Publication Year: 2022
Commentary: China in the Maritime Pacific
DOI: 10.1016/j.marpol.2022.105092
Abstract: The Indo-Pacific region faces complex and destabilising maritime security challenges. There are concerns that China’s militarisation of the South China Sea may migrate to other domains, including the Pacific Islands. Yet there is little critical or scholarly analysis of China’s maritime strategy, tactics, and approaches in the South-West Pacific and its implications to the island nations that inhabit that geographic area. This commentary proposes a new research agenda focused on the following question: how has China used ‘maritime geo-economic’ statecraft in the Pacific and how have Pacific Island states responded? This research agenda should consider key elements of China’s maritime geo-economic engagement in the Pacific, the risks of this engagement to Pacific Island states’ economic sovereignty in the maritime domain, and how they have sought to exert agency and seek to protect and preserve their maritime entitlements.
Publication Year: 2022
Lawships or warships? Coast guards as agents of (in)stability in the Pacific and South and East China Sea
DOI: 10.1016/j.marpol.2022.105048
Abstract: Do coast guards generally promote good governance in the maritime domain, and are they a means of preventing conflict escalation? Sam Bateman argued that the use of ‘white hulled’ coast guard vessels was fundamentally less provocative than deploying gray-painted warships in contested waters. Thus, the use of ‘lawships’ instead of ‘warships’ could serve to de-escalate tensions. He also saw them as better able to pursue ends of oceans governance than naval vessels, for a range of reasons including the need for specialization. Nonetheless, there has been increasing concern that some coast guards are becoming a tool of ‘gray zone’ tactics: efforts to alter the strategic status quo short of armed conflict. China is often portrayed as using the China Coast Guard in such a manner. By contrast, the Australian Pacific Patrol Boats program – which gifts coast guard patrol assets to partner States – is often portrayed as an unqualified good. This paper examines both case studies in light of the Bateman thesis to conclude that the China Coast Guard may be more of a tool for de-escalation, or at least containment of tensions, than is commonly conceded and that the most obvious benefits of the Australian Pacific Patrol Boats program may have a strategic dimension.
Publication Year: 2022
Winning Without Fighting in the Indo-Pacific: A Naval Diplomacy Matter
DOI: 10.1080/03071847.2022.2042148
Abstract: In the essay that won the 2021 Trench Gascoigne Essay Prize (Full-Time Education Category), William Parker assesses the naval military instrument and its utility short of combat in the Indo-Pacific. By analysing the conceptual basis for the Royal Navy’s Indo-Pacific tilt, he argues that operational concepts and naval doctrine must work together in areas where, currently, they are not. He concludes that ensuring the conduct of naval diplomacy as a strategic practice, which serves the habit of statecraft, is crucial in reducing the chance of competitive peace leading to violent war.
Publication Year: 2021
The Future of the Indo-Pacific: Toward Intensified Geopolitical Confrontation or Enhanced Economic Integration?
DOI: 10.1142/S2377740021500093
Abstract: With rising geopolitical tensions in the Indo-Pacific, ASEAN is running the risk of becoming a victim of a hegemonic war against China waged by the United States and its Quad partners, a pessimistic scenario for the future of the Indo-Pacific. However, ASEAN has made it clear that ASEAN centrality should play a leading role in shaping the emerging regional architecture. ASEAN’s unique geopolitical position, the ASEAN Way as a special socialization process, and its extensive engaging networks with major powers can help the regional grouping obtain bargaining power to maintain its centrality. Also, the robust China-ASEAN relations can also facilitate ASEAN to maintain its centrality and thus avoid the trap of great power rivalry in the Indo-Pacific.
Publication Year: 2020
China-Vietnamese Relations in the Era of Rising China: Power, Resistance, and Maritime Conflict
DOI: 10.1080/10670564.2020.1852737
Abstract: In the twenty-first century, China and Vietnam have experienced heightened conflict over their disputes in the South China Sea. But Chinese policy and the writings of Chinese observers make clear that, for China, this conflict is a struggle between a great power and its smaller neighbor over China’s demand for a sphere of influence on its borders. Since 1949, the People’s Republic of China has consistently maintained that Vietnam reject strategic cooperation with an extra-regional power. For Vietnam, however, China’s looming presence poses an existential threat that drives Vietnamese leaders to seek support from extra-regional powers. Since 2010, China has relied on coercive diplomacy and threats of crisis escalation to constrain Vietnamese reliance on outside powers, especially the United States, to challenge Chinese interests.
