‘The budget for the Ministry of External Affair deserves closer scrutiny’
| Photo Credit: The Hindu

When the Union Budget is presented every year, most of the public attention often centres on taxation, infrastructure, and defence. In this, however, the budget for India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) deserves closer scrutiny. Last year, the MEA budget saw a rare 23% spike, up from the modest 4% annual increase between 2017 and 2023. Despite efficient Budget utilisation, exceeding 96% of the revised estimates, the MEA remains one of the least-funded Ministries. The MEA’s allocation not only reflects the government’s foreign policy priorities but also its capacity to deliver on its global ambitions and commitments.

The vision of a ‘Viksit Bharat’ by 2047 hinges on sustained global partnerships. Here, India is positioning itself as a global leader: from leading the Global South; strengthening ties with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations; enhancing regional connectivity, engaging with the Quad (India, Australia, Japan and the U.S.) and creating institutions such as the International Solar Alliance and the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure.

Impact on plans

Partner countries also expect more from India, requiring a stronger MEA. Countries anticipate timely project delivery, financial support, and diplomatic follow-through. Yet, the MEA’s current budget — just 0.4% of India’s overall expenditure — falls short to deliver on these plans. In 2022, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on External Affairs suggested raising this to 1% of the total budget. While such an increase (approximately 63%) seems unlikely, even a gradual increase to 0.6% or 0.8% would signal intent.

Two areas demand greater budgetary resources to beef up India’s diplomatic clout: economic tools for regional integration and cooperation, and the MEA’s institutional capacity by expanding human resources and research expertise. India’s regional connectivity faced new challenges in 2024, including Bangladesh’s regime change, Myanmar’s instability, strained ties with Nepal, and the Maldives’ “India Out” stance. But visits by Sri Lanka’s President and Bhutan’s Prime Minister bolstered commitments in cross-border projects. Sustaining momentum under the ‘Neighbourhood First’ policy requires economic support, amid China’s growing influence. Enhanced financial backing is crucial for advancing connectivity initiatives in South Asia.

Foreign aid and shifts

Budgetary trends reveal nuanced shifts. India’s aid to foreign countries declined by 10% in 2024-25, while loans to foreign governments, increased by 29%. Approximately 50% of India’s grants is directed to its neighbourhood. Bhutan remained the largest recipient of Indian aid, reflecting historical ties and a new impetus on energy interdependence, including hydropower development and sub-regional grid connectivity. Aid to Bangladesh declined from ₹200 crore in 2023-24 to ₹120 crore in 2024-25, while Sri Lanka saw a 63% increase in budgetary allocation.

A notable shift is the move from outright grants to lines of credit (LoCs), with 45% of the LoCs directed to the neighbourhood, Bangladesh being the largest recipient at $7.86 billion. While LoCs enable sustainable infrastructure financing, they also demand robust disbursement and oversight mechanisms, stretching India’s diplomatic machinery.

Another critical indicator is MEA resources to build institutional capacity. These are less visible but critical catalysts to enable long-term growth, including through a stronger Indian Foreign Service (IFS), supported by an expert research ecosystem.

While the MEA’s training budget saw a 30% increase in 2024-25, overall capacity-building allocations remain insufficient. The IFS remains a chronically understaffed diplomatic corps. Coordination challenges, delayed expansion plans, and limited lateral entry efforts hinder progress.

Last year’s MEA budget allocation for its foreign missions, training programmes, and cultural diplomacy grew by only 7% but key academic institutions such as Nalanda University and South Asian University experienced cuts of 20% and 22%, respectively. While the MEA has invested massively in convening international conferences and dialogues to foster India’s image as a bridging and argumentative power, it must also find more budgetary resources to support policy-relevant and evidence-based research at Indian universities and think tanks.

