Modi heads to Manila for ASEAN talks as Quad meeting with Albanese unconfirmed

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will travel to Manila on Monday for a three-day visit built around the ASEAN-India and East Asia summits, The Hindu reported. A possible Quad leaders' meeting with Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has not been confirmed.

According to The Hindu, Modi is set to join Albanese, US President Donald Trump and Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi for the annual Quad summit in the Philippine capital, though there has been no official word. Asked about it, Rudrendra Tandon, Secretary (East) in India's External Affairs Ministry, said: "We don't have any information on this at the moment." The Hindu noted that US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said last month the next Quad summit would be held on the margins of the ASEAN meeting. India had planned to host the leaders' summit last year, but it did not go ahead because Washington gave no clarity on a visit by Trump.

Tandon said the visit would run from November 16 to 18. Modi will attend the 23rd ASEAN-India summit and the 21st East Asia Summit on November 17, and his programme includes bilateral meetings and a dinner hosted by Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr for visiting leaders.

Tandon told a media briefing there was "a very strong demand from the Indian community" to meet the prime minister, and officials were trying to fit that into his schedule.

Maritime security and trade and investment ties will be the main areas of focus, he said. The Hindu reported New Delhi is expected to push for deeper maritime cooperation among like-minded nations in the Indo-Pacific. On the ASEAN-India Trade in Goods Agreement, Tandon said India wanted the review of the pact finished as soon as possible.

CNA, carrying an AFP report, said the 11-nation bloc opens its final leaders' summit of the year in Manila on Sunday. It reported the Philippines' year as chair looks set to end without the signing of a South China Sea Code of Conduct with China, one of Manila's top objectives. A Southeast Asian diplomat involved in summit preparations told AFP he did not expect any agreement in Manila.

Philippine and Chinese sailors clashed a day before a July summit, and a diplomatic row broke out at an October defence meeting, CNA reported. Siew Mun Tang, former head of the ASEAN Studies Centre at Singapore's ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute, told AFP the code "has lost its purpose" because conditions on the ground had changed, citing the militarisation of islands by China and Vietnam.

Trade will also feature, but CNA said progress on regional free-trade frameworks is complicated by China-US tensions and Trump's tariff war. After Manila, attention moves to the APEC conference in Shenzhen, which Trump and Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney will also attend.

Sources: The Hindu, Modi to visit Manila for ASEAN Summit; maritime security, trade on agenda; CNA, Global powers head to Asia with trade, AI, security in focus.