Preparing for a crowded Indo-Pacific: where to next?

1 April 2022

There is little doubt that the Indo-Pacific plays a pivotal role in 21st-century international relations and trade. The region has rapidly become the geopolitical and geoeconomic centre of global affairs, and it is emblematic of the correlation between sudden and strong multipolarity and the volatility of the resulting security landscape. This does not mean that other regional or transnational issues do not concern the international community anymore — think of the ongoing pandemic, climate change, Russian revisionism, or the increasing number of regional conflicts — but the sheer scope of challenges, Indo-Pacific friction and power shifts pose firmly places this macro-region at the centre of the global stage.

Observers of these ongoing developments argue that we are witnessing either a Cold War-like bipolarity caused by Sino-American superpower rivalry; a tripolar system, once the role of ASEAN is taken into account; or increasing levels of unregulated and therefore unpredictable multipolarity. Several elements easily disprove narrow views of both bi- and tripolarity. These include the presence of other significant actors in the region — India, Japan, and Russia as major variables in the regional equation, along with the growing ranks of regional and middle powers, many of which are ASEAN members — and the fact that the two superpowers constantly seek the support of secondary powers.

Not enough attention is paid to such secondary powers, even though their role must be taken into account when tracing the strategic contours of the region’s landscape. Analysis of the Indo-Pacific strategies of three key middle powers — Australia, South Korea, and Indonesia — as well as Europe’s shifting attention to the region indicate a new geopolitical constant: an increasingly crowded, multipolar, and contested Indo-Pacific, where like-minded states do not always cooperate effectively.

The Indo-Pacific’s key middle powers

Australia has finally abandoned any past pretence of geopolitical ambiguity — however convenient it has been to benefit from China’s meteoric rise — and completed a foreign policy shift that started in 2017 when episodes of economic coercion from Beijing began to affect Australian companies. Now Australia is inextricably intertwined with the United States’ Indo-Pacific strategy not only through a set of alliances and specific minilaterals — ANZUS, the Quad, and the Quad Plus — but also through AUKUS, an enhanced strategic partnership that adds to the latticework of relations built by Washington to contain China’s burgeoning economic and military growth. The alignment with the US and its partners, along with an increasing economic, strategic, and cultural engagement with numerous states in the region, represents Australia’s evolving Indo-Pacific strategy.

What we are witnessing is an increasingly crowded region, one in which the many strategies of interested states and organisations do not coordinate to a meaningful extent and therefore frustrate each other.

Many argue that it further limits Australia’s foreign policy autonomy, making it more of a “dependent ally” than a “middle power and good international citizen”, as it traditionally had been for decades. A smaller group of intellectuals maintains that Canberra should firmly distance itself from Washington and reset Australian-Chinese relations to foster closer ties with Beijing. Overall, however, the comfort and familiarity of the alliance with the US — with its security guarantees and a growing number of partners — is very likely to remain the defining direction of the country’s foreign and security policy, for all its current limitations in terms of extra-regional cooperation.

South Korea, on the other hand, has been a more unpredictable Indo-Pacific actor for many years. Its geographical proximity to both China and North Korea, a more dangerous strategic landscape in the region, and the significance of its trade relations with China have meant that Seoul often behaved very differently from a typical (formal) US ally. Its strategic ambiguity has also prevented it from playing any meaningful role in the region’s security architecture, mainly confining its middle power credentials and actions to trade policies. While this has created a certain distance between Seoul and key regional allies and partners, it is important to understand that the country’s foreign policy direction is driven by a deep sense of insecurity.

Yet nothing is set in stone, and a combination of pressure from the US, integrating the country’s “New Southern Policy Plus” agenda with American goals, the increasing interoperability of Korean armed forces with those of the US, and a growing wariness of China’s actions have initiated what could be a gradual foreign policy shift. The recent election of conservative President Yoon Suk-yeol is likely to tip the balance in favour of a less ambiguous Indo-Pacific foreign policy alongside the US and its allies. This potential shift, matched by a more proactive engagement with ASEAN, represents Seoul’s new strategy for the Indo-Pacific. Given South Korea’s industrial and (rapidly growing) military capabilities, this new development is bound to affect the current Indo-Pacific power shifts.

Finally, Indonesia symbolises both the promise and the limitations of multipolarity for the Indo-Pacific. As a large and rapidly rising country — demographically, economically, and soon strategically — it is one of the main cogs of the Indo-Pacific strategic mechanism. It is also the largest member (and the informal leader) of ASEAN. The hypothetical ‘third pole’ of the region — which gathers ten states, 650 million people, and a combined GDP of USD 3.4 trillion — launched its Indo-Pacific policy in 2019. While Indonesia and ASEAN embody the potential significance of multilateralism, their indecisiveness and internal divisions are their most fatal flaw.

