The concept of the Indo-Pacific has gained widespread currency in official documents in recent years and refers to the artificially constructed nature of a macro-region extending from the Western Pacific to the Eastern coast of Africa. Although the term is now widely used in academic research, policy analysis, and journalistic jargons, its precise boundaries remain problematic. This article examines the conceptual origins of the Indo-Pacific and its historical evolution from the “Asia-Pacific” to the “Indo-Pacific”. In addition to this historical analysis, it identifies five analytical dimensions through which the emergence of this concept can be understood: geographical, IR theory, security, discursive, and ideational. Ultimately, this paper identifies five recurrent features across diverse visions and strategies of the Indo-Pacific, which together allow for the identification of a shared conceptual thread.

Introduction

The geographical delimitation of the vast region now commonly referred to as “Indo-Pacific” remains uncertain and problematic. First, there is still no scholarly consensus regarding the boundaries that define it. Second, even before the term Indo-Pacific came into use, the concept now associated with it – and previously articulated through the concept of “Asia-Pacific” – was inherently “ambiguous”, as it challenged the conventional regional frameworks of Asia and Oceania.^[1] Since the early twentieth century, long before the term Indo-Pacific entered the vocabulary of official documents, academic scholarship and the media, the region had already been recognised within the natural sciences as a vast and well-defined continuous “marine biogeographic region” or “province”^[2] linking the Indian and Pacific Oceans through the Coral Triangle, which spans Indonesia, Malaysia, Timor-Leste, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, and the Solomon Islands. Its distinctive geological and biogeographical characteristics have made it a point of interest for coral reef research. The concept emerged later in lexical and anthropological studies, which has shown that early Austronesian peoples sketched out an “Indo-Pacific descriptions” shaped by the maritime environment of Asia and the Pacific.^[3]

However, while this ambiguity pertains primarily to the geographical understanding of the term, the concept also requires an in-depth examination from a political and strategic perspective. In recent years, a growing and unprecedented Italian academic debate has emerged on the Indo-Pacific concept and on the role that Rome should assume in this strategically significant region, both in terms of national interests and businesses.^[4] Italy’s growing attention to this region is underpinned by its economic engagement: Italian exports to the region – including Central Asia – reached €53.1 billion in 2024, with machinery, textiles, and clothing accounting for the largest share.^[5] The current and the previous governments have substantially strengthened its presence in the Indo-Pacific through increased military deployments and the promotion of defence procurement partnerships. In addition, reflecting Italy’s broader commitment to sustainable development and socio-economic cooperation in the area, in May 2025 Italy further expanded its engagement with the area by signing two memoranda of understanding with the Asian Development Bank and Indonesia’s state-owned electric utility company’s PT PLN (Persero),^[6] aimed at fostering dialogue and projects in climate change mitigation, food security, natural resource management, biodiversity conservation, and energy transition.

Italian institutions have devoted a great deal of attention to the Indo-Pacific since the hearings preceding the Indagine conoscitiva sulle tematiche relative alla proiezione dell’Italia e dei Paesi europei nell’Indo-Pacifico, released on 12 March 2025.^[7] One of the key issues raised before the Foreign Affairs Committee on the Indo-Pacific of the Italian Chamber of Deputies was whether Italy ought to articulate a clear definition of the region’s geographical boundaries within the framework of the European Union (EU)’s “Strategy for Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific”, adopted in 2021. Italy had formally endorsed the “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” narrative as early as April 2019, following a bilateral summit in Rome between President of the Council of Ministers Giuseppe Conte and Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo. On that occasion, the joint declaration underscored Italy’s strategic location in the Mediterranean, positioning the country as a pivotal “focal point”^[8] within the broader Indo-Pacific space. It was only thereafter that the region’s geographical boundaries were systematically codified in official documents – such as the Contributo italiano alla strategia europea per l’Indo-Pacifico of 22 January 2022^[9] – as well as parliamentary hearings.

To clarify the object of analysis, this article examines the historical origins of efforts to conceptualise a broad social-constructed region encompassing four continents – Asia, the Americas, Africa, and Europe. Rather than being a theoretical artifact, the Indo-Pacific has long been the subject of intellectual debate, reflecting attempts by regional and extra-regional powers to define and assign strategic meaning to a vast geographical space that has, for centuries, served as the theatre of explorations, trade, warfare, colonisation, and exploitation. Accordingly, the Indo-Pacific has been examined from a variety of perspectives, including historical, geographical, political, strategic, discursive, and ideational approaches. Through the combined contributions of academic scholarship and governmental strategies, it has become possible to shape and embed a regional space that today simultaneously connects and divides the actors operating within it. In conclusion, this contribution identifies five core features that entwine the Indo-Pacific strategies adopted by different states.

The Conceptual Origins of a Macro-Region

The Indo-Pacific region stretches from the coasts of North America to those of East Africa, while also extending into Europe insofar as states such as France and the United Kingdom maintain overseas territories in the Pacific. The involvement of these European powers extends the strategic scope of the Indo-Pacific beyond its conventional geographical boundaries, linking it not only to the Pacific and Indian Oceans but also, indirectly, to the Eastern Atlantic and, more significantly, the Mediterranean Sea through their overseas departments and dependencies and enduring strategic interests. This broader spatial understanding resounds with Italy’s approach to the region. Although the current and the previous governments have not adopted a proper Indo-Pacific strategy, they increasingly have viewed developments in the Indo-Pacific as “complementary”^[10] to, and “deeply interconnected”^[11] with, its strategic objectives in the dubbed Wider Mediterranean. As Defence Minister Guido Crosetto has emphasised, this evolving strategic vision meshes with Italy’s overarching Euro-Atlantic commitments and priorities.^[12]

As a “meta-geographical concept”,^[13] an imagined “super-regional construct”,^[14] or more simply a “mega-region”,^[15] the Indo-Pacific has evolved within distinct periods of time and political contexts and may consequently be designed as a social construct, shaped by multifaceted interests, narratives, and priorities of the actors involved. Despite significant differences cropping up over historical trajectories, institutional development, and strategic purpose, the Indo-Pacific framework may be understood as an attempt to delineate a new strategic and economic space, comparable in certain respects to the emergence of the North Atlantic area following the signing of the Washington Treaty in 1949 and the establishment of the Atlantic Alliance. Over time, the latter acquired a distinct strategic, military, and ideological identity as a collective response to the Soviet Union (USSR) and the Eastern Bloc. By contrast, the Indo-Pacific remains a more fluid and contested construct and lacks the foundations that have historically bound the North Atlantic Alliance together.

