ABSTRACT

This edited volume examines the competitive dynamics of two order-building projects in the Indo-Pacific, namely China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the US-led Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP).

Foci are on how far the two major powers are able to use institutional projects to (re)order the region of the Indo-Pacific to suit their policy preferences, and on how regional powers perceive and navigate between the two ordering projects. This book discusses a wide array of actors in the Indo-Pacific, covering the two major powers of China and the United States, middle powers of Australia and New Zealand, India, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan, and institutional actors of ASEAN, AUKUS, the Quad and the Pacific Islands Forum. Drawing on the concept of international order, the chapters examine the actor-specific foreign policies in relation to the rivalry between the FOIP and the BRI.

This accessible book will be a go-to resource for anyone looking for how the two great powers garner legitimacy and followership for their own version of ordering project, and how regional powers respond to the dynamic competition and navigate between China and the United States, and between the forces of liberal democracy and autocracy.

chapter 1|20 pages

Introduction

The Competitive Dynamics of Order-Building in the Indo-Pacific

chapter 3|20 pages

Competing Sino-US AUKUS Narratives

The Intended and Unintended Outcomes of ‘Naming and Shaming’

chapter 4|26 pages

Australia and New Zealand in the Indo-Pacific

How and Why the Pacific Islands Look to Authoritarian China?

chapter 5|19 pages

India and the US-China Great Power Rivalry

Navigating between the BRI and the FOIP

chapter 6|19 pages

Regional Order-Building in the Indo-Pacific

Japan as a Geopolitical Alternative

chapter 7|28 pages

Trapped into an Existential Cage

Korea's Hedging between China and the US

chapter 8|18 pages

Ideology and Market Linkages

Taiwan and the Preservation of the US-led Hegemonic Order through Soft Power and Geoeconomics

chapter 10|19 pages

A ‘Weak(ened)’ Quad in the Indo-Pacific

What Do Its Strategic Narratives Tell Us? 1