Contest for the Indo-Pacific: Why China Won't Map the Future

Australian Journal of International Affairs, 2014

Strategic Analysis Paper

Rising Powers Quarterly, 2018

As the United States’ titular position in the international system is seemingly in retreat, questions regarding the efficacy of the post-World War II liberal order have surfaced. In this emerging multipolar world, two distinct constellations of power are forming. In one camp are states that largely support the current global governance structure; in the other, states that wish to upend or at least refashion the American-led structure that many say favors status-quo powers over rising states. Nowhere is this division more apparent than in the “Indo-Pacific.” As this article shows, the Indo-Pacific is increasingly used by governments and leaders as a central organizing idea around which choices are made about their position in the future global order. Although, as a concept, the Indo-Pacific means, and will mean, different things to different people, the number of nascent state strategies tethered to this neologism indicates the term’s powerful salience. Under the banner “Free and Open Indo-Pacific,” these strategies are crafted in response to the general “threat” of a China-dominated world and evince a shift in the position of certain state actors is underway; from causal adherence or outright disinterest in upholding the U.S. post-War global governance structure to one of increasing support.

Electronic Journal of Social and Strategic Studies

Due to geo-economic, geopolitical, and geostrategic importance, the Indo-Pacific has appeared as the centre of gravity in world politics for the 21st century. The Indo-Pacific is a geo-strategic term used to the extent of the diplomatic relation in Indian and the Pacific Ocean countries based on the common values, free and rule-based 'Free and Open Indo-Pacific' (FOIP) and the term has been used recently. Before that the term Asia Pacific had been used for over decades, and geographical idea moves to a geopolitical context by using the Indio-Pacific (Scott, 2013). The confluence of the 'Pivot policy' of the USA, Indian`s 'Act East policy', the Quad and free and Open Indo-pacific (FOIP), as well as ASEAN`s East Asia policy have resulted in a new international security framework and institutional mechanism in Indo-Pacific. Here geography unifies into the geopolitics where global and regional superpowers like China, India or middle powers like Australia, Japan, and other ASEAN counties have shaped their geo-strategy through bilateral and multilateral engagement in different arena, economic, diplomatic and, military to counter China`s territorial expansion strategy of the BRI in Indo-Pacific. The main objectives of the article are to understand geo-strategic complexity in Indo-Pacific because of China`s geostrategic expansion policy over the region and the responses by regional and global superpowers to counter China`s influence through coalition diplomacy and strategy. This research is entirely conducted based on secondary sources.

Journal of Eurasian Studies, 2021

The newly minted concept of the “Indo-Pacific Region” (IPR) is generally seen as a response by the United States and its allies to China’s growing influence in strategically important areas of the Pacific and Indian oceans. However, the view of IPR as a single (U.S.-led) anti-Beijing front is simplistic and misleading, obscuring a variety of approaches by the region’s states. New Delhi has a strong tradition of non-alignment, whereas Tokyo is more interested in rules that restrict unilateral actions not only by China but also by other regional players, including the United States. Australian business is very cautious about frictions in trade relations with China. Beijing views the growing military activity of the United States off its shores, including in the South China Sea, as a threat to regional stability. According to the authoritative Chinese sources, the Indo-Pacific strategy of Donald Trump is part of broader efforts to prevent China from becoming a dominant regional and glo...

2012

Looking into the increasing economic and political strength of China, this report shows how its relationship with both Australia and the United States will change.As tensions rise in the South China Sea, the world is watching nervously as events unfold. Although not a party to the disputes, Australia nonetheless finds itself uncomfortably near the centre of the geo-strategic dynamics in the broader Indo-Pacific region. It has been balancing the two major players, the United States and China, each of which is critical to Key Points Australia finds itself uncomfortably near the centre of the geo-strategic dynamics in the broader Indo-Pacific region. It has been balancing the two major players, the United States and China, each of which is critical to Australia’s security and economic well-being. Australia is in something of a Catch-22 situation, as even a slight tilt towards either China or the US could be damaging to its relations with the other. Australia’s grand strategy, therefore...

The Japan Times, 2022

Kishida and Wei will portray two very different Indo-Pacific regions. Wei will stress that the Indo-Pacific region is a geopolitical concept designed by the U.S. and the West to contain China's rise. He will underscore that the Asia-Pacific region (China does not accept the Indo-Pacific framing) has been destabilized by a cold war mentality, small cliques of nations forming alliances targeted at China and efforts by undisclosed countries (read the U.S. and Japan) challenging Beijing's One-China policy. The general will paint a picture of a victimized China, surrounded by U.S. military bases, and by a United States that is interested in exporting its political system, its values and its norms. He will link the security challenges that China has faced in Xinjiang province, Hong Kong and across the Taiwan Straits as being spearheaded by outside powers in an effort to delegitimize and destabilize his country's political system with the intention to remove the Chinese Communist Party.

The Indo-Pacific concept is a useful way of understanding changing regional dynamics, but it also reflects a key strategic challenge – the relationship between China and India.

The Pacific Review, 2015

In recent years, a perception has emerged among many policymakers and commentators that the deepening of the People’s Republic of China engagement in the Pacific Islands Region, predominantly through its expanding foreign aid programme, threatens to undermine the existing regional order, in which Australia is dominant. In this article, it is argued that China’s apparent ‘charm offensive’ in the Pacific is mainly driven by commercial, not political, imperatives and is far more fragmented and incoherent than is often assumed. Hence, its (real) political effects hinge, not on any Chinese strategic designs for regional domination, or even a more limited resource security agenda, but on the intent and capacity of Pacific governments to harness deepening aid, investment and trade relations with China towards their own foreign and domestic policy objectives, which include limiting Australian interference in the internal governance processes of Pacific states. This argument is demonstrated by the case of Fiji after the December 2006 military coup.

Chinese Political Science Review, 2021

Neoliberal institutionalists frequently see regional organisations such as the EU, ASEAN or the EAS as expressions of the desire for economic integration, political cooperation and the resolution of collective action problems. In this formulation , the creation of inclusive regional identities is seen as one of the potentially desirable consequences of institution-building. The Indo-Pacific, by contrast, has since its inception been driven by a rather old-fashioned concern with the balance of power in a part of the world in which China is once again playing a dominant and destabilising role. We argue that realists still have much to tell us about the material forces that are not only transforming the region-however, it is defined-but also which underpin the rise to prominence of the Indo-Pacific idea in particular. The so-called 'Quad' countries are both the main drivers of the Indo-Pacific concept and a clear manifestation of its underlying goals and principles. In such circumstances, we argue, the Indo-Pacific is unlikely to reproduce even the rather modest levels of institutionalisation achieved by other organisations, primarily because this vision of the region is one that is not intended to address the sorts of collective action problems neoliberal institutionalists highlight. On the contrary, the Indo-Pacific rescales the region to include India and strategically aligns certain regional states in an old-fashioned quasi-alliance to the strategic threat posed by China.