China and The Indo-Pacific

PALGRAVE SERIES IN ASIA AND PACIFIC STUDIES
China and the

Indo-Pacific
Maneuvers and Manifestations
Edited by
Swaran Singh · Reena Marwah
Palgrave Series in Asia and Pacific Studies
Honorary Editor
May Tan-Mullins, University of Nottingham Ningbo China, Ningbo,
China
Series Editor
Filippo Gilardi, University of Nottingham Ningbo China, Ningbo,
China
Editorial Board
Melissa Shani Brown, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany
Adam Knee, LASALLE College of the Arts, Singapore, Singapore
Gianluigi Negro, University of Siena, Siena, Italy
Andrea Střelcová, MPIWG, Berlin, Germany
The Asia and Pacific regions, with a population of nearly three billion
people, are of critical importance to global observers, academics, and
citizenry due to their rising influence in the global political economy
as well as traditional and nontraditional security issues. Any changes to
the domestic and regional political, social, economic, and environmental
systems will inevitably have great impacts on global security and gover-
nance structures. At the same time, Asia and the Pacific have also emerged
as a globally influential, trend-setting force in a range of cultural arenas.
The remit of this book series is broadly defined, in terms of topics and
academic disciplines. We invite research monographs on a wide range
of topics focused on Asia and the Pacific. In addition, the series is also
interested in manuscripts pertaining to pedagogies and research methods,
for both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Published by Palgrave
Macmillan, in collaboration with the Institute of Asia and Pacific Studies,
UNNC.
NOW INDEXED ON SCOPUS!
Swaran Singh · Reena Marwah
Editors
China
and the Indo-Pacific
Maneuvers and Manifestations
Editors
Swaran Singh Reena Marwah
Jawaharlal Nehru University Jesus and Mary College
New Delhi, India University of Delhi
New Delhi, India
ISSN 2662-7922 ISSN 2662-7930 (electronic)

Palgrave Series in Asia and Pacific Studies
ISBN 978-981-19-7520-2 ISBN 978-981-19-7521-9 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7521-9
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Preface
This volume seeks to present both sides of the discourse on Indo-Pacific

geopolitics: the mainstream one—the genesis of which is credited to Japan
but is lately led by the United States and its friends—and also the other
led one by China and only mutely joined together by several recipients
of its largely one-sided trade and investments. Over the years, US-led
narratives in the name of Free and Open Indo-Pacific have seen China
heralding its own vision of a shared destiny of humankind and, at least
indirectly, the Chinese have also begun to engage with the Indo-Pacific
geopolitics. China, however, remains committed to using the term Asia-
Pacific thereby emphasising the continental perspectives of the region.
Both these narratives of the US and China remain located in this
region’s larger drift from the post-World War II geo-strategic US-led
security architecture of hub-and-spokes to post-Cold War geo-economic
realignments making China the largest economic partner for most littoral
nations. No doubt US has also sought to reinforce its economic lead-
ership—from Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation to Trans-Pacific Part-
nership to Indo-Pacific Economic Forum—and China has also made
inroads in the regional security architecture by building of port facilities—
from Djibouti to Hambantota, Gwadar, to Solomon Islands—yet the US
remains the leader in security management while China has emerged as
the locomotive of regional economic growth and epi-centre for regional
production and supply chains.
v
vi PREFACE
The intriguing question that this volume seeks to explore is how China,
the main trigger for this combined growth and change—and therefore
trigger for novel imaginations of this confluence of Pacific and Indian
Ocean—has largely remained an outlier in US-led mainstream Indo-
Pacific geopolitical discourses? This is where contributors of this volume
have sought to deconstruct various conceptual and operative outlines of
both US-led and Chinese narratives to elucidate their overlaps as also their
distinctive core and its drivers. Do these new outlines emanate from the
larger drift from the geo-strategic and geo-economic churning and trans-
formations set in motion by this unprecedented economic rise of China?
Do they also adequately reflect how under President Xi Jinping this
economic prowess has been used by China in cultivating and expanding
its political influence which is today guiding and goading the evolving
future trajectories of the Indo-Pacific geopolitics?
The economic and the security architecture of the Indo-Pacific, mean-
while, appears bifurcating—led respectively by China and the United
States—often witnessing eruptions on issues relating to trade, technology
and Taiwan—which have become all the more complicated by the long-
drawn coronavirus pandemic followed by the Ukraine crisis which have
further sharpened US-China contestations. For the first time since the end
of the Cold War, the epi-centre of global powers competition has clearly
shifted to the Indo-Pacific region igniting a new competition between
China as the new rising power and an established power ie. the United
States; and, where the US-led global order finds itself challenged by a
move towards Pax-Sinica.
It is evident that ‘China centricity’ of global production and supply
chains, reinforced through its state-driven project-based infrastructure-
binge is fast diminishing the erstwhile clout of the US. China’s leaders
have consistently made clear their desire to have their political and
economic models respected. It has been a consistent feature of Chinese
foreign policy to push for deference to its ‘core interests’. The multiple
strands of the Belt and Road Initiative have seen a host of counteracting
responses including its Indo-Pacific narratives and the Quad initiatives
among others; the most recent one being the trilateral grouping of
Australia, the U.K., and the US, viz. the AUKUS. This is where dissecting
their underlying visions and conceptual constructs become critical to
understand their evolving mutual policies and perceptions as also their
global implications.
PREFACE vii
It is in this complex backdrop, that this book seeks to examine the

evolving contours and dimensions of Western imaginations of China as
also China’s own response to various Western multilateral initiatives.
Contributors specifically explicate China’s Indo-Pacific strategies in the
context of the strategies of United States, Japan, ASEAN, European
Union, Australia and India. In the second part they specifically explore
Chinese expositions. Together they seek to reveal how China’s medium-
term strategy envisages a non-hostile external environment in order to
focus on its core interests; how by reducing dependence of littoral nations
of the Indo-Pacific region on the United States it seeks to increase
their engagement with China. China’s expanding economic outreach and
influence across the Indo-Pacific littorals has likewise provided a new
boost to US-led expositions and initiatives which are often seen as being
China-driven thereby inviting intermittent responses from Beijing and this
action-reaction has become increasingly palpable. It calls for a serious
debate to scrutinise China’s vision as also its increasing centrality and
influence in the moulding and unfolding of Indo-Pacific geopolitics.
New Delhi, India Swaran Singh

Reena Marwah
Acknowledgements
This volume titled, China and the Indo-Pacific: Maneuvers and Mani-
festations is an outcome of the two-days International Conference held
in April 2021. Authors’ papers after their Abstracts were selected had
to go through multiple stages of rigorous selection and editing process,
before these were presented within the sub-themes of Conceptualisation
of Multilateralism, Major Powers engagement, China in the Indo-Pacific,
Issues and future trends. Discussants were provided papers in advance
and authors received their oral and written responses The authors were
then required to substantively revise their papers as chapters based on
the comments received from the discussants during the conference as also
comments received from Editors.
At the outset, Editors take this opportunity to thank each of the
conference session chairpersons and discussants, whose valuable inputs
helped to enrich the contributions of the authors. We are particularly
grateful to Dr. E. Sridharan, Prof. Munim Barai, Prof. Nirmal Jindal,
Prof. B.R. Deepak, Prof. Sophana Srichampa, Prof. Lailufar Yasmin, Prof.
Lakhwinder Singh and Prof. Sukhpal Singh for chairing various sessions.
Our thanks are also due to the large number of scholars who partici-
pated in this two-day conference and engaged the presenters with pointed
questions. Conference participants are also acknowledged for their candid
sharing of views.
This volume also acknowledges the perseverance of several authors
whose papers were revised a few times and all of them have contributed to
ix
x ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
enriching the book. This volume comprising 11 chapters would not have
been possible without the kind cooperation of the production and edito-
rial team of Palgrave Macmillan. Each one deserves our sincere thanks
and appreciation. All research interns of our Association of Asia Scholars,
led by Dr. Silky Kaur were continuously engaged in ensuring the success
of the conference and deserve our appreciation. Finally, we are grateful to
our families for being our constant strength in enabling us to complete
this seminal work.
Prof. Swaran Singh

Prof. Reena Marwah
Praise for China and the Indo-Pacific
“This ground-breaking compendium by a group of scholars - both estab-

lished and emerging - presents a critical deconstructing of both the
conceptual as also operative elements of what appears to be two distinct
narratives; mainstream one led by the United States and a gradually
emerging counter from China’s leaders. Seen from Indian perspectives
it presents useful analysis for India’s policy makers to fathom the ever
evolving trajectories likely to shape the contours of the Indo-Pacific
geopolitics in the coming years.”
—Harsh V Pant, Professor of International Relations, King’s College
London
“At a time of accelerating competition in the Indo-Pacific region, this

is an extremely timely and important contribution. This book brings
together a great and diverse group of excellent scholars to analyze the
rapidly evolving Indo-pacific strategies of all key players in the region
and beyond, with fascinating individual insights. Edited by two renowned
editors, this is a must-read volume to make sense of current geopolitical
dynamics.”
—Yves Tiberghien, University of British Columbia, Professor of Political
Science and Konwakai Chair in Japanese Research
xi
xii PRAISE FOR CHINA AND THE INDO-PACIFIC
“A brilliant blending of opposing yet determined interrogations compli-

cates the simultaneity of China’s reluctant engagement with narratives of
Indo-Pacific geopolitics aimed at a joint alert to its rise and corresponding
practices of mutual moulding that not only reconfigures major actors but
also entangles China.”
—Chih-yu Shih, Professor of Political Science, National Taiwan
University
“A timely volume with an Excellent Set of Contributions perfectly assem-

bled by the Editors. Useful reading material for libraries, researchers and
policy practitioners to understand the current and future Chinese strate-
gies in Indo-Pacific. The volume presents a balanced and fine overview of
Indo-Pacific, highlighting bilateral and mini-lateral politics.”
—Jagannath Panda, Head, Stockholm Centre for South Asian &
Indo-Pacific Affairs, ISDP, Sweden & Director, Yokosuka Council on
Asia-Pacific Studies (YACPS), Japan
“The United States, some European and Asian countries have issued
strategic documents on the Indo-Pacific, and scholars and politicians from
various countries are paying close attention to China’s response. This
monograph, edited by Prof. Swaran Singh and Prof. Reena Marwah,
brings together the assessment of China’s status and role in the Indo-
Pacific framework by important scholars in the field of international
relations, highlighting the concerns and perceptions of relevant countries
on China. Chinese scholars will be able to gain a better understanding of
the views of the outside world through this book.”
—Prof. Su Hao, China Foreign Affairs University, Beijing
Contents
1 China’s Engagement and the Indo-Pacific 1

Swaran Singh and Reena Marwah
2 Decoding ‘Sovereign Strategic Networks’
in the Indo-Pacific: Contesting China’s
‘Ascendant-Rise’ 21
Dattesh D. Parulekar
3 US–China Strategic Competition: Through
the Matrix of Complex Interdependence 41
Rubina Waseem
4 Sino-Japanese Relations: Drivers and Obstacles
in the Free and Open Indo-Pacific Vision 55
Stephen R. Nagy
5 ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific: Motivations,
Opportunities, and Challenges 75
Don McLain Gill
6 China in EU’s Strategy for Cooperation
in the Indo-Pacific 93
Claudia Astarita
xiii
xiv CONTENTS
7 Evolving Indo-Pacific Multilateralism: China Factor

in Australia’s Perspectives 121
Artyom A. Garin
8 The Community of Shared Futures: China’s Counter
to Indo-Pacific Narratives 145
Devendra Kumar Bishnoi
9 China’s Regional Engagement and Quad: Mapping
Conceptual Dynamics 171
Mrittika Guha Sarkar
10 China’s Engagement with the Pacific Islands 195
Madhura Bane
11 China’s Maneuvers in South Asia 217
Reena Marwah and Abhishek Verma
Index 241
Editors and Contributors
About the Editors
Prof. Swaran Singh is visiting professor,

Department of Political Science, Univer-
sity of British Columbia (Vancouver) and
Professor and former Chairman of the
Centre for International Politics, Organi-
sation and Disarmament (CIPOD), School
of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru
University (New Delhi), Fellow, Canadian
Global Affairs Institute (Calgary), Director
India, The Millennium Project’s South
Asia Foresight Network (Washington DC),
Member, Governing Body, Society of Indian
Ocean Studies (New Delhi) and president
of the Association of Asia Scholars (New
Delhi). Prof Singh has been formerly visiting
professor/scholar at Australian National
University (Canberra), Science Po (Bordeaux,
France) University of Peace (Costa Rica),
Peking, Fudan and Xiamen Universities, and
Shanghai Institute of International Studies and
xv
xvi EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS
Center for Asian Studies (Hong Kong Univer-

sity) in China, Asian Center (University of the
Philippines), and Chuo, Hiroshima and Kyoto
Universities (in Japan), as also Guest Faculty at
Stockholm International Peace Research Insti-
tute (Sweden). He was Academic Consultant
(2003–2007) at Center de Sciences Humaines
(New Delhi), Research Fellow at Institute for
Defence Studies and Analysis (New Delhi).
Prof. Singh has published in the Journal of
International Affairs (Columbia Univer-
sity), Security Challenges (Australian
National University), Journal of Indian
Ocean Region (Perth, Australia), Issues &
Studies (Taiwan National University), African
Security (Institute of Security Studies), BISS
Journal (Dhaka), and several Chinese and
Indian journals. Prof Singh co-edited Multi-
lateralism in the Indo Pacific—Conceptual
and Operational Challenges (Routledge,
2022), Revisiting Gandhi: Legacies for Global
Peace and National Integration (World
Scientific, Singapore, 2021) Corridors of
Engagement (2020), Colonial Legacies And
Contemporary Studies Of China And Chine-
seness: Unlearning Binaries (2020), BCIM
Economic Corridor: Chinese and Indian
Perspectives (2017), Transforming South
Asia: Imperatives for Action (2013); India
and the GCC Countries, Iran and Iraq:
Emerging Security Perspectives (2013), On
China By India: From Civilization to
State (2012), Emerging China: Prospects
for Partnership in Asia (2012), Asia’s
Multilateralism (in Chinese 2012);
Edited China-Pakistan Strategic Coop-
eration: Indian Perspectives (2007)
Co-authored Regionalism in South Asian
Diplomacy (2007) and authored Nuclear
EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS xvii
Command & Control in Southern Asia:

China, India, Pakistan (2010), China-India
Economic Engagement: Building Mutual
Confidence (2005), China-South Asia: Issues,
Equations, Policies (2003).
Prof. Singh has supervised 32 Ph.D.s and
50+ M.Phil. degrees at JNU and sits on Selec-
tion Committees for faculty recruitment and
on the Editorial Board of various reputed jour-
nals. He regularly writes for Indian and foreign
media, lectures at various prestigious institu-
tions in India and abroad, and regularly appears
on radio and television discussions. Twitter:
@SwaranSinghJNU.
Prof. Reena Marwah (M.Phil., Delhi Univer-

sity; Ph.D., India, International Business) is
Professor at Jesus and Mary College, Delhi
University.
She was an ICSSR Senior Fellow, MHRD,
Govt. of India, affiliated with the Centre
for the Study of Developing Societies, New
Delhi from June 2017 to May 2019, during
which her study was on Reimagining India–
Thailand Relations. She has also been on
deputation as Senior Academic Consultant,
ICSSR, Ministry of Human Resource Devel-
opment, Govt. of India for three years (2012–
2015) and continued, on behalf of ICSSR
to coordinate/lead the India-Europe Research
Platform (EqUIP), comprising 10 research
councils of Europe till July 2017. She is
the recipient of several prestigious fellow-
ships including the McNamara fellowship of
the World Bank, 1999–2000 and the Asia
fellowship of the Asian Scholarship Founda-
tion 2002–2003, during which she undertook
research in Thailand and Nepal. She is also
a Senior Fellow of the Institute of National
xviii EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS
Security Studies Sri Lanka (INSSSL). She has

been a Consultant for the World Bank and UN
Women. She is the founding editor of Millen-
nial Asia, a triannual journal on Asian Studies
of the Association of Asia Scholars, published
by Sage Publishers.
During her teaching and research expe-
rience, she has worked closely with several
think tanks, international donors, embassies,
ministries of the Government of India and
research councils in Asia. Among her research
interests are international relations issues of
China, Vietnam, Philippines, Thailand and
India, and development issues of South and
South East Asia.
In addition to several chapters and arti-
cles published in books/journals, she is
author/co-author/co-editor of 16 books and
monographs including Contemporary India:
Economy, Society and Polity (Pinnacle 2009,
2011), co-edited volumes including Economic
and Environmental Sustainability of the Asian
Region (Routledge 2010), Emerging China:
Prospects for partnership in Asia (Routledge
2011), On China by India: From a Civi-
lization to a Nation State (Cambria Press,
USA); Transforming South Asia: Imperatives
for Action, (Knowledge World, India) 2014;
The Global Rise of Asian Transformation,
(Palgrave Macmillan) 2014.
Her latest co-edited books are: China
Studies in South and Southeast Asia: Pro-
China, Objectivism, and Balance, (2018)
(World Scientific Publishing Company, Singa-
pore). Revisiting Gandhi: Legacies for Global
Peace and National Integration (World Scien-
tific, Singapore, 2021, Multilateralism in the
Indo Pacific—Conceptual and Operational
Challenges (Routledge, 2022).
EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS xix
Her most recent authored books are Re-

imagining India Thailand Relations: A multi-
lateral and bilateral perspective, by World
Scientific Publishers, Singapore, published in
March 2020; China’s Economic Footprint in
South and Southeast Asia: A futuristic perspec-
tive, published in 2021, by World Scien-
tific Publishers, Singapore and India-Vietnam
Relations: Development Dynamics and Strategic
Alignment, (2022) published by Springer
Nature.
Contributors
Claudia Astarita is a lecturer at Sciences Po Paris and International

Relations Analyst for China and the Indo-Pacific at Indigo Publica-
tion (Paris). She obtained her Ph.D. in Asian Studies from Hong Kong
University in early 2010. Her main research interests include China’s
political and economic development, Chinese and Indian Foreign policies,
East Asian regionalism and regional economic integration, Asian Civil
Society, and the role of media and memory (both official and unofficial)
in reshaping historical narratives in Asia.
Madhura Bane (Ph.D.) Former Coordinator of Post-graduate
Centre, Department of Political Science, Sir Parashurambhau College
(Autonomous), Pune. Former Assistant Professor of Political Science
at the Department of Political Science, Ramnarain Ruia Autonomous
College, Matunga. My academic interests are in International Relations,
India’s Foreign Policy, Political theory and Indian Polity. My chapter on
Climate Change Challenges: A Study of Island States in the Indo-Pacific
is a part of the forthcoming volume with Routledge titled Multilateralism
in the Indo Pacific: Conceptual and Operational Challenges edited by
Swaran Singh and Reena Marwah.
Devendra Kumar Bishnoi has submitted his Ph.D. thesis titled Domestic
Politics and International Order: a Constructivist Analysis of Chinese
Discourses on Territorial Sovereignty for evaluation in the Department
of Political Science, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, Telangana
xx EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS
(India). His research focuses on the intersections between domestic poli-

tics and China’s approaches to the international order with particular
focus on the political legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)
and its efforts to remould ideology in the post-Mao period. Earlier, he has
earned his master’s in Political Science from the University of Hyderabad,
and Chinese language training from the English and Foreign Language
University, Hyderabad, and Tsinghua University, Beijing. His current
research focuses on maps circulated in education textbooks, popular
books, and media among other media since the 1940s and their signifi-
cance in understanding Chinese imaginations of its place in the territorial
sovereignty-based international order.
Artyom A. Garin is Fellow at the Center for Southeast Asia, Australia and
Oceania at the Institute of Oriental Studies of the RAS. He is interested in
multilateralism in the Indo-Pacific, as well as in Australia–China relations.
His research interests also include defence and aid policies of Australia, as
well as politics and history of the Pacific Island Countries.
Don McLain Gill is a Philippines-based geopolitical analyst and author
who specialises in Indo-Pacific affairs and India-Southeast Asian relations.
He has over 100 publications to his credit, and he has written in the
form of books, book chapters, peer-reviewed international journal articles,
and analytical commentaries for major international affairs publishers such
as The Diplomat, Asia Times, The National Interest, SCMP, ORF, and
RUSI, among others. Don is also regularly interviewed by international
news tv channels on his views regarding various issues on international
security and geopolitics.
Stephen R. Nagy received his Ph.D. in International Relations/Studies
from Waseda University in 2008. His main affiliation is as a senior asso-
ciate professor at the International Christian University, Tokyo. He is also
a fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute (CGAI); a visiting fellow
with the Japan Institute for International Affairs (JIIA); a senior fellow
at the MacDonald Laurier Institute (MLI); and a senior fellow with the
East Asia Security Centre (EASC). He also serves as the Director of Policy
Studies for the Yokosuka Council of Asia Pacific Studies (YCAPS) spear-
heading their Indo-Pacific Policy Dialogue series. He is currently working
on middle power approaches to great power competition in the Indo-
Pacific. His latest publications include among others, Nagy, S. R. 2022.
EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS xxi
‘Economic Headwinds and a Chance of Slower Growth: What the fore-

cast holds for the Belt Road Initiative’, MacDonald Laurier Institute.;
Nagy, S. R. 2021. “Sino-Japanese Reactive Diplomacy as seen through
the Interplay of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Free and Open
Indo-Pacific Vision (FOIP)’. China Report: 1–15.
Dattesh D. Parulekar (Ph.D.), is Assistant Professor at the School of
International and Area Studies (SIAS), Goa University. His realms of
specialisation are India’s Foreign Policy, Strategic Maritime Issues in the
Indo-Pacific, African Affairs, India-Europe Cooperation w r.t the Nordics,
and Latin American Political Economy.
Mrittika Guha Sarkar is an SIS Dean’s Awardee and Graduate Assistant
at the School of International Studies (SIS), The American University,
Washington, DC, USA. She is further associated with the Series Editor
for Routledge Studies on Think Asia as an Editorial Assistant. She has
previously been associated with the Chinese Language Center, National
Chengchi University (NCCU), Taipei, Taiwan, as a Language Scholar,
and the Centre for East Asian Studies, School of International Studies,
Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi as a Research Scholar in
Chinese studies. Her area of focus mainly encompasses China’s foreign
policy and strategic affairs. She has also researched India–China relations,
as well as the geostrategic affairs of the Indo-Pacific region, East Asia’s
geopolitics and security affairs, focusing on the regional developments of
Japan and the Korean Peninsula.
Abhishek Verma is a Ph.D. scholar at Diplomacy and Disarmament
(DAD) division, Centre for International Politics, Organisation and Disar-
mament (CIPOD), School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru
University. He has several publications to his credit including a mono-
graph titled ‘China’s Growing Stature and Inherent Conflict: Tracing
Chinese Strategic Thoughts and its Contemporary Behaviour’. He
completed his graduation from Hansraj College, Delhi University and
M.A. in Politics (Specialisation in International Studies) from Jawaharlal
Nehru University.
Rubina Waseem (Ph.D.) is Assistant Professor of the Department of
Strategic Studies, National Defense University, Islamabad and a former
Research Scholar at the George Washington University, Washington, DC.
She has written number of research papers and participated in many
national and international conferences to share her research work. She
xxii EDITORS AND CONTRIBUTORS
earned her Ph.D. in Strategic Studies and also holds M.Phil. and M.Sc.
degree in Defence and Strategic Studies from Quaid-I-Azam University.
Abbreviations
AAGC Asia-Africa Growth Corridor

ACFTA ASEAN–China Free Trade Area
ADB Asian Development Bank
ADMM ASEAN Defense Ministers Meeting
AEC ASEAN Economic Community
AFTA ASEAN Free Trade Area
AIIB Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank
AOIP ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific
APEC Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
APT ASEAN Plus Three
ARF ASEAN Regional Forum
ASEAN Association of South East Asian Nations
AUKUS Australia UK US
BBIN Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal
BCIM Bangladesh, China, India, Myanmar
BDN Blue Dot Network
BIMSTEC Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multisectoral Technical and Economic
Co-operation
BRF Belt and Road Forum
BRI Belt and Road Initiative
CAFTA China-ASEAN Free Trade Area
CBMs Confidence-Building Measures
CCP Chinese Communist Party
CECA Comprehensive Economic Co-operation Agreement
CENTO Central Treaty Organisation
CLMV Cambodia Lao PDR Myanmar Vietnam
xxiii
xxiv ABBREVIATIONS
CMEC China Myanmar Economic Corridor

CORPATs Coordinated Patrols
COTRI China Outbound Tourism Research Institute
CPEC China Pakistan Economic Corridor
CPICEDC China-Pacific Islands Countries Economic Development and
Cooperation
CPTPP Comprehensive and Progressive Transpacific Partnership
CSIS Centre for Strategic and International Studies
DSTO Defence Science and Technology Organisation
EAS East Asia Summit
EU European Union
FDI Foreign Direct Investment
FOIP Free and Open Indo Pacific
FTA Free Trade Agreement
GAME Guidelines for Air Military Encounters
GCI Global Competitiveness Index
GDP Gross Domestic Product
HDI Human Development Index
IMF International Monetary Fund
IPOI Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative
LAWs Lethal Autonomous Weapon systems
MANPADS Man-Portable Air Defense Systems
MDA Market Development Assistance
MEA Ministry of External Affairs
MoU Memorandum of Understanding
MRIA Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport
MSR Maritime Silk Road
OBOR One Belt One Road
OSOWOG One-Sun-One-World-One-Grid
PIC’s Pacific Islands Countries
PLA People’s Liberation Army
PNG Papua New Guinea
PQI Partnership for Quality Infrastructure
PRC People’s Republic of China
QSD Quadrilateral Security Dialogue
RCEP Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership
ReCAAP Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and
Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia
RIMPAC Rim of the Asia Pacific
RSCI Resilient Supply Chain Initiative
SAARC South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation
SCO Shanghai Cooperation Organization
SEATO South East Asia Treaty Organisation
ABBREVIATIONS xxv
SIDS Small Island Developing States

SREB Silk Road Economic Belt
TAC Treaty of Amity and Cooperation
TPP Trans-Pacific Partnership
UNCLOS United Nations Convention on Law of the Seas
WB World Bank
WW2 World War Two
List of Tables
Table 7.1 Australian Defence White Papers (1976–2016) 124

Table 10.1 China’s exports to the select PIC’s 199
Table 10.2 Donors: a comparative assessment 201
Table 10.3 China’s Aid in USD million (spent) on Pacific Islands
in 2009 and 2019 205
Table 10.4 Taiwan’s Aid in USD million (spent) on Pacific Islands
in 2009 and 2019 206
Table 11.1 South Asian countries: GDP, Debt, HDI, 2022 223
Table 11.2 Chinese debt as a percentage of total debt of South
Asian countries 224
Table 11.3 Chinese projects in Pakistan and Nepal 228
Table 11.4 Chinese projects in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Maldives 231
xxvii
CHAPTER 1
China’s Engagement and the Indo-Pacific
Swaran Singh and Reena Marwah
Introduction
The year 2021 closed with China finally officially taking its first step
towards accepting, engaging, and endorsing the phrase ‘Indo-Pacific’ that
it had been fighting shy; choosing instead to stay on with the older
‘Asia–Pacific’ terminology of yesteryears. The occasion was the special
virtual summit to commemorate the 30th anniversary of ASEAN-China
Dialogue relations where President Xi Jinping’s speech read: ‘We seek
high-quality Belt and Road cooperation with ASEAN and cooperation
between the Belt and Road Initiative and the ASEAN Outlook on the
Indo-Pacific’ (emphasis added) (Xi 2021: 5). The Joint Statement that
S. Singh
Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India
e-mail: [email protected]
R. Marwah (B)
Jesus and Mary College, University of Delhi, New Delhi, India
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023
S. Singh and R. Marwah (eds.), China and the Indo-Pacific,
Palgrave Series in Asia and Pacific Studies,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7521-9_1
2 S. SINGH AND R. MARWAH
followed appeared a bit cautious clarifying China’s limited endorsement:

‘Reaffirming the principles of the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific
(AOIP), while recognising that it is ASEAN’s independent initiative,
being open and inclusive, is intended to enhance ASEAN’s Community
building process, and is not aimed at creating any new mechanism or
replacing existing ones’ (MoFA 2021). At the follow-up press briefing,
China’s foreign ministry spokesperson was even more restrained reiter-
ating China’s long-held position saying: ‘China always supports ASEAN
centrality in the regional architecture, and supports ASEAN playing a
bigger role in regional and international affairs’ (Verma 2022). However,
on being asked a specific question MoFA spokesperson acknowledged
India’s vision of the Indo-Pacific, placing on record that ‘China has noted
India’s Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative’ (ibid.).
While staying on with the ‘Asia–Pacific’ terminology, China has since
evolved a larger vision for the region that is outlined in its building
of a shared community of humankind which blends almost seamlessly
with ASEAN’s community building initiatives. Indeed, like most stake-
holders of the Indo-Pacific geopolitics, China remains committed to the
principle of ‘ASEAN centrality’ and Beijing seems now finally ready to
open its innings of directly engaging with these Indo-Pacific geopolit-
ical narratives. The pace and direction of this engagement, of course, will
remain hostage to China’s overall equations with the United States and
its imaginations of the Indo-Pacific strategy that Beijing views as aimed
at China’s containment and thereby reinforces US predominance. The
US-China trade and technology wars of recent years provide the most
apt evidence of such a prognosis. As recent as in July 2021, China’s
foreign minister Wang Yi had described the US Indo-Pacific strategy
as a come-back of Cold War mentality warning that ‘Revisiting the old
dream of Cold War hegemony cannot win the future, let alone “rebuild
a better world”’ (Xinhua 2021). Likewise in 2018, Wang Yi had first
demolished US-led Quadrilateral Security Dialogue as ‘Sea foam’ that will
dissipate but then by 2020 called it an Asian NATO and condemned US
Indo-Pacific strategy being aimed at reviving ‘Cold War mentality and to
stir up confrontation amongst different groups and blocks and to stoke
geopolitical competition’ (Hu and Meng 2020: 145; Rej 2020).
It is pertinent to begin by asking what has triggered this change of
heart in Beijing? What have been the drivers and direction of China
engagement with the ASEAN Outlook on Indo-Pacific (AOIP) or of its
growing recognition of India’s Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI)?
1 CHINA’S ENGAGEMENT AND THE INDO-PACIFIC 3
What are the likely trajectories of China’s engagement with the new
Indo-Pacific alignments? It is in this complex and evolving backdrop
of blurring contours of their mutual containment and engagement—
or congagement—that this volume seeks to explore both China’s own
forward movement from its extensive economic partnerships with the
Indo-Pacific littoral to engaging with emerging Indo-Pacific political and
strategic narratives as also the engagement of China by various stake-
holders in this evolving Indo-Pacific geopolitics. Either way, it has become
increasingly impossible to ignore China’s presence and influence in the
Indo-Pacific region which calls for a serious examination of its vision and
engagements with this region.
The China-Led Transition of Asia–Pacific

At the very outset, China’s extraordinary economic rise since the early
1990s has unleashed China multifaceted external engagements thereby
unfolding novel visions about its past glory as the ‘Middle Kingdom’ of
the yore. This has also fired desires to reclaim its due place in the world
leading to solidifying of its resolve to raise its global power profile. Succes-
sive Chinese leaders have since aspired to transform China into a world
power with fuguo qiang hing (economic prosperity, strong military) and
from early 2000s they have felt confident of having realised these twin
objectives (Mitter 2020: 219; Li 2013: 57). Beijing summer Olympics
of 2008 under President Hu Jintao are generally cited as marking that
inflection point in China’s coming out from Deng Xiaoping’s ‘hide
your strengths, bide your time’ axiom creating grounds for President Xi
Jinping’s ‘New Era’ and China’s emergence as a full-spectrum regional
power (Grix et al. 2019: 69; Heydarian 2014). Especially, since the
coming of President Xi Jinping to power, China has undergone a radical
shift in signalling its willingness to shape the regional and even global
order (Wu 2018: 996–997). Especially, the last two years of pandemic
coinciding with president Xi’s drive towards his third term as Party
General Secretary and President have begun unfolding a more assertive
China, especially in its immediate region.
President Xi’s focus on consolidating his own and Party’s centrality
through anti-graft campaigns during his first term in office followed by his
focus on innovation and through his unique benchmarks like the Centen-
nial Goals, China Dream, Belt and Road Initiatives juxtaposed with
China’s military modernisation and an increasingly assertive ‘wolf warrior’
diplomacy have sent aftershocks across China’s periphery and amongst its
peer competitors (Mladenov 2021: 62, 122, 344, 462). Indeed, starting
from the East Asian financial crisis of 1997, China emerged as a great
friend and economic partner of the Association of South East Asian
Nations that was originally created in 1960s to contain Communist China
spreading its ideology to other countries of the Asia–Pacific (Yahuda
2004: 295, 333). And then, the global economic slowdown from 2008
was to see Beijing engender closer partnerships even with major US allies
like Australia, Japan, Singapore, South Korea making the United States
aware of its changing equations in global politics (Yang and Seng 2010:
34). Finally, since 2020, the Coronavirus pandemic has only accelerated
the process of a relative rise of China catching up with the United States
in various indices of influence: for the year 2021, China was the only one
among major economies to show positive growth of 2.6 per cent thus
further closing the gap as the second largest economy in the world (Day
and Xuanmin 2022; Hale and Yu 2022).
This economic rise of China has gradually unfolded China’s political
and strategic vision and its overtones resulting in China and the United
States frequently contesting for influence among various small and middle
powers in the Indo-Pacific. This is what has since triggered efforts by both
sides to unfold their respective novel conceptualisations for building a new
regional order in the Indo-Pacific and these reflect strong divergences
with serious implications for regional security, stability and prosperity.
While the United States, starting from President Barrack Obama’s ‘pivot’
to Asia has heralded narratives of the Indo-Pacific geopolitics, China has
since President Hu Jintao promoted the vision of building a China-led
harmonious world. This has been further fine-tuned under President Xi
Jinping into building a community of shared future of humankind at the
conceptual level and his Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to operationalise
that novel vision and perspective. China’s BRI engagement reaching out
to over 130 countries has not just enabled its recent forays around the
world to support the fight against the coronavirus pandemic but saw
it simultaneously supporting (read leading) the ASEAN-led Regional
Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which promises to align
the economic alignments of 15 nations of the Indo-Pacific accounting for
over 30 per cent of global GDP. It is important to underline how India,
feeling sidelined by China, had distanced itself from RCEP negotiations
at the very last minute.
The RCEP comprises 15 countries, including the ten ASEAN nations

as well as China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.
Langhammer, former vice president of the Kiel Institute for the World
Economy, asserted that the benefits of RCEP would be uneven and
it would be most advantageous for China (Martin 2021). Over the
past decade China has also been taking measures to internationalise the
Renminbi (RMB), with the objective that over the long run, the curren-
cies of its trading partners become pegged to the RMB. The fact that
China is the largest trading partner of over 120 countries, there is an
endeavour to ensure that the RMB is established as an important reserve
currency of the foreign central markets (Marwah and Ramanayake 2021:
25).
Xi Jinping’s visualisation of the ‘China Dream’ through BRI is without
a parallel in history; encompassing increasingly numbers of smaller nations
in its enfold. This penchant for expanding its influence is supported
by China emerging as the world’s most powerful supplier of manufac-
tured good and physical infrastructure (Marwah and Ramanayake 2021:
8). In contrast, Trump’s ‘America First’ policy was seen in the United
States abandoning its world leadership including Trans-Pacific Partner-
ship thereby conceding space for China which increasingly dominates
multilateral trade arrangements in Asia. In the realm of security as well,
the post-2017 revitalised Quad 2.0, a grouping of four democracies, has
since seen its agenda traversing less on elements like security cooperation
and naval exercises and much more on sectors like vaccine diplomacy,
climate change, critical technology, cyberspace, capacity building and so
on. The United States and its allies have since taken refuge in framing
and promoting a normative agenda including transparency in decision-
making, quality regulations, standards and rule-based international system
as the basis of their cooperation with all the relevant stakeholders in the
Indo-Pacific region through non-military measures (Marwah and Yasmin
2021: 11).
Evidently, as a rising power, China is not without its own normative
formulations and conceptual push-backs to US-led Indo-Pacific narra-
tives. These have indeed gradually gained traction and are strongly backed
by China’s economic partnership across these littoral nations of the Indo-
Pacific. To begin with, ASEAN’s unwillingness or inability to stand up
against China’s virtual annexation of the South China Sea provides its
most apt example where both China’s artificial island building and grey
zone operations have gone uncontested by all other claimant nations of
the ASEAN (Singh and Yamamoto 2016: 2). The Indian Ocean is another
strategic maritime space that has witnessed China’s increasing footprint
with implications (Singh 2011: 245). Under President Xi Jinping, China
has demonstrated great agility in undertaking various tactical initiatives to
overcome what President Hu Jintao had called China’s ‘Malacca dilemma’
(Mohan 2012: 119–121). If anything, China’s expanding trade and
investments across the Pacific and Indian Oceans littoral have transformed
Malacca Straits from a choke point into a bridge-triggering imagination of
the confluence of these two maritime regions into Indo-Pacific paradigm
(Borah 2022: 131). It is interesting to see how China, an integrator, has
so far remained an outlier in the US-led Indo-Pacific narratives. This of
course has been the result of both US attempts to visualise Indo-Pacific
strategies to contain and counter China’s rise as well as a result of Beijing’s
own consciousness of not encouraging this visualisation and expose itself
in its sensitive maritime region, the South China Sea; not at least until it
has consolidated its complete control on this region.
Does this indirect but growing interest and engagement of China
with the Indo-Pacific reflect its consolidation of South China Sea and
its equations with ASEAN and other US allies in its periphery? What
could be the measurable benchmarks to establish China’s equation with
the Indo-Pacific to facilitate serious explorations into its likely nature,
pace and future trajectories. The February 2022 Indo-Pacific Strategy
of the United States, that describes China as one that ‘seeks to become
the world’s most influential power’ calls for ‘collective effort’ to ‘not to
change the PRC but’ seek ‘to manage competition with the PRC’ thereby
‘building a balance of influence in the world that is maximally favourable
to the United States (The White House 2022: 5). This sounds like a
climb down from the 2019 US Indo-Pacific Strategy of President Donald
Trump that talked of China’s continued ‘economic and military ascen-
dence’ that ‘seeks Indo-Pacific regional hegemony in the near-term and,
ultimately global preeminence in the long-term’ had recommended to
‘enhance our posture and presence… to ensure that the rule of law—not
coercion and force—dictates the future of the Indo-Pacific’ (The Depart-
ment of Defence 2019: 8). Can this be seen as a shift guided by the
pandemic experience along with propitious exit from Afghanistan leading
to US failure to stand up to Russia in Ukraine? Or is this a consequence of
increasing recognition of China’s incremental expanding footprint across
the region where China’s trade and investments had received a boost
from its relatively better economic performance during the pandemic?
That would be one way of explaining President Xi’s engaging ‘ASEAN

Outlook on the Indo-Pacific’ as the first mechanism to explore China’s
direct engagement with various US-led Indo-Pacific narratives.
China’s Engagement by Other Stakeholders

China’s relentless drive of economic diplomacy—especially its so-called
cheque book diplomacy that has become noticeable under its Belt and
Road Initiative since 2013—have revealed China’s fast-paced trade and
investment-driven engagement by various stakeholders of the Indo-
Pacific. Surely, China has been welcomed and facilitated by all these
recipient nations big and small alike. To begin with, China’s role in the
East Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s had transformed the equa-
tions between Beijing and ASEAN leadership. Ever since, a whole range
of littoral nations of the larger Indo-Pacific littoral has seen China emerge
as their largest trading partner and fastest-growing investor. This two-way
economic engagement has also brought to light a diverse range of multi-
hued perspectives about China’s aims, ambitions and ambiguities that
underline its approaches to multilateralism, wrapped in unique one-sided
bilateral trade and investments around the Indo-Pacific as also with most
other extra-territorial stakeholders of the Indo-Pacific. While the smaller
economies among these justify their engagement as part of exploring to
benefit from China’s unprecedented economic rise, major powers have
done the same but from the perspective of restraining and socialising
Beijing into the preexisting norms and codes of inter-state behaviour. But
without this cooperation of its partners across the Indo-Pacific, China
could not emerge as a force to reckon with.
To begin with the ASEAN—which was originally promoted by the
United States to contain the spread of communism in the Asia–Pacific
region and today stands universally recognised for its ‘centrality’ to all of
the Indo-Pacific narratives—has China as its largest trading partner since
2019 (Fung 2022). Likewise, China has come to be the largest investor
in ASEAN, and fourth largest investor when experts count Hong Kong as
a separate investor that again stands at second position after the United
States (Fung 2022). Likewise, in the year 2019, ASEAN also overtook
the European Union to become China’s largest trading partner and this
happened ten years after China had surpassed both the United States and
European Union to become ASEAN’s largest trading partner. Likewise,
with its continuing political tensions around the Senkaku islands, Japan’s
exports to China for 2021 reached $206 billion compared to China’s

exports to Japan being $165 billion and the year 2020 saw Japan invest
$3.4 billion in China compared to China investing $0.5billion in Japan
(MoFA 2022). This, was when Japanese defence minister, Nobuo Kishi,
claimed China violating Japan’s airspace 722 times for last year—which,
he said, were 260 more than the year before (Feng 2022). Similarly, even
in the face of rather acrimonious relations for last several years, Australia’s
exports to China between 2016—when the two had signed their Free
Trade Agreement—and 2021 have moved up from $60 billion to $135
billion making China a destination for Canberra’s 31% of total exports
and taking their two-way trade to $184 billion (DFAT 2022).
The same is true with India which has seen enduring border tensions
since early 2020 and yet their bilateral trade, (in spite of India’s banning
of 272 China-linked mobile application), rose by 41 per cent to reach
USD 125.7 billion for 2021 (Singh 2022). Nevertheless, it is also true
that the last several years of acrimonious China–Australia ties are believed
to have pushed the latter into closer economic engagement with India
including their signing a long-awaited trade pact (Ramesh 2022). The
most important has been the continuing story of US-China trade and
technology wars since the early years of Donald Trump administration
and yet Chinese media reported their trade rising by 28.7 per cent to
reach $755.6 billion for 2021 (Global Times 2022). The same is the case
with European Union that indeed crossed China’s trade with the United
States to reach $777 billion for 2021 (Free Press 2022).
Chinese interest in the Pacific is growing and this is evident with the
signing of a security pact with the Solomon Islands in April 2022. This has
resulted in the contest for influence on the island nations becoming even
more sharp. The success of the pact was followed by an eight-country tour
of the region by China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi, in May 2022, seeking
other security agreements. Except for a few minor deals, the island nations
resisted going the way of the Solomom Islands, resisting any overture to
be enveloped within the big powers’ geopolitical contest (The Economist
2022).
It is this continuing intertwining of China’s $6 trillion plus world trade
along with its $1 trillion plus promised investments under BRI that have
since begun to facilitate China’s political and strategic engagement with
all the major stakeholders of the Indo-Pacific narratives. This has also
seen China’s own vision becoming focused on the Indo-Pacific narra-
tives thereby beginning to influence latter’s tone and tenor as well. It
is in this backdrop that this volume seeks to address these dichotomies as

also variations in China’s own evolving engagement with the Indo-Pacific
littoral and its narratives. To streamline a holistic response to this broader
evolving challenge the contributors of this volume held multiple interac-
tions before this final product arrived with our readers; a brief outline of
which follows as part of an introduction to this volume.
In This Volume…
The book, in addition to this introductory chapter, comprises of ten full-
length chapters that have undergone multiple revisions and discussions
to complement each other. This also flows from a broader conceptual
analysis of elucidating threadbare visions and engagement of the two most
powerful actors in the Indo-Pacific namely the United States and China
followed by examining already outlined visions of all major stakeholders
in Indo-Pacific narratives. It is then followed by examining China’s own
vision for what kind of world it aims to work for and how has that vision
been viewed, understood and engaged by other stakeholders of the Indo-
Pacific region.
Dattesh Paulekar in the chapter titled, Decoding ‘Sovereign
Strategic Networks’ in the Indo-Pacific: Contesting China’s
‘Ascendant-Rise’, endeavours to decode the tenor and trajectory of such
emergent networks in shaping congagement frameworks vis a vis China,
through alternative rather than confrontational narratives of normativity
and performance outcomes, competing for mercantilist, connectivity,
and commons governance sweepstakes, through higher-ordering praxis
in sustainable, tangible outcomes. The Indo-Pacific, as articulated by
Dattesh Paulekar, is a geo-strategically spatial concept marked as much
by the shifting centre of gravity, away from the Euro-Atlantic swathe
to the continental expanse and maritime continuum straddling Asia, as
by the incontrovertibility of the buccaneering and robust rise of China
whose performance quotient is anchored, in quintessentially predatory
and unmistakably pioneering dimensions of national power projection.
The author substantiates his argument that the Indo-Pacific is as much
riven by the preponderance of searing Sino-US global competition as by
the substantive rise of a slew of middle powers navigating through novel
processes of multilateralism, systemic multi-polarity, and trajectories of
nifty and nuanced multi-alignment rather than ironclad old hub-n-spokes
centricity. Increasingly, productive partnerships take precedence over
perpetuation and resurrection of ‘zero-sum’ alliances of reductionism.

