Krishnan Srinivasan | 2026 All Set To Be Year of Summits: Where Is India Likely To Figure?

With media attention for the past many weeks devoted to Iran, Latin America and the Caribbean, it may be useful to cast more than a glance elsewhere, including east of our own region where India’s presence, by intention or default, despite the rhetoric of “Look East” and “Act East” to a credulous public, has been less than prominent or promising.

Summit diplomacy will offer several complicated developments in the coming year. France, which has never been reticent about asserting its foreign policy priorities despite its internal economic distress and political upheaval, is to hold the Group of Seven presidency, while Turkey will host the Nato summit. The G-7 is clearly, even to the US, a passé institution, while Turkey’s ties with Russia do not sit well with many, if not most, members of Nato. The United States holds the G-20 presidency and has taken the arbitrary, unacceptable step of signalling that a founding G-20 member, South Africa, will be unwelcome at the Miami summit. Mr Trump’s unpredictable and impetuous foreign policy makes it impossible to predict a smooth passage for this gathering of leaders.

The 2026 Summit of the Americas, hosted by the Dominican Republic, will take place against the backdrop of Mr Trump’s highly controversial Venezuela and immigration policies, and his threats to several member states. The African Union summit, chaired by Angola, will continue grappling with multiple security and humanitarian crises across the diverse continent, including the long-standing deadly conflict in Sudan. As host of the Brics summit, India has to steer a very delicate course between its own accommodative view of the US under Mr Trump and the openly adversarial inclinations of most other Brics members.

Beyond these and other summits, two leadership-level gatherings to India’s east will present challenges for US policies. The Philippines, a US treaty ally, will chair the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean). Asean’s approach is rooted in commitment to its centrality, a concept subject to debate and interpretation, but at its core is the idea that Asean should set the region’s diplomatic and economic agenda, rather than be dictated to by larger or non-regional partners. The members’ individual strategic priorities are highly difficult to characterise collectively, save for a general desire to maximize their diplomatic and economic freedom and safeguard their sovereignty.

Manila’s assumption of Asean’s chairmanship has substantive impact. While maintaining a commitment to consensus decision-making, Asean members grant their chair considerable latitude to propose and articulate the group’s annual priorities and set the organisation’s agenda. In the face of repeated and dangerous provocations by Chinese vessels against Filipino personnel and assets in defiance of Philippines’ sovereignty and the principle of freedom of navigation under the Law of the Sea Convention, it is unsurprising that the Philippines has signalled that maritime security must be a core component of this year’s agenda and has devised the logo, “Navigating Our Future Together”.

Manila will also set the agenda for the East Asia Summit (EAS), that brings Asean together with its most significant partners, including the annual leaders’ summit, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi declined to attend in Kuala Lumpur in 2025. At its inception 20 years ago, EAS comprised Asean plus Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea. The US and Russia joined it in 2011. This means the Philippines as chair could shape the agenda for a year at a top table where both China and the US will be present.

The other major North Asian summit will be the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) forum, hosted by China. Founded in 1989 at the ministerial level, Apec is a forum of regional economies. India, Asia’s third-largest economy, will continue to be excluded despite applications dating back over decades. India’s tough but defensive approach to trade liberalisation and its decision not to join the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) has been taken as an indication that India’s priorities have shifted to bilateral FTAs with the likes of the United States, EU and Canada, who are believed to offer more flexibility and align closer to India’s domestic needs.

While Apec is focused on economic cooperation, geopolitical issues infuse its proceedings, and China has announced its theme as “Building an Asia-Pacific Community to Prosper Together”, along with priorities of openness, innovation, and cooperation, terms which might obscure Beijing’s instinct and opportunity to leverage the forum for diplomatic, economic and strategic benefit. The participation of Taiwan, a member of Apec under the name Chinese Taipei, is consistent with Apec’s guidelines and established practice, as reaffirmed by China in its offer to host in 2026.

America’s attendance at both EAS and Apec will be closely watched. The White House has signalled an intention by Mr Trump to visit China this year, presumably in connection with Apec. Displays of convening power are a point of prestige in both the Indian and Asia Pacific region, and given that the US–Philippines alliance spurs high expectations in Manila of Mr Trump’s attendance at EAS, his plans to approach both summits, one hosted by the only US treaty ally in Asean, will be interesting.

At Asean and EAS, the Philippines will have an opportunity to place maritime security, including freedom of navigation and overflights, territorial integrity and sovereignty, in the regional context. While Manila bears the burden of aggressive Chinese behaviour, nearly half the 11-member bloc has some nature of maritime dispute with China, and so Manila will seek support to maximise the utility of its chairmanship. In Apec, by contrast, given the growing salience of economic policy in the global strategic picture, the emphasis will turn on mitigating the convulsive effects that America’s restrictive trade practices have produced through its unilateral application of high tariff walls, such as volatility and disruption of global operations and supply chains on a massive scale.

Krishnan Srinivasan is a former Indian foreign secretary