Indo-Pacific Strategies

Navigating Geopolitics at the Dawn of a New Age

Brendon J. Cannon, Kei Hakata, Brendon J. Cannon, Kei Hakata

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781032057668
• eBook ISBN: 9781000537369
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Regional Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This book focuses on the Indo-Pacific region's growing prominence as the world's major powers gravitate toward this space to expand their influence.

With dynamic shifts taking place in the globe's most strategically volatile region, Indo-Pacific Strategies aims at clarifying the geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific, expounded both as a strategic concept and nascent region, thus contributing to the burgeoning policy and academic debate. The book offers indispensable insights and appropriate remedies to maintain the rules-based international order as threatened by China's increasingly assertive and bellicose posturing. It offers up-to-date analyses of Covid-19-related geopolitical trends, the strategies of various Indo-Pacific states against the backdrop of great power competition, the increasingly confrontational stance of Indo-Pacific states against China and the 2020 US election results.

This unique book presents deep insights into the roles of Eurasia, small island states, the Middle East and Africa, in addition to Australia, India, Japan and the US, thereby providing much needed comparative studies. It also closely investigates the strategic and tactical operationalization of the Indo-Pacific, making it an essential read for scholars, policymakers, students, and strategists in the field of international politics and Area Studies.

Excerpt from the foreword by
ABE Shinz?, (former) Prime Minister of Japan
"I think this book is the timeliest attempt to bring together the wisdom of eleven people to present a multifaceted view of the FOIP [Free and Open Indo-Pacific]. As a reader, I would like to express my gratitude to the editors and contributors for their valuable intellectual contributions."

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Part I Contextualizing the Indo-Pacific

1 The Indo-Pacific as an emerging geography of strategies

Kei Hakata and Brendon J. Cannon

DOI: 10.4324/9781003206934-1

Introduction

In Tokyo, on October 6, 2020, the foreign ministers of Australia, India, Japan and the United States (US) of America gathered at the Iikura Guest House of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Marise Payne, Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Toshimitsu Motegi and Mike Pompeo met in pers on to exchange views on various challenges and their responses to them. The press release reads that the four ministers affirmed “the importance of broadening cooperation with more countries for the realization of a ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific’ as the vision serves for the peace and prosperity of the region […]” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, 2020). This in-person talk took place as the novel coronavirus crisis and great power competition continued unabated. Despite their social distancing for a photo op before the Japanese kinbyōbu golden screen, the four ministers signaled the strong bonds between their states. That a standalone meeting was arranged despite COVID-19-related travel restrictions was itself a testament to the enduring nature of their partnership. Indeed, the significance of the Tokyo meeting, held against such a historical background, tells us much about the geostrategic impulses of four seemingly disparate states.

The hardening rivalry between the US and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is now taken as a given, and many will agree that the theater of this strategic competition is the Indo-Pacific (see Map 1). Spanning the Pacific and Indian Ocean worlds, this region is a vast, maritime arena that defies control in a way the terrestrial world does not. This is where China, the US and other major powers attempt to spread their influence or, conversely, see it diminished. While many states across the world continue to support the existing rules-based order, the attempts made by China, in particular, to disrupt and revise it have cast doubt on its sustainability. This challenge is most salient in the Indo-Pacific, which also happens to be the location of the world’s most populous states, China and India, and where global wealth is progressively being concentrated. It hosts the economic powerhouses of the US, China, Japan and India, and many more of the globe’s most vibrant economies. Further enhancing its strategic importance is the fact that the Indo-Pacific geographically embraces the eastern coast of Africa and the Middle East. As importantly, the Indian Ocean is where the world’s major sea lines of communication (SLOCs) lie, accommodating a significant share of hydrocarbon and other shipments. Taken together, the Indo-Pacific region enjoys a prominence that is expected to last into the future. Indeed, even foreseeable shifts in energy and industry may not affect the region’s salience. On the contrary, a range of regional actors, new and old, will rather accompany a revival of a historic pattern in which China and India dominated almost half of the world’s wealth.

