Republic of India - Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Relations

Hindustani78

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 19, 2017
Messages
1,326
Likes
386
Ministry of Commerce & Industry
23-January, 2018 10:11 IST


Inauguration of ASEAN India Business and Investment and Expo, Promoting Mutual Trade and Investment, 22-23rd January, 2018


The ASEAN – India Business and Investment Meet and Expo was jointly inaugurated by Mr Suresh Prabhu, Hon’ble Minister of Commerce and Industry, India with the ASEAN Ministers and Gen. (Dr.) (Retd.) V K Singh, Hon’ble Minister of State for External Affairs, India. The Ministers from ASEAN countries included H.E. Mr Lim Jock Seng, Hon’ble Minister at the Prime Minister’s office and Second Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Brunei, H.E. Mr Enggartiasto Lukita, Hon’ble Minister of Trade, Indonesia, H.E. U Khin Maung Cho, Hon’ble Union Minister of Industry, Myanmar, H.E. Mr Chhuon Dara, Hon’ble Secretary of State, Ministry of Commerce, Cambodia, H.E. Ms Nora Kakilala Terado, Under Secretary, Department of Trade and Industry, Philippines, H.E. Ms Chutima Bunyapraphasara, Hon’ble Deputy Minister of Commerce, Thailand, H.E. Mr Cao Quoc Hung, Hon’ble Vice Minister of Industry and Trade, Vietnam. H.E. Mr Lim Jock Hoi, Secretary General of ASEAN had also attended the event.

The inaugural plenary, on the theme of ‘Promoting Mutual Trade and Investment for Shared Prosperity’ covered discussions on strengthening India’s economic relations with the countries in the East with both sides aiming to scale up bilateral trade and investment in the region. The session focused on trade facilitation measures taken to promote trade between India and ASEAN countries in manufacturing sector, promoting SME ecosystem to enhance entrepreneurship quotient in the region and startup culture to create new pipeline of ideas.

Mr Suresh Prabhu, Hon’ble Minister of Commerce and Industry, thanked the ASEAN ministers for their presence stating that India and ASEAN share deep and strong relations. He stressed that India is looking forward to further deepening our engagement with ASEAN, with all the special commemorative events lined up for the next few days, celebrating our Shared Values and Common Destiny. He further stated that this event will help to envision the next 25 years of India-ASEAN relations, highlighting our various sectoral collaborations.

ASEAN India Expo showcases the best in trade and services in India and ASEAN region. Buyers and exhibitors across the sectors such as Infrastructure, manufacturing, manufacturing & engineering, ICT, healthcare, Tourism, Environment, Agriculture, Science & technology, Finance and Banking, Logistics and Retail are participating in the Expo. The Expo has participation from businesses and CEOs across ASEAN countries, ASEAN country Pavilions, Pavilions of Indian States and Export Promotion Councils.

The sessions and discussions to be held on 23rd January 2018, the second day of the event will focus on sectors of mutual interest particularly namely Services, Regional Value Chains and Connectivity, Agriculture, Trade and Investment. The technical sessions will be presided by Mr Ravi Shankar Prasad, Minister for Electronics and Information Technology and Law and Justice, Smt. Harsimrat Kaur, Minister for Food Processing Industries and the Valedictory Session by Sh. Arun Jaitley, Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs.




***
 

Hindustani78

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 19, 2017
Messages
1,326
Likes
386
The Union Minister for Textiles and Information & Broadcasting, Smt. Smriti Irani releasing a Coffee Table Book “India-ASEAN Weaving Textiles Relationship”, at the Fabric Show of India-ASEAN Weaving Textiles Relations, in New Delhi on January 23, 2018.



The Union Minister for Textiles and Information & Broadcasting, Smt. Smriti Irani witnessing the Fabric Show of India-ASEAN Weaving Textiles Relations, in New Delhi on January 23, 2018. The Minister of State for External Affairs, General (Retd.) V.K. Singh is also seen.


The Union Minister for Textiles and Information & Broadcasting, Smt. Smriti Irani witnessing the Fabric Show of India-ASEAN Weaving Textiles Relations, in New Delhi on January 23, 2018. The Minister of State for External Affairs, General (Retd.) V.K. Singh is also seen.

The Union Minister for Textiles and Information & Broadcasting, Smt. Smriti Irani addressing at the Fabric Show of India-ASEAN Weaving Textiles Relations, in New Delhi on January 23, 2018.
 

Hindustani78

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 19, 2017
Messages
1,326
Likes
386
A group of senior journalists from ASEAN countries calling on the Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways, Shipping and Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation, Shri Nitin Gadkari, in New Delhi on January 23, 2018.


