India and ASEAN: The Act East Policy Explained

When people ask how India looks at the world to its east, the short answer is the Act East Policy. It is India’s framework for deeper economic, strategic, cultural and people-to-people engagement with Southeast Asia, East Asia and the wider Indo-Pacific. At its heart sits the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, better known as ASEAN, a ten-member regional bloc that India treats as the anchor of its eastern outreach.

The policy did not appear overnight. It grew out of the “Look East Policy” of the early 1990s, which was upgraded and renamed in 2014 to add sharper strategic, security and connectivity goals. This explainer traces that journey, the institutions and agreements involved, the roads and ports that are meant to join India to its eastern neighbours, and the hurdles that still slow things down.

Quick Facts

The Act East Policy: Origins and Evolution

Why India Looks East: The Strategic Logic

Geography explains much of the story. India’s eastern coastline faces the Bay of Bengal, beyond which lie the Andaman Sea and the Strait of Malacca, one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world. The Andaman and Nicobar Islands, an Indian territory, sit close to the northern entrance of that strait. On land, India’s North-Eastern states share borders with Myanmar, and through Myanmar the road runs on to Thailand and the Mekong countries.

For centuries, however, India’s attention in the post-independence period lay more towards the west and the neighbourhood of South Asia. Southeast Asia, a region India had once been linked with through trade, religion and art, was somewhat neglected. The Act East Policy is partly a correction of that gap.

Three broad motives

• Economic: access to some of the fastest-growing markets, supply chains and investment sources in Asia.
• Strategic: a stable, rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific, including safe sea lanes and respect for international law.
• Developmental: opening up India’s landlocked North-East by connecting it to neighbouring economies instead of leaving it at the end of the road.

From Look East to Act East: The Evolution

The Look East Policy was born in a very particular moment. The Cold War had ended, the Soviet Union had dissolved, and India had launched sweeping economic reforms in 1991 after a severe balance-of-payments crisis. India needed new partners, new markets and new sources of capital. The booming economies of Southeast Asia, such as Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia, offered a model and an opportunity. Prime Minister P. V. Narasimha Rao articulated this shift, and in the early 1990s India began actively courting ASEAN.

Phase one: economic integration

In its first phase, Look East was largely about trade and investment. India moved from being an outsider to ASEAN to becoming a formal partner, and a series of dialogue mechanisms were set up. The emphasis was on tariffs, business links and institutional access.

Phase two: widening the canvas

From the early 2000s the policy widened beyond ASEAN to include East Asian economies such as Japan and South Korea, as well as Australia and the Pacific, and acquired a security flavour through naval exercises and maritime dialogue.

The 2014 upgrade

In 2014 the government announced the shift from “Look East” to “Act East”. The wording was deliberate. The new label stressed implementation: faster delivery of projects, a stronger role for India’s North-East, deeper defence ties and a clearer place for India in the Indo-Pacific. In short, it kept the original economic purpose but made it more action-oriented and security-aware.

Look East vs Act East: A Comparison

What Is ASEAN?

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations was founded on 8 August 1967 in Bangkok by five countries: Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Brunei joined in 1984, followed by Vietnam in 1995, Laos and Myanmar in 1997, and Cambodia in 1999, bringing the membership to ten. Timor-Leste has since moved to join as a newer entrant. The ASEAN Secretariat is based in Jakarta.

ASEAN works by consensus and non-interference in members’ internal affairs, a style often called the “ASEAN Way”. It is not a supranational body like the European Union. It is a platform where diverse countries, large and small, rich and poor, coordinate on trade, security and diplomacy. Its three pillars cover political-security, economic and socio-cultural cooperation.

Why ASEAN matters to India

• It is a region of hundreds of millions of people and a large collective economy.
• It sits across the sea routes that carry a large share of India’s trade.
• It hosts the main forums in which Asian security is discussed, from the ASEAN Regional Forum to the East Asia Summit.

Milestones in India-ASEAN Ties

India’s relationship with ASEAN has been upgraded step by step over three decades. Each rung opened up new areas of cooperation.

Pillar One: Commerce, Trade and the RCEP Question

Trade is the oldest pillar of the engagement. The framework for the ASEAN-India Free Trade Area (AIFTA) was agreed in 2003, the trade in goods agreement took effect in 2010, and agreements on services and investment followed in the middle of the decade. Together they cut or removed tariffs on a large share of traded goods.

ASEAN has become one of India’s largest trading partners, with two-way trade running to well over US$100 billion in recent years. India exports items such as refined petroleum products, engineering goods, pharmaceuticals, gems and agricultural commodities, and imports palm oil, electronics, machinery, coal and chemicals.

The trade deficit concern

India has typically imported more from ASEAN than it has exported, and the resulting trade deficit has been a source of concern for Indian industry. Exporters have also complained about non-tariff barriers, while some domestic sectors worry about cheaper imports entering through preferential channels. For this reason both sides have been reviewing the goods agreement to make it more balanced and easier to use.

