Iiz 194

The institutionalization of the Indo-Pacific:
problems and prospects
KAI HE AND HUIYUN FENG *
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ia/article/96/1/149/5697495 by guest on 22 August 2022

International relations would be unintelligible without some degree of institutionaliza-
tion, because they would lack shared expectations and understandings.1
The rise of China has brought new challenges to the rules-based international
order, even while debate continues as to what rules constitute that order.2
Meanwhile, since the early years of the century the ‘Indo-Pacific’ has become a
popular political concept in Australia, India, Japan and the United States. These
countries’ promotion of a ‘rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific’ can be seen as
a collective response to China’s potential challenges to the liberal international
order. For better or worse, the Indo-Pacific terminology has gained prominence
in some countries’ foreign policy lexicon. However, we have yet to see any signifi-
cant institutional presence associated with the Indo-Pacific. The litmus test for the
Indo-Pacific concept in the future is whether it can be institutionalized; that is,
whether states are willing to develop meaningful institution-building mechanisms
on the basis of the Indo-Pacific concept.
As Mark Beeson points out, ‘the long-term significance of the Indo-Pacific will
... be determined largely by the manner in which the concept is (or is not) institu-
tionalized ... [for example] the very identity of Europe ... and its people has been
shaped by the existence of the EU’.3 In other words, whether the Indo-Pacific can
replace the Asia–Pacific as a new political geography to redefine strategic relations
* This article is part of the January 2020 special issue of International Affairs on ‘Unpacking the strategic dynam-
ics of the Indo-Pacific’, guest-edited by Kai He and Mingjiang Li. The project is supported by the Australian
Research Council (grant number FT160100355) and the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation
(grant number 16-1512-150509-IPS). The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the
editor of International Affairs for their constructive comments and suggestions. All errors and omissions are
the authors’ own. Previous versions of this article were presented at the two workshops co-organized by the
S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at the Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and the
Griffith Asia Institute at Griffith University, Australia, on 9 July 2018 and 10 December 2018 respectively. The
authors are also grateful to the participants and audiences at both workshops for feedback.
1
Robert Keohane, ‘Multilateralism: an agenda for research’, International Journal 45: 4, 1990, p. 734.
2
For the debate over China and international order, see G. John Ikenberry, ‘The end of liberal international
order?’, International Affairs 94: 1, Jan. 2018, pp. 7–23; Christopher Layne, ‘The US–Chinese power shift and
the end of the Pax Americana’, International Affairs 94: 1, Jan. 2018, pp. 89–111; Wu Xinbo, ‘China in search
of a liberal partnership international order’, International Affairs 94: 5, Sept. 2018, pp. 995–1018; Kai He and
Huiyun Feng, ‘Leadership transition and global governance: role conception, institutional balancing, and the
AIIB’, Chinese Journal of International Politics 12: 2, 2019, pp. 153–78.
3
Mark Beeson, ‘Institutionalizing the Indo-Pacific: the challenges of regional cooperation’, East Asia 35: 2,
2018, p. 86.
International Affairs 96: 1 (2020) 149–168; doi: 10.1093/ia/iiz194

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Kai He and Huiyun Feng
among states depends on whether states can build multilateral institutions based
on the Indo-Pacific concept in the real world. There is no so-called naturally
defined geography in political discourse: all geographic concepts are, at least to a
certain extent, socially constructed. In the processes of social identification and
construction, regional institution-building is a key step towards gaining recogni-
tion and acceptance for political ideas and concepts. For example, the concept
of the Asia–Pacific was not welcomed in the region when it was first introduced
in the 1960s. After the establishment of Asia–Pacific Economic Cooperation
(APEC) in 1989, the term ‘Asia–Pacific’ was further institutionalized, recognized
and accepted through state interactions and economic cooperation. It gradually

became a significant geopolitical concept, comparable to concepts such as Europe,
North America and Latin America.
Naturally, a new geographic concept might encounter a lukewarm or even a
cold reception at first. Outside Australia, India, Japan and the United States, the
term Indo-Pacific has not been very popular until recently. Why have states not
institutionalized the Indo-Pacific in the past ten years? How will the Indo-Pacific
concept be institutionalized in the future? These are the central questions addressed
in this article. Borrowing insights from functional institutionalism and studies of
political leadership in international regimes, we introduce a ‘leadership–institution’
model to explain the dynamics of institution-building efforts in the Indo-Pacific.
We suggest that the difficulties of institutionalizing the Indo-Pacific are rooted
in the lack of both ‘executive leadership’ and ‘ideational leadership’. Executive
leadership is a necessary condition for states to address operational difficulties,
such as ‘relative gains’ and ‘collective action’, in cooperating with one another
under anarchy.4 Ideational leadership helps states to perceive and identify common
interests or ‘absolute gains’ from cooperation, which are also the prerequisites for
cooperation among them. The future of institution-building in the Indo-Pacific
will depend on whether and how these two leadership roles are played by scholars
and states in the region.
The article is divided into four parts. First, we briefly discuss three waves
of ‘Indo-Pacific’ discourse since 2007. Second, we introduce the ‘leadership–
institution’ model to explain how the interplay between executive leadership and
ideational leadership shapes different outcomes of institution-building efforts. We
propose that the lack of executive leadership and ideational leadership behind the
Indo-Pacific concept has led to a slow institution-building process in the region.
Third, we compare the Asia–Pacific and the Indo-Pacific cases to illustrate the
importance of executive leadership and ideational leadership in shaping the institu-
tionalization of a geographic concept. In the conclusion, we look at the challenges
4
For the debate on ‘relative gains’ vs ‘absolute gains’, see Joseph Grieco, ‘Anarchy and the limits of coopera-
tion: a realist critique of the newest liberal institutionalism’, International Organization 42: 3, 1988, pp. 485–507;
David Baldwin, Neorealism and neoliberalism: the contemporary debate (New York: Columbia University Press,
1993); Robert Powell, ‘Absolute and relative gains in International Relations theory’, American Political Science
Review 85: 4, 1991, pp. 1303–20. For ‘collective action’ problems in cooperation, see Kenneth A. Oye, ‘Explain-
ing cooperation under anarchy: hypotheses and strategies’, World Politics 38: 1, 1985, pp. 1–24; Elinor Ostrom,
‘A behavioral approach to the rational choice theory of collective action’, presidential address, American
Political Science Association, 1997, American Political Science Review 92: 1, 1998, pp. 1–22.
150
International Affairs 96: 1, 2020

The institutionalization of the Indo-Pacific
of institution-building in the Indo-Pacific and explain how China, with its Belt
and Road Initiative (BRI), is a wild card in the future of Indo-Pacific regionalism.
Three waves of Indo-Pacific discourse

The term ‘Indo-Pacific’ has experienced three ‘discourse waves’ in the region. In
2007, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe first proposed to India’s parliament that
‘the Pacific and the Indian Oceans are now bringing about a dynamic coupling as
seas of freedom and of prosperity’.5 In the same year, the four countries making
up the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad)—Australia, India, Japan and the