Since the emergence of the Asia-Pacific concept in the 1990s, the region has been characterised by an incoherent and contending political vision or identity, reflecting the diversity of interests, strategic cultures, and political orientations among the states that comprise it. However, although it cannot be considered a fixed geographical entity, the Indo-Pacific differs from its Euro-Atlantic counterpart in that it enables the study of historical connections that surpass conventional “national, imperial, and linguistic” boundaries, thereby revealing models of interaction and interdependence that are often obscured by traditional regional divisions.^[16]

Those who view the Indo-Pacific as a social construct argue that it does not emerge from patterns of ancient trade and geographical discovery, nor from long-standing cultural or civilisational ties. To some degree, they contend that the concept originates within political science and International Relations as a discipline.^[17] Within this framework, it has gradually become embedded in the foreign policy lexicon of several states – most notably Australia, India, Japan, and the United States (US) – particularly since 2010.^[18] Such assumptions gained prominence in response to the rapid ascendancy of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and its subsequent consolidation as a central actor in Asian and global affairs. According to this line, the Indo-Pacific is understood primarily as a “strategic theatre stretching South and South-East from the Eurasian landmass”,^[19] which is designed to accommodate shifting regional power dynamics and to frame responses to China’s ever-growing influence. Consequently, proponents of this view tend to regard attempts to trace the origins of the Indo-Pacific to earlier historical periods as analytically unconvincing.

Pondering over historical developments in the Indian and Pacific Oceans during the Age of Discovery, the Turkish-American historian Arif Dirlik subscribed to the view that terms such as “Asia-Pacific” or “Pacific Basin” are not purely geographical descriptions, but “ideational constructs” that primarily defined historically produced interests and visions of power.^[20] Both constructs perform two principal functions: first, they delineate a sphere of economic activity and influence through which one or more hegemonic actors seek to contain potential adversaries. Second, a “Pacific ideology” aims to align economic and political forces that do not inherently make up a coherent regional structure.^[21] Either way, the fact that the Pacific is an “invented regional structure” does not imply that it exists only as an idea. Rather, its existence is grounded in “human interaction” and in the conceptual frameworks that assign meaning to those interactions.^[22] As a matter of fact, people-to-people exchanges, connections among different political systems, and the strategic and economic significance that a given area holds for a hegemon operating within it may constitute sufficient criteria for defining the boundaries of territories that otherwise lack cultural and political homogeneity.

However, these positions overlook a long and substantial historiographical debate concerning the existence of effective geographical ties in the Indo-Pacific that have intimately connected the Indian and Pacific Oceans for centuries,^[23] as well as the developments that hit the science of geopolitics in the first half of the Twentieth century. References to what would later be conceptualised as the Indo-Pacific was considered by the geographer Oskar Spate as “a Euro-American artifact”. In fact, it was European voyagers who brought together its disparate parts into “larger entities”.^[24] Initially characterised as a “Spanish lake” during the period of Iberian maritime predominance, the Pacific was later described as a “British lake” in the context of a nineteenth-century transoceanic order shaped by British commercial and naval expansion, particularly following the imposition of the “treaty-port system” on China in the 1840s. Afterwards, the Pacific came to be portrayed as an “American lake”, reflecting the growing strategic, political, and economic instrumentality of the US across the central and southern Pacific, the Philippines, and China. With maritime Asia at its core, the Indian and Pacific Oceans were increasingly regarded as a single interconnected space, not only in strategic and commercial terms but also in “cultural” terms, as a composite region shaped by shared historical legacies and broadly comparable social attitudes.^[25]

The concept of an integrated geographical space can be traced back to the 1920s writings of Karl Haushofer, a German general, geographer, and professor at Munich’s Ludwig Maximilian University, whom many scholars have framed – if somewhat overstatedly^[26] – as an ideological and cultural vanguard of Nazi Germany. Li Hansong stresses that Haushofer put forward the “Indo-Pacific Space” (Indopazifischen Raum) theory in a bid to identify a strategic foothold for the post-WWI Germany within the international maritime space. As he was aware he was formulating an international Indo-Pacific strategy, he not only justified the spatial integration of the Indian and Pacific Oceans on the basis of their “oceanographic” continuity, but also argued that the Indo-Pacific space was conducive to the emergence of political self-consciousness, particularly in the context of then nascent anti-colonial movements. In this view, the political re-emergence of nations along the Indo-Pacific maritime belt would undermine Anglo-American and Western European colonial dominance and thereby contribute to the reconfiguration of the international order.^[27]

While Japanese intellectuals had previously produced largely ineffective attempts to canvass a purportedly shared Asian view^[28] in political terminology capable of challenging Western colonial influence during the era of Japan’s imperial expansion, it was only during the Cold War that proposals began to emerge for a broader political community linking newly independent Asian states with those of the Pacific, with Japan and Australia at the forefront of efforts to develop the concept of a Pacific community during this period. In the early 1960s, Japan’s Prime Minister Ikeda Hayato proposed a regional organisation comprising his country, Australia, Indonesia, New Zealand, and the Philippines, with Malaysia and Thailand potentially to be invited at a later stage. The initiative was primarily economic in nature and was supported by representatives of Japanese companies, including firms such as Toshiba. Although Japan proceeded “very cautiously and gradually towards any larger political role” in Asia, owing to “the legacy of hostility and suspicion” that persisted in several Asian countries following the Pacific War, the Pacific community as a “counterpoise to the growth of Chinese power”^[29] ultimately failed to materialise, in part because it depended on the ratification of trade agreements between Japan and certain Southeast Asian states.

In contrast, the prospect of engaging the PRC following the normalisation of bilateral diplomatic relations was among the strategic considerations of Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam. His initial soundings in January 1973 regarding an “Asia Pacific Community” that might include Beijing and other Communist governments in the region (North Vietnam) were met with scepticism in Southeast Asia.^[30] In this vision, Asia’s three sub-regions (South, Southeast, and Northeast Asia) and the two oceans (the Indian and Western Pacific) would form a single regional strategic and maritime system. However, as with some subsequent initiatives, the absence of a broad regional consensus and of the political will required to bring together states across the Indian and Pacific Oceans meant that the idea of creating a macro-region brought to a standstill at least until the late 1980s, at a time when then Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke publicly floated the idea of an intergovernmental economic institution based in the “Asia-Pacific region”.^[31] As a quintessential expression of Australia’s “middle-power activism”,^[32] the establishment of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) marked the first successful effort to define the spatial boundaries of a highly interdependent, tricontinental region. As the Cold War drew to a close, this represented a notable structural milestone.

