Our History
The Indo-Pacific Concept
What is the Indo-Pacific region?
The underlying justification to unify the Indo-Pacific region stems from the logic that small group associations of states for regional cooperation must either expand, broaden or become inclusive or risk becoming increasingly irrelevant in the background of withstanding pressures from global powers and events. Historically, small state groupings have had immense short-term value in establishing cooperation and consensus-building for those involved. However, to promote value in the long-term, small state groupings have grown to be more inclusive and therefore conducive to the growth and development of its member states. Groupings such as ASEAN which began originally as a five-state organization, now a group of 10, holding several associations with neighbouring states. Despite the differences in political institutions and economic inequalities amongst ASEAN members, the grouping has continued to promote long-term stability and high degrees of connectivity between member states.
With the intention to promote regionalism in the Indo-Pacific, there must be a push beyond bilateral strategies to promote business links and cooperation. While some countries are better provided and provenance than others, the regional dimension of linkages in cooperation is most often overlooked. Although the region is home to a diverse set of countries, many of the developing worlds share common challenges.
What are the roots of the Indo-Pacific Centre?
In 1995, Mr C Gunasingham set up The Indo- Pacific Institute of Studies with the intention to create awareness that the Indo-Pacific Rim is an international region, one that was then emerging within a hegemonic bi-polar centred world system. The second objective of the 1995 institute was to help develop, promote and speed private enterprise-led business links and relations between the industrialised and industrialising countries of the Pacific Rim and the developing and less developing countries of the Indo-Pacific Rim.
Mr C Gunasingham was a former High Commissioner for Sri Lanka to Singapore between 1979 and 1983 and served as an Economic Advisor to Sri Lankan President J.R. Jayawardena between 1983 and 1992. He was also a Research Fellow at Singapore’s Institute of Southeast Asian Studies when he formed the Institute of Indo-Pacific Studies in 1995.
Some of his career highlights included handling Sri Lanka’s membership to the UN Security Council in 1960, represented Sri Lanka at the Commonwealth Prime Ministers’ Meeting in 1961 and attended successive UN General Assembly Sessions and Annual Meetings of the World Bank during his tenure as Deputy High Commissioner in London between 1975 and 1979.
As Sri Lanka’s first-ever High Commissioner to Singapore, he handled reciprocal state visits including visits by President Jayewardena and Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. In 1987, at the request of Prime Minister Lee, he gave a highly publicized interview on national television in Singapore entitled “Sri Lanka’s Search for Peace”.
In November 1996, Mr C Gunasingham held a conference in Singapore with the objective of creating general awareness of the littoral states on the Indo-Pacific oceans as ones which carried the seeds of political, economic and cultural unity. In an international system that was bipolar and euro-centric, the objective of the 1996 conference was to shed light on the importance of this emerging international region and to develop, promote and speed private enterprise-led business links and relations between the industrialized and industrializing countries of the Pacific Rim and the developing and less-developed countries of the Indo-Pacific Rim.
Mr C Gunasingham’s research and policy documents can be found here.
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With the intention to promote regionalism in the Indo-Pacific, there must be a push beyond bilateral strategies to promote business links and cooperation. If you are looking to connect with key businesses and policymakers in Singapore or the Indo-Pacific region, contact us to see what we can do for you.