Preservation of liberalized commerce, sustainable integrity over multi-
vectored connectivity, and pluralized harness of the global commons in
beneficent equity, not predatory hegemony, remains ardent impulses and
idioms for strategic stability. However, these enjoinments also underscore
the stratagems of power-play militating across the Indo-Pacific, seem-
ingly inundated by the overbearing presence of rising China, but, whose
burgeoned footprint is equally a function of the irresistible opportunities,
that portend, for sovereign peers in interchange with it. Communities
reposed of sovereigns, have conventionally been constructed, coalesced
around warding-off common threats, melding affinities of common iden-
tity, or partake of value systems. Notwithstanding, the strategic churn
of complex interdependence that pervades equations and engagement
across the Indo-Pacific, is leading sovereign actors to seek new hues
of strategic networks, rooted in institutionalised-cooperation-sans-the-
institutionalism, a high transactional incidence of play-it-by-ear engage-
ment, pitching for supple minilaterals and efficacious plurilaterals, in flex-
ible aggregation and disaggregation, from overarching cordon-sanitaire
bulwarks.
Rubina Waseem’s chapter titled, US-China Strategic Competi-
tion: Through the matrix of Complex Interdependence, asserts that
the Indo-Pacific region has been a great testing ground for analysing
the politico-economic and geo-strategic dynamics of the great powers’
competition. Since the early 1990s, China and the United States have
had constant sporadic contestations about their control over the Western
Pacific. The end of the Cold War has seen the Indo-Pacific gradually
emerge as the epicentre of their strategic pursuits. Attempting to eluci-
date underpinning theoretical debates of this competition, this chapter
revolves around various evolving push and pull factors undergirding the
dynamics of this region where all global as well as regional powers have
remained trapped in their ever-expanding complex interdependence. The
fact that the Indo-Pacific has also gained spotlight due to its increasing
economic significance has increased the US-China competition and conse-
quently drastically altered its geo-strategic and security dynamics as well.
This chapter contends that in spite of their expanding complex economic
interdependence, it is the clash of geopolitical interests of the two ‘great
powers’ that has driven this perpetual politico-economic insecurity across
this region. While the United States has sought to persistently defend
mechanisms that explain and legitimise its sole ‘superpower’ status, China
being a revisionist state, has striven hard to evolve an alternate ‘balance of

power’ that the United States sees as a challenge to its global dominance.
The United States therefore, has been reviving its time-tested hub-and-
spokes security architecture and cultivating new friends where India has
come to be its new strategic partner for countering a rising China. The
chapter shows how, in the short term, a clash between the United States
and China is less likely, as quintessential China will continue to avoid
directly confronting the US pre-eminence unless its defined ‘redlines’ or
core interests are threatened. The two sides therefore will continue with
their off-again-on-again interactions to manage their trust deficit and to
carve out a sustainable future for themselves.
Stephen R. Nagy’s chapter explores Sino-Japanese relations through
the prism of FOIP. Key lines of enquiry include: (1) How have Sino-
Japanese relations affected the design and implementation of FOIP;
(2) How does FOIP reflect Japan’s long-standing hedging approach to
China; and (3) Does FOIP represent a critical juncture in the Seikei Bunri
formula for bilateral relations? His research suggests that FOIP remains
both an inclusive and exclusive framework to shape the Indo-Pacific
region’s rules-based order in-line with the post-WW 2 international order.
It leaves windows of opportunity to deepen Sino-Japanese relations while
contributing to robust, multilateral institution building to anchor the
United States in the region and constrain China’s efforts to reshape the
region with Chinese characteristics.
Since the end of the Cold War, ASEAN has so assiduously evolved
itself at the very centre or in the driver’s seat in Asia–Pacific affairs. It
has done so by building multiple institutional mechanisms to discuss
economic, political and security issues engaging all major and middle
power stakeholders to what is now called the Indo-Pacific. Don McLain
Gill, in his chapter titled, ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific: Moti-
vations, Opportunities, and Challenges, reminds us that this period
has also witnessed ASEAN’s piecemeal drift from the United States to
China. In fact, China’s unprecedented economic rise has accelerated these
ongoing drifts in not just regional but the global distribution of power.
Beijing’s increased assertion and expansion throughout the Indo-Pacific
region is seen as a direct challenge to the pre-eminence of the United
States that sees itself as the status-quo Pacific power. This has resulted in a
series of strategies to check China’s growing power projection capabilities.
Indeed, the very establishment of the Indo-Pacific concept—that conjoins
the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean—and the revival of the Quadri-
lateral Security Framework between the US, Japan, India and Australia
seeks to preserve and safeguard the current US-led international rules-
based order. It is amid this power competition that ASEAN has become
increasingly wary of being side-tracked from its normative influence and
centrality. This is where, ASEAN, through the initiative of Indonesia, has
crafted this ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific that seeks to maintain
ASEAN role and relevance in the Indo-Pacific geopolitics. Flowing from
its quintessential salience of not disrupting major powers core interests,
the AOIP banks heavily on the need to adhere to existing regional mech-
anisms, the promotion of inclusivity to ensure ASEAN centrality. Though
the AOIP is a step in the right direction for ASEAN, the challenges
concerning the unity and coherence of its member states may outstrip the
potential to maximise from such an initiative. The author asserts that to
utilise the AOIP to its full potential, ASEAN member states must alleviate
the deepening internal fault lines and lagging external connectivity.
Claudia Astarita envisions the European Union as becoming a key
partner of the Indo-Pacific. By emphasising its commitment to act as
a global player in what the EU High Representative Josep Borrell has
defined ‘the region of the future’, the EU has begun to lay the founda-
tions for a completely new strategic orientation. Her chapter titled, China
in EU’s Strategy for Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, underlines that
this choice is not only the direct consequence of selected European coun-
tries growing economic interdependence within the region, but is also
linked to the need to contribute to the creation of a new multilateral
structure potentially able to contain China and, at the same time, to
scale down the intense geopolitical competition that is exacerbating the
confrontation between China and the United States. Justifying the EU
activism in the Indo-Pacific, however, is not an easy task. First, because
the European Union does not have a stable geographic presence in the
region. Second, because it is not clear whether the EU wants to play a role
in the area as a region or whether it will choose to rely on specific member
states, such as France and Germany, to represent European interest in the
Indo-Pacific. Both options are problematic: the first one might encounter
a huge coordination deficit, the second one might be seen as too personal-
istic. Representation, the author asserts, is not the only challenge the EU
has to face in shaping its Indo-Pacific strategy: by defining its position,
the EU will have to clarify whether it is ready to embrace a multilateral
inclusive framework in which it will maintain an independent position, or
whether it prefers to align with the United States, which would run the
risk of further deteriorating its own relationship with China.
Australia occupies an exceptional geo-strategic position in the Indo-
Pacific region; a large political, economic and defence potential, as well as
the possession of the South Pacific as its immediate sphere of influence.
Artyom A. Garin, in his chapter titled, Evolving Indo-Pacific Multilat-
eralism: China Factor in Australia’s Perspectives, argues that Australia’s
foreign policy vector increasingly depends on the degree of develop-
ment of the Sino-U.S. confrontation. As is well known, the United
States has been Australia’s main strategic and ideological partner, while
China has come to be its main trade destination. While the competi-
tion between the two great powers (China and the U.S.) has increased,
this has made regional environment in the Indo-Pacific multifaceted and
complex creating new challenges or opportunities for Canberra. In order
to reduce its geo-strategic risks, Australia has increasingly turned to multi-
lateral arrangements in the Indo-Pacific region engaging ASEAN, India,
and Japan. This requires the ability to quickly respond to changes in the
balance of power between the United States and China. To understand
its likely trajectories, this chapter first dwells on the evolution of multi-
lateralism in Australia’s defence and foreign policy documents and how it
engages with the rise of the China factor in its commitment to multilateral
cooperation to gauge Australia’s Fifth Continent’s approaches to mitigate
the escalating trend of the anarchic situation in the region. The chapter
deals with the definition of Australia as a middle power and its commit-
ment to multilateral foreign policy. It further elucidates the features and
tendencies of multilateralism in Australia’s defence and foreign policy
vision and builds the connection between multilateralism and the middle
powers’ foreign policy strategies. The author also examines selective and
balanced frames of multilateralism in the context of rapidly transforming
regional alignments in the Indo-Pacific, even as it contends how future
trends on Australia’s foreign policy at the present still remain largely
hostages to the degree of the Sino-U.S. confrontation.
Devendra Kumar Bishnoi, in his chapter titled, The Community of
Shared Futures: China’s Counter to Indo-Pacific Narratives, under-
lines that the idea of the Indo-Pacific Region has involved several
competing and contradictory narratives of regional order-shaping and
being shaped by the overall geopolitical and geo-economic dimensions of
major stakeholders’ competition and cooperation. This chapter attempts
to examine the idea of China’s Community of Shared Future (CSF) as a
counter conception of the regional order presented in Western narratives

on Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP). Prima facie, having evolved from
China’s Asia–Pacific Policy from the late 1980s, the idea of CSF emerged
as a major alternative from China’s imagination of regional order in 2010.
The roots of CSF though are also traced to China’s neighbourhood
policy in the early 2000s followed by China’s ambitious Belt and Road
Initiatives from 2013. These have emerged as major components of this
CSF counter-narrative that are already undercutting Western discourses
on Indo-Pacific geopolitics. Led by the United States and its friends and
allies, FOIP has been advanced as an extension of the liberal international
order. Such a conception of Indo-Pacific is portrayed as aimed at creating
an open and inclusive regional order. But while there are divergences
within FOIP narratives, one of the drivers behind the idea has been their
shared concerns about the rise of China and the need to counter its rising
influence in the region. While China has remained the main trigger for the
FOIP narratives yet existing debates have paid less attention to China’s
own conception of Asia–Pacific regional order. By dwelling on Chinese IR
writings and official discourses to chart the evolution of CSF, this chapter
seeks to provide a critical assessment of the Chinese alternative approach
of community building to evaluate its efficacy as counter-narrative and
what it means for the evolving Asia–Pacific/Indo-Pacific geopolitics.
The Quadrilateral Security Framework (Quad)—comprising of like-
minded democracies of the United States, Japan, Australia, and India—
has firmly endorsed the concept of a ‘Free and Open Indo-Pacific’
(FOIP) that keeps them together. It is their preferred normative strate-
gies committing them to ensuring the stability and sustenance of the
rules-based liberal order in the Indo-Pacific that resonate their shared
values as the core of the Quad framework, avers Mrittika Guha Sarkar in
her chapter titled, China’s Regional Engagement and Quad: Mapping
Conceptual Dynamics. However, the values mentioned above imbibe
greater significance in face of Xi Jinping’s principal slogan of ‘Community
of Shared Future for Mankind’ (CSFM), which also resonates similar
sentiments while projecting Beijing as an earnest builder of global peace,
development and a defender of the international order to ensure a just,
secure, and prosperous world. President Xi’s new outlines mark China’s
strategic shift from Deng Xiaoping’s ‘hide-and-bide’ dictum to a global
activist one, underpinning China’s nationalist geo-economic and geo-
strategic motives, reflected in its Maritime Silk Road (MSR) as also its
supply chain networks, naval assertiveness, and ‘wolf warrior’ diplomacy
in the region. Lately, there have been growing concerns regarding China’s
unilateralism through its diplomatic, political, and economic endeavours;
that is, along with the underpinning opaqueness in its commercially ques-
tionable infrastructural projects in the Indo-Pacific. This has made Quad
nations increasingly conscious of China’s activities that are seen as posing
threats to their understanding of basic freedoms, security and stability
of this region through its assertive diplomacy and aggressive military
posturing. In this backdrop, this chapter examines the conceptual under-
currents between China’s regional engagement vis-à-vis the Quad’s tryst
with the Indo-Pacific to analyse their evolution and likely trajectories.
While doing so, the chapter argues that the Quad may not be in position
to easily marginalise China’s expanding footprint in the Indo-Pacific yet
it has the potential to become a balancer to Xi’s CSFM vision that reflects
the critical strategic underpinnings of China’s expanding economic and
strategic access and influence in the Indo-Pacific region.
The diplomatic relations between rising China and Pacific Islands
Countries (PIC’s) goes back to 1970’s and recent decades have witnessed
a gradual increase in China’s trade and investment with these PIC’s. As
a result, China today gives tough competition to region’s major partner
nations. Australia has been especially anxious about China’s increasing
trade and developmental assistance under BRI which has seen PIC’s
constructing schools, hospitals, bridges, roads and stadiums with China’s
investments. In addition to China’s competition to major partner nations
of this region, China’s engagement with PIC has also been guided by its
efforts to undercut PIC’s diplomatic support for Taiwan. Lately, China is
also suspected of using its economic power to accomplish military inter-
ests as well. In this context, the chapter by Madhura Bane seeks to
explore the discourse on China’s engagement in the Pacific islands region.
It also elucidates how the ‘Taiwan factor’ has influenced China’s perspec-
tives on this region. It also illustrates China’s use of economic diplomacy
to achieve security interests where it examines Solomon Islands security
agreement with China as a case study to extrapolate possible future trends.
China’s maneuvering in South Asia has been critiqued in the last
chapter of the volume by Reena Marwah and Abhishek Verma. With
the rise in China’s standing and stature across the globe in general and
the Asia–Pacific region in particular, its influence is increasing rapidly not
only in the economic sphere but also in the cultural, societal and security
spaces. Their chapter provides a synoptic view of China’s presence within
the smaller countries of South Asia. It also underlines the issues between
India and China in the context of their respective spheres of influence

within the subcontinent.
To conclude, the 2021 centenary celebrations of the Communist Party
of China (CPC), founded in 1921, was not lost on the rest of the
world. This was the first of the two centennial goals, along with other
benchmarks, that President Xi has outlined in projecting China’s future
trajectories and how China would like to shape itself as also its periph-
eral regions and the world. Going by the dramatic transition of China
in the last fifty years that witnessed unprecedented unleashing of China’s
productive forces that have brought China to the centre stage of emerging
narratives including those of the Indo-Pacific geopolitics. As this volume
shows in its multi-mentored and extensive analysis, the visibility of China’s
system-shaping capabilities and their gradual engagement by other stake-
holders of the Indo-Pacific have begun to unfold the process of China’s
reluctant and piecemeal, yet decisive engagement with the Indo-Pacific
narratives and engagement of China by these other stakeholders. This
volume in that sense aspires to initiate pioneering efforts in exploring
their overlapping and complimenting elements and how this process of
blending two divergent visions is likely to shape the future of the Indo-
Pacific region and its geopolitics in the coming times. China’s continued
straddling across the globe with its deep pockets and reverberating of
its grandiose pursuits surely calls for experts starting to reminisce, reflect
and revisit various possibilities of China’s ambitious enterprise with impli-
cations for the future of entire humankind but especially what it implies
for the future of China’s immediate periphery.
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CHAPTER 2
Decoding ‘Sovereign Strategic Networks’

in the Indo-Pacific: Contesting China’s
‘Ascendant-Rise’
Dattesh D. Parulekar
Introduction
The regional security landscape of the Indo-Pacific expanse can veritably
be described, as capricious and kinetic. Securitization of the hitherto
formerly Asia-Pacific that conflated as Asia, back in the Cold War era,
underpinned and conditioned by the military security-driven hub-and-
spokes alliances, underwritten by the US, was considered apt to contend
with the strategic challenge posed by an ideologically concentrated but
maritime peripheral great power, as in the Soviet Union. In contrast, the
humungous rise of China was neither the emergence of an archetypal
ideologically dogmatic power, nor the ascendance of an entity that is
D. D. Parulekar (B)
School of International and Area Studies (SIAS), Goa University, Goa, India

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7521-9_2
22 D. D. PARULEKAR
marginal to the maritime dynamics of the Asia-Pacific, segueing into

the current conceptualized construct of the ‘Indo-Pacific’ arc. Beijing’s
gambit in the Indo-Pacific, in pursuance of rendering the Asian century as
one of ‘Chinese centricity’, and the Indo-Pacific as the proverbial ‘Chinese
lake’, is sought to be leveraged through the whole-of-regime endeavoured
and omni-sphered impinge of eclectic instruments of national power,
viz., the whip-hand on trade interchange, buccaneering prowess at multi-
modal infrastructural build, financial largesse, and the albeit of recent
vintage burgeoning technological wherewithal, proffering conveniences
while also beholding instrumentality of subversion (Tellis et al., 2019).
Its mainstreamed quest for command and control over connectivity
pathways conjoining hinterland geographies to maritime frontages, and
development of an array of dual-use port facilities and installations, as
vital nodes for material sway along arterial sea lanes of the thoroughfare
and over maritime trade corridors, notwithstanding, it’s the objectifica-
tion of spatial depths of the ocean-floor for dominant control of critical
lines of communication, a singular corral of rare earth elements and wider
blue economy harness, that presents itself as a preponderant hybridized
challenge—eminently predatory and perverse, but emblematically preco-
cious and trenchantly prolific in the same vein. Hence, in the unbridled
template and inexorable current context of Beijing’s statist-capacitive
capitalism, weighing heavy through its abject project-based co-option of
hitherto nondescript sovereign spaces, masquerading as pragmatic prin-
ciples of tangible cooperation, has thrown down the gauntlet to the
collating democratic community of the Indo-Pacific to rival its perfor-
mance with higher-order principles, but also a tangible matrix of offering,
in pursuance of securitization of societal prosperity.
Rising to this statist sovereign challenge, in an enveloping envi-
ronment of globalization induced interdependencies, is convolute and
formidable. Amidst the angularities of sovereign strategic calculus, it
renders the development of a single overarching trans-regional counter-
vailing bulwark as untenable, and vulnerable to being breached by the
hiving subversive stratagem of the target-state, which uses the discrepant
and discordant notes amongst entities arrayed against it, to drive a conve-
nient wedge among its adversaries (Scott, 2018). Chinese leveraging of
its cat’s paw targets like Cambodia, to break up consensus and soften-up
cohesion within ASEAN, as also the mop-up mould of ties with smaller
South Asian neighbours and miniature South Pacific island nations, to
2 DECODING ‘SOVEREIGN STRATEGIC NETWORKS’ … 23
keep New Delhi and Canberra off-kilter in their respective near-abroad,

not to mention the cultivation of broadsheet engagement with Seoul and
Tokyo, through brandishing of the carrot of high-value technology-trade
that seeks to dilute and erode the once cornerstone character of the US’s
immutable alliances, is eminent and receiving traction (Jung et al., 2020).
Strategic Competition: Cooperative

Vistas to Convergent Axes?
The emergent strategic scenario is harbinger enough of what is expected
to unfold in a post-pandemic strategic setting for the Indo-Pacific.
Three significant dimensions to strategic multilateralism portend to
become the mainstays of cooperation and/or competitiveness across the
Indo-Pacific expanse, viz., commercial security translating as equilibrium
and resilience in commoditized supply chains; considerations of tech-
sovereignty and cooperation surrounding interactions of technological
ecosystems; and considerations for sustainable development embodied in
beneficent demeanour across global commons. Needless to state, each of
these dimensions of power accretion, coagulation, and attendant projec-
tion, is visible in fault-lines of counterpoises of a ‘Pax Sinica’ ordering, and
the juxtaposition of an ‘Indo-Pacific’ community weltanschauung, conse-
quently procreating existential stresses and strains on sovereign strategic
disposition. The strategic canvass of the Indo-Pacific has been sparked
into politico-diplomatic skittishness, especially since the unfolding of the
pandemic. These seek to forge a slew of strategic collectives of varie-
gated formats, steeped in power diffusion through soft-hedging, short
of overt antagonism. The dint of the democratic diamond clique—
the ‘Quad’, as the lynchpin at the core of such newer formulations, is
reflection enough of the desire of the Indo-Pacific region and its inter-
locutors from the outside, to explore the construct of issue-premised
and principles-predicated ‘strategic networks’ (collectivization) to tame
the Chinese ingress, through an ostensible action-dispersion framework.
The logic and rationale for ‘strategic networks’ becoming the order of
the day, as opposed to formally constructed, highly institutionalized, and
inflexibly regimented frameworks, is not hard to fathom. In the modern-
day world, where statecraft in the external realm is about yin and yang
operating concurrently in an environ of nuance and shades of grey, coun-
tries seldom embrace categorical cut-and-thrust positions, particularly on
specific issues that are bones of contention. Strategic networks constitute
24 D. D. PARULEKAR
flexible but focused mechanisms, gravitating minilateral and/or multilat-

eral cooperation, coalesced around specific issue(s) and principle(s), to
advance the strategic agenda, without binding the sovereign constituents
into inextricably wedded stances. The fact that such networks obviate
the need for institutionalization through ironclad structures, means, they
proffer latitude for participating countries to exercise sovereign autonomy
of strategic choices, which though may seem contradictory or paradoxical,
do not compromise or vitiate the network’s issue at hand. The threshold
for striking consensus within strategic networks is relatively modest, yet,
the operative vent of such networks, if pursued to their logical conclusion,
hold out the promise and prospect of efficaciousness over large over-toned
architectures, that end up as posturing talk-shops.
The Economic Prosperity Network:

A ‘Non-China’ Economic Security Compact
The unfolding pandemic, since its genesis, has as much been charac-
terized as an incandescent economic crisis, as it has been touted, as an
unprecedentedly ensnaring public health exigency. The commercial and
mercantilist stone-dead stall, in regional and global logistics and produc-
tion processes, has exerted a cascading effect, smearing and smothering
virtually every value-accretion and value-unlocking industrious sphere of
entrepreneurial human endeavour. Amidst the sobering reality, of how
an innocuous-seeming pathogen-strain could wreck such dislocating viru-
lence, and in the wake of the rumoured whiff, of it either having possibly
been human-induced or beholding the potential for such prospective
knavish proliferation, Washington, feeling singed by perceived Chinese
recalcitrance, and pining for comeuppance, has popped the thought
of an Economic Prosperity Network (EPN), to its phalanx of corner-
stone sovereign-partners, across the Indo-Pacific. In what was a remote
diplomatic interface, convened in late March 2020, the US sought to
proposition this idea over con-call, as a trust fuelled strategic initiative for
Economic Security, corralling hatchet allies and core strategic partners,
into fostering collegial brainstorming and deliberation, around trading
arrangements, healthcare cooperation, infrastructure-build and transmis-
sion of development aid. However, the dint of its expeditions fade, from
any kind of politico-diplomatic common usage and parlance in discourse,
an upshot of shorn diplomatic legwork, consequently rendering it a one-
off dilettante exercise, is an indictment of the misplaced impatience and
unreasonable condescension and hubris, with which it was brandished

by the Trump administration. The template, which also had coordi-
nated tax incentives and re-shoring subsidies, for entities migrating and
transitioning away from China-based production, constituted a desir-
able and much-vaunted architecture for sustainable development; yet, it
stood undercut, due to the apparent downside of the initiative’s non-
calibrated hue of escalation-in-juxtaposition, with a strategically ascendant
and robustly entrenched China, that has inhabited mind-space as an
economic change-agent entity.
There is great value and much virtue, in peddling, propagating,
and endeavouring to consummate the project of an Economic Pros-
perity Network (EPN), as a doctrinal and operational narrative and
project-based game-changer, for the pecuniary, industrial, infrastruc-
tural, and technological disparate theatre-subsets, within the Indo-Pacific.
However, the tenability of any such prescriptive dispositional and projects-
consummation pitch remains rudimentarily contingent, upon the inherent
attractiveness and exuding credence of its propositioning, measured on
attributes of cognitive conception, flexible institutional-designing, and
curated processes, of purposefulness not polemics. Although the Trump
administration’s cataclysmically set-up virtual interaction, blindsided its
participants, there was a definite initial buy-in from Washington’s security
and trade allies and partners, in so far as the strategic agenda flagged
and girdled dimensions of sustainable trade and investment compact,
comprehensively resilient infrastructure collaboration, mutually benefi-
cent healthcare cooperation, ardently consensual and transparent develop-
ment diplomacy, and the ilk. All of this could be perceived, construed and
projected, as positive and constructive provisioning of public goods for
wider socio-economic benefaction, and by no means singularly primed,
with intentions for reflexive anti-China ring-fencing.
However, as US fetish with an abrupt ripping-up of the existing
edifice of China-centric production and transportation logistics struc-
tures, and abrasive impetuosity with fomenting an across-the-board
relocation of commercial entities out of China became evident, it consti-
tuted a self-inflicted curveball that threw a wrench in the otherwise
hallowed initiative (Pamuk and Shalal, 2020). Participating sovereign
protagonists’ enthusiasm waned, in light of their enlightened assessments
of equities portending imperil, vide fallaciously self-wrought pyrrhic
costs or subjected to hobbyhorse punitive missives from Beijing. Plus,
Washington’s own progressively eroding integrity, further assailed the
26 D. D. PARULEKAR
circumstances of the Economic Prosperity Network, courtesy of the

Trump White House’s abiding strong-arm tactics on refashioning bilat-
eral trading arrangements, and stoking disingenuous discourse over being
short-changed in inveterately extended security commitments with arch-
allies Japan and South Korea, besides, picking petty-duels with Canberra,
and seeking to bully New Delhi into concessions over trade, by turning
the spigot on its high-skills IT workforce (Walters, 2020).
The enduring Trump narrative for the overwhelming measure of his
Presidency, of a carping and whining United States, in self-deprecation
mode, and beating a retreat from global integration compacts and forums,
flew in the face of this newly minted Washington, that wanted to
spearhead and chaperone the foundations of a new framework for a
broadsheet sustainable development, through pluralized sovereign action,
if not outright multilateralism, impugning Beijing and its burgeoning
sweepstakes in the Indo-Pacific. However, there was also some cause for
optimism, albeit cautious, since this came close on the heels of Trump’s
own spearheading herald of the seminal Blue Dot Network (BDN), an
ostensible qualitative standards certification regime of physical infrastruc-
ture. In November 2019, the invitation to New Delhi to join the fold was
extended, during President Trump’s momentous India tour in February
2020, together with announcements that, the US International Devel-
opment Finance Corporation (IDFC) would unveil an office in India,
and plunge $350 million towards health infrastructure, renewable energy,
food security, and allied initiatives (Ray, 2020).
Although President Biden has not pronounced himself unequivocally
on any of these Trump-era forays, given his proclivities thus far to hold
the steady line on Trump’s proscriptions, including sustaining the heat on
China, the trajectory for American consistency over promoting the EPN
should fructify. After all, the logic and moorings undergirding the EPN
are sound, if conceptualized and consolidated, as a progressive construct
of pragmatic and tangible cooperation, premised on showcasing itself as
a strongly competitive but reliably ‘higher-order’ alternative, to Beijing’s
unmistakably eye-popping but subcutaneously running predatory form of
strategic capacitation (Hoang and Nguyen, 2020). If the EPN is projected
as a benign but dynamic and vibrant initiative, in contrasted-addition to
the Chinese projection of its state-capacitated model of economic pros-
perity, it shall portray itself as a cohesive formulation, enjoying consequent
sovereign multi-stakeholder traction, through a congruent blend of the
transactional with the twinning, an attribute that the Middle Kingdom has
patented by soft-targeting Indo-Pacific littoral in general, but the EPN

participating sovereign-principals in particular.
It behooves mention and consideration, as to the viability of a sequel
initiative that followed the first of US interactions with suitors in the
Indo-Pacific. In April 2020, Secretary Pompeo engaged counterparts of
Japan, South Korea, Australia, India, Vietnam, and New Zealand, along
with those out-of-sphere nations of Israel and Brazil, in what was billed
as a ‘Quad-Plus’ conversation. Although the immediate agenda for the
diplomatic confabulation, was to haul-China-over-the-coals for its prevar-
ication and non-transparency, at the then impending WHO plenary, it
set-off strategic chatter, as to whether this marked the incipience of an
anti-China axis (Rajagopalan, 2020). The largely amorphous ‘Quad-Plus’
setting has not evolved into any form of a structured dialogue, although,
much is conjectured, about how the Biden administration could leverage
this diplomatic gambit, at a time when European capitals such as Paris,
Berlin, London, and even Amsterdam, have unveiled their respective
Indo-Pacific strategic outlooks, with the trend going as transcendentally
afar, as Canada (Esteban and Armanini, 2021). Should the Quad-Plus
fructify in its current nebulously hewed avatar or even as a devolved glob-
ally permeating ‘Quad++’, it would still fructify, only in curated realms
of cooperation where individual countries’ respective strengths could be
collectivized, and not as a wide-ranging bulwark against China. Also, its
potential recruits, whether geographical mainstays within the Indo-Pacific
or extra-regional outliers have been squeamish about purveying signals,
that may construe as scything Chinese hegemonic ascent (Chinoy, 2020).
The Quad’s vaccine compact is a lode-star whose trail could blaze, as
an initiative that fosters human security, through productive sovereigns
partnership of research and development ecosystem meeting financial
transmission, fusing with production wherewithal and last-mile logistics
connect.
Challenging Predatory
Strategic-Capacitation: The Blue Dot Network
Strategic Capacitation, through the labyrinthine build of multi-modal
infrastructure, has emerged as a potent axis of major power geo-strategic
competition, interplaying geopolitics and geo-economics. And if there is
one arena where the power differential, between the global hegemon,
the United States, and its most formidable and preeminent peer-rival
28 D. D. PARULEKAR
China, has attenuated, is in the domain of multi-dimensional infras-

tructural construction (Kuo, 2020). Beijing’s state-driven project based
infrastructure-binge, fording across the Indo-Pacific, mainstreaming hith-
erto hidebound geographical subsets (Central Asia), and unlocking value
in other nondescript theatres (Mekong Corridor Region), has obtained
it the standout profile of a transcontinental infrastructural developer of
growing pedigree (Hansbrough, 2020). The pan-Asian sprawl of the Belt
and Road Initiative (BRI), most notably the Maritime Silk Road (MSR)
strand of it, has left democratic powers, either astounded or more so
scrambling for counteracting responses, mechanisms of which have either
been anodyne or incoherent, in their militating conceptualization.
With Japan’s credentialed Partnership for Quality Infrastructure (PQI)
enterprise and its devolution into the Expanded PQI version, remaining
patchy, and the India-Japan co-broached infrastructure initiative of
the Asia-Africa Growth Corridor (AAGC), turning out crassly under-
whelming to date, much has been left to the recently unveiled ‘Blue Dot
Network’ (BDN). Floated by Washington, it was launched through the
trilateral collaborative auspices of the US’s Overseas Private Investment
Corporation (OPIC), the Japanese Bank for International Cooperation
(JBIC), and the Department of Foreign Affairs and trade (DFAT) of
Australia, respectively, at the Indo-Pacific Business Forum, on the margins
of the 35th ASEAN Summit, in Bangkok, November 2019 (McCawley,
2019). Drawing exotic christening as being the ‘Michelin Guide’ pecking-
order of infrastructure projects, the quintessentially ‘excellence-validation’
exercise, presents itself as a qualitative benchmark for certifying infras-
tructure projects, ostensibly steeped in the G20 adopted Principles for
Quality Infrastructure Development (PQID), as also drawing on the
elements enshrined in the Equator Principles, delineated by the OPIC,
the precursor development bank to the US’s newly minted International
Development Finance Corporation (IDFC). Being underscored as the
most credible alternative to the Chinese BRI and its opaque and predatory
dimensions, the BDN, is a multi-stakeholder initiative convening govern-
ments, businesses, and civil society, to exude sound capacity building for
sustainable development. It is premised on attributes of economic and
financial viability, ecologically harmony and sustainability, democratizing
recipient-country consent, and sentience to local beneficiary conscious-
ness (Geraci et al., 2020). There is no gainsaying the dint of humungous
infrastructure demand and the cavernous funding gap that exists on this
score (globally, approximately 94 trillion USD is required to satiate infras-

tructure aspirations by 2040, with Asia estimated to suck out 26 trillion
of it, until 2030) or for that matter the fact that China, with its one tril-
lion dollars of pledged financing, has swooped-in on leadership in this
regard. However, there ought to be a method even in madness, and the
collectively concurred-in methodology of the BDN is to impart standards-
setting, parameters-enunciation, and attributes-delineation, to prospective
projects and suitors. Such an urbane and refined alternative paradigm of
national, sub-regional, and trans-regional infrastructure development is
premised, upon promising upholding of sovereign financial stability and
consummation of societal prosperity (Rajah, 2020).
While the normativity of the initiative is suitably addressed, the perfor-
mance quotient also has to speak. And here, the embryonic BDN initia-
tive, is still very much work-in-progress. With India being actively courted
to join the clique, the BDN framework which is being decried in some
quarters as archetypal talk-shop over normativity and principles that shall
eventually pale in comparison to the BRI’s tangible build track-record,
possibly fails to factor-in the cogent intellectual and operative challenge
that this metric indexing enterprise, purports to accomplish. Each of the
resident Indo-Pacific nations are pursuing their respective infrastructure
forays in the extant, whether bilaterally or regionally; be it Japan’s drive
across ASEAN, most notably the Mekong Region countries; Australia’s
proactive indulgence across dotting sovereigns punctuating the South
Pacific; and India’s piloting of its outreach across South and Southeast
Asia, the maritime Indian Ocean Region, and beyond. A fully devel-
oped and maturing BDN initiative, on the dial, would enable segueing
and threading together of such individual country infrastructure enter-
prises, to productively collectivize heavy-lifting on such projects, through
mutual accessibility to centralized pools of technical expertise, financial
streams, and human resource capacity building ecosystems, within the
multi-stakeholder frame of public-private partnership, primed to execute
robust and enduring outcomes (Goodman et al., 2020).
Democratizing Commoditized Economy:

Supply Chains Resilience Initiative
It is almost clichéd now to allude to how the pandemic has exposed the
world and the Asian continent’s untenable dependence on China-based
regional and global supply value chains. However, despite much song
30 D. D. PARULEKAR
and dance about how the far-reaching implications of this over-reliant

spectre would mean an evacuation of companies out of China, there has
been nothing remotely suggestive of a hollowing-out from China, which
continues to hold the whip-hand on pedigreed credentials, benchmarked
to cost-competitiveness, technological injection, and the cavernous size of
its market and consumerist purchasing power. What one has witnessed is
the natural logic of diversifying one’s holdings through curated relocation
by certain companies, of units superfluous to requirements, in what has
been christened to be the ‘China+1’ strategy. However, the disruptions
to commoditized supply chains have spooked sovereign governments into
deliberating on feasible measures, to impart resilience and sustainability to
the geographically dispersed value-added character of twenty-first-century
production logistics processes. Yet, the allure of remaining deeply engaged
with and invested in China remains enticing, as exemplified in the earnest-
ness of the non-China constituents of the RCEP, being keen to ink the
agreement at the annual China-ASEAN Summit of 2021.
With the enthusiasm of Vietnam—which has quite mastered the opti-
mization of free trade agreements to spur its economy in recent years, and
whose relative cost-competitiveness in manufacturing is a result of close to
sixty per cent of FDI emanating from China—has been the prime mover
in ensuring that the RCEP does not continue to languish. This is in stark
contrast to India, whose self-imposed exclusion has left it to be a 15-
member RCEP, and whose structural infirmities in manufacturing and tax
structure and land and labour regimes, make it a misfit in such bandwago-
ning (Suzuki, 2021). Among the multitudes of strategic rebalances being
niftily practised on the Indo-Pacific firmament, is the purposive redress
of situational imbalance of supply chain facilities, including endorsing
the idea of a ‘China-Plus’ dispersal strategy, rather than any kind of a
‘Sans-China’ local stratagem.
Bilateral efforts at diversification, such as Prime Minister Abe’s $2.2
billion subvention scheme that constituted a prod-and-nudge commit-
ment to suitor Japanese companies, to underwrite their relocation out of
China, and even possibly migration to India, was met with tepid explo-
ration, with a reported eighty-seven entities evincing interest, but devoid
of any big-ticket departures. Prime Minister Modi for his part, availed the
spectre of the border conflagration with China, to enshrine New Delhi’s
‘Atmanirbharta’ (Self-Reliance) drive, which has seen some green-shoots
in terms of New Delhi’s pertinacious move to winnow its active phar-
maceutical ingredients (APIs) dependence (an untenable reliance to the
tune of seventy per cent on China), through the unveiling of the marquee
performance linked incentives (PLI) scheme, that appears to have capti-
vated some interest (Panda, 2020). However, as Sino-Indian bilateral
trade data for 2020 would have it, despite much caterwauling of attenu-
ating dependence on Chinese component supplies to critical sectors such
as electricity and telecommunications, sourced Chinese imports in these
precise sectors, either remained flat or showed a small uptick.
Recognizing the limitations of individualized responses, to mitigate
externally contingent economic uncertainties, has brought the triumvirate
of Japan, India, and Australia, into an intriguing bond, of similarities and
dissimilarities. Drawing on political direction from the executive echelons,
the Trade Ministers of these countries have forged this initiative over a
virtual conversation, delivering strategic guidance to technical officials to
work on the nitty-gritties of sewing up a Supply Chain Resilience Initia-
tive (SCRI). Although in its nascence, the description of the measure as
intended to imbue resilience and not work for an outright supplant of
supply chains from current geographical coordinates is an appreciation
of the circumscribed utility of this collectivization as much as a plausible
appraisal of the key objective, underpinning this banding together. Japan
presents a higher-order confluence of exquisite technology and deep
pockets, with increasingly embedding stakes for its specialized high-tech
sectors, in a cavernous Chinese market and in the harness of its inno-
vating ecosystem. Australia, another high-value economic space, thrives
on its profile as a repository for a spectrum of strategic commodities and
enjoys a sophisticated texture of economic activity, where India pales in
comparison to either. Yet, India brings humungous scale and attractive
opportunities in its gapingly deficient capacitive sectors, and is a sub-three
trillion dollar economy primed for at least a three-fold augment, over the
ensuing decade and half (Heydon, 2020).
This said, none of the trinity constituents are exponents of cost-
effective manufacture. This leaves them wedded and addicted to Chinese
production fare, akin to the industrialized European titan economies
of Germany and France. Although protagonists have already rolled out
their expectations of the sectors (automotive, electric, telecom, electronic,
pharmaceuticals, etc.), in which supply chain insulation is to be sought,
there is nothing tangible for now. It behooves mention that fault-lines
exist on the horizon, most notably the New Delhi-Canberra grapple
with concluding a free trade deal since 2014, the former’s concerns
with less than satisfactory returns from its Comprehensive Economic
32 D. D. PARULEKAR
Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with Tokyo, and the lingering belief

within both Japan and Australia, that India is more often than not the
problem in multilateral trading regimes. This view saw them both join
the formalized RCEP framework, even as India bailed out. Now one
hears that, the Japanese mooted SCRI is threatening to be undercut,
by India’s reluctance to accede to Japan’s proposal for incorporating the
ASEAN countries into the mix, albeit on well-founded trepidations of
surreptitious Chinese influence being exercised, by proxy-subterfuge.
The conspicuous absence of the United States in SCRI is not lost
on anyone. This indeed is even speculated in terms of the Indo-Pacific
resident powers wanting to moot an indigenous enterprise instead of
being always led as handmaidens to Washington which can be misread
by Beijing. Moreover, it must also be averred that, the hemming-in or for
that matter helming by Washington, of such a capacitation-preservation
and autonomy-spurring initiative, would bring its higher-order demands
of sophisticated environmental and labour standards, high threshold safe-
guards for intellectual property rights, and peer intricate expectations,
to assail Indian practices. Nevertheless, the dichotomy of travails and
lure of engagement with China has not detracted from the paramount
objective of resetting supply-chains to the extent possible, which has
brought the triad of Japan, India, and Australia to initiate albeit prelim-
inary conversations and to even explore the mechanism of the trilateral
‘Track 1.5’, convening private sector and academia into the mix. The
strategy of Australia-India-Japan trilateral with its avowed clarion call for
other common-cause sovereigns to join-in, chimes well with the overar-
ching theme of the ‘Economic Prosperity Network’ (EPN). If the ‘SCRI’
turns out at the heart of the Indo-Pacific’s ‘EPN’ framework, it can
mount a strong narrative contest against China and its state-led commer-
cial development. But since it neither proposes a gang-up against Beijing
nor envisions any kind of punitive steps seeking retrace of Beijing from
the region. Therefore, if anything, it calls for greater national self-reliance
which ought to be the paramount goal for autonomous and robust
national development of region’s vibrant emerging economies.
Sanctity of ‘Data-Tech’: ‘G7’, ‘D10’ or ‘T10’?

The most iconic fault-line to emerge as an upshot of the pandemic expe-
rience is the razor’s edge competition over technology and its attendant
dimensions. The whiff of competition indeed was very much in the air,
predating COVID-19, as the heavyweight likes of ZTE and Huawei have

often been suspected to be sharp power instruments of Chinese national
power, primed for surveillance, subversion, and subterfuge. While it
is curious to comprehend as to what element of Chinese tech-specific
behaviour during the pandemic has led these firms to transition from
‘entities of concern’ to be ‘entities of existential concern’ in the eyes of
the democratic world, it’s not hard to decipher, that the grouse isn’t so
much about what’s transpiring in the current, as about what could befall
down-the-road, if these firms continue to have a free-run penetrating
democratic society. This way they could become integral to global tech-
nological ecosystems, besides, preying on sensitive data pools, through
the playbook of industrial espionage, surveillance, and engineered tech
disruptions.
While Washington has approached this apparent vulnerability, with a
blitzkrieg of actions, that at one level smacked of cynical opportunity of
a President seeking re-election and needing to vilify Beijing in the eyes
of his people by scapegoating it to cover his own ham-handed tracks
at tending to COVID-19, India has approached it in a principled but
calibrated manner of targeted surgical strikes, without the fanfare asso-
ciated with such punitive measures. Moving quietly but assuredly, the
Modi government was at the vanguard of boldly shuttering close to
one hundred twenty Chinese tech-social apps and their known doppel-
gangers, yet opting to simply nudge its public sector telecom operator
BSNL and private telecom players, to eschew Huawei and solicit alter-
native partners in Japan, South Korea, and Finland, whilst still holding
out on any big-ticket announcement of proscribing Huawei per se. While
few countries have moved swiftly to announce a ban on Huawei, they
have chosen to go the staggered phase-out route to transition (UK and
France to ease Huawei equipment out by 2027/2028), even as Europe’s
largest economy and the one most in hock with China, viz., Germany,
still hedging its bets on the issue.
In Asia, major economies like Japan and South Korea have been non-
committal, sentient in the fact that they have larger stakes with China
especially in their high-tech-economy space of the internet of things, arti-
ficial intelligence, quantum computing, and the ilk (Rasser et al., 2020).
All this embodies the cutting-edge duality of China and its critical mass
within the global technological ecosystem, which construes as a preda-
tory force on the one hand, but, whose catapult up the sweepstakes of
pioneering technological advent and innovation, underpinning industrial
34 D. D. PARULEKAR
growth and impinging on the societal quality of life, is unmistakable,

and too alluring to pass over, in the changing contours of global polit-
ical economy, despite the vulnerability quotient at hand. The ASEAN
economies most notably Singapore and Malaysia are others priming them-
selves for affording a greater role for Chinese fin-tech firms in their
socio-economic realm, even as US investors are continuing to bet big
on Chinese technology and procreating firms, despite their compulsive
foreclosure from the NYSE and precluding access to US markets.
Hence, the horses for courses of action, undertaken by sovereign inter-
locutors, amidst a broad permeating sentiment of cautiousness favouring
the circumscribing or thwarting of Chinese tech participation within
critical national communication infrastructure, shows up the complexity
therein. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s urging for a democratic D10
grouping of technology exponents (creators and consumers) in response
to then President Trump’s suggestion of an expanded G7 into a G10 with
similar emphasis, has not ventured far on the technology issue beyond
the perfunctory hand-wringing over 5G decoupling. This is partly due
to inherent concerns that such methodologies explicitly barring China
from the landscape, would spur the move to a fundamental rip-up of the
internet, resulting in an unsustainable, mutually exclusive, decoupled tech
configuration (Brattberg and Judah, 2020). While the protagonists would
duel it out, none would be insulated from the singeing ambers of such a
cannibalized battle, for command and control of technological products,
platforms, and processes.
‘One Sun, One World, One Grid’:

Mainstreaming Sustainable Development
Notwithstanding the fact that Asia, as a continent of sovereign constel-
lations and peoples, is the cynosure of global attention, due to the
multitude of advantages it beholds, in the form of resource endowments,
demographic composition and profile, investible surpluses and technolog-
ical skills, etc., is still marked by pronounced infrastructural deficiencies.
Across its continental and maritime expanse, several specific geographical
coordinates and community societal locales, all of which have contributed
to disparate and differentiated levels of pan-continental development,
continue to face significant levels of poverty and underdevelopment.
Coupled with energy-intensive industrial processes, their subsistence soci-
etal existence has further compounded matters, exerting an exacting cost
on inclusivity in pan-Asian growth-development phenomenon. China has

sought to exploit this facet by emblazoning its credentials across wide
swathes of Asian territory. By presenting itself as the Good Samaritan
procreator of community projects, China has engaged them in projects
from transportation to urbanization to innovations for societal happiness
and beneficence. This narrative has quite failed to be assailed for the right
reasons, due to the dearth of credible alternatives emergent on the Asian
horizon, benchmarked on higher-order principles of such projects.
An important innovation is underway though. India under Prime
Minister Modi has been at the vanguard of underlining the imperative
for twinning the ever-pressing issue of energy security and energy inde-
pendence for emerging economies and lesser developed and low-income
countries alike, together with addressing the metastasizing scourge of
climate change and global warming. Hence, it was no turn up for the
books to witness India team up with renewables energy pioneer France
in co-launching the International Solar Alliance (ISA) on the sidelines of
CoP-21 that enshrined the Global Climate Accord in Paris in 2015 (Jain
and Sareen, 2021). Subsequently metamorphosed into a Treaty-based
international organization, with its headquarters in a Member-State, India
(a first of its kind in itself), its avowed goal is to mobilize a trillion dollars
in renewables-driven financing for solar energy spawn and deployment
of 1000 GW by 2030. Operationally, the ISA envisages convening all
sovereign habitations within the twin Tropics, as members, ostensibly
since these countries are awash with sunshine, and can contribute to
harnessing solar energy through capacitation, research and development,
procreation of solar applications technologies, and building economies of
scale.
Given the fact that this initiative was India’s brainchild, but pursued
through an unmistakable multilateral process, Prime Minister Modi
availed the opportunity to address the 2nd Global RE-Invest conclave
of the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) and the inaugural assembly
of the ISA in October 2018, where he pitched the ambitious vision of
a One-Sun-One-World-One-Grid (OSOWOG) project, underpinned by
the temporal understanding that, the Sun Never Sets on the World—
hence can be leveraged to procreate unfettered solar-power, in real time,
round the clock. The audacious enterprise, which envisions a labyrinthine
interconnection of globally strewn solar energy grids, conjoining conti-
nents through transmissions by undersea HDVC cables, is widely billed
as a competitor to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), although such
36 D. D. PARULEKAR
comparisons may yet be far-fetched, given the magnitude of capital and

allied funding that would be entailed, and the potential for procrasti-
nating timeline in its consummation, given the pluralized tenor of the
exercise. With India at the fulcrum, the ISA solar spectrum envisions two
broad zones of operation, viz., the Mekong corridor continuum of coun-
tries i.e., Myanmar, Vietnam, Thailand, Lao, Cambodia, etc., and the Far
West, basically encompassing sun-kissed West Asia and the African conti-
nent. The project which at its most expansive, proposes an outreach to
one hundred forty nations, across three phases of staggered implemen-
tation, with Phase I (2020–2025) to cover the interconnection of the
Middle East, South Asia, and South East Asia; Phase II (2025–2030) to
weave solar and other renewable energy resources rich regions into a mix;
and Phase III (2030–2035) to accomplish global interconnection of the
power transmission grid under the OSOWOG vision (Asher and Soni,
2020). Clearly, this incredible conceptualization and intrepid implemen-
tation of the initiative would mount ideational and operational challenges
especially, if viewed as an outright competition to Beijing and its singular
narrative in this regard. Also, India’s credentials to propose and run with
the idea is strongly legitimized by its inveterate convictions to enhance
solar power capacitation and instrumentalization at home which is seen
in the remarkable success of the ‘Saubhagya’ scheme, enabling elec-
tricity access to the deepest underprivileged and deprived sections of
Indian society. The commissioning of Asia’s largest solar-power gener-
ating facility, in Rewa (Madhya Pradesh) and the Kochi International
Airport, which operates almost wholly on solar power utilization, evince
India’s credentials.
With over a hundred signatories to the ISA which serves as the nodal
entity for the OSOWOG project, the truly democratic and multilateral
hue of the enterprise is incontrovertibly established. The project, across
its various intended phases and stages of staggered execution, is in large
measure aimed at bringing cheap and effective solar power to less devel-
oped and low-income countries, where the cost of conventional energy,
the fossil-fuels based per capita energy consumption, and the pernicious
cascading effects on the environment and climate change are aggravating
and existential. The ISA’s desire to foster a renewables-user revolution
constitutes a hallowed, higher-ordering initiative, inducing sustainable
development, aligned with SDGs 2030 (Zaki, 2020). This grandiose
project is often touted as India and the democratic Indo-Pacific communi-
ty’s answer to Chinese soft-power clientalism. Its behooves mention that
China, which is the world’s biggest solar panels producer and destination
for predominant Indian sourcing of solar and electricity grid equipment,
has been non-committal on its decision on the ISA, thus far.
While there is no gainsaying that, the project would be a tall order for
India to pull off at any level, yet, given the multiple benefits set to accrue,
from gravitating investments in an interconnected transnational grid on a
trans-regional even transcontinental scale that would intermediate skills,
technology, and financial resources drawn from various participant coun-
tries, towards meeting a critical component within the global SDGs for
2030, cannot but be underscored. The initiative stands capable of helping
countries propel themselves out of the vicious cyclical mire of poverty
through developmental models propitious to mitigating the existential
challenges of water, sanitation, food, and allied socio-economic aggra-
vations. Besides, given that the focus of the initiative is predominantly
Indian Ocean centric straddling Africa to South East Asia, it should chime
with East Asian entities such as Japan and South Korea, who are keen
on an enhanced presence on the other end of the Malacca. Even Euro-
pean powers like France, Germany, and the UK have also been keen to
wade back into the Indo-Pacific and its transpiring. With their substan-
tive footprint in Africa they could become viable partner-stakeholders,
in materializing this initiative, marking a potentially credible alternative
competitor, to the Chinese model (Bello, 2021).
Conclusion
China is poised to progressively make the most substantive stab for
veritable comprehensive national power in human history. Beijing’s
deployment of ‘whole-of-regime’ instrumentality, which flows from the
Party-State’s avowed objective of manipulating the narrative of an
‘Asian Century’ consensus of principled action anchored in democratic
pluralism, into a core and tributary molded Chinese century of unri-
valled operational-centrality and ordering-centricity, portends ominous
vestiges for the Indo-Pacific and pan-Asian stability and prosperity. A
pushback is imperative and inevitable, however, the form and terms upon
which such counterpoise can be crafted and developed, remains inchoate
and open-ended. China’s surging quest for wherewithal, across military,
industrial and technological dimensions is appraised as predatory, but
its deep hew within a global framework of dependencies and interde-
pendencies, implies that, despite being the prudent course of action,
38 D. D. PARULEKAR
unvarnished decoupling and rip-up extrication, though desirable, isn’t

quite doable, either by individual sovereign protagonists or vide an expan-
sively bulwarking coalition of states. The clique of major and middle
powers, whether geographically, geopolitically, or territorially resident
across the Indo-Pacific, that signify the progressive and liberal democratic
world, are organizing themselves into potentially functional mini-lateral
frameworks and mechanisms, with a view to counterpoising the Chinese
disseminated model of national economies development, regional and
sub-regional emancipation and societal upward mobility. The US mooted
Blue Dot Network (BDN) which hems Japan and Australia and solicits
India into the mix, the US broach of an Economic Prosperity Network
(EPN) within a Quad-Plus setting, the Japan-India-Australia stake-out on
a Supply Chains Resilience Initiative (SCRI), India’s pitch for a One Sun
One World Grid (OSOWOG), integral to its introducing shingle of the
global treatise of International Solar Alliance(ISA), the green-shoots of
a Critical Technologies Initiative through the auspices of a prospective
G7-Plus, as also a slew of trifectas, are anecdotal evidence of the strategic
re-architecture of processes for global commons preservation, to promote
objectives of the sanctity and autonomy of commercial, technological and
hard and soft wired capacitation, the key to the realization of a tenable
free and open Indo-Pacific order.
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CHAPTER 3
US–China Strategic Competition: Through

the Matrix of Complex Interdependence
Rubina Waseem
Introduction
The Indo-Pacific Region has come to be an arena of evolving new
equations among the major as well as the rising middle powers. This
vast maritime region has also witnessed expanding interface among both
regional and extra-regional powers. The main contestations comprise not
only China, India, Japan and Australia but also the US and European
The views expressed are those of the author and not to be taken to represent
the views of NDU.
R. Waseem (B)
Department of Strategic Studies, National Defense University (NDU),
Islamabad, Pakistan
George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7521-9_3
42 R. WASEEM
nations like France, Germany and United Kingdom. With expanding

global commerce, some of the most critical maritime routes criss-cross
these Indian and Pacific Oceans waters where increased volumes of
freights have been accompanied by expanding threats of piracy further
igniting their strategic competition, especially so between the US and
China. China’s emergence as the world’s largest trading nation and its
expanding investments under its Belt and Road Initiative have increased
its dependence on the sea lines of communication (SLOC) in these waters
where it has faced formidable the US naval presence as also Indian navy’s
expansionist programs that increasingly define the emerging contours
of the emerging “Great Power” confrontation in this region. China’s
unprecedented economic preponderance has accentuated ensuing rivalries
polarising this region in terms of great powers’ incompatible agendas that
indicate prospects of Great Powers operating in this increasingly compet-
itive environment at least in the near future. These have also encouraged
the extra-regional powers to get involved in the Indo-Pacific dynamics
igniting a complex of geopolitical imaginations. This chapter, however,
specifically explores the emerging contours of this US–China strategic
competition in the Indo-Pacific from the vantage point of theoretical
discourses on their complex interdependence.
To begin with, the discourses on the trade viz-a-viz conflict equa-
tions between the US and China have been interpreted using both the
broad theoretical approaches i.e. liberalism and realism. The liberals argue
that commerce and trade promotes shared interests while the realists
assert that due to uneven divides and security deficits among both the
influential states, vulnerabilities have been continuously aggravating their
competing strategies (Mansfield and Pollins, 2003; Rosecrance, 1986;
Barbieri, 2002). In modern trade systems, it is not easy to manipu-
late established international mechanisms that seek to regulate complex
and amorphous supply chains that excessively impact each other. Thomas
Wright puts it like this:
To say that the world’s economies are interdependent does not adequately,
or even remotely, express the true nature of today’s global economic
activity. Vulnerabilities exist everywhere, the most serious being those
obscured by the very complexity of the system…The demise of the
meaning of the ‘made in’ label means we can no longer gauge with any
accuracy where the incidence of a specific trade sanction will fall or where
failures in the global supply chain may manifest themselves. (Wright, 2013)
3 US–CHINA STRATEGIC COMPETITION: THROUGH … 43
Therefore, the need is never felt on either side to reduce trade and
commerce between the US and China through tools of isolationism. This
is partly so because, as the world’s first and second largest economies,
isolating either side cannot be imagined without setting in motion a
general disentanglement of the global trading system that each of them
relies upon to thrive. Indeed, it can even be said that trade provides
limited leverage for either country against the other. If anything, it offers
each country serious stakes in the success of the other. Consequently,
the avenues of multilateralism in the geo-economics and geopolitics of
the dynamic Indo-Pacific present one of the signs of growing coopera-
tion between the Indo-Pacific states. The role of allies of both the US
and China in their growing rivalries therefore is not guided exclusively
by their national interests but also by the temper and tenor of regional
multilateral equations. This serves as a model for the kinds of compe-
tition that have shaped multilateralism in the Indo-Pacific region. It is
in this backdrop of US–China competition that this chapter examines the
shift of axis between the Indo-Pacific states and their existing asymmetries
with the prism of the Complex Interdependence matrix.
Asymmetries and Interdependence

History shows that economic interdependence has never stopped nations
from going to war. The economics of the United Kingdom and Germany
before World War I had become so densely intertwined that it ended
up harming itself. To cite Graham Allison, “Many [had] hoped that this
entangling web of trade and investments would prevent war. But their
hopes were misplaced when war did break out, the economic conse-
quences for Berlin and London were extraordinary” (Allison, 2017: 210).
Likewise, the contemporary economic intertwining of the US and China
that makes them so interdependent might also cause an analogue of
Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD). This one may also end up like-
wise and be labelled as Mutually Assured Economic Destruction (MAED)
(Allison, 2017: 210) despite the US being the largest market for Chinese
exports and China being the largest creditor of the US.
Joseph Nye notes that China’s economic policymakers did not sell
China’s growing stock of US Treasuries in retaliation to US’ sale of
weapons to Taiwan, despite pressure from senior military officers, because
that could have brought economic consequences for China as well (Nye,
44 R. WASEEM
2010). Although the US military commanders have warned of the immi-

nent threat of China to take control of Taiwan, some experts are of the
view that there are least chances that China will directly attack Taiwan in
the near future. According to Bonnie Glaser, director of the Washington-
based China Power Project at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies: “While we shouldn’t ignore the risk of a Chinese attack, I believe
an attack in the near term is unlikely. It remains a potential action of
last resort if the Chinese feel that they have exhausted all their options”
(Welle, 2021).
The debate regarding any major clash in the Indo-Pacific looming
large with China’s consistent militarisation around Taiwan is generally
believed to be less likely to come true in the near future. Nevertheless,
as Keohane and Nye recognise that complex interdependence may vary
in various arenas and degrees, moreover they consider it more contin-
gent and less categorical view of outcomes of the US–China competition
in comparison with different liberal as well as realist perspectives. Their
discussion debates around a “combination of competitive and cooperative
outcomes beyond the possibility of violent conflict in a growing range of
policy sectors. At the same time, their focus on international or systemic
processes understates the role of domestic politics and their concept of
interdependence does not adequately account for the wider dynamics of
international relations” (Keohane & Nye, 1977: 25).
China, for instance, remains concerned about the US continuing secu-
rity leadership and political influence in the Indo-Pacific littoral including
its indirect control on Taiwan. Likewise, the US too is not comfortable
with China’s policy towards North Korea and Pakistan, especially in the
context of CPEC (Pakistan China Economic Corridor), keeping in mind
its impact on the Gwadar port (Khan et al., 2017: 6). As Chinese partner-
ship with Pakistan has also raised reservations in India which is a strategic
partner of the US and China considers this strategic partnership working
against its interests in the region. China’s surge in the global economic
order, European Union’s expanding interest in the Indo-Pacific politics,
and the influential role of India viz-a-viz strategic interest of Australia in
the region, including the growing influences of multiple centres depicts
the existing competitive environment under the umbrella of the predom-
inant global powers in both economic as well as a military domain
(Buraga, 2016). Nevertheless, bringing new connectivity initiatives and
managing this complicated security and development architecture across
Indo-Pacific is no more an option but a strategic necessity.
European nations including European Union has shown increasing

interest in engaging Indo-Pacific littoral (Fact Sheet: EU IP Strategy,
2021a). These extra-regional actors could play a vital role in addressing
several ignored areas, including non-traditional security cooperation and
good governance, in the changing security matrix of the Indo-Pacific
region. Europe’s traditional neutral approach towards conflicts among
Asian powers, involving economic leverage and healthy relations with
almost all regional and extra-regional powers involved could provide
vital advance towards stability in the competitive environment of the
Indo-Pacific (Pejsova, 2018: 3).
For this reason, China has also expanded its economic engagement
with multiple European nations including Germany, France and UK. It
has also developed closer links with many countries in the Indo-Pacific
littoral as also extended its presence and reach across the Indo-Pacific
region. China has invested huge amounts of sums in countries like
Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar and Sri Lanka. China’s presence in South
Asia, specifically in Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives and Bangladesh has been
associated with the notion of a String of Pearls (SOP). This seems to have
created negative perceptions regarding China’s intentions. But it is also
believed that China’s core motives that drive its strategy in the Indo-
Pacific are more towards economic and commercial advantages rather
than military. Nevertheless, several Western analysts remain suspicious of
the future use of the Gwadar port of Pakistan (which was built with the
help of China) (Kaplan, 2009). It is commonly believed that China is
constructing huge maritime stations to observe ships passing through the
Straits of Hormuz. Moreover, it is making close links with many African
and some island countries, including Djibouti.
US Presence in the Indo-Pacific