Geostrategic challenges, nonetheless, remain and are proliferating. The Indo-Pacific as a geostrategic idea has gained salience in the international arena as states—in particular, the middle powers—have attempted to hedge against these challenges. In the face of major shifts in the distribution of power, the Indo-Pacific is thus posited as a tool to attenuate the risks and to preserve the geopolitical status quo in the face of China’s sustained revisionism. As the age of US unipolarity recedes, the discourse of the Indo-Pacific forms the rallying cry of those intent on maintaining vestiges of the existing international order, or what is left of American supremacy. The Indo-Pacific, as both a concept and, when operationalized, as policies, possesses the potential to replenish a dwindling Pax Americana into what may be called a Pax Indo-Pacifica (Biegun, 2020).

In this introductory chapter, we will present an overview of the Indo-Pacific as an emerging geography of strategies. First, the authors argue that the Indo-Pacific is an overture for principled regionalism. Second, we examine strategic opportunities and conundrums for the Indo-Pacific states. Third, this chapter addresses critical issues related to Eurasia in terms of the Indo-Pacific. The maritime-driven Indo-Pacific narrative understandably tends to omit its geographical counterpart, yet the question of Eurasia remains a serious conceptual challenge. Lastly, we present the organization of this book and introduce the subsequent chapters as well as our authors’ valuable scholarly contributions.

Indo-Pacific opportunities: An overture for principled regionalism

The Indo-Pacific, similar to the already established Asia Pacific, is a social construct. Although the context may differ, the Indo-Pacific concept was developed to accommodate the ongoing realities in much the same way as Australia and Japan developed what became an idea of Asia-Pacific regionalism.¹ Although the term Indo-Pacific itself has existed for many years, it was thus with new “ideational forces” (Híjar-Chiapa, 2020) and by virtue of a gravitational power that the Indo-Pacific rapidly emerged as “both a region and an idea” (Medcalf, 2020: 268). The Indo-Pacific is therefore a name given to an emerging geography—in other words, a geographized political reality—while also implying the eloquent and conscious thoughts behind the construct.

The early 21st century saw an acceleration of political developments related to what would soon be called the Indo-Pacific. On top of the international relief effort for the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami disaster, the first-ever East Asia Summit (EAS) was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in December 2005. Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe proclaimed the “confluence of the two seas” (Abe, 2007; see also Foreword) as other strategists began considering the wider maritime geography. However, it was during the 2010s that allusions to the “Indo-Pacific” became preponderant in the diplomatic discourse of Australia, India, Japan and the US, pointing to a convergence of interests among them (see, for example, Medcalf, 2020; Rossiter & Cannon, 2020). Importantly, in 2016, Japan’s Abe administration brought forward the “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” (FOIP) concept (see Chapter 5), which was later emulated by the Donald Trump administration in the US. A powerful, referential concept has thus emerged. The Indo-Pacific as a geopolitical idea, and the FOIP as a foreign policy tool, have both inspired like-minded nations and generated a wave of principled regionalism, despite some skepticism. Admittedly, an enhanced union of the two oceans is often declared as one of the main objectives of the Indo-Pacific formulation, and there is much truth in the idea that such a vast maritime space brings prosperity collectively. Yet, we argue that a multiplicity of additional reasons inform the logic of this construct.

Clearly, the convergence of the strategic interests of Australia, India, Japan and the US has brought the Indo-Pacific construct to the forefront of the geopolitical debate. The COVID-19 crisis—which started in Wuhan, China—and Beijing’s subsequent “wolf warrior” diplomacy seem to have consolidated this trend still further. The Indo-Pacific has thus become a geography of strategies by conveying the aspirations of stakeholder states while widening their geopolitical horizons. This has occurred at the same time as the “new China rules” are pervasively undermining and ignoring global norms (Auslin, 2020: 48). These four proponent states of the Indo-Pacific, or what we term the “lynchpin partners,” have found various windows of opportunity to maintain the global power balance in the face of a rising and increasingly belligerent China. Envisaging the Indo-Pacific as a “strategic space” (Jimbo, 2019), these like-minded states have crafted policies that are progressively informed by geostrategic thinking. A salient example is given by the US, where, in January 2021, an outgoing Trump administration declassified an internal document regarding the 2017 National Security Strategy. Named the U.S. Strategic Framework for the Indo-Pacific, this document addressed the challenge “to maintain U.S. strategic primacy in the Indo-Pacific region and promote a liberal economic order while preventing China from establishing new, illiberal spheres of influence […].” It also spelled out, among others, an aim “to create a quadrilateral security framework with India, Japan, Australia, and the United States as the principal hubs [emphasis added]” (US National Security Council, 2018).