The Post-Cold War Asia-Pacific

As APEC expanded its membership to include countries such as China (in 1991), the concept of “Asia-Pacific” gradually re-emerged towards the end of the Cold War.^[33] The rise of Asia as a major economic force reinforced the conceptual linkage between Asia and the Pacific in academic scholarship, which began to posit that economic integration would eventually enhance closer security cooperation.^[34] In the mid-1990s, the US leveraged its economic, political, and strategic assets to shape an emerging Pacific order centred on American leadership.^[35] In fact, an Asia-Pacific ideational concept would prove vital to establish and sustain open regionalism, allowing the Bill Clinton administration to champion global, regional, and bilateral economic integration. The collapse of the USSR in 1991 and the resulting American “unipolar moment” stimulated novel discourses on the necessity of a regional security architecture. Institutional features such as the foundations of non-binding arrangements (i.e. ASEAN Regional Forum, ARF), consensus-driven decision-making, and ASEAN centrality – the latter representing an “unusual concession”^[36] from major powers – became the defining characteristics of US-sponsored Asia-Pacific order. Despite the Clinton administration’s engagement with multilateral tracks like the ARF and the Northeast Asia Cooperation Dialogue intended to institutionalise preventive diplomacy and confidence-building measures, regional security dialogue often remained secondary to economic integration.

Since the early Twenty-first century, the unity of the Indian subcontinent, East Asia, and the Pacific has been “rediscovered” as a concept.^[37] As economic, security and ideological rivalry between the US and China has built up, it drives a systematic reconceptualisation of “broader Asia” – a shift that reflects evolving power balances and incompatible visions of regional architecture.^[38] Christian Wirth and Nicole Jenne posit that the Indo-Pacific framework essentially extends earlier efforts by East Asian governments to address the political deficit left by a sluggish post-Cold War order. This systemic “void” sprung primarily from Washington’s hesitation to buttress multilateral regional architecture, coupled with its ambiguous stance toward ASEAN-led frameworks – extending beyond the ARF to include the East Asia Summit and ASEAN Plus Three. As a result, rival major powers stepped forward to contest and design this thin institutional environment.^[39] In contrast to the Asia-Pacific paradigm, the Indo-Pacific concept manifests a clear-cut separation between economic and security considerations.^[40]

The Emergent Indo-Pacific: Security, Ideational, and Discursive Foundations

The discussion in the previous paragraphs demonstrates that the origins of the Indo-Pacific concept can be traced through a longer historical trajectory, and that some scholars interpret its contemporary prominence as a re-articulation of an older vision of a macro-region spanning four continents. It has also been argued that the Indo-Pacific constitutes a social and political construct, shaped by academic and policy debates rather than by any self-evident geographical unity. In this sense, the concept brings together the Indian and Pacific Oceans within a single analytical framework, encompassing a highly diverse space characterised by a multiplicity of cultures, peoples, languages, religions, and political systems. At this stage, it is crucial to consider additional dimensions of the Indo-Pacific concept, including both its security implications and its discursive and ideational foundations. Indeed, the concept of the Indo-Pacific – and the debate over whether to retain the older Asia-Pacific framework – gained significant traction during the first decade of this century, particularly within the Australian academic community.

For instance, security forms the primary analytical focus for Rory Medcalf, who argues that the Indo-Pacific framework is fundamentally driven by the dual emergence of China and India as expansive economic and military actors whose strategic interests have spilled into each other’s traditional maritime domains. Far from being a mechanism for Chinese exclusion, Medcalf conceives this space as an integrated “super-region” whose geographic boundaries remain “fluid”, with Asia “unquestionably” at its core,^[41] thus eclipsing the centrality of the Indian subcontinent. That the Indo-Pacific is a construct explicitly anchored in security interests is evident from the extensive reliance of governments and public rhetoric on old strategic concepts such as “containment” and “spheres of influence”. These notions, alongside newer formulations like the “pivot” or “rebalance”, have been reinterpreted to justify contemporary strategies by exploiting the potential for a systemic clash between the region’s primary competitors – the US and China – thereby catalysing a renewed bipolar confrontation reminiscent of the Cold War.^[42]

On the other hand, while acknowledging that the Indo-Pacific construct is rooted in strategic considerations, Nick Bisley and other constructivist IR scholars maintain that it transcends a simple territorial expansion of states, representing instead a distinct ideational framework based on shared values for the US and its principal allies. This “integrated geographically expansive zone”, which since the mid-1970s has generated unprecedented levels of socioeconomic development and prosperity, has simultaneously become the central theatre of prolonged “volatility”. This environment emerged as a direct consequence of strategic recalibrations by the US and many of its allies and partners, who abandoned traditional Asia-centric models in favour of the broader “Indo-Pacific idea” – thereby signalling a profound regional power transition.^[43] Nevertheless, this perspective of a shared ideational framework is congruent with an interpretation that privileges the conceptualisation of the Indo-Pacific advanced by the US, Japan, and Australia.

Ultimately, Pan Chengxin underscores the discursive nature surrounding the Indo-Pacific framework, contending that, rather than existing as an objective geographical reality, it functions as a socially constructed narrative whose implementation impinge upon regional stability. Pan traces this systemic friction to three overlapping dynamics. First, the framework furnished the intellectual scaffolding for the Barack H. Obama administration to execute its “pivot to Asia” (or “rebalance”^[44]). Second, the shifting material balance triggered by the rise of China and India amplified a structural reliance on US security guarantees in Tokyo, Seoul, Manila, and Canberra. Such an anxiety has been “encapsulated” in the Indo-Pacific nomenclature.^[45] A third factor, while not explicitly identified in Pan’s seminal analysis but integrated by Rebecca Strating to complement his reflection, is the role of this rhetorical architecture as a mechanism for sustaining an “open and rules-based order”, through which it projects a normative vision where state behaviour, especially in the maritime realm, is tempered by existing international law.^[46]

Building upon this discursive lens, Thomas Wilkins and Kim Jiye demonstrate that major and middle powers have leveraged the Indo-Pacific concept to formulate tailored grand strategies. Far from just an abstract concept, this conceptual architecture encompasses both strategic “initiatives and countermeasures”, offering a vehicle through which states construct and project distinct political narratives against specific adversaries and threats to protect their own vested interests.^[47] With this conviction in mind, the effort to conceptualise a mega-region constitutes a mere pretext for these states to identify and entrap a designated enemy, or to encircle a potential menace perceived as inimical to their own national interests.