India and the RCEP Question

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a large trade pact negotiated among ASEAN and six partners: China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand and India. India took part in the negotiations for years but chose to stay out in November 2019, when the other participants announced they would conclude the agreement.

Reasons India cited

• Fear that a surge of low-cost imports, particularly from China, could harm farmers, dairy producers and small manufacturers.
• An already large trade deficit with several RCEP members.
• Concern that safeguards against sudden import surges were inadequate and that market access in services was limited.

The decision remains a talking point. Critics argue that staying out leaves India outside a major economic bloc and may limit its integration into regional supply chains. Supporters say it protected sensitive sectors. The door has been described as open for India to join later if its concerns are met, and India continues to rely on bilateral and regional trade agreements to deepen economic links with the region.

Pillar Two: Connectivity and the North-East Gateway

Connectivity is the pillar that most clearly separates Act East from Look East. The idea is simple: trade and cultural links grow when goods and people can move easily by road, rail, river, sea and air.

India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway

This planned road of roughly 1,400 km is meant to link Moreh in Manipur with Mae Sot in Thailand through Myanmar, passing near Bagan. Parts of the Indian side and sections inside Myanmar have been built, while other stretches have faced delays. There are also proposals to extend it towards Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam.

Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project

The Kaladan project is designed to give the landlocked North-East a route to the sea that does not depend only on the narrow Siliguri corridor. It combines several modes of transport:

• sea transport from Kolkata to the Sittwe port in Myanmar;
• river transport on the Kaladan river from Sittwe to Paletwa;
• a road from Paletwa to Zorinpui on the border of Mizoram.

Work on the port and river components has progressed further than the road link, which has been affected by terrain and local security conditions.

Key Projects at a Glance

The North-East as India’s Land Bridge

For the Act East Policy to work on the ground, India’s own North-Eastern states must benefit. Historically, the region was cut off by Partition in 1947, which severed its natural trade routes through what became East Pakistan and later Bangladesh. It is linked to the rest of India by a narrow land strip in West Bengal, often called the “Chicken’s Neck”, and this geography has long constrained its economy.

Act East reimagines the region as a gateway rather than a cul-de-sac. Border trade points such as Moreh in Manipur, which faces the Myanmar town of Tamu, are central to that vision. The Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region and other agencies promote infrastructure, border haats and integrated check posts to make crossing smoother.

Why it matters

• It can create jobs and trade opportunities in a historically underdeveloped region.
• It reduces dependence on a single narrow corridor for access to the sea.
• It links local communities that share ethnic and cultural ties across borders, in places such as Manipur, Mizoram, Nagaland and neighbouring Myanmar.

Pillar Three: Culture, Heritage and the Diaspora

Few regions share as much cultural DNA with India as Southeast Asia. Indian traders, priests and scholars travelled across the Bay of Bengal in ancient times, and with them travelled ideas, scripts, epics and religions. Southeast Asia’s classical kingdoms absorbed Hindu and Buddhist traditions and made them their own.

Living traces of a shared past

• The temple complex of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, originally built as a Hindu temple dedicated to Vishnu.
• Borobudur, a vast Buddhist monument, and Prambanan, a Hindu temple complex, both in Java, Indonesia.
• The Ramayana tradition, which lives on as the Ramakien in Thailand, the Kakawin Ramayana in Indonesia and in dance, puppetry and theatre across the region.
• The Hindu culture of Bali, and Sanskrit-derived words in languages such as Thai, Khmer, Malay and Indonesian.
• The maritime reach of the Chola dynasty, whose naval expeditions in the eleventh century are well remembered in the region.

Indian-origin communities, particularly in Singapore, Malaysia and Myanmar, form a living bridge. India uses this heritage in its diplomacy through scholarships, cultural centres, festivals, Buddhist circuit tourism, and restoration work on heritage sites in countries such as Cambodia, Vietnam and Myanmar.

Pillar Four: Security and the Indo-Pacific

As Act East matured, security cooperation grew in importance. India participates in the main security forums of the region and conducts naval and military exercises with several ASEAN states.

Forums and mechanisms

• East Asia Summit (EAS): a leaders-level forum on strategic issues, with India a participant since its first meeting in 2005.
• ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF): a security dialogue India joined in 1996.
• ADMM-Plus: the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting with eight dialogue partners, covering areas such as maritime security, counter-terrorism and humanitarian assistance.

Maritime cooperation and the South China Sea

India supports freedom of navigation, overflight and the peaceful resolution of disputes in line with international law, including the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS). Several ASEAN members have competing claims in the South China Sea, and India has backed a rules-based approach rather than taking sides on sovereignty. Defence ties have broadened through naval exercises, port calls, training programmes and arms cooperation, with Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia and Singapore among the partners.

