U.S.-China Great-Power Politics and Strategic Ambiguities in an Evolving Indo-Pacific Security Architecture

Abstract

U.S.-China Great-Power Politics and Strategic Ambiguities in an Evolving Indo-Pacific Security Architecture Beverley Loke (bio) and Ralf Emmers (bio) A complex regional security architecture exists today in the Indo-Pacific, comprising overlapping multilateral and minilateral arrangements. Resulting from an incremental process of cooperation, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and its associated forums such as the East Asia Summit (EAS), the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF), the ASEAN +3, and the ASEAN Defence Ministers' Meeting–Plus (ADMM-Plus) have become important multilateral venues for regional countries to exchange strategic perspectives. However, these inclusive and multilateral ASEAN-led platforms have in recent years been challenged by the rise of exclusive minilateral arrangements driven by U.S.-China great-power politics. China's influence-building measures include the Belt and Road Initiative, the Xiangshan Forum, and, more recently, the Global Security Initiative. U.S.-led minilaterals include the Quad, which brings together Australia, India, Japan, and the United States, and AUKUS, a trilateral security pact signed in September 2021 by Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. These developments have reinvigorated debates over the form, purpose, and effectiveness of the Indo-Pacific security architecture.1 They have also contributed to the emergence of additional ambiguity in the regional architecture at the level of embedded regional alignments. Institutions like the EAS are structured around ASEAN's impartiality in the rise of great-power competition and seek to institutionalize regional relations by promoting diplomatic rules of engagement that are acceptable to all. In contrast, the Quad and AUKUS are arrangements that openly exclude China and seek to balance its rising power. [End Page 52] While it might seem counterintuitive, we claim that constructive and purposeful strategic ambiguity in the regional architecture can help maintain regional stability, especially in light of the intensifying U.S.-China hegemonic ordering. Indeed, we posit that it is precisely when states are narrowly aligned on specific economic, security, or ideological grounds that perceptions become hardened, thereby cementing "us/them" binaries and heightening regional instabilities. In short, this essay argues that inclusive and exclusive forms of cooperation enhance stability by generating strategic ambiguities in an evolving Indo-Pacific security architecture. The argument is laid out in two sections. The first section describes how ASEAN's inclusive platforms—discussed here through the EAS—have lost momentum and how the regional architecture has in recent years been characterized by an exclusive approach that omits one of the great powers. The next section claims that inclusive and exclusive approaches to security cooperation are not incompatible, as they enable flexibility and fluidity in regional alignments. The Evolving Security Architecture ASEAN's centrality in regional order–building has been widely debated. Although some analysts claim that ongoing great-power rivalries and mistrust have resulted in ASEAN's centrality "by default," others highlight far greater agency on the part of Southeast Asian states to shape the regional security architecture. Despite calls for various other regionalist projects, such as an "Asia-Pacific community" and an "East Asian community," unsuccessfully promoted by former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd and Japanese prime minister Yukio Hatoyama, respectively, ASEAN has proved resilient in diffusing its norms to other regional states and driving wider cooperation. In this context, ASEAN's accomplishments include the establishment of inclusive institutionalized platforms for great-power engagement, thereby ensuring that ASEAN remains pivotal to the region's broader order-building project.2 As Hiro Katsumata has noted, ASEAN has managed to "actively construct a social environment which defines itself as the legitimate leader of East Asian community building."3 [End Page 53] The EAS, first held in 2005 with the ten ASEAN countries, Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea, represented one such attempt at constructing a region-wide multilateral institution. Prior to its inception, Indonesia, Japan, and Singapore were of the view that membership should be wide and inclusive, while other members, especially China and Malaysia, stressed that the EAS should be exclusively limited to East Asian countries. The eventual inclusion of Australia, India, and New Zealand—countries that are located outside the East Asian region—was therefore a diplomatic concession to a more inclusive approach to cooperation. Moreover...