ON his first visit to India in 2005, Japan’s Prime Minister, Junichiro Koizumi, asked his host, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, an interesting question. Observing that India is situated right in the middle of the vast Asian continent, Koizumi said that the part of Asia to India’s east had emerged as an arc of prosperity, while the Asia to India’s west remained mired in instability. The Japanese leader wanted to know which way India was headed.
Prime Minister Singh offered an optimistic view that India was increasingly ‘looking East’, learning from East Asia. . .
