Abstract
The Indo-Pacific region has emerged as the new centre of gravity in international politics. The region’s defining characteristics, among others, are Chinese belligerence, intensified great power rivalry, the rise of middle powers, marginalization of ASEAN centrality and the emergence of multilateral and multilateral groupings. Chinese enhanced assertiveness, coupled with the complex economic reliance of South East Asian countries, as also the security net provided by the United States, has further added to the multidimensional realignments in the region. The multi-faceted institutions like Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States (AUKUS), Quad, Regional Comprehensive Economic Cooperation (RCEP), among others, and Indo-Pacific vision document released by regional (Japan, South Korea, ASEAN, India) and extra-regional countries (United Kingdom, Germany among others) lent further legitimacy to the concept of Indo-Pacific.
The book, edited by Swaran Singh, a Professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, and Reena Marwah, a Professor at Delhi University, has vividly explained the nature, contours, evolution and transformation of multilateralism in the region. The editors have brought together a panel of 12 domain experts with years of academic experience and collated their contribution to bring forth an insightful and comprehensive analysis of the multilateral alignment in the region. The book has been thematically divided in two sections: one, decoding new trends and templates, while the other examines new regional institutional initiatives. The book could have been structured differently, namely, to reflect on the USA-led initiatives as well as the initiatives led by other nations to lend greater heft to the exercise.
The shift of theatre of international politics from North Atlantic to Indo-pacific has largely been driven by factors like unprecedented economic growth of China, relative decline of the United States and rise of several middle powers in the region. As a result of this transition, the awareness, relevance and interpretation of regional issues such as climate change vulnerabilities, maritime claims and insecurity of sea lanes triggered by piracy are being acknowledged with concern by regional, extra-regional and supra-state stakeholders. By identifying the genesis of multilateralism in the region at post-Second World War, Ashis Adhikary has detailed various multilateral initiatives like ANZUS and SEATO through Quad and SAARC. Initially, western dominated initiatives could not succeed giving way to indigenous variant of integration that was shaped and produced in the form ASEAN and related forums (pp. 28). In its new formulation as Indo-Pacific, the region has been welcoming the extra-regional powers to offset the balance which was disoriented by the phenomenal rise of China and its assertive manifestation.
The defining characteristics of contemporary form of multilateralism 2.O operating in the region, as detailed by Devyani Chaturvedi, includes reciprocity, intergovernmental cooperation and institutionalization of multilateralism. Another feature that endows multilateralism 2.O with more vibrance is the inclusion of supra-national (like EU) and sub-national groupings adding more stakeholders in the policy/decision-making processes, as well as the inclusion of civil societies. This conceptualization of multilateralism is amply manifested in Indo-Pacific region in the form of trilateral partnership for infrastructure investment (among Japan, Australia and the United States). We are also witnessing a momentous economic revival efforts coordinated by the great powers of the day along with regional powers, to make Indo-Pacific self-sustaining and to overcome from the clutches of Chinese economic dominance. The numbers of initiatives reflecting economic dynamism of the region are Japan’s Expanded Partnership for Quality Infrastructure, India’s Security and Growth for All in the Region, Trump Administration’s BUILD Act, Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), among others. A leg of India’s maritime multilateralism, Indo-Pacific Ocean Initiative (IPOI), has been examined by Dr Silky Kaur. She presents a holistic understanding and strategic importance of Indian Ocean as a region and juxtaposes India’s Indo-Pacific strategy into its dynamism. Calling Indian Ocean as ‘Ocean of the future’, she contextualizes its centrality in enhanced power politics, security dynamics, global trade and industrial developments, among others. Detailing IPOI, Dr Kaur asserts that the initiative provides a unique forum of open participation amongst the seven specified pillars showcasing India’s plurilateral approach towards building purposive partnerships with ‘like- minded’ countries. The structure of the initiative is also an exposition of inclusivity in India’s discourse of regional and multilateral alignment. By outlining cooperation with several countries within IPOI framework, while the author has reflected upon the successful implementation of the new paradigm of IPOI which rests on flexible piecemeal pluralistic approach for new maritime alignments, the author could have delineated its limited reach given the limitations of ASEAN.
Due to the mushrooming of multilateral and minilateral institutions, especially involving the great powers, the centrality of ASEAN in the Indo-Pacific Security Architecture is highly debated. The new Indo-Pacific discourse is a great powers’ construct, and hence it merits the question of ASEAN centrality. With the rise in relevancy of newly formed multilateral institutions, the ASEAN’s Inter-regional cohesion will get altered, especially when the geopolitical contestation is between ASEAN’s largest economic partner (China) and ASEAN’s net security provider (United States) ensued.