United States—had their inaugural meeting. The 2007 Quad was short-lived,
Australia unilaterally announcing its departure in 2008. (Although the Quad was
seemingly revived as the so-called Quad 2.0 when senior officials from Australia,
India, Japan and the United States met on the sidelines at the East Asia Summit
(EAS) in Manila in November 2017, its future remains uncertain.)
Between 2011 and 2013, the former Quad countries picked up the term again in
their foreign policy lexicon. For example, the then US secretary of state Hillary
Clinton mentioned in 2011 that the United States intended to expand its ‘alliance
with Australia from a Pacific partnership to an Indo-Pacific one, and indeed a
global partnership’.6 The then Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, also
adopted the term ‘Indo-Pacific’ to define the region in a public speech in Japan in
May 2013.7 Most notably, Australia identified the ‘emergence of the Indo-Pacific
as a single strategic arc’ in its 2013 defence white paper,8 becoming the first govern-
ment to use the term ‘Indo-Pacific’ in its official documents.
The most recent revival of the Indo-Pacific concept was initiated by US Presi-
dent Trump, who repeatedly called for a ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’ during his
first trip to Asia in November 2017. The same terminology echoed in Trump’s
first National Security Strategy, released in December 2017, in which the term
‘Indo-Pacific’ appeared eleven times while ‘Asia–Pacific’ was used only once.9 In
addition, the United States released its Indo-Pacific strategy report on 1 June 2019, and
the ASEAN outlook on the Indo-Pacific was published in late June 2019.
These three waves of discourse reflect an ‘institutionalization dilemma’ of the
Indo-Pacific. Despite the intentional use of ‘Indo-Pacific’ in place of ‘Asia–Pacific’
by some political leaders in their speeches, statements and official documents, the
ups and downs in the political discourse surrounding the Indo-Pacific concept
indicate that its institutionalization to date has been far from successful. Appar-
ently, tangible institution-building efforts based on the Indo-Pacific concept lag far
behind the discursive popularity of the term in the region. So far, no multilateral
5
Shinzo Abe, ‘Confluence of the two seas’, speech by HE Mr Shinzo Abe, Prime Minister of Japan, at the
Parliament of the Republic of India, 22 Aug. 2007.
6
Hillary Clinton, ‘America’s Pacific century’, Foreign Policy, no. 189, 1 Nov. 2011, pp. 56–63 at p. 59.
7
Manmohan Singh, ‘PM’s address to Japan–India Association, Japan–India Parliamentary Friendship League
and International Friendship Exchange Council’, Tokyo, 28 May 2013.
8
Commonwealth of Australia, Defence white paper 2013 (Canberra, 3 May 2013).
9
The sole mention of the Asia–Pacific was in reference to Asia–Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC). See The
White House, National Security Strategy of the United States of America (Washington DC, Dec. 2017).
151

institution has officially reified the concept of the Indo-Pacific. The Quad 2.0 seems
the closest embodiment; however, even if that grouping is successfully revived,
it is only a model of ‘minilateral’ security cooperation among four countries; it
cannot manifest the geographic meaning of the ‘Indo-Pacific’ in a general sense.10
Explaining institutionalization: the leadership–institution model

Why do some institution-building efforts succeed while others do not? Although
realists, especially offensive realists, normally perceive institutions as epiphenom-
enal in world politics, balance of threat theory suggests that a common threat

will drive states to form a military alliance—a special institutional arrangement
among states or hard balancing with a collective security agenda.11 China’s rise, in
the eyes of some political leaders, is indeed a potential threat to regional security.
Nevertheless, China is still far from being a ‘common enemy’ threatening the
security and jeopardizing the sovereignty of other nations in the region. This
might explain why there is still no NATO in Asia—no military alliance or hard
balancing against China. However, military alliances seem too narrow to define
the institutionalization of the Indo-Pacific concept.
Another realist explanation for the lack of the institutionalization of the Indo-
Pacific involves a ‘wedging strategy’ conducted by China.12 According to this line
of argument, China is intentionally and strategically using its BRI to dissuade
other countries from engaging in any possible anti-China institution-building in
the Indo-Pacific—China being the largest trading partner of most Asia–Pacific
countries. However, there are at least two analytical problems with this argument.
On the one hand, it overestimates the strategic function of China’s BRI. If China’s
BRI does have a wedging role, it seems to have been unsuccessful, even counter-
productive, so far, because all four of the Quad countries have to some extent
openly criticized the initiative. On the other hand, the argument misunderstands
ASEAN’s reservations about the Indo-Pacific concept. ASEAN’s previously luke-
warm attitude towards the Indo-Pacific concept is actually rooted in its concern
that any wider institution-building will threaten its own established central role
in the regional architecture.13
Institutional liberals highlight institutions as the key to overcoming relative-
gain concerns and fostering cooperation among states.14 However, as Miles Kahler
10
On minilateralism, see William T. Tow, ‘Minilateral security’s relevance to US strategy in the Indo-Pacific:
challenges and prospects’, Pacific Review 32: 2, 2019, pp. 232–44.
11
For an offensive realist view on institutions, see John Mearsheimer, ‘The false promise of international institu-
tions’, International Security 19: 3, 1994, pp. 5–49. For balance of threat theory, see Stephen Walt, The origins of
alliance (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1990).
12
For wedging strategy, see Timothy W. Crawford, ‘Preventing enemy coalitions: how wedge strategies shape
power politics’, International Security 35: 4, 2011, pp. 155–89.
13
Arifi Saiman and Endy M. Bayuni, ‘Time for ASEAN to drive the Indo-Pacific process’, Straits Times, 7 Nov.
2018, https://www.straitstimes.com/asia/se-asia/time-for-asean-to-drive-the-indo-pacific-process-jakarta-
post-writers. (Unless otherwise noted at point of citation, all URLs cited in this article were accessible on 29
Aug. 2019.)
14
Robert Keohane and Lisa Martin, ‘The promise of institutionalist theory’, International Security 20: 1, 1995, pp.
39–51.
152

points out, the question of how institutions, especially large-group multilateral
arrangements at the international level, can be established in the first place still
baffles institutionalists.15 In the case of the Indo-Pacific, it is still uncertain how
successful institutionalization can be achieved, even though all states agree that
institution-building might be good for regional cooperation. For constructiv-
ists, institution-building is a process of socialization or a product of common
identity.16 The establishment of the first Quad (described by Abe in 2007 as a
‘democratic diamond’) might have been driven by the four countries’ common
identity as democracies. However, its sudden demise after Australia’s unilateral
withdrawal also reflects the weakness, particularly the fragile nature of identity,

in the construction of institutions in the Indo-Pacific.
No regional institution-building is based on naturally formed common interests
or inherently similar identity. As Oran Young points out, regionalism or regime-
building is a process of negotiation and bargaining among states with diverse and
even conflicting interests. Therefore, leadership is ‘a critical determinant’ for states
to discover common interests and reduce possible costs in the process of regime
formation and institution-building.17 Young highlights three types of leadership
in regime formation: structural leadership, entrepreneurial leadership and intel-
lectual leadership. While the structural leader is an individual who can translate
‘the possession of material resources into bargaining leverage’, the entrepreneurial
leader uses ‘negotiating skill to influence the manner ... and to fashion mutually
acceptable deals ... for all’. The intellectual leader is an individual ‘who relies
on the power of ideas to shape the way in which participants in institutional
bargaining understand the issues’.18 Further, Young hypothesizes that ‘the estab-
lishment of effective international institutions ordinarily requires the interplay of
at least two forms of leadership’, while it is desirable to have all three forms of
leadership for some specific institutional arrangements.19
There are two analytical problems with Young’s classification of leadership.
First, it does not address the question of how to integrate macro state-level leader-
ship with micro individual-level leadership. Young highlights the role of individ-
uals (micro-level leadership) in shaping the processes of institution-building and
regime formation. However, international politics is a game of policy-makers
acting collectively on behalf of states. In Young’s analysis, these individual
leaders represent the interests of their respective states in institutional bargaining.
Although intellectual leaders might not directly represent their countries per se,
their influence is normally channelled through an epistemic community with
indirect links to government officials.20
15
Miles Kahler, ‘Multilateralism with small and large numbers’, International Organization 46: 3, 1992, pp.
681–708.
16
Alexander Wendt, ‘Constructing international politics’, International Security 20: 1, 1995, pp. 71–81.
17
See Oran Young, ‘Political leadership and regime formation: on the development of institutions in interna-
tional society’, International Organization 45: 3, 1991, pp. 281–308.
18
Young, ‘Political leadership and regime formation’, p. 288.
19
Young, ‘Political leadership and regime formation’, p. 302.
20
Peter Haas, ‘Introduction: epistemic communities and international policy coordination’, International Organi-
zation 46: 1, 1992, pp. 1–35.
153

