India’s Act East Policy: Finding Opportunities in Post-Pandemic Adversities

Torunika Roy
Abstract:
India’s Act East Policy has fallen short of its promised potential due to factors like China’s increasing influence in the region, rising tensions between India and China, and India’s withdrawal from the RCEP. Since the end of 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic has damaged economies, disrupted supply chains, interrupted services, and led to many more challenges. Despite such issues, the pandemic triggered a new urgency to re-imagine the cooperation and explore new avenues of collaboration under the Act East Policy. This issue brief discusses the new areas of cooperation – in health, digitalization, and the green economy – with India’s eastern neighbors.
Related Publications
-
South Korea’s Indo-Pacific Strategy, Atmanirbhar Bharat, and the IPEF: Convergence and Commonality
For some time now, the existing multilateral networks such as those of the United Nations (UN) system have been largely ineffective in providing good global governance and helping create resilience, […]
-
China’s Pursuit of Food and Energy Security in the Indian Ocean: Consequences for India’s Development
China and India are still predominantly rising powers. They are strongly inclined to achieve food and energy security, two priority areas for any nation with a vast population. The possibility […]
-
Saving Sri Lanka: Can India and Japan Lead the Way?
Introduction: On September 1, under the new President Ranil Wickremesinghe, crisis-plagued Sri Lanka reached a staff-level agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a $2.9 billion USD bailout package over 48 […]
-
Quad Plus EU: A Viable Option for the Times?
Today, the primary Indo-Pacific contest is not just about the China-US hegemony. It also involves a range of so-called “middle powers” – including Australia, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, […]
-
The Future of the ADMM-Plus in the Indo-Pacific
Since its establishment, the ADMM-Plus has evolved into a valuable component of the regional security architecture. It facilitates not only dialogue among the region’s defense ministers and officials, but also […]
-
Engaging The Indo-Pacific: Some Pointers For Europe
The regional dynamics of the Indo-Pacific Region (IPR), especially maritime security-related, are distinctly different from other regions, especially Europe. There are existential sub-regional dynamics that vary across the IPR, which […]