Indian Council of World Affairs

Pragya Pandey:  Very good afternoon, before we start the program, I request you all to kindly put your mobile phones on silent mode, please. Thank you. Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, on behalf of the ICWA, it is my pleasure to welcome you all for the panel discussion on the theme, Rise of Mini-Lateralism in the Indo-Pacific and the Changing World Order. We shall begin the program with the Acting Director General and Additional Secretary, ICWA, Ms. Nutan Kapoor Mahawar, delivering her welcome remarks. The discussion will be chaired by Ambassador Dr. Mohan Kumar, Professor of Diplomatic Practice, Jindal School of International Affairs, OP Jindal Global University. Our distinguished panellists for today are Dr. Pankaj Vashisht, Associate Professor and Coordinator, ASEAN India Centre at the RIS New Delhi; Dr. Rajeshwari Rajagopalan, Resident Senior Fellow, Australia Strategic Policy Institute, joining us online from Canberra; Professor Jagannath Panda, Head of the Stockholm Centre for South Asian and Indo-Pacific Affairs, again joining us online from Stockholm; Mr. Abhijit Singh, Retired Naval Officer and former Head of the Maritime Policy Initiative, Observer Research Foundation. The discussion will be followed by a brief question and answer session, which will be moderated by the Chair. May I now invite Ms. Nutan Kapoor Mahawar, ADG and AS ICWA to deliver her opening remarks. 

Nutan Kapoor Mahawar:  Ambassador Mohan Kumar, distinguished experts, members of the diplomatic corps, students and friends. We are going to discuss today the rising trend of minilateralism, especially in the Indo-Pacific, amidst the profound geopolitical and geoeconomic transformation that the world is witnessing today. Minilateralism implies targeted, agile partnerships among like-minded countries. With a certain degree of informality embedded, these partnerships are intended to serve as effective results-oriented engagement and cooperation platforms. They aim to shape the regional order by working to provide public goods such as maritime domain awareness, HADR (humanitarian assistance and disaster relief), maritime security, related infrastructure development, etc. etc. They can be looked upon as issue-based coalitions and mini-laterals are changing the nature of international cooperation triggered by the requirements of a world in transition. 

Minilateralism is growing because of the limitations of traditional multi-lateral institutions which as we all know are fighting paralysis and deadlock, facing polarisation due to diverse agendas and great power competition. In the Indo-Pacific theatre especially, minilateralism is rising due to the absence of an overarching security structure and the inability of the existing regional frameworks such as ASEAN-led security mechanisms and the hub-and-spoke US alliance structure to address US-China rivalry and evolving hybrid threats. This lacuna is being said to be met by mini-laterals based on convergent Indo-Pacific visions or outlooks as subscribed to by various regional and extra-regional countries. A number of countries have proactively embraced this approach. 

Let us look at this mini-lateral landscape and I'm sure we'll discuss this in detail during our discussions. The US has increasingly embraced minilateralism to secure a favourable regional order for itself in the Indo-Pacific. Quad and AUKUS are prominent examples which permit functional cooperation without the heavy institutional cost of traditional multi-lateral organisations. While Quad aims to shape the regional order through rule and norm setting, AUKUS or US-Japan-Australia trilateral for instance focus on military cooperation symbolising new less rigid form of security cooperation. 

Japan on the other hand by joining a variety of mini-laterals is recalibrating its foreign policy by moving beyond its traditional reliance on the US-led bilateral alliance structure and proactively engaging in mini-laterals to play a more independent and contributory role in regional and global security. While doing so, Japan is demonstrating a deliberate strategy to diversify partnerships, managing the constraints of its US alliance and Chinese sensitivities and reduce dependence on any single power. 

Australia too has embraced minilateralism as a core pillar of its foreign and security policy seeing it as a strategic necessity to hedge against an unpredictable security environment and to reduce over-reliance on traditional multi-lateral and bilateral partnerships. Australia is actively diversifying its external economic relations and fostering closer ties with countries like India, Japan and South Korea. 

Minilaterals also allow countries like Australia and Japan to sustain deterrence in face of potential US retrenchment. 

For Europe, minilateral engagements in the Indo-Pacific region have been a preferred policy option. Countries like France and Germany have been taking lead and preferring this approach to decision-making in the region. The EU however engages with the region in a largely multilateral framework with the aim of upholding international law, preserving open economic engagements and avoiding outright targeting of China. 

For India, minilateralism supplements multilateralism to contribute to predictability and stability to the regional order amidst the geopolitical shifts underway by providing relatively flexible and informal engagement and cooperation platforms with like-minded countries that promote an inclusive and a rules-based Indo-Pacific - without formal alliances and while upholding its strategic autonomy. We see minilaterals as building blocks for regional and global political and economic security that can be situated between bilateral relationships and multilateral partnerships. Entering into this web of partnerships is seen by India as an effort to secure a predictable and advantageous environment for its own security and development. 

India's emphasis is on issue-based partnerships as can be seen for instance in the Colombo Security Conclave for effective regional maritime coordination or Supply Chain Resilience Initiative which is between India, Australia and Japan for promoting economic predictability and certainty and trade diversification. India is entering into minilaterals in the Indo-Pacific with both regional countries as well as extra regional countries. At the same time, India remains committed to effective functioning of bodies such as IORA, the Indian Ocean Commission, the IONS, the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium and to ASEAN centrality and its partnership with the Pacific Islands Forum. It also continues to bilaterally engage on the Indo-Pacific with countries like Germany, Netherlands, Sweden, UK, countries with an Indo-Pacific vision as also with the EU. 

Given this growing trend of minilateralism, the manner in which it is changing the nature of international engagement and cooperation, we decided to curate today's excellent panel to discuss its strengths and weaknesses, and the various issues associated with this theme. I look forward to an enriching discussion, and I wish the panellists all the best. 

Pragya Pandey: May I now invite the Chair, Ambassador Dr. Mohan Kumar, to deliver his remarks and conduct the session. 

Mohan Kumar:  Thank you very much, Pragya. Am I heard? Yeah? Good. So, I just want to begin by thanking Additional Secretary and Acting Director General, Ms. Nutan Kapoor Mahawar, and to thank what I believe is an excellent panel. My own opening remarks will not be more than five minutes, and I would request my illustrious panellists to confine themselves to 10 minutes. I see quite a bit of audience, so let's try and see if we can get some young people excited about this dry subject, and I hope it's not so dry. So, I just want to make three broad points. One is, and actually those points were made by Additional Secretary and Acting Director General, Ms. Nutan Kapoor Mahawar, but I'll pick on them and try to see if I can expand them and provide a setting for the panellists. 

The first one is the changing world order, and it is obvious to me that we've got a very messy multipolar world order, but we don't have a settled multipolar world order yet. The liberal international order, I firmly believe, is a thing of the past. So, in the current context, which is a world order in flux, it's quite natural that regional institutions and multilateral institutions take time. They take time to adjust, and one of the problems that we are facing is the regional institutions and the multilateral institutions are taking too long to react and to really take into account a changing world order. So, that results in a vacuum, if you like, and countries and powers, we hate vacuums, we abhor vacuums. So, there is something which comes in place, and I believe the rise of minilateralism can actually be attributed to the fact that multilateral and regional institutions are working at a suboptimal level. That's the first point I'd like to make. 

The second point that I really want to make is that you do have a rise in minilateralism in the Indo-Pacific, and that is the discussion today. We're not talking about minilateralism everywhere in the world. The setting is really Indo-Pacific. There I think all eyes are really on the United States and what relationship the U.S. is going to have with China, that will impinge quite significantly on the Indo-Pacific and Quad in particular is something that we are all following. There ought to have been a Quad Summit scheduled by now in India, but we haven't heard anything so far. And that is almost, I would say, attributable to the United States and what it is going to do. A lot of us who are scholars and academics are waiting for the national security strategy and the national defence strategy of the United States to come out. It should be out in a couple of weeks. And I don't know if that will give you a sense of where U.S. is heading in terms of Indo-Pacific. One of the theories that is taking hold, at least among intellectuals and academics, is that the U.S. lacks bandwidth to be fully engaged in the Western Hemisphere, the European theatre, the Middle East theatre, and the Indo-Pacific theatre. So some theatres are going to at least be met with what is known as U.S. retrenchment, U.S. withdrawing itself. 

