The past week has been an eventful one vis a vis discourses relating to the Indo Pacific. It started for me at a round table held at RUSI’s HQ in Whitehall on Thursday 29th June on the topic of “UK & Europe’s Relations with the Indo-Pacific”. Then to keeping a watching brief on the Shangri-la Dialogues organized by the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) in Singapore (30th May – 1st June), and ending with the Government’s Strategic Defence Review 2025 which was unveiled on Monday 2nd June.
So what is the significance of the “Indo-Pacific” region? A German academic Karl Hauschofer is often credited with coining the term in the 1920s, referring to the countries connected via the Indian and Pacific Oceans. However often we see its use as coded expression to exclude any mention of China, by far the most influential power in the region. The Indo-Pacific has become more commonly used in the context of defence and security issues whereas “Asia Pacific” would for example be a more neutral term, whilst ASEAN+5, or signatories to CPTPP or RCEP (both excluding the US) more specific references where discussions revolved around trade matters.
The round table at RUSI organized by the Centre for Geopolitics, Cambridge was focused on the study of the Indo-Pacific to cover security, economic and other dimensions. However inevitably discussions would lead back to the US and China rivalry – the elephant and dragon in the room! This was of course unavoidable given that we are in the era of Trump 2.0 with rapidly shifting geo-political sands, not to mention and a full-blown trade war between the US and the rest of the world!
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