Need for declassification, digitisation

According to the External Affairs Minister, S. Jaishankar, “Track 1 has been consistently ahead of Track 2 when it comes to diplomacy, foreign policy, and keeping up with the world.” If this is the reality, and “needs change” as the Minister beckoned, the MEA could lead by example by allocating specific resources in the next Budget to accelerate the declassification and the digitisation of hundreds of thousands of its records. Public e-access will help scholars map India’s rich diplomatic history, contest deeply-held myths and get a better grasp of the underappreciated context and constraints that regulate Track 1 decision-making. And in turn, such Track 2 research may also help current MEA decision-makers to learn from past successes and failures, avoid reinventing the wheel, and articulate India’s uniqueness based on the power of historical record, rather than mere political proclamation.

Riya Sinha is Associate Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP), New Delhi. Constantino Xavier is Senior Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP), New Delhi. The views expressed are personal

Soldiers sit next to an armoured vehicle outside a hotel during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in Vientiane on October 8, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Myanmar will send a representative to a regional summit this week for the first time in three years, a diplomatic source said on Tuesday, as the junta struggles to quell a civil war.

The conflict will be high on the agenda as leaders from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) meet in Laos on Wednesday (October 9, 2024), although more than three years of efforts to find a diplomatic solution to the crisis have had no impact.

ASEAN barred Myanmar’s junta leaders from its summits in the wake of their February 2021 coup, and the generals have refused to send “non-political representatives” instead.

However, Myanmar — one of 10 ASEAN member states — has sent a senior foreign ministry official as its representative to the three-day meeting in Vientiane, a Southeast Asian diplomat involved in the meetings said.

Weeks after seizing power, the junta agreed to a “five-point consensus” plan aimed at restoring peace but then ignored it and carried on a bloody crackdown on dissent and armed opposition to its rule.

“The significance is that in a sense they are accepting the five-point consensus,” the diplomat told AFP.

“They may have thought that it’s better to have their own voice heard rather than be on the outside.”

Junta chief Min Aung Hlaing attended an emergency ASEAN summit on the crisis in April 2021 but the bloc has refused to invite him to regular gatherings since.

Aung Kyaw Moe, permanent secretary at the Myanmar Foreign Ministry, attended a meeting of foreign ministers on Tuesday ahead of the main summit but refused to answer reporters’ questions.

Sending a representative to the meeting comes two weeks after the military issued an unprecedented invitation to its enemies for talks aimed at ending the conflict, which has killed thousands and forced millions to flee their homes.

The junta has been reeling from battlefield defeats to ethnic minority armed groups and pro-democracy “People’s Defence Forces” that rose up to oppose its coup.

Indonesia hosted talks on the Myanmar conflict last week involving ASEAN, the European Union and the United Nations, as well as numerous anti-junta groups.

Malaysia takes over as ASEAN chair after the summit and foreign minister Mohamad Hasan said the Jakarta meeting showed that talks must involve all parties in Myanmar.

“The takeaway is that we have to approach everybody in Myanmar. Myanmar also has to listen to ASEAN,” he told reporters in Vientiane.

Call for action

ASEAN, long criticised as a toothless talking shop hamstrung from taking firm action by its principle of making decisions by consensus, has made little progress in its efforts to resolve the Myanmar crisis.

The topic has dominated every high-level meeting since the coup but the bloc has been divided, with Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines leading calls for tougher action against the generals.

Myanmar’s neighbour Thailand, which regularly hosts thousands of people fleeing the conflict and has held its own bilateral talks with the junta, has called for a more effective response from ASEAN.

The kingdom will host informal talks on the crisis in December involving the “troika” of Indonesia, Laos and Malaysia, ASEAN Secretary-General Kao Kim Hourn told reporters.

“This is what we call a new meeting that will review the situation in Myanmar (to see) what more can be done,” he said.

China, Myanmar’s neighbour and key ally, confirmed on Tuesday that Premier Li Qiang would also attend the summit.

Beijing has grown increasingly alarmed at the conflict on its doorstep and wants to see a deal, calling on Friday for a “reconciliation led by all people of Myanmar”.

The South China Sea will be another key topic for leaders after months of violent confrontations between Chinese and Philippine vessels in the disputed waterway.