Now, it's very clear to me that we have some indications of it in Europe, where the U.S. is saying, please bear additional costs of protection in Europe and you take care of it. We will, of course, provide what is known as a backstop. And I see a lot of young faces. You guys should know this expression, backstop by the U.S. and what is U.S. backstop? Is it just providing satellite intelligence? Is it just providing air power without people on the ground? Those are the things that you guys must analyse. But U.S. will provide at best a backstop. The Middle East is undergoing its own flux, if you like. And one of the things that we have seen is that you've got a set of powers like Turkey, Qatar, and UAE, those are taking the lead. Egypt as well, I missed out Egypt. But those are, and I may have missed out some others, but these are taking the lead. Again, the U.S. is nudging these powers to take the lead. So there again, the U.S. view is, listen, we have enough oil now, shale oil and the rest of it, we don't have to be present that much in the Middle East. So that leaves a big question mark over Indo-Pacific. And we don't know yet, although I've heard Secretary Marco Rubio say a couple of times that the story of the 21st century will be written in the Indo-Pacific and India will be the core of that. And that's what we have heard. I mean, in many ways he has to say it when he has got Jaishankar standing next to him, I suppose. To some extent that might explain that, but leaving aside diplomatic nicety, I think the U.S. has said, not President Trump himself, if I'm not mistaken, and I would like some young person in the audience to correct me. Have you heard President Trump utter the word Quad or Indo-Pacific? Do a Google search and tell me in the next 10 minutes, please do. But I think it's only Marco Rubio and others who have talked about Indo-Pacific and Quad. So we are all trying to figure out where is President Trump on Quad and Indo-Pacific. We all know he's a person who matters in terms of decision making. So that remains to be seen. In the middle of all this, the only thing I want to say before I turn first to Dr. Pankaj Vashisht to my left is the following. It is often forgotten, even if you leave Quad aside for a minute, because we don't know where the U.S. is coming. But I'm very sure we will have a Quad summit at some point and so on. But leaving aside Quad for a minute, India has an extremely successful trilateral with UAE and France. I have a colleague from the French embassy sitting. I'm not saying it because of her. I participated in those 1.5 dialogues in both Paris and Abu Dhabi. And so UAE, India and France have an extremely important trilateral, which can actually apply to the Indo-Pacific, a lot of it, climate change, energy security and so on. India also has a trilateral again with France -- India, France, Australia, which is the regional security and maritime kind of setup that we have between India, France, Australia. India, Australia, Indonesia have a trilateral. And finally, India, Japan and Italy have a trilateral. None of these trilaterals are spoken of that much, but actually all these trilaterals apply to Indo-Pacific. And so what I'm saying is, and I will really conclude here, if India finds, for whatever reason, if the Quad takes off and if it's good, and if it is as important as it was before, well and good, India will be happy. But regardless of Quad, I think India should look at activating some of these other trilaterals. The one with France and UAE is already active, but maybe we can take it to the next level. But the other trilaterals, especially the Resilience Supply Initiative, I think we have, it's called the Resilience Supply Initiative. I never heard about, Abhijit, unless you correct me. I heard about it when it was established, but I don't know the follow-up. I don't know what has happened since then. But some of these trilaterals that India has got with Australia, Indonesia and Italy, I think we can try and activate some of those, because I was just doing some preparation before coming to the meeting. And many of those trilaterals actually do apply to the Indo-Pacific region. So I think it's a Jagdish Bhagwati for those of us who did WTO, he's a guru, he's a trade guru and he looked at FTAs in the area of trade and called it a spaghetti bowl of trade agreements. I think I'm inclined to use the same thing for trilaterals. It's become a spaghetti bowl now. Three countries you know getting together, India, France seem to have more than their share of trilaterals which is good from my point of view, but a number of three countries, three, four countries are getting together and they are getting together because of like-mindedness because it's just easier and it's just more pragmatic. So that's the reason I think you see a rise in minilateralism, but who knows. I'm a generalist so I'm waxing eloquent. Let's turn to people who know much more than I do. I want to turn first to Dr. Pankaj Vashisht followed by, shall we go by the same list? Is that okay? So then maybe we can go to Dr. Rajeshwari Rajagopal and next Dr. Jagannath Panda and then Abhijit you can have the last word. So Dr. Pankaj Vashisht, you have the mic. 

Pankaj Vashisht:  Thank you. Thank you so much, sir. And I object to your statement when you say people know more than me. Basically, please count me out of this. You know much, much more than us, at least from me. So thank you, sir. Thank you for your kind words. And let me also join chair in commending ICWA for organizing this panel discussion on such a wonderful topic. This discussion or the event basically tried to answer four questions. Why minilaterals are emerging so rapidly? What are they changing? How they are changing the nature of international cooperation and engagement? What are the strength, their strength and weaknesses and what would be their future role in shaping the global order? Now, these are important questions that involves political, strategic as well as economic issues. And generally, the discussion of this type have mostly focused on strategic and security aspect. But to confess, I'm not a strategic expert. I'm a trade economist. So in my discussion or my five or seven minutes which I have, I would like to bring in economic perspective. We are joined by three eminent scholars. Abhijit is a renowned maritime expert, Rajeshwari and Dr. Panda, they will, I think, bring in a lot on security and strategy. My remarks are going to be mostly focused on economic aspects. And economic aspect, I believe, are often less discussed, but they are deeply significant for Indo-Pacific and Indo-Pacific minilaterals. But because if you look at all the minilaterals in Indo-Pacific, there lies a strong economic rational, whether it is about securing supply chain, promoting innovation, strengthening digital connectivity, or financing the green transitions. So, in my remarks, I would try to touch on four following aspects. The economic rational driving the emergence of minilaterals, how they are reshaping economic cooperation, what strength and limitation they carry, and how they may evolve in years ahead. 

To understand why minilaterals are emerging so rapidly, it is important to look at the broader global shift that are shaping the cooperation today. We know that the global economy and global order is in flux. We are actually going through a profound transformation. The world is witnessing rising protectionism, technological rivalries are intensifying, and there is a growing competition over resource and markets. We are witnessing reorganization of global value chains, and the line between economic and security is getting blurred day by day. At the same time, all this is happening in the context where the traditional institutions such as WTO, IMF, are struggling to adapt to these new realities. Their slow pace of decision-making and inability to reflect new economic power balance are limiting their effectiveness. As a result, countries are turning to minilateralisms. At the same time, middle powers such as India, Indonesia, Japan, Australia, all are seeking greater agency in global decision-making, and they are forming focused issue-based coalitions that can respond directly to the specific challenges, ranging from trade resilience, energy transition, digital governance, and infrastructure. In fact, the two recent things, so this was going on for quite some time, but the global pandemic and Ukraine conflict has further reinforced this trend. 

Now the question is, this is happening everywhere, but why Indo-Pacific? Why Indo-Pacific is witnessing a sudden surge in minilaterals? The reason is very simple. Indo-Pacific is at the heart of this ongoing transformation. It has emerged as a centre of global economic growth, but at the same time, there are so many flashpoints within this region. So in this situation, these pressures are making economic resilience and strategic diversification core objective of nations in Indo-Pacific. Countries across the regions are therefore seeking to diversify supply chain, build digital infrastructure, and cooperate in critical technology and green energy. In doing so, they are turning to minilaterals platforms. This is why the Indo-Pacific is becoming a laboratory for new forms of economic cooperation. 

Now, the rise of multilateral Indo-Pacific, if we carefully look at all these groupings, actually very strongly reflect the economic logic behind it. First, the countries are using them to diversify and secure supply chain. We know that COVID pandemic has shown us that if you rely on one country, what kind of consequences you can have. So that's why there are certain, I think several of these minilaterals are focusing on the supply chain diversification, supply chain resilience initiative, which India has kind of started in partnership with Japan and France is one of the example. Second, mini-laterals are promoting functional cooperation in specific areas of economic interest. For example, I2U2 partnership involving India, Israel, UAE, and United States is focusing on renewable energy, food corridors, and technology innovation. It is demonstrating how practical sectoral cooperation can produce quick and visible results. And third, they are allowing middle power to shape the evolving rule of global economic governance through framework like Quad, IPF, I2U2, countries such as India and Japan are helping define norms on trade, technology, data, and sustainability. 