The US remains committed to establishing a Free and Open Indo-
Pacific (FOIP) to secure Washington’s interests as also those of its allies.
According to a US State Department report on its Indo-Pacific strategy
issued in November 2019:
The U.S. Department of Commerce is at the forefront of U.S. efforts to

build business ties in the region. The Department’s Access Asia outreach
program, which connects American firms with commercial opportunities in
Indo-Pacific markets, has engaged more than 1,000 U.S. companies since
46 R. WASEEM
2018. The Department’s largest annual domestic conference, Discover

Global Markets, further strengthened Indo-Pacific business connections.
Trade Winds, the largest U.S. trade mission of 2019, brought 100 U.S.
companies to India and Bangladesh. Trade Winds will return to the Indo-
Pacific in 2020, stopping in Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, Vietnam,
and Thailand. (Report, 2019)
It is however commonplace that the US considers alliance formation as

the most important pillar of its strategy to address its evolving strategic
competition with China. Hence, bringing its local and European allies
and partners into the Indo-Pacific politics reflects the US’ evolving grand
strategic outlook for redressing its China challenge. In response, the
Chinese, have been building strategic assets. China seeks to balance
against the US attempts to expand its influence in the region, and
even to resist its influence in the Indo-Pacific littoral. Beijing intends
to portray the US as strategically less relevant and interventionist power
with respect to China’s conflicts with regional states like Japan, Philip-
pines and Vietnam in the South China Sea. The new US Administration
is not likely to change the US Indo-Pacific strategy of Trump adminis-
tration which aims to contain China’s rise with the help of regional allies
such as Australia, Japan and India. The evolving four-nation framework in
the form of Quad may eventually transform into a military alliance with
India emerging as the biggest beneficiary from the growing US–China
competition. On the other hand, it may be considered that the US was
always influential in this region; its new-found interests in expanding its
maritime engagement in the Indo-Pacific is nothing but its response to
China’s expanding footprint.
The reinforcement of the US alliance system in the Indo-Pacific,
however, seems to run in parallel with the Chinese resurgence in the
region. The US has maintained an alliance system in Asia since the end of
World War II by taking Japan as its protectorate and guaranteeing its secu-
rity (Allison, 2017). This was followed by its commitment to the security
of South Korea and hence broadening its alliances to include Pakistan,
Philippines, and Australia so as to ensure its naval presence in the region.
Such security alliances did not go beyond securing its allies but have now
shifted to restraining ever-rising power of China that continues to chal-
lenge the interests of the US and its friends and allies like that of Japan
over the Senkaku Islands (Brookings, 2016). Similarly, the nuclear threat
from North Korea and threats to the US-led security architecture rein-
forces the motivational factors behind the strategic alliance between the
US and South Korea. South Korea and Japan together host nearly 80,000
thousand US troops on their territories which bolsters American influence
and deters external threats for the allies (Hass and Rapp-Hooper, 2019).
But equations have also been changing to the US discomfiture. The
Philippines provides one most apt example. The US has had a rela-
tively stable partnership with successive Filipino leaders and they shared
fears about the growing Chinese influence in the region. But Rodrigo
Duterte’s regime had clearly more than drifted in favour of China.
China, which has always criticised the US’ growing influence and alliance
system in the region, continues to develop such partnerships with others
including Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Maldives to build its
robust regional security cooperation arrangements. The Chinese efforts
are not accidental but reflect its systematic strategic planning to build
a China-centric regional security order that encourages regional states
to accommodate Beijing’s interests and limit the US influence (Rolland,
2020). Such efforts are not new and can be traced to the end of the
Cold War when Beijing opened up to the regional states in Southeast
Asia. Though China faces difficulty in building such partnerships, it has
achieved some success following the 2000s, as is evident by its defence
cooperation agreements with Malaysia in 2005 or from its 2003 joint
patrols with Vietnam in the Gulf of Tokin, that mark a major shift from
their past relationship with China (Rolland, 2020).
Shifting Complex Interdependence Axis

Among scholars of liberalism, economic interdependence is believed to
be a major instrument in reducing and resolving conflicts. This is done
by three basic mechanisms: firstly the opportunity costs, secondly the
role of international institutions and thirdly, the domestic interests of the
parties to the conflict. Richard Rosecrance explains that the higher bene-
fits of trade win over the increasing costs of the war and hence reduces
the chances of conflict by deterring states (Rosecrance, 1986). Secondly,
the state’s integration into the international financial market also plays
a vital role in reducing conflicts (Gartzke, 2007). Those theorists who
believe that economic interdependence could lead to peace as well as
new conflicts take into account the role of international institutions in
promoting sustainable free trade to mitigate chances of conflict (Keohane,
48 R. WASEEM
1984). These institutions offer a platform for negotiations, monitoring of

trade activities and channels for information sharing, enabling information
exchanges among varying international players, even among conflicting
states, regulating the decisions which helps in avoiding miscalculated
resolve on part of states and hence, in reducing conflicts among states
(Kahler, 2012). These scholars believe that such economic interdepen-
dence and role of international institutions yield vital and powerful
interests realised by state and society, which makes them avoid conflict
in favour of protecting those larger gains that they have acquired through
trade and interdependence (Simmons, 2003: 31–43).
As regards the Indo-Pacific, the ASEAN has been at the centre stage
of regional multilateralism that today guides its new evolving networking.
This was traditionally conceptualised in the 1960s to contain the spread
of communism but has come to increasingly engage and endorse ever
expanding leverages and influence of Beijing. There are a number of
factors that necessitate the South East Asian countries to have partnerships
with China including joint security agreements because of piracy threats
and crimes from the Golden Triangle. Likewise, China’s growing tilt
towards joining the regional and international institutional frameworks,
reflect its efforts to reshape the existing security architecture to the satis-
faction of the regional countries of Indo-Pacific (Parameswaran, 2019).
The continued relative decline of the US means that it no longer has
sufficient power and wealth to provide for all “public goods”, including
security for the people on this planet, and has adopted the strategy of
expanding its network of new partners, like India, to maintain its domi-
nation over the globe without directly threatening the interests of others,
like China and Russia.
Australia also has certain ambitions and compulsions guiding its
outlook and engagements in the region. These include its need for
access to energy, secure sea lanes for smooth trade and finally its need
to align with American interest in the evolving dynamics of the Indo-
Pacific region. Australia maintains robust trade ties with Japan, South
Korea, China, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia besides with the US and
EU states. It is believed that Australia being one of the close US allies
would not hesitate to toe its line with the US in case of a confronta-
tion with China. Australia is also seen as part of an emerging strategic
consensus that consists of the US, India, Japan and Australia that seeks
to check growing Chinese influence and its Belt and Road Initiative
(BRI). Australia has a powerful naval force which takes part in interna-
tional multilateral efforts to provide security to SLOCs. In this regard,
Australia’s North-West coast, which is considered the “engine room” of
its economy, remains vulnerable to piracy, trafficking and other secu-
rity threats. And marking its increasing sense of seeking self-help, the
Australian navy, therefore, has established sufficient naval installations to
ensure the safety of its coast and the associated SLOCs.
But, from its very beginning in 2007, Australia has remained an inte-
gral part of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) initiative which
lay dormant for a decade till it was revived in 2017. It is often viewed as
its joint security platform with the US, Japan and India to counter the
growing Chinese influence in the Indo-Pacific. Australian Prime Minister
Scott Morrison, open about calling QUAD “an important forum for
Australia and the region”, indicated to revive it to counter China’s might.
However, the country also displays some confusion about its engagement
with China. Australia shares more trade exchanges with China than its
fellow QUAD partners and has acknowledged the fact that the nature
of its relations with China is different than those of the US, India and
Japan. The Australian Prime Minister during his official visit to the US in
September 2019 acknowledged that “the first thing to do is to acknowl-
edge that Australia and the US come at this forum from a different
perspective…. from Australia’s point of view, the engagement with China
has been enormously beneficial” which the Australian government wishes
to continue in the same tone (Laurenceson, 2020).
Australia’s engagement with China reflects how the US and China
have had varying influences on the regional states where the US holds
much more diplomatic as well as military influence, as compared to China
having more economic interdependence and influence. Likewise, most
of the Southeast Asian states have also increasingly preferred economic
developments over their security concerns; these states are more worried
about the economic influence of China rather than its military. China
can use these leverages and their influence for various goals, including to
marginalise the traditional influence of the US military. China prefers to
apply tools like economic incentives or coercive capacity like turning its
debt-into-equity. Nonetheless, these regional states prefer not having to
choose between both the US and China due to their shared dependence
on both sides.
50 R. WASEEM
Dissecting Its Theoretical Underpinning

Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye have explained how they are not
suggesting that “complex interdependence faithfully reflects political real-
ities of the world” (Keohane and Nye, 1977: 20). More willingly, they
stress that “complex interdependence can be seen as defining an extreme
set of conditions or ideal type” (Keohane and Nye, 1977: 19). They
discuss that although, in most of the situations, realism provides an accu-
rate picture, interdependence can provide an improved portrait of reality
(Keohane and Nye, 1977). Robert Keohane and Joseph Nye’s concept
of “interdependence” brings power to dominate and the more powerful
states have the ability to make weaker states more vulnerable states and
pay the costs. In Indo-Pacific multilateral equations as well as the devel-
oping states, due to their economic interests, have developed alliances yet
the greater powers have the ability to exploit their vulnerabilities to extend
their strategic objectives. At the same time, Robert Koehane and Joseph
Nye contend that the impact of power is contingent upon the process of
political bargaining between countries and thus Indo-Pacific states have
been engaged to gain from their shared interests.
According to Jacobs and Perlez: “the base’s construction is a mile-
stone marking Beijing’s expanding global ambitions—with potential
implications for America’s longstanding military dominance…It’s a huge
strategic development” (Jacobs and Perlez, 2017). It is also often opined
that from China’s perspective, all of these projects have a commercial
objective rather than military expansion of China. However, there are
sceptics and one cannot rule out the military dimension of these devel-
opments because China would like to rise peacefully as it has occasionally
expressed but still, it must have a strategy if it is compelled to retreat by its
strategic competition with the US where it would like to retain the option
to respond decisively. The generous flood of investments by China as part
of its Maritime Silk Road to multiple countries which has generally been
seen as satisfactory for them while some even seem overwhelmed with
relationship with China in terms of their resultant economic prosperity
prospects has been possible given enormous investment deficit across all
the Indo-Pacific states that need investments and economic development.
Ideal type, complex interdependence posits that economic interdepen-
dence increases the probability of peace. This is because, apart from a
growing range of issues whose solution is not feasible by the use of force,
the interdependence increases costs even for the great and dominating
powers who may have carried relative advantage in a given conflict. For
example, Joseph Nye explains how China’s economic policymakers have
refrained from selling China’s stocks of US treasuries to punish the US
for selling weapons to Taiwan because that could bring economic costs
on China as well (Nye, 2010: 143–153). However, Robert Keohane and
Joseph Nye’s work also suggest a matrix of cooperation and competition
beyond a possible direct conflict. Meanwhile, the role of domestic affairs
also remains understated in their thesis. Keeping in mind the systemic
level procedures (Nye, 2010), their complex interdependence paradigm
does not sufficiently interpret the global rivalries. With a view to main-
taining its current status at the global level, the US would need to
continue to adopt the combination of various strategies to simultaneously
contain as also to engage China which may include options like power
projection, coercive diplomacy and the threat of use of military might.
The theory of complex interdependence therefore shows limitations in
explaining the trend and trajectories of the US-China strategic compe-
tition as it cannot explain all its loose strands. Nevertheless, it remains
perhaps the most suitable and closest theoretical framework for any assess-
ment of the US–China strategic competition and especially to draw any
further extrapolations about its impact on the nature of evolving multi-
lateralism across the Indo-Pacific. Likewise, this framework may also be
useful in exploring various subsets of this larger paradigm like how is
India–China competition likely to shape. What could be its implications
for the South Asian sub-region as well as extra-regional actor’s engage-
ment in the Indo-Pacific? Answers to all these questions also remain
essential imperatives to assess the future of this rather dynamic region
and in each of these explorations “complex interdependence” thesis can
provide a useful lens enriching the debate on Indo-Pacific multilateralism.
Concluding Remarks
To conclude, therefore, the Indo-Pacific, which has come to be the
epicentre of international affairs and brings together all great economic
powers, most of the world’s nuclear powers as also most of the middle
powers, involving more than one-third of the world’s population, has
been a hotbed of recasting inter-state equations in the larger regional
geopolitics. The study contends that in face of geo-economics emerging
as the driving force of rapid changes in the evolving new order for
the Indo-Pacific, Complex Interdependence theory must aptly help in
52 R. WASEEM
explaining the novel genres of evolving multilateralism in the Indo-Pacific.

This theoretical prism also helps in understanding the reality of the
shifting matrix of interdependence in the Indo-Pacific region that under-
girds regional political discourses and how effectively the emerging new
order may contribute towards sustaining the US leadership as a global
power. The study concludes that rather than withdrawing from the region
the US seems all set to try to evolve newer leverages and partnerships to
survive as a world leader (by consent) instead of being the superpower
(by coercion) which is a twentieth-century expression. In ensuring this,
Washington has already adopted a multi-track approach in dealing with
Beijing. The US Indo-Pacific Strategy (issued in 2017 and its new version
on 3rd March 2021) (Fact Sheet, 2021b) clearly indicates it being pivoted
to ensuring FOIP. A deeper reading of it reflects an intent of adopting
both “containment” as well as “engagement” of China to sustain its lead-
ership. The US is more likely to continue to engage China politically
and economically which would allow the US to expand its soft power
premised on its hard power military superiority.
To sum up, the world order spinning around the pivot of geo-
economics has unleashed newer competitions among the major global
powers for ensuring the security of their trade transport and of energy
resources while this sustainable development remains the goal of major
players thus unleashing competition that, premised on the axis of sustain-
ability, has to be regulated. In this context, the Indo-Pacific has assumed
special significance given its growth dynamics. This has accentuated the
ongoing tension and strategic competition between the world’s leading
powers—the US and China. The US’ bonhomie with new partners like
India and its experiments with new frames like the Quad to redress
their shared China challenge (Anti-China “QUAD Alliance”, 2020) have
ignited Chinese responses to improvise its commerce driven strategies to
further strengthen its ties with regional powers, such as Russia, Pakistan,
and build cordial relations with other countries by re-enforcing its strategy
generally known by the name of String of Pearls (Dixon, 2014). This has
made Indo-Pacific equations increasingly vulnerable and complex making
the complex interdependence far more relevant to decode the strategic
competition between the US and China, especially across the Indo-Pacific
rim.
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CHAPTER 4
Sino-Japanese Relations: Drivers

and Obstacles in the Free and Open
Indo-Pacific Vision
Stephen R. Nagy
Introduction
Sino-Japanese ties have been mutually beneficial but fraught with prob-
lems in much of the post-World War II period. Since the normalisation of
bilateral relations in the early 1970s, both have avoided sensitive histor-
ical issues as well as issues related to compensation for Japan’s wartime
behaviour to push forward the bilateral relations. The traditional format
in which relations evolved was under the so-called Seikei bunri (政経分離)
formula in which there was a clear separation of politics and economics
(Hatakeyama 2021: 1–18). This formula allowed Japan and China to
significantly increase their economic intercourse in the 1980s and 90s so
S. R. Nagy (B)
International Christian University, Tokyo, Japan

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7521-9_4
56 S. R. NAGY
much so that the 1980s is called the Golden Era in Sino-Japanese relations
(Campbell 2018: 465–466).
With the collapse of the Cold War, Japan and China have returned
back to old grievances plus regional challenges that now inform their
bilateral relations (Frost 2008: 8–9). Disputes over territories in the East
China Sea (ECS), mutual criticisms about history, and the rationale for
continued dependence on the US–Japan alliance have become irritants in
the relationship. The US–Japan alliance has been especially problematic
for China since the larger threat posed by the Soviet Union is no longer
a threat to China. For Chinese strategic thinkers, the US–Japan alliance
represents a forward US presence that can be critical in a new strategy
to contain China’s rise (Yang 2010: 92–98). Worse still, the US-Japanese
strategic alliance is seen as a counter-revolutionary threat to the regime
itself, a regime that has had concerns about a ‘The Plot against China’
since its inception (Khan 2018; Doshi 2021; Jisi 2021).
In terms of this US factor in Japan–China equations, the 1970s,
had seen relations between China and Japan continue to evolve and
struggle at the same time. Especially, following the Tiananmen Square
massacre of 1989, Japan had joined Western nations in sanctions as also
in their informal embargo against the Chinese. But Japan was also the first
country to re-engage China and try and socialise it into the international
system (Matsuda 2012: 365–391). China appreciated that initiative and
as a result had allowed the Japanese to send peacekeepers to the Golan
Heights (Hook et al. 2011). For many, bilateral relations had reached a
peak with the emperor visiting China in 1992 and expressing empathy
for Japan’s wartime past (Sanger 1992). However, all was not well as this
superficial tone demonstrated. In 1994, on eve of the nuclear nonprolif-
eration treaty being extended indefinitely, China began testing nuclear
devices which was followed by tensions in the Taiwan straits in 1996
(Takashi and Jain 2000: 235; Porch 1999: 15048). This made Tokyo
anxious about China’s potential as a security challenge, especially in terms
of access to sea lines of communication so critical for Japan’s imports of
energy as also its exports via the Indo-Pacific to Europe, North America,
and the world (Nagy 2021c).
As a result of these growing concerns about China’s growth trajec-
tories, former Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo was to articulate
the so-called ‘Confluence of Two Seas’ vision, framing the idea of the
Indo-Pacific during his August 2007 speech to the Indian parliament
4 SINO-JAPANESE RELATIONS: DRIVERS AND OBSTACLES … 57
(Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2021). In this vision, Abe was to high-

light the connection both culturally and historically between the Indian
Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, and the importance of linking these
two regions through economic integration, institution building, building
shared norms and creating a platform for cooperation in the terrestrial
and maritime domains. It is against this backdrop, especially in face of
China’s economic power being used by Beijing in cultivating political
influence around its periphery, that this chapter examines Japan’s sepa-
ration of politics and economics and the role of China factor in Japan’s
vision and engagement with the Indo-Pacific.
China’s ‘New Era’ Under Xi Jinping

Most visible have been the debates on China’s assertive policies since Xi
Jinping’s ascension to the position of Secretary General of the Chinese
Communist Party in 2012 and then as President of China from March
2013. This period since has witnessed Xi’s ‘New Era’ of the concentra-
tion of power that has complicated the traditional Sino-Japanese formula
for pragmatic, forward-looking relationship. To balance the benefits from
strong bilateral economic relations with China and growing concerns
about its assertive behaviour in its periphery are seen as main driver in
Japan’s conceptualisation and engagement with the emerging discourses
on the Indo-Pacific region that has seen Japan craft the so-called free
and open Indo Pacific (FOIP) vision. It is this consciousness of assertive
China that remains overcast on emerging Japanese imaginations of the
Indo-Pacific region.
Looking at the Sino-Japanese relations through the prism of FOIP is
explored in this chapter through three lines of enquiry. They include: (i)
How has Sino-Japanese relations affected the design and implementation
of FOIP?; (ii) How does the FOIP reflect Japan’s long-standing hedging
approach to China?; and (iii) Does FOIP represents a critical inflection
point in the ‘seikei bunrei’ (separate politics and economics) formula for
Japan’s bilateral relations with China? The findings of this chapter suggest
that FOIP remains both an inclusive and exclusive framework to shape
the Indo-Pacific region’s rules-based order in-line with the post-World
War II international order. It, therefore, leaves windows of opportu-
nity open to strengthen Sino-Japanese relations while also contributing
to the robust, multilateral institution building to anchor the US leader-
ship in the region meant partly to constrain China’s efforts to reshape
58 S. R. NAGY
the region with Chinese characteristics. Furthermore, it suggests that

FOIP also remains both an inclusive and exclusive framework to shape
the Indo-Pacific narratives as also the Indo-Pacific region’s rules-based
order.
This chapter is organised into five parts. Part one examines the concept
of ‘seikei bunri’ (separate politics and economics) and how this has come
to be the formula for bilateral relations between China and Japan since
the normalization in 1972. Part two highlights the critical junctures
in Sino-Japanese relations in terms of Japan, rethinking how it should
engage with China. Part three looks at the emergence of Japan’s FOIP
vision to explore its main components, main factors and how and why it
remains both an inclusive and exclusive vision to inculcate Japan into the
Indo-Pacific region’s institutions, economy, norms, as well as maritime
governance. Part four finally, looks at both the drivers and obstacles
in terms of the Indo-Pacific vision through the lens of Sino-Japanese
relations. The last part of this chapter will focus on the areas of poten-
tial cooperation under the FOIP vision as well as continued challenges
moving forward. And, the last part of this chapter ends by focusing the
limits of a securitised Japanese FOIP vision.
The Precarious Seikei Bunri Formula

The ‘seikei bunri’ formula is an expression established since the late mid-
80s to describe how the Japanese and the Chinese are able to put forward
cooperation between their economies and their governments through a
focus on economic relations while eschewing the more sensitive polit-
ical aspects of their relationship (Dreyer 2014: 326–341). Since their
normalisation of bilateral relations in 1972, Japan has engaged with China
through intergovernmental projects and multi-sectoral cooperation. This
intergovernmental cooperation has provided a foundation for the expan-
sion of Japan’s overseas development assistance (ODA) and foreign direct
investment (FDI) into China to help build Chinese infrastructure and
help its economy develop (Takamine 2012; Wu 2008; Lin 2005). This
was not an entirely altruistic gesture from Japan. While this was seen by
many Japanese as a form of war reparations, others have viewed it as a
critical part of keeping the Japanese economic engine growing during
its high-growth period (Stallings and Eun 2016). The decades of 1970s,
and 1980s, have seen the cost of domestic manufacturing become increas-
ingly unsustainable. China represented source of unlimited cheap labour
and resources, and therefore in many ways, a perfect match in terms of

comparative advantages for the two states.
With this ‘seikei bunri’ equation being beneficial to both sides, the
Chinese government welcomed ODA and FDI from the Japanese govern-
ment and Japanese business community went into China to help develop
its manufacturing base and what is today seen as the global production
network centred around China. On the Japanese side, manufacturing in
China allowed Japan to continue to be a manufacturing powerhouse and
to leverage the cheap labour, inter-regional labour supplies as well as
resources in China to dominate the global manufacturing community.
This relationship continued unimpeded from the late 1970s into the late
1990s and early 2000s with a few hiccups along the way. However, in
the 1980s while Deng Xiaoping was attempting to consolidate his power
within the Chinese political system the ‘seikei bunrei’ formula had begun
to face some questions. As Yamaguchi (2021) writes, there was increasing
recognition in China that Deng Xiaoping had to take a more nationalist
approach in terms of dealing with Japan and Japanese investment into
the country (Yamaguchi 2021). This nationalist approach stemmed from
the growing resentment of Chinese over the large trade deficit that was
emerging in the so-called Golden Age of their bilateral relations (Yu 2015;
Li 2016). This shift in China’s thinking about Japan was, in some ways,
as much about their domestic politics, as it was a realisation that Japan
was becoming an economic superpower within the region that could
potentially dominate the region economically, in a way that it couldn’t
dominate the region militarily during its imperial past.
Critical Junctures in Sino-Japanese Relations

Aside from trade friction testing the validity of their ‘seikei bunri’ frame-
work for stable Sino-Japan’s relations, there have been numerous critical
junctures in the relationship that initially were a cause for reflection
in Tokyo but have introduced major divergences in their bilateral rela-
tions. These critical junctures include but are not exclusive to: (i) the
1994 nuclear tests; (ii) the 1996 Taiwan strait crisis; (iii) the 2010 fish-
erman incident; (iv) the 2012 aftermath of the nationalisation of the
Senkaku/Diaoyu Tai islands; (v) the building and militarising of an artifi-
cial island in the South China Sea (SCS) from 2013; (vi) the eschewing of
the Permanent Court of Arbitration’s 2016 decision again Chinese claims
in the SCS; (vii) the adoption of the National Security Law in Hong Kong
60 S. R. NAGY
on June 30, 2020; and (viii) increasingly bellicose rhetoric and behaviour
towards Taiwan beginning in 2020.
Prima facie, a deeper dive into each of these inflection points is not
really essential to highlight their overall impact on how these incidents
have contributed to Japan’s changing views on the formation of FOIP.
Put together, these 8 incidents have transformed Japan’s view about
the nature and trajectory of China’s peaceful rise which has been the
trigger for the rise of most nations’ views around this evolving Indo-
Pacific paradigm (Takahara 2009). While some see China’s peaceful rise
through the lens of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese people, others
have focused on China’s efforts to modernise its military but also join a
plethora of multilateral organisations to ‘confront the U.S. and facilitate
the rise of China’ (Aoyama 2016: 130; Masui 2014: 1–44). Still others
have shifted their focus towards what they understand as China’s pursuit
of regional hegemony (Wang and Seiichirō 2021: 26–33; Satō 2021: 12–
15). Consensus is towards seeing China as a revisionist state aimed at
resetting the regional order into one dominated by China.
To illustrate, the 1994 nuclear tests was a slight against Japan’s three
non-nuclear principles of not manufacturing, possessing, or introducing
nuclear weapons (Ogawa 2003). In face of Japan’s efforts to promote
denuclearisation of the region and the world, they saw China’s announce-
ment to test and modernise and expand its nuclear arsenal as revisionist
and counter to regional trends (Zhuǎnjiǎo 2021). Likewise, this period
also saw China’s increased belligerence towards Taiwan and talk about not
eschewing the use of military force (China Daily 2021). China pressing
for re-unification of Taiwan along Beijing’s terms was to further deepen
Tokyo’s prognosis about China’s evolving regional hegemony. Tokyo’s
anxieties include whether or not a Taiwan contingency can be avoided as
hawks are in the ascendency in Beijing’s security establishment and a likely
conflict to have devastating regional and economic consequences (CAN
Insider 2021).
Key questions raised in security circles in Tokyo were focused on
China’s long-term commitment to peace and stability in the region as
it steps up patrols and training exercises in its newly created Air Defence
Identification Zones (ADIZ) (Reuters 2021). Likewise, China’s engage-
ment with building and militarising of artificial islands in the SCS and
ramping up of its grey zone and grey operations of the Chinese coast
guard in the East and South China Seas (The Maritime Executive 2021).
Examples included the use of water cannons by Chinese Coast Guard
vessels in the exclusive economic zones of the Philippines (Puri and

Greg 2021). It was bound to increase the danger of conflict by using
police assets in the territorial wars of another country in the region.
The so-called grey-zone operations using merchant vessels have been
testing the strategic patience of countries like Vietnam and the Philip-
pines. But, as these countries refrain from responding in kind to the
threatening behaviour of Chinese vessels, it has incrementally eroded their
sovereignty claims in the SCS (Nagy 2021a, b, c, d). The same is true in
the ECS as China continues to challenge Japan’s claims of sovereignty
over the Senkaku Islands with regular incursions of merchant vessels
entering Japan’s contiguous zone or intruding at will into the territorial
sea surrounding the Senkaku Islands (Ministry of Foreign Affairs 2021).
Two other actions by Beijing were to seriously undermine Japan’s
confidence in China’s re-emergence: the eschewing of the Permanent
Court of Arbitration’s (PCA) 2016 decision against Chinese claims in
the SCS and the adoption of the National Security Law in Hong Kong
on June 30, 2020. In the case of the rejection of the PCA decision
against China’s claims in the SCS, it raises serious questions as to China’s
acceptance of the international legal order and agreements like UNCLOS
that China has signed (Kurashige 2021: 111–120; Hayashi 2021: 655–
701). In the case of the adoption of the National Security Law (HKSAR1
2021) in Hong Kong on June 30, 2020 and the subsequent erosion of
freedom of press (Reporters without Borders 2021), rule of law (Human
Rights Watch 2021) and the activity of civil society (ibid.) has eroded the
guarantees of the 1984 Sino-British Declaration (Nagy 2021a, b, c, d),
which states the ‘rights and freedoms, including those of the person, of
speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of travel, of movement, of
correspondence, of strike, of choice of occupation, of academic research
and of religious belief will be ensured by law in the Hong Kong Special
Administrative Region’” (HKSAR1 2021). These were concrete exam-
ples of China’s abrogation of international agreements, namely the 1984
Sino-British Declaration and UNCLOS. Tokyo’s concerns about China’s
re-emergence were further magnified by comments by prominent Chinese
scholars such as Tsinghua University’s Yan Xuetong saying that:
China will work hard to shape an ideological environment conducive to its

rise and counter Western values. For example, the United States defines
democracy and freedom from the perspective of electoral politics and
personal expression, while China defines democracy and freedom from
62 S. R. NAGY
the perspective of social security and economic development. Washington

should accept these differences of opinion instead of trying to impose its
own views on others. (Yan 2021)
As Japan is a direct benefactor of the current international order that

is largely buttressed by the US leadership, China’s rejection of interna-
tional law and coercive behaviour towards neighbours have individually
and collectively served as critical junctures in Japan’s thinking about
China’s developmental trajectory and the need to develop a foreign
policy that allows Japan to continue to accommodate and benefit from
China’s economic re-emergence but also make Japan more resilient to
China’s revisionist behaviour (Nagy 2020a: 1–18; 2021d: 7–21). This has
taken the form of Japan’s FOIP vision. For example, to cite Ritsumeikan
Asia Pacific University’s Yoshimatsu (2020) who has analysed Japan’s
foreign policy in the context of the Indo-Pacific debates he divides the
evolution of FOIP posture into four sub-categories: (i) proactive secu-
rity engagement in the region; (ii) theoretical categorisations on the
Abe administration’s foreign policy; (iii) the domestic policy-making
in relation to the Abe administration’s foreign policy; and (iv) efforts
to understand the underlying assumptions behind Japan’s Indo-Pacific
foreign policies (Yoshimatsu 2020: 8–11).
Others such as Hatakeyama (2019), Asplund (2018), and Nagy
(2021a, b, c, d) have argued that the inflection point for the FOIP have
seen Japan being compelled to prioritize the advocacy of a rules-based
order in the Indo-Pacific region over an explicit campaign in favour of
democracy and human rights promotion (Hatakeyama 2019: 466–481;
Asplund 2018: 117–134; Navy 2021: 7–21). Keio University’s Hosoya
Yuichi goes even further to argue that Japan’s FOIP has already evolved
into FOIP 2.0, a framework that is meant to downplay security compo-
nents and highlight development and trade components to elicit broader
stakeholder buy-in (Hosoya 2019: 18–28). In this sense, FOIP is also
seen both as a reactive and proactive policy of Japan; one that focuses on
the conception of Japan as a ‘reactive’ state as also Japan as a ‘proactive’
stabilizer for this region (Calder 1988: 517–541; Liff 2020: 39–78).
Characteristics and Approaches of the FOIP

Japan’s FOIP vision has continued to evolve in the context of Sino-
Japanese relations and also in the context of the triangular dynamics
between the US, China and Japan. What explains Japan’s continued
focus on buttressing rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific to guide by
its aim to ensure that any revised regional order remains aligned with its
strategic interests in the region. To do this, Japan has focused on four key
areas: (i) a selective accommodation of China’s rise; (ii) deeply integrating
Japan into the Indo-Pacific politico-economy and rules-making process;
(iii) tightening the Japan–US alliance and cementing the US into the
region; and (iv) diversifying and deepening its strategic partnerships with
other stakeholders. In these, Japan’s selective accommodation of China’s
rise has been consistent with Japan’s overall approach to China’s rise in
general. Both, for example, are partners of the Regional Comprehen-
sive Economic Partnership (RCEP). In the case of the Comprehensive
and Progressive Transpacific Partnership (CPTPP) though China (and
Taiwan) have not been yet accepted as partners. Japan has not only been
propagating ideas of both China and Taiwan joining the CPTPP but has
also been pursuant of a trilateral FTA between Japan, China and South
Korea.
China’s economic rise has seen Japan broaden its economic part-
nerships in the Indo-Pacific region by signing EPAs and Infrastructure
and Connectivity agreements with several interested nations and group-
ings including the European Union. Such agreements are meant to
anchor Japan into multilateral agreements that open markets and foster
collaborations, trade and investments across the Indo-Pacific region but
importantly also anchor the EU into the Indo-Pacific region as an impor-
tant stakeholder, burden sharer, and a grouping known for propagating
respect for norms and institutions. While trade infrastructure and connec-
tivity cooperation remain the core component of Japan’s FOIP vision,
increasingly this reorientation can be seen in its initiatives like the building
of resilient supply chains in the form of the Resilient Supply Chain Initia-
tive (RSCI) to reduce this region’s growing dependence on China-centric
manufacturing and supply chains. Such FOIP 2.0 can be seen in Japan’s
RSCI like initiatives within the Quad framework, and infrastructure and
connectivity cooperation with China in third countries.
64 S. R. NAGY
This simultaneous selective inclusive and exclusive approach of Japan

to the FOIP shares a common theme: a rules-based approach to interna-
tional relations with a focus on development and trade. Japan clearly sees
its future through the lens of a Japan well integrated into the Indo-Pacific
politico-economy that is characterised by deep economic integration,
shared understandings of rules and norms, and a shared commitment to
institution building that is rules-based, transparent and mutually benefi-
cial. And as the digital economy becomes more widespread throughout
the Indo-Pacific region, Japan seems to visualise its FOIP through the
lens of technology and the digital economy. One tool in that approach
has been the Data Free flow with Trust (DFFT) and the development
of alternatives to 5G as pillars of the FOIP (Ministry of Foreign Affairs1
2019). The DFFT was adopted to deal with the emerging privacy chal-
lenges that have surfaced with rapidly developing digital eco-systems and
China’s ‘Made in China 2025’ national development strategy to leapfrog
Chinese high-tech industry into a leading position. Key concerns focus
on data privacy, a tangential reaction to China’s promotion of cyber
sovereignty through data localisation laws and the National Intelligence
Law that ‘strengthened the legal basis for China’s security activities and
requiring Chinese and foreign citizens, enterprises, and organizations to
cooperate with them’ (Tanner 2017).
To accomplish this twin task, Japan had begun to offer tax incentives to
incentivise network service providers to invest in secure 5G infrastructure
and mitigate supply-chain risk (Matsubara 2020). Overseas as well, and
especially in the Indo-Pacific region, Japan used the DFFT initiative to
facilitate the synthesising of domestic and international legal frameworks
through the use and reform of the World Trade Organization (WTO)
(Koga 2020: 137–148). Both pursuits aimed to wed the FOIP’s principles
of ‘free’ and ‘open’ to the digital realm as well. Likewise, trade, the digital
economy, and development through the provision of infrastructure and
connectivity demonstrate how Japan views a well-developed, integrated
region as a guarantor of more strategic autonomy at the sub-regional level
(Southeast Asia and South Asia) on decisions related to their subregions
but also stability in the broader Indo-Pacific region. This of course can
not be devoid of geopolitical conditions and would require more cohe-
sive and concrete collaborations in actions and statements with regard to
China’s behaviour in the South China Sea as also in other areas in where
Japan shares its overlapping interests. Therefore, in spite of propagation
of norms and respect for rule of law, security remains a component of
Japan’s FOIP vision, especially so when it comes to its dependence on

ensuring safety and free access to sea lines of communication (SLOCs).
Being critically dependent on SLOCs for its trade and importation
of energy resources, Japan remains invested in bolstering its Japan–US
strategic alliance where again Japan has focused on expanding numbers
and quality of strategic partnerships in the region (Nagy 2018: 112–129).
This has seen Japan also evolve various new defense partnerships and mini-
lateral arrangements such as the Quad. Japan however is not looking for
any more alliances other than its Japan–US alliance. These other strategic
and defence partnerships remain more about cooperation in shared areas
of interest such as maritime domain awareness, re-enforcing UNCLOS,
anti-piracy and preventing illegal fishing and so on. Japan has also been
active in helping various regional stakeholders in building human capital,
inter-operability trainings and the provision of using coast guard vessels
to bolster local capabilities.
China Factor in Japan’s FOIP Vision

Critics of Japan’s FOIP vision have often conflated it with an anti-China
containment strategy (Paiken 2020; Jeff 2020). For them, it was an
extension of the former Trump administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy that
formulated its assessment that China was trying to replace US in the Indo-
Pacific (The White House 2018). Others see the free and open aspect of
FOIP to be hypocritical as Japan actively courts non-democratic states
to support its FOIP vision such as the recent Japan-Vietnam summit
(Ghosh 2020). These interpretations perhaps have seriously misread
FOIP’s strategic imperatives. First, conceptualising FOIP as an anti-China
containment strategy substantially overlooks the deep and mutually bene-
ficial Sino-Japanese economic ties so assiduously built since the late 1970s.
To illustrate, in 2020, a year in which China’s unfavourable ratings
reached record lows inside Japan (The Genron NPO 2021), it still saw
a rise in Japanese exports to China of an equivalent of US$141.6 billion
(22.1% of total Japanese exports). If we include the $44.4 billion (6.9%)
of Japan exports to Taiwan and the $32 billion (5%) of exports to Hong
Kong, exports to greater China represent at least $218 billion or 33.1%
of Japan’s total exports, a number that is nearly twice that of the increase
in Japan’s exports to the US which was $118.8 billion (18.5%). As the
following factors explain, economic decoupling is simply neither possible
nor desirable:
66 S. R. NAGY
• First and foremost, Japan’s economic engagement with China has

moved from trade and investments into partnerships in China’s
infrastructure building and connectivity in third countries. Of
course, Japan continues to stress on the principles of transparency
and fair procurement, as also on economic viability that includes
financing projects through repayable debt, and ensuring that these
are environmentally friendly and sustainable (Cabinet 2017).
• Second, ‘free’ and ‘open’ of Japan’s FOIP is not a reference limited
to democracy or freedom of press advocacy; they also refer to trading
regimes, sea lines of communication, and the digital economy being
rules-based, transparent and having provisions to be arbitrated by
international law and or multilateral agreements. Japan, however,
has also had a long track record of working with partners regardless
of their political system or based on their commitments to democ-
racy or human rights track record. Japan–Iran, Japan–Vietnam and
Japan–China energy and economic cooperation are cases in point.
Japan’s participation in the Regional Comprehensive Economic
Partnership (RCEP) agreement alongside China further illustrates its
reticence to sever its economic ties with its largest trading partner.
• Third, Japan’s expanded defense procurement continues to be incre-
mental both in terms of its budgets but also capabilities. Janes
Defence Budgets forecasts an increase to 49.6 $ billion US in
2022 a figure slightly larger than 1% of Japan’s GDP (Janes 2021).
Compared to China which spent $209.16 billion in 2021 (1.34%
of GDP) Japan’s spending increase remains modest and focused
on the acquisition of cyberspace and electromagnetic and over the
horizon radar capabilities as well as satellites to enhance space and
maritime domain awareness (CSIS 2021). Beyond these capabilities,
the 2022 defence budget also aims to secure funding for the deploy-
ment of around 570 Japan Ground Self-Defense Force (JGSDF) and
to deploy surface-to-air and anti-ship missile batteries on Ishigaki
Island (Ministry of Defense 2020).
In contrast, China remains committed to expanding its nuclear arsenal

and testing hypersonic delivery systems, Tokyo is still wrangling over
constitutional reform and whether it should increase defense spending to
2% of GDP (Financial Times 2021; Mainichi Shimbun 2021). If Japan’s
FOIP were to be a containment strategy, one would expect Japan to
build a substantial increase in deterrence capabilities including submarine
acquisitions, lethal autonomous weapon systems (LAWs), and the acqui-

sition of mid to long-range missile systems that would be able to target
threats in the region. Instead, Tokyo’s FOIP continues to be grounded
in economic partnerships and, if anything, multifaceted. Key features
continue to include trade promotion, development, the expansion of
infrastructure and connectivity and investment in resilient supply chains.
Together with these core features Japan also continues to propagate incul-
cating rules-based predictability into critical sea lines of communication
(SLOCs) through adherence to international law. For Tokyo, the focus on
SLOCs, trade promotion, development, the expansion of infrastructure
and connectivity and investment in resilient supply chains is tangentially
related to Japan’s economic security. A disruption in SLOCs through a
regional conflict, incident or Taiwan contingency would cut off Japan’s
economy from the critical SLOCs that act as arteries for the import and
export of goods and energy resources.
Conclusion
China factor in Japan’s FOIP remains, therefore, clearly overcast in its
policies of trade promotion, development, the expansion of infrastruc-
ture and connectivity and investment in resilient supply chains is about
enmeshing Japan into the Indo-Pacific’s economy, its burgeoning institu-
tions, and its rules-making processes. In face of China’s unprecedented
economic rise, Tokyo wants to lock itself into the region’s political
economy to ensure it helps the region evolve in a form favourable to
Japanese interests. This means that Japan’s FOIP believes much more in
building strategic partnerships, multilateral cooperation and agreements
and socio-economic tools rather than military tools that US prefers to see
as the primary means to achieve strategic stability in the Indo-Pacific. The
Japan–EU Economic Partnership, Japan–EU Infrastructure and Connec-
tivity agreement and the Resilient Supply Chain Initiative (RSCI) which
include Japan, India and Australia are all illustrative examples of Tokyo’s
efforts to enmesh itself in a series of multilateral agreements that anchor
Japan into the national interest of other regions and countries and to
anchor those countries and regions into the Indo-Pacific.
Japan’s multilateral approach in its FOIP vision indeed goes beyond
to even eschew strategic partnerships, defense agreements and the very
centrality of the Japan–US alliance. Japan continues to deepen its strategic
relationship with the US while moving forwards for a defense treaty with
68 S. R. NAGY
Australia.1 Discussions are also on their way towards Japan–UK Recip-

rocal Access Agreement, 2+2 Ministerial security talk, between Japan and
France and on May 3, 2021 Japan and Canada announced their ‘Shared
Japan-Canada Priorities Contributing to a Free and Open Indo-Pacific’.2
The latter announcement stresses cooperation in six key areas including:
(i) The Rule of Law; (ii) Peacekeeping Operations, Peacebuilding, and
Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief; (iii) Health Security and
Responding to COVID-19; (iv) Energy Security; (v) Free Trade Promo-
tion and Trade Agreement Implementation; and (vi) Environment and
Climate Change, an agenda that speaks of China’s influence in Japan’s
comprehensive approach to achieving a free and open Indo-Pacific region.
It also illustrates the limits of a securitised Japanese FOIP Vision.
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CHAPTER 5
ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific:

Motivations, Opportunities, and Challenges
Don McLain Gill
Introduction
Formed in 1967, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
has managed to position itself at the centre of Asian affairs since the end
of the Cold War. Being a normative power, ASEAN has crafted particular
guidelines for intra and extra-regional engagements. This was materialised
through the promotion of the “ASEAN Way”, which gives emphasis
to norms such as non-interference in domestic affairs, decision-making
by consensus, respect for sovereignty, and the maintenance of ASEAN
centrality as the vehicle for regional affairs (Haacke 2003: 7; Jones 2010:
480).
However, the unprecedented rise of China has accelerated the
inevitable drift in the global distribution of power. The once illuminating
D. M. Gill (B)
Philippine-Middle East Studies Association (PMESA), Quezon City, Philippines

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7521-9_5
76 D. M. GILL
unilateral “moment” of the United States (US) is now dimming down in

China’s favour. Moreover, China’s rise has occurred following the collapse
of the Soviet Union, creating a power vacuum that Beijing has allegedly
sought to fill at the discomfiture of status quo powers. This has made
several states witness China’s rise with a parallel degree of assertion and
expansion, which threatens the stability of the established global rules-
based order. Meanwhile, as China continues to grow in the economic
and military realms, it has inevitably challenged the influence of the US,
its allies, and its like-minded partners, at least in the Eastern Hemisphere.
This geopolitical shift has since forced the US along with its allies and
partners to put forward the concept of the Indo-Pacific that aims to main-
tain the peace and stability of the rules-based order from the Indian Ocean
to the Pacific Ocean. Arrangements such as the Quad—between the US,
India, Japan, and Australia—have been bolstered the desire to enforce
these rules throughout the region. However, it must be noted that the
concept behind the Indo-Pacific remains subject to varying interpreta-
tions, which in turn has led to varying degrees of action among its major
stakeholders.
In the face of ASEAN’s growing engagement with China, while also
continuing with its traditional proximity with the US, the Southeast Asian
bloc seeks to utilise its perennial balancing act. This chapter seeks to
explain why ASEAN has chosen to take such a stance. As for its AOIP,
two crucial elements have catalysed its foundation namely, geography and
the maintenance of normative power and centrality. The first section seeks
to flesh out the concept of the Indo-Pacific from its prevalent interpreta-
tions. The second section explores the AOIP as a brainchild of Indonesia’s
vision of the Indo-Pacific. The third section serves as a critical point of
discussion to navigate the geographical and geopolitical importance of
ASEAN in the Indo-Pacific and highlight certain constraints in relation to
the overarching US–China power competition. The fourth section aims
to underscore the normative power dynamics of ASEAN and how this
affects its decision-making within the broader Indo-Pacific against the
backdrop of ASEAN centrality. The final section, however, exposes certain
pitfalls that may hinder the implementation of the AOIP thereby pushing
ASEAN centrality under question.
5 ASEAN OUTLOOK ON THE INDO-PACIFIC: MOTIVATIONS, … 77
One Construct, Multiple Interpretations

The ASEAN construct of the Indo-Pacific region serves perhaps as the
most interesting case in understanding how the Indo-Pacific is collectively
interpreted by a regional bloc. The adoption of the ASEAN Outlook on the
Indo-Pacific (AOIP) of 2019 seeks to provide an authentic and collective
view on ASEAN’s conception towards this region by crafting a blueprint
that combines the Southeast Asian bloc’s engagements in both the Pacific
Ocean and the Indian Ocean regions. Positioned at the geographic heart
of the Indo-Pacific region, ASEAN endeavours to incorporate a functional
and collaborative strategy in the region with an emphasis on practical and
sustainable goals involving multi-dimensional connectivity, inclusive inter-
state engagements, and maritime and economic cooperation.
To steer clear of China’s contention with the US that dominates
most Indo-Pacific narratives, the AOIP, for example, makes no mention
of any of the major powers, be it China or the US, Russia, India, or
Japan. The AOIP avoids utilising a strategically confrontational tone that
can be misconstrued as having any military connotation. Accordingly, it
seeks to both preserve and utilise the continuing significance of ASEAN
“centrality” at a time when the competitive grab for influence between
Quad members and China in the region seems to re-write their agenda.
ASEAN’s interpretation of the Indo-Pacific, therefore, stems from its
history, its experience, and its fears in terms of being marginalised in the
evolving new security architectures of this region. Critics of the AOIP
often highlight how ASEAN has sought to walk a fine line between the
two competing and dominant states of the system—the US and China—
whereas several other major states have incorporated the Indo-Pacific as
their means to check Beijing’s assertive rise around its periphery (Daniel
2021).
Nevertheless, ASEAN must contend with the fact that the Indo-Pacific
narratives have arguably taken-up centre stage in the discourse of interna-
tional politics and strategic affairs. While the Indo-Pacific may be a novel
terminology, its geographical dimensions, which encompass the Indian
Ocean and the Pacific Ocean, are not new. Manjeet Pardesi explains that
major powers in the post-1800 era have also strategically understood
the geographic space as a collective region (Pardesi 2019: 2). However,
looking at it from the prism of multiple constructs, the Indo-Pacific
geopolitical framework gained significant momentum during the Trump
78 D. M. GILL
administration’s adoption of an Indo-Pacific Strategy and renaming of the

Pacific Command into the Indo-Pacific Command (Gyngell 2018).
Indeed, from the time of President Obama, successive US presidents
have demonstrated a renewed interest in this region that is illustrated in
the US vision of a free, open, and inclusive Indo-Pacific region based on
the established rules-based order founded on liberal democratic values,
institutions, and international law. Going beyond the US, other major
powers of the region have continued with their slightly varying interpre-
tations regarding the Indo-Pacific though most of them continue to work
with the US framework.
The closest ally and partner of the US and ASEAN in the region—
Japan—has displayed a long-drawn interest to project the notion of an
“open and free” Indo-Pacific region. In 2007, former Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe had identified this space as the “seas of prosperity”, defined
by rule of law, freedom from coercion, and a thriving market economy
(Przystup 2020). Reflecting on Abe’s spirit of the “confluence of two
seas”, Japan’s Indo-Pacific formulation coincides with the US vision;
however, Tokyo’s view puts more weight on the promotion of infras-
tructure projects and trade beyond East Asia and into the Middle East
and Africa (Das 2019). The primary objective is shared prosperity,
which greatly banks on connectivity and infrastructure projects, in addi-
tion to maintaining peace and stability (Japanese Ministry of Foreign
Affairs 2019). Accordingly, ASEAN has all the reasons to synergise with
this prosperity-driven vision. ASEAN’s tiger economies of 1990s were
once the beneficiaries of the “flying Geese” model of Japanese Official
Development Assistance and have continued to be its strong economic
partners.
India—the world’s largest democracy that shares the world’s longest
disputed boundary with China and has been experiencing repeated violent
face-offs with the latter—has also been demonstrating a proactive role
in the Indo-Pacific region. India’s vision for the Indo-Pacific, which was
articulated by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his speech at the
2018 Shangri La Dialogue, represents an amalgamation of key India-led
regional initiatives such as the Act East and Neighbourhood First poli-
cies, as well as multilateral arrangements like the Bay of Bengal Initiative
for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (Mohan 2021:
274–276). While New Delhi’s Indo-Pacific engagements, along with its
proactive role in the Quad, is often viewed using a China-driven lens,
it is important to highlight that India seeks to promote an Indo-Pacific
region defined by multipolarity, coupled with principles of inclusiveness,

openness, freedom, and respect for rule of law and agreed-upon norms
(MEA 2018). The emphasis on these very principles forms the crux of
its expanding partnerships in the region (Baruah 2020). Being seen as a
major power and security provider in the region, India remains committed
towards upholding the freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific (Indian
Navy 2015). Furthermore, India’s expanding multi-dimensional partner-
ships with states across the region in the form of bilateral, trilateral, and
multilateral arrangements further illustrate the nature of its role.
Finally, regarding China’s perception towards the Indo-Pacific, China
perceives the rise of the Indo-Pacific construct as a provocative policy
aimed at constraining its power maximisation and projection across the
region (Gokhale 2020). However, it must be noted that China has
been a pivotal pillar in the evolution of the Indo-Pacific geopolitical
frame, whether one likes it or not. More specifically, China’s Belt and
Road Initiative (BRI) has especially accelerated this expanding China
footprint in the region. To begin with, BRI was presented in two
clear formats: the “Silk Road Economic Belt” (SREB) for Eurasia and
the “21st Century Maritime Silk Road (MSR)” for China’s maritime
connect with Pacific and Indian Oceans all the way to the Mediter-
ranean. The combined BRI consists of multiple economic Corridors,
mega-infrastructure, and connectivity projects spanning from East Asia to
Europe. Moreover, China has been consolidating its economic clout most
effectively on littoral states of the Indo-Pacific rim. Its activities, espe-
cially economic engagement, have inevitably strengthened imaginations of
this link between these two maritime spaces, which further mobilised the
US, along with its allies and partners, to balance China’s unprecedented
economic rise and its expanding geopolitical footprint. Accordingly,
China’s initial reservations on engaging with such Indo-Pacific narratives
become quite foreseeable.
It is amid these sharpening major powers’ contention that ASEAN
presents an interesting case especially with its perception of its “central-
ity” in its Indo-Pacific construct. Also, unlike the major powers, ASEAN’s
vision presents a collective perspective of the ten Southeast Asian states
that range from small to middle powers. To its credit, ASEAN has even-
tually come to embrace the Indo-Pacific terminology, which has been
vividly reflected through the announcement of the AOIP. Therefore, it
is therefore important to highlight that the overarching framework of the
AOIP draws significantly from Indonesia’s vision of serving as a maritime
80 D. M. GILL
fulcrum. Interestingly, the importance attributed by the AOIP on key

values like inclusivity and sensitivity strongly reflects Jakarta’s perception
and understanding of the Indo-Pacific (Chongkittavorn 2020; Acharya
2019; Sukma 2019).
Indonesia’s Contribution to the AOIP

