| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立政治大學 === 外交學系 === 107 === India has been a major player in the South Asia region, but as its economy continues to rise, India has gained the confidence to enhance its engagement towards East and Southeast Asia. The Look East Policy (LEP) has been a major pillar of India’s foreign policy since 1991 to increase engagement with Southeast Asia. The LEP was initiated by Prime Minister P.V. Narasimha Rao which initially aims for economic cooperation with Southeast Asian countries. In 2004, the LEP later expanded its scope of including China, Japan, and Australia under Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. In the second half of 2014, LEP was upgraded to Act East Policy (AEP) under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
This thesis seeks to understand India’s foreign policy shift from the LEP to the AEP and argues that the AEP under Narendra Modi has shifted from solely economic cooperation to include more strategic cooperation with Southeast and East Asia. However, although greater emphasis was put towards strategic cooperation, the AEP did not drastically shift from the LEP due to the limited bureaucratic capacity within the Indian government.
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