ABSTRACT
How can Japan strategise its institutional arrangements in the Indo-Pacific? ASEAN and Quad are important institutions for Japan, but Japan has yet to devise a particular strategy toward regional institutions. In this context, this chapter argues that Japan’s tactical hedging has been useful in garnering political support for the gradual institutionalisation of the Quad, which helps information-sharing and monitoring of the Indo-Pacific strategic situation and devise each member state’s strategy. At the same time, the tactical hedging enabled Japan to quickly respond to ASEAN’s general concern about its political marginalisation caused by the existence of the Quad by incorporating ASEAN Centrality in its FOIP vision. However, although the co-existence of the Quad and ASEAN has been ensured in the short term, the role of ASEAN has yet to be defined, which would potentially create inter-institutional tension in the existing multi-layered institutional arrangement in the Indo-Pacific.
