriousness:
- Act East (2014) and a separate mission to ASEAN (2015)
- a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with ASEAN (2022)
- the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative, aligned with ASEAN’s own outlook
- BrahMos exports to the Philippines, delivered from 2024
- an Enhanced Comprehensive Strategic Partnership with Vietnam (6 May 2026)
The strategic returns are visible. The economic returns are thin. Trade reached US$128.38 billion in 2025–26, yet the AITIGA review was still unresolved at the Manila economic ministers’ meeting (22 September 2026). The land corridors stay closed: Paletwa fell to the Arakan Army in January 2024, and Min Aung Hlaing’s visit to India as President (May–June 2026) produced no new agreements. C. Raja Mohan warned in 2014 that Delhi’s insular habits limited the gains.
Conclusion
A more serious relationship is to India’s benefit. The strategic case is overwhelming, and the costs arise from how it is pursued, not from pursuing it. The risk is seriousness that is only strategic. Without competitive industry, enforceable rules of origin and finished corridors, India becomes a security partner whom the region trades past. The way forward is a rebalanced AITIGA, maritime routes while Myanmar is closed, and a North-East with a real stake.