A group of senior journalists from ASEAN countries calling on the Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways, Shipping and Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation, Shri Nitin Gadkari, in New Delhi on January 23, 2018.

The Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways, Shipping and Water Resources, River Development & Ganga Rejuvenation, Shri Nitin Gadkari with a group of senior journalists from ASEAN countries, in New Delhi on January 23, 2018.
 

Hindustani78

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 19, 2017
Messages
1,326
Likes
386
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/saarc-can-learn-from-asean/article22499756.ece?homepage=true

One of Singapore’s best known diplomats and now an academic, Kishore Mahbubani’s latest book The ASEAN miracle advocates a Nobel peace prize for the regional grouping. Ahead of the ASEAN-India 25th year commemorative summit to be held this week, with all 10 leaders of the Association as chief guests at Republic Day, Professor Mahbubani says SAARC has much to learn from ASEAN’s success.

You have called ASEAN a miracle and even recommended the Nobel peace prize for the grouping. Why?
The key point is that regional organisations are designed to fail. Because you are getting together a group of neighbouring countries, so it’s not a grouping of choice, but an accident of geography.

Most neighbours have a long history of feuds and problems, so they have to overcome the challenges of history to come together, and hence don’t do well. Except for maybe the European Union and ASEAN, and for the EU it took two major world wars before they decided to stop fighting.

ASEAN has achieved the same level of peace and prosperity without going to war, as the Europeans did. At the same time there is no other region on Planet Earth that is so diverse. You have 600 million people, of which 214 million are Muslim, 110 million are Christian, 150 million are Buddhist…even within the Buddhists you have Mahayana and Hinayana sects, then you have Taoists, Confucionists, Hindus, Communists, there is such amazing diversity.

When it was born in 1967, South East Asia was by far the most troubled place on earth. There were more bombs dropped in Indo-China (Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos) than all of Europe in World War II. And we overcame all that and created a community that is today so peaceful.

If you could achieve this level of prosperity in South Asia, with India and Pakistan’s problems, or in the Middle East with the Saudi Arabia-Iran rivalry, people would say, what a miracle, you should get a Nobel Peace Prize. ASEAN has achieved that.

Isn’t ASEAN divided too today, amidst pro-US and pro-China camps?
Look, ASEAN countries have diverse views on many things. Take for example, the Israel-Palestine issue. Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei don’t have diplomatic relations with Israel, but Singapore has a very close relationship with Israel. Between U.S. and China, I would say there is a spectrum of views. Some like Cambodia maybe more pro-China, Vietnam is more pro-America. But at the same time Vietnam’s number one trading partner is China. In 1979, the border between China and Vietnam had one million soldiers on each side confronting each other. Today, they are gone. So all ASEAN countries have different positions on US and China, but they make efforts for good relations with both.

You’ve famously said that ASEAN was started because of a 4-letter word: Fear, meaning fear of Communist China overrunning them in the 1960s and 1970s. Does that fear still guide them?
The fears that we had in the 1960s was because of the spread of communism, and if you remember Russia and China were together. China referred to the creation of ASEAN as a neo-imperialist plot. Things only turned around after the US-China Nixon détente, and then China normalised relations with all ASEAN countries. Today it is not so much the fear of China, but the fear that the US-China geopolitical rivalry will divide ASEAN.

You write that the US’s choices with China in the Indo-pacific are to “pivot, poison or to make peace”. What does that mean?
Well, I believe the biggest mistake the U.S. could do is mount some kind of containment policy of China. All China’s neighbours would be uncomfortable to join the US in this, and even Japan would be very cautious. They want to balance and hedge against China, but not contain China. The US also gives mixed signals: on the economic front they have good relations, but on the military front, the US navy undertakes fairly aggressive patrolling close to China’s shores. If America continues this, the Chinese navy may begin aggressive patrolling along California’s shores. Instead, given new surveillance technology, they should create a new conduct code for patrolling.

To turn to the ASEAN-India relationship. You were a key diplomat when India was inducted as a dialogue partner 25 years ago, and Singapore is given credit for that. All these years later, do you think the promise of the relationship is being realised?
First, I would say it was then-PM Goh Chok Tong who pulled off the Indian induction, and I’ve written in the book about how the decision was taken to make India a dialogue partner, despite pressure not to unless Pakistan was included too. However, I do think the ASEAN-India partnership has not done as well as the other dialogue partnerships with US, [South] Korea, Japan, and Australia.

