Relations have been fraught since a border clash with Chinese forces in 2020, which killed at least 20 Indian soldiers<\/a>, according to the Indian army.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think the understanding in New Delhi had been: Let\u2019s not wade into waters where China might be more uncomfortable,\u201d Pant told CNBC, adding that Beijing has \u201cenormous potential to create trouble for India.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Since China hasn\u2019t \u201cbudged\u201d on the border issue, India \u201cnow feels there has been no real return for its cautious attitude towards Southeast Asia,\u201d he added. <\/p>\n\n\n\n India\u2019s foreign ministry did not respond to CNBC\u2019s request for comment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In June, India\u2019s external affairs minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, highlighted<\/a> the border conflict was affecting relations between the two countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Until Sino-India relations achieve \u201csome sense of normalcy,\u201d Pant said, New Delhi has few options but to ramp up ties with countries \u2014 \u201cbig or small around China\u2019s periphery, to ensure it has some leverage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In recent months, Prime Minister Narendra Modi\u2019s government has stepped up its outreach to regional countries aimed at balancing Beijing\u2019s aggression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The move reinforces India\u2019s ongoing comprehensive strategic partnership with Southeast Asia. <\/a> <\/p>\n\n\n\n In June, New Delhi said it was giving a naval warship to Vietnam<\/a>, in the latest sign of growing defense ties between both nations, said Satoru Nagao, non-resident fellow at Hudson Institute, based in Tokyo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIndia also trains pilots and ground crew of fighter jets of the Vietnam Air Force. Indian naval ships visited Vietnam constantly,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Vietnam is now planning to buy supersonic missiles and surface-to-air missiles from India, said Nagao, who specializes in defense strategy, foreign policy and security alliances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIndia\u2019s \u2018Look East\u2019 policy<\/a> began in 1991, well before China\u2019s growing assertiveness was a real problem in Southeast Asia,\u201d said Derek Grossman, a senior defense analyst at the Rand Corporation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBut by 2014, when Modi turned the policy into \u2018Act East,\u2019 it was apparent that the region and world was dealing with a different kind of China \u2014 Xi\u2019s China \u2014 which sought to flex its power more often and farther from Chinese shores,\u201d he said referring to Chinese leader Xi Jinping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Activists display anti-China placards and flags during a protest at a park in Manila on June 18, 2019, after a Chinese vessel last week collided with a Philippine fishing boat which sank in the disputed South China Sea and sailed away sparking outrage. Photo by TED ALJIBE \/ AFP) (Photo by TED ALJIBE\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Ted Aljibe | Afp | Getty Images<\/p>\n\n\n\n India caused a stir in late June when its foreign minister and his Filipino counterpart, Enrique Manalo, issued a joint statement<\/a>, urging China to abide by The Hague\u2019s 2016 arbitration decision<\/a> on the South China Sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The joint statement sparked speculation that New Delhi was shifting away from its neutral posture<\/a> on competing territorial claims in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a landmark ruling on the South China Sea dispute, the international tribunal in The Hague unanimously ruled in favor of the Philippines in a historic case against China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n China has rejected the 2016 ruling,<\/a> describing it as \u201cillegal and void.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Beijing claims almost the entire South China Sea \u2014 an assertion that is rejected by Malaysia, Vietnam, Brunei and the Philippines among others, in competing claims for the resource-rich waterway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n India \u201cis bolstering strategic ties \u2014 diplomatic, economic, and security \u2014 to Southeast Asian states to help them balance or hedge against, or outright counter Chinese power,\u201d said Rand\u2019s Grossman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThis is particularly salient to the maritime sphere, namely the South China Sea, where overlapping sovereignty disputes threaten regional stability and openness,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n China\u2019s expanding influence through its Belt and Road Initiative<\/a> in Southeast Asia is also driving India\u2019s calculation, according to Joanne Lin, co-coordinator of the ASEAN Studies Centre at ISEAS, at Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As a result, \u201csafeguarding India\u2019s security, especially maritime security will be important,\u201d Lin added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Most countries in the region have supported China\u2019s mega infrastructure project<\/a> \u2014 Xi\u2019s signature policy initiative aimed at expanding Beijing\u2019s influence through a network of road, rail and sea connections across Asia, Europe and the Middle East.