The Politics of Naming a Macro-Region

Crafting a grand strategy for a macro-region is not limited to defining its geographic perimeters; it also aims to identify the key challenges emerging within the maritime locus, and articulate foundational principles. However, they do not always propose concrete, operational solutions. While Australia pioneered the formal interpretation of the Indo-Pacific within its state doctrine, the construct quickly evolved into an overarching global paradigm as Japan, US, India, ASEAN, and the EU successively infused the framework with their own distinct objectives. This section explicates how these actors delineate the Indo-Pacific in strict territorial terms. Furthermore, it scrutinises the distinctly structured economic visions pursued by China and Russia within this contested area. This dimension is frequently overlooked in current scholarship, which often erroneously treats Beijing and Moscow as mere passive subjects reacting to the strategies implemented by Western powers, their allies, and other regional players.

In 2012, the Julia Gillard government made Australia the first country to formally incorporate the Indo-Pacific into its strategic lexicon. Aligning with the Australian Labour Party’s historic legacy of defining regional borders across Asia and the Pacific, the proposed framework envisaged the Western Pacific and Indian Oceans as a “single strategic arc”, shaped by intensifying economic interdependence across Asia and the growing significance of Middle Eastern energy flows. This framing also reflects the emergence of a broader trans-Asian orientation, as highlighted by India’s 1992 “Look East” policy and the reciprocal westward engagement of Northeast and Southeast Asian states, both of which underscore deepening economic, historical, and energy-driven linkages across the region.

Although Canberra pioneered the spatial mapping of the macro-region, Japan has consistently sought to “reify”^[48] the Indo-Pacific transforming it from a mere geographical descriptor into a cohesive strategic concept aimed at addressing specific political and security challenges within its foreign policy. The Japanese foundational vision drew upon two distinct diplomatic pillars: Aso Taro’s 2006 “Arc of Freedom and Prosperity” – which originally extended towards Western Europe across Central Asia, the Middle East, the Caucasus, and then newly democratic states of Eastern Europe^[49] – and Shinzo’s 2007 “Confluence of the Two Seas” address.^[50] By internalising these statements, Tokyo formally integrated India into its “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” (FOIP) strategy, which then Prime Minister Abe explicitly unveiled at the Sixth Tokyo International Conference on African Development in Nairobi in 2016. From a political perspective, Abe imagined the liberal maritime order defended by this strategy as a critical counterweight to Beijing’s unfolding “charm offensive” across the Global South,^[51] drawing a tacit parallel to the containment strategy of the 1960s. This enduring belief persisted until at least 2018, when Tokyo deliberately recalibrated the FOIP from a strategy into a vision.^[52] At once, in ideological terms, he envisaged an “Expanded Asia” (kakudai Ajia) wherein Japan and India – anchored at opposite maritime peripheries – act as the primary custodians tasked with safeguarding freedom of navigation and securing the vital sea lines of communication linking the East China, South China, and Indian Oceans. Extending through vital chokepoints such as the Strait of Hormuz, the Strait of Bab-el-Mandeb, and the Suez Canal, Japan’s FOIP vision logically expands the geographic and strategic parameters of the Indo-Pacific theatre encompassing not only the Middle East and East Africa, but stretching well beyond, potentially projecting its reach as far as the Mediterranean Sea.

In the US, the evolution of strategic discourse on Asia between 2002 and 2017 underscores a profound conceptual reorientation in geographical and political cartography. While the George W. Bush administration’s 2002 National Security Strategy anchored its approach to the Asia-Pacific primarily within institutional frameworks like APEC, the Obama administration’s 2010 iteration largely sidelined this terminology,^[53] opting instead to delineate engagement across “the Asian and the Pacific” to substantiate its strategic rebalance towards the area.^[54] A definitive shift occurred under the first Trump administration: the 2017 National Security Strategy formally institutionalised the Indo-Pacific paradigm, explicitly characterising the region as a contested “economic and geopolitical battleground”.^[55] This framework deliberately aligned US policy with complementary regional constructs, notably Japan’s “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” and India’s “Act East” policy. Crucially, this semantic change has injected a novel vocabulary^[56] into regional security architecture, driving the proliferation of “minilateral” mechanisms – such as the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD), initiated in 2007 and revitalised in 2017 – and “trilateral” initiatives, exemplified by the AUKUS pact.^[57] By prioritising institutional flexibility and smaller-scale configurations, these security arrangements have increasingly emasculated the traditional centrality of ASEAN-led multilateral forums in regional governance.

India has systematically challenged the post-1945 cartographic bifurcation of the Pacific and Indian Oceans, perceiving this “artificial”^[58] division as a legacy artifact of US strategic hegemony. In its place, Indian strategic architecture embraces the Indo-Pacific as an indivisible maritime space or, what External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar characterised in 2019, as a “diverse” and far-flung “wide arc”.^[59] This conceptual framing revived the doctrine of the indivisibility of the sea, a principle rooted in the classic maritime strategy of Alfred T. Mahan and later adapted by the Indian diplomat K.M. Panikkar in the mid-1940s to argue for the strategic unity of India’s oceanic approaches.^[60] This reorientation found its first operational expression in 2014, when the New Delhi government transitioned from its legacy “Look East” posture to an assertive “Act East” policy, a shift announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in Myanmar. Modi himself explicitly articulated an expansive vision of the Indo-Pacific, defining it as a “natural region” stretching from the African coast to the Americas.^[61] By explicitly including Latin America, New Delhi’s broad geographic conception directly challenged the more restrictive regional parameters preferred by Washington. However, India’s inauguration of the “Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative” at the 14^th East Asia Summit in 2019 marked the institutionalisation of a maritime strategy that does not accord higher priority to the Indian Ocean at the expense of the Pacific. Rather, this shift reinforces its Act East policy by maintaining ASEAN centrality, thereby progressively integrating the Western Pacific into India’s national security strategy.

Regional and institutional actors have similarly engaged in the spatial demarcation of the Indo-Pacific. In 2019, ASEAN – acting more as a coherent region than a conventional intergovernmental body – issued an outlook that framed the Indo-Pacific as a composite of the “wider Asia-Pacific and Indian Ocean regions”, with Southeast Asia positioned firmly at the centre. Eschewing a focus on contiguous landmasses, ASEAN defined the region as an interdependent, “interconnected” maritime system,^[62] though it remarkably neglected Africa and critical strategic chokepoints. By contrast, the EU pursued a different trajectory. Launched in 2021, the EU’s strategy adopts a mercantilist lens that treats the Indian Ocean as a critical transit route connecting Europe to Asian commercial hubs.^[63] Furthermore, by expanding institutional ties with the African Union and Western Indian Ocean littoral states, Brussels has explicitly incorporated the African continent into the Indo-Pacific matrix, establishing a wider geographic scope than that envisioned by Japan’s FOIP.