In a sense, minilaterals are emerging not just as an instrument of strategic alignment, but as a mechanism of economic adjustment to a complex and competitive world economy. As far as strength of minilateralism is concerned, I think Nutan Ma’am and Kumar sir has already mentioned it, they provide a flexible framework, they are efficient because the number of participating countries is less, they provide more innovative approach to address the current challenges and it kind of lead the path in trust building. But despite this, if I look at from purely economic point of view, there are certain limitations. First and foremost is the risk of fragmentation. Too many overlapping grouping without coordination can lead to duplication and conflicting standards. And from purely economic point of view, this is not a good scenario which should be avoided. 

Then this issue of exclusion, we know that these groupings have two, three, four countries so other countries are excluded which comes and this comes with its own challenges. Another thing is the lack of institutional depth. Most of the multilaterals in Indo-Pacific are informal, depends upon the political will of their member which makes their sustainability uncertain. Chair has already mentioned about Quad. So it's basically when you lack a deep institutional setup, so there is a risk with the decline in political will. We never know where these minilaterals will go. Finally, we know that all these minilaterals are kind of a group of like-minded countries. So when economic cooperation becomes too closely linked to strategic competition, development and inclusive objective may be overshadowed. So this is something which we have to keep in mind. Recognizing and addressing these weaknesses, therefore, is essential for minilaterals to contribute significantly to long-term regional stability and prosperity. 

As far as India's approach is concerned, India's approach actually offers important insight into how minilateralism can combine economic pragmatism with strategic autonomy. India is viewing Indo-Pacific not only as a strategic arena but also an economic and development space. Its vision of security and growth for all, Sagar, reflects its inclusive outlook. Through initiatives such as Quad, IPEF, Supply Chain Resilience Initiative, India is working with partners to promote open, transparent and sustainable development. These initiatives are also aligning with India's domestic development goal, which basically focuses on making India expanding digital public infrastructure and accelerating green transition. Going forward, I believe the success of minilateralism will depend upon how well it connects resilience with inclusiveness. In order to remain effective, these platforms need to keep development at the centre, ensuring that cooperation generates jobs, build capacity and support digital and green transition across the region. They also need to remain open and complementary, working in alignment with ASEAN, BIMSTEC and other regional frameworks to avoid duplication. And last but not least, they should focus on outcome rather than declaration. Producing tangible benefits such as infrastructure improvement, investment, technology partnership and strengthening regional integration is going to be the key in years to come. Specifically, some of these minilaterals have been there for quite some time, but we really don't know much whether it has led to some tangible outcome or not. So thank you. 

Mohan Kumar:  So thank you very much, Dr. Pankaj Vashisht. I think for me the two important, a lot of relevant points were made by him. But I think the fact that he thinks the Indo-Pacific could be a laboratory where a lot of new ideas are being thought about, that's interesting. That's an interesting and a graphic description of the situation. Secondly, from an economic perspective and a trade perspective, I think he's right. The risk of fragmentation is high. If you have too many minilaterals, which are concentrating exclusively on trade, investment, intellectual property rights, and supply chains, then the risk of fragmentation remains. I now turn to Dr. Rajeshwari Rajagopalan, who I believe has migrated to Australia. I'm pulling your leg. I was hoping to see you in Delhi, but now I find that you are in Canberra. So greetings to you from Canberra. And madam, please, you have the mic. 

Rajeshwari Rajagopalan:  Thank you. Good evening, everyone. And thanks, Ambassador Kumar, and my thanks also to ICWA for the invitation to share some thoughts on this important theme. And it's not often discussed. So somehow the theme of minilateralism has not become part of the regular conference topics in a sense. So I'm glad that ICWA has picked up on this. And as for the way I look at minilateralism, I place India's embrace of minilateralism in the context of its China policy. And China policy itself, India's China policy itself has been undergoing important shifts in recent years. And China has become India's overriding strategic concern, forcing India to make many changes from its previous Cold War foreign policy orientations in a sense. And so in order to manage Beijing, I think one of the things India did was to build closer relations with the United States, its allies, partners, and so on and so forth. And those relationships have become quite strong over the past few several years now. But on the other hand, the closer US relationship has also made Delhi somewhat uncomfortable. India traditionally, especially during the Cold War years, did not have such close relationship with the United States and continues to want some level of strategic autonomy. And I think that's where minilateralism come to be the, it's one way for India to square that circle in a sense. 

One option would have been for India to kind of balance its closer ties with the United States is of course through Russia. But I think the latter's weakness and increasing diplomatic isolation, again, I'm mindful of how it's gonna be played out, but I can come back to this during the Q&A. I will come back to it. So Russia's own weakness, its diplomatic isolation since the Ukraine war, as well as Moscow's growing closeness to Beijing, all of that has meant that Russia may not be a viable option in the longer term. And driven by the China factor, the India-Russia relationship has also been going through its own flux. Nevertheless, my sense is that India will continue to maintain its ties with Moscow at some level. So minilateralists have found favour among vast Indian political elites and a number of others in the strategy community with a number of India's new security partners in the Indo-Pacific and beyond, because they supplement Delhi's bilateral ties with Washington. So the short point for me is that China has become the most significant national security threat for India, and India has articulated again this time and again, and it wants to ensure an Asia that is not hegemonic, and of course, this is the reference is to China. Both Prime Minister Modi as well as External Affairs Minister Dr. Jaishankar have made these points multiple times, even while not naming China in a sense. So this means that India will have to build and nurture new partnerships, relationship with like-minded partners who share similar threat perceptions and have a common interest in ensuring that vision of no hegemonic Asia and a stable and secure Indo-Pacific strategic order. But this is not going to come easy. 

India is having to make some very difficult and tricky choices in a sense. Its new security partners, whether it is the United States, Japan, Australia, France – France is an old partner – Europe, Vietnam, we have had good relations with all of these countries, but there is a sense of new urgency, a new sense of purpose that is driving the relationship now. And I say it is not easy because India is having to manage its old relationship with countries like Russia and its new security partners. But at some level, China has made it easy for India over the past decade or so to pick a side and forge ahead, again, mindful of the temporary disruptions that we see in some of our closer partnership, particularly with Washington. But again, those – I want to take it up during the Q&A, but I don't want to get into that. We are going through some temporary flux in some of those partnerships, but I think the need to stay the course with these partnerships, despite the disruptions, is also quite evident to me. Because if you are longer-term national security threat and challenge, as has been said at the highest level over the years, then your choices are also kind of somewhat clear and somewhat limited. So despite the temporary disruptions, my sense is – and I would continue to argue this – that Russia and China cannot be your feasible alternatives. 

Irrespective of how and where you land in your relationship with Washington, Russia and China are not the feasible partners for India in the longer term. So that's my big point, in a sense. Minilateralism and, at this point, minilateral engagements, why? I think that's one of the key questions that we were kind of – we have been, I think, trying to sort of understand in a sense. And to me, one of the primary drivers for the embrace of minilateralism comes from the question of credibility of the U.S. alliance system in managing the security challenges in the region. The credibility question has become a strong imperative for U.S. alliance partners themselves to forge closer ties and the strategic ties with other key powers in the region. So even as – and I think some of the best examples are how Australia and Japan have gone about creating their own partnerships in Asia, even as they continue to rely on the U.S. as an alliance partner and so on. So that's a good illustration of the evolving strategic minilaterals in the Indo-Pacific. So a certain amount of apprehensions about the U.S., if the U.S. were to dilute its role and presence in the region or if it were to cut a deal with China in how the Indo-Pacific is to be managed, however unlikely these scenarios may be, I think these are scenarios that you still need to think through and plan for various contingencies in a sense. A second set of issues that have pushed minilateralism in a big way in the Indo-Pacific is the capacity constraints. All countries, all the countries in the region that are engaged in minilateralism have had to bear the brunt of aggressive Chinese behaviour in their backyard, but at the same time, their capacity to deal with China militarily or economically on their own is far weaker than China's own power. Therefore, capacity deficit has also emerged as an important rationale for each of these nations to work with like-minded partners and combine their efforts and capacities to confront China in a more effective fashion. 