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Observers note Beijing\u2019s more strident foreign policy, coupled with the political and economic leverage it could exert through the Belt and Road, has raised concerns in the region.<\/p>\n\n\n\n India is not a camp follower of either side. It continues to maintain a very independent streak in its foreign policy, which suits a large number of Southeast Asian countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Harsh V. Pant<\/p>\n\n\n\n OBSERVER RESEARCH FOUNDATION<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n Readjusting to an evolving international order defined primarily by the China-U.S. rivalry has also proven particularly challenging for Southeast Asian countries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Regional countries are \u201cengaging India because it is a power in its own right,\u201d noted Prashanth Parameswaran, a fellow at the Wilson Center and founder of the weekly ASEAN Wonk newsletter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n They see India as an \u201cimportant piece of a broader strategy of shaping a more multipolar order rather than one that is centered around China or dominated by U.S.-China bipolar competition,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A regional survey<\/a> published by the ASEAN Studies Centre at the ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute showed India\u2019s standing has improved greatly among Southeast Asian nations, despite its neutral stance<\/a> in Russia\u2019s war against Ukraine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIndia is the third top option for the region in hedging against the uncertainties of the US-China rivalry. Its ranking more than doubled from the last spot in 2022 to the third spot this year,\u201d said ISEAS\u2019s Lin, one of the authors of the survey. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Observers say that New Delhi also offers \u201ca way out\u201d for countries that seek to remain neutral in the U.S.-China conflict. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIndia is not a camp follower of either side,\u201d said Pant from New Delhi\u2019s Observer Research Foundation. \u201cIt continues to maintain a very independent streak in its foreign policy, which suits a large number of Southeast Asian countries.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n While China remained the most influential and strategic power in Southeast Asia, its standing has diminished, the Southeast Asia survey from February showed. China continues to be regarded as the most influential economic power by 59.9% of the respondents. However, its influence has declined significantly from 76.7% in 2022, as countries grew more wary of Beijing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For several states that \u201cmost distrust China in the region \u2014 namely the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, and Singapore,\u201d India is \u201can additional partner to help counter Beijing,\u201d noted Rand\u2019s Grossman.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, New Delhi\u2019s latest moves to deepen regional ties won\u2019t go unnoticed by Chinese leaders, analysts noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n China will be \u201ccautious\u201d about the developments, said Lin from ISEAS. \u201cIndia\u2019s growing influence in Southeast Asia and enhanced defense cooperation,\u201d among other issues \u201cwill cause unease in Beijing,\u201d she added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pant noted: \u201cChina will be watching this carefully and sending its own messages out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But given Southeast Asia \u201cis a central pillar to India\u2019s own Indo-Pacific strategy,\u201d that will not deter New Delhi,\u201d he added. \u201cIndia\u2019s push into the region will only continue to gather momentum.\u201d Sumathi Bala India is taking major strides to expand its influence in Southeast Asia, a move that will allow countries to counter China\u2019s dominance in the region. \u201cIndia certainly is becoming more ambitious in Southeast Asia. There is no doubt about it,\u201d said Harsh V. Pant, vice president for studies and foreign policy at Observer …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":7210,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[183,218,172],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asian-issues","category-reports-and-articles","category-172"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7209"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7209\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7212,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7209\/revisions\/7212"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a>Tightening ties<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
![\"Activists](\"https:\/\/image.cnbcfm.com\/api\/v1\/image\/107281853-1691130754550-gettyimages-1150410055-AFP_1HL90P.jpeg?v=1691972262&w=929&h=523&vtcrop=y\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n<\/a>Complex dynamic<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n
<\/a>\u2018A way out\u2019<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
(Source: CNBC)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"