India and Southeast Asia: Revisited

In November 2002, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) held its first summit with India in Cambodia. This article examines whether the ASEAN—India Summit could be considered as a successful outcome of India's engagement strategy with Southeast Asia through its "Look East" policy. The diplomatic overtures and actions by India to cultivate the Southeast Asian region were clearly visible when Indian Prime Minister Vajpayee visited the Southeast Asian region several times in 2001. The article argues that India's "Look East" policy has been mainly reinvigorated by China's interests in ASEAN's riparian states along the Mekong River, namely, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam. With the inclusion of Myanmar in ASEAN in 1997, India has come to share a common land border with an ASEAN member state and this has increased India's potential influence in the region.