Opinion | PM Modi’s New Zealand Visit: India’s Middle-Power Playbook Reaches The Pacific

PM Modi’s answer has been consistent: build bilateral depth with the wary partner, convert it into concrete economicfootholds, and let each foothold widen India's room to manoeuvre

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s aircraft touched down in Auckland on July 10, closing a five-week run that began in Victoria, Seychelles, on June 27. In between, India hosted Japan’s Sanae Takaichi in New Delhi, and PM Modi travelled on to Jakarta and then Melbourne before this final stop. Four engagements, four communiqués, four diaspora receptions. Each of them is distinct, each carrying its own list of outcomes. Taken individually, they read as a busy season of summitry. Taken together, it is a single method applied four times over five weeks to four democracies that share one anxiety.

That anxiety is dependence. Each of these states worries, in its own register, about leaning too hard on a single great power, Tokyo, Victoria, Jakarta, Melbourne and Wellington on either Washington or Beijing. PM Modi’s answer has been consistent: build bilateral depth with the wary partner, convert that depth into concrete economic and strategic footholds, and let each foothold widen India’s own room to manoeuvre. Auckland is simply the latest application of a rule already tested three times over.

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Capital And Coastguards: Tokyo And Victoria

In Victoria, where PM Modi arrived for a state visit marking 50 years of India-Seychelles ties, the currency was hardware and reach. India handed the Seychelles Coast Guard a fast patrol vessel, confirmed a $175 million package of credit and grants, and folded the archipelago into Vision MAHASAGAR.

Seychelles joined the Colombo Security Conclave as a full member; the annual Lamitye exercise........

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