Second, Young’s leadership hypothesis does not adequately explain the diver-
gent outcomes of institutional bargaining. Young’s ‘at-least-two’ leadership
formula for successful institution-building is truly inspiring. However, it leaves
some loopholes for empirical analysis. For example, will the combination of
structural leadership and entrepreneurial leadership bring about a similar insti-
tutional outcome to that which will emerge from the combination of entrepre-
neurial leadership and intellectual leadership? Empirically, the EU and ASEAN
are two examples of successful institution-building in Europe and Asia. However,
the effectiveness of these two institutions is quite different.21
Building on Young’s insights into leadership and rationalist institutional

theory, we introduce a new ‘leadership–institution’ model to explain the different
outcomes of institutional bargaining for states. We simplify Young’s three forms
of leadership and suggest a model with just two types: executive leadership
and ideational leadership. We suggest that executive leadership refers to a state’s
ability to use its material capabilities to address operational obstacles, such as the
‘relative-gains’ concerns and ‘collective action’ problems for state cooperation in
institutional bargaining. Ideational leadership is defined as the ability of individuals
to provide ideas and proposals to change how policy-makers perceive common
interests in cooperation. To a certain extent, ideational leadership is similar to
a combination of Young’s intellectual leadership and entrepreneurial leadership,
while executive leadership is similar to Young’s structural leadership.
Two distinctive features of this new classification of leadership are worth
noting. First, these two forms integrate the macro (state) level and the micro
(individual) level of leadership in considering how institutional bargaining among
states is conducted. While executive leadership stresses the top-down, macro-
oriented capability of states, ideational leadership is a bottom-up, micro-based
force exercised by individuals in shaping the processes of institutional bargaining
and regime formation. Second, these two forms of leadership have different
functions in state cooperation and institution-building under anarchy. While
ideational leadership enables policy-makers to identify and expand ‘common
interests’ among states, executive leadership addresses the operational difficulties
inherent in interstate cooperation.
It should be noted that there are two necessary conditions for states to cooperate
under anarchy. First, states need to have shared or common interests. Ideational
leadership helps states to fulfil this requirement for cooperation. States might or
might not easily identify or be aware of the so-called common interests in cooper-
ation. For example, the idea of free trade was not instantly accepted by many
states in the 1960s and the 1970s; rather, it was regarded as a new tool of colonial
21
For criticisms of ASEAN in comparison with the EU, see John Ravenhill, ‘East Asian regionalism: much ado
about nothing?’, Review of International Studies 35: 1, 2009, pp. 215–35; Michael Leifer, ‘The ASEAN peace
process: a category mistake’, Pacific Review 12: 1, 1999, pp. 25–39; David Martin Jones and M. L. R. Smith,
‘Making process, not progress: ASEAN and the evolving east Asian regional order’, International Security 32:
1, 2007, pp. 148–84. For rebuttals, see Hiro Katsumata, ASEAN’s cooperative security enterprise: norms and interests
in the ASEAN Regional Forum (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009); Kai He, ‘Institutional balancing and
International Relations theory: economic interdependence and balance of power strategies in southeast Asia’,
European Journal of International Relations 14: 3, 2008, pp. 489–518.
154

exploitation. After decades of hard work by economists and political scientists
showcasing the power of ideational leadership, the free trade idea is now finally
accepted by most states.22 Another example is the idea of climate change. Al Gore
and other environmentalists and scientists have played an important ideational
leadership role in promoting global awareness of the grave dangers posed by
climate change. The Paris Agreement of 2015 is a vivid example of the significance
of ideational leadership in promoting state cooperation.23
Second, states need to solve operational problems which undermine cooper-
ation. These include the ‘relative gains’ concern and various ‘collective action’
problems which inhibit cooperation among states, despite their common interests

and the fact that they will all be better off working together. For example, concern
over ‘relative gains’ as a result of uneven distribution of gains in cooperation is the
major obstacle to states choosing to cooperate under anarchy. Realists argue that
without an overarching authority to safeguard state security, states tend to care
more about who benefits most from cooperation. The reason is simple. If they let
other states benefit more than themselves, the uneven distribution of benefits or
gains from cooperation will eventually influence the future distribution of power
among states in the system, thereby threatening their security interests in the long
run. This is why it is difficult for states to cooperate in a realist world.
‘Collective action’ problems occur when individuals or entities would be better
off if they cooperated but fail to do so owing to the associated costs and incom-
plete information. Scholars identify two classic ‘collective action’ problems of
international cooperation: collaboration problems and coordination problems.24
One example of a collaboration problem is the ‘prisoners’ dilemma’ situation,
when two individuals could benefit by cooperating but fail to do so because
no communication is allowed between them. Behaviours that are motivated by
self-interest lead to the worst outcome for both. The coordination problems are
exemplified by the ‘stag hunt’ game, in which individuals face multiple Pareto-
optimal equilibria. The challenge in this situation is how to avoid the temptation
to defect and how to find the best outcome among equilibria.
Functional institutionalists argue that multilateral institutions can help states
address these problems to facilitate cooperation among them.25 However, this
does not address the question of how multilateral institutions can be set up in the
first place. Here, we follow Young to suggest that some states will need to take
22
This is why we have witnessed the proliferation of free trade agreements among states; how to implement free
trade frameworks in a global setting is still a problem for the World Trade Organization.
23
Although the Trump administration unilaterally withdrew from the Paris Agreement, the institutional frame-
work of cooperation on climate change remains in place.
24
Arthur Stein, ‘Coordination and collaboration: regimes in an anarchic world’, in Stephen Krasner, ed., Inter-
national regimes (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983), pp. 115–40; Duncan Snidal, ‘Coordination versus
prisoners’ dilemma: implications for international cooperation and regimes’, American Political Science Review
79: 4, 1985, pp. 923–42; Lisa Martin, ‘Interests, power, and multilateralism’, International Organization 46: 4,
1992, pp. 765–92.
25
Robert Keohane, After hegemony: cooperation and discord in the world political economy (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1984); Beth Simmons and Lisa Martin, ‘International organizations and institutions’, in
Walter Carlsnaes, Thomas Risse and Beth Simmons, eds, Handbook of international relations (London: Sage,
2002), pp. 192–211.
155

up the leadership role in solving these operational problems for cooperation. We
call this form of international leadership ‘executive leadership’, which is closely
related to a state’s power capabilities in the system. With a higher level of power
capability comes stronger executive leadership. Hegemony, an extreme example
of a state’s executive leadership, is conducive to the establishment of institutions,
though hegemony is not a necessary condition for cooperation.
We suggest that there are four institution-building outcomes: deep institu-
tionalization, thin institutionalization, ad hoc institutionalization and non-
institutionalization. An example of ‘deep institutionalization’ is Europe’s economic
and political integration.26 We call it ‘deep institutionalization’ because of the

