The Indo-Pacific is a strategic system encompassing the Indian and Pacific oceans, reflecting the expanding interests and reach of China and India as well as the enduring role of the US. The Lowy Institute's International Security program presents a weekly selection of links illuminating the changing security picture in this increasingly connected super-region.
- While media attention is focused on clashes in the South China Sea this month, the Lowy Institute's international security program convened a workshop in Singapore looking at the longer-term risks below the surface, in particular, the nascent nuclear ballistic submarine capabilities of India and China.
- Ely Ratner from the Center for a New American Security puts forward clear policy recommendations for how the US can manage Chinese assertiveness in the South China Sea.
- A useful graphic for examining contested waters in the South China Sea.
- Rory Medcalf writes that new Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has a history of reaching out to Indo-Pacific partners. This bodes well for future policy, at home and abroad.
- Japan again calls for a hotline with China following the interception of surveillance aircraft in overlapping ADIZs.
- Is Japan still rising, and in what direction? Moves towards collective self defence contrast with the doctrines of Yoshida and Fukuda.
- Japan's former defence minister, Yuriko Koike, embraces the Indo-Pacific concept (in all but name), arguing that China must anchor its rise within a stable and mutually acceptable Asian regional order as Japan, India and the US 'foster a greater strategic equilibrium'.
- South Korea sticks to its guns, rejecting pressure to host US missile defence sites.
- The Sino-Russian military exercise Joint Sea-2014 concludes having tested missile defences amid US, Japanese and South Korean surveillance.
The Lowy Institute International Security Program's work on Indo-Pacific security is supported by two grants from the John D and Catherine T MacArthur Foundation.