. Global Affairs and Strategic Studies. School de Derecho

Indo-Pacific: The New Order without China at the Centre

GLOBAL AFFAIRS JOURNAL #3 / January 2021

[download the PDF of the full Journal]

The balloon rotates some Degrees further to the West.

PRESENTATION

There was a time when the world's strategic axis was in Europe. With the incorporation of the New World into the global order, the axis shifted for a long time to the Atlantic, between Europe and America. The consolidation of the primacy of the United States made it the pivot of the world. With development of the Asian tigers, the specific weight of the planet shifted towards the Pacific, between America and Asia. Afterwards, the initial concept of Asia-Pacific gradually lost the sense of space between two coasts to eventually refer only to the shore where China is located, as it has grown as a superpower and has focused general attention. We are now witnessing another progression in the rotation of the globe, again some Degrees further west. Asia-Pacific gives way to the idea of Indo-Pacific by bringing India into the equation. And it is possible that in the future, as Eurasia becomes more compact and Africa becomes more involved in international decision-making, the way to look at the world map will be to have the Indian Ocean in the middle, as a global Mediterranean.

Today, in any case, we are ushering in the Indo-Pacific moment. It is a new world order in which China no longer occupies the centre where it aspired to be: the ground has begun to shift before it can fully settle. Beijing's own strategic haste has triggered the mobilisation of the Asian environment, which is partly supported by India which, due to its demographic size and economic potential, can serve as a lever for China's continental counterweight. Global Affairs Journal addresses in this issue the articulation of this counterweight, which revolves around the initiatives of a Free and Open Indo-Pacific and the so-called Quad, whose vertexes are Japan, India, Australia and the United States, with implications for ASEAN as well.

Index

THE INDO-PACIFIC AS A NEW GLOBAL GEOPOLITICAL AXIS

Juan Luis López Aranguren [Introduction].

Professor of International Office, University of Zaragoza

p. 6-11 [PDF version].

PRESENT COMPLEXITIES AND FUTURE PROSPECTS

Shahana Thankachan

Researcher at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, India

p. 12-17 [PDF version].

UNITED STATES AND AUSTRALIA BEFORE

THE EMERGENCE OF CHINA AS A GREAT POWER

Florentino Portero