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Asean

India stands with ASEAN for peace, progress in Indo-Pacific: PM

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday expressed concern over ongoing conflicts in various parts of the world at the 19th East Asia Summit at Vientiane, Lao PDR and said this is not the age of war and solutions to problems cannot be found in the battlefield.

Balancing act 

With a combined population inching towards 700 million, ASEAN’s 10 member-states together form the world’s fifth-largest economy with a GDP of $3.2 trillion.

Limits of consensus

As a recent Brookings Institution report noted, both the USA and China “would profit from the existence of third-party mechanisms that can provide impartial information, suggest road maps for deconfliction, and outline pathways for collaboration that neither side might trust if emanating from the other”. Asean exerts more influence on China than is commonly understood, especially given its ability to inflict “reputational cost” on Beijing.