Beijing claims almost the entire South China Sea, brushing off rival claims of several Southeast Asian countries, including the Philippines, and an international ruling that its assertion has no legal basis.

Japan’s new Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba will also attend, as will India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi and leaders from South Korea, Australia and Canada.

Philippine Defence Minister Gilberto Teodoro. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

China is the “biggest disruptor” of peace in Southeast Asia, the Philippine defence chief said on Tuesday (August 27, 2024), as tensions between Manila and Beijing over disputed reefs and waters in the South China Sea escalate.

“China… is the biggest disruptor of international peace in the ASEAN region,” Gilberto Teodoro told a conference of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command in Manila, referring to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations.

Earlier, China deployed “an excessive force” of 40 ships that blocked two Philippine vessels from delivering food and other supplies to Manila’s largest coast guard ship in a disputed shoal in the latest flare-up of their territorial disputes in the South China Sea, Philippine officials said.

China and the Philippines blamed each other for the confrontation on Monday in Sabina Shoal, an uninhabited atoll both countries claim that has become the latest flashpoint in the Spratlys, the most hotly disputed region of the sea passage that is a key global trade and security route.

China and the Philippines have separately deployed coast guard ships to Sabina in recent months on suspicion the other may act to take control of and build structures in the fishing atoll.

The hostilities have particularly intensified between China and the Philippines since last year and Monday’s confrontation was the sixth the two sides have reported in the high seas and in the air. The confrontations have sparked concerns of a larger conflict that could involved the United States, the longtime treaty ally of the Philippines.

The Philippine coast guard said the “excessive force” of Chinese coast guard and navy ships, along with 31 suspected militia vessels, illegally obstructed the delivery of the food supplies, including an ice cream treat for the personnel aboard the BRP Teresa Magbanua as the Philippines marked National Heroes’ Day on Monday.

The Philippine coast guard said it “remains steadfast in our commitment to uphold national interests and ensure the safety and security of our waters” and urged “the China coast guard to abide with the international law and stop deploying maritime forces that could undermine mutual respect, a universally recognized foundation for responsible and friendly relations among coast guards.” In Beijing, China’s coast guard said that it took control measures against two Philippine coast guard ships that “intruded” into waters near Sabina Shoal. It said in a statement that the Philippine ships escalated the situation by repeatedly approaching a Chinese coast guard ship. The Chinese coast guard did not say what control measures it took.

China has rapidly expanded its military and has become increasingly assertive in pursuing its territorial claims in the South China Sea, which Beijing claims virtually in its entirety. The tensions have led to more frequent confrontations, primarily with the Philippines, though the longtime territorial disputes also involve other claimants, including Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia and Brunei.

Chinese and Philippine coast guard ships have collided near Sabina, which Beijing calls Xianbin and Manila refers to as Escoda prior to Monday.

Southeast Asian Foreign Ministers gather in Laos this week for talks on the disputed South China Sea and the conflict in Myanmar, with top diplomats from China and the United States slated to meet on the sidelines.

The three-day meeting of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) starts in the capital Vientiane on July 25.

Antony Blinken will meet Chinese counterpart Wang Yi on the sidelines of the event at which he will “discuss the importance of adherence to international law in the South China Sea”, according to the U.S. State Department.

Beijing claims the waterway — through which trillions of dollars of trade passes annually — almost in its entirety despite an international court ruling that its assertion has no legal basis.

A series of clashes between Philippine and Chinese vessels at flashpoint reefs in recent months have fuelled fears of a conflict that could drag in the United States owing to its mutual defence treaty with Manila.

ASEAN Ministers are expected to issue a joint communique after their meeting on Thursday.

In a draft seen by AFP, some Ministers expressed concerns over “serious incidents” in the waterway “which have eroded trust and confidence, increased tensions, and may undermine peace, security, and stability in the region”.

A Filipino sailor lost a thumb in a June 17 confrontation when Chinese coast guard members wielding knives, sticks and an axe foiled a Philippine Navy attempt to resupply its troops on a remote outpost.

