India’s Indo-Pacific Strategy: Beyond Look East

What began in the 1990s as a cautious ‘Look East’ policy aimed at fostering economic ties with Southeast Asia has since evolved into a much more strategic and bolder vision-India’s ‘Act Indo-Pacific’ approach. With the evolving and increasingly contested landscape, characterized by China’s assertive expansion in the Indo-Pacific, India is redefining its foreign policy goal of emerging as a net security provider and partner to maintain peace, stability, and growth in the region. This makes it important to understand India’s ‘Act East’ Policy in the grand scheme of ‘Act Indo-Pacific’ framework. India has always had good historical and cultural relations with countries to the East of India, though colonialism and the cold war era led to the neglect of these relations between India and Southeast Asia. However, certain domestic and international imperatives cajoled the Indian government to reinforce its relations with Southeast Asia through ‘Look East’ Policy. Since the 1990s, the geopolitical situation in the Indo Pacific changed dramatically prompting the Indian government to make a paradigm shift from ‘Look East’ to ‘Act East’. 

Why ‘Act East’?
With the evolving geopolitical situation in the Indo-Pacific, India is being increasingly touted as a net security provider in the region by ASEAN, and other major powerful economies in the region. This only forms the underlying difference from its predecessor-‘Look East’, which surely focused on advancing India’s economic interests by emulating East Asian economies. While the primary objective of ‘Act East’ has been to bolster the existing economic ties with ASEAN and countries to the east of India, its secondary objective is to counter China in the region. It does take into consideration strategic concerns posed by the rise of China, and the subsequent issue of freedom of navigation for all in the Indo-Pacific.

The China Factor
Since 2013, China has rapidly begun the militarisation of some of the contested land features in the South China Sea. Ronald O'Rourke, citing the DOD report (2017), in his report on China’s actions in South and East China Seas says, “China reached milestones of landing civilian aircraft on its airfields on Fiery Cross Reef, Subi Reef, and Mischief Reef for the first time in 2016…” Such developments intend to strengthen China’s position in the disputed South China Sea, and make its claim more assertive. Apart from this dramatic militarization and the issue of ‘freedom of navigation’ posed by the Chinese Coast Guard in the South China Sea, China has been rapidly shoring up its infrastructure in countries around India. This policy of ‘strategic encirclement’ has significantly increased India’s maritime and trade concerns in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR), even as China claims to support commercial navigation in the region.

Situating ‘Act Indo-Pacific’ through ‘Act East’
It is in this context of rising dominance of China in the Indian Ocean that India’s ‘Act Indo-Pacific’ provides a better framework to act as a bulwark against China, both in the Indian Ocean Region and South China Sea. While ‘Act Indo-Pacific' is not an official standalone policy by the Government of India, it encompasses and extends the policy of ‘Act East’ to address the integrated economic-maritime security domain spanning from the Indian Ocean Region to the Pacific. In his 2018 keynote address at Shangri La Dialogue, PM Narendra Modi highlighted this necessity by positing how the growing military buildup is fueling external tensions and growing distrust, coupled with increased assertiveness over adherence to international norms. New Delhi is keen on operationalizing the policy of ‘Act East’ by establishing deeper economic engagement with countries in Southeast and East Asia, and regularly participating in institutional dialogues such as ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), East Asia Summit (EAS), ASEAN India Summit, ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus (ADMM+), and the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA). In kind, ASEAN has also responded to India’s ‘Indo-Pacific’ Vision by providing contours of its own 2019 ASEAN’s Outlook on the Indo-Pacific, which seeks to promote "peace, security, stability and prosperity” in the Indo-Pacific. Further, apart from furthering its interests through reinforcing ASEAN’s centrality, Delhi’s ‘Act Indo Pacific’ approach seeks to operationalise its vision of a ‘free, open, prosperous and inclusive Indo-Pacific region’, through actions such as Security and Growth for All in the Region (SAGAR). One of the examples of SAGAR could be COVID-19 related medical assistance to countries in the Indian Ocean Region as part of its ‘Mission Sagar’ in 2020. Amongst other initiatives, revived QUAD involving the United States, Japan, India, and Australia, and improved partnerships with countries having similar vision in the Indo-Pacific intends to limit China’s assertiveness in the region.

Strategic Constraints

1. Ironically, India’s leadership across the spectrum has exhibited a political mindset guided by its post-independence doctrine of non-alignment and anti-imperialist internationalism. Rajesh Rajagopalan quotes Priya Chacko as saying, India is said to be lacking in a strategic culture in which “ideas about an anti-imperialist internationalism and non-alignment continue to inform India’s state-building project and its “over-riding” priority of economic development”. This profoundly obscures the limits of meeting one of the objectives of the ‘Act Indo-Pacific’ approach to balance the rise of China in the region. 
2. Despite a repeated call by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi for ‘Make In India’, India’s heavy dependence on China for meeting its import requirements limits Delhi’s capabilities from countering China’s hegemonic attitude in ‘Indo-Pacific’ by posing the risk of supply chain vulnerability.
3. Significantly, due to economic disparities within ASEAN states, some states like Cambodia and Laos rely more on China to receive aid than states like Vietnam and Philippines. This only presents an opportunity to China to restrict consensus amongst ASEAN member countries, thereby reducing its ability to counter China in the region.

New Delhi’s ‘Act Indo-Pacific’ approach is best suited to counter China, but its success is dependent on regional and internal challenges being addressed. Greater economic integration and greater unity amongst ASEAN states will be crucial to counter Beijing’s hegemonic tendency in the ‘Indo-Pacific’, alongside building peace and economic prosperity in the region.