Indo Pacific Security & Legal Alliance

Indo Pacific multilateral alliance is an economic, political and military imperative.

Whenever nations are caught between imperial rivalries, suffering inevitably follows; just ask the Poles or Armenians.

In today’s Indo Pacific we have the rise of new rivalries; predominantly between US and its Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) and Communist China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

Many recipients of either policy’s offerings don’t think they are taking sides but inevitably the nations ‘buying into’ these programs cannot escape the vortex of economic imperialism expressed in the biblical dictum in Proverbs 22:7 (“The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender.”)

Other nations like India which try and plot a course of non-alignment, or like Australia which have a conflict between trade and security, are increasingly keen to seek safety in multilateral coalitions to create a balance of power environment in Indo Pacific.

One of the key differences between FIOP and BRI is that the latter carries with it a Sino-centric use of Chinese labor and administration whereas FOIP relies on the already existing international rules-based order. Further BRI targets strategic infrastructure such as ports, airports, highway, power, water, food and communications; all of which have strategic military and sovereign integrity importance.

Inevitably then nations in the middle of China and America face dilemmas and choices they would rather no be forced into if there were a third way.

If China was a free nation not under one party Communist rule, the choice may have been to avoid taking sides with the US altogether and form a super ASEAN in which China was a member. This is especially so with the current POTUS retreating from engagement in what was once American exceptionalism to a more isolationist America First policy (take for example Australia's disappointment in US failure to follow through with the TPP).

However, the policies of the PRC especially under Xi have doubled down on CCP orthodoxy instilling a kind of warped nationalism with hegemonic ambition which is intolerant of minorities or non-compliance with the will of the Chinese Communist Party evident not only in the deceit and Chernobyl style cover up of the Coronavirus outbreak, but bullying of all nations in SCS , India in LAC, Australia with cyber attacks, hostage taking of its nationals and punitive trade sanctions and the treatment of human rights in HK, Taiwan, Tibet, Mongolia and the Uighur peoples. This has pushed middle powers into a multilateral alliance with the US as its backbone such as QUAD [ US, India, Australia and Japan].

Inevitably, if the PRC continues down its current belligerent path not only will nations seek to avoid BRI, they will decouple from China and seek to join QUAD that will grow into an Indo Pacific Security & Legal Alliance [IPSLA] to not only increase collective security but also promote regional connectivity and economic co-operation. Unfortunately, ASEAN ‘won’t cut it’ as it is too weak to withstand PRC bullying by reason of its money, military power and corrupting influence.

IPSLA will also make a much more palatable vehicle with which other bloc like the EU to do business with. Already France [2018 lien avec l’article https://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/en/country-files/asia-and-oceania/the-indo-pacific-region-a-priority-for-france/?and 2019 Shangri-La Dialogue https://thediplomat.com/2019/06/frances-as-an-indo-pacific-power-making-the-case/ ]?and Germany with its “Germany-Europe-Asia: Shaping the 21st century together” [ https://www.auswaertiges-amt.de/blob/2380514/35e5c739e1c9a5c52b6469cfd1ffc72d/200901-indo-pazifik-leitlinien--1--data.pdf *]are developing Indo Pacific diplomatic and economic policies and these would be ideally suited to dovetail into IPSLA rather than buying into a binary rivalry between PRC and USA.

* German foreign minister Heiko Maas?

Comments 2 September 2020 after The policy guidelines, with the theme “Germany-Europe-Asia: Shaping the 21st century together”, were adopted by the German cabinet.?

Maas further said,

“We are sending a clear message today: The Indo-Pacific region is a priority of German foreign policy...Our aim is to strengthen our relations with this important region and to expand our cooperation in the areas of multilateralism, climate change mitigation, human rights, rules-based free trade, connectivity, the digital transformation and, in particular, security policy.”

Germany wants to help shape the order in the Indo-Pacific so that it is “based on rules and international cooperation, not on the law of the strong”, he said.

https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/germany-adopts-indo-pacific-policy-foreign-minister-heiko-maas-warns-of-latent-conflicts/story-sPQHC8aoqadrOHvtmA84hI.html