Discuss the rationale behind replacing the “Asia-Pacific” strategy with the new term “Indo-Pacific” strategy. (2024, 10 Marks)
The Asia-Pacific, a Pacific-rim economic construct of the 1960s institutionalised in APEC (1989), treated the Indian Ocean as a separate theatre, and India was never admitted to APEC. Rory Medcalf argues in Contest for the Indo-Pacific (2020) that maps are instruments of power: the region one draws decides who is central. The shift to the Indo-Pacific is therefore a strategic reconception, not a rebranding.
From idea to policy
- Gurpreet S. Khurana gave the term its modern strategic sense in Strategic Analysis (January 2007); Shinzo Abe’s “Confluence of the Two Seas” speech to India’s Parliament (22 August 2007) gave it political voice.
- The US National Security Strategy (December 2017) defined a region “from the west coast of India to the western shores of the United States”, and Pacific Command became Indo-Pacific Command in May 2018.
The rationale
- Geo-economic continuity. Energy and trade move without a break from the Gulf through the Indian Ocean and Malacca to East Asia; chokepoints from Hormuz to Malacca form one system of sea lanes.
- A two-ocean China. Maritime Belt and Road ports from Gwadar to Hambantota, and a PLA Navy presence west of Malacca since its 2008 anti-piracy deployment, mean China must be met in both oceans. The new map dilutes China’s centrality and raises alternative partners: India, Japan, Australia and ASEAN.
- Recognition of India. India moves from the edge of someone else’s region to its centre, as a net security provider.
- Coalitions without alliance. The frame lets a non-aligned India sit with three US treaty allies in the Quad.
- Supply-chain resilience. The pandemic exposed concentrated production; diversification towards India, visible in expanding iPhone assembly, gave the concept an economic logic.
India’s inclusive version
Narendra Modi’s Shangri-La address (1 June 2018) defined the region “from the shores of Africa to that of the Americas”, affirmed ASEAN centrality and denied that it was “a strategy or a club of limited members”. SAGAR (2015), the Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative (2019) and MAHASAGAR (2025) carry it; the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (June 2019) shares this inclusive reading.
Contestation
Wang Yi said in March 2018 that the idea was headline-grabbing and would soon dissipate like sea foam; Beijing reads it as containment. Rajesh Rajagopalan calls India’s approach “evasive balancing” (2020): balancing China while reassuring it, which neither deters nor accommodates enough.
Conclusion
Geography, China’s reach and India’s rise all point the same way. The Quad foreign ministers’ New Delhi statement of 26 May 2026 extended maritime concern to Hormuz and the Red Sea, belatedly accepting India’s wider map: the region’s security is indivisible, and India sits at its centre.