Leaders are gathering in Gyeongju, South Korea, for the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit, a grouping that promotes trade, investment and economic cooperation among economies in the Asia-Pacific region.
Before its main event began on Friday, this year’s summit was already dominated by a meeting on Thursday between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping, who agreed to defuse trade tensions for the time being.
The meeting concluded a week of Asian diplomacy for Trump, who began his trip at the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit in Kuala Lumpur. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi decided to personally skip the ASEAN summit, leading to speculation that he wanted to avoid a face-off with Trump amid rising US-India tensions over Russian oil purchases.
India has been eyeing joining APEC for years. Despite the country’s growing economic influence and support from some member economies, including the US and South Korea, its membership bid has repeatedly faced obstacles.
And Trump’s participation in this week’s summit with Asian partners comes amid a thaw in India-US relations.
“The US has been supportive of India in the past and successive administrations have supported our case for APEC membership,” Anil Wadhwa, a retired Indian diplomat with extensive experience in Southeast Asia and the broader Indo-Pacific region, told DW.
Under the second Trump administration, “there is no active outreach to India or other countries, and therefore, there is stagnation in these efforts,” he said.
Does India still want to join APEC?
When it first expressed interest in joining, India’s alleged protectionist policies were seen as a major obstacle.
But Wadwa rejected the suggestion that many APEC economies still consider India trade defensive and politically cautious of a forum that relies on consensus and open markets.
Wadhwa said, “India is not protectionist but wants to open up and secure free trade agreements (FTAs). It did not join the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a major Asia-Pacific trade agreement, primarily because it feared China would abuse rules of origin to flood India with cheap goods, increasing its trade deficit.”
“Currently, India wants to review its FTA provisions with ASEAN and join APEC,” he said.
Foreign policy expert C Raja Mohan does not agree with this. He points out that India prefers national sovereignty and strategic autonomy over the traditional multilateral cooperation framework.
“India’s current strategic focus is on building bilateral trade agreements with the US, EU and Canada, reflecting its preference to leverage its core strengths and regional domain rather than joining multilateral institutions like APEC,” Mohan told DW.
“New Delhi has already worked on trade agreements with Australia and Britain,” he said.
Trump’s pivot makes multilateralism less attractive for India
Mohan said India’s approach is strongly influenced by the current geopolitical landscape shaped by the Trump administration, which adopts a bilateral and transactional approach to foreign policy.
“As a result, multilateral platforms such as APEC or the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) are perceived as having less relevance or competitive importance for India in this context,” he said.
The CPTPP is a free trade agreement between 12 countries in the Indo-Pacific region, including Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and Vietnam.
Gulshan Sachdeva of the Center for European Studies at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University said that although Trump’s approach to trade policy seriously weakens existing global trade rules and disrupts the economic calculations of all major economies, including India, New Delhi’s own hesitation in working with regional forums is also a factor.
“India’s reluctant participation in the emerging Asian economic framework, including its last-minute withdrawal from RCEP, may hinder its long-term integration into Asia-Pacific value chains,” Sachdeva told DW.
India’s stalled APEC bid
According to Harsh Pant, head of the strategic studies program at the Observer Research Foundation (ORF), a New Delhi-based think tank, unless APEC decides to expand its membership, India’s inclusion remains largely an academic discussion.
According to him, even though India has been seeking membership in APEC for a long time, internal divisions within the group have stalled the process for quite some time.
Sachdeva agrees, highlighting APEC’s internal decision-making process as well as “India’s cautious approach to economic liberalisation” as significant obstacles.
And although India is not a part of APEC, it has close political, economic and strategic ties with many of its members.
Pant said, “Several Indo-Pacific economies, including ASEAN states, Australia and Japan, are strengthening bilateral ties with India. India, once seen as protectionist, is moving towards pursuing bilateral free trade agreements with like-minded countries.”
Edited by: Wesley Rahn, Amy Sasipornkarn