New Delhi, September 6: The new alignment in India’s engagement
with the World will get an evident twist this month as Prime Minister Narendra
Modi, while giving the Non-Alignment Movement (NAM) Summit a miss; will be
cementing New Delhi’s ties with the South East Asian countries as he head
to second country in the region in a week.
After making a pit stop at Vietnam enroute to G-20 summit in
the Eastern Chinese city of Hangzhou, will be embarking on a visit to Lao PDR
on September 7th where he will be attending the 14th ASEAN-India Summit and the
11th East Asia Summit.
“This will be the third ASEAN (The Association of the
Southeast Asian Nations) Summit to be attended by Prime Minister Modi. ASEAN is
central to India’s Act East policy,” Secretary East Preeti Saran
said while elaborating on the importance of the event.
The renewed diplomatic focus on the Mekong sub-region
(comprising of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam) stems from the fact that it
links the Bay of Bengal with the South China Sea through land. The South China
Sea is pivotal to Indian interests as 50 percent of its trade passes through
its sea lanes. The Mekong sub-region, thus, has become an area of geopolitical
rivalry between India and China.
The Prime Minister will also attend the East Asia Summit of
which it has been one of the co-founders. Connectivity and trade will be high
on agenda.
The Laos visit will means that the Prime Minister has
traveled to all the countries in the Mekong sub-region, barring Cambodia. The
region has taken a centre-stage in India’s foreign policy as evident by
the Prime Minister’s whirlwind tours to the countries – he reached
Hanoi on night of September 2nd and left for Hangzhou on September
3rd evening. He returned to India on September 5th evening and shall
be reaching Laos on September 7th.
The visits have been highlighted as the Prime Minister will
not be attending the NAM Summit in a departure from the tradition of Indian
Prime Ministers attending the event. Top diplomats have been talking about how
G-20 is a better representative of the present day world over without
explicitly denouncing the relevance of NAM, founded during the Cold War era.
The South Block mandarins have been trying to downplay the
turn of events citing Prime Minister Modi’s chock-o-block itinerary for
foreign visits. But the subtle signal does indicate a major shift the way India
will be conducting its diplomacy.
No comments:
Post a Comment