The Rise and Return of the Indo-Pacific

The Rise and Return of the Indo-Pacific PDF

Author: Timothy Doyle

Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA

Published: 2020-01-13

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13: 0198739524

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In the 21st century, the Indo-Pacific region has become the new centre of the world. The concept of the 'Indo-Pacific', though still under construction, is a potentially 'pivotal' site, where various institutions and intellectuals of statecraft are seeking common ground on which to anchor new regional coalitions, alliances. and allies to better serve their respective national agendas. This book explores the 'Indo-Pacific' as an ambiguous and hotly contested regional security construction. It critically examines the major drivers behind the revival of classical geopolitical concepts and their deployment through different national lenses. The book also analyses the presence of India and the U.S in the Indo-Pacific, and the manner in which China has reacted to their positions in the Indo-Pacific to date. It suggests that national constructions of the Indo-Pacific region are more informed by domestic political realities, anti-Chinese bigotries, distinctive properties of 21st century U.S hegemony, and narrow nation-statist sentiments rather than genuine pan-regional aspirations. The Rise and Return of the Indo-Pacific argues that the spouting of contested depictions of the Indo-Pacific region depend on the fixed geo-strategic lenses of nation-states, but what is also important is the re-emergence of older ideas - a class conceptual revival - based on early to mid-20th century geopolitical ideas in many of these countries. The book deliberately raises the issue of the sea and constructions of 'nature', as these symbols are indispensable parts of many of these Indo-Pacific regional narratives. Despite the existence of diverse nation-statist, pan- and sub-regional discourses, the narratives of the most powerful states still dominate 21st century Indo-Pacific statecraft. The term 'Indo-Pacific' has the potential of unsettling various existing bilateral and multilateral geopolitical equations within the Indian Ocean region. Despite substantial heterogeneity in Indo-Pacific regional imaginations, the most dominant 'stories' and 'maps' are crafted and disseminated by the most dominant nation -in this case, the U.S- as it grapples with new ways of retaining its hegemony into the 21st century.

Asia's Quest for Balance

Asia's Quest for Balance PDF

Author: Jay L. Batongbacal

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2018-10-15

Total Pages: 334

ISBN-13: 1538106345

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In recent years the narrative surrounding China’s “peaceful rise” has given way to a more ominous story of friction, ambition, and great-power rivalry. As Chinese foreign policy has grown more nationalist and assertive, its intensifying competition with the U.S. has assumed center stage. The impact on China's neighbors, by contrast, and their evolving responses, have received comparatively less attention. The Realist theory of international relations suggests the rapid accumulation of power by one nation-state will prompt its neighbors and peers to adopt Balancing strategies. They will strive enhance their internal defense capabilities and forge new external security partnerships to hedge against this potential new threat. Have these predictions rung true? Are key Indo-Pacific capitals Balancing, and drawing closer to the U.S. as insurance against Chinese aggression? Or is China a new breed of rising power, challenging traditional theories of international relations in a newly-globalized, economically interdependent world? In Asia’s Quest for Balance: China’s Rise and Balancing in the Indo-Pacific leadingauthor-experts from Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, and Vietnam explore these questions and more, decoding China’s complex and evolving relationships with its neighbors and exploring how their responses are altering the security landscape of the region. Contributions by Jay L. Batongbacal, Elliot Brennan, Tetsuo Kotani, Evan A. Laksmana, Joseph Chinyong Liow, Hunter Marston, Rory Medcalf, Sylvia Mishra, C. Raja Mohan, Prashanth Parameswaran, Jeff M. Smith, Tran Truong Thuy, and Ha Anh Tuan

Indo-Pacific Empire

Indo-Pacific Empire PDF

Author: Rory Medcalf

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 2020-03-19

Total Pages: 386

ISBN-13: 1526150778

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This book explains why the idea of the Indo-Pacific is so strategically important and concludes with a strategy designed to help the West engage with Chinese power in the region in such a way as to avoid conflict.

