Publication Year: 2020
Indonesia’s Foreign Policy and Grand Strategy in the 21st Century: Rise of an Indo-Pacific Power
Abstract: “This book examines the changes in Indonesian foreign policy during the 21st century as it seeks to position itself as a great power in the Indo-Pacific region.The rise of 21st-century Indonesia is becoming a permanent fixture in both the domestic and global discourses. Though there has been an increasing level of discussion on Indonesia’s emerging power status, there has been little discussion on how the country is debating and signalling its new-found status. This book combines the insights of both neo-classical realism and social identity theory to discuss a reset in an emerging Indonesia’s foreign policy during the 21st century while emphasizing domestic drivers and constraints of its international behaviour. There are three key organizing components of the book – emerging power, status signalling and the Indo-Pacific region. The Indo-Pacific region constitutes a spatial framing of the book; the emerging power provides an analytical category to explain Indonesia’s changing international status; and status signalling explains multiple facets of international behaviour through which the country is projecting its new status. Though leaders are adding different styles and characteristics to the rising Indonesia narrative, there are a few unmistakable overarching trends that highlight an increasing correlation between the country’s rising power and growing ambition in international behaviour. This book is built around four key signalling strategies of Indonesia as an emerging power – expanded regional canvas, power projection, leadership projection, and quest for great power parity. They represent Indonesia’s growing desire for a status-consistent behaviour, its response to the prevailing strategic uncertainty in the Indo-Pacific region and its attempt to advance its strategic interests.”
Publication Year: 2020
Minilateralism in the Indo-Pacific The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, Lancang-Mekong Cooperation Mechanism, and ASEAN
Abstract: While US-centred bilateralism and ASEAN-led multilateralism have largely dominated the post-Cold War regional security architecture in the Indo-Pacific, increasing doubts about their effectiveness have resulted in countries turning to alternative forms of cooperation, such as minilateral arrangements. Compared to multilateral groupings, minilateral platforms are smaller in size, as well as more exclusive, flexible and functional. Both China and the US have contributed to minilateral initiatives in the Indo-Pacific. In the case of the former, there is the Lancang-Mekong Cooperation mechanism—involving China, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam—established in 2015. In the case of the latter, there has been a revival of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue in 2017—involving the US, Australia, Japan and India. This book examines the rise of these arrangements, their challenges and opportunities, as well as their impact on the extant regional security architecture, including on the ASEAN-led multilateral order.
Publication Year: 2018
Offshore Archipelagos Enclosed by Straight Baselines: An Excessive Claim?
Abstract: This article examines the conclusion in the decision of the Arbitral Tribunal in the South China Sea Case that straight baselines may not be used to enclose off-shore archipelagos unless they meet the criteria set out in Articles 46 and 47 of the Law of the Sea Convention.
[Article 7 of UNCLOS relates to the use of straight baselines in delineating maritime territory. Article 46 of UNCLOS defines “archipelago” and “archipelagic State.” Article 47 of UNCLOS relates to the use of archipelagic baselines in delineating maritime territory. – RPI]
Abstract: This article argues that a resolution of the maritime disputes in the South China Sea must be based upon a universalist framework where the maritime interests of the world are upheld. The article discusses the universalist framework of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and the universalist approach taken by the Tribunal on 12 July 2016 in the South China Sea Arbitration regarding the extinguishment of a state’s “exceptionalist” maritime claims and the adoption of strict criteria for the characterization of features at sea. Full text available here.
Publication Year: 2019
The Interpretation of Article 121(3) of UNCLOS by the Tribunal for the South China Sea Arbitration: A Critique
Abstract: The interpretation of Article 121(3) of the 1982 U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) was a key part of the Sino-Philippine Arbitration on the South China Sea Award issued in July 2016. This article uses the principles of treaty interpretation codified in Article 31 of the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties to evaluate the interpretation process. The Tribunal paid little attention to the text such as “rocks” in the plural form and overlooked the context of Article 121(3). The travaux préparatoires identified by the Tribunal was based on materials of doubtful weight.
[Article 121(3) of UNCLOS reads: “Rocks which cannot sustain human habitation or economic life of their own shall have no exclusive economic zone or continental shelf.” – RPI]
Abstract: India’s maritime philosophy has been clearly outlined in both literature, and practice. From a defensive realist perspective, India’s approach to the high seas has brought home various advantages and elevated the country to the status of a major naval power in its region. Despite this prowess, in view of the globalised times and dynamically changing geopolitical scenarios unfolding to its East, India’s interpretation, methods of evaluation, and implementation of its policies, all need to evolve. This paper sheds light on the growing strategic importance-of the South East Asian Regional Complex, as also on the developmental vacuum in this Regional Complex, with specific focus upon Indonesia. The authors aim to address two fundamental questions —“How should India’s relations with Indonesia evolve?”, and, “In what manner should it evolve?”. Indonesia’s role in India’s maritime objectives is a central one and the evolving variables in India’s defensive realist approach places this South East Asian country right at the core of New Delhi’s interests. Full text available here.