A third issue is, of course, again, some of these issues have been touched upon by previous speakers, the failure of multilateralism and multilateral institutions. Again, that has made the push for minilateralism greater because of the result, as a result of the weakness associated with multilateral institutions with no successful discussion, forget about negotiations in a sense, on important strategic developments. Countries are increasingly resorting to meeting in smaller groups and have to work out small interim measures to deal with the growing sets of challenges in the Indo-Pacific. The current trends seen in minilaterals are not helping the cause of multilateralism because it's only, it is going to have the opposite effect possibly of further weakening the multilateral institutions. But my sense is that as long as the security threats are growing, intensifying, we and the multilateral institutions are not able to deliver, you really need to start working in smaller groupings and develop a little bit of consensus, smaller consensus, and so on and so forth. So that's an unfortunate feature, but at least in the immediate to medium term, I would see minilateralism as a more prominent way of dealing with addressing threats and challenges in a sense. Again, looking at India's approach to minilateralism, it is not new to minilateralism. A decade ago, in fact, India endorsed and became part of one of the first trilateral security arrangements with the U.S. and Japan. In October 2015, the Malabar naval exercise, which was initially a series of bilateral naval exercise between the U.S. and India, did see the participation of Japan. And since then, they have also become a more involved partner, a permanent partner in a sense of the Malabar exercise, thus making it a US-India-Japan trilateral naval exercise. The strategic imperative driving this trilateral partnership... 

Mohan Kumar:  Just a minute. You have one minute. Thanks. 

Rajeshwari Rajagopalan: Okay, so I'm going to just come to some of the... So anyway, I think I don't want to get into too many of the details of the various minilaterals that are in play. But there is a significant difference to how India has dealt with some of the other groupings. People also talk about the BRICS and the RIC and the SCO and so on and so forth. But there's a big difference between the engagements that we see between those and the newer security partnerships in the form of the Quad and other trilateral partnerships. And again, there is another Quad in the Middle East as well, India, Israel, US and UAE. So there are any number of these minilaterals. And the early minilaterals such as BRICS and IPSA, all of them were related to Indian concerns over global governance, as well as efforts to create a global alternative during a period of US unipolarity. And these were not geographically limited, but included countries from other regions across the world. In one sense, they can be seen as a minilaterals form of non-alignment movement itself with a decidedly kind of anti-Western focus. The only exception possibly was the SCO in a sense. But India's new minilaterals are much more focused with a central theme of balancing China. And many of these also overlap with other minilaterals that's propping each other up. And as a consequence, I would believe that they go on to strengthen each of these minilaterals. So while the most important and prominent ones are, of course, the Quad and the AUKUS and so on and so forth, India's other minilaterals also help strengthen the Quad. And so that's the way I look at it. And in fact, some of the comments from the earlier previous speaker, I have slight disagreement with that because my sense is that a web of partnerships is better than waiting for an overarching security or strategic regional architecture, because you're not going to get there in any time in the near future. So I would see the utility of having a web of partnerships that is always going to be much better than having no overarching regional security architecture. Let me stop here and I'll be happy to take on some questions and comments later. Thank you. 

Mohan Kumar:  So thank you for providing that powerful strategic rationale, if you like, for minilateralism. I thought, I was wondering who would mention the dragon in the room, and you were the first to do it. So that's good. Sooner or later that had to happen. And I think when you mentioned balancing and those of you, I'm sure a lot of you are doing international relations, right? So you guys know this expression, external balancing. That is something you should know. I see some heads nodding. So one of the things that India, not just India, but all countries would do that vis-a-vis China is external balancing. And I think the point Dr. Rajagopalan makes is good, is interesting, that minilateral groupings are used as an instrument of external balancing vis-a-vis China as well. And that's a reality, whether it is Quad or other things. As for the last, you know, that's an interesting argument. And we will come back to it as to whether we wait for something like an RCEP or a CPTPP, or you allow two or three countries to kind of, you know, get together and form an economic grouping. I'm only talking economy, because in politics, it's very obvious. In military and political terms, I completely agree with Dr. Rajagopalan. You shouldn't wait for an overarching thing, because an ASEAN Defence or ADMM has not worked that much. So you have no alternative. But I think in economy and trade, you could make a case, but that's a debate we can have later. Dr. Jagannath Panda, with a sincere request, if you can confine yourself to 10 minutes. Thank you very much. And it's good to see you. Over to you. 

Jagannath Panda:  Thank you, Chair. Great pleasure to meet you online. And thank you very much for ICWA. And also happy to meet fellow panelists and all the distinguished members in the audience. Greetings from Stockholm. And I think already a lot has been discussed about minilateralism, and some of the points are well taken from the earlier previous speakers. Let me start by making that point that Ambassador Kumar actually at the outset made, that actually what has actually given the rise or the prominence of minilateralism to continue to exist in Indo-Pacific. I think one point that has been well taken is that probably there has been a global gridlock in multilateralism, which has in a way promoted minilateralism. And multilateralism gridlock, primarily when we are hinting at UN, WTO, COP processes. So these processes have been slow. There has been ineffective processes, ineffective participation. As a result, what we have seen, countries and nation states, they have tried to combine with each other with a flexible approach. So that actually leads to my main point in Indo-Pacific at this moment, is that if we talk about minilateralism in Indo-Pacific at this moment, there is a range of formulations coexisting. One is that some of these minilateral groupings in Indo-Pacific today are functional, and they follow a very flexible cooperative approach. And these cooperative approaches are based on a range of issues, for example, on security matters, technological matters, climate-related issues, and also covering the supply chain networks. 

The other issues that is actually binding the minilateralism in Indo-Pacific is that the strategic convergence. Of course, there is a notional aspect of democratic versus authoritarian setup. But again, the minilateralism in Indo-Pacific are primarily spirited by democratic networks, even though that's not really a strong network. One could question by saying whether the United States, being a democratic country, is really committed to the Indo-Pacific under President Trump. And I would go with the extreme chair that we have to wait and see. But democracy is definitely one key medium that is actually promoting minilateralism in Indo-Pacific. The third issue, which is actually bringing minilateralism to the core in Indo-Pacific, is technological and economic fragmentation. And I think this is where countries are finding each other's support base and cooperative networks to their advantage. So therefore, what we are seeing that, both with the United States and without the United States, there are minilateralisms and credible networks are existing in Indo-Pacific. 

That brings me to the next point, which we have not discussed here today, is that there is, of course, one big point need to be discussed, how committed is the United States of America today under Trump 2.0 towards minilateralism or towards Indo-Pacific. But again, I think one factor we are overlooking is that if Indo-Pacific has actually been capitalized and been taken to the next level, that is also partly because of the credible role and credible diplomatic backing from Japan, which is a critical alliance partner of the United States of America. And therefore, it is a critical moment for Japanese foreign policy, as well as for the new prime minister who had just taken power, Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi. If we talk about the Japanese foreign policy approach towards Indo-Pacific, it has always been, partly been US-backed approaches they have followed, and partly they have followed the insecurity they face from China in the regions, and also partly they have followed tying up with the Indian Ocean region countries trying to take advantage of the networks. But if we read calculatively the Japanese foreign policy, they are the architect of Indo-Pacific minilateralism in many ways. They value partnerships. Hence, you will see that in Japanese foreign policy, they focus a lot on value-based partnerships. And most interestingly, they talk about economic statecraft and connectivity. And all of these actually brings core to Japan's ideas of minilateralism in Indo-Pacific. Now, here the question comes whether the new prime minister will really back some of these ideas going forward. Because we don't have, you know, that tall leader in Japanese politics anymore, that is Abe Shinzo, or we don't have really a strong Japanese prime minister who will probably be anticipated to serve for a long time. So the question is whether the new prime minister can really focus on the existing minilateral processes and take the Indo-Pacific narratives forward. 

I think here I would make two, three points specifically, that I think with the new prime minister coming, Japan will continue the same legacy of the foreign policy trends that it has followed over the years. So therefore we'll see that there is a continuity with innovations coming up from Japanese side, particularly on issues like on digital infrastructure, AI governance, and green transitions. These are the areas where Japan is focusing, particularly on connectivity issues to infrastructure building issues in the ASEAN regions. In India also, we know Japan is a key critical domestic investor, and also in the entire Indo-Pacific regions, particularly in the Indian Ocean regions. The second issue that Japan will focus is economic security. This has been a flagship point in Japanese foreign policy for the last few years. At least I would say that since the Quad has come up from 2017 onwards when Quad was revamped. So since that time, Japan is focusing more on economic security, and the new prime minister will focus on that. And that is something India and some of the like-minded countries should really take into account. 

