INDIA FOREIGN POLICY

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India and Indonesia

We in India are watching the efforts of the ASEAN countries to promote their objectives with sympathy and understanding and extend our full support to these efforts.

Both India and Indonesia are developing countries with vast populations and potentially rich resources: Both countries are engaged in the tasks of modernisation and industrialization. In the pursuit of these goals. We can both benefit considerably from a sharing of our experience and by contributing to the development of one another. For a variety of reasons the close interaction that developed between our two nations in the first decade of our independence was somewhat retarded in the six­ties. We are both at a level of development in which exchanges about our respective resources and capabilities and the oppor­tunities that exist for mutual co-operation could contribute significantly to the development of the two countries.

Unlike in the fifties, when we were in the earlier phase or our industrialisation, today India has developed considerable sophistication in the industrial, scientific and technological fields and we have concentrated our efforts on methods which are relevant to the specific requirements of developing countries.

Indonesia also has in the recent years made remarkable progress in the development of its petroleum, mineral, timber and other resources. Indonesia has been particularly fortunate in the current energy crisis to establish itself as an oil-exporting nation. It is, accordingly, difficult to escape the conclusion that vast opportunities exist for close interaction and co-operation between our two countries, and I am confident that a variety of areas will be identified for close and mutually beneficial co-operation between Indonesia and India in the economic field.

Developments in Indo-China

Dramatic changes are taking place in the situation in Indo-China, and these developments will inevitably have their impact on the perceptions of both the nations of the region as well as the great powers. These developments in Indo-China are the culmination of a heroic struggle waged by the people of Indo-China to assert their independence and sovereignty and their determination to shape their destiny without external interference.

They represent the inevitable victory of forces of nationalism over attempts to undermine such forces through outside inter­vention, and constitute a gratifying vindication of the consistent position maintained by us on this question over the years.