However, we should not focus solely on the present. While the oft-cited prediction that Indonesia could be the world’s fifth-largest economy by 2030 is overly optimistic, and Jakarta still punches below its weight in terms of military and political influence, the growing trend is clear. Additionally, numerous neighbouring nations — including many ASEAN members — are following a similar upward trajectory in demographic and economic terms. Once this is paired with rising living standards and, in time, new strategic investments, their new capabilities are bound to further affect the strategic balance of this increasingly overcrowded region.

What role for Europe?

In light of this, not only can we expect a somewhat chaotic multipolarity to be one of the distinguishing features of the Indo-Pacific for years to come, but we can also easily imagine an increasingly crowded region, as other actors either rise from within or seek to engage with the Indo-Pacific from elsewhere. This means that, unless the main states and organisations involved coordinate constructively, the Indo-Pacific could become even more chaotic and volatile in the future, if different regional strategies undermine each other. Adding to this complex landscape, Europe — understood as both the European Union and some of its largest members — is already pivoting to this region.

The EU has recently launched its official Indo-Pacific strategy, ungraciously overshadowed by the surprise announcement of AUKUS, made just a few hours before Brussels had scheduled to unveil the new policy. The EU has outlined seven priorities for its engagement in the region, namely sustainable and inclusive prosperity; green transition; ocean governance; digital governance and partnerships; connectivity; security and defence; and human security. While Brussels explicitly pursues a cooperative and not a confrontational approach to the Indo-Pacific, the difference from its previously unclear position is obvious.

Additionally, individual countries are also pursuing their own Indo-Pacific strategies, and others are informally working in the same direction. The UK and France have been active for years, supported by a long-standing territorial presence in the region, and both are seeking to increase their involvement in several ways. More recently, Germany and the Netherlands have launched official Indo-Pacific strategies, which fit well with the broader scope of the new EU policy. In particular, Germany’s announcement to deploy the Bayern frigate to the South China Sea to conduct a freedom of navigation operation (FONOP) surprised many. Finally, there are other European states with substantial economies, large navies, and significant political and trade interests in the region.

These include chiefly Italy, but potentially Spain and Belgium too, who, despite the lack of an official Indo-Pacific strategy, are concluding high-level trade deals, political agreements, and partnerships with key Indo-Pacific nations, thus paving the way for potential new developments in the near future. Except for FONOPs, these elements fall under the conceptual lens of soft power, and therefore appear complementary (not identical) to hard power approaches currently headed by the US and key regional allies such as Japan and Australia.

Similar goals, different means?

What we are witnessing is an increasingly crowded region, one in which the many strategies of interested states and organisations do not coordinate to a meaningful extent and therefore frustrate each other. China seeks to expand its burgeoning influence in a number of ways, the US and its key allies are advancing a security-oriented and norm-driven vision for the Indo-Pacific, ASEAN focuses on shared norms and economic prosperity, and Europe supports a cooperative approach while upholding the international law. While the means are clearly different, the majority of parties involved share the intention to benefit from the region’s momentous economic rise and recognise the primacy of international law as a normative compass for guiding an uncertain future. The means to achieve this, too, are complementary since the US and its allies chiefly rely on hard power approaches, and ASEAN, Europe (and India) prefer to resort to economic, diplomatic, and cultural means (in essence, soft power).

More concrete cooperation between them would have the potential to shed light on some of the most significant apprehensions surrounding this all-important region, and would ultimately result in a more tangible impact. Like all new forms of global cooperation, however, this goal is eminently difficult to achieve, as it would require China to finally accept the primacy of international law, the Anglosphere to broaden the horizons of its narrow partnerships, ASEAN to take on a meaningful role in the region’s security architecture, and Europe to find and maintain a united voice. While this is unlikely to ever happen at the same time, even a partial synergy between different Indo-Pacific strategies would exert a significant influence over the region’s evolving landscape, and to that end a gradual process of policy integration is the best-case scenario to aim for.

DISCLAIMER: All views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent that of the 9DASHLINE.com platform.

Author biography

Dr Gabriele Abbondanza is a sessional lecturer at the Department of Government and International Relations, University of Sydney (Australia), and Associate Fellow at the Italian Institute of International Affairs – IAI (Italy). Further information is available here. Image credit: Flickr/Official US Navy Page.