China and Russia counter these regional strategies/outlooks with their own scaled geoeconomic visions, such as China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its recent four “Global Initiatives” (development, security, civilisation, and governance), launched between 2021 and 2025. PRC’s major critique of the Indo-Pacific is not strictly geographic, but rather ideological; it views the concept as a mechanism for reproducing Cold War polarisation and forcing regional actors to side with the US. Russia, for its part, has similarly constructed alternative spatial rubrics, transitioning from “Greater East Asia”^[64] (composed of North-East Asia, South-East Asia, Central, and South Asia) toward a vast “Greater Eurasia”^[65] framework that links the Atlantic, Pacific, and Arctic oceans. Moscow’s dismissal of the Indo-Pacific stems from its structural aversion to resurgent US primacy, which clashes with Russia’s assessment that Western authority in Asia is irreversibly reducing.^[66] The institutional rejection of what are believed as a Western-led spatial designations is underscored by BRICS, whose annual summit communiqués and declarations systematically omit both the “Asia-Pacific” and “Indo-Pacific” terminology. This act may be interpreted as a reflection of the significant diplomatic leverage exerted by its principal architects, Beijing and Moscow.

Five Core Features of Indo-Pacific Strategies and Visions

Regardless of divergent national interpretations concerning its spatial boundaries and strategic orientations, the demarcation of the “Indo-Pacific” reveals at least five shared commonalities. These features are not determined by physical geography but instead reflect political, economic, and strategic considerations.

First and foremost, the Indian and Pacific Oceans are structurally linked as a “single contiguous area” from both economic and security perspectives.^[67] The intensifying connectivity between the two oceans has generated a unified “maritime unit”^[68] wherein shifts in one sector trigger immediate systemic repercussions elsewhere.^[69] This structural interdependence is vividly illustrated by how localised flashpoints – most notably a potential cross-Strait crisis over Taiwan or the ongoing territorial disputes in the South and East China Seas – instantly reverberate across the wider Indo-Pacific security architecture.

Second, another common factor shaping the geographical concept of the Indo-Pacific is the recognition of India’s role as a vital anchor of a rules-based maritime order. This is driven by New Delhi’s ever growing economic weight, its strategic proximity to Southeast Asia, and the broadening of its defence cooperation with various regional partners. This alignment dates back to July 2011, when Hillary Clinton explicitly framed India as a “balancing force”^[70] within the Obama administration’s strategic pivot, essentially coopting it alongside Washington as a co-guardian of vital waterways.^[71] Yet, while this framework hinges on India sustaining an increasingly proactive regional posture, a fundamental structural friction persists: indeed, New Delhi remains largely decoupled from the dense “East Asian and trans-Pacific production networks” that originally defined the economic architecture of the traditional Asia-Pacific.^[72]

Third, the Indo-Pacific construct is fundamentally driven by a collective imperative to manage, rather than socialise, the many-sided challenge of an assertive^[73] China. This perception – manifested across economic, technological, and maritime domains – reflects a growing consensus that Beijing exhibits structural revisionism. This behaviour stems less from a rejection of the current international order’s norms than from deep dissatisfaction with China’s subordinate status within the regional “hierarchy”^[74] that emerged after the end of World War II. Faced with the structural hurdles of a latecomer, Beijing has deployed the BRI and other alternative strategies^[75] to bypass status quo biases and modify existing institutional frameworks to suit its national preferences.^[76] Thus, the shared anticipation of systemic disruption serves as the primary catalyst for the widespread adoption of the Indo-Pacific framework, compelling the US, its allies, and India to craft counterbalancing grand strategies.

Fourth, Southeast Asia is structurally placed at the centre of the Indo-Pacific construct. Yet, while this narrative of “centrality” is universally endorsed by the indigenous and external powers behind these various Indo-Pacific strategies and visions, translating this rhetorical commitment into actionable policy remains a long-term challenge. In recent years, the IISS Shangri-la Dialogue has evolved into the primary venue for addressing the most acute security issues in the Indo-Pacific, thus increasingly overshadowing ASEAN-led mechanisms. At issue is whether this centrality will be endowed with a functional political mandate or will remain a purely geographical conception.

Fifth, since they span two oceans, the various strategies and visions on the Indo-Pacific focus directly on achieving multilateral coordination to address shared interests, specifically in the maritime domain.^[77] The safety of shared pathways is thus treated as a collective priority. Putting this into practice requires moving beyond basic rhetoric surrounding freedom of navigation to handle a wide range of daily security challenges. Upholding international law, tracking maritime activity, and defusing accidents from escalating need closer cooperation and unambiguous, shared codes of conduct.

Conclusion

As the historiographical debate demonstrates, the demarcation of the Pacific and Indian Oceans has long been contested by powers that were either indigenous to the region or – as in the case of imperial states – present in this vast arena to secure territorial control and manage trade routes linking colonies to the metropoles. Whereas the deliberate attempt to inscribe Asia and the Pacific within a joint conceptual field was predominantly imperial in intent during the colonial era, post-WWII frameworks sought to convene as many states as possible around shared imperatives of economic growth and regional cooperation, as evidenced by the initiatives of Ikeda and Whitlam between the 1960s and the 1970s. Today, despite lacking universally recognised boundaries, the Indo-Pacific functions as a political construct, engineered within contemporary strategic frameworks to be as geographically inclusive as possible. Every strategy and vision has developed its own institutional geometry within the Indo-Pacific, featuring fixed or, less frequently, fuzzy parameters that define the contours of a mega-region now vital to the core interests of major global states and actors. Nonetheless, if the dictum “the boundary is the law, and the law is the assertion of boundaries”^[78] is applied to a mega-region rather than a unified political community, the conceptual validity of the Indo-Pacific becomes weak. As a matter of fact, the area suffers from a lack of normative cohesion, as evidenced by the deep disagreements among its actors regarding the international rules, norms and principles that should govern the vast maritime sphere, especially the boiling front of the South China Sea.

