Conference Program

The European Union (EU) under the Von der Leyen’s Commission is set to become a geopolitical actor in world politics. In 2021, the EU launches its Indo-Pacific Strategy to emphatically enter into the region where the US-China competition is most pronounced. In two years, the EU succeeded in carrying out substantial projects in the region, such as the Global Gateway, and also in establishing various platforms with the partners in the region. A third way, other than the US and China, thus appears to be shaping up in the Indo-Pacific geopolitics. While the EU continues to distinguish itself with the other two great powers with its normative approach, the EU’s foreign policy quietly made a pragmatic turn, which is expected to make the union more resilient and more capable in creating its strategic autonomy. The European Economic Security Strategy is hence formed as one of the main tactics to face the rapidly changing geopolitical context. It aims to provide the EU with more tools to defend its economy from unfair competition, and also to generate more competitiveness for the common market. As the EU now turns its focus to the Indo-Pacific for development, this paper aims to examine the implementation and the effectiveness of the EU's economic security strategy in the region.

The rise of China has impacted the rules and practices of liberal international order, the management of global commons, the nature of world politics and propelled strategic rebalancing in the Indo-Pacific. In the post-Cold War period, India made specific course corrections in its foreign policy by announcing the Look East Policy, which converged with the US strategic and economic rebalancing in the Indo-Pacific. India's Look East(Act East) policy allowed three relationships with the US, Japan and Australia to grow. This paper focuses on India's convergence and divergence of interests in the four-nation collective, abbreviated as QUAD, a coalition of democracies in the Indo-Pacific that focuses on nonmilitary aspects of cooperation. It is a convergence of like-minded countries concerned with China's increasing assertiveness in the region. The innovative framework of QUAD aligns with India's strategic autonomy vision so that India can engage more deeply in quadrilateral cooperation to strive for a ‘free, open, prosperous and inclusive Indo-Pacific region’. As trading nations, all quadrilateral members share a deep interest in maintaining a maritime order based on the free movement of goods and services across the world's oceans. All four countries are committed to the current economic order based on international law, free trade, open investment environments, competitive tendering, the rule of law, and good governance standards. From an Indian perspective, QUAD is a 'gathering key' to India's national interest.