Discussion about the Indo-Pacific region remains incomprehensive without discussing Quad, a quadrilateral security arrangement that includes India, Japan, Australia and the United States. The author, Rushali Shah, has comprehensively detailed the evolution, new avatar in Quad 2.O, its expanded conceptualization of ‘Security’ to include non-traditional security, and its uniqueness in terms of the absence of mandatory convergence of all issues while having substantive common ground and vision of a rules-based order in the region. Dispelling the adverse narrative about Quad and ASEAN centrality, Shah has maintained that Quad attempts to overcome the deficiencies in Asia’s maritime security and institutional architecture (p. 97). Analysis of the emergence of yet another minilateral forum in Indo-Pacific, AUKUS and its implications on the relevance and functional priorities of Quad, would have made the analysis more comprehensive and insightful.
While investigating the prospects of Quad as an Asian NATO, Mahima Duggal draws distinction between European and East Asian security arrangement (p. 110). She defines NATO as a ‘collective defence’ architecture, while maintaining that since 1950s ‘hub and spokes’ security system operates in the region with the United States as a hub and bilateral security partners acting like Japan, Australia and South Korea act as spokes of the security web designed to maintain peace and stability in the region. The debate around Asian NATO, as she outlines, is challenged by factors such as national egotism, absence of definite Asian identity, wide regional diversity and lack of existing cooperation forums. Institutionalization and by extension, militarization further appears elusive due to lack of solid foundation and synergy on as basic an issue as the definition of Indo-Pacific which differs for all four constituting countries. Unique strategic relationship of four Quad countries with China dictates that a common approach towards Chinese belligerence would neither be feasible nor possible. The author presents optimistic implications of Chinese-intensified regional aggression conditioning the emergence of collective defence pact under NATO-like framework. However, such an analysis appears far-fetched as the economic and military asymmetry between China on one hand and Japan, India and Australia on the other is quite high. Moreover, only a comprehensive increase in state power and some form of symmetry can provide the required confidence amongst the regional countries to venture militarily against China.
Explaining a new paradigm of economic multilateralism, Garima Sangwan explicates the evolution, significance, implications and challenges to the working of RCEP (p. 136). Although RCEP presents promising prospects of economic multilateral integration of the region, it is restricted by several challenges. The foremost among them all is the absence of India’s enormous and attractive market for trade and investments. Geographically contiguous South Asia also tried to link itself economically with the South East Asian economies through a grouping named BIMSTEC. Acting as a bridge between the two regions, BIMSTEC has emerged as a mainstay of regional integration and connectivity. With wide scope of cooperation including terrorism, illegal migration, narcotics among others, BIMSTEC has emerged as a platform for consensus building, especially with the institutional decline of SAARC. The chief catalysts in this regard include India–Myanmar–Thailand Trilateral highways, Inland Water Transport, sister cities connection by enhancing the connectivity between busy port cities of major countries in the region. In conclusion, BIMSTEC draws institutionalization and synergy in the larger Indo-Pacific narrative, through evolving regional identity. However, the takeover by the Tatmadaw in Myanmar has not only delayed several initiatives, but it has also derailed them completely. This could have been discussed by the author.
While discussing about the regional institutional initiatives, the editors have collated detailed analysis of the important groupings like QUAD, RCEP BIMSTEC and IPOI. What appears to be missing in multilateral security engagement in the region is the discussion on AUKUS. AUKUS has the potential to qualitatively transform maritime security dynamics in the region. Moreover, with the discussion over its expansion to include few prominent stakeholders within the region, it gains further credence as a multilateral grouping.
The book presents an excellent collation of issue-specific aspects related to an emerging centre of gravity in the twenty-first century. This work is a comprehensive research work for the scholars and policymakers interested in understanding Indo-Pacific region, along with its manifestation in terms of mushrooming multilateral institutions and their engagement with the region and outside. This book also gives an insight into the functioning multilateralism in economic, security and strategic domain, and how regional and extra-regional powers navigate through the various challenges amidst contesting objectives and aspirations. Hence, this authoritative work compiles almost all the aspects related to multilateralism in Indo-Pacific region which promises to be an extremely incisive book for scholars of Indo-Pacific region and practitioners alike. The editors would have done well to include a chapter on the islands in the Pacific Ocean, which are also gaining tremendous influence among the major powers contestation.