To recall, China’s Maritime Silk Road project was first announced by
President Xi Jinping in Jakarta on 2 October 2013. Given the notable
presence of overseas Chinese in this country, Indonesia has been sharing
a complex relationship with China, yet Xi Jinping’s China has managed
to cultivate favourable business deals with the world’s largest archipelagic
country. Indeed, President Joko Widodo’s rise to power from March
2014 was seen as “linked to China’s or ethnic Chinese support partly
because he is not from the the established political elite” that carried the
baggage of difficult relations of 1960s (Negara and Suryadinata 2019:
82). As in several other cases, the AOIP is believed to largely tap on
Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s vision of positioning Indonesia as
the Global Maritime Fulcrum (GMF) (Tiola 2019).
Introduced by Widodo in 2014, the GMF concept is grounded in his
vision of Indonesia’s maritime role and identity. At the ninth East Asia
Summit, Widodo profoundly outlined five important pillars that serve
as the foundation of the GMF, particularly: maritime culture, economy,
security, connectivity, and diplomacy (Indonesian Coordinating Ministry
for Maritime Affairs 2017). In 2017, these pillars were incorporated into
a comprehensive Indian Ocean Policy, which gave significant attention to
issues of maritime security and development, marine and human resources
development, and ocean governance (ibid.).
The buzz surrounding the Indo-Pacific served as a catalyst to
strengthen Indonesia’s role in shaping regional affairs. At the 13th EAS
in 2018, Widodo highlighted that the Indian and Pacific Oceans form
a “single geo-strategic theatre” (Cabinet Secretary of Indonesia 2018a).
Subsequently, at the 33rd ASEAN Summit in 2018, Widodo reiter-
ated the need for ASEAN and Indonesia to develop and promote an
Indo-Pacific based on inclusivity, international law, and ASEAN centrality
(Cabinet Secretary of Indonesia 2018b). As other ASEAN members
were reluctant to completely accept the emerging Indo-Pacific construct,
Indonesia was given the opportunity to orient and shape ASEAN’s
strategic calculus towards incorporating the emerging geopolitical reality

(Anwar 2020: 126).
As early as 2017, Indonesia was making conceptual progress vis-à-
vis the Indo-Pacific with the launching of its Indo-Pacific Cooperation
Concept. Since this development, Foreign Minister Retno LP Marsudi
had one by one invited ASEAN member states to endorse Indone-
sia’s Indo-Pacific Cooperation Concept (Weatherbee 2019: 1). In 2018,
both Widodo and Modi agreed on a “Shared Vision of India-Indonesia
maritime cooperation in the Indo-Pacific”, whose statement saw the term
“Indo-Pacific” being mentioned several times (Scott 2019: 206). Further-
more, the Shared Vision encompassed several crucial points towards
envisioning an Indo-Pacific that is rules-based, free, open, peaceful,
prosperous, and inclusive (Indian Ministry of External Affairs 2018).
In 2019, Indonesia’s journey to socialise its Indo-Pacific vision evolved
when it hosted senior-level discussion on Indo-Pacific cooperation with
18 EAS member states, including China, India, and the US (Septiari
2019). The Indo-Pacific Cooperation Concept, according to Vice Presi-
dent Jusuf Kalla, does not intend to replace existing regional frameworks,
but rather to supplement them with a more-emphasised focus on trans-
parency, inclusivity, international law, and mutually-beneficial cooperation
(Agastia 2020: 300). Indonesia’s vision for the Indo-Pacific largely banks
on integration and strays away from any attempt to incorporate isola-
tion. Accordingly, ASEAN will be expected to link the Indian Ocean and
the Pacific Ocean, while establishing itself as the pivot or “fulcrum” for
norm-setting. This means that while engaging with all major powers of
the region, ASEAN must maintain its role as the main vehicle. Even-
tually, after a series of comprehensive and exhaustive discussions within
ASEAN and with its extra-regional partners, Indonesia’s vision was finally
embraced by ASEAN member at 34th ASEAN Summit in June 2019,
leading to the establishment of the AOIP (Anwar 2020: 126). Though it
is seen as a collective endeavour towards the shifting landscape of global
politics, Indonesia’s role in creating the AOIP has been incredibly pivotal.
The Geopolitics of the AOIP

ASEAN is a strategically located group at the heart of the Indo-Pacific,
which means that the regional bloc inevitably possesses great significance
and complications at the same time. Southeast Asia is a critical hotspot
when it comes to the intensifying power competition between China and
82 D. M. GILL
the US. There are three reasons why: First, Southeast Asia, as part of
the greater East Asian region, is where China’s locus of power lies. It is
therefore predictable for the East Asian giant China to continue its power
projections through assertive means to safeguard its strategic interests in
its own immediate geographical periphery. Second, in line with the first
point, the South China Sea dispute has taken centre stage in the region’s
geopolitics. China continues to maintain its expansive claims over the
maritime space, which overlaps with the claims of several ASEAN states.
Third, and perhaps the most crucial, as the US and China remain locked
in an intense power competition for influence in the region, majority of
the US’s treaty allies in the Eastern Hemisphere are located in China’s
immediate periphery. This is where China’s growing economic and mili-
tary influence has created a relatively high degree of dependence among
the states of this region. This entails a high strategic risk if the situation
exacerbates between the US and China.
Given this compounding geopolitical landscape, ASEAN must walk
a troublesome strategic tightrope. The AOIP therefore incorporates
ASEAN’s inability to effectively muster the needed capacity to remain
unaffected by the brewing power competition. Accordingly, AOIP elab-
orates on the role of inclusivity among all major powers, which demon-
strates its position as a consensus-builder in the region. The AOIP avoids
the usage of the term “free” Indo-Pacific, which Beijing perceives to be
a terminology that has negative implications. However, appearing soft
on China while seeking strike a balance with Washington, the AOIP
also contains references to the freedom of navigation and the rules-
based order, which serve as a major cornerstone in the US Indo-Pacific
strategy. This sensitivity towards inclusivity does not necessarily dilute the
significance of the ASEAN or its AOIP.
Observers from the West, however, dismiss the AOIP’s significance
since it does not seek to target or check China’s growing assertion or
compel it to abide by various compliance measures. Despite China’s acts
of unilateralism and coercion in the South China Sea, ASEAN has made
attempts to maintain peace and stability in the region. However, for
scholars like Amitabh Acharya (2019), such statements show a lack of
understanding regarding how ASEAN works and will continue to work.
As he says (2019):
ASEAN’s main roles in regional security have been in norm-setting and

confidence-building, rather than in exercising hard power or conflict-
resolution. What’s disappointing is not the document, but the gap between
how the West sees ASEAN and how ASEAN sees itself. ASEAN is bound
to disappoint those who would like to see it act like a great power in a
classical concert of powers. This is not what ASEAN is nor what it will
ever be. (ibid.)
China and ASEAN Centrality

ASEAN constantly endeavours to maintain its principle of ASEAN
centrality in this expanded Indo-Pacific region. Conceptually, this “cen-
trality” draws upon scholars of Social Network Analysis (SNA); among
them, Anne Marie Slaughter (1997), for instance, provides a key under-
standing of the importance of centrality in international affairs. According
to her, in a highly networked and inter-connected world, the ability to
forge connections determines power; hence, maintaining centrality illus-
trates significant influence, given the capacity to promote and spearhead
connections (Slaughter 1997: 99–112). Utilising this conceptual frame-
work, Professor Mely Caballero-Anthony illustrates the importance of
ASEAN as a major node attempting to get connected in a system defined
by the density of networks (Caballero-Anthony 2014: 581). Therefore,
ASEAN’s goal to position itself in within this highly intertwined system
points to its willingness in maintaining its relevance as a driving force in
the region’s architecture (Johnston 1999: 290–294).
Indeed, since the Cold War from 1960s, ASEAN had been steadfast in
harnessing its centrality amid major powers in the Asian theatre. Since the
1990s, ASEAN proactively initiated several forums that served as a prac-
tical platform for major powers and regional states to engage in. These
include the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), the ASEAN+3, and the East
Asia Summit (EAS). ASEAN’s motivations for inviting key powers into
these platforms can be understood as a way to maintain its relevance
among the powerful states in the region and to avoid being politically
marginalised amid the evolving geopolitical dynamics in the region (Koga
2013). Arguing that trust-based engagements are a focal element in polit-
ical network dynamics, Eilstrup-Sangiovanni and Jones (2008) noted that
ASEAN’s ability to convince extra-regional powers to abide by specific
norms, such as the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC), is a strong
indication of its normative power. Moreover, ASEAN’s ability to set the
84 D. M. GILL
agenda and bring major powers of the continent to the table signals a
significant degree of centrality, legitimacy, and trust on its part.
As China’s rise continues to disrupt post-World War II regional order,
ASEAN has sought to ensure that it remains a candidate by consensus
in a situation where no major power is comfortable with other major
powers taking the lead in any institution, especially in the realm of secu-
rity. However, in a likely scenario where more competition, mistrust, and
discord among major powers will continue to plague the volatile security
architecture of the region, ASEAN’s position will remain important and
controversial vis-à-vis the future of great power politics. ASEAN has also
learnt its lessons from the past. From Washington’s failure to provide an
early and effective assistance to ASEAN economies after the Asian finan-
cial crisis in the late 1990s to its post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
and its current involvement in the unfolding conflict in Ukraine—which
has led to Washington’s preoccupation towards the Middle East and
Europe respectively—China has used this as an opportunity to increase
its strategic clout in the region. China’s unprecedented economic rise has
allowed it to increase its influence in the greater East and Southeast Asian
region and beyond.
With China’s growing material capacity in the economic and military
domain, the Obama administration decided to protect US pre-eminence
through a “pivot” to the Asia–Pacific region. The successive US presi-
dents have maintained that the US has always been a Pacific power and
that it has no intentions of forfeiting its role. This has led to an intensi-
fied power competition between the US and China impacting the entire
Eastern Hemisphere. After the hyperbole of President Donald Trump, the
Biden administration has also continued to pursue a competitive policy
against China (albeit in subtle terms) in what is now termed as the Indo-
Pacific region. In addition, at the forefront of US Indo-Pacific strategy
has been formation of the Quadrilateral security arrangement with India,
Japan, and Australia, which, at least to the US, is seen as a counterweight
to China’s assertive rise in the region. All this has only added a new
layer of complexities surrounding the role of ASEAN centrality and its
relevance within evolving geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific region.
This recognition of China’s preponderance in this shifting geopolitical
landscape, coupled with the increasing increased mistrust among major
powers, has motivated ASEAN into crafting the AOIP to reinforce its
role and relevance. The AOIP is thus primarily aimed at envisioning
ASEAN’s centrality in these evolving geopolitics among major powers. As
mentioned earlier, ASEAN’s role as the pioneering architect of regional

institutions in Asia has provided it with an important degree of legiti-
macy and importance in regional affairs. However, the fear of losing this
agenda-setting influence to major powers like China, the US, India, or
Japan has created worries within ASEAN vis-à-vis the fast-paced changes
occurring within the regional security architecture. As a result, by crafting
an AOIP that banks on the principle of centrality, ASEAN will be able
to strategically position itself within regional institutions. However, it
must be noted that the AOIP has also exposed ASEAN to criticism for
remaining relatively soft on China and its actions.
ASEAN Unity and Its China Challenge

The AOIP presents an important step in addressing both geopolitical and
normative concerns of ASEAN in the Indo-Pacific. However, it is impor-
tant not to overlook the context in which this document was produced.
This should reveal something about the region not only from within
but also highlight its emerging external linkages that have compounded
its internal fault lines among its member states. The ongoing power
competition coupled by the havoc brought by the Covid-19 pandemic
have significantly exposed the lack of internal cohesion on this ASEAN
centrality paradigm which can marginalise ASEAN at a time when the
distribution of power is being recast in this region. This is where the
ASEAN Way promises to provide it with the necessary leverage to under-
score its unique identity and guide its member states to ensure their
internal unity and cohesion by engaging one another and collectively
engaging with other states beyond the sub-region. However, this has
not been a smooth run so far. Among the principles of the ASEAN Way,
respect for sovereignty and non-interference have often been seen to be
the bedrock pillars. However, issues revolving around the compliance and
interpretation of these norms have considerably strained ASEAN unity
over the years.
Given China’s enormous economic clout, in addition to its contesta-
tions in the South China Sea, it seems inevitable that Beijing will continue
to maintain a large sway on the dynamics of the internal unity of ASEAN.
This East Asian giant stands tall as the most materially-powerful imme-
diate geographical neighbour of all ASEAN members—including those
who do not have any territorial or maritime contestations with it—being a
top trade partner of nearly all ASEAN member states. Moreover, the high
86 D. M. GILL
level of asymmetric interdependence between China and ASEAN member

states allows the former to hold a significant degree of leverage over the
decision-making capacity of the regional bloc and its individual members.
President Rodrigo Duterte’s response to the July 2016 verdict of Interna-
tional Court of Arbitration, revoking China’s historical 9-dash line claims
to the South China Sea, provides one apt example of such leverages China
enjoys over its Southeast Asian neighbours (Heydarian 2018: 50; Kipgen
2020). It must also be reminded that ASEAN’s adherence to consensus-
based decision-making ensures that even one member’s disagreement is
enough to withhold its initiatives. On the other hand, China’s one-party
system has used the absence of opposition at home to cultivate its polit-
ical and economic clout on smaller ASEAN members such as Cambodia,
Laos, Brunei. This provides China with a great strategic advantage over
the US as well as an assurance of achieving favourable outcomes from the
Southeast Asian bloc.
China’s rise and influence has indeed triggered greater extra-regional
interference, and this has since come to be a major thorn in sustaining
a robust degree of ASEAN unity. As early as 2012, the ASEAN Foreign
Ministers’ Meeting had failed, for the first time in ASEAN’s then 45 years
of existence, to issue a joint communiqué. This failure occurred due
to their disagreements over various references to the South China Sea.
A report highlighted that Cambodian officials considered to reject any
references made to the Scarborough Shoal and the exclusive economic
zones (EEZ), after sharing drafts of the statement with Chinese interlocu-
tors (Bower 2012). Interestingly, both the Chinese president and defence
minister visited Cambodia a few months before to express their fulfilment
and support for Cambodia’s sensitivity towards topics on the South China
Sea (Sutter and Huang 2012: 4).
A similar situation happened at the 2016 Foreign Ministers’ Meeting
where, in the wake of the International Court of Arbitration verdict
revoking China’s claims to the South China Sea, ASEAN again failed
to reach a consensus on the issue surrounding the South China Sea
due to Cambodia’s efforts (Willemyns 2016). This led to more praises
from China, which coincided with the approval of loans estimated to be
worth $500 million (Baliga 2016). Moreover, in 2017, the Philippines,
as ASEAN Chair, received accolades from Beijing as it excluded any refer-
ence of China’s military and land reclamation activities (‘China Welcomes’
2017). This clearly demonstrated how China’s success in cultivating deep
relations with states like Cambodia and the Philippines had allowed it to
influence and intervene in ASEAN’s internal affairs. Realising the growing
power asymmetry in East and Southeast Asian, former President Donald
Trump issued his strategy for the Indo-Pacific and renamed his Pacific
Command as the Indo-Pacific Command, leading him to heighten his
discontent vis-a-vis China’s rise.
President Trump’s presidency (2017–2021) witnessed the deepening
and broadening of the US—China power competition in the form of
trade wars and military might. His strategic vision for a Free and Open
Indo-Pacific (FOIP) served to call out China’s coercive and unilateral
actions in the South China Sea and beyond. However, despite this, China
continued to maintain the upper hand in Southeast Asia and ASEAN.
While the US still holds considerable sway in East Asia, especially through
enhancing security cooperation with its strategic treaty allies, it has not
been able to capitalise on ties that are strong enough with any state
in Southeast Asia to the extent that China has done. ASEAN and its
principle of ASEAN centrality has meanwhile come under distress with
the increase in great power rivalry between the US and China. With
this current predicament unfolding, the whole purpose of the AOIP—in
outlining ASEAN centrality through its normative and consensus-driven
narratives—may stand diluted if ASEAN’s condition continues to dete-
riorate from within. ASEAN as a unit can only effectively manoeuvre if
its members stand in unison and speak in one voice. However, varying
interests within the Southeast Asian bloc, encouraged by China in the
face of the intensifying power competition, have continued to create deep
fault lines among its member states to ASEAN’s own peril and potential
inefficacy in ensuring ASEAN centrality.
Conclusion
The global geopolitical landscape surrounding the regions connected by
the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean has witnessed an incredible
change given its rising economic growth rates and the brewing power
competition between the US and China. This region, termed as the Indo-
Pacific, is now at the forefront of major power engagements, making it
all the more complex for local stakeholders like ASEAN, leading them
to reinvent their role and relevance. ASEAN’s AOIP underlines that
endeavour. Even though the particular geographic space of Indo-Pacific
is not novel, the conceptualisation of it in the twenty-first century has
88 D. M. GILL
been subject to several interpretations among major and middle-power

stakeholders of this region.
While ASEAN had so assiduously built its centrality in the region, the
bloc has become especially wary of the rapid geopolitical changes that may
result in losing its normative influence. Hence, the need to adapt to such
underlying changes will be crucial for ASEAN. The AOIP—often under-
stood as Indonesia’s brainchild—remains grounded in ASEAN values and
principles and seeks to reengage extra-regional powers’ narratives in the
Indo-Pacific on its own terms. Located so critically at the very heart of
this dynamic Indo-Pacific region, ASEAN intends to enhance its influence
without giving up on its traditional role as the main vehicle for regional
engagements. Inclusivity, sensitivity, and most importantly, centrality are
three highly crucial elements that ASEAN seeks to reassert in this AOIP.
However, despite the enunciation of the AOIP, there remains a signif-
icant degree of challenges that can dwarf ASEAN’s potential. ASEAN’s
proximity with China has been disrupting both its level of internal unity
within and its centrality in regional affairs. This has impacted ASEAN’s
ability to speak with one voice and muster enough strategic leverage in
moulding the Indo-Pacific narratives. China’s increasing influence among
several ASEAN member states has clouded the bloc’s collective opportu-
nity to harness the influential moral posturing of the ASEAN Way without
hurting any of the major powers’ core interests. Moreover, the disaster
brought by the Covid-19 pandemic and the exacerbating US-China
power competition has further locked ASEAN in a strategic tug-of-war,
further shrinking its ability to manoeuvre and balance. This can potentially
destabilise the whole region with ASEAN members showcasing diver-
gent priorities, interest and challenges. Unless ASEAN manages to muster
enough internal cohesion and external connectivity, it may soon find itself
engulfed within the evolving power dynamics of the major power-driven
Indo-Pacific geopolitics. The AOIP is definitely a step in the right direc-
tion. However, without one voice and the critical awareness to identify
its challenges, the AOIP will remain nothing more than a wish-list of an
increasingly fragmented and marginalised ASEAN.
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CHAPTER 6
China in EU’s Strategy for Cooperation

in the Indo-Pacific
Claudia Astarita
Introduction
The European Union aims at becoming a key partner of the Indo-Pacific
region. By emphasising its commitment to act as a global player in what
the EU High Representative Josep Borrell has defined “the region of the
future”, the EU has begun to lay the foundations for a completely new
strategic orientation, and the details for a new “Strategy for Cooperation
in the Indo-Pacific” have been released in September 2021. This choice
has been the direct consequence of selected European countries growing
economic interdependence within the region, especially China, and this
is also linked to their need to shape a multilateral structure that may
potentially contain China’s unrestricted assertive behaviour. At the same
C. Astarita (B)
Paris, France

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7521-9_6
94 C. ASTARITA
time, this could also help them scale down increasingly intense geopo-
litical competition that has been exacerbating the confrontation between
China and the United States.
As part of these endeavours, April 19, 2021 saw the Council of the
European Union approve its first document on the European “Indo-
Pacific strategy” that formally asked the European Commission to prepare
a final draft before September 2021. In spite of the ongoing pandemic,
by the end of May 2021, the EU High Representative organised an
official visit to Indonesia to formally relaunch the EU “strategic part-
nership with ASEAN”. During this visit, ASEAN was portrayed as “the
hearth of the EU Indo-Pacific Strategy”, and the latter the new “centre
of gravity of the world” (Borrell 2021a). Josep Borrell described the visit
as a key gathering that “opened a new chapter in our relations with
ASEAN”, confirming the EU commitment in the Indo-Pacific region,
adding that “our shared agenda includes key areas such as connectivity,
sustainability, health, defence and security, and multilateralism” (Borrell
2021a). By emphasising EU’s commitment to act as a global player in
this new region, the EU has since begun to lay the foundations for a
completely new strategic orientation, and the choices that the EU makes
will also illustrate to what extent Brussels wants to rely on strategic inde-
pendence to interact with both China and the United States in the near
future.
The document released in September 2021 has been even more clear
in precising the EU attitude towards the Indo-Pacific, that will remain
open, cooperative, and respectful of the existing set of international rules,
as well as on the areas the EU wants to engage in deepening cooperation:
Sustainable and inclusive prosperity; Green transition; Ocean governance;
Digital governance and partnerships; Connectivity; Security and defence;
Human security. Despite openly recognising that geopolitical pressures
in the Indo-Pacific have contributed to boost regional tensions and mili-
tary build-up; with democratic principles and human rights being under
threat because of a series of authoritative actions endorsed by authori-
tarian regimes in the region, the document has confirmed that dialogue,
not confrontation, will be the key to consolidate stability. Interestingly,
while recognising implications on China with regard to these worrying
dynamics, the document has emphasised that both a regional and a bilat-
eral approach will be taken to encourage dialogue and confidence building
between European countries and China (Lin 2021).
6 CHINA IN EU’S STRATEGY FOR COOPERATION … 95
The EU has often been accused of being either too dependent on the
United States or far too ambiguous on China, regularly swinging from
a strong anti-China posture on human rights to a more accommodating
one on economic cooperation (Anthony et al. 2021). The Comprehen-
sive Agreement on Investment (CAI) is one of the recent examples of this
ambiguity: proposed in 2013 as an investment deal between China and
the EU, in late May 2021, just before Borrell’s mission to Indonesia, the
EU Parliament decided to stop the ratification process of the EU–China
investment deal due to the sanctions that Beijing previously imposed on
five EU MPs. However, Beijing’s sanctions have also been a consequence
of the EU Parliament actions against what it calls China’s “crimes against
humanity” (Chipman Koty 2021). The war in Ukraine has unfortunately
put even further pressure on Europe for the redefinition of its relation-
ship with China. France and Germany have been trying to relaunch
the bilateral dialogue. Although it remains premature to talk about a
rapprochement, some positive developments in terms of bilateral visits and
trade agreements, and in particular the most recent one between Chinese
air companies and Airbus to buy 292 Airbus aircraft for a total invest-
ment of $37 billion (Nolan 2022) could create positive spill-over effects
on EU-China bilateral relations, such as the relaunch of CAI negotiations,
which has also been recognised as mutually beneficial in the “Strategy for
Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific” document of September 2021.
It is in this backdrop that this chapter aims to examine the EU’s
Strategy for Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific Region at three different
levels. First, it outlines various tangible economic and strategic oppor-
tunities linked to this new geopolitical imagination and its likely multi-
lateral structure, by illustrating specific European countries’ Indo-Pacific
postures, and in particular those held by major nations like France,
Germany, and the Netherlands. Second, the chapter will examine EU’s
ever-expanding engagement with China and its impact on its Indo-Pacific
Strategy. Third, the analysis will continue with an assessment on the Euro-
pean Indo-Pacific strategy and its commitment to push for its emergence
as a third pole in the China–US confrontation, a pole that, by remaining
multilateral, norms and issue-driven and inclusive, aims at avoiding the
further deterioration of Sino-American relations. The concluding section
will then examine EU’s balancing act between a rising China and the
US to explore into its efficacy and relevance regarding the emerging
Indo-Pacific narratives and initiatives.
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Why EU Needs to Join the Indo-Pacific?

The EU High Representative Josep Borrell could have not been more
explicit in clarifying how the European Union sees the Indo-Pacific
Region. In a seminal paper published by the French Groupe d’études
géopolitiques in June 2021, Josep Borrell himself outlined, for the first
time, his doctrine for the Indo-Pacific region. The EU High represen-
tative recognised that “as a concept, the Indo-Pacific is much en vogue
these days” (Borrell 2021b), highlighting his intention to create the foun-
dations to let the EU play a key role in the region. This commentary
by Josep Borrell was published in multiple European languages just after
his Indonesia mission in May 2021 and naturally attracted attention for
a number of reasons. First of all, anticipating the policy paper that was
expected to be released by September 2021, it reflected and clarified
EU’s future orientation. Second, it seemed to offer a chance to the Euro-
pean countries that have already developed their own Indo-Pacific strategy
to re-align to the EU one. Third, it clarified the omnipresent “China
dimension” of the EU Indo-Pacific strategy, by moving from an explic-
itly anti-China attitude (that was further confirmed in May 2021, when
the European Parliament abruptly interrupted the ratification process of
the EU–China Agreement on Investment), to a subtler invitation to keep
the Indo-Pacific “inclusive” to a People’s Republic of China willing to
“cooperate”.
Before analysing these nuances of the European “Council conclusions
on an EU Strategy for cooperation in the Indo-Pacific” issued in April
2021, these most recent remarks made by the EU High Representative
Josep Borrell as well as the ones of the “Strategy for Cooperation in the
Indo-Pacific” released in September 2021, it is imperative to understand
why the Indo-Pacific debate has been launched in Europe at all. The key
point that is missing in the discussion is why Europe has decided to be
more active in this region, pushing its 27 country members to agree on
a common position in the evolving Indo-Pacific debate. This mandate
explores into the genealogy of this debate and its political, economic, and
strategic nature and implications.
Prima facie, the reason for this has been outlined in the first point
of the Council document, stating that the EU should boost its pres-
ence in the region, to contribute to its “stability, security, prosperity and
sustainable development” (General Secretariat of the Council 2021: 1).
Beyond that, after recognising valuable relations with various nations in
the region, the Council also emphasises the need to “reinforce its role
as a cooperative partner in the Indo-Pacific”, bringing added-value to all
these partnerships (ibid.: 2). In other words, EU’s existing partnerships
with countries more actively and directly involved in the Indo-Pacific have
created ground for pushing Brussels to strengthening its cooperation with
the same nations in other regions as well. This approach, as the chapter
will further explicate, is also at the core of the EU understanding of the
Indo-Pacific region as an inclusive and multilateral environment (Islam
2021).
The second reason justifying European interest in the Indo-Pacific
is certainly related to the fact that three EU member nations and
United Kingdom have already embraced an Indo-Pacific agenda, which is
formally supported by specific Indo-Pacific strategies. These EU member
countries include France, Germany, and the Netherlands. Although this
chapter will subsequently debate both benefits and complications related
to this double “national-regional” approach to the Indo-Pacific, it goes
without saying that if the EU wants to avoid its interests from being
perceived as inconsistent and represented at multiple levels, it become
a prerequisite to push EU member states to align on the same strategy
instead of working at variance from each other. That being said, the
second part of this section will show that, from the perspective of Brussels,
any such attempt at coordinating a common position of all EU nations
on the Indo-Pacific is neither easy nor a feasible task (Duchâtel 2020).
Third, the Council conclusions have explicitly recognised that contem-
porary competition in the region is threatening its current equilibrium, an
this evolution might soon become a threat to EU local interests (General
Secretariat of the Council 2021). There seems only one way to inter-
pret this statement: being the Indo-Pacific, a region where the People’s
Republic of China has an ever-expanding presence thanks to the dense
network of cooperative agreements signed within and outside the One
Belt One Road framework, it becomes pertinent for EU to clarify its posi-
tion in the area as early as it can. In this regard, there are at least three
main points that have been clearly instated in the document published in
April 2021 and confirmed in the strategy outlined in September 2021:
(1) Geographical definition of the Indo-Pacific: In defining the

geographical expanse of the Indo-Pacific, “[T]he Council agrees
that the EU Strategy for Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, encom-
passes the geographic area from the east coast of Africa to the
98 C. ASTARITA
Pacific Island States” (General Secretariat of the Council 2021:

3). This remains at variance with definitions in vogue propounded
by the United States, China, India and others and needs to be
explicated for its premises.
(2) European vision and engagement strategy: In outlining EU’s vision
this document describes EU’s Indo-Pacific strategy as “prag-
matic, flexible and multi-faceted”, suggesting that Bruxelles should
deepen its Indo-Pacific cooperation with EU countries that have
already made their Indo-Pacific posture explicit (ibid.: 3). It is
interesting to note that this point could technically raise some
ambiguities vis-à-vis the attitude EU aims to adopt towards China,
considering the difficult partnership that currently characterises
equations between Brussels and Beijing, as well as the fact that the
People’s Republic of China has not announced its own Indo-Pacific
strategy, remaining reluctant to embrace this doctrine.
(3) EU objectives in the Indo-Pacific: Outlining EU’s fundamental
objectives in the Indo-Pacific region, it states that “The EU
strategy will provide a new impetus by working with our partners in
the Indo-Pacific region”, aiming at relaunching a shared political,
economic, and defence agenda, as well as “advancing our collabo-
ration in the field of research, innovation and digitalization” (ibid.:
4–10).
If the enhancement of norm- and value-based multilateral cooperation

represent the backbone of the EU’s approach to the Indo-Pacific, then
what is important to highlight is that the EU vision has remained consis-
tent in identifying the engagement with ASEAN and the ASEAN-led
regional architecture as the core of the promotion of “effective rules-
based multilateralism” in the Indo-Pacific (ibid.: 4). Josep Borrell’s June
2021 statement puts ASEAN at the core of the EU’s Indo-Pacific strategy
(Borrell 2021b). Likewise, another key element of the EU Indo-Pacific
strategy remains its “global dimension” that showcases EU’s interest to
focus on global challenges requiring multilateral cooperation. Important
among these remains the protection and promotion of human rights,
with a special emphasis on the essential role played by the civil society
in building inclusive and prosperous communities; the development of
climate, biodiversity, and decarbonisation strategies; the emphasis given
to challenges related to climate change, ocean governance, and the health

sector. Such attitude was further underlined in the EU High Represen-
tative’s discourse, arguing that, “concretely, [the EU] will advance joint
work to boost, trade and investment, economic openness and a sustain-
able approach to connectivity” revolving on mutual collaboration. Global
challenges such as climate change and security cooperation have also been
identified as pivotal in defining EU Indo-Pacific strategy (Borrell 2021b).
Untangling EU’s China Vision

There is one striking difference between EU’s April 2021 statement
and the June 2021 declaration that highlights EU’s critical approach to
People’s Republic of China as well as the “Strategy for Cooperation in
the Indo-Pacific” released in September 2021. Nuances of the anti-China
posture of European orientation have been emerging in at least five points
of the Council conclusions. On page 7, the document clearly states that
the EU will craft “forward-looking growth-enhancement strategies for a
resilient and sustainable rebound of our economies”, emphasising thereby
that by diversifying supply chains the EU will be able to strengthen
its economic resilience and moderate its current strategic dependencies
on raw materials (General Secretariat of the Council 2021: 7). This
idea of supply chains restructuring and the one of reducing strategic
dependence on critical raw materials certainly carries an implicit refer-
ence to the key role China is playing in global supply chains and in the
allocation of strategic raw materials (Xia 2020). On the same page 7,
another ambiguous note refers to the EU’s intention to further deepen
regional trade and investment agreements, especially those with Australia,
Indonesia, and New Zealand, following the model of those signed with
Japan, the Republic of Korea, Singapore and Vietnam (General Secretariat
of the Council 2021: 7). As far as China is concerned, the document
timidly mentions that some “further steps” need to be taken to advance
the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment with China (CAI), a nego-
tiation that would be abruptly stopped a few weeks before the release of
this document, anticipating a generalised scepticism on the most recent
evolution of the EU–China relationship (Hu 2021).
This April 2021 EU Council document has also been read as taking
a confrontational approach to China in two other ways: on pages 9 and
10, after confirming EU intention to strengthen collaboration with other
countries as well as relevant organisations in both security and defence
100 C. ASTARITA
fields to respond to contemporary international security challenges, the

paper reasserted Member States’ acknowledgement of the importance of
an autonomous EU naval presence in the Indo-Pacific (General Secre-
tariat of the Council 2021: 8–9). The document also precised the EU
intention to “promote digital governance through more ambitious global
standards and regulatory approaches, including on artificial intelligence
[…] and to promote security and resilience of critical infrastructure,
including security of supply chain of 5G networks” (General Secretariat
of the Council 2021: 10). This emphasis is attributed to the recognition
of the importance of an accessible and secure cyberspace, where rule of
law, human rights and fundamental freedoms will have to be guaranteed
and protected, for future prosperity, growth, security of contemporary
societies (General Secretariat of the Council 2021: 10), a remark that has
been identified as an explicit warning to prevent China from going solo
in the redefinition of global cyber governance.
It is interesting to notice that this implicit anti-China posture of EU
came at the same time as was explicit and less confrontative in Josep
Borrell’s June 2021 statement, and that a more conciliatory tone was
also adopted for the subsequent “Strategy for Cooperation in the Indo-
Pacific” released in September 2021. Was this noteworthy change of
narrative the consequence of a broader re-orientation of the EU Strategy
on the Indo-Pacific? Was it a consequence of a more pragmatic assessment
of the consequences of endorsing US’ explicit anti-China posture?
Josep Borrell considered the Indo-Pacific as “the region of the future”
though, on several earlier occasions, he has also emphasised his concerns
about the fact that the current equilibrium is severely threatened by
regional rising challenges (Borrell 2021b). While EU already assumes
that regional economic growth can only be grounded on stable and
shared rules, transparency and shared security, as a group it continued
to be committed to the preservation of an open and rule-based order
(Borrell 2021b). This is where Josep Borrell’s statement becomes instruc-
tive as it identifies China as one of the key actors negatively impacting on
Indo-Pacific stability. After reminding that “maritime and land disputes,
internal crises and conflicts, and the US-China geopolitical competition”
are intensifying in the region, the EU High Representative also raised
the alert on the risks the region encounters and the risk to see polit-
ical and geopolitical challenges negatively impacting regional economic
development and cooperation (Borrell 2021b).
However, when talking about “concrete actions”, the EU seems to

suddenly become less confrontational and more inclusive (Hua 2021). In
Josep Borrell’s words: “…concretely, we will advance joint work to boost,
trade and investment, economic openness and a sustainable approach
to connectivity. We will promote multilateral cooperation, working on
global challenges, …and we will deepen our security engagement, seeking
to make that cooperation as concrete as possible” (Borrell 2021b). At
the same time, while referring to the inclusiveness of the EU approach,
the reference to China was direct and explicit, arguing that the Indo-
Pacific has not been conceived to create rival blocks (Borrell 2021b). Both
these references, however, underlined ASEAN centrality and the relevance
given to the commitment to democratic rights and fundamental freedoms
contribute to offsetting the idea that cooperation with People’s Republic
of China in the Indo-Pacific will be either easy or straightforward (Mohan
2020b).
The third section of this chapter analyses what these aforementioned
remarks imply for the EU–China strategy and for their bilateral relations,
as the contradiction between the urge for an “open and inclusive” Indo-
Pacific, especially as far as China is concerned, and the emphasis on the
commitment to advance democratic rights and fundamental freedoms
assume that the majority of countries in the region support this vision
(Borrell 2021a). Despite these apparent contradictions in EU’s vision
document as also statements by Josep Borrell, it remains important to
highlight that, more than ten years after Japan started circulating the very
first version of the Indo-Pacific concept, the publication of these docu-
ments represents a milestone for the EU’s foreign policy: this strategy
is clearly the result “of a long internal debate, reflecting the differences
of strategic priorities of its members, Brussels’ evolving perception of
regional security challenges and—to an extent—the nature of the EU as
a foreign policy actor” (Pejsova 2021). How EU engages China in the
Indo-Pacific remains incumbent upon how cohesive EU is as a foreign
policy actor.
EU vs. Its Member States

In the words of the EU High Representative, Brussels aimed at creating
an Indo-Pacific (reference to the September 2021 document), with a
pragmatic vision, ASEAN centred, open to both China and the United
States, but at the same time committed to preserve democratic rights
102 C. ASTARITA
and fundamental freedoms. Much earlier than the EU started discussing

about its eventual involvement in the Indo-Pacific, three European coun-
tries already published their own vision about the Indo-Pacific region.
These countries were France, Germany and the Netherlands. Briefly
summarising their perspective on the region becomes important for two
reasons. First, this helps in evaluating whether they have played any role
in influencing the EU original orientation vis-à-vis the Indo-Pacific (Louis
2020). Second, this helps in understanding as to what extent the activism
of single member states should be considered as an advantage or a burden
for the implementation of the EU’s Indo-Pacific strategy?
At the very outset it is important to underline how the respective
starting points for France, Germany, and the Netherlands regarding their
positioning on the Indo-Pacific were significantly at variance from each
other. France is the only country that is able to claim an active geograph-
ical presence in the area, thanks to the many territories the country is still
controlling in the region, such as Mayotte, Scattered Island, La Réunion,
Vanuatu, New Caledonia, Wallis & Futuna and the French Polynesia
(Wacker 2021b). Since the launching of its Indo-Pacific narrative, France
has been using this presence to justify an escalation of operativity in the
region (Wacker 2021b). As outlined in the Indo-Pacific strategy docu-
ment issued by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs in June 20191
this intention is to be accomplished by: (a) strengthening the strategic
partnership with China; (b) relaunching existing and new partnerships in
the region, namely with Australia, India, Indonesia, Japan, New Zealand,
Singapore and South Korea); (c) clarifying the EU’s positioning in the
Indo-Pacific; (d) strengthening the role of the EU within existing regional
organisations; and (e) contributing to a common and comprehensive
response to Islamist terrorism, the facilitation of common goods, and
environmental protection (Lechervy 2019).
In short, France considers the Indo-Pacific region as a theatre for
multilateral engagements where it can “strengthen and “balance” its
strategic partnership with China—a statement that confirms its intention
to use the new regional arrangement as an inclusive platform where coop-
eration with Beijing will be not only possible but is to be encouraged
(Morcos 2021). Also, by committing to promote public goods, France
1 This document was not the first official statement on the Indo-Pacific published by
France. The French Ministry of Defence had drafted two earlier documents: the first in
2018, that was further updated in May 2019, and the second one in later half of 2019.
has confirmed the pragmatic and issue-based nature of the Indo-Pacific

narratives, as it has also emphasised on more than one occasion its aspi-
ration to act as a mediating power in the region (Fisher 2020). Mention
of public goods and pragmatism also echoes narratives from China which
has used its Belt and Road Initiative to build its ever-expanding influence
in the region. Indeed, France has also lately become a major beneficiary
of China’s investments that only reinforces its being the only European,
(other than Italy), nation to be in tune with Beijing becoming part of
Indo-Pacific narratives and arrangements.
Differently from France—and mainly because they cannot count on a
similar geographic or historical presence in the region—Germany and the
Netherlands’ visions on the Indo-Pacific region have been grounded on
their respective interests as major trading nations: keep existing sea lanes
open and contribute to the maintenance of a rules-based order. Berlin had
published its “Policy Guidelines for the Indo-Pacific” in September 2020,
while the Netherlands issued a much simpler assessment on the region
in November 2020. Differently from the French ones, both documents
should not be understood as “contributions and building blocks to lead
to an EU position on the Indo-Pacific” (Wacker 2021b), with the Indo-
Pacific seen as an area where European countries can find precious allies
to dilute the escalating tension linked to Sino-US competition (Mohan
2020a). This version seems far closer to EU’s Indo-Pacific strategy that
as well hinges itself in moderating this US–China competition.
In terms of their concrete initiatives to promote in the region, both
Germany and the Netherlands have emphasised the need to coordi-
nate with the European Union to (a) reinforcing regional multilateral
cooperation; (b) protecting the environment from climate change-related
dynamics; (c) relaunching peace, security and stability; (d) reinforcing
human rights and the rule of law; (e) supporting free trade; (f) rein-
forcing rules-based networking and internal digital transformation; and
(g) stimulating shared culture, education and science (The German
Federal Government 2020). The policy fields of intervention identified
by the Netherlands remains slightly at variance though closer to what EU
has subscribed to. The Netherlands instead aims at (a) the safeguarding
of the international legal order; (b) the protection of democracy and
human rights; (c) the enhancement of sustainable trade, security, stability,
and maritime security; and (d) a broader commitment in the areas of
climate change, global healthcare and poverty reduction (Government of
the Netherlands 2020).
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There are of course areas where French Indo-Pacific strategy does

overlap with that of Germany and the Netherlands. Despite differentia-
tion in terms of their commitment, capacity projection, and coordination
ambitions, it is important not to overlook to what extent these three
European nations are committed not only to strengthen their position
in the Indo-Pacific, but also the one of the EU, with a common goal of
preserving rules-based order (Odgaard 2019). What is noticeable is that
all three reflect a general agreement on the importance of not excluding
China. This convergence among these three important European nations
have provided the common basis for discussions at the EU level. For
example, the positions of France, Germany, and the Netherlands have
been more ambiguous when it comes to ASEAN’s role and centrality
in the Indo-Pacific region. While no nation denies the usefulness of
strengthening the relationship with ASEAN in the Indo-Pacific context,
the centrality of ASEAN that has been emphasised by the European
Union is not so much shared by its member states, and this potentially
could become an element of animosity among them that could poten-
tially challenge the multilateral nature of any emerging new regime in the
At the current stage of the EU’s debates on the Indo-Pacific, it is worth
mentioning that France, Germany, and the Netherlands had circulated a
joint “non-paper” towards the end of 2020 (Wacker 2021a). These three
countries had also actively solicited the participation of other EU nations
to join their preliminary discussions, raising the interest of countries like
Portugal, Poland, Italy, and Sweden. These exchanges have identified
four areas of intervention as EU main priorities. These areas are trade,
connectivity, maritime security and global issues such as climate change
and biodiversity. France has created the format of convening a ‘Min-
isterial Forum for Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific’ during its semester
of Presidency of the Council of the European Union, highlighting that
translating Europe’s desire for increased commitment into action has been
one of the main priorities of France. The first forum was organised in
February 2022 in Paris, and the Czech Republic EU Presidency has
further nurtured this new tradition by organising the Prague Dialogue on
the Indo-Pacific on June 13–14, 2022 with the aim of further discussing
the implementation of the EU Strategy for the region. This rapid endorse-
ment of the Indo-Pacific narrative by other European countries therefore
perhaps presents a renovated consensus guided by their imagined advan-
tages in supporting pragmatic multilateralism in a context of progressive
regionalisation and of keeping the Indo-Pacific framework as an inclusive

platform, especially as far as China is concerned.
Complexities of the EU–China Relationship

Official diplomatic relations between the EU and China were established
on 6 May 1975 when China was still in the throes of its historic Cultural
Revolution. Since then, many things have changed in the world and espe-
cially in China making this relationship as one of the most inconsistent
for both these actors (Lincot 2019). Since 1975, for instance, China-EU
bilateral dialogue has expanded to cover economic, political and security
issues. In 2003, a “comprehensive strategic partnership” was established
(Anthony et al. 2021: 11). As a result, the EU has come to be China’s
largest trading partner since 2014, and China reciprocated the same in
2020. Brussels seems to have become increasingly aware that its assump-
tions about dialogue alone promoting EU interests in Asia was based
on unrealistic arguments. Indeed, China’s growing “self-confidence as
a result of fast economic growth and rapid recovery from the global
financial crisis has translated into an ambitious national, regional and
global agenda under the leadership of Xi Jinping” (Godement and Wacker
2020).
Because of these developments on both sides, China and the EU had
moved, from 2003, to build a “strategic partnership” that was by 2019 to
make them “economic competitors” and even “systemic rivals”, although
the “EU-China—A Strategic Outlook” issued in March 2019 continued
to refer to China as its “cooperation and negotiation partner”. China’s
unprecedented economic rise has put the European Union in a very deli-
cate situation. After trying to deepen multilateral cooperation with China
as well as to equally balance the existing economic relations, the EU
ended up imposing higher standards of protections to critical assets, tech-
nology and infrastructure (Godement 2021). China, on the other hand,
has been successful in building, over time, a massive economic, diplo-
matic and media presence in Europe, and this presence not only did
not get enough attention from the EU, but it is also one of the main
reasons behind Brussels inconsistencies vis-à-vis Beijing. Europe as a result
has remained divided over how seriously to take the Chinese challenge
(Kavalski 2019). Differently from what was happening in Paris, Berlin,
and Brussels, the leaders of many smaller European nations continue to
106 C. ASTARITA
see mainly, if not only, the economic benefits of deeper engagement with
Beijing.
However, as far as the variance in attitudes of major and minor Euro-
pean powers with China is concerned, ambiguities remain writ large in
defining this European stance on China. In 2012, for instance, China 17
+ 1 mechanism was welcomed in Central and Eastern Europe (Brînză
2021). Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries were supposed
to become China’s privileged corridor to Europe, a win–win strategy
for everyone, since Beijing promised to substitute Western disappearing
partners for investments in local economies, education and cultural activ-
ities. Almost 10 years later, same countries had started keeping China
at distance, claiming that the 17 + 1 mechanism had transformed into
a zombie mechanism, and that China’s involvement in their economies
had created an unbearable level of dependence that they needed to offset
as soon as possible. With the onset of coronavirus pandemic—that orig-
inated in China—and even before, almost all of these Central and East
European nations had signed a similar memorandum of understanding
with the United States President Donald Trump (Brînză 2020).
Meanwhile, major EU players, like France and Germany, while
remaining China-sceptics in Europe, have also been the ones pushing
for the implementation of the EU–China Comprehensive Agreement on
Investment (CAI). Negotiations for the agreement had ended in late
December 2020, and on paper the deal was expected to boost bilat-
eral connections, foreign direct investments and trade flows (Godement
2021). In May 2021, the European Commission announced that efforts
to ratify the CAI with China had been suspended after China imposed
sanctions on several EU members of parliament, some academics and
other members of national parliaments. These sanctions, according to
Beijing, were only the inevitable consequence of the earlier sanctions
that the EU had imposed on four Chinese officials and the Xinjiang
Public Security Bureau for their alleged involvement in Xinjiang Province
“reeducation camps” (Chipman Koty 2021). This stalemate or U-turn,
however, did not prevent German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French
President Emmanuel Macron to organise, in early July 2021, another
trilateral meeting with President Xi Jinping to exchange views on Euro-
pean Union–China relations, where they discussed international trade,
climate protection, as well as the status of human rights in Xinjiang
(Adghirni and Donahue 2021). Beijing also did not lose the momentum
to push Paris and Berlin to join its “Initiative on Partnership for Africa’s
Development” and assist China in the development of Africa in a

“four-party” framework (Moriyasu and Hadano 2021).
What is important here is to understand what lies beneath these ambi-
guities and how the latter might affect the European Union’s Strategy
for cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, especially from a Chinese perspec-
tive (Brînză 2021). To answer these questions, it is important to refer to
two dynamics. First, the EU has never been united in defining its overall
foreign policy, as single members often continue to exercise inordinate
control over this institutional prerogative of EU. Also, it is common-
place to identify similar consistencies in a selected group of nations and
see them at times coordinating their strategies, but these line-ups can
also change as rapidly as they have been created, a dynamic that nega-
tively affects EU’s credibility, regarding its China strategy but also for any
other initiative, the Indo-Pacific strategy included. Second, the debate on
“strategic autonomy” has gained momentum in Europe, with the EU
progressively discussing the advantages of promoting independence, self-
reliance and resilience in a wide range of fields—such as defence, trade,
digital, economic, and health policy. This debate is not only the conse-
quence of EU manifest vulnerability to external shocks that recent crisis
have confirmed, rather it is an equally inevitable reaction to the rising
ambiguities related to US interests in Europe and the difficulties of untan-
gling China’s foreign ambitions (Small 2019). To quote Julianne Smith
and Torrey Taussig:
Europe finds itself caught in the middle of a growing U.S.-Chinese rivalry.

It cannot abandon its long-standing ties to the United States… but it also
cannot afford to weaken a trade relationship with China worth well over
$1 billion a day. Europe is walking a fine line by nominally resisting China’s
predatory trade and investment practices but not issuing any meaningful
threats. (Smith and Taussig 2019)
However, it is important to note that so far, Brussels ambiguous approach

has failed to persuade China to change course or to abide to European
requests. Europe has been trying to redefine its attitude with China,
considering the impact of its rise and trying to reorient its response
strategy to EU rather than American interests and priorities (Smith and
Taussig 2019). Striving for autonomy had become EU’s regular refrain
during the presidency of Donald Trump and some it has continued even
during Biden administration’s re-engagement with Europe. Although it
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would be to the mutual advantage of Europe and the United States

to deepen the coordination of their respective China policies, it would
also be naïve to imagine that dialogue will push them to agree on all
contested points. In this context, the Indo-Pacific region could further
push Europe to embrace norms-driven multilateralism in order to coun-
terbalance both China and the United States thereby trying to become
strategically more autonomous (Medcalf 2020). But, while it may seem
obvious to imagine that a “united and coordinated” EU is needed to
make this plan for “strategy autonomy” work, the way in which Europe
has been acting continues to make its attitude and real intentions look
more suspicious, and the trilateral meeting organised by Angela Merkel,
Emmanuel Macron, and Xi Jinping in early July 2021 to restart EU
talks with Beijing makes China’s Communist Party wonder if, in Europe,
their interlocutor is the EU or the Franco-German block (Adghirni and
Donahue 2021). One thing is certainly sure: the protagonists of the
selected European members have not necessarily helped the EU to be
perceived as a strategically autonomous region.
Can Indo-Pacific Solve China–EU Problems?