Given that the geographic scope of the Indo-Pacific macro-region remains contingent upon specific strategic visions of various states and actors, these boundaries have evolved significantly since the early 1990s. At first, the concept of the “Asia-Pacific” was delineated by the membership boundaries of the APEC forum, the first major regional organisation established during the twilight of the Cold War. Afterwards, Japan contributed significantly to expanding this geographic narrative, underscoring the priority of integrating the Indian and Pacific Oceans into the strategic and diplomatic calculus of both great and middle powers. This spatial paradigm was further consolidated under the Obama administration, which elevated the strategic significance of Southeast Asia and Australia through its “pivot to Asia” announcement. A more profound transformation occurred in 2017, during the first Trump administration, when the increasing prominence of India incorporated a major regional actor with a population exceeding one billion into the emerging Indo-Pacific framework. While this terminological shift may appear cosmetic, it attests to a substantive reformulation of the old-fashioned “Asia-Pacific” concept in the strategic calculus of the US and its like-minded partners until the heydays of Narendra Modi’s “Act East” policy. Concurrently, the geographic scope of the macro-region expanded considerably, stretching from the Indian subcontinent to the Pacific coastlines of North America while explicitly omitting Central and South America. By contrast, Far East Russia and Central Asia have been systematically marginalised within this evolving regional construct.

Finally, marking a decisive rupture with past geographical frameworks, the integration of the Indian Ocean has expanded Indo-Pacific’s spatial boundaries to encompass the Eastern littoral of Africa, introducing a large spectrum of economic opportunities and maritime security challenges. The more the boundaries of a political construct expand, the greater the costs and pitfalls for actors seeking to gain a foothold in the Indo-Pacific. The inclusion of the African continent and the Middle East into this broadened Indo-Pacific rubric directly prompts Italy to formalise a dedicated regional strategy that has yet to fully materialise, aligning with strategic priorities that our policymakers actively seek to consolidate and defend across these contiguous spaces.

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^[1] Kolmaš, M., Qiao-Franco, G., Karmazin, A. (2024) “Understanding region formation through proximity, interests, and identity: debunking the Indo-Pacific as a viable regional demarcation”, The Pacific Review, 37(6), 1067-1089; Gavinelli, D., Dal Borgo, A.G. (2023) “L’Asia-Pacifico: riflessioni su uno spazio regionale emergente”, in Gavinelli, D., Dal Borgo, A.G. (eds) Asia-Pacifico: Regione Emergente. Luoghi, Culture, Relazioni, Sesto San Giovanni: Mimesis Edizioni, 7; Beeson, M., Lee-Brown, T. (2017) “The future of Asian regionalism: not what it used to be?”, Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies, 4, 199.

^[2] Erpenbeck, D. et al. (2026) “Barcoding‐inferred biodiversity of shallow‐water Indo‐Pacific demosponges”, Journal of Biogeography,53(3), 2; Fernandez-Silva, I. et al. (2015) “Yellow tails in the Red Sea: phylogeography of the Indo-Pacific goatfish mulloidichthys flavolineatus reveals isolation in peripheral provinces and cryptic evolutionary lineages”, Journal of Biogeography, 42(12), 2402-2413. With regard to the usage of the term in the biological sciences, see also Pelaggi, S. (2024) “L’evoluzione storica del concetto di Indo-Pacifico e gli equilibri geostrategici della regione”, in Carteny, A. (eds) Competizione globale, conflitti regionali e crisi politiche. Europa orientale, Medioriente e Indo-Pacifico, Pesaro: Intra Edizioni, 271-278; Bisley, N. (2023) “The Indo-Pacific and security: a new fault line”, in Warren, A. (eds) Global Security in an Age of Crisis, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 357.

^[3] See Matsuda, M.K. (2012) Pacific Worlds: A History of Seas, Peoples, and Cultures, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 9-22.

^[4] Academic scholarship and think tanks have produced a plethora of literature defining and assessing Italy’s role in the Indo-Pacific. By way of example, see Caffarena, A., Gabusi, G. (2025) “Two regions, one order: framing strategic collaboration for a rules-based international system”, in Gabusi, G. (eds) Indo-Pacific Outlooks: Implications for the EU-ASEAN Relationship and Italy’s Role in Southeast Asia, Torino: T.wai – Torino World Affairs Institute, 3 October, 11-21, available online; Termine, L., Natalizia, G. (2025) “Italy’s Indo-Pacific tilt (2021-2024): diving into the determinants of a security policy change””, Contemporary Italian Politics, 17(4), 465-483; Vesprini, A., Piasentini, M. (2025) “Drivers and prospects for the Italian economic pivot in the Indo-Pacific”, Italian Political Science, 20(1), 35-62; Abbondanza, G. (2024) “Italy’s quiet pivot to the Indo-Pacific: towards an Italian Indo-Pacific Strategy”, International Political Science Review, 45(5), 669-679; Mazziotti di Celso, M., Natalizia, G., Termine, L. (2024) “Italy and the Indo-Pacific: the strategic dilemma of a Mediterranean middle power”, Strategic Leadership Journal, 3, 69-82; Dell’Era, A., Pugliese, G. (2024) “Il ribilanciamento asiatico dell’Italia: driver e prospettive della cooperazione securitaria nell’Indo-Pacifico”, in Termine, L., Ercolani, A. (eds) Driver e Ostacoli di un Ribilanciamento Asiatico dell’Italia, Roma: UNINT University Press, 28-45, available online; Termine, L., Dell’Era, A. (2023) Strategie di Collegamento dell’Indo-Pacifico al Mediterraneo Allargato. La Prospettiva dell’Italia oltre il Corridoio IMEC, Osservatorio di Politica internazionale, Approfondimento n. 210, December, available online.

^[5] Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Government of Italy (2025) Action Plan for Italian Exports to High-Potential Extra-EU Markets, 2 July, available online.

^[6] Cassa Depositi e Prestiti (2025) Cambiamento climatico, alimentazione e transizione energetica: al via nuovi progetti in Asia-Pacifico, 5 May, available online.

^[7] Chamber of Deputies, Italian Parliament (2025) Indagine Conoscitiva sulla Proiezione dell’Italia e dei Paesi Europei nell’Indo-Pacifico, Rome, 12 March, available online.

^[8] Ambasciata del Giappone in Italia (2019) “Visita del Primo ministro Abe in Italia”, 17 May, available online.

^[9] Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Government of Italy (2022) Contributo Italiano alla Strategia Europea per l’Indo-Pacifico, Rome, 20 January, available online.

^[10] Abbondanza (2024) “Italy’s Quiet Pivot…, 676.

^[11] Coticchia, F., Mazziotti di Celso, M. (2025) “Still on the same path? Italian foreign and defence policy in the enlarged Mediterranean”, Mediterranean Politics, 30(3), 652.

^[12] Ministry of Defence, Government of Italy (2026) “Il Ministro Crosetto incontra il Comandante del Comando Indo-Pacifico degli Stati Uniti”, Press Release, 30 May, available online.