The third issue here, which we have not really discussed, is that we cannot actually overlook the global South notion. It does exist, and this is an important variable, even though it will be really very difficult to combine the global South countries with Indo-Pacific narratives and with the minilateral processes so prominently at this moment. But Japan has been a key campaigner of the global South countries in terms of building infrastructure and promoting connectivity. So therefore, countries like India and some of the other like-minded countries in Indo-Pacific need to take into account Japan's game plan in the global South and then take advantage of this.

My last point here would be that we cannot really talk about mini-lateral processes in Indo-Pacific in isolation. We have to talk about two significant powers which actually influence the narratives in Indo-Pacific as well as in global politics at large, that is China and Russia. If we talk about China, I think one of the critical points which is emerging from China's approach towards the Asia-Pacific region is that they would continue to pursue selective yet controlled-oriented engagement. That would, to some extent, pose a challenge to minilateral processes in Indo-Pacific. That should be taken into account. Second, I think the Chinese foreign policy would also make a point to follow a process of instrument of regional hierarchy, where they could dictate the talks. And that should also -- a point should be taken care by all the multilateral powers that are planning to establish closer cooperation. The last point is that I think what the Chinese, along with the Russians, would like to do, they would go for functional over narrative kind of foreign policy alignments. And I think that is critical for them because they don't really believe in normative-oriented foreign policy. They would rather focus more on functional-oriented foreign policy. And that would test the character of multilateral processes in Indo-Pacific, including some of India's initiatives in the region. I'll stop here and probably welcome some of your comments and questions. Thank you. 

Mohan Kumar:  Thank you very much, Dr. Panda. I think for me, I think your emphasis on Japan and the role that it can play in the Indo-Pacific is undeniable. So I grant you that. And I think that is something that we should keep in mind. In fact, Japan has indicated, both informally and formally to India, that its commitment to Quad remains intact. So that is something that India can take some comfort from. I now have the great pleasure of handing it over to my friend, Abhijit Singh. Abhijit, many of you will know, is easily by far the best maritime scholar we have in Delhi. And it'll be interesting to hear from him what he thinks. I mean, what I want to really do, Abhijit, if you can, and I could have told you this earlier, but I'm maybe putting you on the mat a little bit. One thing is to talk about the continental aspect of Indo-Pacific that has been discussed. But if you can focus on the maritime theatre in Indo-Pacific, that would be very, very interesting. Also, how far are we still linked in terms of Pacific and Indian Ocean? Or increasingly, do you believe that the U.S. is shooting off on its own and will focus so much on the Western Hemisphere and the Pacific that the Indian Ocean will either receive stepmotherly treatment? I'm provoking you, but that is something that you will address. Over to you, Abhijit. 

Abhijit Singh:  I would love to be provoked, sir, but thank you so much for the opportunity to ICWA for inviting me. They say the trouble with being the last speaker is that all that needed to be said has already been said, and you can only be a philosopher and reflect on what your learned colleagues have said. I'm going to try to do that. Let me, first of all, agree with a lot of what has been said. It is true that the conversation worldwide has shifted from multilateralism to minilateralism and it is the small, you know, interest aligned focused groups that really seem to be the flavour of the season because clearly if you look at the number of minilaterals that we have that we now have today there is the Quad that of course generates a lot of enthusiasm but and now also some scepticism, but other than the Quad there's the SQUAD on the Pacific side. There is I2U2, there is, you know, BIMSTEC, the Colombo Security Forum and so many others. Now in a purely maritime sense, I think we have benefited quite clearly from call it maritime minilateralism, small groups of countries sending in their warships, sending in their coast guards and doing exercises with them. And I would say that in two or three ways we are in a much better place in the sense that our interoperability today between the navies and the coast guards is much better. We are sharing information much better. The maritime domain awareness has increased substantially. Communication protocols have improved. And most importantly, as I always point out that it's important in maritime security to develop the habits of cooperation. Two nations sending in their navies actually doesn't help very much. You need a group of three or four to be able to develop familiarity with each other, with each other's position. I think in that regard also there's been a fair amount of movement forward or improvement in the way that the navies operate together. 

But I would like to point out that there is a nuance to maritime minilateralism. And I think there are four components to that nuance. The first is that it's important to point out as Jagannath, my good friend, had pointed out that minilateralism is not a philosophy. It has no conceptual underpinning as such. It is essentially a response to the call it the infirmities, failures of multilateralism. Because there is what Jagannath calls gridlock, you need to look for ways to work together. But the problem is that it is contingent on there being absolute alignment of interests and of perspectives. You have to agree on what needs to be done and in what way it has to be done. If that alignment shifts a little bit, things don't work as well as envisaged. I'm going to give you two or three examples. Just look at the Quad. Or rather, I'll keep the Quad aside. Let's look at AUKUS. And the fact that Australia is nowhere near, there seems to be no decision as yet on whether the Australians will actually end up getting those nuclear submarines, or nuclear powered submarines, because in the US despite the fact that President Trump only recently said that we will be delivering these submarines, there is some debate in the U.S. establishment over whether there is the capacity building, the capacity in the U.S. to be able to deliver those submarines. 

So I would say that now that a G2 has been announced with China, there is the sense that the Trump administration might try to accommodate the political interests of China and go slow on AUKUS. But that's again speculation. The point is it's been four years and these pre-verifications have continued. But I would also point to, for example, something like the India-Indonesia-Australia maritime trilateral. There has been a lot of enthusiasm over that trilateral. Since 2023, we've done no maritime exercises. And there's a reason for that. And that reason is that the Indonesians are no longer so forward-leaning on the kind of maritime security cooperation that we wanted. Their problems in the Northern Natuna Seas with China seem to have been sorted out. So they have sort of pulled back. And this is what I was saying, that when the alignment shifts even a wee bit, things don't work as intended. And so that's one of the problems. 

The second issue -- the second component to the point that I was making is that all maritime multilaterals are different. AUKUS, for example, is not about maritime security in the Indo-Pacific. It's about technology cooperation. It's about giving Australia those nuclear submarines. It's intended at deterrence. There are others that are intended at law enforcement. But I would say that the mini-laterals that are most effective are the ones that are focused on non-traditional security cooperation and on capacity building. And take the example of MALSINDO or the Malacca Strait patrols. That is something that has worked for a long period of time. The anti-piracy in the Gulf of Aden, which is certainly not a minilateral, but considering that it was a kind of a multilateral that worked very well was because it was focused on non-traditional security exercises. Our Dosti series that we do with Sri Lanka and with Maldives has done quite well. But the fact is that look at the Colombo Security Forum. The fact is that we actually, other than India and Sri Lanka, there's very little appetite to do the kind of hard security exercises that we would like to do because at least some of these countries, certainly Bangladesh, but also Maldives, Seychelles, Mauritius are not very keen to in any way antagonize China. And so therefore, as I said, the alignment shifts, things don't work as well as envisaged. 

My third point would be that the fact is that when nations work together in strategic groupings, you're not just required to sync your procedures and protocols. The fact is that you've got to actually begin to work in a way in which there is command integration. You integrate yourself in the entire operational environment in a way that you become one unit. That is not acceptable to a number of countries. And so the appetite to do close maritime cooperation is fairly limited. I want to give you the example of IPMDA, Indo-Pacific Maritime Domain Awareness, which is really the most publicized initiative by Quad. And there what's happened is that on paper, we've done a lot, the fusion centres, the liaison officers, etc. But the reality is that IPMDA works very well in the Pacific. And addressing your point, it doesn't work very well in the Indian Ocean. Again, the reason why it doesn't work very well in the Indian Ocean is because a lot of IPMDA is about accepting the technology that the US is offering. The Sea Vision platform, that is the Hawkeye 360, which is an RF platform that they want us to use. India has accepted it. Sri Lanka has accepted it. But a lot of other countries don't accept it because, one, it's a commercial proposition that's not acceptable to many countries. Second, what happens is that this technology is privately developed. You don't know this critical data, in what foreign hands you're placing this critical data on. The bureaucracy is not very comfortable because data access arrangements are very opaque. And so therefore, Indian Ocean countries have just been a bit wary. Why does it work very well in the Pacific? Because America, the US, has a client-patron relationship that it has formalized in the Pacific. A lot of these countries, they actually have no problems buying US technology. So again, as I say, if you go into the nitty-gritty of what is happening, there are problems. The US, to again address your point, does not treat the Indian Ocean as Pacific as one. There is a bargain that is embedded in the Quad, which is that for India to need US presence in the Indian Ocean, India will have to be active in the Pacific. And again, that's not acceptable to India. But in the end, I will say that this is not to express any scepticism about the idea of minilateralism because tactically, there is a lot to gain from it. Strategically, maybe not. But tactically, it definitely does contribute a lot to maritime security. I would say that the way forward, as far as maritime security cooperation is concerned, is a horses for courses approach. You need to do anti-piracy. You need to do anti-trafficking, etc., go to minilaterals. But you want to do deterrence. You want to do information sharing, deep information sharing. For that, you need the bigger platforms, and which is why the CMF, which is the US led Combined Maritime Forces is such a force to reckon with because it does what technically and strategically, these countries have built trust in which they share information and they are willing to work with each other for prolonged durations of time. And I would say that's the way forward. Thank you. 