At both regional and national levels, the Indo-Pacific debate in Europe
seems more and more inclined to present the Indo-Pacific as the only
solution to face multiple problems, viz. China–US rivalry, the crisis of
Asian regionalism and the weakening of multilateralism, and the ambi-
guities of European global strategy, especially towards China. European
leaders are perfectly aware that regionalism and, as a consequence, balance
of power in Asia is going through a moment of profound change (Gaulme
2019). Although it is a matter of fact that China–US antagonism has trig-
gered this disruption, it remains difficult to imagine and contribute to
the emergence of a new paradigm that can help EU to consolidate and
stabilise a new balance of power capable of enacting a new equilibrium
in the region. This chapter endorses the EU’s vision of the Indo-Pacific
as the most suitable paradigm not only to address the weaknesses of the
Asia–Pacific one—which has eventually lost its momentum to guarantee
a stable equilibrium of powers in the Far East, but also to re-emphasise
the merit of multilateralism to face global problems in a collaborative and
more effective way.
To understand the reasons why Europe is so supportive of the Indo-
Pacific formulation it is necessary to go back to the weaknesses of the
Asia–Pacific paradigm and the challenges that it had faced. Prima facie, the
structure of a pan-Asian regionalism has never been able to either inte-
grate or counterbalance an unprecedented rise of China, and its inherent
weaknesses lay in that. Recalling a couple of crucial moments in the
evolution of Asian regionalism may give further credit to this hypoth-
esis. Among these, the post-Cold War dynamics remain its immediate
context which has seen revival of various border disagreements that have
become increasingly visible as these have not yet been settled (Iken-
berry and Mastanduno 2003). Second, 1967 represents a key moment
for Asian regionalism, as the creation of the Association of Southeast
Asian countries (ASEAN) illustrated the very first attempt at least from
Southeast Asian countries to create a regional structure to increase their
collective weight to counterbalance China. Over years, ASEAN had grad-
ually become the core of a new wave of regionalism aimed at finding the
most effective formula to simultaneously integrate and counterbalance the
People’s Republic of China (Acharya 2009). In the 1970s, this debate was
a regional one but since 1990s it had become global. However, the two
major ideas underpinning Asian regionalism did not change: it remained
desirable to integrate China considering the numerous opportunities of
profitable cooperation that the country offered, and, at the same time,
it remained imperative to prevent China from taking advantage of this
cooperation to consolidate a dominant position in the region.
The three decades following the creation of ASEAN are usually
remembered as the triumph of the “spaghetti bowl” practice. ASEAN+3
(i.e. ASEAN plus China, Japan, and South Korea) was created in 1997, as
a direct consequence of the Asian financial crisis. In 2005, an even broader
version of Asian regionalism emerged with the launching of the East Asian
Summit (EAS or ASEAN+6). This new regime de facto forced China
to welcome Asian countries that Beijing was not necessarily considering
Asian, for geographical, identity, and cultural reasons, but also because
of their long-term connection with the United States, such as India,
Australia and New Zealand. Asian regionalism “trials” reached their peak
in 2011, when the EAS decided to welcome Russia and the United States.
In the EU’s vision, this enlargement represented the umpteenth confir-
mation of the inherent weakness of the Asia–Pacific paradigm in achieving
its only goal: integrating and contemporarily counterbalancing China in
this region. This phase of “regional experimentation” was followed by a
long period of transition and deep uncertainty that lasted from 2012 until
2018 where the Indo-Pacific presented the new formulation. During this
110 C. ASTARITA
time, several countries decided to contribute to an emerging debate aimed

at identifying a new equilibrium, and Europe was not alone in endorsing
the idea that, to be sustainable, the new Asian equilibrium had to be a
multipolar one (Medcalf 2020).
China in the Making of the Indo-Pacific

During this half a century of experimentation in Asian regionalism, three
different dynamics have emerged in the Asian region, and they have
all been gradually moving towards the consolidation of a new multi-
polar Indo-Pacific formulation. The first and most powerful dynamic was
China-driven, and corresponds to the launch of One Belt One Road
(OBOR), a new project confirming China’s interest in creating a Sino-
centric region (Cabestan 2019). This paradigm of Asian regionalism
worked pretty well during the decades in which China was determined
to introduce itself as a “peaceful” country committed to contribute to
regionalism in a multilateral environment (Astarita 2008). However, the
original paradigm of Asian regionalism has always presented two major
limitations for China: its borders, as the ambitious Sino-centric region
that Beijing aims at creating with OBOR go far beyond the frontiers of
the Asia–Pacific; and the ASEAN centrality in this model (Astarita and
Damiani 2016).
The second dynamic is US-driven. In the face of China’s expanding
footprint in this region, American commitment in the Asian region has
been re-emphasised since 2011 when Barack Obama had introduced his
“Pivot to Asia” strategy and started the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)
negotiations. His objective was to strengthen the US presence in Asia–
Pacific while at the same time trying to isolate China (Li 2016). Donald
Trump changed this strategy to adopt a more confrontationist approach
with Beijing. President Trump unleashed a trade war with China that was
subsequently transformed into a technological competition that, to some
extent, started to be perceived as a new Cold war between Chinese and
American values (Samaan 2019). This narrative did not change with the
coming of Joe Biden who not only confirmed that China–US competition
represents the “greatest geopolitical challenge of the 21st century”, but
appears to be even more determined than his predecessors to create a
strong anti-China alliance (Patil 2021). Accordingly, it is not surprising
to notice that his vision of the Indo-Pacific corresponds to the one of an
alliance aimed at isolating China.
The third dynamic revolves around Asia–Pacific region’s middle

powers’ interest in creating a new multipolar framework grounded on
the respect for international law and the promotion of collective inter-
ests. Countries such as India, Australia, and Japan are now conscious of
the existence, in Asia, of various loopholes preventing the development of
any form of regionalism (Evans 2004). On the contrary, they also see it
as more realistic and profitable to imagine a multipolar Indo-Pacific as a
potential successful outcome of an increasingly active process of regional-
isation (Medcalf 2019). For Europe, this regionalisation appears the most
promising formula to facilitate the emergence of a new equilibrium that
can promote issue-based cooperation by proposing concrete solutions to
existing problems. This tangible approach has not only further accelerated
the process of regionalisation, but allows the Indo-Pacific to remain open
to China and the United States, allowing them to integrate into regional
initiatives of the Indo-Pacific littoral. This open and conciliatory attitude
promises not only to further nurture the conflictual nature of the current
China–US relationship, but also create new room for ad hoc coopera-
tion among Indo-Pacific countries. This cooperation may not necessarily
transform the Indo-Pacific into a region, but advancing such regionalism
can be useful to reduce conflicts, mutual mistrust and contribute to the
development of the region (Vayrynen 2003).
EU’s “Middle-Ground” Approach

There is one last question that needs to be discussed to understand the
EU’s strategy for cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region: to what extent
the EU involvement in this process of Indo-Pacific regionalisation can be
perceived as a legitimate one. When viewing the Indo-Pacific formulation,
it is not so obvious to understand why Europe should play such an active
role in it. Also, it is still a matter of debate which Europe we should be
talking about: The European Union as a whole? Or France, Germany, and
the Netherlands? All together or separately? And also, what would be the
role of the post-Brexit United Kingdom? The answer to these questions
lies in the narratives in favour of creating an inclusive Indo-Pacific region
that allows EU’s “middle ground” approach to make an effective value
addition to this region. Such an inclusive Indo-Pacific paradigm promises
to accommodate interests of a cohort of countries which do not individu-
ally have the capacity to assert themselves as powerful trend setters in this
regionalisation like China, US, Japan, India, Australia etc.
112 C. ASTARITA
Other than China and the United States, the shared commitment of
EU along with India, Australia, and Japan has been in favour and yet
not sufficiently enough to guarantee this vision of inclusive multipolarity.
This is not necessarily because they do not have leadership ambitions,
but rather because without the EU’s concerted engagement with the
Indo-Pacific formulation it may not be able to perform one of its crucial
functions: the one of remaining an inclusive area that is not intentionally
oriented at marginalising either China or the United States. EU has had
strong credentials for supporting norm- and value-based narratives and
initiatives increasingly at the global level. If Europe does not directly and
actively participate in the Indo-Pacific regionalisation process, both the
US and China will continue to think that they could pressurise Europe to
implement an alternative hedging strategy to the Indo-Pacific. A direct,
strong and continuous collaboration between EU, Australia, India, and
Japan promises to exclude this option, forcing China and the US to
cooperate.
At this stage, it may be rather difficult to assess whether, strategically,
the involvement of EU could be more effective than the one of single
European countries. Although it would be ideal to see the EU acting
as a cohesive region, and despite the new “Strategy for Cooperation in
the Indo-Pacific” released in September 2021 refers to ‘Team Europe’
as the leading actor for the initiative, it remains hard to imagine that
even the new EU strategy for the Indo-Pacific will be able to ensure all
EU members guaranteeing a shared commitment and enthusiasm. In this
context, a preliminary involvement of few powerful EU member states
might emerge as the second-best choice, provided that the countries that
have so far confirmed their interest in the Indo-Pacific will continue to
coordinate their strategies with the larger EU strategy for this region.
But even in an ideal scenario of powerful individual nations of Europe
conforming and backing EU’s Indo-Pacific strategy, there will still remain
challenges. This makes EU’s Indo-Pacific strategy work-in-progress at
best. And then there are challenges exogenous to EU that also need to
be considered. Well-known sinologist, Gurdun Wacker, aptly alludes to
some of these that flow from none other than China. To quote her,
Despite the fact that all three governments [Germany, France and the
Netherlands] have made very clear that they pursue an inclusive approach
to the region that also involves China as an important partner on issues
such as climate change and nuclear non-proliferation, it will be difficult
to convince Beijing that the Indo-Pacific concept is not –at least in part–
directed against China. The three dimensions of the EU’s China policy as
outlined in the Strategic Outlook paper –China as a partner, a competitor
and a systemic rival– are also clearly visible in the Indo-Pacific documents,
and they will be difficult to balance. (Wacker 2021b)
Tailpiece: What About Post-Brexit UK?

Another issue that deserves more attention from EU is how to ensure
coordination and cooperation with the post-Brexit United Kingdom’s
engagement with the Indo-Pacific region. The UK may not be part of
EU yet it remains a major player in the Indo-Pacific formulations as
also wishing European policy confabulations. The UK had issued their
Indo-Pacific strategy in March 2021, extensively discussed in the “Global
Britain in a Competitive Age” document that hinges on its “special rela-
tionship” with the United States (Government of the United Kingdom
2021). After recognising the Indo-Pacific as a geographical area that
is critical to UK’s economy, security, and global ambition, the British
strategy emphasises that the country’s goal will be the one of emerging
as “the European partner with the broadest and most integrated presence
in the Indo-Pacific” (Government of the United Kingdom 2021).
As far as UK’s relationship with China is concerned, the British
documents refers to China in points 7 and 8 in the list of the “sig-
nificant changes and shifts” that the new British Strategic Framework
has endorsed. These two specific points clearly outline how, unlike other
major European powers, UK presents a more nuanced approach to either
crediting or engaging China as the leading player in the region. As this
document says, a deeper engagement will be pursued in the Indo-Pacific
aimed at fostering regional prosperity and stability. This approach recog-
nises China, India and Japan as the major powers in a region where
South Korea, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and the
Philippines are also playing a key role. As far as China is concerned, the
document emphasises the need to “invest in enhanced China-facing capa-
bilities” aimed at promoting a better understanding of the country as,
as a consequence, contributing to the refining of UK ability to respond
to the challenge that the country poses to national and regional secu-
rity, prosperity and values. (Government of the United Kingdom 2021).
Given its newfound freedom from EU, the post-Brexit UK perhaps seeks
114 C. ASTARITA
to propound a more open and pragmatic approach compared to the EU

and former is bound to have its influence on the latter.
Conclusion
Without doubt, China has been and remains one of the most crucial
variables impacting EU positioning on the Indo-Pacific region. This has
also been the focal point of variance in the Indo-Pacific strategies of EU
and major European nations like Germany, France and the Netherlands.
To avoid any intra-European ambiguities that could undermine Europe’s
fruitful engagement with the Indo-Pacific region, it would be ideal to
observe an early evolution of a more concrete format of the EU’s strategy
for cooperation in the Indo-Pacific. However, especially regarding to its
China actions; the EU has preferred to remain ambiguous, emphasising
on the one hand that ‘Team Europe’ will be in charge of endorsing EU
Indo-Pacific initiatives, and on the other hand that bilateral relations will
continue to impact the EU China strategy.
If it is true that more clarity would have provided a more precise
guide on the attitude that the EU may pronounce vis-à-vis China and the
United States and guided strategies of individual European nations, the
“Strategy for Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific” document of September
2021 has remained voluntarily ambiguous on the EU positioning vis-
à-vis China and the Unites states. For example, it encourages the EU
to maintain a multifaceted engagement with China, avoiding excluding
the country from cooperative initiatives aimed at identifying solutions to
common challenges. At the same time, the EU will continue to insist on
the protection of its essential interests and values, remaining committed
not to accept any compromise with China in any of these fields (General
Secretariat of the Council 2021: 4). While emphasizing its determination
in reinforcing cooperation with other Indo-Pacific actors, it is remarkable
to notice that the US is hardly mentioned in any of the European papers
that have been published so far. Including both US and China in their
discussion could be a good strategy to further emphasise the centrality of
multilateralism in their approach to the Indo-Pacific region.
The major immediate challenge for any EU vision or strategy
concerning the Indo-Pacific will be to evolve the intra-EU consensus
especially to mobilise the resources needed to bring it to life with the
support of the region as a whole. It will be interesting to watch how
far some of the major European powers like Germany, France, UK, the
Netherlands that have already issued their own Indo-Pacific strategies will
guide the evolution of the EU strategy as also how far EU’s vision will be
able to streamline visions of these individual nations to ensure conformity
in their initiatives. This coordination will be EU’s major challenge. At the
same time, investing on the broad and solid network of bilateral relations
European countries have with all other stakeholders (that are expected to
play a crucial role in this ambitious and advanced experiment of regional-
ization), might become one of the most effective ways to strengthen the
EU’s vision of the Indo-Pacific as a multilateral and inclusive framework.
This will then be a sort of contemporary global version of the Concert of
Europe that may fine-tune and navigate the Indo-Pacific from becoming
vulnerable to US–China contestations.
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CHAPTER 7
Evolving Indo-Pacific Multilateralism: China

Factor in Australia’s Perspectives
Artyom A. Garin
Australia as a Middle Power

The key to understanding Australia’s approach to the Indo-Pacific lies in
its “middle power” mindset. This is because, over the last 70 years, term
“middle power” has gained traction in Australia’s geopolitical and foreign
policy narratives. Way back in 1945, the Foreign Minister of Australia, Dr.
Herbert Vere Evatt, had participated in a conference in San Francisco with
a strong commitment to advance Australia’s interests on a range of foreign
policy issues, from disarmament to decolonisation, as well as a more inde-
pendent middle power position (Ungerer 2007). Till date, the issue of the
classification of Australia as a middle power still remains debatable though
it has been extensively well-covered in works of scholars like M. Beeson,
M. Thompson, B. Gilley, E. Cooper, R. Higgott, J. Robertson, A. Carr, J.
A. A. Garin (B)
Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7521-9_7
122 A. A. GARIN
Manicom and E. O’Neill, as well as received significant mentions in offi-

cial doctrines by Australia’ leaders, including former Prime Minister Kevin
Rudd. Mark Thompson, for instance, argues how Australia has always
sought to “punch above their weight” (Thompson 2005), while Mark
Beeson defines “middle power” as a term close to globalisation, which
“can obscure as much as it reveals but …can stand as a useful shorthand
for a more complex reality” (Beeson 2011).
It would be pertinent to ask what have been Australia’s expectations
from being a “middle power”? According to the 2000 Defence Policy
White Paper, Australia, as a middle power, “can and should do to help
to keep our region secure, and support global stability” (Department of
Defence 2000). This is where the document contains a reference to multi-
lateralism: “Australia therefore cannot be secure in an insecure region, and
as a middle-size power, there is much we can and should do to help to
keep our region secure, and support global stability. Working with others
we can do a lot more than we can do by ourselves” (ibid.). As in 2012
Prime Minister of Australia and later Australian Foreign Minister Kevin
Rudd had stated during his speech at Asia Society New York: “Australia,
through the agency of what we call creative middle power diplomacy,
is optimistic that we can learn from history and craft a common future
for our hemisphere” (Rudd 2012). So, as we can see, the middle power
is considered not only in terms of influence and geographical location
but also in terms of its propensity to promote multilateral cooperation
for the stability of the regional and global architecture. This makes the
issue of specific definitions of ‘middle powers’ debatable, though these are
generally defined as a group of countries that have the material resources
to support a specific level of influence but aren’t able to independently
dominate the world stage (Robertson 2017).
Taking into account the thesis of E. Cooper, R. Higgott and K. Nossal
from the joint work Relocating Middle Powers: Australia and Canada in
a Changing World Order, that middle powers are recognisable by their
foreign policy behaviour (Jordaan 2003), this chapter specially examines
Australia’s defence and trade and economic strategies in the context of
emerging multilateral alignments across the Indo-Pacific region. Based
on three approaches taken from the works of B. Gilley and A. O’Neil
(2014), as well as Andrew Carr (2013)—i.e. positional, systematic and
self-identification—it seeks to establish how Australia can be defined as
a middle power because of its vast territories, natural resources, loca-
tion at the junction of the Indian and Pacific Oceans between the two
7 EVOLVING INDO-PACIFIC MULTILATERALISM: CHINA … 123
great powers, as well as the presence of its own zone of influence in

the South Pacific. Moreover, Australia has a fairly strong position in
numerous other indicators: 1st place in the world in terms of gold, iron
ore, uranium and lead reserves (Geoscience Australia 2020), 13th place in
the world in terms of nominal GDP (2017), 12th place in terms of GDP
per capita, 13th in terms of military spending in 2018, or fifth largest
among countries in Asia and Oceania (SIPRI 2019). This is important to
underline as often, middle powers don’t have enough resources to spread
their influence on global scale. This impels the middle powers to rely on
multilateralism and regional cooperation.
As Robert Keohane points out, the middle power is “a state whose
leaders consider that it cannot act alone effectively but may be able to have
a systemic impact in a small group or through an international institution”
(Keohane 1969). Moreover, multilateralism helps to reduce the growing
trends of the anarchic environment in their region. It’s obvious that the
middle powers are inferior in military power to the great powers, so
multilateralism and joining forces with other Indo-Pacific states, including
India and Japan, allows Australia to somehow even its odds. For example,
since Donald Trump took office as US president in early 2017, Wash-
ington had changed the nature of its China policy towards greater
confrontation. In 2021, when Joseph Biden came to power in the United
States, it became clear that Washington wouldn’t fundamentally change
its approach to competing with Beijing in their struggle for leading posi-
tions in the Indo-Pacific while stepping up attempts to bring on board
as many actors in the region as possible. At the same time, in the year
of the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of
China (CPC), Beijing chose to set itself quite high and ambitious goals—
dominance in artificial intelligence (AI), semiconductors, the inclusion of
Taiwan in the PRC, taking control over the South China Sea, becoming
an economic centre of attraction both regionally and globally, and, most
importantly, demonstrating the advantages of its political model over
the Western one. Thus, the Sino-US confrontation seems ordained to
continue and it directly affects both the security and economic situation
in the Indo-Pacific, which has since been described in terms of either
“arc of instability” or an “arc of ascendance” (Campbell 2016). In view
of Australia’s foreign policy dualism of engaging both China and US, as
well as its close relationship with Japan and India, multilateralism remains
the most attractive way to protect and adapt to the anarchic regional envi-
ronment that is transforming from the Asia–Pacific era to Indo-Pacifism.
124 A. A. GARIN
Especially, the rapid pace of military and economic rise of China plays a
key role in the transformation of Canberra’s foreign policy making it one
of the main supporters of multilateralism and regional integration of the
Indian and Pacific Oceans into a dual geo-strategic space of its primary
interests.
Multilateralism in Australia’s
Defence and Foreign Policy
To analyse the place of multilateralism and the China factor in Australia’s
regional policies, it is pertinent to trace the evolution and the use of
these in Australia’s defence and foreign policy narratives, especially with
Defence (1994–2016) and Foreign Policy (2017) White Papers, as well as
Defence Strategic Update (2020). As can be seen from Table 7.1, multi-
lateralism has officially entered into Australia’s official documents from
1994, after which it has taken a fairly strong roots in the Australia’s policy
discourse. A similar situation can be traced with China: since 1994, the
number of references to the PRC in Australian defence documents has
increased 3.2 times, which also indicates a gradual increase in Canberra’s
concern and consciousness about Beijing’s rising influence in its peripheral
region.
If in 1976 and 1987 multilateralism wasn’t mentioned in the Defence
White Papers, the document of 1994 carried the highest number of
mentions of multilateralism. It already contained a number of provisions
indicating a greater interest of the Australian authorities in a multilat-
eral way of regional cooperation. Of course, it was a reaction to the US
withdrawal from the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Table 7.1 Australian Defence White Papers (1976–2016)
Use of words like… 1976 1987 1994 2000 2009 2013 2016
Multilateralism 0 0 24 6 14 16 13
India 2 0 5 11 15 36 21
Japan 11 3 14 14 18 20 36
USA 12 62 60 43 80 86 129
PRC (China) 10 4 20 13 34 65 64
Source Compiled by the author on the basis of the Department of Defence, the Australian
Government (Defence White Papers 1976–2016)
According to the 1994 Defence White Paper, the United States had
important strategic and growing economic interests in the region and
maintained strategic commitments to Japan, South Korea, and other
allies, including Australia (Defence White Paper 1994). As the authors of
the document rightly underlined, the strategic affairs of the region were
expected to become increasingly volatile and complex, as well as increas-
ingly determined by the countries of Asia themselves (ibid.). As a result
of the transformation of the regional architecture, the strategic affairs
of the region would increasingly be determined by the Asian countries
themselves, while the United States would remain an important partic-
ipant in multilateral regional security issues (in the next fifteen years).
By comparison, it believed that the PRC would probably become “the
most powerful new influence on the strategic affairs of our wider region”
(ibid.). At the turn of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Australia
policy papers began to note that its security depends not only on its
defence capabilities but also on defence cooperation with other countries
in the region. This is where it begins to view multilateral cooperation as
the way to manage its increasingly complex strategic environment.
China Factor in Australia’s Multilateralism

In the initial years of this change, however, the Australian discourse on
multilateralism was dominated by Five Power Defence Arrangements
(FPDA), ASEAN, the fight against weapons of mass destruction, joint
exercises, and support for Japan’s commitment to emerging multi-
lateral approaches to regional security. As time has shown, Tokyo’s
aspirations have subsequently transformed into a Free and Open Indo-
Pacific strategy. However, in contrast to their recent tensions during
the pandemic years of 2019–2021, Australia had developed a regular
dialogue with China and supported its participation in multilateral
discussions on security issues. In the 2000 Defence Policy White Paper,
multilateralism was further developed. Australia that had traditionally
described its alliance with the United States as a “key strategic asset”
(Defence White Paper 2000) was not seen outlining how, as a middle
power, it had also turned to “close cooperation with its allies, neighbours
and regional partners” (ibid.). Australia perhaps already anticipated the
emergence of tensions between the major powers of Asia (in the next
20 years), and admitted to the possibility of growing and sustained
confrontation between “the major powers in Asia, and even of outright
126 A. A. GARIN
conflict” (ibid.). Therefore, it believed that the development of regional

multilateral structures would contribute to the stability in the Asia–
Pacific region. The Australian government has since been exploring the
possibility of building on common perceptions and goals in the region.
Till early 2000s, the Indo-Pacific concept was probably a reflection
of this in the future. A special place in multilateralism was still given to
the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), as participation in the multilateral
dialogue within the framework of this Forum increased Australia’s cred-
ibility in the region and allowed it to contribute to the building of a
regional security environment (Ibid). It was the 2009 Defence White
Paper that presented a new and revolutionary strategic vision of Australia’s
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s; especially so, with regard to People’s
Republic of China. As Kevin Rudd himself later said that the main conclu-
sions of the 2009 Defence White Paper were the need to recognise that
the rapid growth of China’s military budget and its increased naval activity
in the South China Sea represent a major change in Australia’s broader
strategic environment. It should be noted that in 2009, the authors of
the Australian defence document had also predicted the growth of the
geo-strategic importance of the Indian Ocean in world politics, including
for the defence of Australia, as well as competitive pressure in South-
east Asia from India and China (Defence White Paper 2009). A secret
section of the 2009 White Paper even contained scenarios of fighting
between Australia and China (Taylor 2012). Kevin Rudd himself took
another step towards multilateralism: foreshadowing the implementation
of the Indo-Pacific concept in practice, he urged for the establishment
of an Asia–Pacific Community designed to strengthen the dialogue of all
Asia–Pacific states (including India) in the political, economic and defence
areas (Rudd 2008).
The Australian Government believed that armed neutrality was the
best approach in terms of ensuring the security of the territory and
people (Defence White Paper 2009) of the Fifth Continent. Moreover,
as an alternative to the previous alliances, the Kevin Rudd government’s
plan was to rely on a multilateral security system, with the UN at its
pinnacle (ibid.). Australia’s strategic interests were planned to be secured
by focusing on military cooperation with like-minded partners against
common threats on the assumption that these partners would provide
assistance if something threatened the security of the Fifth Continent.
For its part, Canberra, where it would be the leading country in the
coalition, was ready to provide “logistics support, air and sea lift, and
strategic communications, that make it possible for smaller nations to

take part in operations, and we will need to factor this into our planning
for such operations” (ibid.). Besides, the development of defence coop-
eration would strengthen its credibility as a middle power that actively
promotes multilateral security and rules-based world order that increases
the likelihood of strategic stability in the Asia–Pacific. It is especially
important to note that Australia also supported the development of multi-
lateral technological cooperation within the framework of the Defence
Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO). Through the multilateral
DSTO mechanisms, Australia preferred to explore potential technolog-
ical opportunities at a much lower cost to itself, as well as gain access
to the technologies and capabilities of other countries, including the
United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand. In the
first few years, the main areas of DSTO were integrated surveillance and
intelligence (ISR), cyber warfare (including computer security), electronic
warfare, submarine warfare, and network systems (Defence White Paper
2009).
Kevin Rudd’s vision was soon replaced by a different foreign policy
view of Julia Gillard, which was reflected in the new 2013 Defence White
Paper. According to the document, Canberra committed itself to strategic
cooperation with the United States, while the relationship between Wash-
ington and Beijing “will more than any other factor determine our [ed.
the Australia’s—A.G.] strategic environment in the coming decades”
(Defence White Paper 2013). The new defence document also stated
that Australia’s strategic landscape was becoming more multifaceted and
complex, in part because of the growing influence of China and India.
Undoubtedly, the 2013 Defence White Paper went down in the history of
Australia’s regional construction in Asia due to the concept of the Indo-
Pacific region—a single interconnected geo-strategic space of the Indian
and Pacific Oceans combined. India and the Indian Ocean became an
important part of Australia’s vision for the future of the region: “The
Indo-Pacific is a logical extension of this concept, and adjusts Australia’s
priority strategic focus to the arc extending from India through South-
east Asia to Northeast Asia, including the sea lines of communication on
which the region depends” (ibid.). One of the reasons for the Australian
government’s attention to the Indo-Pacific region was Beijing’s growing
influence in the region, its military and economic power, which was
now embodied in the form of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
128 A. A. GARIN
According to Australia’s vision, the establishment of multilateral coop-

eration with India, Japan and the United States may restrain or prevent
China’s attempts to recast the regional architecture.
With the advent of Malcolm Turnbull in 2015, Australia’s foreign
policy and rhetoric towards China probably became more alienated. It was
during the Turnbull premiership that the greatest scope of Chinese expan-
sion in the South Pacific occurred, which is why the Australian Prime
Minister’s policy became one aimed at directly opposing Beijing against
the background of its growing influence in the sub-region. As a result,
amid growing tensions with China, the Australian government stressed
that it “can better pursue its objectives of growth and prosperity and
protect its interests in our region and globally by working with others,
bilaterally, regionally and multilaterally” (Defence White Paper 2016). A
special place in the Defence White Paper was given to cooperation “with
countries in South East Asia which have an interest in maritime security in
the region” (ibid.)—Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam,
the Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. As a key security partner in the
Indian Ocean and the wider Indo-Pacific, Australia certainly saw India as a
rising power in the Indo-Pacific region. India’s Act East Policy from 2014
was seen opening new opportunities for increased bilateral and multi-
lateral cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region. This tension with China
as defining factor of Australia’s vision of multilateralism in the Indo-
Pacific was to draw greater traction during Scott Morrison period since
2018 when he was elected as the new Prime Minister of Australia. This
period indeed was to be identified with an active phase of aggravation
of Sino-Australian relations in the areas of economy, regional building
and defence. This was to result in Australia’s authorities giving a special
impetus to the Indo-Pacific concept with an added emphasis on the devel-
opment of relations with Japan, India, and the United States within the
framework of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad).
Scott Morrison’s premiership has been closely linked with the strength-
ening of Australia’s military power and with Canberra’s influence in the
South Pacific, as well as with increased trade tensions with China. On
July 1, 2020, prime minister Scott Morrison presented the 2020 Defence
Strategic Update and the 2024 Force Structure Plan—defence documents
developed to prepare Australia for a post-pandemic world that will be
“poorer, more dangerous and more disorderly” (Morrison 2020). After
many years of discussions about the regional architecture’s transforma-
tion, the Australian government provided its Department of Defence with
A$575 billion (US$397.4 billion) for the next 10 years for the modernisa-
tion of the armed forces and the military-industrial complex (Janes 2020).
According to the Australian Prime Minister, the country should be better
prepared for the prospect of a “high-intensity conflict” (this combination
reads more like ‘war’). In fact, the probability of the Australian authorities
expecting a war with the United States, India, Japan, and Indonesia tends
to zero, while the increasing of defence funding during the aggravation of
bilateral relations with China and rapprochement with the United States
confirms the high level of Australia’s fears about the growing influence of
Beijing. Second, what is also notable is that the 2020 Defence Strategic
Update covers a relatively extensive area: “from the north-eastern Indian
Ocean, through maritime and mainland South East Asia to Papua New
Guinea and the South West Pacific” (Defence at Glance 2020). At the
same time, Australia attaches more importance to Southeast Asia, because
it is there some of the most vital Australian trading partners are located,
as well as vital logistics arteries. Canberra is concerned that if China
gains control over the South China Sea waters, it may restrict access to
Australia and its partners to trade routes. Of course, to solve this chal-
lenge, Australia’s vision is aimed at developing multilateral processes in
the region.
When analysing the Australian brand of multilateralism, it is impor-
tant to consider not only the defence, but also the economic component,
which increasingly occupies the leading position in its regional discourse.
In this case, it is important to note the thesis from the 2017 Foreign
Policy White Paper, which describes the relationship between the growing
strategic rivalry between China and the United States and the damage it
can do to the multilateral trading system in the region. Given the trade
war that broke out between the United States and China during the US
presidency of Donald Trump, the assumptions of the Australia’s White
Paper turned out to be prophetic in many respects. This explains why
the 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper contains a total of 36 references to
multilateralism (Foreign Policy White Paper 2017). Consequently, based
on Australia’s 1994–2017 defence and foreign policy documents, the
following trends can be identified in Canberra’s evolving perceptions of
multilateralism:
1. Seeking a common agenda among the countries of the Asia-Pacific

region, defining what has led to the establishment of Indo-Pacific
concept and its new formation of multilateralism;
130 A. A. GARIN
2. Building cooperation with the middle powers of the Indo-Pacific

region, in particular with Japan, India and the ASEAN countries;
3. The conviction of China that ranges from it being a regional
challenger to a revisionist power that challenges the established
regional and global order based on the dominance of the United
States;
4. Recognition of India as a key security partner in the Indian Ocean
and the wider Indo-Pacific; the significant role of ASEAN in South-
east Asia; the commitment of Japan to multilateral cooperation
and the United States as a key element of regional security in the
Indo-Pacific;
5. Participation in multilateral organisations and initiatives to increase
Australia’s credibility;
6. Commitment to a rules-based order;
7. Commitment to sharing defence technologies with Indo-Pacific
partners;
8. Commitment to multilateral military exercises, especially naval
exercises, and working together against non-traditional security
threats;
9. The struggle against the proliferation of weapons of mass destruc-
tion; and
10. Maintaining the stability in foreign trade and the economic well-
being of the region on the basis of multilateralism, even in
conditions of geo-strategic tension.
Multilateralism in Middle
Powers’ Defence Strategies
Australia’s approach to multilateralism closely intertwines its economic
and defence interests, as well as shifting power in the Indo-Pacific region.
In the literature on international relations devoted to this issue, it’s often
argued that the emerging instability at the global and regional levels gets
characterised by the emergence of new power centres in the region, ones
that seek to challenge the established regional or global order, where the
hegemon state already dominates. At the present stage, a particularly valu-
able contribution to the study of the middle powers’ defence strategies
was made by Håkan Edström and Jacob Westberg, who also highlighted
the strategies of hedging and regional balancing (Edström and Westberg
2020). Their postulates can be observed in the expanding cooperation

among Australia, India, and Japan and their support for the concept of
the Indo-Pacific in response to the aggravation of Sino-US relations and
the growing influence of the China. There are at least three embodiments
of the defence strategies that Australia currently follows:
First and foremost, in a period of transition, it is the hedging strategy
that is usually implemented by the middle powers, when they don’t specif-
ically wish to take sides. In the case of Australia—it has been a case
of balancing act between the United States and China. This was most
clearly expressed in Canberra’s reluctant position in supporting freedom
of navigation in the South China Sea in order to avoid any retaliatory
measures from Beijing. For example, in 2017, the United States consid-
ered Australia as the most likely candidate to conduct joint patrols in the
framework of Freedom of Navigation in the South China Sea (FONOPs),
but Australia did not join that initiative, but only supported the actions
of the United States to patrol the South China Sea within the frame-
work of international law. According to then Australian Foreign Minister
Julie Bishop, Australia didn’t join FONOPs, as this would only escalate
tensions in the South China Sea (Laurenceson 2017). In addition, at the
beginning of 2020, Australia refused to support direct accusations against
China in the creation of COVID-19 by the United States, but, at the
same time, as a middle power, appealed to the international community to
initiate an investigation into the origin of the coronavirus infection which
of course earned it a wrath of Beijing’s trade tariffs and wolf warriors.
Secondly, it is the regional balancing strategy. As the events of 2020-
early 2021 demonstrated, with the intensification of the rivalry between
the two great powers in the Indo-Pacific region, Australia took the side
of the United States, which led to ratcheting up of tension in its rela-
tions with China. However, in this case, it is important to pay attention
to another important detail inherent in the regional balance of power:
due to the high level of strategic dependence on the United States and
export dependence on China, Australia and other middle powers in the
region have resorted to increased cooperation on a multilateral basis and
have intensified their association in a new alliance like the Quadrilateral
Security Framework or Quad. If earlier meetings of the foreign Minis-
ters of Australia, India and other partners in the Indo-Pacific region were
sporadic, then in May 2021 they met for the second time in a month, and
personally. In the future, cooperation between the Indo-Pacific countries
on a multilateral basis, including within the framework of Quad or Quad
132 A. A. GARIN
Plus, can lead to the establishing of more stable coalitions, but so far
this initiative doesn’t have proper a degree of stability and a well-built
structure which again can be attributed to China’s influence.
Thirdly, in order to maximise the benefits and maintain the influence in
the subregions, the middle powers often turn to build security in a more
limited space. For example, the Fifth Continent traditionally leading the
way in the South Pacific. Based on the level of influence, at the present
stage, China can be identified as one of Australia’s main competitors in
the South Pacific. Over the past two decades, China has made significant
progress in building relations with the Pacific Island Countries (PIC). In
the period 2017–2018, China has overtaken Australia as the main trading
partner for PIC. At the current stage, thousands of Chinese companies
operate in the Australia’s “zone of influence” in various industries: from
mining to restaurants and grocery stores. The PRC is also a key partner
of their regional organisations, such as the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF).
A similar situation is developing in the relations between India and the
Indian Ocean island states or Sino-Japanese competition in Southeast
Asia. Thus, with the further expansion of China into the South Pacific,
the island part of the Indian Ocean or Southeast Asia, the middle powers
can use the strategy of building a subregional balance, involving partners
in the overarching Indo-Pacific multilateral cooperation in their areas of
responsibility.
As part of the analysis of Australia’s approach to multilateralism, these
middle powers’ defence strategies template seems to complement each
other well and highlight the aspirations of Australia, as a middle power,
that seeks to avoid uncertainty and streamline cooperation (Ratner et al.
2013) even in the face of a transformation of the regional architecture.
Such defence strategies have also become increasingly connected to their
economic strategies given that economic levers have become a major
component of national power as also backbone of defence modernisa-
tion and soft power of nations. This is especially true of middle powers
like Australia facing the might of an economic powerhouse, China in their
immediate region.
Multilateralism and Middle

Powers’ Economic Strategies
No doubt, most middle powers’ foreign policy studies have remained
focused on their defence strategies and the accumulation of military
power and their trade and economic policies are insufficiently studied.
But China emerging primarily as an economic powerhouse has shifted this
focus to economic strategies of middle powers. Increasingly, Australia’s
credibility has been largely viewed in terms of its economic and trade
relations with other powers and countries. From “middle power” perspec-
tive, for instance, the following elements have come to be part of the
combine the trade and economic strategies of Australia: the Free Trade
Agreements (FTA) supporting hedging strategy, the subsidy strategy that
is to provide ODA to developing countries, and, as the events of 2020–
2021 have demonstrated, the shift of the strategy of building a regional
balance to the diversification of supply chains in the Indo-Pacific region
to reducing its trade dependence on China.
From the perspective of the middle powers, free trade agreements
(FTAs) have become the norm to draw economic benefits for all stake-
holders. These FTAs aim to solve a wider range of foreign policy issues as
well. For example, given the competition between China and the United
States in the Indo-Pacific region, Australia has signed the FTA with both
these countries and this has not just increased its trade, but also helped
it avoid a situation in which it will have to choose between two extremes
in order to maintain a balance in its relations with each of these coun-
tries (Goh 2005). However, Australia acknowledges that while modern
FTAs are based on the rules and disciplines of WTO agreements, they
go far beyond tariff cancellation and advance rules in areas and ways
that are not possible in the conventional multilateral system. No wonder,
Australia aims to participate in newer regional multilateral trade initiatives
like Regional Comprehensive Economic Cooperation (RCEP) that aim at
diversifying markets. At the moment, Australia is already participating in
15 FTAs (with New Zealand, Singapore, USA, Thailand, Chile, China,
ASEAN, Malaysia, Republic of Korea, Japan, CPTPP, Hong Kong, Peru,
Indonesia, PACER-Plus), which allow it to maintain a more favourable
trade environment and play an important role as a mediator as well.
However, a particularly important step towards multilateralism in the
Indo-Pacific region has been the RCEP. Australia joined the RCEP in
February 2020 and looks forward to the expansion of sales markets, which
will open this format of cooperation to it, as well as help to strengthen
the economic relationship among the participating countries. At the same
time, Australia plans to use the RCEP not only for economic but also
for political purposes. In particular, to improve economic relations with
China, as well as to promote India’s entry into this regional FTA.
134 A. A. GARIN
It should be noted that with the rapid development of trade rela-

tions between Australia and China, there were increasing concerns that
the high degree of Australia’s export dependence on China can have an
excessive risk. For instance, China could use economic pressure on the
Fifth Continent during the political tensions. In 2020, the expectations
came true. In response to Australia’s demands for an international inves-
tigation into the origins of Coronavirus as well as to the investigations of
the Australia’s Anti-Dumping Commission regarding goods from China,
Beijing imposed a number of restrictions on imports from Australia of
coal, timber, grain, wine, seafood, etc. Such actions by Beijing can lead
to quite significant consequences for Canberra, because China accounts
for over 39 per cent of Australian exports of goods (Observatory of
Economic Complexity 2019). In 2019 China was the export destina-
tion for 100 per cent of Australian nickel ore exports, 95 per cent of
timber, 77 per cent of wool, 56 per cent of iron ore, 54 per cent of
barley and 21 per cent of coal (Uren 2020). At the same time, China’s
share in Australian imports is 27 per cent and includes mainly products
of the electrical industry, machine and automotive industry (Observatory
of Economic Complexity 2019).
As a result, Australia and its partners in the Indo-Pacific region seek
to build a regional balance by diversifying trade on multilateral basis in
order to reduce their economic dependence on China. In this context, the
Supply Chain Resilience Initiative (SCRI) has been particularly noticeable.
On April 27, the trade ministers of Australia, India and Japan announced
its official launch. SCRI is a response to supply chain disruptions caused
by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic (Enwood 2021). However,
based on the composition of the participants, it can be assumed that SCRI
is a project of alternative supply chains designed to reduce the economic
dependence of the participating countries on China. Indeed, the propo-
nents of the dual space of the Pacific and Indian Oceans proposed a new
multilateral platform for the development of regional trade and invest-
ment, taking into account their geo-economic interests, which could later
become an economic reflection of Quad Plus. At the same time, the SCRI
member countries have another important advantage—the economies of
Australia, India and Japan are complementary. It’s important to mark that
there were no direct mentions about China during the SCRI meetings,
but Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson stated that they “have taken
note of the situation” (Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in the
Commonwealth of Australia 2021), and reacted to the SCRI with a great

deal of scepticism.
It can be asserted that the defence strategies of the middle powers,
in case of increased rivalry between the two regional hegemons, are
projected not only to become geo-strategic, but also geo-economic,
thereby also reorienting the evolving tenor of regional multilateralism
in the Indo-Pacific region. The FTA’s hedging strategies and supply
chain diversification can definitely prove to be useful in terms of greater
cohesion in regional markets, which remain vulnerable to the evolving
rivalry of China and the United States in this region. Moreover, as the
example of the US-China and Australia-China trade wars of 2019 and
2020 have demonstrated, competition between actors is more likely to
involve instruments of economic influence than the use of their offen-
sive and defensive military capabilities. Both strategies allow the middle
powers to “punch above their weight” and give a chance to establish
themselves as one of the key trade hubs in the Indo-Pacific region.
However, it is important to note that economic tools are not entirely
new to the middle powers that have traditionally been generous donors
of official development assistance (ODA). Considering, for instance, the
strategies of Australia in the economic field, it is worth highlighting
Canberra’s so-called subsidy strategy. As is well known, in order to
provide ODA on a regional and subregional scale, the middle powers
must have sufficient resources to provide ODA (Jordaan 2003), which
Australia, Japan and India fully comply with. At the same time, the ODA
provision involves not only maintaining a stable humanitarian situation
in the region but also measures to attract developing countries to its
orbit by providing various types of assistance (mainly grants and conces-
sional loans). In contrast, China’s direct and active involvement in the
affairs of the South Pacific makes Australia increasingly concerned about
Beijing’s ODA growth; especially its implementation of infrastructure
projects under the Belt and Road Initiative. According to the Lowy Insti-
tute, over the past 10 years, China has provided $1.76 billion in ODA
to the Pacific Island States, and 66.5 per cent of this amount (US$1.17
billion) constitute loans (Lowy Institute 2021). The growing number of
infrastructure projects in Australia’s “zone of influence” and the PIC’s
increasing debt to Beijing has provoked Canberra’s fears that China will
influence the foreign policy vector of its islands neighbours, as well as
purchase ports in Oceania, following the example of the Hambantota
Port in Sri Lanka. As a result, Australia has taken steps to compete with
136 A. A. GARIN
Beijing, including increasing the ODA funding, establishing an infrastruc-

ture financing fund as well as, undoubtedly, counting on the assistance of
its partners, who are also interested in containment of the rising influence
of China in the South Pacific.
The visit of Mike Pompeo, the then United States Secretary of State,
to Guam in 2019, had seen him announce the beginning of negotia-
tions on a National Security Agreement with the Federated States of
Micronesia, the Marshall Islands and Palau, which will help Washington
to resist the growing influence of China in the region (Reuters 2019).
The ODA to the PIC is also provided by all Quad parties (2010–2020):
Japan ($US1.52 billion), the United States (US$1.49 billion), and India
(US$60.83 million) in less degree. Moreover, the onset of COVID-19
pandemic has further changed the situation and given the Indo-Pacific
middle powers a rare chance to unite around another common agenda.
In addition to providing ODA in their areas of responsibility: Australia—
South Pacific; India—the island states of Indian Ocean and South Asia;
Japan—Southeast Asia, the middle powers of Indo-Pacific region saw
Quad Summit of March 2021 launch an initiative to provide 1 billion
vaccines worth US$600 million to these littoral countries. The vaccines
are expected to be produced in India, funded by Japan and the United
States, and Australia will provide logistical support for their distribution
in South Pacific and Southeast Asia (Reuters 2021). In the context of the
COVID-19 pandemic and the post-pandemic world, the humanitarian
ODA provided to developing countries in the field of health and main-
taining economic stability may become the main vector of assistance from
the Indo-Pacific middle powers, somewhat shifting the implementation of
new infrastructure projects, which are focused on the external assistance
of China.
China and the Evolving Regional Architecture

Undoubtedly, in the post-pandemic era, an important aspect will be
the continuing transformation of the regional alignments in the Indo-
Pacific region, resulting in the need to reform regional institutions and
architecture. In this case, the rich experience of the middle powers,
including Australia, in building multilateral platforms for regional coop-
eration can be useful. For example, in the 1980s Australia was one of
the founders of the Asia–Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC),
India is the leader of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Scientific, Tech-
nical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), while Japan initiated the
ASEAN+6 Format (CEP), which later became the RCEP. But there’s one
important feature: all these initiatives are united by economic coopera-
tion, as well as by multilateralism, which includes most of the countries
of the region, especially China (excluding BIMSTEC). This may be out
of tune with the escalation of the situation in the Indo-Pacific in 2020–
2021 that showed that the multilateralism of the middle powers is shifting
towards an increasing defence and ideological direction.
First, in spite of the stated cooperation on healthcare, technology,
countering unfair trade practices, and climate change under Quad,
Australia, India, Japan, and the United States were seen focusing on
streamlining of their defence cooperation mechanisms. Moreover, the
initiative to expand the G7 by Australia and the Indo-Pacific middle
powers has been making big waves. Back in 2008, Kevin Rudd was to find
that it was necessary for Australia to take the lead in addressing the fallout
from the global financial crisis and the perceived shortcomings of the G7,
advocating for the forum to be expanded to include key G-20 members
(Xu 2011). Then there were the initiatives of British Prime Minister Boris
Johnson and former US President Donald Trump to invite Russia, South
Korea, Australia and India to the G7 summit to talk about “the future
of China”. London wants to go even deeper and create an alliance of
ten democracies in this composition. The idea of D10 echoes the plan
of US President Joe Biden to hold a “Summit for Democracy”, which
is supposed to develop a strategy to counter corruption and authoritari-
anism in a number of foreign countries. Each of these initiatives has a clear
China-centric orientation, which can cause irreparable damage to Sino-
Australian relations. The guest participation of the Indo-Pacific middle
powers in the G7 meeting of foreign ministers demonstrates their greater
cohesion than before, but they are still trying to balance and avoid a sharp
deterioration in relations with China. For example, all three Indo-Pacific
powers—Australia, India, Japan—were invited to the G7 of 2021, and
they participated in the meetings, but had the status of guests, so they
were not officially involved in the final communique.
It is also important to take into account that China isn’t only an influ-
ential or powerful economic and defence force in the Indo-Pacific, but
also a permanent member of the UN Security Council and a leading
member of a number of several other international organisations. If
Australia, India, or Japan, as the middle powers, need to influence the
138 A. A. GARIN
outcome of important regional or global issues, they will still have to

interact not only with Washington but also with Beijing. As we know, the
goal of the middle powers is traditionally the opportunity to be at the
same negotiating table with as many leading countries of the world as
possible in order to maximise their benefits. But will the blatant building
of an anti-Chinese coalition based on the G7 and the organisation’s drift
from an element of the global governance system to an ideologised club
lead to positive results? (Petrovskiy 2020). Leaving behind the world’s
second-largest economy and 18 per cent of the world’s population is
clearly a counterproductive measure, which was also mentioned by then-
Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam back in the 1970s (Griffiths
2014). Moreover, in the post-pandemic world, the middle powers of the
Indo-Pacific will have a long way to build a new approach to Beijing and
the region itself in the new geo-strategic realities: it is impossible to fight
with the economic crisis, to develop a single consensus on Myanmar or
Taliban, to resolve the situation with Taiwan, the South China Sea, the
East China Sea, and the DPRK without the participation of China.
It is important for Australia and other Indo-Pacific middle powers to
take into account a realistic analysis of their capabilities, as well as the
gradual decrease of the United States’ influence in the Pacific and Indian
Oceans. This fact was even mentioned by Joseph Biden himself, when he
stressed that during the years of his presidency, China will not become
the superpower. It may seem that in this way US President played on
the emotional cards with Americans who support the assertive rhetoric
of the West towards China, but at the same time, this can be considered
a compliment to China because according to forecasts, by 2028–2030
China will become the largest economy, and, probably, the power of the
world—just after the presidential term of Biden. This is confirmed by
the defence documents of the United States, according to which, due
to China’s rise, Washington has been responding by strengthening tradi-
tional alliances and creating new partnerships in the Indo-Pacific region.
The United States, thus, indirectly recognises its weakened power and
inability to face the challenge of China alone. The United States is inter-
ested in the support of its allies and partners in the region in order to
successfully contain the growth of China’s influence and strengthen a
stable strategic order in the Indo-Pacific region. Probably, at the present
stage, the United States needs Australia, India, and Japan perhaps a little
more, which means that the middle powers of the Indo-Pacific space have
the opportunity to build some of the aspects of cooperation in their own
interests. Probable, the future cooperation of the Indo-Pacific countries

within the Quad framework has already led to the creation of more multi-
lateral economic and defence coalitions, though until 2020, this initiative
didn’t have a high degree of stability and system building. Time of closed
ideologised formats has passed along with the Cold War (ibid.), so nowa-
days, nations have ot make ways for a more rational, rather than “selective
multilateralism” in Indo-Pacific region as well. Anyway, this author has
identified two possible scenarios for the building and development of this
evolving multilateralism in the Indo-Pacific region:
1. Selective multilateralism. It is built between Australia and the middle

powers of Indo-Pacific on the side of the United States in order to
compete with China for influence in the region. Such a course of
development puts into the roots of this multilateralism a deliberately
inbuilt conflicting nature, which, as the Cold War demonstrated,
cannot provide a long-term basis for cooperation. At the same time,
Australia and the middle powers of the region are increasing the
risk of their involvement in a major conflict between the two great
powers. Selective multilateralism can provoke China to retaliate, step
up its military and economic presence in the region, and find allies
to balance the United States’ Indo-Pacific coalition. All this will
once again push this region into the state of so-called controlled
confrontation and freeze the tense situation in the Indo-Pacific, in
which actors would not dare to openly speak out against each other
and seek a compromise in the spirit of more or less symmetrical
mutual restraint.
2. Balanced multilateralism. This multilateralism is being built on
the basis of cooperation between Australia and other Indo-Pacific
middle powers in order to strengthen influence in their respective
‘zones of responsibility’—the subregions of the broader Indo-Pacific
region. This strategy gives the middle powers an opportunity to gain
a stronger position within their zone of influence, strengthen rela-
tions with other influential middle powers and credibility, including
to become together as a single voice of the larger region, promote its
security and economic stability. Reducing dependence on the great
powers (the US or China) gives the middle powers here the oppor-
tunity to choose a more independent and flexible foreign policy
vector based on inclusive, more viable, and diversified regional insti-
tutions in a post-pandemic world. Moreover, they will be able to act
140 A. A. GARIN
as mediators in easing tensions between Washington and Beijing,

rather than to be the parties to the conflict.
Conclusion
Based on the study of the evolving centrality of multilateralism in
Australia’s foreign policy, the evolution of this concept in Australia’s
defence and foreign policy documents, this chapter identifies the growing
significance of the China factor that explains Australia’s continued
commitment to this multilateralism, as well as Canberra’s approaches to
using it for mitigating the escalating trend of the anarchic environment
in this region. There is no doubt that Australia’s foreign policy vector at
the present stage largely depends on the developments in the Sino-US
confrontation. If the United States is the main strategic ally for Australia,
then China is considered as the most probable threat to the Fifth Conti-
nent and the Pacific Island States. This is taking place in the context
that Canberra’s focus on China’s military modernisation, the rise of its
economic influence, as well as the loss of Washington’s influence in the
Indo-Pacific. This makes the regional environment far more multifaceted
and complex, requiring Australia to be flexible and responsive to changes
in the emerging balance of power.
Given the increasing visibility of the United States’ inability to confront
China alone, Australia has been trying to reduce its own geo-strategic
risks by engaging other middle powers and by turning to multilateral
cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region. However, the Cold War, which
ended three decades ago, still continues to have a profound impact on
the consciousness and structure of the international political system and
it isn’t possible to overcome its legacy even now (Bordachyov 2021). Part
of Australia therefore still continues to struggle with the rise of China in
the form of a potential anti-Chinese alliance (selective multilateralism),
which can lead to even more serious consequences for Canberra. Given
the prophecies of China’s political, economic, and defence prospects as a
future regional and probably global hegemon, Beijing is clearly expected
to emerge victorious in such a competition. As some representatives of
Australia’s academic community continue to point out, in modern condi-
tions, Canberra needs to evolve a far more pragmatic orientation for its
foreign policy. The solution to this situation for them lies in a balanced
multilateralism aimed at strengthening the influence of the Indo-Pacific
middle powers in their “zones of responsibility”; closer coordination
between Australia, India, and Japan; reducing their dependence on the

great powers, as well as a more independent and flexible foreign policy
course.
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CHAPTER 8
The Community of Shared Futures: China’s

