Heading next week to the East Asia Summit in the Philippines, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will have time to renew his acquaintance with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao. Wen generated the big breakthrough in Sino-Indian border talks when he visited India in April 2005. Since then the border talks have stalled.

But the East Asia Summit is hardly the place to focus on bilateral problems with China. It is a place to observe Beijing’s relentless diplomatic advance in South East Asia and to find ways to cope with the rise of China.

Widely seen as a threat to South East Asia until the early 1980s, China has emerged as the principal economic partner for the region, put its boundary disputes in the South China Sea on the backburner. It is trying to build security partnerships with key countries of the region.

Dr Singh will have his task cut out in convincing the region that India’s Look East policy has some juice left in it.

East is red

While the US sulks at being left out of the East Asia Summit process, and Japan chafes at being marginalised in Asia, China paints east and southeast Asia red.

The focus next week in the Philippines will be on building an Asian economic community. While China makes good on its promises to accelerate free-trade talks with ASEAN, India’s own efforts in that direction have stalled.

When it takes hold in 2010, the China-ASEAN Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA) would bring nearly 1.7 billion people together into a single market that is worth nearly $ 2 trillion. Beijing’s trade with ASEAN has multiplied 15-fold since 1991 and stood at $ 130 billion. It could reach $160 billion this year and $ 200 billion next year. China is all set to become ASEAN’s largest trading partner.

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