Publication Year: 2020
Sino-US Disorder: Power and Policy in Post-COVID Indo-Pacific
DOI: 10.1177/2631684620940448
Abstract: Great powers have invested in order-building projects with competing vision of political values and ideologies. How the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic shapes the balance of power and order are debated. The pandemic arrived in the midst of Sino-US strategic contestation, a crumbling European project, de-globalisation and contested economic governance architecture. While the pandemic exacerbated Washington abdicating leadership role, Beijing also has alienated itself from the followers of rules based order. It has sharpened the clash of rhetoric, narratives, and perceptions. The pandemic will reorganise the international system and power structures. Situating the Indo-Pacific project in this backdrop, this article critically analyses the debates, discourses and nuanced divergences that are shaping the Indo-Pacific puzzle in the power corridors of Washington, Tokyo and Delhi, in addition to mapping Beijing’s approach to Indo-Pacific. The article evaluates the contrast in their respective visions of order, China strategy, ASEAN centrality and multilateral free-trade regimes. But these subtle departures have not restricted major Indo-Pacific powers to weave a strategic web of democracies and pursue a win-win issue-based multi-alignment on matters of mutual strategic interests. With new realities in play, the India-US-Japan triangle will feature as one of the key building blocks of Indo-Pacific to deliver on the shared responsibility of providing global public goods.
Publication Year: 2020
The Limits of Intergovernmentalism: The Philippines’ Changing Strategy in the South China Sea Dispute and Its Impact on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)
DOI: 10.1177/1868103420935562
Abstract: Focusing on the Philippines’ changing foreign policy agendas on the South China Sea dispute, this article examines the limitations of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) intergovernmental approach in addressing security challenges in the Indo-Pacific region. It contends that former President Benigno Aquino III tried to harness this regional organisation in his balancing policy vis-à-vis China’s maritime expansion in the South China Sea. On the contrary, President Rodrigo Duterte promoted his appeasement policy on China when he became the ASEAN’s chairperson in 2017, and pushed for the elusive passage of the ASEAN–China Code of Conduct in 2019. In conclusion, the article scrutinises the implications of this shift in the Philippines’ foreign policy for the ASEAN, and raises the need for this regional organisation to rethink its intergovernmental approach to the security challenges posed by the changing geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific region.
Publication Year: 2020
India in the Indo-Pacific: New Delhi’s Theater of Opportunity
Abstract: The paper identifies three specific elements of India’s Indo-Pacific approach. First, it underlines the Indo-Pacific as an opportunity to expand its footprint across the region while facing significant capacity and capital constraints. Second, it places partnerships at the core of India’s Indo-Pacific interests. While collaborations with bigger powers such as Australia, France, Japan, and the United States have provided a greater platform for New Delhi to expand its diplomatic footprint, its relationship with island nations will shape India’s role in the Indo-Pacific. Due to the geographic proximity of the island states—both Maldives and Sri Lanka, and to a greater extent Mauritius and Seychelles—to India, their foreign policy choices will have a direct impact on New Delhi’s security environment. Finally, although the Indo-Pacific presents new opportunities to India’s great power ambitions, India’s priorities and significant investments will remain in the Indian Ocean.
In examining these three elements of India’s Indo-Pacific policy, the paper sheds further light into its new geopolitical challenges and strategic dilemmas while deliberating emerging opportunities and options to address its developing threats and challenges.
Publication Year: 2020
Do China’s New Islands allow it to militarily dominate the South China Sea?
DOI: 10.1080/14799855.2020.1749598
Abstract: Since the start of China’s island-building efforts, there has been widespread concern that these islands would host long-range sensors and munitions and thereby facilitate Chinese military dominance in the South China Sea. This article explains that the military advantages that these islands provide are overstated. The interplay of geography and constraints on sensor coverage leaves China ill-positioned to detect ships and aircraft throughout the South China Sea, let alone to target them. While these technical constraints place hard limits on Chinese military capabilities, ameliorating them would likely face severe political constraints and major tradeoffs in force structure. Consequently, there are grounds for considerable skepticism of widely held concerns about the military implications of China’s island-building efforts. The military balance in the South China Sea has not been greatly altered and China’s anti-access capabilities, such as they are, have not been fully extended into the South China Sea.
Publication Year: 2020
China as a Revisionist Power in Indo-Pacific and India’s Perception: A Power-Partner Contention
DOI: 10.1080/10670564.2020.1766906
Abstract: Debate concerning China’s emergence as a revisionist power has taken a more direct shape under the Donald Trump administration in the United States. Such a debate is not as prevalent in India even though New Delhi began perceiving Beijing’s assertive rise long-ago with caution. India’s deductions of China as a revisionist power are drawn on its national security calculus and the anticipatory challenges it faces from China in the land and maritime domain that threatens the status-quo of the region. In other words, India’s perception of China in Indo-Pacific is much more constructive, drawn on a dualist outlook of power-partner contention, that comes both as a challenge as well as opportunity.
