Topic 5 of 22
GS Paper 2 Act East Policy and Maritime Security India's twin-track diplomacy at ASEAN Regional Forum and East Asia Summit - maritime security capacity-sharing and counter-Pakistan diplomatic firewall

Picture two rooms in the same Manila hotel, an hour apart. In one, India is handing ASEAN navies live data on suspicious ships in their own waters, no strings attached. In the other, an Indian spokesperson is publicly shredding Pakistan's attempt to drag Kashmir into a forum built for the South China Sea. Same trip, same minister, two entirely different kinds of power on display.

| | Source: Ministry of External Affairs | Topic 5 of 22

Summary

External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar used the East Asia Summit and ASEAN Regional Forum in Manila to call for zero tolerance on terrorism and safe international waterways, a day after a security personnel was killed in Anantnag.

India also rejected Pakistan's attempt to raise Kashmir and the Indus Waters Treaty at the ARF, with the MEA spokesperson calling it an exploitation of a multilateral platform for disinformation.

WHY IN NEWS FOR UPSC & STATE PCS

Jaishankar's remarks at the 21st EAS and 33rd ARF came against the backdrop of a fresh terror attack in Kashmir and continuing attacks on merchant shipping linked to the West Asia conflict, giving both his terrorism and maritime-security points immediate real-world weight. Pakistan's attempt to internationalise Kashmir at the ARF and India's swift rebuttal, also reopened a recurring diplomatic contest that plays out at nearly every multilateral forum both countries share.

Standard News

Manila Wasn't One Speech

  • It Was Two Different Kinds of Diplomacy Running at Once Read the Manila trip as a single "India talks tough on terror" story and you miss what actually happened. Jaishankar was running two separate operations under one visit, aimed at two completely different audiences and conflating them misses why each one worked.

Operation One: Buying Trust With ASEAN, Not Just Words To the

ASEAN states, India wasn't there to make promises - it was there to hand over capability. The Information Fusion Centre - Indian Ocean Region and the Indo-Pacific Maritime Domain Awareness initiative are not diplomatic language; they are India sharing real-time tracking of "dark shipping," piracy and trafficking with countries that cannot build this infrastructure themselves.

For a Vietnam or a Philippines watching China's coast guard operate in their waters, that data-sharing is worth more than a joint statement on "shared values." India is calculating that becoming indispensable to ASEAN's own maritime awareness buys it something China's assertiveness cannot: quiet goodwill that doesn't require picking a public fight with Beijing.

Operation Two: Shutting a Door Before Pakistan Could Open It The

Pakistan exchange looks like a side note in most coverage, but it was the second, harder-edged half of the same trip. Ishaq Dar tried to use the ARF - a security dialogue platform, not a bilateral grievance forum - to reframe Kashmir and the Indus Waters Treaty as matters requiring UN or multilateral attention.

India's response through spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal wasn't really about correcting Pakistan's facts. It was about signalling to every other country in that room that raising Kashmir at ASEAN-linked forums gets you called out publicly, every time, so it stops being a low-cost move for Pakistan to keep attempting.

Why Running Both Together Matters

The two tracks reinforce each other. A country that is simultaneously the ASEAN region's most useful maritime security partner and the country that refuses, without exception, to let bilateral disputes be internationalised on these platforms is harder to isolate diplomatically than a country doing only one of those things.

India isn't choosing between being generous and being firm - it is using the generosity to earn the standing from which the firmness lands credibly. For the exam, the real insight isn't "India opposes terrorism and supports UNCLOS"

  • that's the headline, not the analysis. It's that India treats ASEAN-led platforms as infrastructure for two distinct strategic goals at once: capacity-sharing that builds long-term regional dependency on India and firewall-building that denies Pakistan a cheap multilateral stage. Missing either half of that misreads what Act East Policy is actually doing in 2026.

Quick Facts

  • The 21st East Asia Summit and 33rd ASEAN Regional Forum were held in Manila, Philippines, in July 2026. India proposed hosting the 7th EAS maritime security cooperation conference in Kochi and an EAS Maritime Heritage Festival at Lothal.

    Jaishankar cited the Information Fusion Centre - Indian Ocean Region and the Indo-Pacific Maritime Domain Awareness initiative as India's contributions to regional maritime security. Pakistan's Deputy PM Ishaq Dar raised Kashmir and the Indus Waters Treaty at the ARF; MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal rejected the remarks as disinformation.

    India also called for a UNCLOS-compliant Code of Conduct on the South China Sea.

Beyond The Headlines
GS Paper 2 India's twin-track diplomacy at ASEAN Regional Forum and East Asia Summit - maritime security capacity-sharing and counter-Pakistan diplomatic firewall

Connect the dots for your UPSC preparation.

Standard news covers the event. Log in to read our comprehensive analysis and uncover the hidden constitutional, structural, and ethical dimensions of this topic:

1

How India's IFC-IOR data-sharing model compares to China's competing maritime initiatives in the same ASEAN states

2

The specific domestic political calculation behind India's swift, public rebuttal of Pakistan at the ARF

3

Why India proposed hosting the EAS maritime conference in Kochi specifically and what that signals about India's Indo-Pacific ambitions

4

The full case study connecting IPMDA operations to real intercepted trafficking incidents in the Indian Ocean Region

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East Asia Summit ASEAN Regional Forum Jaishankar Act East Policy IPMDA IFC-IOR South China Sea UNCLOS Indus Waters Treaty Kashmir Indo-Pacific maritime security

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