India, ASEAN review strategic ties; adopt new five-year plan of action

Tribune News Service
New Delhi, September 12

India and the ASEAN on Saturday carried out a comprehensive review of their strategic partnership.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar co-chaired a virtual ASEAN-India Ministerial Meeting along with Deputy Prime Minister of Thailand Don Pramudwinai.

This was the first major interaction with ASEAN after India walked out of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) at the eleventh hour.

A day earlier, envoys of the 10 ASEAN countries met Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla and discussed new initiatives to further their close cooperation with India.

The meeting reviewed the progress in implementation of the ASEAN-India plan of action (2016-2020) and adopted a new plan of action for the next five years, said the Ministry of External Affairs.

“The meeting reviewed the status of ASEAN-India strategic partnership in several areas including maritime cooperation, connectivity, education and capacity building and people-to-people contacts,” the MEA said.

The meeting also reviewed the preparations for the upcoming 17th ASEAN-India summit.

The MEA said the ministers discussed ways to strengthen cooperation to fight the pandemic and exchanged views on important regional and international developments.

India along with five other countries – China, South Korea, Japan, New Zealand and Australia – is in the first rung of ASEAN’s observer members. The RCEP was to be a free trade agreement among these six countries and the 10 of ASEAN but India stayed away as its interests were not being safeguarded.

Strategic analysts in India have hoped the ASEAN will tilt towards the Quad (US-India-Australia-Japan) in the contestation of South China Sea. On the other hand, China has been resisting a tandem act by the Quad to persuade ASEAN by raising its bilateral ties with member countries. In the latest such instance, Indonesian and Chinese Defence Ministers decided to shelve their divergence on South China Sea and build on the existing ties that include a high-speed railway from Jakarta to Bandung.