{"id":78860,"date":"2023-04-11T11:30:18","date_gmt":"2023-04-11T01:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=78860"},"modified":"2023-04-11T11:14:56","modified_gmt":"2023-04-11T01:14:56","slug":"a-new-asian-order-takes-shape","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/a-new-asian-order-takes-shape\/","title":{"rendered":"A new Asian order takes shape"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

By building up the notion of the Indo-Pacific as a critical region, Shinzo Abe, the late Japanese prime minister, created a strategic framework that presaged the geopolitical and economic integration now taking place across Asia and parts of Africa. As South Asian and Middle Eastern countries merge into West Asia, a new continental order could reshape the global balance of power.<\/p>\n

During his first visit to India as prime minister, in August 2007, Abe delivered his seminal \u2018Confluence of the two seas<\/a>\u2019 speech to the Indian parliament. Abe drew his speech title from a book<\/a> written by the Mughal prince Dara Shikoh in 1655, which explored the commonalities between Islam and Hinduism as neighbouring religious and civilisational constructs. The Pacific and Indian Oceans also share many commonalities, Abe noted. The \u2018dynamic coupling\u2019 of these \u2018seas of freedom and of prosperity\u2019 would transform not only the Indo-Pacific region but also \u2018broader Asia\u2019.<\/p>\n

But Abe, who was assassinated last July, had more than just maritime metaphors in mind. His overarching goal was to build the most consequential bilateral relationship in the Indo-Pacific: India and Japan. As one of the first Asian leaders to recognise the global and regional impact of China\u2019s rise, Abe went on a one-man crusade to create a viable new balance of power. By expanding the geopolitical dimensions of the Asia\u2013Pacific region and pushing it westward towards the Indian Ocean, he helped shift the region\u2019s strategic profile.<\/p>\n

Abe\u2019s 2007 speech highlighted the intellectual vacuum in Washington at the time. While the United States was at the height of its ill-fated \u2018war on terror\u2019 and mired in two protracted, costly wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Abe sought to redefine the Indo-Pacific on Japan\u2019s terms, as a rival to the China-centric \u2018community of common destiny\u2019.<\/p>\n

For Abe and his successors, fostering cooperation across the Eurasian and African rimlands through extensive networks of defence and trade ties<\/a> was the key to realising the vision of a broader Asia. In placing the Indo-Pacific at the heart of this vision, they drew on the insights of the 19th-century American admiral Alfred Mahan and the British naval historian Julian Corbett.<\/p>\n

Mahan and Corbett, the pioneers of modern naval strategy<\/a>, viewed sea power as an essential source of national strength. The 20th-century political scientist Nicholas Spykman emphasised the strategic centrality of the Eurasian rimland, in contrast to Halford Mackinder\u2019s insistence on the centrality of the Eurasian heartland. Together, Mahan\u2019s and Corbett\u2019s writings on sea power and Spykman\u2019s maritime-based approach to geopolitics provided the intellectual foundations for Abe\u2019s broader Asia.<\/p>\n

Today, the clearest manifestation of Abe\u2019s Indo-Pacific strategy is the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, better known as the Quad, which began as a humanitarian initiative when the US, Australia, India and Japan formed a joint relief operation following the deadly tsunami that devastated Indonesia in 2004. After his re-election in 2017, Abe repurposed it as a vehicle for his geopolitical vision.<\/p>\n

But the Quad was only the beginning. It has been followed by a series of \u2018minilateral\u2019 institutions, including the AUKUS defence pact between Australia, the UK and the US; the US\u2013Australia\u2013Japan Trilateral Strategic Dialogue<\/a>; trilateral cooperation<\/a> between Australia, Indonesia and India; and a joint Italy\u2013Japan\u2013UK fighter-jet project<\/a>. These initiatives, all of which aim to boost security and stability across the Indo-Pacific, reflect the region\u2019s ongoing transformation into a \u2018geography of strategies<\/a>\u2019.<\/p>\n

After the Iraq War and Arab Spring pushed Arab states to diversify their alliances and partnerships and decrease their reliance on the US, Asian countries such as China, Japan, India, Indonesia and South Korea rushed to fill the vacuum. The United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, for example, are India\u2019s third<\/a>– and fourth<\/a>-largest trading partners, respectively. Japan has become a trusted regional leader in technology, clean energy and space exploration. And South Korea is now a major supplier of technology and arms to the Gulf states and Egypt. Deepening defence and trade ties, together with the Gulf states\u2019 growing clout, have accelerated the Middle East\u2019s integration into the Asian economic sphere.<\/p>\n

While Abe sought to offset China\u2019s rising power by redefining the Asia\u2013Pacific region, strategists and intellectuals (including me<\/a>) have been trying to establish a regional balance of power by expanding the geopolitical definition of the Middle East to include India and other South Asian countries. The Abraham Accords between Israel, the UAE and Bahrain; the Negev Forum<\/a>; the I2U2<\/a> summit comprising India, Israel, the UAE and the US; and the France\u2013UAE\u2013India trilateral framework<\/a> all point to a fledgling Indo-Abrahamic<\/a> alliance between India, Israel and the Arab states.<\/p>\n

The introduction of India into the Middle East\u2019s political and economic domain is an extension of the geostrategic model Abe championed in his \u2018Confluence of the two seas\u2019 speech. With India as the link between the Indo-Pacific and the Indo-Abrahamic countries of West Asia, a continental Asian order is beginning to take shape.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By building up the notion of the Indo-Pacific as a critical region, Shinzo Abe, the late Japanese prime minister, created a strategic framework that presaged the geopolitical and economic integration now taking place across Asia …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1707,"featured_media":78865,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[354,294,69,56,218,507],"class_list":["post-78860","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-asia","tag-diplomacy","tag-india","tag-indo-pacific","tag-middle-east","tag-shinzo-abe"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nA new Asian order takes shape | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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