independent role of institutions in shaping state preferences and interests. ASEAN
or ASEAN-oriented institutions, such as the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) or
the East Asian Summit (EAS), are examples of ‘thin institutionalization’, where
institutions are functional and instrumental only in facilitating state cooperation
and will not penetrate state sovereignty. In other words, institutions do not play
an independent role in shaping a state’s preferences and interests.
‘Ad hoc institutionalization’ refers to temporary, issue-based cooperation
among states. For example, the four-nation rescue mission mounted by Australia,
India, Japan and the United States in response to the tsunami of 2004 was an ad hoc
institution-building effort to coordinate these states’ actions to cope effectively
with a crisis caused by a natural disaster. After the tsunami, the temporary mecha-
nism of cooperation among these four countries in institutional form was termi-
nated—though some argue that the Quad grouping, formed among the same four
states in 2007, is an ongoing form of institution-building. The last of our four
types of outcome is ‘non-institutionalization’, which means that states behave
according to their own interests in the absence of any institutional coordination.
Figure 1. The ‘leadership–institution’ model of institution-building
Executive leadership
Strong Weak
1 2
Strong Deep institutionalization Thin institutionalization
(EU) (ASEAN)
Ideational
leadership 3 4
Ad hoc Non-institutionalization
Weak institutionalization
(Four-country tsunami
rescue mission, 2004)
26
Notwithstanding the doubts Brexit has cast over its future, the EU remains the world’s most mature regional
institution.
156

Figure 1 shows the specifics of the ‘leadership–institution’ model. It suggests
that the interplay between the two kinds of international leadership—execu-
tive leadership and ideational leadership—shapes the different outcomes of
institution-building efforts. Cell 1 shows deep institutionalization emerging from
strong executive leadership and strong ideational leadership. While strong idea-
tional leadership helps states identify and expand shared and common interests,
strong executive leadership can address the ‘relative gains’ and ‘collective action’
problems in state cooperation. Cell 4 indicates a situation of non-institutionaliza-
tion arising where both executive leadership and ideational leadership are weak.
If ideational leadership is strong but executive leadership is weak, then the

outcome is thin institutionalization (cell 2). Although strong ideational leader-
ship elevates policy-makers’ awareness and perceptions of common interests and
the need for cooperation, states still have to cope with the ‘relative gains’ and
‘collective action’ problems. This is not to say that under these conditions states
will not establish institutions for cooperation. However, the effectiveness of those
institutions will be weak, because states’ interests and preferences remain intact
and cooperation will be limited in both scope and depth. Cell 3 shows a situation
of ad hoc institutionalization under the condition of strong executive leadership
but weak ideational leadership. The strong executive leadership will encourage or
even force some states to cooperate on certain urgent matters. However, without
strong ideational leadership to construct mutual understanding on common inter-
ests, states can hardly sustain (or further institutionalize) their cooperation after
the urgent matters are resolved.
Applying the ‘leadership–institution’ model to the Indo-Pacific case, we
suggest that the slow institutionalization of the Indo-Pacific concept is rooted in
the lack of both executive leadership and ideational leadership. Although Trump’s
new strategy of an ‘open and free Indo-Pacific’ might provide a strong impetus
to the Indo-Pacific discourse, it is not clear whether the United States can offer
the executive leadership required to build institutions in the Indo-Pacific region.
Although some policy analysts and scholars are active in promoting the Indo-
Pacific concept, the ideational leadership behind Indo-Pacific regionalism is still
weak. Strong ideational leadership from a transnational epistemic community
is needed to help policy-makers identify common interests and focal points for
cooperation. Therefore, the institution-building experience of the Asia–Pacific
through the establishment of APEC is a valuable comparative case for the future
development of the Indo-Pacific.
The APEC experience for the Indo-Pacific?

The concept of the Asia–Pacific did not appear out of the blue. All geographic
concepts, to a certain extent, are socially constructed for different cultural,
economic and political purposes. For example, people gradually accepted the
geographic idea of south-east Asia with the establishment of ASEAN. In contrast,
the Asia–Pacific was not well received as a geographic concept for centuries, given
157

the huge diversities across the Pacific Ocean and within Asia. As John Ravenhill
points out, use of the Asia–Pacific concept in academic literature was rare before
the 1970s.27 After more than two decades of diplomatic efforts, the establishment
of APEC in 1989 signified the formal acceptance of the Asia–Pacific concept in
the region as a key symbol of political geography that defined a state’s economic
and foreign policy interests.
Although the establishment of APEC can be attributed to many causes,28 we
would like to highlight the role of two key variables—ideational leadership and
executive leadership—in shaping the construction of the Asia–Pacific concept
itself as well as of APEC. First, Japanese and Australian scholars performed a strong

ideational leadership role in forming the intellectual foundation of economic
regionalism in the Asia–Pacific region.29 As noted above, ideational leadership
resides in individuals who can spread ideas to build a cross-national epistemic
community and sell their proposals to the policy community. Many notable
scholars played key roles in the development of APEC, among them Saburo Okita
and Kiyoshi Kojima from Japan, and Peter Drysdale and Sir John Crawford from
Australia.
From the 1960s onwards, these Japanese and Australian economists started
discussions on how to enhance bilateral economic cooperation and promote
regional economic collaboration in order to offset the negative impact of protec-
tionism from what was then the European Community. In the 1960s and 1970s
they proposed and established some initiatives for the institutionalization of Asia–
Pacific cooperation; and in 1989, the then Australian prime minister Bob Hawke
officially proposed the APEC initiative, which had already been thoroughly articu-
lated and discussed by these economists for over two decades. As Ravenhill points
out, the role of this epistemic community in constructing APEC and regionalism
in the Asia–Pacific in general is ‘indisputable’. Counterfactually speaking, without
the ideational leadership undertaken by Japanese and Australian economists in
promoting trade liberalization and regional collaboration, ‘would governments
have had the same interest in constructing a regional organization? The answer is
almost certainly “no” or, at least “probably not”.’30
There are some distinctive features of ideational leadership behind the estab-
lishment of APEC. The most striking one is that it took a long time—over two
decades—for scholars to build and consolidate the epistemic community to the
point where it could eventually exert policy influence in promoting economic
liberalization, free trade and regionalism in the Asia–Pacific. With financial
27
John Ravenhill, APEC and the construction of Pacific Rim regionalism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2001).
28
See Ravenhill, APEC; Yoichi Funabashi, Asia–Pacific fusion: Japan’s role in APEC (Washington DC: Peterson
Institute Press, 1995); Richard Higgott and Richard Stubbs, ‘Competing conceptions of economic regional-
ism: APEC versus EAEC in the Asia–Pacific’, Review of International Political Economy 2: 3, 1995, pp. 516–35;
Vinod K. Aggarwal and Charles Edward Morrison, eds, Asia–Pacific crossroads: regime creation and the future of
APEC (New York: St Martin’s, 1998); Mark Beeson, Institutions of the Asia–Pacific: ASEAN, APEC and beyond
(Abingdon: Routledge, 2008).
29
See Funabashi, Asia–Pacific fusion; Ravenhill, APEC.
30
Ravenhill, APEC, p. 65.
158

support from the Japanese government, Kojima initiated the first Pacific Trade
and Development (PAFTAD) conference in January 1968 to gather economists
from academia, governments and regional organizations to discuss regionalism
and economic cooperation. Thereafter, the PAFTAD conferences met every 18
months in the ensuing two decades, becoming the major forum for nurturing
an epistemic community of pro-liberalization economists in the Asia–Pacific.31
Evidently, it was not an easy job for individuals (or an epistemic community)
to influence policy decision-making. As we can see from the two decades of
continuous effort to set up APEC, ideational leadership alone was not sufficient
to promote regionalism and institution-building in the Asia–Pacific.

