Appropriating the Indo-Pacific Construct: An Analysis of Eurocentrism from a Southeast Asian Perspective

ABSTRACT

Mainstream discourses on the Indo-Pacific have gained momentum over the last fifteen years or so. Since 2007, when India and Japan began sharing strategic assessments after China's enunciation of its “String of Pearls” strategy, military-strategic references to the construct dominated scholarly and policy discussions. This article is an analysis of these discourses, from the perspective of Southeast Asia. Specifically, the discussion suggests that the Southeast Asian roots of the Indo-Pacific construct predate 2007. They prioritise oceanic connectivity and diplomatic engagement across maritime spaces, embodied in the Southeast Asian concepts of nusantara and bebas-aktif. The small states of Southeast Asia had already conceived of one contiguous Indian and Pacific oceanic space within the context of decolonisation, Third World emancipation, and the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). This article suggests that these conceptual maps remain muted in mainstream discourses on the Indo-Pacific. It also highlights the Eurocentric nature of discourses on regionalism and geopolitics, which tend to silence Southeast Asia's role in concept-building. The analysis concludes that discourses about the Indo-Pacific region would be more informed by Southeast Asia's strategic vision and perspectives on connectivity, which could in turn, contribute to more productive policies on peaceful engagement in region.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank the Editor Christopher Isike and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Klaus Haushofer served as military observer in Japan from 1909 to 1910. During this time, he visited British India, Ceylon (present-day Sri Lanka), Singapore and Hong Kong. After returning to Germany, Haushofer expanded his knowledge of global geopolitics, political oceanography, ethnography, philology, and history. In 1919, he retired as a Major General but continued to write and promote his ideas which informed the German Reich.

2 The String of Pearls strategy as a geopolitical concept was first used in 2005, in an internal US Department of Defense report. See Virginia Marantidou’s 2004 article.

3 Historian Denys Lombard is credited with organising an international symposium in 1997, on ‘La Mediterranee Asiatique’, at which several historians expressed the improbability of equating conditions around the Java Sea and the South China Sea with the Mediterranean.

4 In the days leading up to June 1st, 1945, Sukarno articulated his ideas of deliberation and consensus in detail, to members of the Badan Penyelidik Usaha-usaha Persiapan Kemerdekaan, BPUPK (Investigating Committee for Preparatory Work for Independence). It was an organisation set up by the Japanese occupying forces in March 1945. Realising that they were losing the war, the Japanese parliament decided that the ‘East Indies’ should be granted independence at some point in the near future. See Anderson, Benedict. 1961. Some Aspects of Indonesian Politics under the Japanese Occupation, 1944-1945. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press.