Counter to Indo-Pacific Narratives
Devendra Kumar Bishnoi
Introduction
Indo-Pacific region has become a terrain of hardcore competing strategic,
economic, and security interests of major powers on the one hand and
on the other, witnessed an equally powerful contesting normative narra-
tives on regional order to be.1 These narratives conflict and also coalesce
multiple conceptions of the region as a community, “rules-based order”,
and norm-driven alignments among the like-minded countries. While
material national interests of each actor remain the main axis in evolving
1 The chapter uses the term Indo-Pacific though in Chinese narratives till recently
continued to use it is Asia–Pacific to outline China’s policies and in highlighting all
important dimensions of the spatial and normative construction of the regional order in
the Chinese foreign policy.
D. K. Bishnoi (B)
Department of Political Science, University of Hyderabad, Hyderabad, India

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7521-9_8
146 D. K. BISHNOI
of dynamics of their regional politics of the Indo-Pacific, their norms and

paradigms in these narratives of constructing a new regional order can
potentially be far more overpowering as they seek to both goad and guide
those hardcore competing alignments to shape the future of Indo-Pacific
geopolitics. In these narratives again, there are essentially two competing
outlines: the “liberal regional order” (LRO) proposing for a “Free and
Open Indo-Pacific” (FOIP) advanced by the United States and then
the “Community of Shared Future” (CSF)2 by the People’s Republic of
China.
To say it at the very outset, unlike the CSF that represents the
united vision of the Chinese Communist Party, the US-led FOIP has
had multiple versions propagated by a number of countries including
Japan, Australia, India, South Korea, Taiwan, ASEAN, European Union,
UK, France, Germany, Canada and so on. So unlike CSF, the FOIP has
had serious divergence among its proponents who also seem rather exter-
nally driven by their shared concerns with regards to China’s rapid and
unprecedented rise. Also, while both narratives remain grounded in values
of ensuring open and fair regional order, they are seen as if juxtaposed
against each other as alternatives. The US-led FOIP narrative claims to
represent the liberal world order and portrays China as an outlier and
even as a threat to it because it is not a democracy and hence does not fit
into the vision until and unless it subscribes to these western democratic
processes, institutions and values. This is implicit in frequent references to
the US partnerships as “alliance of democracies” and rules-based order.
Also, an implicit message in these narratives is that authoritarian China
cannot uphold a rules-based international order (Scott 2018: 31). This
clearly makes it is an exclusive order though not all proponents of FOIP
agree with such a proposition. India’s positions on the Indo-Pacific, for
example, have subtly differed from those of the West and India has laid
down an accommodative vision of regional order wherein the binaries of
democracy-authoritarianism are played down (Ministry of External Affairs
2018a).
2 There are two terms used in Chinese discourses viz 人类命运共同体 renlei mingyun
gongtongti and 人类利益共同体 renlei liyi gongtongti translated as Community of
Shared Future/destiny and Community of Shared Interests respectively. The former is
frequently used in official discourses and hence, the chapter prefers to use the translation
the Community of Shared Future (CSF).
8 THE COMMUNITY OF SHARED FUTURES: CHINA’S … 147
The idea of CSF, on the other hand, presents one voice and sans exclu-
sivity and does not present itself as an alternative, opposed to the liberal
order or as a counter to such exclusive propositions, by projecting its
inclusive vision of regional order that theoretically includes everyone (Xi
2019). This chapter, however, argues that the idea of CSF nevertheless
remains a counter to the LRO at least in two ways: One, that it coun-
ters China threat theory by explicating China’s “peaceful development”
narrative. And two, it is not just “defensive” as it is often presented to be.
Rather, it is an equally proactive narrative that in fact is not confined to
the Indo-Pacific region. Indeed, the centrality of the neighbourhood from
the beginning of these Chinese narratives indicate the significance that
China has attached to its unstated Asia–Pacific policies. And while FOIP
has been examined in other chapters in great detail, this chapter seeks to
elucidate China’s CSF as its counter to the US-led FOIP narratives.
This Chapter is organised in the following five sections. The first
section provides a critical overview of the multiple meanings and contexts
of the concept in Chinese official discourses. Then the second section
builds upon these existing arguments on a region in the larger inter-
national relations dynamics thereby locating its significance for the
normative narratives of the CSF and FOIP in the context of the Indo-
Pacific. The third section critically evaluates China’s Asia–Pacific strategy
concerning the evolving Indo-Pacific constructs in order to locate the use
of the CSF belong Chinese narratives. The fourth section then extends the
discussion from the previous section and critically examines why the CSF
is a counter-narrative and assesses its acceptability and efficacy. The final
section summarises the main conclusions and arguments of this chapter.
Constructed and Contested Ideas in-the-Making

In international relations, in critical theories parlance, “region” is concep-
tualised in terms of a construct reflecting its underlying geopolitical and
geo-economic interests of states (Godehardt 2014: 47; Acharya 2012:
189). While there are extensive published works on what constitutes
region and regionalism in IR, the chapter focuses on one particular aspect
of the region, that is, ‘the historicity and making of regions’ and it does
so by focusing specifically on Chinese narrative of the CSF. It locates
its analysis on Karoline Vinay-Postle’s argument that region or regional
order is an exercise of polity building. As he points out, “most of the
regionalist IR literature deals with regulations of regional politics rather
148 D. K. BISHNOI
than with the polity-building of the region” where the focus in the main-
stream debates of IR very often remains more “around the region than
about it” (Postel-Vinay 2007: 556; Postel-Vinay 2020). By focusing on
the region as a polity-building process, it is possible to delineate specific
features of the regional order distinguishing them from mere “regula-
tory” aspects of the region. In other words, it helps explain how ideas
and norms shape the conceptions of a regional order. It is true that ideas
and norms are not the only factors shaping regional order but these ideas
and norms shape how states conceptualise a region as well as help them
articulate already existing policies that serve their material interests.
Constructivism, for instance, believes that ideas and norms matter as
constitutive elements of the process of articulation and institutionalisation
of regional orders. It is specially so with the case of East Asia (broadly
defined around and including South East Asia) which has seen such
regional processes due to distinctive ideas, norms and a priori cognitive
givens (Amitav 2017: 817). But there are problems with such arguments
not because they emphasise far too much on the role of ideas and cultural
identity, but because they do not recognise the diversity of norms and
ideas, and the role of power in building their hierarchical order. This is
especially true in the wake of regional and extra-regional power compe-
tition between major powers becoming a potential factor to influence
how states imagine regional orders as well as how material interests of
each actor impinge upon their choices. Additionally, they do not take the
interactions between power and norms seriously (Acharya 2012: 184).
The implication of these interactions is that norms and ideas are also
constructive and hence they do matter in shaping conceptions of region
and normative articulations. Yet, they cannot be ignored because every
state does legitimise its policies and visions of regional order in normative
and ideational terms. Hence, the liberal regional order (LRO) is sought
to be legitimised and articulated in terms of liberal values of openness
and fairness while the CSF as a vision of regional community is sought to
be legitimised in win–win cooperation, shared interests, “public goods”
creation and so on.
While not denying the efficacy of both ideas and material interests, this
chapter argues that the idea of CSF represents and works in consonance
with China’s material (i.e. security and economic) interests. It both allows
it to make sense of the region as it wants it to be as well as allows it to
counter the FOIP narratives and allay fears of smaller countries about its
unprecedented economic rise and its consequent security implications for
the Indo-Pacific region. Here, the sequence of idea-material interests or

material interests-ideas gets complicated as also complementary to each
other. For example, a range of security and economic policy interests can
be articulated normatively using this concept of CSF. Economic devel-
opment and access to markets is the most pressing interest of China and
hence, arguing for win–win cooperation and inclusive rules allows CSF to
play the game safe with large number of developing and least developed
nations. China’s economic rise, on the other hand, does allow smaller
counties to benefit and hence makes it difficult for them to easily shun
these economic opportunities. Additionally, material power is necessary to
implement a state’s vision of regional order and in case of China, as some
scholars have effectively argued, the geo-economic power has helped it
rewrite rules and norms around its periphery (Norris 2016: 45). And it is
argued that China also requires to legitimise its proposed changes in the
regional order through norms which explains its emerging discourses of
CSF that becomes an essential prerequisite, especially so in face of US-led
FOIP narratives.
Ideas of Indo-Pacific:
Contestations and Convergences
The concept of FOIP has been projected as an extension of the inter-
national liberal order and hence, as a singular concept. However, each
stakeholder in this debate has had their idea of the Indo-Pacific reflecting
diverse interests, ideas, and strategies of each one of these. Even their
imagined geographies of the FOIP have varied quite widely. As several
scholars have argued, it remains a contested concept (Chacko 2014:
433). Yet, there are critical areas of convergence especially in the broader
framework of it as an open and rule-based order as also in its perceived
threat of rising China leading to overlapping of the different material and
ideational conceptions of the regional order. Besides, the Indo-Pacific is
also presented in FOIP as an evolving concept with a multitude of poli-
cies pursued by each actor. These convergences and divergences are often
explained in terms of democratic ethos of participating countries posting
them at variance with authoritarian and monolithic narratives of Beijing.
Also, in the FOIP narratives, none of the actors have presented a
defined policy though most of them have presented their formal policy
outlines on engaging the Indo-pacific. All of them see it as a dynamic and
evolving regional order in the making. Also, it means that each actor has
150 D. K. BISHNOI
had policies that can be defined as part of their Indo-pacific strategy but
also aligned to their overarching vision of the FOIP. For example, India’s
Look East Policy was enunciated in the early 1990s when the region
was beginning to take off economically. Yet its Indo-Pacific strategy is
still defined by immediate security concerns especially emanating from
China in its neighbourhood (Rajagopalan 2020: 80). Similarly, South
Korea’s South Policy, Taiwan’s new emphasis on South-Bound policies,
Japan’s FONOP, etc. all have major convergences yet they are also subtly
different from each other making it difficult to think of them as one or
in terms of this being a clear situation of China versus rest of these coun-
tries (Scott 2019: 29). In the last decade, of course, these trends towards
convergences of interests have stepped up with the US announcing first
“Rebalance to Asia” in 2010 and later issuing its Indo-Pacific strategy in
2017 (The White House 2017). Meanwhile, it has also stepped up diplo-
matic activities in the region with Quadrilateral Security Framework being
one of the most hyperactive (Smith 2021a). Yet it still cannot be argued
to have a well-defined Indo-pacific strategy for all its friends and allies.
The divergences have arisen out of both ideational and material factors.
There are two instances that especially manifest such divergences. One,
is the June 2018 speech by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi
at Shangri La Dialogue in Singapore. While emphasising on ASEAN
centrality and rule-based, fair and open regional order similar to the
LRO, his emphasis on the inclusiveness of regional players differed from
the narrative in the US official statements (Ministry of External Affairs
2018b). India has since advocated inclusion of both Russia and China into
Indo-Pacific deliberations and since included this as an item in the China-
India Annual Maritime Dialogue (Ministry of External Affairs 2018c;
Basu 2020). Another example is that of the “dilemma” of smaller states
and middle powers in the region having to choose between the US or
China (Wilkins and Kim 2020: 7). India again continues to struggle for
balancing its equations between the US and China. Recent China-India
tensions have indeed seen India drifting closer to US-led initiatives in
the Indo-Pacific region (Smith 2021a, b). This as well reflects tensions
within their Indo-Pacific narratives that are increasingly being pushed
forward by major powers strategic competition. Nevertheless, what unites
all these US-led visions is the perceived threat from the rise of China and
a recognition of the need for a coordinated response.
None of the actors indeed have one fixed and given idea of regional
order in Indo-Pacific region. The United States’ conception of Indo-
Pacific—as it is articulated in its 2017 Indo-Pacific Strategy and other
policy discourses—seeks to recall its centrality of the region going back
to the post-World War II period (The White House 2017: 3; Green
2017: 3). Global power shifts from Euro-Atlantic to Asia–Pacific over last
two decades have effected these US policy rebalances since early 2000s.
Similarly, other states have also responded to these evolving dynamics
of geopolitics and geo-economics in the region. China’s conceptions of
Asia–Pacific have also evolved with its unprecedented rise over this time
and its economic and security interests expanded since 1980s. As a result,
China has also had multiple versions of its policy for Asia–Pacific region
and it also consists of multiple policies at bilateral and multilateral levels.
Collectively, these reflect the evolving nature of the conception of regional
order in their policies and narratives. Hence, it is equally important to take
into account the processes and politics of this interface in their parallel two
sets of narratives on region-making. As always, apart from their material
interests and leverages, norms have played a central role in legitimising
and articulating policies by each of the actors.
China’s Asia–Pacific Policy

This section has two objectives. Firstly, it examines the meanings and
contexts of the concept of CSF in terms of region as a community.
Secondly, it locates the significance of this concept in China’s concep-
tion of the Asia–Pacific region as articulated in foreign policy narratives
primarily from the perspective of this being evolved as a counter to the
idea of FOIP. To begin with, China’s Asia–Pacific policies had evolved
as its economic and military power rose steadily and even miraculously
during the last four decades. But China, that had stayed largely inward
looking, did not have a view on the Asia–Pacific regional order until the
late 1990s. It had memories of doctrinal aspirations to shape regional
order but did not quite articulate such an aspiration in clear terms
reflecting lack of “regional policy” so to speak (Christoffersen 1996:
1067). Some Chinese scholars even believed that China did not even
need a grand strategy towards the Asia–Pacific region (Hu 1995: 132).
This situation was to change with China’s opening up and reforms that
substantially integrated it with the Asia–Pacific economies and created
152 D. K. BISHNOI
conditions for it to evolve a “regional view” in making its policy artic-

ulations. China’s regional view of course differed from the US-led
conceptions of the regional order, even in fighting shy of calling it Indo-
Pacific region. Additionally, as a rising power in the region, China’s view
was deeply grounded in its security, economic and geopolitical interests.
What is noticeable is that China’s evolving policies towards the region
have been proactive in nature rather than reactive. This is significant when
it comes to normative articulations of its regional policy is the focus of
examination in this chapter. The idea of Indo-pacific as a region has itself
evolved parallel to the economic rise of China. Indeed, the increasing pace
of economic growth in this entire region has catapulted the region as the
new power centre in the global geo-economic trends. The narratives of
the CSF in Chinese discourses have therefore emerged primarily from this
shift from geo-strategy to geo-economics and from Euro-Atlantic to Asia–
Pacific that have created its own new challenges that China faces especially
in the immediate neighbourhood (Feng 2020: 10). For the United States
and its friends and allies, this rise of China and its material leverages and
especially its actions in the South China sea have created fear among its
smaller neighbours. Continuing cross-straits tension with Taiwan Rela-
tions Act of the US creating possibilities of outside interference by the
US and other powers have always loomed large in Chinese thinking (Yan
2015). Besides, the overall increasing strategic competition between the
US and China—seen in their recent trade and technology wars—have
made these narrative contestations all the more salient to the evolving
dynamics of the Indo-Pacific.
Given China’s experiences during the Western containment policies of
the cold war years trust building in the neighbourhood had presented a
challenge to Beijing. Accordingly, China since the early 2000s has worked
hard to assuage the fear among the smaller countries in South-East Asia
through the “peaceful development narratives and the good neighbourly
policy” (Bijian 2005; Chung 2009). The immediate neighbourhood of
China, therefore, has found a prominent place in the evolution of its idea
of the CSF although its scope remains global (Li and Yuwen 2016). It is in
this sense that the centrality of the neighbourhood makes the CSF closely
tied to its Asia–Pacific policy. This has, of course, also evolved in view of
its perceived challenges that it faces in its immediate neighbourhood and
the way China’s rise has accentuated a certain sense of fear among these
small countries that also explains Beijing’s attempt to make its narrative of
Community of Shared Interests (liyi gongtongti) central to China’s Asia–

Pacific strategy. This is also a counter to the narrative of US-led liberal
regional order (LRO) articulated by the US and its allies and other friends
in the Indo-Pacific region.
Second, China’s views of the Indo-Pacific strategy of the US have
also evolved in the form of a variety of arguments extended by Chinese
scholars and officials on how to respond to their security challenges,
achieve economic interests and project influence as a regional power in
the Asia–Pacific. All of these remain woven around a consensus that LRO
driven Indo-Pacific narratives represent a containment strategy against
China (Ma 2020; Huang 2018; Hu and Meng 2020). At the same time,
China’s Asia–Pacific strategy cannot be said to have been influenced by
the US policy alone. Rather it has a longer genealogy going back to
China’s proactive conceptualisations since early 1990s. A variety of factors
had shaped its policies towards the region. To understand CSF, therefore,
it becomes pertinent to briefly contextualise its discourses by examining
various factors that have guided and goaded it.
Factors and Forces Guiding China’s CSF

First and foremost, China’s conception of the regional order in Asia–
Pacific have been closely co-related to its unprecedented rise as an
economic power from the later half of 1980s and especially since early
1990s. Economic relationships have therefore been the mainstay of
China’s Asia–Pacific policy articulations at the regional level. Within this,
China’s policies with regards to specific issues like the Taiwan issue, the
South China Sea, Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, and its increasing military
capabilities have created uncertainty and fear among smaller countries.
China has pursued its visions on these issues both at bilateral and multi-
lateral levels aimed at securing its security and economic interests. Apart
from bilateral relationships with countries in the region, it has increas-
ingly pursued its engagement with multilateralism both in security and
trade sectors to secure a peaceful environment in its periphery which
has been a vital prerequisite to its economic development and security.
This has seen China at the very forefront to create multilateral fora
like the APEC, ASEAN+3, ASEAN Regional Forum, and various trade
agreements including the RCEP concluded in 2020.
It is interesting to note that even in China’s narratives, there has been
widespread scepticism on whether this multilateral approach can yield
154 D. K. BISHNOI
desired results (Sun 2010). There have been arguments that China may
not be seriously interested in strong multilateral institutions, and how its
preference for bilateral has been a hindrance to multilateralisation (Beeson
2015: 5). Nevertheless, these multilateral fora have been an important
pillar of China’s approach to the Asia–Pacific region especially in its imme-
diate neighbourhood if not in terms of its larger institutional balancing
against US-led alliance networks in the larger Indo-Pacific region where it
must prevent something from happening against its core interests (Beeson
2019: 246). While these policies present an inclusive and cooperative
China, its approach to multilateralism reveals that it intends to create
a Sino-centric regional order by excluding major players like the US.
For example, China has created multilateral institutions like the Shanghai
Cooperation Organization (SCO), BRICS, Asia Infrastructure Invest-
ment Bank (AIIB) where the United States has not joined as member.
Some of China’s initiatives do exhibit an inclusive character as well like
the AIIB in terms of its governance mechanisms and norms that allows it
to become an effective regional organisation (Kumar 2021: 2).
Another driver has been China’s economic engagement with the
littoral nations. The economic dimensions of China’s engagement strategy
have been aimed at turning economic supply chains, finance, and trade
China-centric creating interdependence and even path dependency for
several smaller neighbours. While the security and military dimensions
of China’s strategy gets more attention, this China-centric trade and
economic supply chains have provided the stronger basis for creating a
Sino-centric regional order. The Belt and Road Initiatives, trade agree-
ments at bilateral and multilateral levels, the RCEP for example, provide
leverage in making economic order anchored in Chinese interests. This
has made region’s rise undergirded by China’s rise creating mutual stakes.
Although the centrality of economic dimensions of China’s relationships
emerged out of its emphasis on China’s domestic economic development
drive since the late 1980s, the security and military aspects of its regional
strategy that followed cannot be disentangled either. It is reflected, for
example, in the way deeper economic relations with smaller countries
have created conditions for the latter to choose military and security
alliances. Even countries like the Philippines, Vietnam, and others, which
fear Chinese military and security policies the most, cannot easily ignore
China economically. China’s economic partnerships, therefore, give it
leverage over smaller countries in terms of wooing or even coercing them
to wean them away from the US-led initiatives and narratives.
China’s neighbourhood policy has been aimed at integrating smaller

countries with the Chinese economy. Lately, its security policies have also
become centred on creating a safe zone in its neighbourhood given rising
China perceives serious security threats not only from outside powers but
also from larger ethnic groups like the Uyghurs and Tibetans on the
western side, and the issue of South China Sea and Taiwan in the east
(Zhou 2014: 29). While on its coast in the East and South, it has adopted
the so-called “sea denial policy” to create a secured neighbourhood, in
the west it has settled borders with Central Asian countries and Russia
in lieu of guarantee for sovereignty questions in Xinjiang (Godehardt
2014: 134). The creation of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization was
aimed at ensuring security in Xinjiang and Central Asia (ibid.: 130). In
other words, the centrality of security concerns in the neighbourhood
has been the first step determining China’s approach towards building a
Sino-centric regional order in the Asia–Pacific.
China’s economic and security dimensions cannot be disentangled as
its recent actions have made it increasingly clear its use economic relation-
ships as a tool for pursuing geopolitical interests (Kurlantzick 2008: 7;
Norris 2016: 45). The dispute over economic relations between Australia
and China provides a recent example of China’s coercive economic diplo-
macy. Apart from countries in South-East Asia, its economic relations
with Island countries in the South-Pacific have also deepened in recent
decades. One of the explicit outcomes of this has been the change of
diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to the People’s Republic of China
(PRC). Besides, these island states provide significant geo-strategic loca-
tions the major powers like the US and China vying for regional preem-
inence. China’s inroads into these small island countries has prompted
concerns in the US and among its friends and allies which have announced
plans for infrastructure projects and economic aid to these countries in
the South-Pacific (Zhou 2021: 245). This has contributed to China’s
increasing profile in the region economically boosting its strategy of
regional order. It is in this context that China has been trying to shape or
reshape the norms and rules to suit its interests and has pushed forward
with new normative ideas as outlined in the CSF. The significance of the
CSF in its emerging conception of the regional order lies in its normative
articulation of economic, security and geopolitical interests on the one
hand and its critiquing of other conceptions of regional order like that of
the FOIP on the other.
156 D. K. BISHNOI
CSF and Changing of the Normative Dynamics

The CSF as a concept was first used in Hu Jintao’s report to the 17th
Party Congress with regard to the Taiwan question (China Daily 2007).
Later, China released a White Paper titled China’s Peaceful Development
that discussed the CSF in good detail, and hereafter it came to be used
extensively in references to all aspects of China’s relationship with the
outside world (Information Office of the State Council 2011). Neverthe-
less, it remains an ambiguous concept often used in contrasting situations.
The ambiguity comes especially from its fuzzy conceptual and moral
boundaries, reflecting perhaps the persistent normative confusion within
China’s foreign policy discourses. The concept at the same time remains
significant in discursive practices rather than providing moral compass or
normative resource for institution building as such; a problem that such
ideas from Chinese foreign policy discourse are likely to face for long time.
Of course, its normative significance in terms of articulating foreign policy
and in contestation of dominant international norms cannot be ignored
either. In 2017, the CSF was finally enshrined in the constitution as part
of the Xi Jinping Thought and its definition captures its essential elements
that have been used in different contexts in official discourses. According
to this text:
In international affairs, it shall uphold justice while pursuing shared inter-

ests, safeguard China’s independence and sovereignty, oppose hegemonism
and power politics, defend world peace, promote human progress, work to
build a community with a shared future for mankind, and advance the
building of a harmonious world of lasting peace and common prosperity.
(“Full Text of Constitution of Communist Party of China” 2017)
Motivations For China’s CSF

Chinese debates on the CSF give multiple reasons why the idea of CSF
is needed and useful for China’s peaceful rise. First, the existing global
institutional system and values are highly exclusive and hence an inclu-
sive idea of “global community” is needed that can promote creation
of public goods for the common interests of all. Second, the diversity
of cultures, civilisations, political systems require a common idea that is
inclusive and respects diversity. Third, the existing order and values do
not adhere to morality that calls for direction. Fourth, the US-led system
is beset with cold war mentality with double standards towards the devel-
oping world (Yan 2020). And finally, there is a serious lack of ideology
that is inclusive and can guide the world by solving common prob-
lems like poverty, underdevelopment, environmental degradation (China
Center for International Economic Exchanges 2018; Xi 2015; Zhang
2018; Fu Ying 2017). Moreover, while the world was fighting the coron-
avirus pandemic, China in 2020 claimed to having completely eradicated
extreme poverty—a full ten years before the 2030 target year for it in the
UN Sustainable Development Goals (Xinhua News 2021).
From Harmonious World to CSF

The discourses of the CSI have more in common with China’s preceding
normative concepts like creating a harmonious world and peaceful devel-
opment projected in the early 2000s which makes it appear like an exten-
sion of peaceful development (Bijian 2005; Kawashima 2019). However,
what makes it different from those earlier narratives is its scope and
centrality within Chinese foreign policy narratives. It is usually referred
to as a new approach to global governance. For example, Xi Jinping in
his address at Beijing on 26 March 2019 at the closing ceremony of the
China-France Global Governance Forum stated that:
We must adhere to the global governance concept of extensive consul-

tation, joint contribution, and shared benefits, insist that global affairs
are handled by people of all countries through consultation, and actively
promote the democratization of global governance rules. We must
continue to hold high the banner of multilateralism of the United Nations,
give full play to the constructive role of the World Trade Organization, the
International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Group of Twenty, the
European Union, and other global and regional multilateral mechanisms
to jointly promote the building of a community with a shared future for
mankind. (Xi 2019)
From Defensive to Proactive

China’s earlier discourses are also seen as having been largely on the
defensive while the idea of CSF is presented as a proactive paradigm.
The idea of CSF is projected as a Chinese contribution to the global
norm-building rather than just a part of the narrative that China can
rise peacefully in compliance with global norms (Guo and Yu 2021: 2).
158 D. K. BISHNOI
Additionally, the peaceful rise discourses have been taking place when
China remains concerned primarily with economic needs and economic
interactions with the outside world. But increasingly, the CSF is taking
place when China is repositioning its security and strategic policies in the
region as also beyond it. It is seen by many as a vision that rejects liberal
values while emphasising the institutional architecture of the current
international system (Xi 2019; Fu 2017).
Additionally, China’s CSF also projects a vision of world order as
community (Guo and Yu 2021: 1). Although scholars have recently
started taking note of the concept and begun to theorise it as an idea
of regional or world order in terms of region or world as a community,
such a conception has received inspirations primarily from the speeches
of Xi Jinping and other high officials that defines their Party line. This
makes it also connected to the issue of enhancing Party’s legitimacy both
at home as also in its immediate periphery. Before going into the details
of how this concept is used in articulating that China-led regional order,
it is equally instructive to briefly delve into its possible intellectual origins.
Intellectual Origins of CSF

The idea of CSF has deeper intellectual and political roots within Chinese
domestic politics, International Relations theory and search for alterna-
tives. As such, it is not just a moralist foreign policy concept and soft
power tool while these dimensions of the CSF are also a significant part of
China’s official narratives. Rather, it is part of the new strategies of China
to push forward itself as a norm maker and not just a norm taker as the
West would like it to be (Jianwei 2019: 22). In this regard, scholars as well
as state have been attempting to push forward this vision in diplomatic
statements, and official documents at different levels. As a result, two
broad proposals have emerged from China’s mainstream International
Relations intellectuals that have shaped the these normative articulations
of China’s foreign policy in general although, when it comes to China,
the direct links between the intellectual and State guided debates have
their own limitations.
This process had begun with Chinese scholars attempting to provide an
alternative explanation for the rise of China and how it stood apart from
Realism driven power centric narratives of war and peace determining
the nature of international relations and foreign policies. These views
have been grounded in norms, historical experiences, and practices during
long Chinese history to provide alternative explanations for China’s rise.

Yan Xuetong has attempted to explain China’s rise in moral realism
terms arguing that morality (of leadership) is an important element of
power which is understood in limited material terms by Realist scholars
(Yan 2020: 3). But Yan Xuetong has also critiqued economic-centrism
in Chinese foreign policy and argued that it should bring in new ideas
of a harmonious world and the Community of Shared interests in its
mainstream strategies (Yan et al. 2011: 152).
The rationale in the normative argument of Chinese scholars is that
moral leadership is different from leadership based on the superiority of
military and economic power and hence, as a civilisational state, China’s
rise is different from the realist perspectives of hegemonic wars between
dominant status quo power and the emerging aspirant power. Be that
as it may, the point is that norms have been central to Chinese foreign
policy in these arguments. Another significant intellectual project has
been put forward by Zhao Tingyang in his book All Under Heaven: The
Tianxia System for a Possible World Order first published in Chinese in
2005 as tianxia tixi yu shijie zhidu. The idea that Chinese history and
ideas provide a better way of understanding and solving global problems
is central to his project (Zhao 2006: 36). Critiques of it apart, the idea is
that China should now push forward new norms. It is argued here that
new ideas like the CSF are part of the larger normative changes taking
place in China’s domestic politics and foreign policy. The idea of the
world as a community in the CSF is closely related to the idea of the
world as a family pushed forwarded by Zhao Tingyang and others.
CSF in China’s Vision of the Indo-Pacific

The question is how does this relatively ambiguous and fuzzy and largely
normative concept manifest in Chinese conception of the Indo-Pacific
regional order. Yet, as Raoul Bunskoek and Chih-yu Shih have argued
the idea of Community of Shared Destiny provides an alternative concep-
tion of regional order going beyond western conceptions of regional
order, ignoring the idea and hence, its significance in Chinese narratives
is not helpful (Bunskoek and Shih 2021: 2). Rather a serious engage-
ment with these narratives is required to fully appreciate the role of ideas
in region-making exercises. Norms and ideas have no doubt been at
the very centre of various competing visions of the Indo-Pacific regional
order. This has been seriously contested by leading scholars in the Realist
160 D. K. BISHNOI
narratives since the early 1990s over whether China can rise peacefully
(Mearsheimer 2014). In that sense, these new concepts and ideas had
begun to emerge in China’s discourse from the late 1990s primarily in
response to these questions about its “peaceful rise” coming under ques-
tion. But, the discourses of the CSF were to emerge not as reactive but
as proactive response and hence, as an alternative rather than simply a
defensive response to debunk Western notions. This also made CSF quite
like China’s earlier discourses on China’s “peaceful development” and
harmonious world.
China’s proactive normative CSF idea has also been linked to its
preceding narratives in articulating its security interests like its New Secu-
rity Concept (NSC) since 2014 that uses some of the ideas normally
defined as part of the CSF. In this, the idea of region includes the
whole of Asia captured in the phrase in Xi Jinping’s speeches emphasising
on “Asia for Asians” (Dong and Weizhan 2020: 506–7). Not only this
generic scope of region is different from the Western conception of the
Indo-Pacific region but it also includes the NSC that is presented as an
open, inclusive and win–win idea for the region (Jiang 2014: 3–4). These
norms and ideas are part of the CSF. Other scholars have also included
inclusiveness, openness and elasticity in China’s NSC and connected it
with the idea of CSF (Han 2015: 52). Here, the idea of region in China
covers whole of “Asia” with respect to debates on US policies in the
region that have preoccupied China’s foreign policy from the very begin-
ning. This again indicates that China’s security, strategic and economic
priorities are linked with pan-Asian imaginations and not just maritime
focus as has been the case of the Western notions of the Indo-Pacific
region.
Second, China’s conceptualisation of CSF have also evolved in contrast
to the “cold war mentality” of the US which is also seen guiding Amer-
ican Indo-Pacific narratives. On the contrary, to begin with, China’s CSF
as a regional community is presented as part of China’s good intentions of
seeing regional stability as prerequisite for national security. Shen Dingli,
for example, refers to multilateral initiatives and confidence building
measures like the Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building
Measures in Asia (CICA) among others as driven by Chinese actions to
promote region as a community (Shen 2014: 1). In a way, these ideas
were also formulated by Beijing to allay fears of China’s rise in its imme-
diate neighbourhood. Therefore, articulating of these new ideas like CSF
and other norms have not only provided it an ideational resource to
present China’s narratives but also by implication critique the FOIP while
pushing forward its own vision of regional order. Also, since every state
needs to legitimise their policies and vision, the CSF has likewise been
used not only as a critique but a counter to other conceptions of regional
order.
Third, even the geographical scope of the region as it manifests in
Chinese discourses remains largely continental as it puts Asia as the
very centerstage of its vison of Asia–Pacific and somehow underplay the
“Pacific” part of Asia–Pacific (Dong and Weizhan 2020: 506). Although
it is difficult to judge the rationale behind such a formulation with
convincing evidence there are couple of general points that can be made
to derive some sense of the centrality of Asia in China’s narratives on
its larger region. Put most simply, China’s geographical location between
the regions like South-East Asia, Central Asia and South Asia make its
security policies much more related to continental Asia as a whole rather
than focusing on maritime domain of the Indo-Pacific as has been the
case of FOIP that argues for a maritime regional order. This at least
party explains why China has been a later comer in engaging Indo-Pacific
narratives. Some scholars have, in larger debates on Indo-Pacific, refuted
the idea that Indo-Pacific is an exclusive maritime region and asserted
the intersection between continental and maritime zones as an integrated
region, i.e. Asia (Pardesi 2020: 125). Within this continental Asia-centric
regional order, there are of course subsets through which China has been
pursuing its foreign policy. Here, China’s conception of Asia–Pacific poli-
cies intersects with its policies towards Asia’s sub-regions like Central Asia
and South Asia. Zhao Huasheng indicates how Indo-Pacific covers Pacific
more than Indian ocean region as such and hence, to counter it, China
has penetrated into Indian Ocean though it is not as such a part of the
continental Asia-centric regional order for China (Zhao 2020).
Fourth issue relevant to this continental Asia-centric conception has
been debated in terms of China wanting to create a Sino-centric regional
order by replacing the US as a post-World War II predominant power
in the region. The US has enjoyed predominance in strategic and secu-
rity alignments and in many other aspects since the World War II. It has
had military alliances with multiple regional players like Japan, South
Korea, Australia among others and was the largest trading partner of
most of these countries until the 2000s. The geopolitics of the region
was anchored by the US geopolitical and geo-economic interests in
162 D. K. BISHNOI
the region. But all this had begun to change with the unprecedented
economic rise of China from 1990s that also saw collapse of Soviet Union
and US drift to the Middle Eastern region. China consequently was to
emerge as the largest trading partner of most of the countries in the
region replacing the US by early 2000s. However, in terms of military
alliances, China continues to fall short of the US preponderance. Since
the 1980s, China followed the policy of non-alliance officially and hence,
China has no formal military alliance (Liu and Liu 2017: 153). But
recently scholars and policymakers have begun to underline the change
in China’s policy suitable for the emerging strategic scenario (Yan 2017).
Although Chinese official positions and even intellectuals have consis-
tently argued that Sino-US relations are not necessarily bound to lead to
fall into the proverbial “Thucydides Trap” (Yan and Haixia 2012: 106),
the US official narratives, on the other hand, have been quite explicit
about such a possibility and blamed it on China’s actions and policies
(Allision 2017).
In the end, Chinese policies at a bilateral, regional and multilateral
level have been aimed at and goaded by its need for security for ensuring
its rapid development. At the same time, China has also evolved into
expanding its regional influence in a way that makes regional order
anchored in its own core interests even when security remains at the core
of China’s regional narratives (Zhang and Tang 2006: 51). Nevertheless,
China’s rise as an economic power has stoked fears as well. Especially,
China’s ambitious Belt and Road initiative (BRI) has been one of those
initiatives that have led to security concerns not just among its neigh-
bours but also major powers like the US. The idea of CSF has been
integral to the BRI that is portrayed in terms of win–win formulation as
if benefiting everyone. China’s position on geopolitical dimensions of the
BRI have been laced with the narrative of China being driven by desire
to helping others develop as well. This desire however is not unique to
China as it is generally articulated by all powerful actors seeking expanded
influence. But it becomes important because many states feel convinced of
having benefitted economically from China’s rise. This is where, the CSF
as a normative idea begins to shape the dominant discourse in Chinese
official positions (Chen and Zhang 2020: 10). This what makes CSF a
formidable influence in the evolution of Indo-Pacific narratives.
Chinese Critique of the Indo-Pacific

One of the saliences of the Chinese critique of the concept of Indo-Pacific
has been that Beijing has been against the “new cold war” or cold war
mentality (State Council Information Office of the PRC 2017; Ministry
of Foreign Affairs, PRC 2019). As a result, it has sought to present a
conception of the regional order that must be devoid of building any
military alliances that had once defined the cold war divide. Herein lies
the utility of the normative and moralist ideas like the CSF. At one level, it
works as part of China’s discursive practice that seeks to shape the overall
normative discourse about the region. In this regard, it becomes part of
China’s soft power instrumentality that has been generally defensive and
reactive rather than proactive. The previous discourse on “peaceful devel-
opment” was, for example, aimed mainly at countering “China threat
theory” evolved by Western scholars since early 1990s. But this enter-
prise was clearly devoid of the proactive orientation to push forward new
ideas and norms as is seen in case of CSF paradigm.
The re-calibrated conceptualisation of the CSF, on the other hand,
portrays a normative foundation for the idea of the Indo-Pacific region
not in terms of hard-power driven geopolitics but as a community in the
making. In presenting itself as an alternative it indirectly undercuts the
lure of Western narratives. Especially the way the idea of CSF has been
used by China to articulate its diplomatic positions and its centrality in
Indo-Pacific narratives suggests that it is aimed at providing an alternative
normative understanding of the Indo-Pacific region. Given that China has
acquired substantial material capability, it is appropriate to surmise that,
backed by BRI, the CSF has substantially reshaped the norms and rules
of this region’s narratives. But this has also in turn compelled China to
articulate its interests and policies in normative ideas and then to also
become their prisoner and comply with all of these. This has also been
understood as socialisation of China into the mainstream.
Finally, the CSF as it is articulated in the Chinese debates does not
have any focus on creating new institutions that has been the pillars
of the success of post-World War II LRO that have facilitated the US
preeminence in the region. Therefore, this community building approach
remains yet to be tested and carries its own strength and challenges.
To the least, it portends to be a long-haul enterprise. Besides, China
faces an uphill task to materialise its vision of regional order through
164 D. K. BISHNOI
norms and soft power without relying on US “hub-and-spokes” like mili-

tary alliances. Meanwhile, China’s approach to building an Indo-Pacific
regional order also remains subject to multifarious strategic challenges.
Most of these again flow from taking US friends and allies along in
building a consensus driven regional multilateral order led by Beijing.
China’s strength in economic sphere, however, allows it the staying power
to initiate and participate in building a China-centric regional order.
China-led free trade agreement like the RCEP presents an apt example
of such leverages. Hence, China’s ideas like the CSF seems all set to play
a critical role not just in terms of grand vision of its normative thinking
but to contest “exclusive” initiatives like that of Indo-Pacific that is often
couched in terms of the so-called FOIP narrative.
Conclusion
To conclude, therefore, it is interesting to see how various stakeholders
have presented both the material and normative or ideational dimensions
of their respective imaginations about regional order for the Indo-Pacific.
This has become far too complex in the context of an accelerated geopo-
litical shift from Euro-Atlantic to Asia–Pacific or Indo-Pacific. At least
two of these sets, led respectively by the US and China, have come to
be seen as competing and contesting. What is interesting is how both sets
have shown enormous overlap through driven by contrasting motives and
leverages and yet these cannot be disentangled from each other. Some of
the western scholars like Ian Johnston or Stephen Walt have seen it as
Western victory as China can no longer ignore norms evolved largely by
Western nations and hence has to follow international norms while trying
to redefine and change these norms and the regional order (Johnston
2019; Walt 2021). At their core, however, these contesting conceptions
of the regional order of the Indo-Pacific are equally about normative
ideas and material interests. Since the Indo-Pacific region has come to
be a politically constructed idea, normative ideas like the CSF or LRO or
Liberal International Order matter only in the way states conceptualise
mechanics of this regional order.
And finally, because each proponent of the Indo-Pacific regional frame-
work has to legitimise its material interests and policies normatively the
contentious nature of two narratives of the regional order do reveal their
underlying contentions over material interests viz military, security and
geo-economic interests. In this contested terrain of evolving narratives,
the CSF construct has come to be for China what has been ‘liberal
ideology’ in successive American strategies. But while liberal international
order has been in the mainstream and presents a strong institutional vision
which cannot be matched by the communitarian approach of China’s
CSF, the latter does promise an attractive alternative that has influenced
the emerging regional dynamics of geopolitics of region in the Indo-
Pacific. The CSF has indeed begun to influence mutual alignments of
varying visions of the FOIP undercutting its preeminence and yet even
in most favourable circumstances it has a long way to go to replace time
tested LRO vision driven currently by the Western construct of the FOIP.
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CHAPTER 9
China’s Regional Engagement and Quad:

Mapping Conceptual Dynamics
Mrittika Guha Sarkar
Introduction
Perceived as the grouping of like-minded “democracies” converging
across the Indian and the Pacific Oceans, the Quad—consisting of the US,
Japan, Australia, and India—has firmly endorsed the concept of a “Free
and Open Indo-Pacific” (FOIP). The four countries have carved their
niche by emphasising on the rules-based liberal order, resonating shared
values as the core of the Quad. These were reiterated in their debut online
summit on March 12, 2021, signalling a more concrete agenda, enhanced
momentum, and a “vital arena for cooperation in the Indo-Pacific” region
(Government of India 2021). Particularly from the vantage point of the
first-ever “Quad Leaders” Joint Statement, “The Spirit of the Quad”
M. G. Sarkar (B)
Centre for Strategic Studies and Simulation, United Service Institute of India,
New Delhi, India

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7521-9_9
172 M. G. SARKAR
sought to ensure an Indo-Pacific founded on freedom, openness, inclu-

sivity, health, democratic values and be devoid of coercion. However, the
values mentioned above imbibe greater significance in view of Xi Jinping’s
principal slogan of “Community of Shared Future for Mankind” (CFSM),
which also echo a similar sentiment while projecting Beijing as an earnest
builder of global peace, development, and a defender of international
order to ensure a just, secure, and prosperous world (China Daily 2017).
What is noteworthy is that President Xi’s new outline marks China’s
strategic shift from Deng Xiaoping’s “hide-and-bide” dictum to a global
activist one, underpinning China’s nationalist geo-economic and geo-
strategic motives, reflected in its Maritime Silk Road (MSR) as also its
supply chain networks, military assertiveness and “wolf warrior” diplo-
macy. China’s Maritime Silk Road has been making considerable inroads
in the traditional maritime spheres of influence by expanding its maritime
access and outreach. However, this is where Quad has accused Beijing of
facilitating unilateralism and opaqueness through its commercially ques-
tionable infrastructural projects in the Indo-Pacific, giving rise to debt
traps and diverging from the values of “openness” and “equality”. At
the same time, the Quad underlined how Chinese activities threaten
the region’s freedom and security through its assertive diplomacy and
aggressive military posturing, especially in the South China Sea.
With this background, the chapter seeks to specifically examine the
conceptual undercurrents between China’s regional engagement vis-à-vis
the Quad’s tryst with the Indo-Pacific. It explores and analyses its evolu-
tion and likely trajectories to assess its impact on Indo-Pacific geopolitics.
While doing so, the chapter argues that the Quad, to some extent, has
the potential to become a balancer to Xi’s Community of Shared Future
for Mankind which, for Quad nations, reflects the critical strategic under-
pinnings of China’s economic and strategic assertive adventurism in the
Indo-Pacific. These have led these Quad countries to call for diversifying
away from China-centric global supply chain networks to offset their
economic over-dependence on Beijing. These, further, have been chal-
lenging the liberal order the Quad has been mutually aiming to defend in
the Indo-Pacific.
Mapping the Conceptual Dynamics

Despite the fact that both China and the Quad have contributed signifi-
cantly to the Indo-Pacific area, there is still a large viewpoint gap between
9 CHINA’S REGIONAL ENGAGEMENT AND QUAD: MAPPING … 173
Beijing and the other Quad members. This has guided their respective
policies and activities in the Indo-Pacific. To begin with, although the
Indo-Pacific region is key to China’s strategic goals, the country’s offi-
cial discourse has, more often than not, utilised the term “Asia–Pacific”
instead. Nonetheless, China’s strategic community is beginning to discuss
how to integrate the idea of the “Indo-Pacific”, although this has not
been endorsed by the country’s leadership (Shephard and Miglani 2017;
Medcalf 2013). As its economy has grown, China has felt more powerful
in the ‘Asia–Pacific,’ leading to a corresponding increase in military
spending. China’s ascent as a regional economic power and expansion of
its authority as a vital actor in the region are facilitated by the Asia–Pacific
concept, which bears all the virtues of Asian economic multilateralism for
China. As a result of this conception of Asia–Pacific, China was able to
join APEC in 1991 and the WTO in 2001. Further, China became one
of the Asia–Pacific region’s most important trading partners, confirming
its growing reputation as a global industrial hub.
China’s commitment to the Asia–Pacific region has been bolstered
by the global economic recession after 2008–2009. These factors have
also contributed to China’s status as the region’s economic leader after
the country became the first major economy to recover from the world-
wide economic shock of the 2008–2009 recession. In particular, China’s
expanding position in the APEC helped the “China Miracle”, which has
led to the expansion and stability of the Chinese economy and, in turn,
brought legitimacy to the Communist Party of China (CPC). All of this
has strengthened China’s position as an economic superpower in APEC,
the region, and the global arena, along with India’s absence from the
forum and the United States’ diminishing significance in it since the post-
cold War Era. Thus, China has been leading APEC’s plan for an FTA,
while the summit approved the Chinese Roadmap for APEC’s Contribu-
tion to the Development of the Free Trade Area of Asia–Pacific (FTAAP).
Further, China has recently funded the establishment of a “Sub-Fund on
APEC Cooperation on Combating Covid-19 and Economic Recovery”
to aid the APEC nations in recovering from the disastrous consequences
of the COVID-19 pandemic (Zhang and Zhang 2021). When viewed in
a broader context, the Asia–Pacific structure has been a significant factor
in Xi’s Community of Shared Future for Mankind. It has allowed it to
take on the role of the guardian of the global system, in line with the
Chinese perspective on what must be done to create a fair, secure, and
affluent global society.
174 M. G. SARKAR
The US-led Indo-Pacific construct, in contrast to the Asia–Pacific

construct, contains Neo-Realist features and are limited to a security
domain for China, both of which are unacceptable to the country.
Because it is being directed and supported by the United States, it aims
to maintain the status quo of American hegemony by using its great
economic and military power to govern and control regional affairs.
What’s more, the fact that India, Japan, and Australia have all come out
in open support of this just serves to cement the region’s Neo-Realist
outlook for China. The September 2021 formation of a trilateral secu-
rity partnership between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United
States (AUKUS) that commits to support Australia in acquiring nuclear-
powered submarines only reinforced this view in Beijing. It is vital to note
that the Quad countries appear to be progressively filling the geopolitical
void that has been underlying the rising Indo-Pacific construct. Much to
China’s discontent, this is the very void that China has desired to fill ever
since its economic boom. In this light, the Indo-Pacific poses a risk and
contradiction to China’s own regional order vision and, by extension, the
regional outlook that it defends and promotes.
Thus, China has been steadily sprouting a revisionist attitude towards
the Quad and AUKUS, indicating that it aims to change the U.S.-
dominated status quo (Schweller 2015). In retrospect, China under Xi
Jinping appeared to express its discontent with the growing US pres-
ence and the US-led order in the region by embracing a “New Asian
Security Concept for New Progress in Security Cooperation” in 2014.
As well, it urged the “building of a new model of international rela-
tions” by forging various collaborations with all nations and regional
organisations. It can be argued that instead of aligning with the United
States-led alliance system and partnerships, China’s stated goal with these
programs has been to construct a “China-centric” security architecture
(State Council, The People’s Republic of China 2017) incorporating and
bolstering India’s political, security, and economic upsurge, Japan’s re-
emerging prominence, and Australia’s burgeoning significance with their
progressively firm attitude towards China.
In contrast, the Quad framework’s members have been able to advance
their own foreign policy, security, and economic goals with the help
of the Indo-Pacific construct, therefore, it is clear that the framework’s
continued use of this concept is vital. Their goal of a free and open
Indo-Pacific (FOIP) is to promote their diplomatic, economic, geopo-
litical, and military interests and maintain the security and stability of the
rules-based international order supported by the present US-led status

quo (Hanada 2019). The Quad, as was restated during the Quad Lead-
ership Summit of 12 March 2021, remains “united in a shared vision for
the free and open Indo-Pacific” (United States of American, Department
of State 2017). They work towards an area that is free, open, inclu-
sive, healthy, rooted in democratic ideals, and untamed by coercion. Last
but not least, it promises to promote a “free, open rules-based order”,
entrenched in international law to strengthen stability and development
and resist challenges to the Indo-Pacific and beyond (ibid.).
Maritime Silk Road vis-à-vis the Quad