Mohan Kumar:  Thank you Abhijit. Thank you. I thought that was brilliant. I have a question for you, if I may. Do you think we will have a situation in the Indian Ocean where at least parts of the Indian Ocean, China can practice anti-access area denial to the, does that make sense? 

Abhijit Singh:  Yeah. And thank you, sir, for asking that question. I would say that we've got to understand the Chinese strategy. The Chinese are very sophisticated players. They have actually one strategy for the Pacific and quite another for the Indian Ocean. The Pacific really is their backyard or call it the South China Sea and you know, the seas that surround it. So there they have a more aggressive stance, they treat it as their backwater and they've the militia operations, grey zone operations are really strong in those waters. The Chinese know they're absolutely dominate there. In the Indian Ocean, this is more a strategy of incremental stakeholdership. They want to be partners of the regional countries here. So they are coming up with proposals like the Belt and Road Initiative, they'll come and build your ports, we'll come and, you know, lay pipelines, power stations, et cetera. We'll also occasionally send our ships. So it becomes very difficult for India and other regional players who are sceptical of Chinese presence here to make the case that this is a presence that we've got to be wary of because the regional countries are perfectly all right, you know, working with China. So I think that is a nuance that we have to recognize that countering China in the Indian Ocean is a completely different ballgame. There, one element is military, you've got to keep a track of their submarines and ships, but the other elements, you know, infrastructure building, trying technology, etc, is all going to be very important. 

Mohan Kumar:  I wish I had these facts and statistics with me. I was attending a seminar in Shanghai when we were just having a back and forth with the Chinese and they can be very frank with you. In seminars, there is no sign that they hold back. So they were telling me that, please remember, it is Indian Ocean, not India's Ocean. You know what I'm saying? That's what they said. So I was a debater at college and by now, most of you who know me know that you can't keep me down, right? So I said, okay, that's fair. And would you agree with the same thing about China Sea, South China Sea? He said, no, that's different. I said, how the hell is it different? You know, that's South China Sea as well. And so it is not China Sea. It's everybody's sea. If you think of Indian Ocean as not India's ocean, everybody's ocean, same logic should apply. But Abhijit, thank you so much because that I've been wanting to ask you this question actually because to me it seems from 2008 it is generally believed that the Chinese have a semi-permanent presence in the Indian Ocean. But your distinction that they look at South China Sea separately and the Indian Ocean separately is, but that's what I think India is trying to do in terms of, and again you know France is a resident actor in the Indian Ocean. They've got reunion, they've got people stationed there, so we have a great relationship in the Indian Ocean cooperating with France as well. So I should have told you this maybe five minutes ago to our young audience that you should keep your questions ready, but I'm sure somebody has got some question ready. So if we can get going, please put your hand up and then you can ask the question either to everybody or to just one specific panellist. Yes, yes, please introduce yourself, your name, but maybe have a mic because otherwise those online may not be able to hear you. Thank you.

Aditi Shukla:  Thank you so much for such an enriching session. Myself Aditi Shukla, I'm here on behalf of TIES and my question is, most Indo-Pacific minilaterals like the Quad or IPEF focus on maritime security, supply chains or strategic balancing. But how are these frameworks being translated into real benefits for coastal communities and the blue economy sector that are actually on the front lines of the Indo-Pacific? Thank you so much. It's an open question.

Mohan Kumar:  Yeah. Okay. So I'll have a bash at it, but I'll take a stab at it, but I think I'm sure others are more qualified. I would say two, three things that you will notice in most minilaterals and they have to do with climate change. The fight against climate change is an important aspect for many minilaterals. You know, there is a feeling that there is plastic pollution in the sea and that there is adaptation issues that countries face, not mitigation because mitigation, that's what is sexy and everybody talks about it all the time. But if you ask somebody in the coastal areas, their immediate problem is the kind of places they live in and are these assets safe in the case of rising sea levels and so on. So I think the fight against climate change is one thing. The second issue, which as you say, people-centric is what you're asking, is energy security. Many of these minilaterals are about energy security, solar power, for example. Even the Quad does that. So quite a few of these minilaterals are doing that. Quad actually wandered off into even vaccines. I just pulled back now because now, the latest Quad foreign ministers meeting in Washington, I think which happened just a day or two after Trump 2.0 was inaugurated, they have established four issues, if I remember. And they used to do vaccines, you remember, cancer moonshot, when Biden was on his way out and all that. But now they have established a ports framework, for example, a Quad ports framework or a connectivity framework. And I would say the third thing is connectivity. So fight against climate change, which I think will benefit the people, energy security, which will benefit the people. And of course, connectivity, which will mean for the economic betterment of areas which are not connected. But let me perhaps go to Dr. Rajagopalan, and our good friend from Stockholm. Do you have any additional points to make? Yes, of course. And I'll come back to.

Rajeshwari Rajagopalan: No, I think. Yeah, thank you. No, I think that's a great question. And I think you pretty much covered the important two or three important aspects of the minilateral engagements. For all of these groupings, I think increasingly, there's a contributing to the public good, regional public good has become the mantra, so to say. So I think even though there's a lot of strategic imperative for these groupings to come together, that is what it is kind of brought them together in the initial space, initial place. But after that, since then, they have actually gone on to do a lot of other things, climate, economy, clean energy transition, all of this have become core aspects of it. And sometimes I actually criticize that sometimes we are losing the core focus and going a lot into the contributing to the regional public good. It's absolutely necessary. But at the same time, we need at least some of the groupings to stay focused on the security and strategic aspects. And again, and again, I see a lot of scepticism about quad or other minilaterals. Again, my point is that again, this I'm slightly digressing and making a bigger point. We are a bunch of democracies here we are talking about, and there are going to be lots of different pulls and pressures that will come to affect our approach, our kind of positioning on a number of things. And the fact that we do and we don't agree on everything is an every single time, I don't see it as a problem. But the fact that we have possibly become a lot more mature to listen to each other, to understand each other's perspective is far more important to me than to say that we are on the same page, we agree on everything every single time. And therefore, even small, minor deviations that is not to be, that is not to be seen as oh, this particular grouping is going to wither away, and things like that. Broad alignment, broad convergence, we can get it. I would not say that as a bunch of democracies, we can look for absolute alignment, perfect alignment may not be the starting point. And that may not get us anywhere. But otherwise, regional public good is what is going to be driving much of the groupings because they want to get the buy-in of the region in a sense.

Mohan Kumar:  Sure. Thank you. No, when she talks of public good to the students, I think you should look up Kindleberger trap. Everybody knows to see this is trap, but look up Kindleberger trap, because somebody has to provide the public good. And when no major power is willing to provide that public good, that is when we have a Kindleberger trap. So I just wanted you to, to know, after all these sessions, some of you have taken the trouble to come, you should also learn. So that you take back something. Dr. Panda, would you like to add something in half a minute?

Jagannath Panda:  I don't have much to add just a couple of sentences. One is that I think if you see most of the minilateral initiatives that Japan and Australia take part in it, they do emphasize a lot on coastal developmental plans. So that is a point to be noted. And also, since I'm based here in Europe, if you see use Indo-Pacific strategy, and some of the leading actors, including France, Czech Republic, and all, they also emphasize on coastal developmental plans. So that itself complements your point that you were mentioning, that providing public goods and engaging with the local maritime domain, maritime community there is one of those issues that are taken very carefully and seriously by some of these countries that are engaging in many rattles in time. Thank you.

