ISAS Special Reports

East Asia has always occupied a prominent place in independent India's strategic perspective, an outcome of India's civilisational roots and its long history of commercial engagement with East Asian countries. In the 1930s, Nehru had toyed with the idea of forging an "Eastern Federation" in which China, Burma (now Myanmar), Malaya (now Malaysia), and Siam (now Thailand) were conceived as prospective members. 3 In the inaugural Asian Relations Conference in New Delhi in March 1947 Nehru again reiterated the significance of Southeast Asia in India's strategy to forge Asian solidarity.