The Evolution Of India 's Independent Southeast Asian Policy

As the largest country in South Asia, India was born with mentality and view of a major country. Nehru has asserted that ’India should be the center of Asia’, and that India should strive to be a impressive nation in the world. As the leader of the non-alignment movement ever since its independence, India has provided help and support to the southeast countries, which in turn were warmly welcomed. However, friendly relationship between the two sides was not that smooth. Southeast Asia was not always the apple of India’s eyes. From 1962 to 1991, India failed to realize the importance of Southeast Asia region due to the refrainment of the bipolar system during the cold war, thus missed the chance to be the member of ASEAN, and the approaching USSR decision added to impediment of developing further relationship with Southeast Asia. When the cold war was over, the non-alignment movement, which has once won India international reputation, has lost its vitality, and the collapse of USSR greatly impacted the diplomatic bases that India valued. India has to face toward the promising Southeast Asia region to get itself more space to develop. Therefore, India conducted frequent interactions with Southeast Asia countries in fields including economy, politics,security and culture.Such changes in India’s Southeast policy could be explained from the adjustment of India’s cognition especially in the aspects of economy, security, politics and its identity. To 1990 s, India’s view on security gradually converted from non-alignment to a mode of collaborative security, which prompted India to revalue its cooperation with Southeast Asia. From the perspective of International pattern, India deems itself as one of the six powers in the Asian Pacific region. In the guidance of such a mindset, Rao put forward the famous ’look east’ policy and Southeast Asia,as the center of the policy, is playing an increasingly important role in India’s foreign policy.