Asia's Arc of Advantage - icrier

Recommendations
The “Emerging Asia” Conference organised by the ICRIER Wadhwani Chair in February 2013
has resulted in the policy papers included in this report. The key findings and recommendations
are given below.
Regional architecture and multilateral frameworks
• Given the ongoing global power shifts, there is an urgent need to recognise the “Indo-Pacific”
as the new geo-strategic theatre for Asia, which can constitute the basis for constructing
multilateral frameworks for a balanced regional security order.
• Under a strategic perspective that sees the Pacific and Indian Oceans as a single continuum,
Southeast Asia becomes a hinge that links East and South Asia. 10
• Rooted in the recognition that ASEAN’s coherence is in India’s vital national interest, India
has repeatedly underlined ASEAN centrality in shaping the future of East Asia. However,
the slogan of “ASEAN centrality” needs to be backed by a more robust Indian engagement
with ASEAN, collectively and individually, in both the political and security domains.
• With the US defining its rebalance to Asia as “mostly a political and economic concept, not
a military one” and recognising ASEAN’s “indispensable” role in regional stability, India-
ASEAN-US convergences have grown and should be further developed.
• The United States and India should continue their dialogue on East Asia to create further
synergies between India’s Look East Policy and the US rebalance towards Asia.
• The India-US-Japan Trilateral Dialogue should be expanded to include ASEAN issues.
• There is need for greater consultation and co-ordination between the diplomatic
representatives of India, ASEAN and the US in regional fora.
• The EAS forum has emerged after more than two decades of regional contestation on the
need for a framework for inter-Asian economic and security cooperation. The idea of an
open, inclusive, transparent and balanced architecture, with participation of countries with
legitimate interests and capabilities, has finally prevailed. The EAS must be strengthened as
the leading forum to address political and security issues in the region, with ASEAN as the
pivot of the emerging security architecture.
• There is ample room in the region for “multi-track” regional arrangements in which all EAS
countries have an equal stake in building regional trust and norms through overlapping institutions
like the EAS, the ADMM+8 dialogue and an expanded ASEAN Maritime Forum (AMF).
• No single country can shape and sustain the security architecture in Asia. China should join
hands with the US, India, Japan and ASEAN to reinvigorate efforts to advance a rule-based
and balanced multilateral security architecture through the EAS process.
• Security challenges and power imbalances can be met more effectively by bolstering Asian
multi-polarity.
10 Bronson Percival, “US-INDIA: Parallel Links Along China’s Southern Periphery,” Asia Pacific Bulletin, June 1,
2011, No. 114, available at http://www.eastwestcenter.org/publications/us-india-parallel-links-along-chinassouthern-periphery.
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