India’s Act East Policy: Finding Opportunities in Post-Pandemic Adversities
Torunika Roy
Abstract:
India’s Act East Policy has fallen short of its promised potential due to factors like China’s increasing influence in the region, rising tensions between India and China, and India’s withdrawal from the RCEP. Since the end of 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic has damaged economies, disrupted supply chains, interrupted services, and led to many more challenges. Despite such issues, the pandemic triggered a new urgency to re-imagine the cooperation and explore new avenues of collaboration under the Act East Policy. This issue brief discusses the new areas of cooperation – in health, digitalization, and the green economy – with India’s eastern neighbors.
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