Expanding horizon of India's Southeast Asia policy

"This book is an endeavour to present a comprehensive analysis of India's "Look East" (rechristened "Act East") Policy--a foreign policy perspective of India vis-à-vis the countries of Southeast Asia, officially inaugurated in 1991, in the context of the New Economic Policy. It takes cognizance of the gestation, evolution and enhanced dynamism of this policy pursued by successive Governments in India. It is acknowledged as a policy initiated and sustained by India to re-engage with the countries of Southeast Asia during the First Phase (1991-2001) of the "Look East" sojourn and eventually extend its domain to embrace the countries of East Asia and Asia-Pacific in the Second Phase, "Move East") (2002-April 2014) of the policy. Under the present Government, though the spirit remains unchanged, the policy has been renamed "Act East," and it aspires to be more proactive, developmental and more engaging. It is in this context that the book analyses the political, strategic and economic contours of the policy through the two "Look East" and the present "Act East" phases. It is a comprehensive attempt to discuss India's relations with the ASEAN and ASEAN+3+2 members (China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand) spanning a period of more than two decades of "Look East" execution as well as the contours of cooperation under the "Act East" spectrum, thus entailing a comparative retrospective of the success of the doctrine"--back cover.