India and South-East Asia-Search for a Role

Search for a Role INDIA'S post-independence view of southeast Asia within a prism of the cold war and her political and territorial confrontations with China and Pakistan now come to haunt her. Her initial view of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) as a probable western Trojan horse did not help. When she did focus her attention at the region, after the Vietnam war, it was as a sideshow to China's perceived threat. So when her economic reforms and political developments demanded a link, few in ASEAN supported her bid. That is New Delhi' sdilemma as the prime minister, P V Narasimha Rao, prepares to visit Malaysia in August.