Abstract: India, China and Japan, the economic big three in Asia, is heavily dependent on maritime trade in terms of importation of energy and other natural resources in addition to import/export of manufactured products. Major economic, political and security impact has been resulted from such a dependence, as the sea-lines of communication for maritime trade across the Indian Ocean and West Pacific is vulnerable to heavy conventional/unconventional threat. Policy measures have been taken in order to mitigate the vulnerabilities. Accelerated development of maritime powers, bilateralism/multilateralism, enhanced engagement with regional players and diversification policies are among such effort. The unconventional challenges are on the decline, partly thanks to effective counter-measures, while the conventional challenges is on the rise, also partly due to the mis-match of policies from major stakeholders. The Rise of Indo-Pacific Concept and the Emerging Maritime Regionalism can be a double-edge sword. Clarification of strategic intention and effective policy dialogue is needed for a more harmonious maritime engagement among the three. Strategic vision and smart policies are needed to ensure a cooperation for the benefit of all stakeholder inclusive of the three countries in particular. Full text available here.
Abstract: This paper reviews the existing multilateral structures in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) – notably the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA) – in the context of various geopolitical facets, ranging from geoeconomics to regional security and good order. It examines and recommends options to bolster economic multilateralism in the IOR though a comprehensive two-fold approach. The first one seeks to enhance intraregional trade, maritime–economic connectivity, and technology sharing, delving into issues relating to a region-wide free trade agreement (FTA), the amalgamation of economic corridors within IORA, and the “Make in India” initiative. The second is founded upon the indispensability of a secure and conducive maritime environment for economic development, and addresses maritime safety and security (MSS), as also “good order” in the IOR. It suggests measures to bolster the IORA’s nascent MSS architecture with a web of bilateral, trilateral and subregional mechanisms, emphasising the Indian Ocean Naval Symposium (IONS) as the key functional enabler of IORA’s MSS agenda. It also examines the imminent challenges relating to freedom of navigation (FoN), and undertakes an appraisal of Sri Lanka’s draft Code of Conduct (CoC) for the Indian Ocean. The arguments presented hinge upon the suggestion that the collective approach of the IOR countries should ideally be in consonance with India’s prime-ministerial enunciation of the concept of SAGAR – security and growth for all in the region. If each Indian Ocean country’s economy is a “boat”, the Indian “boat” cannot rise unless all “boats” rise with a rising economic tide. Full text available here.
Abstract: Ever since the Indo-Pacific re-emerged as a viable strategic concept in 2017 and Asia’s four democratic major powers — the United States, Japan, Australia and India — reconvened their quadrilateral security dialogue (the Quad), Southeast Asian countries have been wary of ASEAN losing its centrality in the regional political and economic order. The conceptual linkage of the two oceans and consequent expansion of geopolitical space was bound to have this effect to some extent. Moreover, the combination of four democratic major powers in a region largely home to single-party governments and authoritarian regimes raised the spectre of goals beyond the containment of China, or at least the containment of China through the creation of democratic transitions on its periphery — this was an argument the original boosters of the Quad in Washington had made in 2007. Finally, the overlaying of the Quad on the Indo-Pacific concept gave rise to fears of a return to Cold War–style containment, this time of China, and major-power politics rearing its ugly head yet again in Southeast Asia. Although these concerns are real and require a response from ASEAN, Southeast Asian countries can expect to find support from an unexpected quarter: India. Full text available here.
Abstract: Global economic growth has always been linked to trade, generating employment, wealth and as a result enhancing overall living standards of people. Seaborne trade has been a vital component of world trade through ages, since it has been the cheapest mode of transport for conveying large volumes of cargo over long distances. In the modern era, bulk of the energy needs of nations, such as oil and LNG has always been transported through sea. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, independent India’s first PrimeMinister was very perceptive in stating that “By and large it can be said that even in the past and remote ages, it was the seafaring nations that prospered, prospered both from point of view of power and wealth because of trade and commerce. I do not say that landlocked nations have not been powerful, they certainly have been powerful for periods at a time, but on the whole the importance of sea power has been a dominant feature of history.” Full text available here.
Abstract: The People’s Republic of China (PRC) identifies its primary interest with the perpetuation of the governance of the Communist Party of China (CPC). Continuation of the citizen’s acceptability is, therefore, the most salient concern for the CPC regime, which, unlike the bygone days of peasant revolutions, cannot be any easy goal to achieve in the ‘information’ world of today. This concern, inter alia, is considered by the Chinese leadership to be best addressed by the PRC securing its ‘rightful status as a global super-power’, the road to which is sought to be found through establishment of China’s global economic centrality, ‘consolidation’ of absolute control over its peripheral territories, achievement of regional political-military hegemony and affirmation of its superior status through ‘recovery’ of self-proclaimed ‘lost territories’. Full text available here.