Contest for the Indo-Pacific

Contest for the Indo-Pacific PDF

Author: Rory Medcalf

Publisher: La Trobe University Press

Published: 2022-01-31

Total Pages: 363

ISBN-13: 1743821042

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The definitive guide to the world's most contested region Updated edition covering the strategic impacts of Covid-19, China's economic coercion against Australia, the Afghanistan withdrawal, Joe Biden, the Quad and US-China rivalry. The Indo-Pacific is both a place and an idea. It is the region central to global prosperity and security. It is also a metaphor for collective action. If diplomacy fails, it will be the theatre of the first general war since 1945. But if its future can be secured, the Indo-Pacific will flourish as a shared space, the centre of gravity in a connected world. What we call different parts of the world - Asia, Europe, the Middle East - seems innocuous. But the name of a region is totemic- a mental map that guides the decisions of leaders and the story of international order, war and peace. In recent years, the label 'Indo-Pacific' has gained wide use, including among the leaders of the United States, India, Japan, Australia, Indonesia and France. But what does it really mean? Written by a recognised expert and regional policy insider, Contest for the Indo-Pacific is the definitive guide to tensions in the region. It deftly weaves together history, geopolitics, cartography, military strategy, economics, games and propaganda to address a vital question- how can China's dominance be prevented without war? 'The complexities of our region can easily bewilder those used to the Manichaean simplicity of the Cold War. Rory Medcalf's book is an elegant, keenly insightful tour of the Indo-Pacific's strategic horizon.' -Malcolm Turnbull

By More Than Providence

By More Than Providence PDF

Author: Michael J. Green

Publisher: Columbia University Press

Published: 2017-03-21

Total Pages: 760

ISBN-13: 0231542720

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Soon after the American Revolution, ?certain of the founders began to recognize the strategic significance of Asia and the Pacific and the vast material and cultural resources at stake there. Over the coming generations, the United States continued to ask how best to expand trade with the region and whether to partner with China, at the center of the continent, or Japan, looking toward the Pacific. Where should the United States draw its defensive line, and how should it export democratic principles? In a history that spans the eighteenth century to the present, Michael J. Green follows the development of U.S. strategic thinking toward East Asia, identifying recurring themes in American statecraft that reflect the nation's political philosophy and material realities. Drawing on archives, interviews, and his own experience in the Pentagon and White House, Green finds one overarching concern driving U.S. policy toward East Asia: a fear that a rival power might use the Pacific to isolate and threaten the United States and prevent the ocean from becoming a conduit for the westward free flow of trade, values, and forward defense. By More Than Providence works through these problems from the perspective of history's major strategists and statesmen, from Thomas Jefferson to Alfred Thayer Mahan and Henry Kissinger. It records the fate of their ideas as they collided with the realities of the Far East and adds clarity to America's stakes in the region, especially when compared with those of Europe and the Middle East.

Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy Outlook

Free and Open Indo-Pacific Strategy Outlook PDF

Author: David Arase

Publisher: ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute

Published: 2019-09-20

Total Pages: 27

ISBN-13: 9814881139

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The United States launched a new Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) strategy in late 2017 after reluctantly concluding that its patient effort to engage and socialize China to the rules-based order since 1972 had failed. China’s behaviour since 2009 convinced the United States that China is a revisionist power seeking to impose an authoritarian model of governance in Asia which, if successful, would end the rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific as well as endanger US security and vital trade interests. The new US FOIP strategy initiative seeks to engage like-minded nations in economic, security (both traditional and non-traditional), and political governance partnerships to construct a collaborative and scalable network of relations that will be able to respond flexibly to meet a wide range of stakeholder needs and regional contingencies across the Indo-Pacific region. The United States occupies a peak organizing role in this network and works with a hierarchy of partners distributed throughout the vast Indo-Pacific to meet the economic, security, and governance capacity needs of network members at any level. The rules-based order is the “operating system” of this network approach, and so the network itself sustains the rules-based order for its members as a collective good. FOIP is more like a club that generates rules-based order benefits for its members and as such has little in common with Cold War bloc politics and containment strategy. Bearing in mind that FOIP is only in its start-up phase and is likely to gather momentum going forward; that the elements of this network strategy are already in place; and that the United States and its main FOIP partners together have considerable material, organizational, and soft power resources, one may say that its prospects for long-term sustainability and success are not bad.