Second, a strong ideational leadership or epistemic community is expected to
adjust ideas and proposals on regionalism to maximize the common interests of
different states. In 1965, when Kojima put forward the first initiative for regional
economic cooperation, in the form of a ‘Pacific Free Trade Area’, the proposal
involved only five countries, all advanced economies: Australia, Canada, Japan,
New Zealand and the United States. Because developing countries were excluded,
the regional response to this exclusive institutional formula of regionalism was
cold. In 1968, some Japanese and Australian scholars modified this exclusive version
of regionalism and proposed a more inclusive version, namely the Organization
for Pacific Trade and Development, which was open to less developed economies
in south-east Asia. The most notable modification was the adoption of the ‘open
regionalism’ principle and a consensual decision-making approach in the late 1970s.
In the 1980s, some scholars, such as Patrick and Drysdale, continued to discuss and
modify the formulas, principles and approaches relating to Asia–Pacific region-
alism through the Pacific Economic Cooperation Conference (PECC), another
regional institution that contributed to the foundations for the later establishment
of APEC in 1989.
Last but not least, this epistemic community actively promoted economic liber-
alization and free trade between the 1960s and the 1980s through close connec-
tions with the policy communities in their respective countries. In other words,
a close relationship with government can augment the strength and influence of
ideational leadership exercised by individual scholars. For example, the Japanese and
Australian governments provided funding on a huge scale to sponsor conferences
and workshops on regional economic cooperation, trade and investment liberali-
zation, and regionalism in general. More importantly, these scholars had direct
connections with their respective governments. For example, Sir John Crawford
from the Australian National University (ANU) played an indispensable role in
convincing the then Australian prime minister Malcolm Fraser to co-sponsor a
seminar on regional cooperation in the Asia–Pacific in 1980. This ANU-hosted
seminar later became the first of the PECC conferences.32 Although this close
31
See Ravenhill, APEC, p. 78; Peter Drysdale, International economic pluralism: economic policy in east Asia and the
Pacific (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1988); Hugh Patrick, ‘From PAFTAD to APEC: homage to Professor Kiyoshi
Kojima’, Surugadai Economic Studies 5: 2, 1996, pp. 186–216; Lawrence Woods, Asia–Pacific diplomacy: nongovern-
mental organizations and international relations (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1993).
32
See Ravenhill, APEC, p. 54.
159

relationship between scholars and policy-makers might not lead directly to policy
change, it could bridge the gaps in perception and knowledge between academia
and the policy community and form an intellectual foundation for future policy
adjustments. In addition, active interactions between an epistemic community
and policy-makers can also channel useful feedback for scholars, helping them to
modify their ideas and create new proposals for regionalism. To a certain extent,
the modifications of the regionalism formula mentioned above were driven by
close interactions and exchanges between the academic and policy communities.
However, strong ideational leadership behind the Asia–Pacific concept did not
on its own lead smoothly to regional cooperation. As we can see, it took more

than two decades to institutionalize the Asia–Pacific concept and establish APEC.
As Ravenhill suggests, one of the key reasons for this slow pace of institutionali-
zation lies in the lack of leadership to implement trade liberalization and regional
cooperation.33 The form of leadership identified by Ravenhill as lacking here is
similar to what we call ‘executive leadership’. Ravenhill argues that the two largest
economic powers, the United States and Japan, hesitated to play the leadership
role in the institutionalization of economic cooperation in the Asia–Pacific. For
the United States, the major concern was potential conflicts between Asia–Pacific
regionalism and the US commitment to global trade liberalization. For Japan, the
bitter history of the Second World War made it cautious in leading any project of
regional cooperation lest its behaviour irritate other states, especially south-east
Asian countries and China.
Another structural reason for the slow institutionalization of Asia–Pacific
cooperation is the ideological antagonism between East and West during the Cold
War. In the eyes of the Soviet Union, any regional institution initiated by the West
would target the Soviet Union as well as its allies in the region.34 This structural
and ideological obstacle was removed after the Soviet Union dramatically altered
its hostile attitude towards Asia–Pacific economic cooperation in 1986. It also
provided an opportunity for Australia to assume ‘executive leadership’ in imple-
menting Asia–Pacific regionalism, a role that both the United States and Japan
hesitated to take on. The most remarkable work that Australia accomplished in this
respect was successfully lobbying ASEAN states to endorse the institutionaliza-
tion of economic cooperation in the Asia–Pacific region.35 As the former Indone-
sian foreign minister Ali Alatas pointed out, one of the reasons for the success
of APEC is ‘the careful and extensive consultations undertaken by Australia in
developing the idea and in preparing for its realization’.36 In early 1989, Australian
prime minister Bob Hawke called for more effective economic cooperation in
the Asia–Pacific, suggesting the region follow the OECD model. In November
33
Ravenhill, APEC, p. 55.
34
Y. Bandura, ‘The Pacific community—a brain child of imperialist diplomacy’, International Affairs (Moscow)
6: 6, June 1980, pp. 63–70, cited by Ravenhill, APEC, p. 62.
35
See Stuart Harris, ‘Policy networks and economic cooperation: policy coordination in the Asia–Pacific
region’, Pacific Review 7: 4, 1994, pp. 381–95.
36
Ali Alatas, ‘Basic principles, objectives, and modalities of APEC’, in Hadi Soesastro, ed., Indonesian perspectives
on APEC and regional cooperation in Asia Pacific ( Jakarta: Centre for Strategic and International Studies, 1994),
cited by Ravenhill, APEC, p. 84.
160

1989 the first ministerial-level APEC meeting took place in Canberra, with twelve
countries participating.
However, given Australia’s relatively weak power base, in our ‘leadership–
institution’ model APEC is an example of thin institutionalization. Although
Australia managed to push through the institutionalization of regional coopera-
tion in the Asia–Pacific through APEC, it did not have sufficient material power
and capabilities to persuade other member states to forgo some of their sover-
eign rights for the sake of deeper economic cooperation and regional integration.
Instead, APEC followed different principles and approaches from those of the
European Community and, later, the EU. The non-binding, voluntaristic and