^[13]Köllner, P., Jaffrelot, C., Allès, D. (2025) “Introduction: order(ing) and agency in the Indo-Pacific: analytical issues and the contributions of this volume”, in Allès, D., Jaffrelot, C., Köllner, P. (eds) Order and Agency in the Indo-Pacific. The Sciences Po Series in International Relations and Political Economy, Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 1-3.

^[14] Pan, C. (2014) “The ‘Indo-Pacific’ and geopolitical anxieties about China’s rise in the Asian regional order”, Australian Journal of International Affairs, 68(4), 458.

^[15] Pugliese, G. (2024) “The European Union and an ‘Indo-Pacific’ alignment”, Asia-Pacific Review, 31(1), 17-44; Sundararaman, S. (2023) “Understanding the Indo-Pacific: historical context and evolving dynamics”, in Kratiuk, B. et al. (eds) Handbook of Indo-Pacific Studies, New Delhi: Routledge, 11; Köllner, P. (2021) “Beyond ‘Indo-Pacific’: Understanding Small Pacific Powers on Their Own Terms”, GIGA Focus Asia, November, available online.

^[16] Kroupa, S., Mawson, S.J., Brixius D. (2018) “Science and islands in Indo-Pacific worlds”, British Journal for the History of Science, 51(4), 544.

^[17] Latham, A. (2025) “What or where is the Indo‑Pacific? How a foreign policy pivot redefined the global map”, The Conversation, 13 May, available online.

^[18] He, K., Li, M. (2020) “Understanding the dynamics of the Indo-Pacific: US-China Strategic competition, regional actors, and beyond”, International Affairs, 96(1), 1.

^[19] Cannon, B.J., Rossiter, A. (2025) “Rethinking and arresting Eurasian hegemony: the centrality of central Asia to Indo-Pacific Strategies”, International Affairs, 101(4), 1193.

^[20] Dirlik, A. (2021) “Introducing the Pacific”, in Dirlik, A. (eds) What Is in a Rim?: Critical Perspectives on the Pacific Region Idea, Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 3-4.

^[21] Dirlik, A. (1992) “The Asia-Pacific idea: reality and representation in the invention of a regional structure”, Journal of World History, 3(1), 56.

^[22] Dirlik (2021) “Introducing the Pacific”, 3-4.

^[23] Kolmaš, Qiao-Franco, Karmazin (2024) “Understanding Region Formation…”, 1068.

^[24] Spate, O.H.K. (1978) “The Pacific as an artefact”, in Gunson, N. (eds) The Changing Pacific: Essays in Honour of H.E. Maude, Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 32-45.

^[25] Yadav, R.S. (1991) “Regions international politics: a study of the Indian ocean”, India Quarterly, 47(1/2), 30.

^[26] See Rainer, G., Dudek, S. (2023) “Beyond haushoferism: geography, geopolitics and national socialist rule at Munich’s Ludwig Maximilian university”, Geopolitics, 28(5), 1967-1989.

^[27] Li, H. (2023) “The ‘Indo-Pacific’: intellectual origins and international visions in global contexts”, Modern Intellectual History, 19, 810.

^[28] Masamichi Royama and other colleagues at Tokyo Imperial University advanced the notion of an “East Asian Community”, envisaging a regionally integrated political and economic order in East Asia. Although initially framed in intellectual and academic terms, this concept later provided part of the ideological foundation for the more expansive and politically charged vision embodied in the “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”.

^[29] Memo n. 1270 “Pacific Community” from F.R. Dalrymple (Office of the High Commissioner for Australia, London) to Secretary Sir A.H. Tange (Department of External Affairs, Canberra), 2^nd August 1963, National Archives of Australia (NAA) Japan – External relations – Pacific economic community, A1838, 3103/7/2/1 PART 1

^[30] Halvorson, D. (2016) “From Cold War solidarity to transactional engagement: reinterpreting Australia’s relations with East Asia, 1950-1974”, Journal of Cold War Studies, 18(2), 130-159.

^[31] Australian Government, Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet (1989) Speech by the Prime Minister Welcome Dinner for Delegates to the Ministerial Meeting On Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Canberra, 5 November, available online.

^[32] Day, B. (2026) “Success and failure in foreign policy: comparing Bob Hawke and Kevin Rudd’s regional order‐building initiatives”, Australian Journal of Public Administration, 85(2), 312.

^[33] Pardesi, M.S. (2020) “The Indo-Pacific: a ‘new’ region or the return of history?”, Australian Journal of International Affairs, 74(2), 135.

^[34] Sundararaman (2023) “Understanding the Indo-Pacific…”, 11.

^[35] Manning, R.A., Stern, P. (1994) “The myth of the pacific community”, Foreign Affairs, 73(6), 92.

^[36] Moon, C-I. (2023) “Asia-Pacific vs. Indo-Pacific: paradigm shift or false choice?”, Global Asia, 18(3), 14-15.

^[37] Scott, D. (2023) “The return of the ‘Indo-Pacific’”, Asia Maior, 24, 434.

^[38] Liu, F. (2020) “The recalibration of Chinese assertiveness: China’s responses to the Indo-Pacific challenge”, International Affairs, 96(1), 11.

^[39] Wirth, C., Jenne, N. (2022) “Filling the void: the Asia-Pacific problem of order and emerging Indo-Pacific regional multilateralism” Contemporary Security Policy, 43(2), 213-242.

^[40] Kwon, M. (2023) “The emergence of the Indo-Pacific: geopolitical turn or continuity?”, E-International Relations, 11 April, available online.

^[41] Medcalf, R. (2014) “In defence of the Indo-Pacific: Australia’s new strategic map”, Australian Journal of International Affairs, 68(4), 471-473.

^[42] Doyle, T., Rumley, D. (2019) The Rise and Return of the Indo-Pacific, New York: Oxford University Press, 45-67.

^[43] Bisley (2023) “The Indo-Pacific and…”, 354-357.

^[44] Signalled by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s October 2011 Foreign Policy essay and underscored by President Obama during his address in Australia later that year, the “Asia rebalance” represented a comprehensive US strategic shift towards Asia and the Pacific. Encompassing security, economic, and human rights domains, this many-sided effort defined Obama’s foreign policy throughout his two terms in office.

^[45] Pan (2014) “The ‘Indo-Pacific’ and…”, 458-459.

^[46] Strating, R. (2023) “The rules-based order as rhetorical entrapment: comparing maritime dispute resolution in the Indo-Pacific”, Contemporary Security Policy, 44(3), 373.

^[47] Wilkins, T., Kim, J. (2022) “Adoption, accommodation or opposition? – regional powers respond to American-led Indo-Pacific strategy”, The Pacific Review, 35(3), 438.