Publication Year: 2020
India–Thailand Security Cooperation: Strengthening the Indo-Pacific Resolve
DOI: 10.1177/2347797020906651
Abstract: In the past, India’s resolve to connect with countries further to its east centred on its relationship with ASEAN as a group and lacked a holistic outlook as it emphasised on a lopsided approach that left out the security dimension. The bilateral relationship between Bangkok and New Delhi marks an emerging departure from this past trend. In the recent past, Thailand has emerged as a bright spot in India’s vast array of security relationships, with growing focus on maritime security, counterinsurgency and counterterrorism operations, joint patrols and exchange of personnel in training. Besides boosting interoperability, increasing joint actions seek to marry India’s Act East policy with Thailand’s Look West policy, both of which emerged in the past decade of the twentieth century. Both countries look to strengthening their resolve in the Indo-Pacific, even as the region’s stability gets further complicated by sharpening Great Power politics. This article scrutinises the India–Thailand relationship from a security perspective and tests the compatibility of this emerging bilateral relationship with a regional security architecture conceptualisation in the Indo-Pacific. As such, this article seeks to fulfil two important goals: fill the literature deficit in India–Thailand relations that has often been eclipsed and subsequently neglected by the overarching canvass of India–ASEAN relations and analyse India–Thailand bilateral relations from the perspective of an emerging security partnership in the complex labyrinth of relationships in the Indo-Pacific.
Publication Year: 2020
China’s rising naval ambitions in the Indian Ocean: aligning ends, ways and means
DOI: 10.1080/14799855.2020.1721469
Abstract: China’s naval footprint in the Indian Ocean has expanded considerably over the last decade. This growing presence has led to significant debates about China’s goals and capabilities in the region. This article argues that China’s trajectory over the last ten years reflects an alignment of ends, ways and means in the Indian Ocean. The main driver behind China’s ambitions in the region is the need for Beijing to secure pivotal maritime lines of communications that carry a large share of Chinese oil imports and a sizable part of Chinese exports. Fulfilling this mission has required a significant adjustment of China’s naval strategy, and the addition of ‘open seas protection’ to the core missions of the PLA Navy. This strategy has, in turn, been supported by the development of a navy with increased sea control capabilities and overseas basing plans that have started to materialize in Djibouti.
Publication Year: 2020
India’s Act East Policy and ASEAN: Building a Regional Order Through Partnership in the Indo-Pacific
DOI: 10.1177/0020881719885526
Abstract: Over the past few decades, India’s security concerns have undergone a substantial change. With the formulation of the Look East Policy (LEP) in the 1990s, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as a regional entity became an essential component and a corridor for India’s outreach to Southeast Asia. In 2014, the LEP became more encompassing with a shift to the Act East Policy (AEP). The global security and economic environment too are witnessing significant changes with the USA taking a back seat, China’s aggressive positioning and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) coupled with the emerging geopolitical construct of ‘Indo-Pacific’. The regional stakeholders, such as ASEAN, the USA, Japan, Australia and India are yet to form a unified stand on the Indo-Pacific concept as well as the regional security architecture. The AEP appropriately fits into the current scenario as India is set to take up a larger role in the regional security environment while keeping the centrality of ASEAN intact. New Delhi seeks to create a platform for mutual development in the Indo-Pacific and engage with like-minded nations in the quest for a rules-based order that promotes transparency, respect for sovereignty and international law, stability and free and fair-trade framework. India and ASEAN can be apt partners in the Indo-Pacific to play a constructive role and build a regional order.
Publication Year: 2022
New Great Game in the Indo-Pacific: Rediscovering India’s Pragmatism and Paradoxes
Abstract: This book looks at the emerging power dynamics in the Indo-Pacific region and locates India and its interests within the overarching geostrategic framework. With US and China emerging as leading players within the region, the book analyses the challenges to India’s foreign policy in the face of new alliances, counter-alliances, and great power equations that have formed after the Cold War. It discusses important issues such as China’s strategic forays in the Indian Ocean, the balance of power between countries, India’s Act East opportunities, Russia’s re-engagement in the region, the South China Sea dispute, India’s maritime strategy, and the conundrum of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue facing India.
A comprehensive study of the changing geopolitical and geostrategic environment of the Indo-Pacific region, the book will be an essential read for scholars and researchers of international relations, global politics, foreign policy, maritime studies, Chinese studies, South Asian studies, geopolitics, and strategic studies.
Publication Year: 2021
India and Australia in Indo Pacific: Dynamics of Defence, Diplomacy and Diaspora
Abstract: As the India-Australia relationship upgrades from 3Cs of Cricket, Curry and Commonwealth to 3Ds of Defence, Diplomacy and Diaspora, the evolving dynamics of the relationship have a huge potential for both the countries. The opportunities provided by the 3Ds are immense and are having incremental, clear and conclusive repercussions for the relationship. Based on Defence, Diplomacy and Diaspora and supported by specifics, India and Australia in Indo-Pacific provides an insight into the interplay between the three Ds and attempts to lend a prognostication for the bilateral relationship.