There is no doubting that the region is of critical importance to China.
Its drive to combat piracy in the early years of the century brought the
country closer to the Indian Ocean. However, China being the world’s
largest trade nation and greatest importer of energy also reiterates its
vested interest in the security and free use of the world’s sea lanes of
communication. Notably, the Middle East, Africa, and the Indian Ocean
account for up to 80 per cent of China’s oil imports, which travel
through the Malacca Straits and other ports in the Indo-Pacific (China
Power 2017). Also, over half of the world’s petroleum commerce passes
across the Indian Ocean, while ten of the world’s busiest container ports
remain located there. Hence, the ‘Malacca dilemma’ has prompted China
to pursue naval modernisation and increase its maritime outreach. This
requires us to be on the lookout for threats from both state and non-state
actors and to be ready to deal with them accordingly. However, this also
throws light on China’s perception towards the Quad, where, according
to the country, the Quad’s regional participation in relation to the Beijing
is intended to curb China’s growing maritime influence. Thus, for China,
its vital foreign interests are at risk from the re-emergence of Quad since
2017, along with the Quad members’ pre-existing clout in the region
particularly in light of Beijing’s regional vulnerabilities.
Thus, China has delineated an elaborate project of the Maritime Silk
Road (MSR) that connects China’s busy ports to Europe via the South
China Sea, Indian Ocean, Gulf, and Mediterranean in order to protect
China’s trade routes, increase China’s sway in the larger Indo-Pacific
region, and extend China’s strategic objectives. As part of this effort,
China is improving and expanding access to existing ports like Gwadar
and Hambantota and building brand new ones like Xingang and Yantai
176 M. G. SARKAR
along the way. Further, to realise President Xi Jinping’s concept of

national rejuvenation known as the “Chinese Dream”, the MSR vision
has also become an integral aspect of China’s overarching strategy. Beijing
sees MSR as an integral part of Xi’s CSFM and a fundamental channel for
interaction with the wider maritime region, which makes it a useful tool
of statecraft in advancing a more robust China (Parepa 2020). China’s
geo-economic policy of exerting its dominance in the area through the
MSR is aimed at protecting the country’s vital strategic interests and
goals. Because of this, China now has a better chance of securing the
energy it needs and expanding its influence over the global supply chain,
resources, and other essential inputs.
However, in order to increase the MSR’s sway over the wider maritime
region, it is also working to limit American influence in the Indo-
Pacific at the same time. In order to achieve this goal, China has been
trying to forge closer ties with countries around the Indo-Pacific coast.
China has initiated a variety of partnerships, negotiations, agreements,
loans, assists, and grants. Since a decade, Chinese corporations have
been investing over $11 billion in overseas ports, allowing China to
gain access to vital maritime centres and further establish its foothold in
the area (Watanabe 2020). These facts have cast serious doubt on the
MSR’s stated goals, which appear to be motivated less by pure economics
than by China’s more far-reaching strategic ambitions. It is feared that
China may one day use the ports connected to MSR to project its mili-
tary strength in the Indo-Pacific region, and this is at the heart of the
mounting suspicions surrounding China. Particularly, the ports (Gwadar,
Pakistan; Hambantota, Sri Lanka; Kyaukpyu, Myanmar; and others in
Africa) would aid China in servicing and stationing its military assets,
which would strengthen Beijing’s rising strategic objectives and mitigate
its vulnerabilities in this region.
The MSR has also been accused of engaging in debt-trap diplomacy
through exploitative loan tactics (Chellaney 2017). Such claims are based
on events like the creation of the Hambantota port in Sri Lanka, where
the government of Sri Lanka decided to continue the construction despite
initial feasibility studies showing that doing so would be unprofitable. As
the port continued to lose money, the Sri Lankan government was even-
tually forced to lease the facility and a large parcel of land (15,000 acres)
to China for 99 years. There have also been parallel incidents in nations
like Djibouti (Green Belt and Road Initiative Center 2020), Maldives,
Pakistan, and in some other African nations like Uganda, Congo, Angola,
Lao PDR where the debt percentage has only increased between 2014
and 2019. However, amidst Covid-19, the repercussions of the accu-
mulating debts have notably been felt as China faced rising numbers of
debt relief petitions from BRI countries. Note that China does not have
a program for debt reduction similar to the Paris Club, which lays out
requirements and procedures for the release of sovereign debt. Nonethe-
less, Chinese authorities have repeatedly maintained their commitment to
the G-20’s pandemic debt suspension measures.
The majority of China’s foreign financing comes from preferential
loans. The significance of the preferential loans for China was reflected
in the statement by the official of the Ministry of Commerce. The official
was quoted in the Global Times as saying that these loans were not appro-
priate for debt relief and are more problematic with regards to any serious
debt difficulties. Some countries and groups have advocated for a simple
debt cancellation, but this certainly is not going to solve the problem
(Song 2020a). In a second article for Global Times, the same official
commented on why just granting write-offs would not be in conformity
with African countries’ long developmental goals, adding, that China
will vigorously advocate the G-20 debt service suspension idea (Song
2020b). The fact that Chinese commercial banks, policy banks, and state-
owned enterprises have lent approximately $152 billion to African states
in 2019 alone adds weight to the comments made by China’s author-
ities (Mark 2020). Despite efforts to shed light on the matter, China’s
lending policies remain shrouded in mystery, contributing to irrational
beliefs about the borrowing country’s financial stability. Put in context
with the global pandemic, when economies were already facing major
financial setbacks, these facts raise serious questions about the motivations
behind Chinese infrastructure investments. For these reasons, China’s lack
of a comprehensive debt relief strategy remains hazardous, especially as
the price of negotiating debt-restructuring accords rises and their fairness
and transparency decrease (Lipsky and Mark 2020).
There, the Quad countries have attempted to unite in opposition to
China’s debt-trap diplomacy in the Indo-Pacific. At the Heritage Foun-
dation in Washington, DC, in 2018, former US National Security Advisor
John R. Bolton had called China’s ventures in Africa as “predatory” and
asserted that the BRI retains China’s blueprint to achieve its ultimate
objective of world domination (The White House 2018). Australia, like
India and Japan, has voiced concern over the BRI’s use of “economic
power” for strategic objectives, even though it supports the initiative
178 M. G. SARKAR
to improve infrastructure and create new possibilities (Government of

Australia 2017).
In light of the scenario mentioned above, the Quad countries have
been taking initiatives to balance China’s unilateral and assertive engage-
ment in the region through its BRI that employs unsustainable, opaque,
and unjust policies to enhance China’s economic and strategic footprints
in the region. To an extent, the Quad does have the opportunity and
the desire to form a collective economic competence to contain the
threats to a Free and Open Indo-Pacific. This has only enhanced since
the inception of Covid-19, as many projects amidst the global disruptions
and infeasibility remain halted, cancelled or lead to reconsiderations. The
Quad countries have repeatedly discussed the need to enhance sustain-
able infrastructure and connectivity investment in the region. In fact,
this was reiterated in the recent Quad Leadership Summit (QLS), where
the emphasis was put on “quality infrastructure investment”, signalling
towards China’s unsustainable infrastructure projects through the BRI.
India’s Security and Growth for All in the Region (hereon, SAGAR)
program, Japan’s Equal Partnership for Quality Infrastructure (EPQI),
and their collective the Blue Dot Network, and the Pacific Step Up were
all established respectively by the Quad countries to improve connectivity
in the region. The integrated and multilateral infrastructural investment
projects of India, Japan, the United States, and Australia can help advance
a free, open, rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific. These programs are
not now seen as big as China’s BRI, but they might be if they succeed.
Mapping China’s Supply Chain Networks

For a long time, China has been the nerve centre of global supply
chain networks, serving as the world’s primary manufacturing base. It has
also worked its way up to a prominent position in technological supply
chain networks, where it promotes itself as a pioneering manufacturer of
not only traditional but also cutting-edge technologies such as artificial
intelligence (AI), robotics (RT), space technology (ST), next-generation
telecommunications (NGT), big data (BD), e-commerce, and more. In
the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, China has used its central posi-
tion in global supply chain networks and its strong industrial base to
provide assistance to nations with severe outbreaks, such as Japan, the
South Korea, and Iran, as well as to nations with fragile health systems
in Asia, West Asia, Africa, and Latin America (Medcalf 2020). Indeed,
China achieved a unique new feat of being the only one among major
economies of the world to posit a positive growth during the year of
pandemic as well.
Meanwhile, the epidemic exposed China’s dubious behaviour in
quashing early whistle-blowers and responding not-so-early, both of
which were at odds with the country’s promotion of Xi’s CSFM. Because
of this, there has been an increased emphasis on diversifying supply chains
away from their current focus on China. The members of the Quad have
been at the vanguard of a growing international movement to discourage
countries from relying too heavily on any one nation. Japan and the other
Quad members were the first to urge for a shift away from China as the
primary source of goods. To assist Japanese firms in relocating produc-
tion from China, the government allocated $2.2 billion from its Covid-19
stimulus program for 2020 (Japan Times 2020). The United States has
also been under pressure to lessen its reliance on China by either relo-
cating its industrial operations or investing in other nations (Shalal et al.
2020). Businesses in India have emphasised the importance of estab-
lishing domestic supply chain activities to de-risk from China, in line
with Prime Minister Modi’s call for developing Atmanirbhar Bharat (self-
reliant India). To the same end, in light of China’s economic coercive
behaviour in reaction to Australia’s call for an independent review into
the genesis of the Covid-19 outbreak, there has been a growing need for
diversification in Australia’s trade and supply chain networks (Yadav 2021;
Khan 2020). As a result, there has been a growing need to reevaluate
their nation’s economic reliance on China and find better ways to diver-
sify away from the People’s Republic. In fact, India, Japan, and Australia
launched the Supply Chain Resilience Initiative (SCRI) to diversify away
from China’s dominance in global supply networks (Karp 2020).
CPC, meanwhile, had responded by making it obligatory for the tech
companies to share data and enable the government to retain control
that further underpins Beijing’s strategic move to promote China’s tech-
nologies (Wheeler 2021). This leaves many global economies divided but
increasingly determined to move away from Chinese advancement for
their national security. An apt instance of this strategy can be China’s
5G promotion through the telecommunication giant Huawei, which was
blocked from trials in many countries like Australia, New Zealand, Japan,
the US, and possibly even India (Buchholz 2020; Times of India 2021).
In response, since last year’s virtual summit, the United States, India,
Japan, and Australia have been working to develop a unified stance on
180 M. G. SARKAR
5G communications technology, increasing their strategic collaboration

within the Quad. The Quad members have made significant references
to their diversification strategy and narratives surrounding it at their
summits, stressing their intentions to begin cooperation on “the critical
technologies of the future” to guarantee that innovation is in line with a
free, open, inclusive, and resilient Indo-Pacific. The Quad, for example,
could begin by focusing on making of critical technologies like semicon-
ductors a crucial future focus involving expansive technologies. As part
of the Quad Leaders’ 2022 Tokyo Summit, they signed a new MoU
on “5G Supplier Diversification and Open RAN” to encourage technical
interactions and testbed activity to increase interoperability and telecom-
munications cybersecurity (The White House 2022). The Quad Investors
Network was established so the private sector could be more actively
involved in unlocking critical and emerging technological opportunities.
This organisation is a loosely affiliated group of investors whose primary
goal is to improve the availability of capital for these sectors. Further, each
Quad member enjoys a comparative advantage in a particular sub-field of
semiconductor supply chain. For instance, the US remains an undoubted
global leader in semiconductor design. US companies dominate two key-
sub-stages upstream—electronic design automation (EDA) and licenced
intellectual property—to design processes (Sargent et al. 2020).
Japan has a stronghold over manufacturing materials and chemicals
necessary for chip manufacturing. Japan dominates in the etching gas
market which assists in removing unwanted material from the chip with
high precision. Japan, in fact, accounts for approximately 70 per cent
of global etching gas demand (Reuters 2019). Besides, it also leads in
the silicon wafers market, which assist in building semiconductor ICs
(Lapedus 2019). India, on the other hand, has a comparative edge over
trained human capital. Undoubtedly, semiconductor manufacturing is
a task of immense precision that requires skilled engineers, something
where India’s strength lies. To this, many semiconductor firms have lately
been building their operations in India, with eight largest semiconductor
companies having their design houses in India (Kotasthane 2021). Lastly,
while Australia does not have significant presence in any of the above-
mentioned edges, it does occupy a significant position in the broader
electronics supply chain due to the availability of critical materials and
advanced mining capabilities. For these reasons, under President Biden,
the US has also called for a semiconductor supply chain review by signing
an executive order. It has, subsequently, stepped up talks with Taiwan to
collaborate and invest further in Taiwan’s key chip and tech companies
to secure the US’ chip supply chain (Kelly 2021). The Indian govern-
ment had also started launching a myriad of schemes in April 2020 to
bring in investments to create an electronics manufacturing ecosystem
(Invest India 2020). Similarly, Japan has considered providing incentives
for domestic companies to build advanced semiconductor manufacturing
capabilities (Japan Times 2020).
The first in-person Quad summit in Washington DC in September
2021 carried these forward by issuing an exhaustive Joint Statement,
launching new formal working groups on infrastructure building and
semiconductors and starting 100 Quad Fellowship and so on (The White
House 2021a). Showcasing their prioritising the Quad, the leaders also
announced the commitment to hold annual summit meetings and ensure
more frequent meetings of the working groups and other officials. This
grouping, for instance, has increasingly stressed on a new “rare-earth
procurement chain” to offset their dependence on rare-earth raw mate-
rials in China. It is important to note that China has held as much as
85 per cent of the world’s rare-earth deposit and is home to 2/3 of the
worldwide production of rare-earths and minerals like baryte and anti-
mony (Nyabiage 2021). For countries, such as that of the Quad, this
emerges as not only an opportunity, but also a warning to seek to diversify
away from China to reduce their growing vulnerabilities, before Beijing
utilises its position and monopoly in the supply of the strategic resources
as a bargaining chip for political gains (Cheng and Li 2021). To this,
the Quad nations can collaborate to ameliorate the situation both in the
domains of production and consumption. As an important point, Japan
continues to be one of the leading users of the largest rare earths, while
India is responsible for 6 per cent of the world’s rare-earth deposits (Asia
Nikkei 2021). These, coupled with the economic, political and military
clashes between the Quad members and China, can contribute to acting
as incentives to diversify away from China-centred supply chains.
China’s Expanding Maritime Footprint

China’s defence of its national interests has made it necessary for it
to increase its naval presence, which now includes the construction of
overseas naval facilities as the Indo-Pacific rises to prominence in inter-
national affairs. Since the 19th National Congress of the Communist
Party of China, the world has seen China proclaim various standards
182 M. G. SARKAR
for itself, including Xi’s “Chinese Dream” and the “Xi Jinping Thought
on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era”. While most
of the world has been debating Xi’s two century-long goals—making
China a “moderately prosperous society” by 2021 and a “developed,
beautiful, democratic nation” by 2049—China has also defined three
specific goals with regards to its military moderation: mechanising the
PLA by 2020, completely modernising China’s military forces by 2035,
and transforming the PLA into a “world-class power” by 2050 (Zhou
2017). Among these, China’s naval modernisation has been particularly
striking, allowing it to expand its maritime access and outreach across
the Indo-Pacific. This is being done to create a blue-water navy capable
of projecting power even in the far seas and striving to achieve opera-
tional synergies as part of joint warfare (McCaslin and Erickson 2019).
Moreover, it has been enhancing the PLA’s capacity to “fight and win
wars” against sophisticated militaries by easing coordination between the
military and the maritime militia, coast guard, and other branches of
the Chinese command to advance China’s unconventional operational
processes to assert its maritime sovereignty claims and to keep strategic
sea lanes of communication secure (The State Council Information Office
of the People’s Republic of China 2019).
China’s military has taken on a more aggressive and belligerent stance
in the region over the past two decades, particularly in its efforts to
discourage Taiwan’s de jure independence and to use “gray zones diplo-
macy” to gain control and dissuade other countries from intervening by
the use of coercion in the South China Sea (SCS) and the East China
Sea (ECS). This was strongly responded to by the Joint Statement of the
September 2021 Quad leadership that specifically mentions SCS and ECS
as areas of concern to ensure rule of law complied (The White House
2021a). But China has also been building its Maritime Silk Route (MSR)
to indirectly strengthen its military presence in the Indo-Pacific which is
seen as its push back to the US, as well as to influence its own partners
and regional allies (Medcalf 2020). This explains why China holds regular
military drills near Taiwan; the exercises serve as a reminder of China’s
forceful stance towards Taipei and a warning to the United States about
its strategic role in the region (Wong 2016). China has been increasing
the PLA’s conventional missile capacity as part of the PLA Rocket Force
(PLARF) in order to restore its primary strategic objective of control over
Taiwan by deterring any American military intervention in the region.
The People’s Liberation Army plans to destroy American bases in China’s

neighbourhood, with a particular focus on Guam (Chase 2018).
China still poses a threat in the SCS and ECS, even though the atten-
tion of the Quad nations has been growing. The People’s Armed Police
(PAP), the China Coast Guard (CCG) (now integrated further into the
military command structure through its subservience to the PAP), and the
People’s Armed Forces Maritime Militia (PAFMM) have all supported
the PLA, allowing it to play a major role in SCS and ECS. All of the
aforementioned branches work together to keep China’s strategic aims
within reach without resorting to open military conflict. China’s new
coast guard regulation makes this point quite apparent, allowing the
CCG to use force against any foreign vessel that enters what Beijing
calls China’s “jurisdictional waters” in the SCS and ECS (Bloomberg
2021). This has also been an attempt to expand China’s military pres-
ence in the larger Indo-Pacific region that seeks to move beyond limited
mandate of shielding China’s sovereignty, national security and maritime
rights. China’s increased efforts have been directed towards countering
multinational naval drills and other freedom of navigation operations,
especially those conducted by the navy of the Quad countries (Sarkar
2020). One cannot dismiss the PLA’s role in China’s growing global
footprint through the BRI as a means of protecting China’s sovereignty
and vital interests abroad, and that includes the inland regions of the
Indo-Pacific littoral as well. The People’s Liberation Army is responsible
for protecting China’s investments in strategically critical Pacific Island
nations, their ports, and the construction of naval bases in strategically
significant places. This calls for close examination of whether or not the
BRI is being used by the Chinese military. Also, one needs to pay more
attention to China’s investments in ports that could help it become less
reliant on foreign energy sources, as well as bases located close to China’s
SLOCs (Panda 2021b).
In constrast, China’s military involvement in the region, a central
theme of the post-2017 Quad 2.0 meetings, has been surrounding
around the promotion of freedom of navigation and the FOIP. Notably,
U.S. freedom-of-navigation operations (FONOPs) have been ongoing
in the area (Panda 2020). Further, both India and Japan have reaf-
firmed the importance of freedom of navigation in the SCS for their
own maritime aspirations and economic development at the first 2+2
Foreign and Defence Ministrial Meeting between the two nations in 2019
(Press Information Bureau 2019). During this discussion, both nations
184 M. G. SARKAR
stressed the importance of updating the Code of Conduct to guarantee

efficient, thorough, and uniform observance of international law. The
role of freedom of navigation in the SCS has also been acknowledged
by Australia. Amidst Covid-19, Australia and the US had conducted
joint freedom of navigation activities, restating their right to ensure a
free and secure Indo-Pacific. However, creation of AUKUS (Australia-
United Kingdom-United States) defence arrangement in September 2021
shows greater co-option by Australia in building a naval response to
China’s expanding presence across the Indo-Pacific region (Shi 2021).
Even though India and Japan haven’t been invited to join Australia’s
new Indo-Pacific coalition, the move still has repercussions for China’s
relationship with those countries. Australia’s enhanced capabilities are
expected to contribute to regional security in the face of China’s assertive
and unilateral adventurism. With the “resolve to strengthen diplomatic,
security, and defence cooperation in the Indo-Pacific region, especially by
working with allies, to tackle the challenges of the twenty-first century”,
this formation emphasises the United States’ dedication to containing
security risks from China (The White House 2021c). It also hopes to
work together on developing a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines, as
well as cyber technologies, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies,
and other undersea capabilities, with interoperability, commonality, and
mutual advantage in mind. Importantly, they would not only add to
the three countries’ strategic dominance in the Indo-Pacific area vis-à-
vis China but would also guarantee a stable balance of power for both
India and Japan. In view of escalating maritime threats from Beijing,
increased military capabilities of India and Japan’s partners would allow
for greater probable maritime collaboration between the two countries
(Mohan 2021).
No doubt China has vehemently condemned Quad and AUKUS initia-
tives; yet these have not prevented these four countries from sustaining
their efforts to ensure restraint on China and emphasize on the impor-
tance of freedom of navigation in the areas China considers “its own”.
In fact, the adherence to “the rule of law, freedom of navigation
and overflight, peaceful resolution of disputes, democratic values, and
territorial integrity” had been a key point of discussion on the Quad
Leaders’ Summits (The White House 2021b, 2022). This, in turn, has
only demonstrated their acknowledgement of China’s growing unilateral
and assertive regional policies and activities. Indeed, China’s expanding
maritime access and influence in the region has made Quad countries
take other significant measures like revamping their 5-Eyes intelligence

network that includes Quad members (except India) plus Canada and
New Zealand. Further, Malabar officially expanded to a form of Quad
naval exercise in 2020, when Australia joined the fray. When it came to
countering China’s military and political supremacy in the Indo-Pacific
region, the fleets of Australia, India, Japan, and the United States staged
their largest naval drills to date in the Indian Ocean in July 2020. This
included the deployment of warships, submarines, and planes (Moriyasu
and Khan 2020).
The enhancement of these naval exercises and greater military part-
nerships between the four Quad countries can, in turn, pose a challenge
to China’s assertive and expansionist presence in the region that defines
the force behind China’s altruistic outline of its CSFM. In the end, all
this clearly enhances the capabilities of both China as also the Quad with
both sides presenting their own versions of ensuring peace and stability in
the larger Indo-Pacific region.
China’s Vaccine Diplomacy

Amidst the global pandemic, vaccines have become the new tools of re-
enforcing regional alignments. Providing medical and other assistance
to nations has played a crucial part in China’s global diplomacy during
pandemic times. China currently supplies vaccinations to 69 countries
and exports them commercially to another 28 countries; Xi Jinping has
reworked his 2017 Health Silk Road initiative as part of his efforts to reaf-
firm this CSFM goal (Yanzhong 2021). This has had additional strategic
connotations attached to it as China would seek to enhance its influ-
ence—which has been under scanner during the Covid-19—by expanding
its vaccine diplomacy, as well as strengthen its global economic engage-
ment, helping it to score political points amid the absence of competitive
aid from decelerating economies of G7 industrialised nations. Nonethe-
less many countries have questioned China’s ‘vaccine diplomacy’ because
of doubts about the veracity of its scientific claims and the country’s
ability to fulfil its commitments (Marlow et al. 2020). As a part of
China’s CSFM, the Quad countries have particularly viewed the China’s
vaccine diplomacy through apprehensive and cautious lenses, as some of
these countries (especially Australia) experienced a sour taste of China’s
rather assertive diplomatic approach (also referred to as ‘Wolf Warrior’
diplomacy) amidst the challenging Covid-19 times (Ankita 2020).
186 M. G. SARKAR
Thus, in response to the discrepancy between China’s and the Quad

countries’ predictions, the members of the Quad have formed a “vac-
cine alliance” to increase their efforts to create and disseminate vaccines
against Covid-19 (Panda 2021a, b). As the September 2021 Quad Lead-
ers’ Summit statement expounded to “strengthen equitable vaccine access
for the Indo-Pacific”, collaboration on vaccine production has become
crucial priority for the Quad’s collaboration in the coming times to
enhance the legitimacy and expand the soft influence of the grouping
in the region (The White House 2021c). As China rejects these moves
as “vaccine nationalism” and a “vaccine divide” (Embassy of the People’s
Republic of China in the Republic of India 2021), there are significant
possibilities of the Quad posing a major challenge to Xi’s vaccine diplo-
macy being deployed under its banner of China’s Health Silk Road. The
Quad’s commitment to deliver safe and effective vaccines worth USD 600
million strengthens the aforementioned case (France24 2021). Further,
the US has announced its plans to contribute an additional $25 million
to support vaccination efforts in India to buttress vaccine supply logistics,
training of health workers, addressing misinformation and vaccine hesi-
tancy (US Department of State 2021). The United States has pledged to
supply countries in the Indo-Pacific area with COVID-19 booster shots
and paediatric doses based on their needs. Further, the Biological E. Ltd.
plant in India will utilise its expanded vaccine-manufacturing capability as
part of the Quad Vaccine Partnership. The Indian healthcare sector will
receive a boost from a joint $100 million facility sponsored by the Japan
Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) and the EXIM India. In doing
so, it will strengthen the global defences against COVID-19 (The White
House 2022).
The Pandemic, thus, has added one more element to the Quad’s efforts
at balancing China’s expanding influence in the Indo-Pacific region. This
has seen the Quad being inclined to also co-opt the Indo-Pacific strategies
of both European Union as well as ASEAN to further strengthen their
efforts through parallel normative and empirical initiatives in the Indo-
Pacific region.
Conclusion
Though Quad’s counter to CSFM seems unlikely to find an easy success
in marginalising China in the Indo-Pacific, it can surely act as a vehicle to
balance China with its ultimate goal of making the country follow a rules-
based order in the region. Countering China’s MSR, too, would not be
as easy as it is often made out to be. To start with, all these four countries
continue to have difficulties arriving at a clear consensus approach towards
redressing their shared China challenge. Also, a steady relationship with
Beijing, particularly considering the economic interdependence, is essen-
tial to all these economies. This makes their first-ever joint statement of
the Quad in March 2021, and subsequent Summits important and yet
largely symbolic of the evolving and increasing synergies between the
Quad members—particularly vis-à-vis China—which remained a major
drawback of the grouping till now. The Quad Leaders’ Summits have
produced hard and detailed results that make it potentially promising.
They have, for instance, launched a series of expert “working groups”
ranging from a focus on safe and effective vaccine distribution, critical
emerging and innovative technologies, and climate change; the formation
of these groups reflects a more conclusive and credible working of the
grouping, with a greater possibility to play a further significant role in the
region.
However, the strength of economies backing their respective initiatives
shows China gaining advantage by its gross domestic product crossing
100 trillion yuan ($15.5 trillion) during the year of pandemic 2020 that
saw most other economies, including that of Quad countries, decelerating
and in recession. This is where innovative and normative strategies of
Quad can secure an advantage over China. Their increasing focus on joint
infrastructural initiatives also promises to contain China’s unilateral and
questionable projects under the banner of MSR that have raised concerns
on their unsustainability as also their predatory, unfair and opaque nature
aimed at creating a China-dominated and controlled regional order. In
fact, a glimpse of such a concern was indicated during Prime Minister
Narendra Modi’s speech at the 21st Meeting of Shanghai Cooperation
Organisation (SCO) Council of Heads of State on September 17, 2021.
It is here, that India sought to direct the focus towards the imperatives of
connectivity projects which must be “consultative, transparent and partic-
ipatory”, along with the emphasis on the requirement for “respect for the
territorial integrity of all countries” (Ministry of External Affairs 2021).
Thus, even if the Quad may not rival the CFSM and its compositions in
the Indo-Pacific, it is here to stay, playing a core role as an entity coun-
tervailing China’s unilateral and assertive and assertive adventurism in the
188 M. G. SARKAR
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CHAPTER 10
China’s Engagement with the Pacific Islands
Madhura Bane
Introduction
Pacific Islands Region consists of “14 independent and freely associated
countries plus territories of U.S as well as that of other countries (France,
New Zealand) which are mainly divided into 3 sub-regions—Melanesia,
Polynesia and Micronesia” (Meick et al. 2018: 2). These are usually cate-
gorized into three main sub-regions and their constituent nations include
the following: Melanesia (including Papua New Guinea, Fiji, Solomon
Islands, Vanuatu); Polynesia (including Tevalu, Tonga, Samoa, Cook
M. Bane (B)
Ramnarain Ruia Autonomous College, Matunga, Mumbai, India
Present Address:
Sir Parashurambhau College (Autonomous), Pune, Maharashtra, India

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7521-9_10
196 M. BANE
Islands, Niue) and Micronesia (that includes Marshall Islands, Micronesia,

Palau, Kiribati and Nauru).
Remotely located, small islands of the Pacific are also culturally diverse
with ample amount of natural resources and rich biodiversity (Runde
and Rice 2022: 4). PIC’s are extended across the Sea Lines of Commu-
nication between Australia and America and this position lends them
added geopolitical weightage. But, given “…their geographic characteris-
tics, these countries are endowed with limited infrastructure connectivity
that deters private investments, impacting their performance on economic
growth and human development indicators” (ibid.). Hence, they have
remained dependent on foreign aid and now they “increasingly face severe
climate impacts including sea-level rise, changing temperature and rain-
fall patterns. These impacts result in changes in food and water security,
loss of identity, climate-induced migration and threats to sovereignty”
(Mcleod et al. 2019: 1).
It is often not noticed that Pacific Islands region has always been an
arena for great power contestations. For instance, during the first and
second world wars, America and Japan were seen struggling to retain
their control over these islands. A former President of America, Franklin.
D. Roosevelt during the World War II had stated that, though Pacific
islands appear as dots on a map, they are of great importance (Edel
2018: 3). Throughout the Cold War period as well, the United States
had continued to dominate this region. More than 70 years later, former
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in her remarks at Post Forum
Dialogue at the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) was to say: “This is a vast
and dynamic region, a key driver of global economic and politics” and
that the “U.S. knows that this region is strategically and economically
vital and becoming more so” (U.S. Department of State 2012: 1).
In recent years, there have been increased attempts by America,
Australia and China to exhibit their interests and concerns for the PICs.
In order to maintain unimpeded flow of goods across the Pacific islands
and in the name of democracy to prevent this region from the emer-
gence or influence of hegemonic tendencies this region has remained
crucial for America. The most recent expression of this engagement
came during U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s visit to region in
February 2022 where he said: “Despite on-going tensions in Ukraine,
these visits were designed to demonstrate Washington’s commitment and
10 CHINA’S ENGAGEMENT WITH THE PACIFIC ISLANDS 197
focus on the Indo-Pacific region. The trip to Fiji to meet with Pacific
Island leaders was an especially important signal that the United States
plans to bolster its presence in the Pacific” (Wyeth 2022: 2). In the same
month, Biden administration also issued its Indo-Pacific strategy 2022 in
which it reiterated its pro-activeness in the region.
Australia has been the other major stakeholder in Pacific Islands region.
In Australian Government’s White Paper 2017, Canberra had under-
lined its “three priorities” toward Pacific Islands (Australian Govern-
ment 2017: 99). These include “Promoting economic cooperation and
greater integration within Pacific and also with the Australian and New
Zealand economies, tackling security challenges with a focus on maritime
issues and strengthening people to people links, skills and leadership”
(Australian Government 2017: 99).
And now, China has come to be the new interlocutor with these Pacific
Islands. Before the May 2022 visit of China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi
to the Pacific Islands, China had released a document titled, “Factsheet:
Cooperation Between China and Pacific Islands” (Ministry of Foreign
Affairs of the People’s Republic of China 2022a: 1). It first underlines
how “China-PIC relations have entered a new stage of rapid growth”
(ibid.). Then it seeks to assure to “build a closer China-Pacific Island
Countries community with a shared future” by encouraging diplomatic
exchanges and mutual beliefs, broadening collaboration and nourishing
track three diplomacy (ibid.: 8).
China’s Engagement with Pacific Islands

To begin with, the recent upgradation of the relationship between China
and PICs to the level of “Comprehensive strategic partnership” indicates
a new chapter of their expanding relationship (ibid.: 2). These far away
island nations had remained a point of contention since World War II
yet, for long, Communist China was never seen as a major interested
party for this region. The key to transformation lies in China’s unprece-
dented economic rise since early 1990s that coincided with the end of
cold war, opening avenues for reordering global equations among major
powers, thus, underlining China’s expanding global engagement as also
its increased sense of shared commonalities between China and PIC’s.
Dr. Wang Xiaolong, China’s ambassador to New Zealand, brings out the
vigor in their relationship in the following lines:
198 M. BANE
We have a lot in common. We are all pursuing national development and

better lives for our people. We share the aspiration for world peace and
regional stability. And we hold each other in respect. Linked by traditional
sea routes, the peoples of China and PIC’s have maintained continuous
exchanges across the vast Pacific over hundreds of years. With cultures alike
and hearts connected, we are engaged in practical and mutually beneficial
cooperation. (Ministry of the Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of
China 2022b: 2)
The Pacific island region “has long been perceived as either “an American
lake” or Australia’s and to a lesser extent, New Zealand’s traditional area
of influence” (Zhang 2015: 44). During the Cold War period America
had followed the policy of “Strategic Denial” toward other interested
parties aimed at preventing the Soviet Union from exercising its influ-
ence in the region (Henderson et al. 2003: 94). It was the split between
Soviet Union and China in early 1960s that was to result in the normal-
ization of China’s relations with the United States and its allies in the
region. Starting from 1972, Australia and New Zealand were to establish
diplomatic relations with China which was to coincide with the process
of decolonization in Pacific Islands Region.
Jian Yang in his book, The Pacific Islands in China’s Grand Strategy:
Small States, Big Game (Yang 2011) aptly elucidates the immediate cause
of China’s engagement with PIC’s. For him, “Beijing didn’t seem to have
a comprehensive policy to engage with PIC’s until 1974. In that year,
Soviet Union established diplomatic relations with Fiji and the Soviet
Navy paid several ‘conspicuous visits’” to this region (Yang 2011: 9).
Since then, Pacific islands occupied an important place in China’s foreign
policy factoring its support for anti-imperialism in the region. China soon
developed close diplomatic relations with PIC’s like Fiji, Western Samoa
and Papua New Guinea (PNG). Initially, this relationship revolved around
political, cultural and social visits. For example, visits from leaders of Fiji,
PNG, Western Samoa, Vanuatu, Kiribati to China, or visits of athletic
teams of both sides, visit of Chinese soccer team to Fiji, among others
(ibid.).
Throughout the1980s, China was to gradually upgrade these mutual
exchanges. In 1985, Communist party General Secretary Hu Yaobang
was to become the first high-level visitor from China to this region
stressing that China fully respected their sovereign rights and their
existing relationships with outside states (Henderson et al. 2003: 100).

But during much of the 1980s, China’s perspective toward PIC’s was
guided by their paramount leader Deng Xiaoping’s principle of ‘Hide our
capacities and bide our time’ which of course was gradually to give way
to China becoming a proactive player in this region. At the end of the
cold war, the United States was to substantially reduce its linkages with
the region followed by the exit of former colonial power Britain. Further,
Australia and New Zealand shifted their focus toward rising Asia, appar-
ently at cost of their engagement with these Pacific Islands. This was the
time when China’s economy was growing rapidly, accompanied by its
attempts to convert its economic leverages into political influence. For
example, during the Asian Financial crisis, China was among the fore-
most countries to assist South East Asian countries by not devaluating its
currency.
Since then, China “has emerged as an increasingly consequential player
in the region through active political and diplomatic engagements, signif-
icant aid provisions and expanding trade and economic ties” (Zhang
2015: 44). It’s increasing involvement in Pacific islands can be illustrated
with the brief insight on its cooperation in the areas which are of great
concern for PIC’s namely, economy and climate change. Accordingly, as
per China’s own admission, “From 1992 to 2021, total trade volume
between China and PICs with diplomatic relations with China grew from
USD153 million to USD 5.3 billion” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the
People’s Republic of China 2022a: 3). Table 10.1 provides a quick glance
at the statistics of China’s exports to the selected PIC’s.
During the meeting of China-Pacific Islands Countries Economic
Development and Cooperation (CPICEDC) forum on 6 April 2006,
ministers from both the parties had officially acknowledged that,
Table 10.1 China’s exports to the select PIC’s
Country Year 1995 (million Year 2020 (million Annual rate of

USD) USD) increase (in
percentage)
Fiji $15.7 $321 12.8

PNG $15.9 $922 17.6
Vanuatu $1.73 $72.5 16.1
Source For updated versions see https://oec.world/

200 M. BANE
CPICEDC has been “beneficial to the win–win cooperation” in

enhancing their trade and investments (Embassy of the People’s Republic
of China in Jamaica 2006: 2). In 2006, CPICEDC was established
as the highest level platform to facilitate trade between them. During
the second CPICEDC in 2013, China stated that, “China and Pacific
Island Countries have gained satisfying progress since the first Forum
in 2006. Over the past seven years, bilateral trade developed rapidly
with an annual growth of 27%. In 2012, the trade volume reached
USD 4.5 billion” (Ministry of Commerce People’s Republic of China
2013: 2). At the third CPICEDC in October 2019 Vice-Premier Hu
Chunhua had conveyed Xi Jinping’s congratulatory message to Pacific
islands region which exhibited China’s readiness to initiate the Compre-
hensive Strategic Partnership. Likewise, their two-way investments have
also steady expanded. According to initial statistics by the Chinese side,
by the end of 2021, China’s direct investment in those PICs, that have
had diplomatic relations with China, had crossed $2.72 billion (Ministry
of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China 2022a: 3).
China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has since emerged as the major
locomotive in promoting economic ties between China and PIC’s. To
quote China’s President Xi Jinping: “BRI will open up new pathways
for Pacific island countries to enhance business ties and connectivity
with China” (Set Sail on A new Voyage for Relations between China
and Pacific Island Countries 2018: 4). Henry Szadziewski in an article
titled “A Search for Coherence the Belt and Road Initiative in the
Pacific Islands” has noted that, “Given the difficulties in participating in
markets in the Asia–Pacific, the BRI makes sense to Pacific Islanders long
restricted to trade with Australia, New Zealand and other Pacific states.
BRI offers the access to financing mechanisms which are crucial for PIC’s
(Szadziewski 2021: 296).
Ten PIC’s that have established diplomatic relations with China have
all joined China’s BRI. For instance in PNG, BRI “projects included a
significant upgrade to the road systems on the mainland, New Britain
and New Ireland, the construction of a U.S. $14 billion industrial park
in Sandaun province and the improvement of the water supply to Eastern
Highways province” (Szadziewski 2021: 296). In February 2022, China
and PNG had agreed to create co-ordination between BRI and PNG’s
national policies called “Vision 2050, PNG Development Strategic Plan
2010–2030, and connect PNG” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the
People’s Republic of China 2022e: 2). In Fiji, for the construction of
two bridges—the Stinson Parad Bridge and Vatuwaqa Bridge—Chinese

government had provided a grant through BRI. “In Solomon islands as
well, the China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation had been
awarded a contract to build the seven China funded facilities for the 2023
Pacific games in Honiara city” (Veramu 2021: 3). Further, China has since
occupied a crucial place in the economic policies of several other PIC’s
due to its role as a donor. The following Table 10.2 shows the compara-
tive data on Donors (China, U.S.A., Australia) aid spent on selected PIC’s
in 2009 and 2019.
As Table 10.2 shows, Australia has been the largest donor in Fiji,
PNG and Vanuatu but there has been a clear decline in U.S. aid to
these countries. Conversely, China‘s aid to Fiji, PNG and Vanuatu has
been expanding. Observers have pointed out multiple reasons for PICs’
preference for China as an attractive donor. Though Australia remains
ahead of China in providing aid to PIC’s, it is important to understand
the unique nature of China’s aid policy. The aid given by America and
Australia, for example, comes with stringent terms and conditions. They
expect recipient countries to bring about economic and social reforms in
their development policies of good governance, civil society rights and
human rights. China, on the other hand, does not attach any conditions
to its aid and assistance. China’s aid remains focused on infrastructural
development involving building roadways, railways, schools, hospitals and
Table 10.2 Donors: a

Donor country Recipient Year
comparative assessment
country
2009 (million 2019
USD) (million
USD)
China Fiji $6.08 $26.32

PNG $7.67 $67.64
Vanuatu $1.42 $28.78
U.S.A Fiji $1.94 $2.83
PNG $2.76 $1.36
Vanuatu $22.76 $2.39
Australia Fiji $20.07 $48.80
PNG $301.85 $433.40
Vanuatu $40.04 $51.37
Source For updated information see https://pacificaidmap.lowyinsti

tute.org/
202 M. BANE
stadiums. China also maintains the principle of non-interference while

offering aid. Irrespective of a country’s internal political, economic and
social system, China remains ready to assist. It is perhaps most aptly
manifest in the case of Fiji where “[A]fter its 2006 coup, the country
went through a considerable period of sanctions, diplomatic isolation and
aid reduction from many Western countries, especially Australia and New
Zealand. Beijing, however, continued to actively engage with the interim
government led by the coup leader, Commodore Frank Bainimarama.
Indeed, Beijing provided a total of $121 million aid to Fiji in 2007,
attracting strong criticism from Australia and other Western countries.
China’s aid and diplomatic engagement, however, drew praise from Fiji’s
military government” (Zhang 2015: 46).
Another issue that needs to be underlined is how China’s growing
rivalry with the United States has often ignored PIC’s perspectives. For
instance, the ongoing security competition between China and America
“does not address the most significant security threat to the region—
climate change—former leaders of Pacific nations have warned” (Lyons
2022: 3). This is one issue where China has sought to build leverages with
PICs. China’s support to Pacific islands to fight against climate change has
also been intriguing. In 2015, Trump administration’s decision to quit
Paris Agreement had caused PIC’s to fall back for assistance on China.
Solomon Islands officials opine that, America’s apathy to fight against
climate change was disappointing. They have argued that China may be
a major greenhouse gas emitter but it has also helped PIC’s to deal with
their climate change challenges. It has been claimed that climate change
is one of the factors due to which Solomon Islands and Kiribati have
switched their diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to China.
China’s White Paper on Foreign Aid 2011 mentions its commitment
to tackle the issue of climate change in this region. In its efforts to
bolster renewable energy in PIC’s two Chinese enterprises have estab-
lished hydropower plants in Fiji and PNG. In Fiji, Hunan Construction
Engineering group has built a hydropower plant. In 2018, China Dong-
fang Electric Corporation got a contract to construct hydropower plant in
PNG (Zhang 2020b: 2). Since 2019, China has also launched a capacity-
building program and “held three South-South cooperation training
sessions for PICs under the theme of Tackling Climate Change for
Green and Low-carbon Development. China has also provided multiple
batches of supplies to PICs to tackle climate change” (Ellis 2022: 11).
In order to ensure food security to PIC’s, China has established agricul-

tural demonstration farms in Fiji, PNG, Vanuatu, Niue etc. Fiji receives
benefits from China’s Juncao (meaning fungi and grass) Technology that
was invented in the 1980s by Lin Zhanxi, a professor at China’s Fujian
Agriculture and Forestry University, who is also the chief scientist for
the China-Fiji Juncao Technology Cooperation Project launched in 2014
after the Chinese and Fijian governments signed an agreement to start
agricultural cooperation (Global Times 2022: 4). Chinese experts have so
far trained 1,704 Fijians, including female farmers, disabled persons and
even tour managers who lost their jobs due to COVID-19 pandemic.
In addition, they have sent 45 officials of Fiji’s Ministry of Agriculture
and technicians to be trained at China’s Fujian Agriculture and Forestry
University (Global Times 2022: 5).
Scholars project China’s presence in PIC’s to grow in the coming
times and raised questions whether China should be countered or accom-
modated in extant regional arrangements. J. Reilly Henderson and N
Peffer assert that, China is not only filling the vacuum created by Western
neglect but also embracing the Pacific islands in its pursuit to become
a major power in Asia–Pacific. Furthermore, they state that the region
may turn into China’s area of influence where it possibly finds new allies
and acquire legitimacy (Henderson et al. 2003: 94). Experts believe that
“Beijing’s heightened engagement in the region in recent years is largely
driven by its interests in the following three areas: (1) promoting its diplo-
matic and strategic priorities; (2) reducing Taiwan’s international space;
and (3) gaining access to raw materials and natural resources” (Meick
et al. 2018: 4).
Competition Between China and Taiwan

Taiwan has been one of the significant actors in this region which also
determines China’s approach toward these PICs. China considers Taiwan
as its renegade province and “[F]or decades China has run a concerted
and successful diplomatic campaign to isolate and prostrate the Taiwanese
nation” (Funnell 2020: 3). There has been constant struggle between
China and Taiwan to get diplomatic support from these PIC’s. It can be
argued that, China’s policy of engagement with these PIC’s to a great
deal has revolved around its competition with Taiwan.
“Taiwan is one of the East Asian Tiger economies, with a democratic
polity”. However, Taiwan is also “a sort of ‘friend’ you are happy to chat
204 M. BANE
with at a dimly lit party, just as long as no one posts photo of the two
of you on Facebook” (ibid.). Neither America nor its allies such as U.K.,
Germany, and Australia have their embassies in Taiwan. China considers
Taiwan as an inseparable part of itself. To quote one Chinese diplomat,
the “settlement of the Taiwan issue and realization of the complete reuni-
fication of China embody the fundamental interests of Chinese nation”
(The Office of Charge d’ Affairs of the People’s Republic of China in the
Republic of Lithuania, n.d.: 1). He cites from the White Paper titled The
One-China Principle and the Taiwan Issue to say that,
No country maintaining diplomatic relations with China should provide

arms to Taiwan or enter into military alliance of any form with Taiwan.
All countries maintaining diplomatic relations with China should abide by
the principles of mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity and
non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, and refrain from providing
arms to Taiwan or helping Taiwan produce arms in any form or under any
pretext. (ibid.: 9)
Currently, Taiwan maintains diplomatic relationship with a total of 14

nation-states in the world. Out of these four are from Pacific Islands
Countries. They are Marshal Islands, Republic of Nauru, Palau, and
Tuvalu. In the year 2019 Taiwan faced a major diplomatic shock when
two important PICs—namely Solomon Islands and Kiribati—decided to
switch their diplomatic support from Taipei to Beijing. China claims that
Taiwan inherently belongs to it because Taiwan’s population is dominated
by ethnic Hans and that Taiwan was a part of the Qing Empire. China
has repeatedly asserted it’s ‘One China Policy’ which is a “diplomatic
acknowledgment that People’s Republic of China is the sole government
and Taiwan is a breakaway province to be reunited with the mainland”
(Salem 2020: 2). The existence of sovereign Taiwan therefore challenges
Beijing’s One-China policy. Due to their vulnerability and voting rights
in United Nations and other international bodies, these PICs have played
a significant role in China-Taiwan competition to gain international
diplomatic support.
Joseph A. Bosco in his article titled ‘Taiwan and Strategic Security’
elucidates this geo-strategic importance of Taiwan for China saying that
“[S]ituated at the edge of the South China Sea’s (SCS) shipping lanes,
Taiwan is positioned 100 miles East of China” (Bosco 2015: 2). So other
than its emotional and alleged historical connections to Taiwan, China’s
control over Taiwan would enable it to carry out its operations in SCS and
advocate its “territorial and maritime claims more aggressively” (ibid.: 3).
It can be argued that China’s core interest of national reunification as
well as geo-strategic interests make its ensuring its hold over Taiwan a
prerequisite for Beijing.
Beijing, accordingly, has tried to wipe out any signs of Taiwanese
sovereignty from the international scene. For instance, during any
Olympic qualifier Taiwanese players have to be referred as a team
belonging to the Chinese Taipei. In May 2018, the website of Philippines
Airlines had mentioned Taiwan as Taipei and a part of China. Similarly,
the organizers of the Man Booker International Prize have changed the
nationality of “Taiwanese nominee Professor Wu Ming Yi from Taiwan to
Taiwan China” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of China (Taiwan)
2018: 4). J.P. Morgan Chase and Company had also made changes on its
website’s designation as Taiwan, China.
Since the UN permanent seat and veto right was bestowed upon PRC
in early 1970s, Taiwan has continued to fight back and also intensified
its diplomatic competition with Beijing by providing development aid to
various cash-starved countries around the world. This has been done to
protect its diplomatic recognition among few countries that still recognize
Taiwan (Salem 2020: 1). This has seen both China and Taiwan pouring
aid in newly independent PIC’s which has since come to be called as their
“chequebook diplomacy” in the south Pacific (Zhang 2015: 51). See two
comparative tables—Tables 10.3 and 10.4 on the foreign aid provided to
PICs by Beijing and Taipei.
Table 10.3 China’s

Recipient Country Year
Aid in USD million
(spent) on Pacific 2009 2019 (million)
Islands in 2009 and
Micronesia, FED. STS $660 k $7.00
2019
PNG $7.67 million $67.64
Vanuatu $1.42 million $28.78
Fiji $6.08 million $26.32
Tonga $18.77 million $9.58
Samoa $27.97 million $13.12
Cook Islands $1.00 million $16.95
Source For updated version see https://pacificaidmap.lowyinstitute.

org/
206 M. BANE
Table 10.4 Taiwan’s

Recipient Country Year
Aid in USD million
(spent) on Pacific 2009 (million) 2019
Islands in 2009 and
Solomon Islands $5.02 $8.59 million
2019
Nauru $4.06 $61 k
Tuvalu $4.91 $7.44 million
Kiribati $8.28 $13.28 million
Palau – $3.37 million
Fiji – $61 million
Marshal Islands – $8.30 million
Source For updated version see https://pacificaidmap.lowyinstitute.

org/
The total amount of aid spent by China on Pacific islands in 2009 was
$63.57 million which increased to $169.59 million in 2019 and the total
amount of aid spent by Taiwan on Pacific islands in 2009 was $22.28
million which has seen a growth by $41.10 million in 2019 (Lowy insti-
tute Pacific Aid Map). Although the total amount of aid spent from China
and Taiwan is rising, China’s amount has grown much faster than Taiwan.
This has made PICs “active creators” of China-Taiwan tussle and have
continue to benefit from these foreign aid inflows (Salem 2020: 1).
Both China and Taiwan have adopted varying policies and perspectives
in extending financial aid to PICs. China’s aid can be labeled as part of
South-South cooperation and projected as win–win policy where “[T]he
Chinese government regards PICs as part of the greater periphery in its
diplomacy and the southern extension of the Belt and Road Initiative
(BRI)” (Zhang 2020a: 4). The major part of Chinese aid is yielded for
the construction of wide-ranging physical infrastructural building projects
that receive concessional loans. Taiwan, on the other hand was once a
beneficiary of foreign aid and now projects its aid as its policy to repay
to the world community which explains why “Taiwan’s aid has focused
on technical assistance in agriculture and health, government scholarships
and small to medium-sized infrastructure such as a solar power plant in
Nauru” (Zhang 2020a: 5).
Second, Taiwan is also unique for being a new born democracy which
is especially celebrated by China’s detractors among Western countries.
According to London-based Economist’s Democracy Index 2021, Taiwan
had ranked 8 in world’s hundred plus democracies (Democracy Index
2021: The China Challenge 2022: 12). With respect to their equations
with mainland China, many people in Taiwan support status quo and
“[E]ven fewer express support for the unification of Taiwan with China.
An overwhelming majority reject a “one country, two systems” model,
a sentiment that has grown as “Beijing cracks down on Hong Kong’s
freedoms” (Maizland 2022: 12). For being a democratic country, many of
these variations inside Taiwan get reflected in its foreign assistance policies
and in its engagement with the PICs.
Third, what also makes it interesting is that in spite of their continued
global competition, including in their engagement with PICs, the curve of
bilateral trade and investments between China and Taiwan have continued
to rise. China’s exports to Taiwan, for instance, have risen from $3.1
billion in 1995 to $60.7 billion in 2020. Likewise, Taiwan’s exports to
China have gone up from $14.4 billion in 1995 to $104 billion in 2020.
At the same time, competition between China and Taiwan in Pacific
Island region has also continued to intensify. With the strengthening of
trade and an infrastructural investments aid policy with PIC’s, China has
made strong foothold in several island nations the region where it had no
ties to begin with. Conversely, the number of PIC’s which maintain diplo-
matic relations with Taiwan has diminished and is currently restricted to
its engagement with those four PIC’s.
China and Solomon Islands

Not only China’s economic and diplomatic grip on PIC’s has alarmed
some of their traditional regional partners but has also impacted China’s
equations with Taiwan as also with other major powers with stakes in the
south Pacific. These major regional stakeholders increasingly have shared
suspicions about China’s ability, even inclinations, to use its enormous
economic leverages into cultivating political influence and even create a
military presence in the region. This is bound to be detrimental for the
regional security architecture. The most recent was the confirmation on
a security agreement between China and Solomon Islands where experts
have argued on how China is suspected of potentially building its military
presence in Solomon Islands in the near future (Singh 2022).
The impact of China’s presence in Solomon Islands can already be
seen in its changing policies. On 16 September 2019, for instance, “the
cabinet of Solomon Islands voted to switch its diplomatic recognition
from Taipei to Beijing, ending its 36-years-old official relationship with
208 M. BANE
Taiwan” (Li 2020: 2). Few weeks later when Prime Minister of Solomon
Islands, Manasseh Sogavare, visited Beijing he received the package of a
range of economic incentives. Among other things, China and Solomon
Islands during this visit signed a Memorandum of Understanding that has
“secured a promise from China to build a multi-million dollar stadium in
the country” (Cavanough 2019: 3). Besides, some Chinese firms were
also awarded the right to build infrastructure, roads, bridges, and power
infrastructure in order to revive the “Gold Ridge- Solomon Islands’ most
lucrative gold mine” (ibid.).
As for Taiwan, the switch of the diplomatic relations from Taipei to
Beijing has already created distress for Taiwan and also for other tradi-
tional regional partners of the PICs. First shock of this shift had arrived
in the form of the agreement permitting Chinese company China Sam
Enterprise to take Tulagi Islands for 75 years on lease for developmental
purposes. Later, in face of pressure from its regional partners, this deal was
declared unlawful by Solomon Islands. Second, the draft of security agree-
ment between China and Solomon Islands that was leaked in March 2022
on a social network had again led to serious concerns being expressed
from the U.S., Australia, and New Zealand (Singh 2022). The leaked
draft has stated that, on the request of Solomon Islands, China is allowed
to send security personnel to the Islands for the sake of keeping social
order. It has further mentioned that, with the approval from Solomon
Islands, Chinese ships could stop by to restore logistics and transition.
In April 2022, the Chinese side was to confirm that China and Solomon
Islands have officially signed an “intergovernmental framework agreement
on security cooperation” (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s
Republic of China 2022d: 1). China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson
Wang Wenbin underlined the centrality of Solomon Islands in the security
agreement in the following words:
The agreement is based on respecting the will and actual need of Solomon
Islands. The two sides will conduct cooperation in such areas as main-
tenance of social order, protection of the safety of people’s lives and
property, humanitarian assistance and natural disaster response, in an effort
to help Solomon Islands strengthen capacity building in safeguarding its
own security. (ibid.: 3)
Similarly, after signing the security agreement with China, Solomon

