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This Week in AsiaPolitics

Why is India’s status among Asean nations rising?

  • New survey shows India seen as a potential ally, more so than Australia, UK and South Korea, partly due to worries over US-China rivalry
  • It comes despite New Delhi’s neutrality on the Ukraine war, the rise of Hindu nationalism and citizenship issues perceived as anti-Muslim

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India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi. File photo: Reuters
Maria Siow
India’s greater visibility on the world stage in recent years and its refusal to take sides in the Ukraine war amid a major power rivalry are likely why Southeast Asian countries increasingly view New Delhi as a strategic partner, analysts say.
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In a survey released this month by the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, a growing number of respondents from the 10 countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) said they would choose India, after the European Union and Japan, in hedging against the uncertainties of US-China strategic rivalry.

India, which ranked last in 2022, doubled its approval from 5.1 per cent to 11.3 per cent to take the third spot out of six, followed by Australia, Britain and South Korea.

Daniel Markey, senior South Asia adviser at the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), said the findings would be more meaningful if support for India continued to rise in subsequent findings.

However, he acknowledged that both prime minister Narendra Modi and external affairs minister S. Jaishankar had been “active and vocal” on the global stage last year, and noted that India will play a prominent diplomatic role this year through hosting the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation and the G20 summit.

Rajeev Ranjan Chaturvedy, an associate professor in international relations at India’s Nalanda University, said the nation’s 30th anniversary dialogue with Asean in 2022, which involved the relationship being elevated to Comprehensive Partnership status, had also raised New Delhi’s standing in the region.

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Chaturvedy added that many Southeast Asian nations viewed India as a “peaceful, non-threatening force”, while New Delhi’s strong economic performance and potential, its emphasis on multilateralism and its refusal to submit to China’s “territorial grab” had also played a role in raising its status, he said.

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