In Asia's Season Of Summits, India Can Make Unique Contributions

BANGALORE: In Asia, it’s summit season again - the time of year when leaders from the Eurasian steppes to the Pacific Ocean gather at an alphabet soup of multilateral meetings. India has joined some of these groups - for instance, the East Asia Summit. It is about to join another - the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO).

And at the invitation of Chinese President Xi Jinping, its host, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will have the opportunity to attend a group that has long excluded India - the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. Meanwhile, India is weighing whether to join or revive a host of informal combinations, including trilaterals and quadrilaterals involving the US, Japan, Australia, China, and others.

But what has all this multilateralism wrought? Is Asia actually secure because it boasts large security groupings? Is it more prosperous for having large economic and financial groupings?

For two decades, inventing multilateral forums has rivalled badminton as the region’s leading indoor sport. But as India weighs how, in External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj’s words, to “Act, not just look, East”, it would do well to reflect on some experiences from these groups in recent years.

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