From Asia-Pacific to Indo-Pacific

From Asia-Pacific to Indo-Pacific PDF

Author: Robert G. Patman

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-11-24

Total Pages: 365

ISBN-13: 9811670072

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This book brings together a unique team of academics and practitioners to analyse interests, institutions, and issues affecting and affected by the transition from Asia-Pacific to Indo-Pacific. The Indo-Pacific has emerged as the world’s economic and strategic centre of gravity, in which established and rising powers compete with each other. As a strategic space, the Indo-Pacific reflects the rise of geo-political and geo-economic designs and dynamics which have come to shape the region in the early twenty-first century. These new dynamics contrast with the (neo-)liberal ideas and the seemingly increasing globalisation for which the once dominant ‘Asia-Pacific’ regional label stood.

Geopolitics by Other Means

Geopolitics by Other Means PDF

Author: Antonella Mori

Publisher: Ledizioni

Published: 2019-03-07

Total Pages: 98

ISBN-13: 8867059297

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The Asia-Pacific has become the Indo-Pacific region as the US, Japan, Australia and India have decided to join forces and scale-up their political, economic and security cooperation. The message coming from Washington, Tokyo, Canberra and New Delhi is clear: China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is no longer the only game in town and Beijing’s policymakers better get ready for fierce competition. Japan’s ongoing and future “quality infrastructure” policies and investments in the Indo-Pacific in particular make it very clear that Tokyo wants a (much) bigger slice of the pie of infrastructure investments in the region. China’s territorial expansionism in the South China Sea and its increasing interests and presence in countries in South Asia have done their share to help the four aforesaid countries expand their security and defence ties. Beijing, of course, smells containment in all of this and it probably has a point.Who will have the upper hand in shaping and defining Asian security and providing developing South and Southeast Asia with badly-needed infrastructure: the US and Japan together with its allies or the increasingly assertive and uncompromising China and its Belt and Road Initiative?

The End of the Asian Century

The End of the Asian Century PDF

Author: Michael R. Auslin

Publisher: Yale University Press

Published: 2017-01-10

Total Pages: 298

ISBN-13: 030022446X

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An urgently needed risk map of the many dangers that could derail Asia s growth and stability Since Marco Polo, the West has waited for the Asian Century. Today, the world believes that Century has arrived. Yet from China s slumping economy to war clouds over the South China Sea and from environmental devastation to demographic crisis, Asia s future is increasingly uncertain. Historian and geopolitical expert Michael Auslin argues that far from being a cohesive powerhouse, Asia is a fractured region threatened by stagnation and instability. Here, he provides a comprehensive account of the economic, military, political, and demographic risks that bedevil half of our world, arguing that Asia, working with the United States, has a unique opportunity to avert catastrophe but only if it acts boldly. Bringing together firsthand observations and decades of research, Auslin s provocative reassessment of Asia s future will be a must-read for industry and investors, as well as politicians and scholars, for years to come.

Minilateralism in the Indo-Pacific

Minilateralism in the Indo-Pacific PDF

Author: Bhubhindar Singh

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-05-05

Total Pages: 163

ISBN-13: 1000060020

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While US-centred bilateralism and ASEAN-led multilateralism have largely dominated the post-Cold War regional security architecture in the Indo-Pacific, increasing doubts about their effectiveness have resulted in countries turning to alternative forms of cooperation, such as minilateral arrangements. Compared to multilateral groupings, minilateral platforms are smaller in size, as well as more exclusive, flexible and functional. Both China and the US have contributed to minilateral initiatives in the Indo-Pacific. In the case of the former, there is the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation mechanism—involving China, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam—established in 2015. In the case of the latter, there has been a revival of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue in 2017—involving the US, Australia, Japan and India. This book examines the rise of these arrangements, their challenges and opportunities, as well as their impact on the extant regional security architecture, including on the ASEAN-led multilateral order. A valuable guide for students and policy-makers looking to understand the nature and development of minilateralism in the Indo-Pacific region.