Foreign & Public Diplomacy

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief.

The highlights this week: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi makes a six-day trip through the Asia-Pacific, reports suggest another round of U.S.-Iran talks could take place in Pakistan, and a prison riot in Sri Lanka leads to a government investigation.

Welcome to Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief.

The highlights this week: Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi makes a six-day trip through the Asia-Pacific, reports suggest another round of U.S.-Iran talks could take place in Pakistan, and a prison riot in Sri Lanka leads to a government investigation.

Modi’s Asia-Pacific Tour

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is on a six-day trip through the Asia-Pacific this week. He arrived in Indonesia on Monday and Australia on Wednesday and will conclude his travel in New Zealand. The high-level engagements come on the heels of a summit that Modi hosted in New Delhi last week for Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.

India seems to be reasserting its commitment to engaging closely with the region at a moment of uncertainty. The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, which includes Australia, India, Japan, and the United States, hasn’t held a leaders’ summit for nearly two years. Under U.S. President Donald Trump, Washington’s approach to the Indo-Pacific is especially unclear.

However, Modi’s diplomacy can also be read as an effort to pursue broader Indian strategic objectives—including bolstering its influence—in a region that has long been a top policy priority, especially given China’s rapidly deepening footprint there.

Australia and Japan are among India’s closest partners in the Asia-Pacific. Modi’s engagements with the two countries are, among other things, an opportunity to strengthen cooperation in efforts to counter China. New Delhi has taken steps to ease tensions with Beijing since a deadly border clash in 2020, but China remains India’s biggest strategic threat.

Current U.S.-India tensions mean that continued support from Washington to counter Beijing is not guaranteed—including intelligence sharing, which has helped India repel Chinese border provocations in the past. This makes New Delhi’s partnerships with the other two Quad members........

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