consensus-based decision-making approach it preferred seriously undermined the
effectiveness of its institutions in shaping state interests and behaviour.
Nevertheless, the success of APEC should not be understated. It represents the
first recognition by states of the political geography of the Asia–Pacific, thereby
establishing a common understanding that can serve as the foundation for further
cooperation. The later ASEAN-driven regionalism in both the security and the
economic arenas would not have occurred had it not been for the shared perception
of the Asia–Pacific and the concomitant establishment of APEC. It also represents
the first engagement by countries in the Asia–Pacific in multilateral cooperation
and collaboration in the economic and trade arenas. Although APEC rules are not
legally binding, they provide information, identify focal points, and reduce the
transaction costs for states of bilateral negotiations in the realms of trade liberaliza-
tion and economic cooperation. In other words, APEC plays a clearing-house role
in encouraging states to cooperate in certain arenas. This clearing-house function
enables two parties to locate a focal point in cooperation, even though it will
not be able to solve all types of cooperation problems, especially collaboration
problems caused by distrust and competition among states.37
In comparison, institution-building in the Indo-Pacific is undermined by inade-
quate ideational and executive leadership. Australian scholars are at the forefront
in promoting the Indo-Pacific concept. For example, Rory Medcalf and Michael
Wesley from the Lowy Institute were strong advocates of the Indo-Pacific in the
think-tank community.38 However, Australia’s turn to the Indo-Pacific has been
strongly criticized by university scholars such as Mark Beeson, Andrew Phillips
and Nick Bisley. Interestingly, the Australian government seemed to respond
rapidly in picking up the Indo-Pacific concept before an epistemic community
of scholars and policy analysts had reached shared visions and views. As noted
above, Australia was the first government to use the Indo-Pacific concept in official
documentation to denote its political geography in relation to its national inter-
ests.
37
For the functional role of institutions in addressing different ‘collective action’ problems, see Kai He, ‘A stra-
tegic functional theory of institutions and rethinking Asian regionalism: when do institutions matter?’, Asian
Survey 54: 6, 2014, pp. 1184–1208; also Tsuyoshi Kawasaki, ‘Neither skepticism nor romanticism: the ASEAN
Regional Forum as a solution for the Asia–Pacific assurance game’, Pacific Review 19: 2, Aug. 2006, pp. 219–37;
Hidetaka Yoshimatsu, ‘Collective action problems and regional integration in ASEAN’, Contemporary Southeast
Asia 28: 1, April 2006, pp. 115–40.
38
Both later moved to the Australian National University.
161

There are several reasons behind Australia’s enthusiasm for the Indo-Pacific
concept. Strategically, Australia seems anxious about the potential rise of China,
the decline of the United States, and the implications of both for the rules-based
international order.39 From this perspective, the Indo-Pacific is seen as extending
the strategic competition between the United States and China in the Asia–Pacific
into a broader Indo-Pacific domain, in which India is perceived as a natural balancer
of China.40 This is not the first attempt to undermine China’s regional influence
by expanding the scope of the ‘battlefield’. The extension of the EAS from the
‘ASEAN Plus Three’ (APT) to include India, Australia and New Zealand was an
early attempt by some ASEAN states and Japan to undermine China’s influence in

regional affairs.41 The Indo-Pacific concept has a similar purpose but with a much
broader scope.
Domestic politics also played a key role in the discursive promotion of the Indo-
Pacific in Australia. As Mark Beeson points out, Australia’s policy shift towards
the Indo-Pacific highlights the prominence of the west coast in Australia’s foreign
affairs. ‘It is no coincidence that two of Australia’s most recent foreign ministers—
Stephen Smith and Julie Bishop—have come from Western Australia.’42 In other
words, local economic and political interests might well drive Australian politi-
cians to promote the concept of the Indo-Pacific at the national level.
Comparing the ideational leadership of the Asia–Pacific and the Indo-Pacific,
we can identify at least two significant differences. The first is the foundation
of ideational leadership. The epistemic community for Asia–Pacific regionalism
was led by a group of economists who shared and embraced similar views and
goals on trade and economic liberalization as well as economic regionalism. In
addition, it took at least one decade to nurture the community and over two
decades to consolidate the community before it started exerting influence on the
policy community. It was a clear bottom-up construction of ideational leader-
ship that had a solid and focused intellectual foundation in an epistemic commu-
nity.
In the Indo-Pacific case, although some scholars do advocate this initiative, it
is far too early to say that a consensus exists on where the idea of the Indo-Pacific
will lead or how to institutionalize it in general. Interestingly, economists appear
hesitant to join in with the Indo-Pacific discussions in Australia. Most Indo-Pacific
scholars in Australia and other countries are policy analysts and political scientists.
Consequently, unlike the scholars who led the Asia–Pacific discussions, the Indo-
Pacific scholars do not have economic cooperation or economic regionalism as a
focal point. The Indo-Pacific, instead, seems a broad and loosely defined idea that
can embrace all elements of regionalism, from economics to security and from
climate change to human trafficking. Therefore, the intellectual foundation of the
39
Chengxin Pan, ‘The Indo-Pacific and geopolitical anxieties about China’s rise in the Asian regional order’,
Australian Journal of International Affairs 68: 4, 2014, pp. 453–69.
40
T. V. Paul, ed., China–India rivalry in the globalization era (Washington DC: Georgetown University Press, 2018).
41
See Kai He, Institutional balancing in the Asia Pacific (New York: Routledge, 2008).
42
Mark Beeson, ‘Booms, busts, and parochialism: Western Australia’s implacable political geography’, Thesis
Eleven 135: 1, 2016, pp. 51–66 at p. 60.
162

Indo-Pacific epistemic community is less focused and much weaker than that of
the Asia–Pacific was decades ago. It is worth noting that there is a coherent and
active epistemic community called the Indian Ocean Research Group, which is an
Indian Ocean academic network closely related to the Indian Ocean Rim Associ-
ation. However, its focus is on economic and social cooperation in the Indian
Ocean, not the wider Indo-Pacific region.43
In adopting the Indo-Pacific concept in 2018, the Australian government
made frequent mention of it in its defence white paper. This inevitably attached
a strong security connotation to the concept. Although Australian officials did
intentionally extend the application of the term to other, broader issues, still

the real purpose of the concept seems more strategic than economic in nature.
As some scholars point out, ‘the overwhelming rationale for the Indo-Pacific
thus far has been strategic and geopolitical and designed to extend and reinforce
American-led military primacy and to balance against the rise of China’.44 In
theory, security-oriented regionalism can face greater challenges than economic
regionalism because the anarchic nature of the international system creates more
constraints on states seeking to cooperate in areas of high politics, especially
in security issues. As institutional functionalists suggest, a successful develop-
ment of regionalism normally starts with cooperation in low politics (economic
cooperation), with a hope that cooperation on low politics will spill over to high
politics.45 One key reason for the success of institution-building in the Asia–
Pacific lies in the economic and trade-focused agenda for regionalism. In compar-
ison, security-oriented regionalism in the Indo-Pacific seems like building castles
in the air.
The second distinction between the Asia–Pacific and the Indo-Pacific in respect
of ideational leadership is the way in which governments interact with epistemic
communities. Although both the Australian and the Japanese governments funded
research on Asia–Pacific regionalism, they largely worked behind the scenes. More
importantly, both governments refrained from officially endorsing the ideas and
proposals emerging from the epistemic community; instead, they conducted
‘quiet diplomacy’ to lobby regional states, particularly ASEAN members, to work
towards regional economic cooperation. In addition, the ‘track two’ diplomacy
through PECC also played an important role in promoting and socializing ideas
of trade and economic liberalization in the region.
By comparison, in the Indo-Pacific case, some governments, especially those
of Australia and Japan, seem more enthusiastic than scholars in promoting and
embracing the Indo-Pacific concept at the official level.46 It appeared, indeed,
43
One notable think-tank that actively promotes Indo-Pacific cooperation in Australia is the Perth USAsia
Centre: see http://perthusasia.edu.au/.
44
Mark Beeson and Troy Lee-Brown, ‘The future of Asian regionalism: not what it used to be?’, Asia and Pacific
Policy Studies 4: 2, 2016, pp. 195–206 at p. 201.
45
Ernst Haas, Beyond the nation-state: functionalism and international organization (Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press, 1964); David Mitrany, The functional theory of politics (New York: St Martin’s, 1976); Robert O. Keohane
and Stanley Hoffmann, The new European community: decision-making and institutional change (Boulder, CO:
Westview, 1991).
46
Author’s interview with a leading Australian think-tank scholar, Sydney, Dec. 2018.
163

that these governments intended to launch a discursive campaign to create the
Indo-Pacific identity for the region. However, this top-down, government-
led approach seems ineffective and even counterproductive in popularizing the
concept in the region. China has openly questioned the rationale behind the rise
of the Indo-Pacific in some countries’ official discourses.47 Most ASEAN states
have also remained aloof, fearing that the Indo-Pacific concept might reduce the
centrality of ASEAN in Asia Pacific regionalism. The ASEAN outlook on the Indo-
Pacific, released in late June 2019, reiterated ASEAN’s centrality in the region.48
However, this self-assertion might well reflect ASEAN’s lack of confidence in the
expansion of the political geography from the Asia–Pacific to the Indo-Pacific.

