Southeast Asia is often described as a confluence zone situated between the South of China and East of India. ASEAN and its affiliate institutions, as manifestations of Southeast Asian regional aspirations, are at the centre stage of the Indo-Pacific region, directly impacted by the major power politics involving not just the US–China dynamics but the growing role of India, Japan, Australia, South Korea, New Zealand, Russia, and the European Union as well. Notwithstanding initial successes and failures of post-War Asian regionalism, Indian and Chinese institutional engagement with ASEAN only began during the 1990s. Over the past three-and-a-half decades, ASEAN’s ties with both India and China have progressed well with the region attracting greater diplomatic competition among stakeholders vying for economic and soft power influence as well as strategic leverage. This paper aims to analyse the extent to which Southeast Asian engagement with China and/or India could lead to polarisation or partnership. It also aims to examine the conditions under which the potential downside of polarisation competes with the benefits of the partnership. This paper argues that while ASEAN could exercise moderating influence on the two Asian giants in pursuing greater cooperation with the region, its ability to do so gets severely constrained if India–China relations take a more confrontational turn. In essence, ASEAN’s cooperation with China and India hinges on two critically important aspects: (1) China and India’s own interests and aspirations in the Indo-Pacific regional dynamics as well as their bilateral equations and (2) ASEAN’s ability to lead the regional discourse in favour of multipolarity and multilateralism by keeping its normative agency intact.
This study examines how citizens evaluated the legitimacy of freedom-restricting measures implemented during the COVID-19 pandemic. Focusing on EU member states during the early phase of the pandemic, the analysis explores how political trust, evaluations of government responses, economic perceptions, and individual characteristics were associated with public attitudes toward emergency restrictions. Using individual-level survey data, the findings suggest that higher levels of trust in government and healthcare institutions, as well as more positive evaluations of pandemic responses, were associated with greater acceptance of restrictive measures. In contrast, individuals experiencing greater economic hardship were less likely to regard such measures as legitimate. Perceptions regarding the balance between public health and economic concerns also played an important role, indicating that citizens were more likely to support restrictions when policies were viewed as balanced and proportionate. These findings underscore the importance of political trust, institutional performance, and economic vulnerability in shaping public acceptance of emergency measures and provide baseline evidence for understanding legitimacy in future democratic crisis governance.
The period of the Act East Policy (AEP) has seen an increase in the intensity of defence engagement with Southeast Asia. Though India is not a major arms supplier to Southeast Asian countries. It has aspirations to become a major defence partner of Southeast Asia, which it is trying to build through its defence engagement, consisting of military exercises, port visits, military dialogues, training courses, joint exercises and Coordinated Patrols (CORPATs). By tracing India’s defence engagement with Southeast Asian countries from the beginning of the Look East Policy (LEP) in 1992, the article uncovers the underlying reasons behind the transformation in the intensity of India’s defence engagement with Southeast Asia. The findings reveal the following four factors behind the increase in the intensity of defence engagement: Southeast Asian countries’ desire for India to play a greater role in the region, the USA push for India to play a more active role in the region, India’s deterioration in relations with China, and its rising economic interests. It highlights the potential of India’s extensive defence engagement in opening up the possibility of broader defence cooperation with Southeast Asian countries at a time when other regional stakeholders, such as Japan and Australia, are steadfast in grabbing up the opportunities presented by the great power competition between the USA and China in the region.
India’s evolving relationship with Southeast Asian nations over the past decade offers intriguing insights. Despite the differences in the political systems and forms of governance, India’s presence in Southeast Asia has grown robustly. While India’s civilizational ties with the region date back centuries, the past decade has seen these cultural connections leveraged to strengthen relationships and advance strategic and economic interests. The Act East Policy, a significant shift from the Look East Policy (from merely recognizing the geostrategic significance of Southeast Asia to India to a tangible set of measures), positions India as a key stakeholder in the region. This paper argues that India’s bilateral and multilateral relationships with the Southeast Asian countries transcend the existing conceptual and theoretical frameworks, blending nationalism with internationalism. The Act East Policy seamlessly integrates civilizational ties and strategic interests. This paper explores and critically analyses the processes, concrete measures and values through which the Act East Policy operates.
