Look East’ was a slogan before it became a policy. The idea was shaped when PV Narasimha Rao decided to journey to South Korea on what was the first visit by an Indian PM to that country. The Asian Tigers were by now rampant and had made themselves a force in the international economy while India was only cautiously emerging from relative isolation. China loomed to the East and had tended to block the view in that direction, so that the cluster of dynamic countries to the South-east received less attention than was warranted. Japan, of course, was the economic super power with which India had already established extensive dealings. Rao&’s journey became a starting point for a new set of relationships between India and the countries lying to its east.

Much has happened since those early days and India&’s ties with eastern Asia have become immeasurably richer and more varied. The policy itself has evolved and currently the call is not just to ‘look east’ but to ‘act east’, thereby emphasizing India&’s effort to assume a more prominent role and its intention of emerging as a manufacturing powerhouse in Asia. Where India was once seen as a reluctant partner that had not fully left behind its autarkic past it has assumed a fresh identity as a willing economic partner in active search of new opportunity. This new-look entity has drawn wide international welcome as a partner for the future as an important driver of progress in the Asian region.

The recent South-east Asian visit of Vice-President Hamid Ansari thus took place in favourable circumstances. Visits at this elevated level have an important ceremonial character and are seen as demonstrations of goodwill; though they provide an occasion for concluding agreements between states, that is not their primary purpose: more important is to indicate that relations are in good shape and give impetus to their further development. Ansari&’s first stop on his two-nation journey took him to Brunei Darussalam which is not often visited by senior dignitaries from India – indeed,  Ansari was the first Vice-President to go there. Yet there is quite a lot it shares with India, including membership of the Commonwealth. Brunei Darussalam is a small country but it is blessed with abundant natural resources, especially oil and gas, so it has been able to make its way successfully in the modern world. As the Commonwealth link suggests, this portion of the SE Asian archipelago was at one time ruled by Britain, which accounts for the continued presence in that country of a small contingent of Gurkha troops for internal security purposes. These legendary soldiers remained when the British presence came to an end; the Vice-President&’s visit marked a further transition in that it was agreed that henceforth the local government would seek these troops from India, not Britain – a final conclusion to the imperial legacy.

The Vice-President moved on from Brunei to Thailand which is India&’s neighbour across the sea and where the bilateral ties are more diverse and well-established. There has always been plenty of commerce and high-level coming and going between the two countries even though this was the first visit at the level of Vice-President. It was a similar sort of visit to the previous one, once again prominently displaying the flag and conveying a message of goodwill. There were also a number of useful agreements to be concluded, to strengthen further what is already a flourishing relationship. Security issues were prominent in the high-level discussions, especially matters of maritime security which are an important shared interest, both countries being vulnerable to predatory attacks by pirates who have survived in South-east Asian waters despite prolonged regional effort to eliminate them. Another real concern is terrorism so the two sides seek to coordinate their counter-terrorism activities.

Overall, the Vice-President&’s visit can be regarded as a high-level venture into ASEAN, which, with the country&’s eastward orientation becoming more marked, is an area of growing significance to India. ASEAN itself remains a successful model of a regional organization, and stands in marked contrast to SAARC where only limited progress has been possible. Plans for overland access to Thailand and beyond that would add an important dimension to regional cooperation have been under discussion for many years and it appears that some significant advances are now being made. Ansari&’s visit has highlighted these and other such issues and reminded us of our growing stakes in this contiguous area.

While over the years this region has largely sorted out territorial and other issues among its members, some maritime questions involving China have arisen recently that threaten to disturb regional good order and cooperation. China has become more assertive in advancing its claims in the South China Sea and this has brought it into opposition with overlapping and conflicting claims of other nearby countries. These differences are well known and have caused more than one clash in the past, but now they are being pursued with greater intent, with the result that matters of access to marine resources and of freedom of navigation, formerly dormant, have become issues of active concern. The international laws and rules relating to maritime navigation have advanced in recent years owing to sustained effort by the UN but now fresh problems have arisen in what is an expanding area of economic activity.

More far-reaching and ambitious are China-led plans for new land and maritime connections across Asia and beyond, described as ‘belt and road’, to link distant regions with each other. These concepts build on ancient records and memories and take us back to the famous Silk Road across Asia, and also to historic maritime trading connections across the Indian Ocean. The scale of the idea is exceedingly ambitious and suggests significant re-ordering of global trade and communications in the time ahead. Nor is this the only such projection on this massive scale currently under consideration: while the Silk Road re-emerges Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) is strengthening and taking new form. There is also the Mausam Project in which India is a prime mover that aims at creating new links in Africa and Asia between countries that have been historically and geographically drawn together by the annual monsoon.

Seen from this one point of view, the Vice-President&’s journey may be seen as part of an expanding outreach by India into its region and its immediate neighbourhood. Different ideas and initiatives are being promoted by a variety of actors among which India has a prominent place. The diplomatic stakes are already substantial and seem set to rise rapidly in the future.