Mohan Kumar:  Thank you. Thank you, Abhijit, half a minute. And Dr. Pankaj Vashisht if you have half a minute.

Abhijit Singh:  No, I'm only going to point out that public good is at the base of a lot of the conversations these days, look at the fact that in the maritime domain, there's this whole concept of holistic maritime security, in which blue economy comes up. And the reason why blue economy comes up is because people don't want the seas to be an arena of contestation, just two of nations or three nations fighting with each other. They want the seas to be used for the benefit of mankind, and you know, generate jobs, opportunities, etc. That's how blue economy is such a big thing. And whatever you might say, you know, India talks about tourism, but for some other countries, it's just conservation of the ecosystem. But I like to point out that the important thing again, there is and this is what points to the limits of minilateralism is that blue economy in the way you do marine spatial planning, etc., requires funding. And small groups of countries, they can have all the discussions in the world. At the end of the day, you need hard resource resources to be able to do what needs to be done. And there, I think multilateralism has an inherent benefit. Therefore, I would say that a lot of the discussions that happened in the Pacific, even IORA, for that matter, are much more focused, because a lot of countries do have a view on what we should do together and there is some amount of funding that comes into Blue Economy Projects. Thanks.

Mohan Kumar:  Thank you. So, before I ask Dr. Pankaj Vashisht to kind of say whatever he wants to say, I want to manage my time. We have a hard stop at five o'clock, if that is okay. How many more people want to have questions? Raise your hands. Good. So, we will bunch questions. Okay. You sure? Okay. Okay. So, can we take two, three questions? Yeah, we'll start with the lady. And then you. And then you.

Apoorva Roy:  Yes. Greetings to the panel. This is Apoorva Roy on behalf of TIES. My question is to Dr. Rajagopalan and Mr. Singh. China has been known to utilize what we call strategic ambiguity in its benefit since long time now. To what extent can emerging minilaterals, especially in South Asia and in the Pacific, can operationalize the same strategic ambiguity as a tool for deterrence against China's assertiveness?

Mohan Kumar:  Strategic ambiguity is what you said?

Apoorva Roy:  Yes.

Mohan Kumar:  Thank you. There's another lady here. Let's stick with three ladies. One of my senior colleagues is here as well. But, hey, you grab the mic. You're supposed to be hers. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Go ahead. Quickly.

Smriti:  A very good evening. So, my name is Smriti and I'm also from TIES like Aditi and Apoorva. So, my question is considering the climate change being one of the core agendas of the minilaterals in the Indo-Pacific. So, what can we expect on the participation of these minilateral organizations in the upcoming COP30 summit?

Mohan Kumar:  In the upcoming COP30? It's a good question, actually. Madam, grab the mic. Grab the mic. Don't wait.

Ira:  Thank you for the session. I'm Ira from TIES as well. Yeah.

Mohan Kumar:  You guys have taken over the whole place. Go ahead.

Ira:  Yeah. My question is an open question. I just want to know that how can India maintain its strategic autonomy despite being a part of many minilaterals which do have conflicting interests?

Mohan Kumar:  Good point. Okay, madam. And then we stop with, you know, let's take these questions.

Unidentified speaker:  Very good afternoon. Good to hear from you after a long time. As usual, a lot of wit and humour. Sir, I mean, great discussions about this minilateralism and the strategic security cooperation which is a necessity. But going forward and picking up from Mr. Pankaj's version about the limitations we have. How is this minilateralism going to impact the already existing multilateral order? I mean, there is no philosophy. There is no concept. It is a coalition of opportunity. If you put it. So, international legal order, I mean, as a student of international law, I have my own apprehension whether these voluntary commitments, non-legal binding arrangements and agreements will lead to or add to any jurisprudence or impact in the existing multilateral legal order. If anybody can reflect on that. Thank you.

Mohan Kumar:  Thank you. Thank you. Dr. Rajagopalan, something was addressed specifically to you. Do you remember? Do you want me to recall it? Strategic ambiguity, strategic autonomy and then of course, limitations of the minilateralism because I'm putting words in her mouth, but they undermine the multilateral order and I'm not sure it works out to everybody's good. I don't know, you asked about strategic ambiguity, strategic autonomy, but there was somebody else in between. What did you ask? Sorry.

Rajeshwari Rajagopalan: Yeah, there were two separate questions, one on ambiguity and one on clearly on how India manages strategic autonomy when working in this mentality.

Mohan Kumar:  Okay, if you got it, please go ahead. One minute, please.

Rajeshwari Rajagopalan:  Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. No, I think, no, I don't have disagreements on those questions, on the rationale from where you're asking, how do you manage this? But the point is that when you have a bigger strategic challenge that you on your own may not be able, are not in a position to manage, you need to be part of some pragmatic, practical groupings to ideate possible ways to deal with these challenges. I'm not saying that you, but for that matter, coming to the strategic autonomy aspect in particular, no country is going to give up on its autonomy with regard to foreign policy questions and kind of thing. So, and India is too big a country to, just because it is part of different minilateral groupings, it doesn't mean that it is going to give up on its ability to decide, make a choice on whether it is foreign policy partners or defence engagement and so on and so forth. You do work with increasing number of different kind of players, depending on your interests. And in fact, there are, in addition to the strategically, sort of the strategically oriented minilateral groupings, there are supply chain resilience initiative, there are tech related groupings that are coming about, which are becoming more and more prominent. The supply chain resilience initiative which is involving India, Australia and Japan is a prominent example. Again, we haven't seen much that has come out of it, but again, this is one thing that is picking up momentum once again, so you do work with each of these groupings, depending on your interests, depending on how you are able to further your national interest through that grouping. It's not that you are going to be losing out on your core interests, on your national interests and so on and so forth. So, in terms of minilateralism and what happens to multilateral institutions, again, the point is, multilateral institutions and multilateral processes have not delivered anything at this moment for the last several years now. And that is going to be the, one, it is driven by the major power rivalry the US-China competition and rivalry, all of this have impeded the decision-making process. Forget about decision, we are not even negotiating, we are not even discussing having effective discussions. At the same time, given the intensification of security threats and challenges, you need platforms to debate on these issues. And therefore, and I agree, and I made this point even in my remarks to say that, minilateralism means that you are effectively sort of diluting the importance of multilateralism. And that's a sad, unfortunate feature of the current times, but that is the way it is going to be, at least for the time being. We are not going to be able to, we need to address our current immediate national security related threats, and those are going to be done through minilateralism, and that can't be done through multilateral institutions at this moment. Thank you.

Mohan Kumar:  Dr. Panda, half a minute, if you have anything to add.

Jagannath Panda:  I don't have anything to add, I do agree with sir. Thank you.

Mohan Kumar:  Thank you, sir. Abhijit.

Abhijit Singh:  I just have two things to say. One, I'd like to take a stab at your excellent question. Look, I think with minilateralism, we have to recognize that it is not a panacea for all the problems that we face. Minilateralism is a practical tool, and it is to be used for the clarity of purpose. And it is important to understand that there are realistic limits to how you can use minilateralism. The important thing to answer some of the questions on strategic autonomy, et cetera, is that look, there's value-based cooperation and there is interest-based cooperation. Minilateralism is about interest-based cooperation. That's the nature of the beast. You have to accept it. And once you begin to get more value-based considerations in them, then it is actually a fault. So I would like to stop here.

Mohan Kumar:  Thank you, Abhijit. Dr. Pankaj Vashisht.

Pankaj Vashisht: Yeah. So as far as this minilateralism and multilateralism is concerned, I think there is no debate. Minilateralism is the second-best option. It's not the first-best option. And in economics, it's more prominent. This issue is more prominent because if you go by minilaterals, there are multiple rules, multiple regulation, multiple regulation requires different kind of paper documentation, which adds cost to the producer and manufacturer. And I can just cite an example from the trade. So we have like India-ASEAN signed FTA long back. It has been more than 10 years now. But if you look at the utilization of that trade, it's below 30%. So that instrument is there people are not using because first, they don't know. Second, if they know it needs some sort of a paper requirement to get the benefit. So, I mean, I agree that's the second-best option. And that's a sad story that multilateralism is not functioning. And that's why we are heading to it. But we should be mindful that when it comes to the pure economical rationale, the fragmentation is an issue that we should be mindful. But yeah, I agree that we are in a sorry stage. And that's why we are heading towards the second best option. Thank you.

