The return of the Indo-Pacific strategy: an assessment

ABSTRACT

Eleven years after it was abandoned, the so-called Indo-Pacific concept is back with a vengeance in regional security debates. At the 2017 Shangri-la Dialogue, there were only five mentions of the ‘Indo-Pacific’ at the annual defence ministerial forum. In the following year, the figure had jumped to 92. The Indo-Pacific Four countries promoting the ‘free and open Indo-Pacific’ (FOIP) concept share many principles, including freedom of navigation and overflight, connectivity and economic growth, and respect for the rule of law. There are, however, clear points of divergence between them, such that there are actually different Indo-Pacific strategies among the Indo-Pacific Four. Even if the Indo-Pacific Four manage to resolve these issues (and the possibility of this is low), it is not likely that ASEAN would endorse the FOIP concept. The reality remains that Indonesia and ASEAN have taken a different approach to the Indo-Pacific. The ASEAN approach is to appropriate elements of FOIP strategy which are more attractive to ASEAN (for example, connectivity and infrastructure), yet reject elements of FOIP strategy which ASEAN deems inappropriate (the exclusion of China and the loss of ASEAN centrality). This does not augur well for the adoption, in its entirety, of the FOIP concept by ASEAN.

KEYWORDS:

• United States
• People’s Republic of China
• Australia
• Japoan
• India
• Indo-Pacific

Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank Dr Tim Huxley, Executive Director at IISS-Asia, for his valuable inputs to this article. The author would also like to express his gratitude to Jack Broome, a Gerald Segal Research Intern at IISS-Asia, for his considerable research assistance and contributions to this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

William Choong is the Shangri-La Dialogue Senior Fellow for Asia-Pacific Security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (Asia). He helps to run the annual IISS Shangri-La Dialogue and contributes to research on regional security issues such as the South China Sea territorial disputes and Japan’s evolution into a ‘normal’ power.

ORCID

William Choong http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2887-8080