Over the past eight years, the United States has worked hard to deepen partnerships across the region and across South-east Asia in particular. We're now a part of the East Asia Summit and we have a strategic partnership with Asean. At the US-Asean Leaders Summit I hosted earlier this year in Sunnylands, California, we agreed to a set of principles that will shape the future peace and prosperity of the region, from promoting innovation and furthering economic integration to addressing transnational challenges like global health security and climate change.
I don't share the view that China and the U.S. need to reach some kind of strategic accommodation to carve up the Asia-Pacific region - that is an arrogant proposition and deeply insulting to other countries in the region, including Japan and potentially also India and Indonesia.
With Singapore's partnership, the United States in engaging more deeply across South-east Asia and Asean, which is central to the region's peace and prosperity. Singapore is an anchor for the US presence in the region, which is a foundation of stability and peace.
India considers Saudi Arabia a center of stability in the region. The security and stability of the Gulf region and that of the Indian subcontinent are interlinked. Bilateral security cooperation between India and Saudi Arabia will contribute to regional stability and in addressing the common threat of terrorism in the region.
I think that's the nature of the region, not even simply Eastern Europe but the Balkans. They are their own region. They are a peculiar place. They do share a history that we don't share with a country like Ukraine for example, and that's because of the presence of the Ottomans for hundreds of years.
Our North East region will prosper when it is better connected to South East Asia, and when the North East becomes our bridge to South East Asia, we will be closer to realising our hopes for India and ASEAN ties.
India's difficulties in negotiating an FTA with both the ASEAN and E.U. are a reminder of the importance of multilateralism.
Our diaspora provides a platform for a stronger relationship between India and ASEAN countries.
Turkey wants a policy of engagement exactly like President Obama's new approach. Policy of engagement, less confrontation, less tense attitude, especially in the region.
There was a time in the mid-1950s when the Philippines was in the same league as Japan economically and academically. Fifty years down the road, and we are almost dead last in the ASEAN region.
These are important markers in our engagement with South East Asia, in enhancing our strategic ties with ASEAN across 3 Cs. These 3 Cs are commerce, connectivity, and culture.
In pursuing economic growth, India and the United States share similar values and similar challenges. We understand that the global economy is here to stay. To keep growing and leading the world in innovation and opportunity, the United States and India must trade freely, openly, and according to the principles of the global marketplace.
We hope that through these trade arrangements, through collaboration in training, in manpower development, and what have you, ASEAN in, say, ten years' time, will be a very different ASEAN.
Clarity, clarity, surely clarity is the most beautiful thing in the world, A limited, limiting clarity I have not and never did have any motive of poetry But to achieve clarity.
With ability to produce a diverse range of products, India has the potential to become the one-stop sourcing destination for brands and retailers of ASEAN nations.
Of our thinking it is but the upper surface that we shape into articulate thought; underneath the region of argument and conscious discourse lies the region of meditation.