ABSTRACT
Strategic competition for influence in Southeast Asia has long involved India, Japan and China. As Japanese firms dramatically expanded their international production networks throughout Southeast Asia in the 1980s and 1990s, Indian Prime Minister Narasimha Rao made an abrupt break with New Delhi's traditional non-aligned status with the introduction of the 'Look East' policy. A succession of short-lived Indian governments in the 1990s led to foreign and strategic policy incoherence from New Delhi, but the 'Look East' policy was revived under Vajpayee's government from 1998. India's 'Look East' policy – involving both bilateral and regional compacts – successfully matched China's Free Trade Area (FTA) with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), while marginalizing Pakistan within South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). Chinese expansion into the Russian Far East, and its growing influence in former Soviet republics, such as Tajikistan, further exacerbates the mutual suspicion between Moscow and Beijing, which belies their public proclamations of partnership.
