The Hindu : Front Page : Focus on India, Manmohan will tell ASEAN

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Dec 11, 2005

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Focus on India, Manmohan will tell ASEAN

Amit Baruah

Look East policy begins to bear fruit

NEW DELHI: India is "the market" on which the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and East Asian powerhouses China, Japan and South Korea should focus, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will tell a gathering of leaders in Kuala Lumpur next week.

During the Fourth ASEAN-India summit on December 13, he will also call for greater links in education between India and South-East Asian nations.

Pointing out that the rate of growth in trade between India and ASEAN, as well as between India and East Asia, was impressive, official sources stressed that South Korea was today the second largest foreign investor in the country. Malaysia had committed itself to making major investments in the infrastructure sector.

With India being invited to attend the inaugural East Asia Summit, New Delhi could legitimately claim that its "Look East" policy was beginning to bear fruit and that the country was being considered a serious player in Asia-Pacific.

India, which became a sectoral dialogue partner of ASEAN in 1992 and full dialogue partner in 1996, held its first summit with ASEAN in November 2002. The sources said India was comfortable with the idea of ASEAN "driving" the East Asian Summit process forward. New Delhi, for its part, favoured an annual meeting of the 16 countries invited for the East Asian summit — the 10 ASEAN nations, India, China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

The 16 leaders were expected to discuss the architecture of cooperation that was expected to evolve at the December 14 East Asian Summit. However, it was not clear what kind of cooperative mechanism would evolve from this meeting.

East Asian Community

At the last ASEAN-India summit in Vientiane, Laos, Dr. Singh proposed the creation of an East Asian Community, a suggestion in line with the criss-cross free trade agreements being negotiated by India, ASEAN and East Asian nations. New Delhi appears aware that the tensions between Japan and China could create problems during the proceedings in Kuala Lumpur, but wants to push ahead with an Asian cooperative agenda.

The Prime Minister, who will be in Kuala Lumpur from December 11 to 14, is expected to have several bilateral meetings.

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