The Look East Policy has been a major part of India's foreign policy orientation since its economic opening in 1991. It was predominantly economic in substance though mixed with political and cultural flavors in the first phase of its development. It was first initiated by the Narsimha Rao government and then redefined by the Vajpayee government through the framing of the phase-II. During the first phase, though the dominant impulse remained the economic engagement, but increasingly in the second phase it also acquired strategic orientation. As a result, geographic focus and agenda of the policy was significantly expanded to include not only China, Japan and Korea but also Australia and New Zealand. It has thus developed into a multi – pronged strategy involving many institutional mechanisms at multilateral and bilateral levels, economic linkages and defence engagement. The third phase under Narander Modi's government has been named as "Act East Policy" through which India is not only striving to engage ASEAN countries but also the countries of the wider Asia – Pacific region in political, strategic, cultural and economic domains.
