Why India must bother about BRI & RCEP

Its refusal to participate in the two says that this country of 1.2 billion people and a $3 trillion economy shies away from playing a major part in shaping Asia's future

Lee Kuan Yew would not have minded Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, whom he got to know as India’s high commissioner to Singapore, saying that “the centrality of ASEAN to Asia is not what it is (sic) used to be”. But India’s retreat from the Asian stage under Jaishankar’s watch as external affairs minister would have confirmed his worst apprehensions about Narendra Modi’s prime ministership.

ASEAN, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, was not Lee’s brainchild. He stressed when I was writing Looking East to Look West: Lee Kuan Yew’s Mission India that Thailand played the key role in its creation. His own