Jagannath Panda and Richard Ghiasy
In 2022, India’s Minister for External Affairs S. Jaishankar outlined India’s vision for Asia and, more broadly, the Indo-Pacific by stressing “more collaboration and more integration.” For India, that can only be achieved if Asian countries “consolidate” their independence and expand their “freedom of choice” – a likely reference to India’s hard-fought democracy.
Such Indian sentiment is not a current fad but is closely interlinked with the ramifications of hundreds of years of colonialism that, among other things, laid the framework for India’s unstable borders and the post-independence non-aligned past.
At the same time, India’s core security concerns directly result from its Asian rival China’s phenomenal rise and resultant intent to upend the regional security order, including the status quo along India’s borders. So even as India’s vision for an Asian security order is not yet entirely well-formed, China’s presence as a permanent adversary and its drive for a more Sino-centric Asian security order has given impetus to India’s rhetoric for a multipolar alternative. India’s Indo-Pacific convergence with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the United States, and Europe, as well as like-minded regional partners, many of whom are U.S. allies, such as Australia, Japan, France, the European Union, Vietnam, and the Philippines, must be seen through this lens.
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