Mohan Kumar:  Thank you. So, the question really for young people is, is minilateral better than no cooperation at all. At least minilateral cooperation is better than the law of the jungle is what I'm saying. Last round of questions. Yes. I think we have exhausted women so we'll go to you. Any other question. Great. So this one and then we'll go to the last… yes please.

Jal Trivedi: Good evening and greetings to the panel. I am Jal Trivedi from TIES. Sir, my question is to Abhijit sir, that's in the month of June 2025 to PLA warships that is CNS Liaoning and CNS Shandong, they crossed, they conducted a joint exercise in the Western Pacific and crossed the first and entered the second islands chain. So what does it say of the China's new posture in the Western Pacific and for the wider Indo-Pacific, as it raised alarms in Tokyo, Manila, and other countries. Thank you.

Mohan Kumar:  Thank you. You've done your homework. So Abhijit, this question is for you. The gentleman at the back, please. That'll be the last question. And then we'll wind up. Yes.

Nitin Sharma:  This is Nitin Sharma.

Mohan Kumar:  Tell me you're from TIES.

Nitin Sharma:  No, I'm doing my bachelor's in international relations from Noida International University. So my question is, if the international order is indeed transitioning from a hierarchical networks network structure, so can minilateralism be conceptualized as the foundational logic of a future polycentric world order?

Mohan Kumar:  Good question, actually. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you. Dr. Rajagopalan. Can I request you to answer the second question, but after Abhijit says his wise words on. Can you repeat the last part of your question?

Nitin Sharma:  So can minilateralism be conceptualized as the foundational logic of a future polycentric world order?

Mohan Kumar:  Good one. No. It's a good one, actually. Thank you. So, let's begin with the Chinese love affair with its neighbours. Is that what you said? No. Chinese warships. Right. Okay.

Abhijit Singh:  That's a really good question. Yeah. And let me just say that this is one of the things that has been worrying the US and its allies is that the Chinese carrier operations have crossed a critical threshold. The thing that we need to understand is that the Chinese carrier program is completely indigenous. They were denied all kinds of technology from the West. They have a point to prove. And therefore the fact that now they are doing aircraft operations from the decks and they have crossed the first island chain is signalling to the US that we now have the capability to challenge you as a peer. The question for us is that, does that mean that our interests are in any way threatened, not for the moment. Because as I mentioned, the Chinese have an extremely aggressive, they call it full spectrum dominant strategy in the Pacific. They're not content simply being in the South China Sea. They want to tell the US and its allies that we are going to be trouble for you in the entire stretch of the Pacific.

In the Indian Ocean, still their carriers have not made an appearance. If they do at some points, then we will have to think about it. But let me just say the Indian Navy might still have a conservative approach unless we are challenged in the Bay of Bengal or in the waters that are close to our mainland. That's what I'm gonna say.

Mohan Kumar:  So on the last question, and I thought that was an excellent question and a difficult question. I'm going to request Dr. Rajagopalan to address that. Speaking for myself, I think I'll break it down into political, military and economic. If you look at the BRICS, it started off being, I wouldn't say mini lateral, but yeah, close to a mini lateral five countries. And then it's become BRICS plus now. And there is now a bunch of countries which actually want to join the BRICS. So in a political scheme of things, I think it's entirely possible to argue that minilateral could be the stepping stone of a future order, which is more wide ranging or more broad. But in terms of economics and military, it'll be much more difficult. For example, AUKUS, I don't see it now expanding to other countries very easily because there are countries which will have military sensitivities to take on whatever, China, whichever country. Similarly in economic as well, you can actually have some of these FTAs which can actually be building stones. I mean, RCEP has gained quite a bit of currency. CPTPP, while of course China is not part, it's actually expanded and several countries are now interested. In fact, some of us who are trade experts and Dr. Vashisht will agree with me, we are also saying India should look at it. I'm not saying India should join immediately, but I think we should look at it. So both in political and economic terms, it's entirely possible to argue that mini laterals can expand. In military terms, perhaps less so, but I'll have Dr. Rajagopalan have the last word on this.

Rajeshwari Rajagopalan: Thank you, Ambassador. And that's a great question. Actually, it's a tricky question to kind of think because you need to think about is it kind of providing itself as a building blocks to our future pluralistic world order in a sense. In some ways, when I look at it, I look at it slightly differently. I look at the China's efforts in the economic domain to be slightly more fruitful slightly more with the kind of BRICS development bank, the National Development Bank that they put together in place. I think they have had limited success in a sense, but their experiment on the security side of things or the political side of things have not been as convincing, even despite the fact that you have Trump-driven fluctuations, the tariffs and whole range of things that have come up and that has actually created so much of geopolitical flux. Despite that, and of course, Xi Jinping tried his level best to go over to the Southeast Asian region, for instance, to talk to them and using various platforms to say that China is the greatest champion of globalization and it's a responsible stakeholder, a whole range of things that have been done, but there has been, many countries have not bought on to those, despite their troubles, each of these countries having troubles with the United States, they have not bought on to the rhetoric from China, precisely because there is a yawning gap between what China says and what China does. Therefore, their success, their efforts purely in the security or political domain have had very limited success. I can't say success at all, so have had serious limitations, I would say, but on the question of BRICS and such other organization, BRICS, maybe in the initial stage, I thought it was slightly more powerful. As such, BRICS does not, I believe, have a very coherent agenda that is driving today, and the more members you bring in and enlarge group it becomes, the coherence within the group is even diluted further, so I'm not entirely sure those can be the… I still look at, yeah, we can't, if I could predict with absolute certainty, I would not be sitting here in a think tank, I would be somewhere in a different position at this point of time, so I can't say with any certainty, but I think at least some of these powers do have this potential to become part of a multipolar world order, that's what we are beginning to see, because it's essentially a lot of the middle powers who are coming together in a minilateral form, in this minilateral format, in a sense, so they do have the potential, but how quickly that will pan out, it remains to be seen, in a sense. Thank you.

Mohan Kumar:  Thank you very much. I'm going to conclude, not by giving you any “gyan”, because I think you've had enough from everybody. I'll say just one last thing, and it is the practical aspect of negotiating a minilateral. You know, I can only talk about the Indian Ministry of External Affairs. We have capacity constraints. We are not such a huge diplomatic service, not yet. We are recruiting 55 people and I'm delighted that in due course India will have big numbers. But with small numbers, it's very difficult to negotiate many, many, minilaterals. That also puts pressure on the Indian Ministry of External Affairs as it is putting pressure on the Indian Ministry of Commerce as we embark on FTAs. The Commerce Minister has gone seamlessly from Washington to Brussels and now he's in New Zealand. All of it is negotiating FTA. So this is not easy for a bureaucracy, for the Ministry of External Affairs and we have divisions which actually deal with subjects. So if you have two, three countries belonging to different divisions, just coordinating a minilateral will become a difficult proposition. But that is the practical aspect that I would want you to think. Once again, thank you so much, Ms. Nutan Mahawar. She never fails to disappoint. You always come up with interesting questions for us to discuss. Very happy to be here and I want to thank my absolutely wonderful panellists. Thank you.

Pragya Pandey:  Thank you, sir. On behalf of the ICWA, I take this opportunity to thank our distinguished chair and esteemed panellists. We have benefited immensely from their views. My special thanks to the audience for their valuable participation. To know more about ICWA's research work, visit our website and follow us on our social media handles. May I now invite you all to join us for high tea at the foyer. Thank you once again.

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List of Participants

1. Nutan Kapoor Mahawar, Acting Director General & Additional Secretary Indian Council of World Affairs 
2. Amb. (Dr) Mohan Kumar, Professor of Diplomatic Practice, Jindal School of International Affairs, O.P. Jindal Global University (Chair)
3. Dr. Pankaj Vashisht, Associate Professor and Coordinator, ASEAN-India Centre (AIC), Research &. Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), New Delhi  
4. Dr. Rajeshwari Rajagopalan, Resident Senior Fellow, Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), Canberra (Online)
5. Dr. Jagannath Panda, Head, Stockholm Center for South Asian and Indo-Pacific Affairs, Stockholm, Sweden (Online)
6. Mr. Abhijit Singh, Retired Naval Officer and Former Head, Maritime Policy Initiative, Observer Research Foundation (ORF), New Delhi