Islands’ leadership has sought to balance their response to assuage
concerns of their traditional regional partner countries. Prime Minister

of Solomon Islands addressed the Parliament in the last week of April
2022. On that occasion, he shared the reference of riots of November
2021 and its impact on social and economic life. Hence, he also under-
lined how their security agreement with Australia was insufficient “to deal
with the hard internal threats” of Solomon Islands (Solomon Star 2022:
3). But at the same time he also clarified that in the context of such
disturbances in the country, the government is left with no option but to
have a bilateral security agreement with other partners. He has assured
that, the security agreement does not allow China to have a military base.
Nevertheless, these concerns continue to be raised in the US, Australia
and New Zealand and this has only made Beijing all the more assertive.
For example, while commenting on Reuters’ statement about the possible
discussion on China during forthcoming visit of U.S. senior officials to
Solomon Islands Wang Wenbin said:
PICs are not the backyard of anyone, still less chess pieces in a geopolit-
ical confrontation. PICs have the actual need to diversify their cooperation
with other countries and the right to independently choose their cooper-
ation partners. Deliberately sensationalizing an atmosphere of tension and
stoking bloc confrontation will get no support in the region. Attempts to
meddle with and obstruct PICs’ cooperation with China will be in vain.
(ibid.: 11)
He further added that
China is always a builder of peace and a promoter of stability in the South

Pacific region. Certain countries, including the US, groundlessly smear
China while creating the so-called trilateral security partnership, which has
brought nuclear proliferation risks and Cold War mentality to the South
Pacific region and posed a severe threat to regional security and stability.
The label of “undermining regional security” suits them better than anyone
else. (ibid.)
Thus even though, in line with its overall policy in such matters, China
has rejected the insinuations about its interest in creating naval or mili-
tary bases on Solomon Islands or in any other of the PICs, China’s track
record still continues to ignite skeptical prognosis. After Djibouti in the
Indian Ocean, Solomon Islands in the Pacific are expected to emerge
as another critical outpost of China’s engagement with the Indo-Pacific.
210 M. BANE
This is what makes this China-Solomon Islands security agreement part

of its China’s geo-strategic inroads that could potentially see it emerge
as one more naval base of China to project power in the larger Indo-
Pacific geopolitics. Some experts believe that “A Chinese naval base in
the Solomon Islands could be used to interdict military reinforcement
for Taiwan. Even an isolated People’s Liberation Army (PLA) facility in
the Solomon’s used for intelligence gathering and presence patrols would
complicate defense planning for Australia and, to some extent, the United
States” (Graham 2022: 3).
Kim. P.N. in her article titled, “Does the China-Solomon Islands
Security Pact Pretend a more interventionist Beijing” explains this shift
in China’s plan of action in dealing with other countries (Kim 2022:
1). Until now it is utilizing trade, investment, culture and tourism
to expand its sphere of influence. With this security agreement it has
accepted to provide internal security. Kim P.N. claims that, China is
intervening in the internal struggle. Skeptics have also argued that, in
the name of maintaining social order, China can halt the democratic
process by supporting a non-democratic regime in the region. Gordon
Nanau’s article titled “Solomon Islands—China Security Deal is about
local needs not Geopolitics” conversely shares positive views on the agree-
ment (Nanau 2022: 1). He believes that, Solomon Islands wants extra
backing to its police force; thus it signed the agreement with China.
Further his question on “whether Chinese style of forceful policing is
something that Solomon Islands wish to emulate” need to be examined
(Nanau 2022: 2). Thus, with China’s expanding footprint across the PICs
such insinuations about China’s increasing presence in the Indo-Pacific
have continued to rise highlighting the unique advantages that China’s
Indo-Pacific engagements could draw upon in engaging with these PICs.
Conclusion
As the geopolitics of a larger Indo-Pacific gains traction, the focus has
lately come to be on the Pacific Island Countries (PICs) in the South
Pacific Region that provide both new opportunities but also challenges
to its old and new partner nations that are seen increasingly competing
to fulfill respective foreign policy goals. No doubt, PIC’s are econom-
ically vulnerable yet this newfound interest in PICs has helped them
in channelizing their existential challenges including climate change at
various international forums. The critical question is whether these PICs
will be able to use these old and new linkages with major powers and
facilitate healthy competition in the Indo-Pacific or become vulnerable to
U.S.-China contestations. As of now, some of these questions have only
very tentative answers though some trends of China’s increasing engage-
ment showing signs of being potentially system shaping can be seen
strong enough to demand a scrutiny and response from major traditional
partners of the PICs.
In his visit to all 10 PICs in early 2022, China’s Foreign Minister,
Wang Yi, had presented a multilateral agreement to foster the economic
and security cooperation with all the PIC’s. However, due to the inade-
quate support from among the PIC’s his proposal remains in suspended
animation. This indicates the readiness of the PIC’s to mold China’s
intent so as to reduce its disruptive impact. But PICs need their tradi-
tional partners to withstand Beijing’s pulls and pressures. The most urgent
remains their need to redress the negative impacts of climate change and
the pandemic where China has shown stronger willingness and support.
This also points to China’s growing presence in the region with strong
system shaping potential. Will the United States and its regional allies—
Australia and New Zealand—be able to balance China’s leverages remains
as yet uncertain. Besides, there is the ‘Taiwan factor’ that has been another
unique driver of China’s engagement with these PICs as with the larger
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CHAPTER 11
China’s Maneuvers in South Asia
Reena Marwah and Abhishek Verma
Introduction
China’s meteoric rise since 1980s has led scholars and practitioners
around the globe to appreciate it as a systemic phenomenon, precisely
because it has altered the fundamental characteristic of the interna-
tional order from “unipolar” (post-cold war) to bipolar (or a multipolar
world). In today’s technologically driven, highly interconnected, and
hyper-globalized world, military superiority is not “only” an instrument
through which international influence can be gauged. Therefore, even
after spending less than half of what the United States spends for its
defense requirements, China exerts considerable influence, not only in
the Asia–Pacific region but also in South America, United States own
R. Marwah (B)
Jesus and Mary College, University of Delhi, New Delhi, India
A. Verma
School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7521-9_11
218 R. MARWAH AND A. VERMA
backyard. It is for this reason, various US documents explicitly consider

China as their main strategic rival. Undoubtedly, as Basu stated, ‘China’s
success is the outcome of an intelligent and hugely powerful government ’
(Basu 2013: 29).
This chapter provides a synoptic view of China’s presence in the region
of South Asia. With the rise in China’s standing and stature across the
globe in general and the Asia–Pacific region in particular, its influence
is increasing rapidly not only in the economic sphere but also in the
cultural, societal, and security spaces. According to Shih, Manomaivibool,
and Marwah (2019: xii), ‘China represents a real threat and a real oppor-
tunity, a component of the self and a constituent of alterity, and a bygone
nostalgia and an inspiring future simultaneously.’
Evidently, South Asia, as a region, cannot remain isolated from
an ambitious Chinese grandstanding. China’s geographical proximity
to South Asia, political will and most importantly, deep economic
pockets have often attracted the attention of South Asian states political
and economic requirements. Hence, this chapter seeks to contextualize
China’s linkages with this region, and given that each country has a differ-
entiated understanding, engagement, and vision of China, there must
be an attempt to present the bilateral as well (Marwah and Ramanayake
2021). As China’s economic footprint provides it with its political influ-
ence, it is also important to underline that, as Martin Jacques (2009),
stated, ’China’s rise has been seen in almost exclusively economic terms
failing to grasp the full meaning of China’s rise. Its political and cultural
impact will be at least as great.’ This thematic analysis will explore China’s
political, economic, and societal influence on South Asia as a region.
The dominating states in Southern Asia (a geographic extension of
South Asia) are India and China owing to their huge landmass and
economic might. As has been explained by Marwah (2020: 25), Asia’s
grand failure till date has been a result of the complacency of the East, its
tendency to look within, its devotion to past ideals and methods, respect
for those in authority, and being suspicious of new ideas. Asia lacked
the excitement of Europe. Both China and India were self-satisfied, the
former believing that they had nothing to learn from outsiders, whom
they considered barbarians. Regions, as is well known, are fundamental
to the structure of world politics and may even provide solutions to some
global dilemmas (Katzenstein 2002). Hence, a discussion on the role of
history and geography in deciphering China’s interest and engagement
becomes pertinent.
11 CHINA’S MANEUVERS IN SOUTH ASIA 219
China’s engagement with this sub-region of Asia has been explained

in two main sections; the first provides South Asia’s standing and impor-
tance for China, and the second provides Chinese political, economic,
and societal influence in the South Asian region and how this pattern of
interaction has impacted the region as a whole.
South Asia: A Region of Significance for China

South Asia as a region is bound by the common colonial history with
nations having an imperial imagination of South Asia (Yasmin 2019: 324).
The Cold war ensued amidst the bloody division of Indian subcontinent
which led to the independence of India and Pakistan. Kashmir became
a bone of contention between India and Pakistan with both claiming
stakes over it. Post World-War 2, USA’s policy toward South Asia was
mainly driven by the threat of the spread of communism in the region
as happened in China. The cold war dynamics necessitated USA to keep
developing robust relationships with both non-aligned India and Pakistan.
For China, the region was of much greater historical and strategic
importance, especially for its international relations and foreign policy.
The Tibetan issue and fleeing of His Holiness Dalai lama in 1959, Sino-
India war and breakdown of Panchsheel Agreement have calibrated its
engagements in this region. At this stage, it is important to understand
the raison d’etre for China to engage countries in South Asia. With its
deep economic pockets, China has profoundly influenced the smaller
countries in South Asia, checking an aspirational and rising neighbor,
India. There are many other factors giving impetus to such trends like the
weakness of SAARC, China-Pakistan axis, Chinese involvement in India’s
maritime neighborhood, etc. Such trends further create a trust deficit
among two Asian giants, viz. China and India. This outcome has been
realized even though China’s economic relations with India have consis-
tently grown (Deshpande 2010). The idea driving the twenty-first century
is not the traditional view of politics in a zero-sum game but ‘connectiv-
ity’ that Khanna (2016: 6) develops in his framework of Connectography,
bringing out the compulsions of competitive geographical connectivity.
Evidently, China’s strategy for aggressively expanding economic
engagement with countries in South Asia is linked to checking India’s
rise by exploiting India-Pakistan rivalry, enhancing access to the Indian
Ocean, and countering terrorism and religious extremism (Bartholomew
et al. 2019). Through the two-pronged strategy of exploiting India-

Pakistan rivalry to keep India engaged with its north-western neighbor,
and providing economic baits to smaller neighboring countries, China
attempts to thwart India’s economic and political stride. Hence, China’s
‘string of pearls’ strategy’, i.e., the encirclement of India through port
development is not without reason. In South Asia, these comprise Chinese
investment in port facilities in strategic locations in the Indian Ocean
(including Chittagong in Bangladesh, Gwadar in Pakistan, Colombo
and Hambantota in Sri Lanka, Marao in the Maldives). These could
well be used for strategic leverage. The following sections delineate the
engagement.
However, prior to elucidating the bilateral relations between China
and countries in this region, it is important to introduce the institutional
grouping of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC),
which a decade after its inception since 1985, has largely become a
function of India-Pakistan rivalry.
SAARC—Limited Relevance and Outreach

As stated earlier, South Asia, as a region, carries both economic and
strategic importance for China and it’s great power ambition. By strength-
ening its relationship with South Asia neighbors, China seeks to dominate
Indian Ocean region, generally believed to be the Indian backyard.
South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), a regional
grouping, which traces its inception to the year 1985, is increasingly
fading into irrelevancy (Malhotra 2021). China has observer status in
SAARC since 2005 and has been seeking full membership for more than
a decade.
A major impediment to the functioning of SAARC has been the acri-
monious relationship between India and Pakistan. It is owing to India-
Pakistan border tensions itself that SAARC as a regional grouping has
virtually been defunct since 2016, with the 20th Summit meeting yet to
be held.
India resorted to re-enforcing and promoting another grouping, viz.
Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic
Cooperation (BIMSTEC)1 (does not include Pakistan as a member)
and the Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal (BBIN) Initiative (BBIN) to
1 BIMSTEC comprises countries of Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri

Lanka, Thailand.
move ahead with regional issues. A common running theme between

the tripartite relationship between India, Pakistan, and China has been
that of increasingly worsening India-Pakistan ties, in contrast to a more
strengthened relationship between Pakistan and China. The economic
and security benefits that Pakistan could have leveraged from SAARC
is being readily made available by its “all weather friend” China. In
order to counter Indian attempts to resurrect and revitalize SAARC
during the pandemic, China hijacked the process by exerting its economic
might. In a convened meeting of foreign ministers of South Asian coun-
tries except, rather understandably, India, Bhutan, and Maldives, China
launched “China-South Asia Emergency Supply reserves” and “Poverty
Alleviation and Cooperative Development Centre” during the pandemic
(Bipin and Apoorva 2021). These initiatives became all the more impor-
tant as these were timed to coincide with India’s disastrous experience
with the second wave of the pandemic in 2021, when it was unable to
export the COVID vaccines to its neighbors. By utilizing these strategic
opportunities and constantly prodding Pakistan to stand against India’s
interest (be it on multilateral platforms or supporting Pakistan on border
skirmishes), China has played a significant role in keeping the SAARC
grouping at bay.
China’s All-Pervasive Engagement in South Asia

As explained, SAARC as a regional binding force has been of limited
importance in the Indian subcontinent. Sighting this vacuum as an
opportunity, along with other important social and economic factors as
infrastructural deficits as well as economic challenges of small countries of
South Asia, China embarked on a multidimensional engagement spree
in South Asia. Acting swiftly from the provision of railways to water-
ways, gas pipelines, and electricity connections, China sought to attack
the Indian brand of engagement that has often been criticized as slow in
implementation. In order to provide an alternative and to possibly chal-
lenge Chinese economic influence, India re-invigorated with reinforced
agility the important regional groupings and connectivity projects. The
urgency of promoting BIMSTEC and BBIN is the compelling strategic
challenge for India posed by China’s muscular geo-economic and geopo-
litical interventions in South Asia. The subsequent sections explore a
thematic analysis of Chinese engagement in South Asia.
Chinese global political strategy in general and regional engagements

in particular is immensely powered by its economic might. Since Deng’s
economic reforms in 1979, China’s economy has grown substantively,
rendering further credibility to its diplomatic and military maneuvers.
China’s membership to the World Trade Orgnaisation (WTO) in 2001,
further catapulted China as the manufacturing hub of the world. China’s
entry into the WTO was a formal recognition by the international
community that the country could no longer remain outside the global
economic architecture. It is Chinese “economic clout,” as explained
by David Shambaugh, “that the Chinese government seeks to exploit
both for economic benefit and to derive influence in many spheres of
international relations (Shambaugh 2020).” In the economic domain,
Shambaugh further explains that internationalization of renminbi (RMB)
and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), can be understood as a response
to the surplus of domestic saving (Shambaugh 2020: 114).
The continuing rise of China evidently impacted its neighbors, both
in South East Asia and South Asia. As this chapter focuses on China’s
maneuvers in South Asia, it is not unknown that most of these nations
are deficient in infrastructure, especially in the development of roads,
railways, and ports. China was quick to identify these lacunae and lever-
aged it in their geopolitical ambitions. Given that China prefers to engage
bilaterally, it was the frail polities, weak governments, low human develop-
ment levels, and amenability to manipulation by international donors and
multilateral institutions, which facilitated the smooth entry of Chinese
aid, investment, and goods. South Asian countries have rising popula-
tions, which exert a strain on available resources. Bangladesh has a high
population density, with an average of 950 persons per square kilometer.
Most countries struggle with high levels of debt, low levels of human
development, and low per capita incomes. See Table 11.1. Compared
to Sri Lanka, other South Asian countries are lagging in the Human
Development index. Sri Lanka’s expected years of schooling is 14 years,
employment to population ratio (15 years and older) is 50.2%, and per
capita Carbon dioxide emissions is 1.0 tons. India has a ranking of
131, Bhutan at 129, Bangladesh at 135, Nepal at 142, Pakistan at 154,
Myanmar at 145, and Afghanistan at 170 in the latest HDI.
Under China’s much-acclaimed Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) (initi-
ated in 2013), China Development Bank and Export–Import Bank of
China extended loans of 282 billion dollars throughout Asia, Africa, Latin
America, and Europe, building roads, dams, ports, and power plants.
Table 11.1 South Asian countries: GDP, Debt, HDI, 2022
Countries Population Annual GDP GDP per capita HDI Govt debt (%
USD (Mn) USD GDP)
Afghanistan 37,172,386 19,630 516 0.496 7.8

Bangladesh 161,356,039 288,424 2503 0.614 21.8
Bhutan 754,394 2582 3000 0.612 135
India 1,352,617,328 2,718,732 2277 0.647 73.95
Maldives 515,696 5328 8994 0.719 66
Nepal 28,087,871 29,040 1223 0.579 37.7
Pakistan 200,960,000 314,588 1537 0.562 84
Sri Lanka 21,670,000 88,901 3682 0.78 101
Total 1,803,133,714 3,467,225 1923 65.94
SAARC
Source Country Reports, https://countryeconomy.com/countries/groups/south-asian-associationregi

onal-cooperation, accessed on July 14, 2022
Table 11.3 shows some of the important and strategically significant

projects in South Asian countries financed (partially/entirely) by China.
Further, with Indian Ocean and Indo-Pacific becoming new theaters
of contestation, China has aggressively sought to increase the economic
dependency of the littoral states through Chinese long term but unsus-
tainable loans. A common characteristic of this style of lending (often
called ‘debt trap’ diplomacy), is the takeaway of assets of national and
strategic importance on lease in lieu of defaulting interest payment or
principal amount. The mid-year 2022 economic crises ensuing in Pakistan
and Sri Lanka can be, to some extent, attributed to Chinese debt policy
(Chaudhury 2021). Pakistan has been the central pillar of the Chinese
Belt and Road Initiative. China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC)
project, a 3000 km long route of infrastructure projects connecting
China’s Xinjiang and Gwadar port in Western Pakistan province of
Baluchistan, has garnered a 62 billion dollar budget outlay of which 80%
is being financed by China (TOI 2022). Certain reports have claimed that
Pakistan had been granted loans by China Exim Bank not at a “conces-
sional rate” as given to some other partners but at a higher rate (Naviwala
2017). Evidently, the rate of interest for Chinese-funded projects under
CPEC is as high as 8% (Chaudhury 2022).
In Nepal the situation is worse. After signing an MoU on BRI for
35 projects in 2017 by then “pro-Chinese” Nepalese PM Pushpa Kumar
Dahal, these were reduced to 9 projects in 2019 (The Hindu 2022).
Table 11.2 Chinese

Country Total external Total China Share in
debt as a percentage of
debt debt external debt
total debt of South (bn dollar) (billion (%)
Asian countries dollar)
Pakistan 90.14 24.7 27.4

Maldives 1.8 1.4 78
Bangladesh 44.20 3.00 6.8
India 620 NA NA
Afghanistan 2 NA NA
Sri Lanka 51 5.5 10
Bhutan 2.9 NA NA
Nepal 12 NA NA
Source The World Bank, https://data.worldbank.org/; accessed July

15, 2022
Bangladesh is trading its opportunities with utmost caution. After joining

BRI officially in 2017, both countries have signed almost 27 agreements.
As a result, China has granted duty-free access to 97% of Bangladeshi
products to its market (Pakistan Today, 2022). Recently, Bangladeshi
Foreign Minister Dr. AK Abdul Momen rebutted notion of a “Chinese
debt trap.” He asserted that “a country needs to take 40 percent of its
debt from a particular source to be in the debt trap. As the share of loans
from China accounts for about 5 percent of its total debt, hence, the
possibility of being in the Chinese debt trap is yet an illusion” (FE Report
2022). Table 11.2 provides details of China’s share in the total external
debt of South Asian countries. It can be seen that the share is highest in
the case of Maldives, viz. 78%; with that of Pakistan being about 27%.
(More Details of the bilateral engagement are provided in the next section.)
China’s Influence: A Bilateral Perspective

Assisted by deep pockets and conspicuous economic needs of small South
Asian countries, China often tends to deal with its partners on individual
merits of the state. As discussed in the previous section, there remains
a lack of transparency in the viability of economic projects. The state
of affairs in the political domain is no different. In the recent Global
Freedom Score released by Freedom House, China scored 9 with the
remark “not free.”2 It has been primarily due to its increased surveillance
activities and restriction on freedom of speech, with impunity, especially
with the onset of COVID restrictions. The Chinese leadership hence,
prefers to engage with authoritarian regimes and influence the latter’s
political milieu. Chinese political influence in the South Asian region
through bilateral specifics is now discussed.
India and China: Unresolved Borders

India and China share civilizational and cultural linkages over several
centuries. Sino-Indian trading relations between the seventh and twen-
tieth centuries transformed from Buddhist-dominated exchanges to
market-centered commercial transactions, resulting in interactions among
communities on both sides, development of urban settlements of migrants
as well as a shared resistance to British imperialist designs and hostilities
(Marwah 2018: 3–23). However, as both India and China left the colo-
nial legacy behind and embarked on their own success story, new power
stature and ambitions brought these two nations into conflict. With India,
Chinese political relationship has been fraught with instability and crises.
Regular border skirmishes along an undefined 3488 km Line of Actual
Control (LAC) is the major cause of this instability. In recent decades,
these border incidents have become more frequent, despite the highest
level of meetings between the head of states. Apart from Depsang border
crisis in 2014 and Doklam crisis in 2017, the Galwan crisis in 2020 saw
20 casualties on Indian side and an undefined number on Chinese side.
This was the first time in over 50 years that casualties occurred on India-
China border. Two years later, even after more than 15 rounds of military
talks, consensus on border crisis seems to be illusive (PTI 2022). Reports
released in 2022 have claimed that satellite images show an apparent
Chinese village being built on Indian side of Arunachal Pradesh (TNN
2021). Even at the Doklam Plateau, a site of conflict in 2017, Chinese
have built a fully inhabitable village, Pangda (in Chinese). The area is
squarely within Bhutanese territory along Amo Chu. Experts are of the
view that construction along Amo Chu implies that China will get direct
line-of-sight to India’s strategic Siliguri corridor (Som 2022).
2 https://freedomhouse.org/countries/freedom-world/scores.
India’s political relationship with China is fraught with mistrust, histor-

ical memories and major asymmetry in power. Chinese role in Indian
politics has been reduced to negligible as compared to their active
endorsement of destabilizing activities of the Communist Party of India
in 1960s and 1970s. However, there are other important means through
which China has gained unprecedented instrumentality in India’s socio-
economic success. As China study centers in India are independent of
any Chinese funding, direct political or ideological influence is nearly
impossible. However, entrenched economic reliability in key industries
like low–high-end electronic markets, pharmaceutical and photovoltaic
source products, mobile industry, toy industry among others has ensured
sensitivity to China’s core interests, especially until 2020, post which the
relations have taken a turn for the worse. The report of border villages
being constructed by China in Arunachal Pradesh has only precipitated
the distrust. Chinese foreign ministry categorically stated that “we have
never recognized the so-called Arunachal Pradesh. China’s development
and construction activities within our own territory is normal. This is
beyond reproach as it is in our territory (Krishnan 2021).” However, the
report seems to be unconfirmed because Arunachal Pradesh CM, Pema
Khandu stated that “no Chinese village has been constructed in Arunachal
Pradesh and the construction is on Chinese side of the border.” Chinese
activities in this regard becomes instrumental during elections because an
effective response to China and Chinese assertiveness in the region could
become an electoral flank and fodder for the ruling dispensation.
China: Afghanistan and Pakistan as Special Friends

China’s interest in its western neighbor, Afghanistan, with whom it shares
a 47 miles border, was largely limited to oil and mineral exploration,
though not in any substantive manner. However, security concerns were
also prioritized by Chinese political establishment owing to close connec-
tion between Taliban and East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), an
extremist group of Uyghur militants. Their aim is to create a separate
state of “East Turkestan.” In recent times, especially since US with-
drawal from Afghanistan in August 2021 and Taliban at the helm of
Afghanistan affairs, China has immensely enhanced its outreach to the
newly formed Afghan government. The security vacuum created by, what
Jennifer Murtazashvili calls “de-Americanization of security in South Asia,
has led to an opportunity by other powers in the region to reset secu-

rity architecture in the region” (Murtazashvili 2022). In run up to the
formation of Taliban government in Afghanistan, Chinese enthusiastic
involvement in Afghanistan affairs through mutual visits of officials can
largely be construed as security-enhancing efforts by China. The implicit
rationale for Chinese engagement with regional countries and hosting
several regional stability dialogues, has to do with gaining an under-
standing of Taliban government’s approach toward regional security.
ETIM is believed to have strong ties with Taliban. Most of the ETIM
fighters who are deployed in Xinjiang region for recruitment and creating
instability, have formally been sheltered and trained by Taliban fighters
(Small 2015). On the political front, China is currently trying to estab-
lish a credible soft power relationship on the graves of the United States’
disastrous and mismanaged occupation and withdrawal. Beijing’s proac-
tive approach, visible in setting up of a bilateral working group with the
Taliban on humanitarian assistance and economic rebuilding, could be
seen in the context of its security concerns (Yau 2022).
Since the cold war days, Pakistan has been the cradle child for both
USA and China. As suggested by Prof C Rajamohan, Pakistan played
quite smartly throughout the cold war to leverage antagonism between
China and Pakistan, facilitated their rapprochement and then again firmly
held China’s camp once US interest in the region ended with with-
drawal from Afghanistan (Raja Mohan 2021). The cold war bonhomie
between the two was reflected in 1963 when Pakistan gifted Shaksgam
valley in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (POK) to China. In contemporary
times again, Pakistan has allowed Chinese to build CPEC that will pass
through POK. This increased political influence of the Chinese sometimes
comes under severe attack by non-state militant groups operating inside
Pakistan. Chinese nationals are often targeted in Pakistan as a marker of
protest by militant and disenchanted civilians for their increased interven-
tion in Pakistan’s socio-political space (Reuters 2022a, b). As Pakistan’s
economy is experiencing volatility, there are often short notice high-level
mutual visits in order to re-structure/re-finance huge loans and interest
commitments thereafter (ANI 2022a, b).
Table 11.3 provides a glimpse of some of China’s key projects in
Pakistan and Nepal. China has indicated that it is willing to extend CPEC
to Afghanistan.
Table 11.3 Chinese projects in Pakistan and Nepal
Pakistan (projects) Financial Nepal (projects) Financial

commitment/status commitment/status
Gwadar Smart Port USD 4million Trans-Himalayan NA/Not

City Master Plan (completed) Railway completed
Free Zone Phase 1 USD 300 million 400 kV electricity Not completed
(completed) Transmission line
Pak-China Technical USD 10 million Technical university Not completed
and Vocational (Chinese grant)
Institute (Completed)
Swad Dam and NA (not completed) Roads, Tunnels and Not completed
Shadi Kure Dam Hydroelectricity
Pipeline dams
East Expressway USD 179 million
(99% complete)
New Gwadar USD 230 million
International Chinese Grant (36%
Airport complete)
Pak-China USD 100 million
Friendship Hospital (20% complete)
Sources https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/pakistan/80-of-cpec-projects-worth-2-billion-run
ning-behind-schedule-in-pakistan/articleshow/91419164.cms, accessed on July 22, 2022; https://fro
ntline.thehindu.com/dispatches/nepal-what-happened-to-chinas-belt-and-road-projects/article65466
849.ece, accessed on July 22, 2022
A few projects are outlined in Table 11.3. These are in varied stages of
completion. The pandemic and China’s own lockdowns since 2020 have
slowed the pace of project implementation.
Bhutan and Nepal: Small Nations

Between Two Large Neighbors
Chinese coercive diplomacy tactics, testified in Doklam, are continuing
in Bhutan as well. Latest satellite images have shown that China has
constructed six villages at India, China-Bhutan tri-junction (Philip 2022).
Reuters has put out new satellite images indicating Chinese construc-
tion activities which now entails 6 sites and more than 200 structures
on Bhutan- China disputed land (Devjyot and Anand 2022).
Bhutan, a landlocked country, has historical relations with India
through cultural linkages, peaceful, cooperative relations, as well as cordial
people-to-people ties. In comparison, Bhutan and China have yet to
establish official diplomatic ties. It was only after the Chinese annexation
of Tibet in 1951 that Bhutan and China became neighbors. The border
issue (Bhutan-China shares a border of 290 miles with two tri-points with
India) results in unease and tensions. China’s soft power overtures toward
Bhutan have been witnessed in the dispatch of circus artists, acrobats,
and footballers to the tiny kingdom state of less than a million people.
Beijing has also granted a limited but growing number of scholarships
for Bhutanese students to study in China. According to Lintner, the virus
crisis has provided China with an opportunity: to create trouble for India
along the border, make new offers of cultural exchanges—and perhaps
even suggest establishing some kind of more formal diplomatic relations
(Lintner 2020).
With Nepal, there is an extensive web of institutions to influence
Nepal’s internal political dynamics in Chinese favor. Chinese seems to
have two objectives while dealing with Nepal. First, to keep the US influ-
ence neutralized, and second, to keep communist parties of Nepal in
power in order to extract political and economic favors. Senior leaders of
the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) have been in regular touch with the
entire power circuit in Kathmandu. In a recent significant event, China
compelled Nepal to decide against going ahead with the US government’s
State Partnership Program (SPP). In a brazen display of extensive Chinese
lobbying, Wang Wenbin, the China’s foreign ministry spokesperson stated
“SPP a military and security initiative closely linked to the Indo-Pacific
Strategy and against Nepal’s national interest”. It was not surprising when
this unsolicited remark did not attract any criticism from Nepali dispen-
sation. Senior CCP leaders meetings with high level officials in Nepali
government is also a testament to the fact that China is trying to broker an
alliance between Dahal’s CPN-MC and Oli’s CPN-UML. China’s show-
ering of unwavering political weight behind communist parties of Nepal
provides a textbook example of state intervention in domestic affairs of
another sovereign nation.
Bangladesh and China:

A Strengthening Relationship
China-Bangladesh relations were that of acrimony by the virtue of
China being Pakistan’s all weather ally. Initially China did not recog-
nize Bangladesh and vetoed Bangladesh’s UN Member status in 1974.
After establishing diplomatic relations in 1976, China developed close ties
with Bangladesh Nationalist Party led by Ziaur Rahman who capitalized

on anti-India and pro-China political stand. Before Awami League could
occupy power, China-Bangladesh relations reached new heights, so much
so that 2005 was declared as “Bangladesh China Friendship Year” (Habib
2021). The contemporary relationship between China and Bangladesh
is largely anchored on their economic and infrastructural exchanges.
Bangladesh is also a major buyer of Chinese weapons. However, as
with other regional partners, China has been making attempts to enter
the political and strategic domain as well. Like with most of India’s
neighbors, the country’s internal political narrative is driven by pro-India
and pro-China factions. China is exploring ways to strengthen its polit-
ical influence on Bangladesh at a time when the relationship between
India and Bangladesh is on an upward trajectory. China has sought
to squeeze India’s naval brigade by establishing their firm presence in
Indian waters of the Bay of Bengal and Indian Ocean. In Bangladesh,
China has adopted all-of-a-Society approach wherein it embarked on a
societal exchange to acquaint people with Chinese and Confucius way of
life. This is anchored by establishing a cultural bridge through Confucius
Institutes in Bangladesh Universities, sponsoring various Chinese cultural
programs in Dhaka and musical & student exchange programs. Mohshin
Habib, a senior journalist based in Dhaka has warned Bangladeshi political
elites to remain cautious as Chinese will essentially work for pro-Pakistani
Bangladesh Nationalist Party. Present display of bonhomie is just to
fast-track their BRI projects (Habib 2021).
Chinese influence among political elites of Bangladesh has been
increasing. During an interview, Ambassador Harun ur Rashid shared,
“There was a 180-degree turn in Bangladesh’s foreign policy after August
1975. The country became friendly with China, U.S., and other Islamic
countries ” (Marwah and Singh 2013). Furthermore, during an inter-
view with Ehsanul Haque, he mentioned that “Bilateral relations between
Bangladesh and China are driven mainly by trade and investment link-
ages. China is also a major development assistance partner for Bangladesh”.
In an aggressive exposition of Chinese wolf warrior diplomacy, China’s
ambassador in Dhaka Li Jiming warned Bangladesh against joining US-
led Quad alliance which he called “anti-Beijing club” and would result in
“substantial damage” to bilateral relations (Basu 2021).
Table 11.4 provides a glimpse of Chinese projects in Sri Lanka,
Bangladesh, and the Maldives. Projects in Bangladesh are yet to be
completed.
Table 11.4 Chinese projects in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Maldives
Sri Lanka Financial Bangladesh Financial Maldives financial

(projects) commitment/status (projects) commitment/status commitment/status
Port City USD 14 billion Padma USD 3.7 billion

Colombo (not completed) Bridge
Project
Hambantota USD 1.4 billion Dhaka- NA/not Velana
port (completed) Chat- completed International
togram Airport 367
Rail Route million
dollar/completed
Colombo NA (not Payra Deep 11–15 billion Sinamale Bridge
port completed) Sea Port (completed) 210 million
Eastern project dollar/completed
container
terminal
Source https://www.beltroad-initiative.com/projects/
Sino-Sri Lanka Relations: An Impacted Island

Chinese and Sri Lankan relations can be seen as the confluence of
Buddhism with a strategic imperative. Sri Lanka’s relations with Chinese
gained new momentum with the advent of the Mahinda Rajapaksa
government in Sri Lanka. Once believed as an epitome of the confluence
of strategic aspirations of both the nations under the banner of China’s
Maritime Silk Road (MSR), Hambantota port has now become a text
book example of an economically unviable project under BRI, commonly
referred to as a “Debt trap.” The port’s economic viability was questioned
on several counts as only around ten ships berthed in one entire year.
Very soon China acquired the controlling stakes of the strategic port and
airport at Hambantota as part of its ambitious maritime silk route strategy
and later acquired the port on a 99 year lease on a debt-equity swap in
2017 (AFP 2022).
In case of Sri Lanka, as explained by Abeyagoonasekera, wherever
there is suppression of liberal democratic values, the Chinese model of
governance is well poised to take over (Abeyagoonasekera 2021). With
Rajapaksa’s family takeover of almost the entire high-level government
machinery and gradual concentration of power over economic, political,
and societal institutions, democratic values were sidelined. In the previous
Mahinda Rajapaksa regime during 2010–2015, big ticket infrastructural
projects were awarded to Chinese companies along with negotiations

on a free trade agreement. Ever since the days of the Sri Lankan civil
war, Rajapksas had been garnering incessant Chinese support including
recent support at United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). At
the UNHRC in February 2021, China voted in favor of Sri Lanka and
against the resolution expressing serious concern over the rights situa-
tion in the Island nation. Appreciating Sri Lankan government’s efforts
to promote human rights and economic and social development, Wang
Wenbin, Chinese foreign Ministry Spokesperson stated “we are against
politicizing human rights and applying double standards or using it to
interfere in other countries affairs” (PTI 2021). With Rajapaksa’s overt
enthusiasm about giving Chinese a space for strategic maneuvering, it
became imperative for China to make all possible attempts to retain the
leadership at the helm of Sri Lankan affairs. This would help to fast-track
Chinese development projects and strategic agenda through BRI projects.
During CCP and World Political Future Summit, former Prime Minister
Mahinda Rajapaksa praised CCP in the following words:-
China has successfully eradicated poverty of 900 million people under

its open economic policy… I am confident that China will bring back
the economic strength that Asia had 500 years ago through this Silk
Road. China always believed that improving infrastructure will provide
new ways and new strengths for the people. Therefore, we have constantly
invited China to help develop the infrastructure of our country. (Abeya-
goonasekera 2021)
Presently, in late 2022, Sri Lanka is going through an unprecedented

economic crisis which has turned into a political crisis. Scholars like
Shivamurthy have blamed Beijing for their support to the populist
Rajapaksas, as well as unsustainable borrowings and structural fallacies of
the government (Shivamurthy 2022).
Unable to manage external debt commitments, in part, owing to the
huge COVID-induced economic meltdown, Sri Lankan economic crisis
has now turned into a political crisis of a massive scale (Reuters 2022a,
b). Large masses of people protested against pervasive inflation and
demanded immediate resignation of President Rajapaksha. The crowds
stormed the parliamentary premises and President’s house, causing the
President and other power holders to flee the country. Within one
day, President Gotabaya (from Singapore) tendered his resignation and
allowed Ranil Wikrmasinghe to be sworn in as President (Srinivasan
2022).
Maldives and China:

Influence in the Indian Ocean
Like other South Asian neighbors, Maldives domestic political narra-
tive has also been marred with pro-China and pro-India factions. The
atolls of Maldives are sought after for their strategic location in the
Indian Ocean The two factions, i.e., Abdulla Yameen (pro-China) and
Ibrahim Mohamed Solih (pro-India) have been at the helm of affairs
in the country’s small democratic experience. With Solih in power, an
India-first policy seems to be the mantra, yet China cannot be pushed
into irrelevance. This is because of the overtures made by the Yameen
government which included signing a free trade agreement, endorsing
BRI, and implementing various projects. Maldivian politics, like other
countries in South Asia has also been fraught with pro-China and pro-
India bipolarity. Abdulla Yameen’s regime (2013–2018) developed close
ties with China and distanced itself from it’s traditionally and geograph-
ically close neighbor, India. During his tenure, following “China first”
policy, Maldives entered into a number of infrastructural projects which
remained financially unsustainable. As Solih government in Male consol-
idated its power, after being sworn in as President in late 2018, India
provided USD 1.4 billion in aid to ward off worries over Chinese debt
(Ranjan 2022).
Several reports have indicated that China is trying to boost “a
campaign against the current political establishment with the help of
Islamist nationalist political agenda in order to restore Yameen as Presi-
dent of the nation in the 2023 Presidential election (ANI 2022a, b).” The
said report, published in Maldives Voice claims that China would follow
a multi-pronged approach to attain their objective. This could comprise a
realignment of alliances, liberal monetary grants and the tacit support of
Pakistan for triggering an Islamic campaign against the ruling party.
Conclusion
The above discussion clearly highlights that Chinese interaction with most
South Asian nations has been under the pretext of growing India-China
mistrust (Madan 2021). As a result of this mistrust, various regional
alliances and counter-alliances to counteract any uncertainty have been
played out in abundance. Internal political dynamics in South Asia have
been fraught with ideologically apart and alliance-contested political
choices. Countries political landscape are often compartmentalized into
“anti-India” and “anti-China” political choices.
China’s state capacity and influence have been increasing since last two
decades. With President Xi at the helm of Chinese affairs, it has, not
only started developing and projecting its institutional capacity in every
dimension, but also, more than ever, eager to take other nations along
with their success story. With huge foreign exchange reserves and polit-
ical will to invest in large stake & strategic projects, China is well poised
to alter region’s political, ideological, and economic calculus. Pakistan,
Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Nepal, and Afghanistan have extended
support to the Belt and Road Initiative despite India’s outright and
vocal opposition to the initiative (Anwar 2020). However, access to aid,
combined with agility in implementation of infrastructural projects by
China is evidently welcomed by countries in India’s neighborhood.
Due to its institutional capacity, China has extensively engaged with
countries in South Asia developing wide-ranging connections, opinions,
and interests. On the other hand, institutional capacity in some South
Asian countries are often in disarray and have distinctive vulnerabilities. In
some, civil societies role in political discourses are often thwarted, while
in others, civil societies have a rather minimal impact on excesses of ruling
executives.
In 2021, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace undertook
a project “China’s impact on strategic region” that explored Chinese
political and economic influence in the European and South Asia region
(Pal 2021). They concluded that Chinese tend to be interested in
big infrastructural projects, try to make it inclusive by considering the
feedback of the local population and recommendations of the local
administration. Then, they sought completion of these projects along
the election years, so that they obtain praises from politicians and public
alike. With the aim of building a Chinese narrative in the host countries,
China sought to use educational institutions, personal connections with
the leaders or diplomatic heft to often coerce or compel countries to toe

their line.
However, there is a flip side to the relationship as well. In a bid to
extend its influence across societies in the region, China has conveniently
poured its over-capacity in cement, glass, steel, and manpower in other
countries through BRI projects. These tactics of exporting laborers and
raw materials in another country has led to a social churning in partnering
countries. Many a time, these result in local scuffles, attacks, or even
killings as the local population is denied employment opportunities (Welle
2022). Mehran Marri, Baloch representative to UNHRC alleged in 2017
that “CPEC experience showed that China was not driven by any altru-
istic motives and are not promoting OBOR to improve the lives of the
local people” (ANI 2017). Sri Lankan experience with BRI has not been
different. The economic instability created, in part, by Chinese unsustain-
able loans has led to an unprecedented political and societal breakdown.
Similar concerns have been proliferating in Pakistan as well. The country
is reeling in a serious economic crisis with 87.7 billion dollars in debt as
per Pakistan’s latest Economic survey (2021–2022). Scholars assert that
the ongoing economic crisis, which has an inevitable societal and polit-
ical repercussions, can largely be traced to reckless borrowing enabled by
China (Bhandari 2022). As pointed out in the Carnegie report, engage-
ments are being carried out by Chinese through multiple channels, as
Deep Pal calls “whole of a society approach” (Pal 2021). They have
been donating small infrastructural requirements, community essentials
like books, etc. in the areas they are operating. They are also tying up with
universities in South Asia, not only for Language training but for prolif-
erating Chinese ideologies and its defining features to gain legitimacy
among the society of the BRI participating country.
Thus in the ultimate analysis, Chinese engagement with South
Asian countries has largely been described from three strategic lenses-
Chinese great power ambition, thwarting Indian regional predominance,
and addressing economic vulnerabilities. Chinese great power ambition
demands both hard power (military) and soft power (economic, polit-
ical and societal) influence across the globe, starting with its neighbors.
Diplomatic and political dominance backed by strong and entangled
economic dependency of the region on China provides it with a sense
of accomplishment. Hence, South Asia is another neighboring region
in which the “middle kingdom” seeks tributes from. India is the only
country with wherewithal and a strong extra regional backing to push-

back against Chinese excesses. Hence, by securing the legitimate support
of its neighbors, China seeks to suffocate India geographically. Lastly, in
order to ward off its “Malacca Dilemma” through which 80% of Chinese
trade passes, navigating South Asia, both geographically and politically,
is an imperative for China. The operationalization of the Gwadar and
Hambantota ports has provided important outlets to maritime spaces of
significance. More than investment destinations, China needs favorable
South Asian regimes for these economic routes to further aid Chinese
economic prowess and marginalize India in its own erstwhile sphere of
influence.
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Index
A 79, 103, 127, 135, 154, 162,

Air Defence Identification Zones 163, 177, 178, 183, 200, 201,
(ADIZ), 60 222–224, 230–235
Arunachal Pradesh, 225, 226 Blue Dot Network (BDN), 26, 28,
ASEAN-China Dialogue, 1 29, 38, 178
ASEAN Outlook on Indo-Pacific BRICS, 154
(AOIP), 2, 12, 76, 77, 79–82,
84, 85, 87, 88
C
Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank
Cheque book diplomacy, 7
(AIIB), 154
China in the Indo-Pacific, 101, 186
Asian NATO, 2
China-Pacific Islands Countries
Asia-Pacific, 1, 2, 4, 7, 11, 14, 15,
Economic Development and
21, 22, 84, 108–111, 123, 126,
Cooperation (CPICEDC), 199,
127, 129, 145, 147, 151–155,
200
161, 164, 173, 174, 203, 218
China Pakistan Economic Corridor
Association of South East Asian
(CPEC), 44, 223, 227
Nations, 4
China’s Community of Shared Future
Australia-United Kingdom-United
(CSF), 13, 14, 146–149,
States (AUKUS), 174, 184
151–153, 155–165
Cold War, 2, 10, 11, 21, 47, 56, 75,
B 83, 109, 110, 124, 139, 140,
Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), 4, 5, 152, 163, 196–199, 219, 227
7, 8, 14, 15, 28, 29, 35, 42, 48, Communism, 7, 48, 219
© The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s), under exclusive 241
license to Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-7521-9
242 INDEX
Communist Party of China (CPC), Five Power Defence Arrangements

16, 123, 173, 179, 181 (FPDA), 125
Comprehensive Agreement on Freedom of Navigation in the South
Investment (CAI), 95, 99, 106 China Sea (FONOPs), 131, 183
Comprehensive and Progressive
Transpacific Partnership
(CPTPP), 63, 133 G
Comprehensive strategic partnership, G7, 34, 137, 138, 185
105, 197, 200 G10, 34
“Confluence of Two Seas”, 56, 78 Global Climate Accord, 35
Confrontation, 12, 13, 42, 48, 94, Globalization, 22
95, 123, 125, 139, 140 Global Maritime Fulcrum (GMF), 80
CoP-21, 35 Golan Heights, 56
Council of the European Union, 94, Golden Era, 56
104 Golden Triangle, 48
Grey-zone operations, 61
Gulf of Tokin, 47
D
Data Free flow with Trust (DFFT), 64
Doklam Plateau, 225 H
Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster
Relief, 68
E
East Asian Tiger economies, 203
East Asia Summit (EAS), 80, 81, 83, I
109 Indian Ocean, 6, 12, 37, 57, 77, 79,
East China Sea (ECS), 56, 61, 138, 81, 87, 126–130, 132, 134, 136,
182, 183 138, 161, 175, 185, 209, 219,
Eastern Hemisphere, 76, 82, 84 220, 223, 230, 233
Economic Prosperity Network (EPN), Indo-Pacific Business Forum, 28
24–27, 32, 38 Indo-Pacific Command, 78, 87
Environment and Climate Change, Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (IPOI),
36, 68 2
European Union (EU), 7, 8, 12, 44, Infrastructure, 5, 25–29, 34, 63, 64,
45, 48, 63, 93–109, 111–115, 66, 67, 78, 79, 100, 105, 135,
146, 186 136, 155, 177, 178, 181, 222,
223
Institutionalism, 10
F Integrated surveillance and
Fault lines, 12, 85, 87 intelligence (ISR), 127
Fifth Continent, 13, 126, 132, 134, International Development Finance
140 Corporation (IDFC), 26, 28
INDEX 243
J P
Japan-EU Economic Partnership, 67 Pacific Islands Region, 15, 195–198,
Jintao, Hu, 3, 4, 6, 156 200
Joko Widodo, 80 Pakistan, 44–47, 52, 176, 219–224,
227, 229, 233–235
pan-Asian, 28, 35, 37, 109, 160
L Panchsheel Agreement, 219
Line of Actual Control (LAC), 225 Peacekeeping Operations,
Peacebuilding, 68
Permanent Court of Arbitration’s
(PCA), 59, 61
M Policy Guidelines for the Indo-Pacific,
Major powers, 7, 12, 27, 77–79, 103
81–85, 87, 88, 113, 125, 145,
148, 150, 155, 162, 197, 203,
207, 211 Q
Malacca Straits, 6 Quad++, 27
Mekong Region, 29 Quad 2.0, 5, 183
Michelin Guide, 28 Quadrilateral Security Dialogue
Middle power, 4, 9, 11, 13, 38, 41, (QUAD), 2, 15, 27, 46, 49, 52,
51, 79, 88, 111, 121–123, 125, 65, 76–78, 128, 131, 136, 137,
127, 130–133, 135–140, 150 139, 171–175, 177–187, 230
Morrison, Scott, 49, 128
Multilateralism, 7, 9, 13, 23, 26, 43,
48, 51, 52, 104, 108, 114, R
122–126, 128–130, 132, 133, Renminbi (RMB), 5, 222
135, 137, 139, 140, 153, 154, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University’s
173 Yoshimatsu, 62
Mutually Assured Destruction
(MAD), 43
S
SDGs, 36, 37
Sea lines of communication (SLOCs),
N
49, 56, 65–67, 183, 196
National Security Law, 59, 61 Security and Growth for All in the
North Korea, 44, 47 Region, 178
Nuclear tests, 59, 60 Senkaku/Diaoyu Tai islands, 59
Shanghai Cooperation Organization
(SCO), 154, 155, 187
O Sino-British Declaration, 61
Obama, Barack, 4, 78, 84, 110 Social Network Analysis (SNA), 83
One-Sun-One-World-One-Grid South China Sea (SCS), 5, 6, 46,
(OSOWOG), 35, 36, 38 59–61, 64, 82, 85–87, 123, 126,
244 INDEX
129, 131, 138, 152, 153, 155, U

172, 175, 182–184, 204, 205 UNCLOS, 61, 65
Sovereign, 10, 22–24, 26, 27, 29, 30, Unification of Taiwan, 207
32, 34, 38, 177, 198, 204, 229 US-China competition, 10, 43, 44,
Soviet Union, 21, 56, 76, 124, 162, 46, 103
198 US-led liberal regional order (LRO),
Spaghetti bowl, 109 146–148, 150, 153, 163–165
String of Pearls (SOP), 45, 52, 220
‘Summit for Democracy’, 137
Supply chains, 14, 23, 30, 31, 42, 63, V
67, 99, 100, 133–135, 154, 172, Vaccine, 5, 27, 136, 185–187, 221
176, 178–181
W
T Western Pacific, 10
Taiwan, 15, 43, 44, 51, 56, 59, 60, World Trade Organization (WTO),
63, 65, 67, 123, 138, 146, 150, 64, 133, 173, 222
153, 155, 156, 180–182,
202–208
‘Team Europe’, 112, 114 X
Theory of complex interdependence, Xinjiang Province, 106
51
Tibetan, 155, 219
Trump administration, 8, 25, 46, 65, Z
78, 202 ‘zero-sum’, 10, 219

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PALGRAVE SERIES IN ASIA AND PACIFIC STUDIES

China and the

ISSN 2662-7922 ISSN 2662-7930 (electronic)

Cover credit: Zoonar GmbH/Alamy Stock Photo

This volume seeks to present both sides of the discourse on Indo-Pacific

It is in this complex backdrop, that this book seeks to examine the

New Delhi, India Swaran Singh

Prof. Swaran Singh

“This ground-breaking compendium by a group of scholars - both estab-

“At a time of accelerating competition in the Indo-Pacific region, this

“A brilliant blending of opposing yet determined interrogations compli-

“A timely volume with an Excellent Set of Contributions perfectly assem-

1 China’s Engagement and the Indo-Pacific 1

7 Evolving Indo-Pacific Multilateralism: China Factor

About the Editors

Prof. Swaran Singh is visiting professor,

Center for Asian Studies (Hong Kong Univer-

Command & Control in Southern Asia:

Prof. Reena Marwah (M.Phil., Delhi Univer-

Security Studies Sri Lanka (INSSSL). She has

Her most recent authored books are Re-

Claudia Astarita is a lecturer at Sciences Po Paris and International

(India). His research focuses on the intersections between domestic poli-

‘Economic Headwinds and a Chance of Slower Growth: What the fore-

AAGC Asia-Africa Growth Corridor

CMEC China Myanmar Economic Corridor

SIDS Small Island Developing States

Table 7.1 Australian Defence White Papers (1976–2016) 124

China’s Engagement and the Indo-Pacific

Swaran Singh and Reena Marwah

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

followed appeared a bit cautious clarifying China’s limited endorsement:

The China-Led Transition of Asia–Pacific

The RCEP comprises 15 countries, including the ten ASEAN nations

That would be one way of explaining President Xi’s engaging ‘ASEAN

China’s Engagement by Other Stakeholders

exports to China for 2021 reached $206 billion compared to China’s

is in this backdrop that this volume seeks to address these dichotomies as

perpetuation and resurrection of ‘zero-sum’ alliances of reductionism.

being a revisionist state, has striven hard to evolve an alternate ‘balance of

counter conception of the regional order presented in Western narratives

India and China in the context of their respective spheres of influence

Strategic Partnership for Peace, Security, Prosperity and Sustainable Devel-

Xi, Jinping. (2021), “For a Shared Future of Our Common Home”, 22

Decoding ‘Sovereign Strategic Networks’

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 21

marginal to the maritime dynamics of the Asia-Pacific, segueing into

keep New Delhi and Canberra off-kilter in their respective near-abroad,

Strategic Competition: Cooperative

flexible but focused mechanisms, gravitating minilateral and/or multilat-

The Economic Prosperity Network:

unreasonable condescension and hubris, with which it was brandished

circumstances of the Economic Prosperity Network, courtesy of the

patented by soft-targeting Indo-Pacific littoral in general, but the EPN

China, has attenuated, is in the domain of multi-dimensional infras-

score (globally, approximately 94 trillion USD is required to satiate infras-

Democratizing Commoditized Economy:

and dance about how the far-reaching implications of this over-reliant

Partnership Agreement (CEPA) with Tokyo, and the lingering belief