New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is all set to fly later this week to participate in Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), and East-Asia Summit meet in Vietnam and Philippines respectively.
While within New Zealand, it is being seen as Ms Ardern’s first opportunity to rub shoulder with international leaders, outside it is being perceived as a bigger platform to bring together key players to stabilise the region, which has clearly been on the edge with the recent exchanges of fiery antics between North Korea and the US.
In this endeavour, India will be a key strategic player with mutually shared interests and capabilities in stabilising the region – a fact which should amplify, and not limit, the significance of India in the new government’s worldview in any manner.
President Trump had arrived in Japan for his much-awaited eleven-day tour of Asia or the Indo-Pacific region, which experts believe is one of the most electrifying regions in the contemporary world-politics with a range of geo-economic opportunities and compelling geopolitical challenges.
US President Donald Trump and Japanese PM Shinzo Abe playing golf © AFP
Talks of a quadrilateral alliance of India, Japan, Australia and the United States in the Indo-Pacific region has once again gained strength with Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Kono announcing that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will propose it in his discussions with US President Donal Trump.
Earlier, a senior US government official had said last week that Washington was keen to have India, Japan, and Australia on board for a "productive" engagement.
India has responded positively to the proposal, saying it has "an open mind to cooperate with countries with convergence but obviously on an agenda which is relevant to us,” the External Affairs Ministry of India spokesperson Raveesh Kumar
China, which has long been a sceptic of this quadrilateral alliance in the Indo-Pacific region seem to be warming up to this idea after a long time, given that there is an increasing resolve among the four democracies to go ahead with the quadrilateral alliance, regardless of China’s reservations.
China is hoping that a US-brokered quadrilateral meet that includes India, Japan and Australia is not aimed at China and would "comply with the trend of times" which it identified as peace, development, and cooperation, according to a local media report. A US official speaking in New Delhi ahead of President Trump’s Asia visit rejected suggestions it was about containing China, as it is being seen around the world increasingly, including in Beijing.
“I don’t think there's such a thing as containing China,” the official told the media.
“We, of course -- we do not have a security alliance -- none of those countries (Australia and Japan) has a security alliance with India.
“India is an increasingly important security partner, no doubt.
“It's natural that they should be, given that they are really sort of, conceptually the western edge of the Indo-Pacific region; the United States making up the eastern edge of that,” the official further asserted.
Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern will get the first opportunity of meeting with her Indian counterpart Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of East Asia Summit next week in the Philippines.
In this regard, it is imperative for both the government’s officials to set up a quick catch-up meeting between Ms Ardern and Mr Modi at the summit to strengthen the bilateral relationship between the two countries.
There is an urgent need to take this relationship to the next level and break it from the monotony of drawn-out talks on Free Trade Agreements (FTA) between both the countries.
Although there are expectations that Ms Ardern would excel at the international platform at a personal level, given her initial internationalist training under the Former Prime Minister Helen Clark, however international diplomacy is slightly more than the personal charisma of individual leaders.
The security and stability of the wider Indo-Pacific region is New Zealand’s vital interest, and in this endeavour, India could be a net-provider.
Therefore Ardern-Modi bonhomie should be in the order on the sidelines of high-octane East Asia Summit.
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