Jaishankar answered: “I am a politician, so I believe in polls. But I have never seen a poll which has made any sense to me when it comes to foreign policy. So I guess what you cited is probably part of a long list. I would say our relations right now with ASEAN are actually growing well. The two big changes which are taking place are, we have much stronger security cooperation with the ASEAN and the other is physical connectivity.”

There was a charge of lack of principle between India’s attitude towards China and policy towards Russia, when it came to the latter’s current stand-off with Ukraine. The minister challenged this by saying: “I don’t think the situations in the Indo-Pacific and the trans-Atlantic are really analogous. We have quite distinct challenges between what’s happening here (Europe) and what is happening in the Indo-Pacific.”

He added: “I think principles and interests are balanced and if people were so principled in this part of the world, they would have been practicing those principles in Asia or in Afghanistan.”

Jaishankar was speaking at a panel discussion on ‘A Sea Change? Regional Order and Security in the Indo-Pacific’. Other speakers in the conversation were representatives of the three other QUAD member countries, namely Yoshimasa Hayashi, foreign minister in Japan, Marise Payne, the Australian foreign minister, and Jeanne Shaheen, a US senator.

Thirty heads of government or state and over 100 minister rank officials are attending the weekend conference.