^[48] Tamaki, T. (2024) “Re-reading the Indo-Pacific as Aidagara: Watsuji Tetsuro’s relevance to Japan’s foreign relations”, Critical Asian Studies, 56(3), 409-410.

^[49] Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Japan (2006) Speech by Mr. Aso Taro, Minister for Foreign Affairs on the Occasion of the Japan Institute of International Affairs Seminar ‘Arc of Freedom and Prosperity: Japan’s Expanding Diplomatic Horizons, Tokyo, 30 November, available online.

^[50] Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Government of Japan (2007) Confluence of the Two Seas: Speech by H. E. Mr. Abe Shinzo, Prime Minister of Japan at the Parliament of the Republic of India, New Delhi, 22 August, available online.

^[51] Watanabe, T. (2019) “Japan’s rationale for the free and open Indo-Pacific strategy”, Sasakawa Peace Foundation, 30 October, available online.

^[52] Heiduk, F., Wacker, G. (2020) From Asia-Pacific to Indo-Pacific: Significance, Implementation and Challenges, Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik Research, 9, 7 July, available online.

^[53] White House (2010) National Security Strategy, Washington D.C., May, 42, available online.

^[54] White House (2015) National Security Strategy, Washington D.C., February, available online.

^[55] White House (2025) National Security Strategy, Washington D.C., November, 19, available online. In June 2026 the US Department of War announced a reversion of the Indo-Pacific Command’s name to the “US Pacific Command”, thereby reversing the rebranding introduced during President Trump’s first administration.

^[56] Hanada, R. (2026) “Minilateralism: a new page for Indo-Pacific IR lexicon”, Pacific Review, 39(3), 608.

^[57] The QUAD is a diplomatic partnership between Australia, India, Japan, and the US committed to intensifying cooperation in maritime security, health policy, and climate change. The beginning of the QUAD as a grouping can be traced in the so-called “Tsunami Core Group”, an ad-hoc grouping that sprang up to respond to the 2004 devastating Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. Instead, the AUKUS is a trilateral security partnership formed in 2021 by Australia, UK, and the US, involving two “pillars”. The first pillar centers on the supply and delivery of nuclear-powered attack submarines; the second one is about the three members collaborating on sharing military expertise in areas such as long-range hypersonic missiles, robotics and Artificial Intelligence.

^[58] Muraleedharan, V. (2021) “Remarks 6^th Indian Ocean dialogue”, in Mahawar, N.K., Sakhuja, V. (eds), Indo-Pacific: Re-Imagining the Indian Ocean through an Expanded Geography, New Delhi: KW Publishers, 19.

^[59] Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India (2022) “Address by External Affairs Minister, Dr. S. Jaishankar at the Chulalongkorn University on India’s Vision of the Indo-Pacific”, Bangkok, 18 August, available online.

^[60] See Kanth, M. (2025) “Ordering the Post-Colonial oceanic space(s): K.M. Panikkar and the origins of India’s maritime ‘resurgence’”, Global Studies Quarterly, 5(3).

^[61] Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India (2018) “Prime Minister’s Keynote Address at Shangri La Dialogue”, Singapore, 1^st June, available online.

^[62] ASEAN Secretariat (2019) ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific, Jakarta, 22 June, available online.

^[63] European Commission (2021) Joint Communication to the European Parliament and the Council: The EU Strategy for Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, Brussels, 16 September, available online.

^[64] Lunev, S., Shavlay, E. (2018) “Russia and India in the Indo‐Pacific”, Asian Politics & Policy, 10(4), 713-731. The concept of “Greater East Asia” has traditionally found strong backing among scholars at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, an institution directly affiliated with the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

^[65] Denisov, I. et al. (2021) “Russia, China, and the concept of Indo-Pacific”, Journal of Eurasian Studies, 12(1), 73.

^[66] Rozman, G. (2024) “Conceptualisation of the Indo-Pacific in Russia’s ‘turn to the East’”, in Rozman, G., Christoffersen, G. (eds) Putin’s “Turn to the East” in the Xi Jinping Era, Vol. 1, Abingdon and New York: Routledge, 172.

^[67] Heiduk, Wacker (2020) “From Asia-Pacific to…”.

^[68] Sundararaman (2023) “Understanding the Indo-Pacific…”, 11.

^[69] Medcalf (2014) “In Defence of the…”, 471.

^[70] Cheng, H., Chacko, P., Karib, F., Malitz, D.M., Yang, Y. (2026) “The Indo-Pacific: in what sense a region?”, Dialogues in Human Geography, 16(1), 247.

^[71] US Department of State (2011) Hillary R. Clinton’s Remarks on India and the United States: A Vision for the 21^st Century, Chennai, 20 July, available online.

^[72] Acharya, A. (2024) “Turning the idea of the Indo-Pacific into reality”, East Asia Forum, 13 June, available online.

^[73] Among the principal manifestations of Chinese assertiveness are Beijing’s rapid military modernisation and its increasingly assertive rhetoric and conduct in territorial, diplomatic, and economic disputes with neighbouring countries in the East China Sea and the South China Sea, see Liu (2020) “The Recalibration of Chinese…”, 9; see also Stevens, F.M.S. (2025) Chinese Assertiveness, Ideational Mobilization, and The Rise of Xi Jinping: Achieving Something, Abingdon: Routledge; Strating, 372-409; Turcsányi, R.Q. (2018) Chinese Assertiveness in South China Sea, Cham: Springer Nature; Feng, H., He, K. (2014) Examining China’s Assertiveness Through the Eyes of Chinese IR Scholars, RSIS – S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, 281, 17 September, available online.

^[74] Zhao, S. (2018) “A revisionist stakeholder: China and the post-world war II world order”, Journal of Contemporary China, 27(113), 644.

^[75] Liu, L. (2021) “Beyond the status quo and revisionism: an analysis of the role of China and the approaches of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to the global order”, Asian Journal of Political Science, 29(1), 105.

^[76] Stephen, M.D. (2025) “Beyond multilateralism: China’s international order building through transnational policy forums”, The Pacific Review, 1-26.

^[77] Szalwinski, A. (2023) “What’s in an Indo-Pacific concept? Shared visions and varied approaches”, Asia Policy, 18(3), 97; Haruko, W. (2020) The ‘Indo-Pacific’ Concept: Geographical Adjustments and Their Implications, RSIS – S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, 326, 16 March, 16, available online.

^[78] Longo M. (2018) The Politics of Borders: Sovereignty, Security, and the Citizen After 9/11, New York: Cambridge University Press, 23.

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