What would you advise the ASEAN 10 and Indian leaders when they meet this week for their commemorative summit- what should they commit to doing right away?
The ASEAN-India relationship is not just 25 years, it’s a few thousand years old, and it is important that the leaders draw from the deep well of history to build ties. Nine out of the ten ASEAN countries, all except Vietnam, have an Indian cultural base. Even when the Philippines, a 90% Catholic country hosted the East Asian summit in November last year, it opened with a Ramayana performance. Most Indians are so ignorant and unaware of these links however. The second thing to push for is more flights between ASEAN and Indian countries, to facilitate people to people exchanges.

How important is the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) to improving ASEAN-India trade ties, especially given the Indian government’s misgivings on the free trade agreement?
Well an American diplomat said publicly last week that the US knew RCEP could not be concluded within a year because they know how tough Indian trade negotiators are. I think India now needs to make a careful calculation. It will have to pay a short-term economic price for joining RCEP, but at the same time, if RCEP were formed without India, then the Indo-Pacific idea would be dead. Because if this entire region including Japan, China, S.Korea, Australia and ASEAN come together and form a thriving economic group but India is not a part of it, then what will the Indo-Pacific mean? Indo-Pacific can only succeed as a concept if India trades as much with the East Asian region as the East Asian region trades with itself. The purpose of RCEP is to draw India closer to East Asia. India may need to negotiate bilateral exemptions with China in order to join RCEP, but with ASEAN you must push for more trade.

Is there a danger of India being left out of RCEP? The government’s stand is not just about access to Chinese goods, but also about ASEAN reluctance on Indian services.
At some point, if India becomes the one country delaying an agreement on RCEP, then yes. ASEAN countries work on the “minus-X” principle. For example, when ASEAN was formed, Cambodia, Laos were not ready, so we said, we will go on first, and you can join later. There is a desire for the other countries to go ahead with RCEP, as there is a need for integration within the region, and they may just tell India they are going ahead.

The Indo-Pacific concept you referred to received a boost from the revived “Quad” meeting between India-US-Australia-Japan last year. How do you see the Quad?
I think you have to separate the Indo-Pacific idea from the Quad, as they are not necessarily the same. Indo-Pacific includes the region from the US to India including South East Asia and China. Whereas the Quad is confined to four countries on the periphery. It is an unusual marriage, a marriage of convenience for now.

A year into the Trump presidency, what is its impact on Asia?
There were huge concerns when President Trump took over, as he had threatened to declare China a currency manipulator, he said he would make Japan and South Korea defend themselves, and had a heated exchange with the Australian PM. So both competitors and US allies were worried. But then we discovered his bark is worse than his bite. In terms of policies Trump has been remarkably consistent, even on North Korea. There has been no war, and the US is backing talks still.

I ask because your next book is called “Has the West Lost it?” Is that about the worry of an American in decline, retrenching positions worldwide?
A: The US is not going to decline in absolute terms, and its GNP will keep growing. But in the 1960s, American GNP was 40% of the world GNP, and now that is down to 15% in purchasing power parity terms. It’s a very different world as a result. The US is number 2 compared to China, and soon could be number 3 to India. The Americans have great difficulty planning for this world, because they cannot accept that they are second to anyone. They ignored Bill Clinton when he said in 2003 that if America will be world number 1 for always, it should carry on. But if it isn’t then it should consider a world about rules and multilateralism more. Else they won’t be prepared.

If China and India are number 1 and 2 in the future, then will the Asian century inevitably be about their competitive rivalry?
[The then] PM Manmohan Singh said the world is big enough for both China and India to grow and he was right.

You spoke of the ASEAN miracle. How can South Asia emulate its success, given that the SAARC countries haven’t even been able to meet for years?
I think the one big lesson from ASEAN is that having regular meetings makes a huge difference to trust levels. I attended the initial ASEAN meetings with five countries in 1971, and the level of distrust was very high. Twenty years of meetings later, there was a world of difference. SAARC should consciously study ASEAN and build a habit of regular meetings at all levels. ASEAN has 1000 meetings a year on all kinds of issues. Health, infections, pandemics, are a common problem, for example. SAARC must build on these common areas.

India says SAARC cannot meet until Pakistan addresses the most common problem of the region: terrorism. How does one get beyond that?
It’s a question of what comes first. At ASEAN, Philippines claimed the island of Sabah, and Malaysia could have said we will not talk until the Philippines withdraws its claim. Now everyone has forgotten about it. ASEAN’s biggest strength is its culture of pragmatism. We look for solutions. Many said we should not have admitted Myanmar as it was ruled by the military. But we admitted Myanmar, and over time, it changed. So countries can change their behaviour because they become part of a regional coalition.