SAGAR, IPOI and ASEAN Centrality

Alongside Act East, India has built several related frameworks that help explain its approach to the wider maritime region.

SAGAR

SAGAR stands for “Security and Growth for All in the Region”. Announced in 2015, it set out India’s vision for the Indian Ocean: safe seas, shared prosperity, capacity-building for littoral states and cooperation against threats such as piracy and trafficking.

Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI)

Launched in 2019 at the East Asia Summit in Bangkok, the IPOI is an open, non-treaty initiative that invites countries to work together on themes such as maritime security, ecology, resources, capacity-building, disaster risk reduction, science and technology, and trade and connectivity.

ASEAN centrality

India repeatedly endorses “ASEAN centrality”, the idea that ASEAN should remain at the centre of the region’s diplomatic architecture rather than being overshadowed by great-power rivalry. ASEAN’s own Outlook on the Indo-Pacific, adopted in 2019, emphasises inclusiveness and cooperation, and it overlaps with India’s vision of a free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific.

Balancing China’s Influence

No discussion of India and ASEAN is complete without the China factor. China is a very large trading partner of the region and a major investor. Its growing naval presence and its claims in the South China Sea concern several regional states. Many ASEAN countries therefore prefer to diversify their partnerships, and they welcome India as one of several balancing powers.

India does not frame its role as containment. Official language stresses inclusive cooperation. Still, the strategic effect is clear: a larger Indian footprint gives Southeast Asian states more options. At the same time, India has its own concerns, including border tensions with China, and a competitive presence in the Indian Ocean. Act East, in this sense, is a way to ensure that no single power dominates the region, while also pursuing economic gains.

Challenges and the Road Ahead

For all its promise, the engagement faces real obstacles. Analysts commonly point to a handful of them.

• Slow project execution: flagship road and port projects have suffered long delays because of land, terrain, funding, contractor and security issues.
• Trade deficit: India imports more than it exports to the bloc, and utilisation of the free trade agreement by Indian exporters has been limited.
• RCEP absence: staying out of the major regional trade pact limits India’s role in regional value chains.
• Instability in Myanmar: political turmoil and conflict there have hampered cross-border connectivity.
• Competition from China: Chinese infrastructure financing and trade ties are deep and well established.
• Border and logistical barriers: weak customs facilities, limited rail and air links, and visa or payment frictions.

Where the opportunities lie

Possible growth areas include digital payments and fintech cooperation, renewable energy, supply-chain resilience, education and skill exchange, tourism, defence production and a revamped trade agreement. If connectivity projects on the eastern frontier are completed on schedule, the North-East could finally move from the margins to the middle of India’s economic map.

Conclusion

The journey from the Look East Policy of the early 1990s to the Act East Policy of 2014 shows how India’s outlook has matured. What began as an economic outreach to fast-growing neighbours has become a broader vision that blends trade, connectivity, culture and security. ASEAN remains the cornerstone of that vision, and its partnership with India has deepened from a sectoral dialogue in 1992 to a comprehensive strategic partnership.

The real test lies in delivery: finishing highways, boosting balanced trade and making the most of the North-East’s position. Last updated: 1 October 2026.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is India’s Act East Policy?

The Act East Policy is India’s framework for engaging Southeast Asia, East Asia and the wider Indo-Pacific on trade, connectivity, culture and security. It was announced in 2014 as an upgrade of the earlier Look East Policy. Its emphasis is on faster implementation and a stronger strategic role.

What is the difference between Look East and Act East?

The Look East Policy, launched in the early 1990s under Prime Minister Narasimha Rao, was mainly economic and focused on ASEAN. The Act East Policy keeps those goals but adds a larger security and connectivity dimension, a wider geographic scope and a central role for India’s North-East.

Why did India stay out of the RCEP?

India withdrew from the RCEP negotiations in November 2019. It cited concerns about a possible flood of cheap imports, its existing trade deficits with several members, inadequate protection against import surges and limited gains in services. India continues to pursue bilateral and regional trade deals instead.

What are the main India-ASEAN connectivity projects?

The two best-known projects are the India-Myanmar-Thailand Trilateral Highway, linking Moreh in Manipur to Mae Sot in Thailand, and the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transit Transport Project, which connects Kolkata to Mizoram through Sittwe port and the Kaladan river. Both have faced delays but remain central to the policy.

How did India’s partnership with ASEAN develop over time?

India became a sectoral dialogue partner in 1992, a full dialogue partner in 1995, and a summit-level partner in 2002. In 2012 the relationship was upgraded to a strategic partnership, and in 2022 it was elevated to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.

Why is the North-East important to the Act East Policy?

The North-Eastern states share borders with Myanmar and form India’s natural land bridge to Southeast Asia. Roads, border trade posts and transit routes through this region are meant to connect India to ASEAN markets while also boosting the economy of the North-East itself.

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