Executive leadership also differs between the Asia–Pacific and the Indo-Pacific
cases. In promoting Asia–Pacific regionalism, Japan and the United States, two
potential executive leaders, refrained from taking on leadership roles, restrained
by their own national concerns. Instead, Australia became a default executive
leader to give the final push for the establishment of APEC in 1989. As a relatively
weak power, Australia was not seen as a strong executive leader to run APEC.
Moreover, ASEAN strove to share leadership in APEC. This further reduced the
strength of the executive power in the organization.
Under the Clinton administration the United States did take on the executive
leadership of APEC for a short period of time, and successfully elevated it from
a ministerial meeting to a leaders’ summit in 1993. However, China and ASEAN
countries blocked US attempts to further institutionalize APEC with binding and
legalistic rules and agreements, out of concern that the United States would seek
to influence their domestic affairs by linking trade with human rights. In other
words, they did not want to sacrifice their sovereign rights for economic coopera-
tion. Consequently, the institution-building of APEC is seen as a case of thin
institutionalization, in which states still treat institutions as a tool for pursuing
their own interests without giving institutions an independent role in shaping
their behaviour.
The executive leadership behind the Indo-Pacific idea has experienced some
dramatic shifts. Japan under Abe was an early advocate, even an executive leader,
of the Indo-Pacific concept. In 2007, the Quad was established by Australia, Japan,
India and the United States. It is worth noting that Dick Cheney, the then vice-
president of the United States, played an important role in helping Japan promote
the Quad. It was reported that it was Cheney who first raised the Quad proposal
with the then Australian prime minister John Howard. Then Howard visited Japan
and discussed the Quad proposal with Abe. Later, Abe visited India and Washington
to nail down the first Quad meeting in May 2007.49 However, the withdrawal of
47
Author’s interview with a leading Chinese scholar, Beijing, Jan. 2019. See also Zhang Hong, ‘Meiaoriyin lian-
shou duikang zhongguo?’ [The United States, Australia, Japan, and India balancing China], People’s Daily, 24
Feb. 2018, http://paper.people.com.cn/rmrbhwb/html/2018-02/24/content_1838067.htm; Chen Jimin, ‘The
Indo-Pacific strategy of the Trump administration: policy and limitation’, Peace and Development, no. 1, 2018,
pp. 26–42.
48
See ASEAN outlook on the Indo-Pacific, https://asean.org/asean-outlook-indo-pacific/.
49
Tanvi Madan, ‘The rise, fall, and rebirth of the “Quad”’, War on the Rocks, 16 Nov. 2017, https://warontherocks.
com/2017/11/rise-fall-rebirth-quad/.
164

Australia under the Rudd administration terminated Quad 1.0 in 2008. This was
a big blow to Japan’s executive leadership in institutionalizing the Indo-Pacific.
In the second wave, Australia became an executive leader in promoting the Indo-
Pacific concept through a discursive campaign in its official documents. However,
the executive power of Australia was limited to its own official discourses because
most states in the region, except for the other three Quad members, kept their
distance from the concept. So far, there has been no concrete effort to institution-
alize the Indo-Pacific. When Trump came to power, the United States became a
strong supporter of the Indo-Pacific concept: he deliberately referred to the ‘Indo-
Pacific’ in place of the ‘Asia–Pacific’ in his public speeches and official documents.

In a concomitant development, a reborn ‘Quad 2.0’ seemed on the cards after these
four states conducted a dialogue meeting in November 2017.
If the United States sustains its momentum to promote Quad 2.0 in particular
and Indo-Pacific regionalism in general, the executive leadership behind the Indo-
Pacific institution-building efforts could be defined as strong, given the US unri-
valled military and economic capabilities in the international system. However,
the ideational leadership behind Indo-Pacific regionalism remains weak because
the Indo-Pacific epistemic community is inadequate and ineffective. As yet, there
are no shared common interests that can unite most of the states in the region.
For example, the geographic demarcation of the Indo-Pacific is still a debat-
able question among the Quad countries. Australia and the United States seem to
have a similar geographic view on the Indo-Pacific, suggesting that it consists of
the original Asia–Pacific region plus India.50 However, the Japanese and Indian
geographic understandings of the Indo-Pacific are much broader. In Japan’s ‘free
and open Indo-Pacific’ strategy, the Indo-Pacific includes two continents—Asia
and Africa—across two oceans—the Pacific and Indian oceans.51 Similarly, India’s
2015 Maritime Security Strategy defines the Indo-Pacific as an area from the ‘Indian
Ocean to Pacific Ocean, through the various Indo-Pacific Straits and South/East
China and Philippines Seas’.52
These different ideas regarding geographic demarcation pose problems for the
institutionalization or institution-building of the Indo-Pacific. Most studies of
regionalism focus on economic integration. Without a clear demarcation of a
region, it is almost impossible to conduct effective regional cooperation among
states. In addition, as Jeffrey Wilson points out, the huge economic power gap
between the Asia–Pacific countries and the Indian Ocean states constitutes a
natural obstacle for trade and investment integration between the two regions,
although India’s economic growth in recent years has been impressive.53
50
See Australian Government, 2017 foreign policy white paper (Canberra, 2017), https://www.fpwhitepaper.gov.
au/; The White House, National Security Strategy (2017); US Department of Defense, Indo-Pacific strategy report
(Washington DC, June 2019), https://media.defense.gov/2019/May/31/2002139210/-1/-1/1/DOD_INDO_
PACIFIC_STRATEGY_REPORT_JUNE_2019.PDF.
51
See Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Diplomatic blue book 2017 (Tokyo, 2017), ch. 1, https://www.mofa.
go.jp/policy/other/bluebook/2017/html/index.html.
52
See Indian Navy, Ensuring secure seas: Indian Maritime Security Strategy (New Delhi: Ministry of Defence, 2015),
https://www.indiannavy.nic.in/sites/default/files/Indian_Maritime_Security_Strategy_Document_25Jan16.pdf.
53
Jeffrey Wilson, ‘Rescaling to the Indo-Pacific: from economic to security-driven regionalism in Asia’, East
165

