The Indo-Pacific, referred to as the world’s new economic and strategic centre of importance, is witnessing a resurgent China. With the intention of countering China, the United States of America and its allies, Australia, Japan and India, have formed the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue. Amidst this unfolding strategic competition, many small and middle powers in the Indo-Pacific are now assessing their stakes and are seeking to pursue their own interests. These powers are aligning to adapt to these changing dynamics and transforming their diplomacy and cooperation into ‘neo-middle-power diplomacy’. To the degree that they have developed Indo-Pacific visions themselves, emphasising cooperation rather than strategic competition.
The Indo-Pacific does not have a comprehensive multilateral organisation that can define its scope. The diversity of national visions, ranging from inclusive economic cooperation to exclusive, security-focused frameworks, thus makes the region volatile. An inherent tension is between preserving ASEAN’s centrality in the regional architecture while accommodating the expanding strategic interests. The paradox of the Indo-Pacific lies in the fact that while it carries profound political and geostrategic weight, it lacks fixed geographical boundaries and institutional anchoring. Unlike the Asia-Pacific, which was materialised through APEC’s concrete institutional framework, the Indo-Pacific remains a floating entity.
Rather than evolving a single, comprehensive institutional framework, we are witnessing the minilateralisation of regional cooperation where a small group of like-minded countries collaborate on specific, issue-based goals, often bypassing larger, formal regional institutions. For instance, like Quad, AUKUS, a trilateral security partnership among Australia, the United Kingdom, and the US, functions as a ‘quasi-alliance’ without binding legal commitments characteristic of formal treaty organisations. Multiplication of trilateral, issue-specific dialogue formats like the India-France-Australia Trilateral Dialogue or the Japan-Australia-India Strategic Dialogue that allow for more targeted cooperation on specific challenges has also been spotted. These networks and groupings, aiming at institutionalising the region in the absence of any region-wide framework, are, however, futile since the Indo-Pacific’s geography remains fundamentally contested. Such institutional development will probably follow the pattern of fixed multilateralism that will explicitly depend upon the existing frameworks rather than displacing them entirely. Moreover, multilateralism has its own challenges. The rise of populism, nationalism, and protectionism in some countries raises concerns about the future of multilateralism and the effectiveness of international cooperation. The institutionalising process may even redesign the Indo-Pacific as an archipelago of states with specialised, overlapping mechanisms instead of a single hierarchical governing structure.
Donald Trump’s tariff wars might affect the dynamism of the Indo-Pacific. If trade routes are impacted and the price of oil increases sharply, the instability of the Middle East might upset the vitality of this region. China-India rivalry or a Chinese attack on Taiwan could also destabilise the region.
The Indo-Pacific’s overlapping maritime domains have proved that traditional regional boundaries are inadequate for understanding existing power dynamics and institutional innovations. The region’s flexibility as a concept compels us to examine how different actors construct their own strategic narratives, striving to legitimise their regional engagements and evolve multilateral practices. In the process, the region is moving forward to the inception of multi-speed multilateralism, a form of governance where different aspects of international cooperation, such as technology, trade, and labour, evolve and operate at varying speeds, often leading to challenges in institutional responses in contemporary international relations.
The region has thus become an unavoidable reference point in regional strategic discourse regardless of one’s position towards it.
Debamitra Mitra is former director, Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute, Calcutta