There is certainly a sense of shared interests in the face of what many see as an assertive and increasingly bellicose China (see Chapter 7). This, in turn, has created opportunities to deepen mutual and outward cooperation. The alignment of the four capitals desirous of preserving and defending the rules-based Indo-Pacific—one respectful of the principles of international law—has led to a host of maritime security and economic cooperation initiatives. Seen globally, the United Nations (UN) seems incapable of playing the mandatory role specified in its Charter when the veto-equipped China threatens the existing rules-based international order. Accordingly, an alternative architecture to maintain the threatened order is a necessity.² In this sense, the Indo-Pacific is a defensive concept par excellence, despite some seeing it as an “offensive concept.”

A new idea and system are, in fact, needed given China’s imperialistic ambitions and military expansionism in the Indo-Pacific region. As documented minutely in the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and numerous other reports and studies, China continues to build military facilities on artificially fortified islands in the South China Sea—this despite a July 2016 award by the Permanent Court of Arbitration annulling the Chinese claims—and conduct dangerous brinkmanship in the South and East China Seas. The advancement of China in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) has rapidly changed the regional status quo as well. At least for the four proponent countries, the evolution of Indo-Pacific policies and strategies is a response to Beijing’s bellicosity. It would be unnatural for states not to react to major shifts in distributions of power and the uncertainty that accompanies these historical events.

The Indo-Pacific and the FOIP alike are often perceived as an alternative or an opposing framework to China’s activities and initiatives. As is well reported, China’s One Belt One Road (OBOR)—commonly known as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)—raises strategic concerns and creates serious problems in and for the recipient countries; a wide range of literature has identified flaws and concerns regarding President Xi Jinping’s flagship policy. If the Indo-Pacific framework dilutes Beijing’s influence, or if an alternative scheme of cooperation highlights the BRI’s corrosive nature, it could change the equation in favor of liberal democracies keen to preserve the rules-based international order. In that context, the Indo-Pacific has become a practical framework that enables the four lynchpin powers—as well as their potential partner states such as the United Kingdom (UK), France or Taiwan—the option of pursuing balancing actions vis-à-vis China.

The Indo-Pacific concept undoubtedly inspires grand strategy and helps mobilize instruments of statecraft flexibly. In addition to various cooperative initiatives, minilateral platforms subscribing to the Indo-Pacific now abound. Advocated by Shinzo Abe, an informal quadrilateral consultation, commonly known as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD) or the “Quad,” was initiated by the maritime democracies of the Indo-Pacific in May 2007.³ Composed of Australia, India, Japan and the US, this minilateral forum was resurrected in November 2017 after a hiatus. This “Quad 2.0” is currently at the apex of strategic developments taking place across the Indo-Pacific region. In November 2019, for instance, a foreign ministers’ meeting was held on the fringe of the UN General Assembly. The October 2020 foreign ministerial meeting in Tokyo, referenced at the beginning of this chapter, agreed to regularize the consultation, further demonstrating the grouping’s momentum. While admittedly an ambiguous entente—the Quad is only likely to “become a full-fledged architecture when a more serious threat is perceived”⁴—its existence still sends a strong deterrent message to any revisionist attempts of an assertive China.

Minilateral forums and naval exercises involving the Quad and other countries are growing. The Malabar joint exercise, which started in 1992 between India and the US, is a prime example. Japan has partici...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword by ABE Shinzō
• Contributors
• Geopolitical maps
• Acronyms and abbreviations
• Part I: Contextualizing the Indo-Pacific
• Part II: Indo-Pacific lynchpins
• Part III: East Asia and the Indo-Pacific
• Part IV: Frontlines of the Indo-Pacific
• Index