According to the ‘leadership–institution’ model, strong executive leadership
and weak ideational leadership will lead to an ad hoc institutionalization of the
Indo-Pacific. The emergence of Quad 2.0 could be a good example of ad hoc
institution-building efforts. Ad hoc institutionalization refers to a situation in
which some states temporarily organize an institution to deal with emergen-
cies and urgent matters. To a certain extent, China’s increasing assertiveness in
the South China Sea and the emerging maritime concern over Chinese behav-
iour provided the major impetus for the revival of Quad 2.0 in 2017. Although
the Quad states have continued their dialogue meetings, it is still not clear how
the Quad 2.0 will be further institutionalized: will the Quad become a leaders’

summit or a 2+2 ministerial-level meeting among these countries? How will the
four countries substantiate their security dialogue in dealing with China?
A decade ago, Australia killed Quad 1.0 because it did not want to damage its
relationship with China. Now India’s attitude towards Quad 2.0 also seems ambig-
uous, with Prime Minister Modi delivering a balanced, nuanced and benign view
of China’s rise at the 2018 Shangri-La Dialogue. Therefore, if India is reluctant to
provoke China or China successfully accommodates India’s rise, Quad 2.0 might
not move forward as the United States has expected.54 To a certain extent, Quad
2.0 can be seen as a soft balancing effort against China, in that the four Quad states
are coordinating their security policies towards a rising China without creating a
formal military alliance. However, if China continues with its assertive diplomacy
in the South China Sea, the rising common threat from Beijing might became a
rationale for the Quad countries to elevate their cooperation from soft balancing
to hard balancing in the security arena.55 In other words, whether the ad hoc
nature of the Quad persists is largely dependent on how China manages bilateral
relations with its neighbours.
Besides security cooperation, there is also an economic soft-balancing under-
pinning to Quad 2.0. With a view to countervailing China’s increasing influence
through the BRI, the Quad countries seem to be beginning some coordination of
effort in infrastructural investments in the region. For example, Japan, India and
Sri Lanka reached an agreement to develop the Port of Colombo in May 2019.
This deal is widely seen as a joint effort by Japan and India to counter China’s BRI
influence in south Asia.56 With other infrastructure initiatives by Australia and the
United States in the making, it seems that Quad 2.0 might become an economic
soft-balancing mechanism in coping with China’s BRI. However, whether it can
be institutionalized is still uncertain.57
Asia 35: 2, June 2018, pp. 177–96.

54
For China’s accommodation to India’s rise, see Xiaoyu Pu, ‘Ambivalent accommodation: status signalling of
a rising India and China’s response’, International Affairs 93: 1 Jan. 2017, pp. 147–63.
55
For soft balancing, see T. V. Paul, Restraining Great Powers: soft balancing from empires to the globalization era (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 2018).
56
‘Japan and India seek to counter China with Colombo port plan’, Financial Times, 29 May 2019, https://www.
ft.com/content/00adf82e-7d09-11e9-81d2-f785092ab560.
57
We thank one reviewer for suggestions on this point.
166

Conclusion
The argument presented in this article is that successful institution-building
depends on two forms of political leadership: ideational leadership and execu-
tive leadership. Ideational leaders—individual scholars in an epistemic commu-
nity—can help states to identify and expand common interests in cooperation;
executive leadership—governments and state actors—will help states overcome
operational obstacles in cooperation, such as the ‘collective action’ problem and
the ‘relative gains’ concern. Compared with the history of constructing Asia–
Pacific regionalism through APEC, the Indo-Pacific case does not give cause for
optimism, because of the lack of both ideational leadership and executive leader-

ship in building institutions in the Indo-Pacific.
We suggest that the first step towards successful institutionalization of the
Indo-Pacific is to find reliable executive leadership, because the APEC experience
suggests that nurturing ideational leadership through an epistemic community is
a longer-term enterprise. The United States is the best candidate to take up the
executive leadership role. Consequently, Quad 2.0 will be a good testing ground,
providing opportunity to achieve an ad hoc institutionalization of security
cooperation among the four participating countries. However, the nature of ad
hoc institutionalization suggests that its success and durability rely on the urgency
of the issue. If China successfully eases tensions and assures its neighbours of the
benign nature of its rise, then the declining urgency of maritime security will also
discourage security cooperation among the Quad countries because of the poten-
tially high economic costs associated with their anti-China policies.
Another challenge to the institutionalization of the Indo-Pacific concept
lies in the contested nature of regionalism in this part of the world. Although
regional cooperation on matters of ‘low politics’, such as economic coopera-
tion and non-traditional security issues, is less complicated than security region-
alism, there are already many existing regional institutions in the Asia–Pacific:
for example, two competing institutions of trade and economic liberalization are
the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, led by ASEAN and China,
and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership,
led by Japan and Australia (in the absence of the United States). On economic
cooperation, there are APEC, APT and numerous bilateral free trade and invest-
ment agreements. In the security arena, the US-led bilateral alliances and the
ASEAN-oriented multilateral institutions (such as the ARF and the ASEAN
Defence Ministers’ Meeting-Plus) have covered both traditional security and non-
traditional security issues in the region. More importantly, India has been actively
involved in the existing regional institutions, such as the ARF, EAS and Shanghai
Cooperation Organization. This entangled ‘spaghetti bowl’ of regional institu-
tions casts a shadow over the future institutionalization of the Indo-Pacific. The
logic is simple: India has been fully involved in many institutions in the region.
Why expand regionalism to the Indo-Pacific?
167

Further complications and doubts arise from the proclamation by ASEAN of
its centrality in any future institution-building in the Indo-Pacific in the ASEAN
outlook on the Indo-Pacific, published in June 2019, which has been endorsed by the
United States and Australia.58 ASEAN-led multilateralism in the Asia–Pacific has
been criticized as ‘making process, not progress’ or a ‘talk shop without teeth’
owing to its lack of efficiency in addressing regional problems.59 If the existing
multilateral institutions under ASEAN leadership, such as the ARF and EAS, are
not able to take up challenges in the Asia–Pacific, then the question arises: will
ASEAN’s centrality be a blessing or a curse in future institution-building in the
Indo-Pacific?

One wild card in future Indo-Pacific regionalism is China. The Chinese govern-
ment does not embrace the Indo-Pacific concept in its official discourse because
it views such terminology as an attempt at containment by certain countries,
especially the United States and Australia.60 However, its infrastructure-based
investment initiative of a ‘Maritime Silk Road’ as part of the BRI strategy spans
the Indian and Pacific oceans—and so, to a certain extent, it is China’s Indo-Pacific
strategy, though Beijing never acknowledges this publicly. If China can expand its
BRI from a bilateral investment initiative into a multilateral framework, the future
of the institutionalization of the Indo-Pacific will be much brighter. China can
transform the strategic rationale underpinning the current Indo-Pacific concept.
Participation by ASEAN countries will become crucial, because it will dilute
the anti-China mandate of the current Indo-Pacific concept.61 Therefore, China
cannot construct economic regionalism in the Indo-Pacific alone, even though
it might be able to take up the responsibility of providing executive leadership,
given its economic strength. Finding a route to coordination between China and
other states, and a way to nurture ideational leadership from an epistemic commu-
nity, will be the first steps in institutionalizing the Indo-Pacific. There is still a
long way to go.
58
See Government of Australia, Minister for Foreign Affairs, ‘Joint statement, Australia–US ministerial consul-
tations (AUSMIN) 2019’, 4 Aug. 2019, https://foreignminister.gov.au/releases/Pages/2019/mp_mr_190804.
aspx.
59
For criticisms of Asian regionalism and comparisons between Asian regionalism and European regionalism,
see Beeson, Institutions of the Asia–Pacific; Mark Beeson, ‘Rethinking regionalism: Europe and east Asia in
comparative historical perspective’, Journal of European Public Policy 12: 6, 2005, pp. 969–85; Jones and Smith,
‘Making process, not progress’.
60
Author’s interview with a leading Chinese scholar, Beijing, Jan. 2019.
61
We thank one reviewer for suggesting this point.
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The institutionalization of the Indo-Pacific:

problems and prospects

KAI HE AND HUIYUN FENG *

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Three waves of Indo-Pacific discourse

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Explaining institutionalization: the leadership–institution model

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Figure 1. The ‘leadership–institution’ model of institution-building

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The APEC experience for the Indo-Pacific?

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Asia 35: 2, June 2018, pp. 177–96.

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