Letter From the Editors

From India to Japan to the ever-growing territory of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, foreign policies across Asia are always evolving. In this issue, we focus on the ways foreign policymakers are reacting to – and shaping – intensified geopolitical competition.

When Narendra Modi took the oath of office for his third term as prime minister, it cemented the continuation of a decade-long transformation of Indian foreign policy. In our cover story, New Delhi-based correspondent Siddharthya Roy explores how India’s role on the world stage has changed under Modi – for better or worse. While India’s emphasis on strategic autonomy and nonalignment is long-standing, Roy explains, Modi has placed special emphasis on winning global recognition and acclaim for India – and pushing back, at times forcefully, against critics. While this has paid political dividends at home for Modi and his government, Roy notes that India is already brushing up against the limits of its capabilities.

Japan has long had a presence in the Pacific Island countries, encompassing robust development aid and a longest-standing summit framework, the Pacific Islands Leaders Meeting (PALM). But since the last PALM summit in 2021, Japan has stepped up its engagement in the security realm in particular. As Céline Pajon, head of Japan Research at the French Institute of International Relations, explains, Japan’s security outreach has gone from low-profile efforts mostly focused on nontraditional security threats to providing defense equipment and the full-scale involvement of the Japan Self-Defense Forces in training regional counterparts. In the background, as always, is China’s own increased security influence in the Pacific Island countries.

In early July, Belarus, a European country, will join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as a full member, completely bursting its regional focus once and for all. As Eva Seiwert of the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) notes, the SCO’s continued expansion – the group added India and Pakistan in 2017 and Iran in 2023 – mirrors its emergence as a tool for Moscow and Beijing’s geopolitical ambitions. The SCO, once a Central Asia-focused regional security organization, stands at a crossroads. Its rising international visibility, Seiwert writes, comes hand in hand with a loss of regional relevance, which in turn opens the door for other actors to address regional issues more efficiently.

We hope you enjoy these stories and the many more in the following pages.