Beijing and Manila later reached an agreement allowing for the resupply of the troops stationed on a rusty warship deliberately grounded on Second Thomas Shoal in 1999 to assert Manila’s claims to the area.

One diplomat who is attending the meeting in Vientiane said China’s assertiveness in the sea was pushing some Southeast Asian countries closer to the United States.

Diplomats in the region were also preparing for the possibility of a Donald Trump victory in November’s U.S. election, they said, requesting anonymity to speak to the media.

ASEAN countries “more or less have a feel of how to deal with him… They know what are his trigger points, what he likes, what he dislikes,” he said.

Myanmar

Also on the agenda in Vientiane is the civil war in Myanmar, sparked by a military coup in 2021.

ASEAN, of which Myanmar is a member, has led diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis but has made little progress.

The junta is excluded from the bloc’s top-level meetings over its refusal to negotiate with its opponents and its brutal crackdown on dissent.

Myanmar is expected to send a senior bureaucrat to this week’s meeting, according to several sources.

The military’s readiness to re-engage with ASEAN diplomatically was a “sign of the junta’s weakened position”, a Southeast Asian diplomat, who will attend the talks, told AFP on condition of anonymity.

The generals have yet to make any meaningful counterattack following an offensive by ethnic armed groups in October that seized swaths of territory along the border with China.

The losses triggered rare public criticism of its top leadership.

“The centre is still solid under the junta,” the diplomat said, warning Myanmar could “become a failed state”.

The draft communique seen by AFP said ministers “strongly condemned” the continued violence.

The crisis has divided the bloc, with Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines calling for tougher action against the junta.

Thailand has held its own bilateral talks with the generals as well as detained democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo
| Photo Credit: AP

Indonesia warned on September 5 against Southeast Asia’s bloc getting dragged into big-power rivalry as leaders gathered for a summit seeking to dispel worry about rifts over peace efforts in Myanmar and to reaffirm the relevance of their disparate group.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo, opening a summit of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), called on the group to devise a “long-term tactical strategy that is relevant and meets people’s expectations”.

“ASEAN has agreed to not be a proxy to any powers. Don’t turn our ship into an arena for rivalry that is destructive,” Mr. Widodo said.

“We, as leaders, have ensure this ship keeps moving and sailing and we must become its captain to achieve peace, stability, and prosperity together.”

Founded at the height of the Cold War in the 1960s to oppose the spread of communism, the politically diverse grouping prioritises unity and non-interference in members’ internal affairs.

But critics say that has limited its scope for action when it comes to handling issues like fellow member Myanmar, where violence rages two years after the military seized power in a 2021 coup.

ASEAN has banned Myanmar’s military leaders from its high-level meetings but differences have emerged with Indonesia attempting to engage all sides to push an ASEAN peace plan and Thailand trying to engage Myanmar’s military leaders.

Malaysia called on Monday for “strong” measures against the generals saying they had created “obstacles” to the ASEAN peace plan.

‘Reassert Relevance’

Former Indonesian foreign minister Marty Natalegawa said the bloc must adapt to challenges or risk oblivion.

“Obituaries on ASEAN actually have been written many times over, but somehow all those times, ASEAN has been able to reinvent itself and reassert its relevance. I feel today we are at one of those junctures,” he told an ASEAN business forum on Sunday.

China and its sharpening rivalry with the United States also loom over the meeting.

Some ASEAN members have focused on developing close diplomatic, business and military ties with Beijing while others are more wary.

The summit comes days after China released a “10-dash line” map, illustrating its claim to an extensive portion of the South China Sea that will likely add urgency to negotiations on a long-delayed code of conduct in the strategic waterway.

ASEAN member states Malaysia, Vietnam and the Philippines, which have overlapping claims in the South China Sea, have rejected China’s map.

Later this week, ASEAN leaders will hold an East Asia summit, a wider forum that includes China, India, Japan, Russia and the United States.

Adding to unease about ASEAN’s relevance, U.S. President Joe Biden is not attending the talks. Vice President Kamala Harris will attend instead. Chinese Premier Li Qiang will also attend.