New Delhi, July 23 (IANS) Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recent three-nation visit to Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia constitute less a series of separate bilateral visits than a coordinated sweep through parts of the Indo-Pacific, where India’s presence has historically been thin relative to its stated ambitions, according to an article published by Politeia Research Foundation (PRF).
“PM Modi tied the tour explicitly to India’s Act East Policy and its MAHASAGAR vision (Mutual and Holistic Advancement for Security and Growth Across Regions), locating the New Zealand visit within a broader regional recalibration rather than treating it as an isolated gesture to a smaller Pacific partner,” states the article authored by Rahul Sen.
The India-New Zealand free trade agreement (FTA) and strategic partnership were announced as a single package rather than as successive stages. India’s upgraded Indo-Pacific relationships increasingly combine trade liberalisation with defence cooperation from the outset, with maritime security dialogues becoming a standard institutional feature, the article observes.
It opines that India has extended its Maritime Cooperation Arrangement and Mutual Logistics Support Arrangement to New Zealand, which New Delhi had until now reserved for partners such as Australia, the United States and France. This suggests an intent to broaden the network of logistics and interoperability partners beyond the core Quad-adjacent grouping.
The article also highlights that PM Modi’s community event during the visit in Auckland, and the mobilisation of the Indian diaspora leaders, point to a pattern in which India’s outreach in the Pacific is built in part on pre-existing community networks, which governments are treating as an active diplomatic asset.
“What is already evident is that India’s Indo-Pacific strategy is expanding geographically into the South Pacific for the first time in four decades, while applying the same trade-plus-security template it has developed with Australia and Japan. New Zealand’s inclusion in that template, however modest in scale relative to India’s larger regional partnerships, is a useful indicator of how far India’s regional ambitions have extended,” the article added.
–IANS
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