Another challenge to SAARC has come from China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), where except for India and Bhutan, every South Asian country has joined. How can India counter China’s money power in the region?
The best way for India to counter China’s influence in South Asia is..to increase India’s influence in South Asia. In theory, India should be in a much better position to have better relations with every SAARC country than China has. Even if you leave aside Pakistan, which is a dysfunctional relationship, there is so much in common with every country in the region. If you look at China and Taiwan, they both claim to be the same country, and yet they have a massive trade and investment relationship. So while technically they may be inimical to each other, economically they are practically fraternal. This is what India must do with Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives etc. Integrate them so closely economically, that they will always have to consider India’s views.

It sounds easier said than done.
A: You know, I actually said ASEAN was created because of three 4-letter words, not just Fear, but also Luck and Golf (laughs). Seriously, it is important for leaders and officials of countries to spend time together, because that is an important way to understand our commonalities and to break down the animosities that two countries feel. In addition, as the biggest country in the region, India should study Indonesia’s role in ASEAN. President Suharto was wise enough to say, we will let the smaller countries of ASEAN run the group, and took a backseat, and that is something India could try to do. Maybe sometimes that group will take decisions you don’t like, but eventually the group will come closer together.
 

prohumanity

Senior Member
Joined
Sep 2, 2013
Messages
1,290
Likes
1,362
Country flag
Kishore Mahbubani has a narrow point of view as he is the member of a fake news channels (CNN)in US and is a libtard who sees the world from his limited range of sight. Do not accept his utterings as all accurate.

The fact is that Indo pacific is changing as USA and other major players want a change and wants this region to wean off from Chinese dependency.

Then, there is new elephant in Indo pacific room and its name is India....If any of you have visited the region(I have)
you will see tell tale signs of thousand years of civilization ties in form of temples, pagodas, monumnets and Sanskrit names of cities, streets, islands etc. It will be so easy to relate with India once economic closeness is achieved.
The countries in the region do not love China and are in fact afraid that China can destroy their proud heritage and history about their glorious past culture and values.

The day is not very far when a major trade highway will zig zag from Kolkata to Yangon to Bangkok to Ho chi minh city ....all the way and trade flows will intensify between India and south east Asia.
 

Hindustani78

Senior Member
Joined
Nov 19, 2017
Messages
1,326
Likes
386

Prime Minister Narendra Modi during a retreat meeting with the ASEAN Heads of State at Rashtrapati Bhavan, in New Delhi on Thursday. | Photo Credit: PTI

http://www.thehindu.com/news/nation...ieties-modi/article22523145.ece?homepage=true

The Prime Minister stresses on maritime security links at summit.
Security and freedom of navigation will be in the heart of India-ASEAN cooperation in the twenty-first century, said Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday addressing the leaders of the ASEAN countries at the ASEAN-India Commemorative Summit. The leaders also agreed on establishing a joint mechanism to ensure safety and freedom of navigation in the maritime domain.

“Humanitarian and disaster relief efforts, security cooperation and freedom of navigation will be key focus areas for our maritime cooperation,” said Mr. Modi addressing heads of the ASEAN member states. The Prime Minister’s comments on ensuring smooth passage in the oceans came hours after he and the visiting leaders agreed on setting up a special mechanism on maintaining freedom of navigation.

MEA officials said the discussion on this issue took place during the ‘Retreat’ segment of the summit, held at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Details of this segment were not available to the media immediately. Secretary in charge of eastern affairs of the Ministry of External Affairs Preeti Saran said the mechanism that was discussed will be aimed at “Addressing both traditional and non-traditional challenges that all of us face collectively in the maritime domain sector...”

The statement on the maritime mechanism is significant as it is the first time that India has taken up forming of a special maritime mechanism with all the ASEAN heads of states at a single summit.

Maritime security and freedom of navigation featured prominently in the ‘Delhi Declaration,’ a joint statement that was issued after the plenary session of the Commemorative Summit.

The declaration indicated at common concern regarding the South China Sea and reaffirmed the “importance of maintaining and promoting peace, stability, maritime safety and security, freedom of navigation and overflight in the region, and other lawful uses of the seas and unimpeded lawful maritime commerce.”

Ms Saran also said that an agreement on maritime transport is under discussion as The Hindu had reported earlier. “A maritime transport MoU is being discussed and hope it will be finalised (in due course),” she said to the media.

The maritime domain has been in the centre of India’s Act East diplomacy which aims to firm up India’s position in the ASEAN and Asia Pacific region.

In recent public statements, the government of PM Narendra Modi has expressed support to ‘rule of law’ in the maritime sphere hinting at the growing military footprint of China in the South China Sea. Welcoming the heads of states at the Rashtrapati Bhavan, President Ram Nath Kovind also urged for upholding rule of law.
 

Global Defence

Articles

Top