BY HUGH WHITE AO Will India save us from China? The Indo-Pacific concept that now lies at the heart of Australia’s foreign policy assumes that it will.
The Strategic and Defence Studies Centre (SDSC), Department of Pacific Affairs (DPA) and National Security College (NSC) of the Australian National University (ANU) recently hosted officials, public servants and academics from Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific at a two day workshop looking at how the ‘Pacific’ fits into the Indo-Pacific.
While Australia is set to implement several meaningful labour mobility, security and diplomatic initiatives, simultaneously counterproductive domestically driven policies could undermine the ability of those programs to improve engagement with Pacific Island states.
The Australian Government’s use of the terms ‘Indo-pacific’ and ‘rules-based-order’ have come under question at the Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific (CSCAP) meeting held recently in Perth.
The Indo-Pacific is slowly replacing the Asia-Pacific as the dominant security and economic concept in our region. Natalie Sambhi writes that the complex challenges of this vast region should be approached bit by bit, and Australia, India and Indonesia could start by strengthening trilateral cooperation in the region’s southwest sector, the “Indo-Australis”.
