Description
Book SynopsisAsia is at a geopolitical crossroads. After China launched its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013, Japan and the United States responded with the November 2017 promulgation of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific (FOIP) Strategy. Perhaps not surprisingly, these two initiatives share some common features, and two of these - their ambiguity and their competitiveness - seem to be crucial in the foreign policy evaluation process. Competition leads to ambiguity, which makes reactions, and responses in foreign policy more and more difficult. Middle-Power Responses to China’s BRI and America’s Indo-Pacific Strategy addresses that gap.
Starting from the insight that neither the BRI nor the FOIP exists in isolation, and drawing on the knowledge that when either China or the United States sneezes, it is often the less powerful geopolitical players that catch the worst colds, the chapters gathered herein examine how the US-China geopolitical competition affects nations as diverse as Taiwan, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and the member states of ASEAN. These insights are provided by an international, multidisciplinary group of leading experts that include military flag officers, academic researchers, current and former government officials, and retired diplomats, all of whom contribute to a well-rounded, multifaceted view of the transformation that is currently taking place in the geopolitics of the Asia-Pacific.
Table of ContentsPart 1: Perspectives on the Competing BRI-FOIP Strategies
Chapter 1. Geopolitical Templates, Trends, and Transformation: The Evolving Maritime Security Architecture and Implications for the Indo-Pacific; Lawrence Prabhakar Williams
Chapter 2. Analysis of Legal Warfare and Corresponding Actions in the South China Sea; Ruei-Lin Yu
Chapter 3. Clash of interests between China and the United States along the development of the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road; Judit Szilágyi Chapter 4.The Romance of Three Economic Blocs: EU-China Economic Relations Evolving in an Era of Uncertainty; To-hai Liou
Part 2: Responses by individual countries/regions
Chapter 5. Europe-Asia Connectivity Strategy: A Balancing Act vis-à-vis China’s Belt and Road Initiative?; Mor Sobol
Chapter 6. China’s Central Asian Nexus and the New Silk Road Project: Comparing the Cases of Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan; Pal Gyene
Chapter 7. The Sino-American Geopolitics and Geo-economics from Taiwan to Sri Lanka and Beyond; Patrick Mendis and Joey Wang
Chapter 8. ASEAN’s Perspective on The Belt and Road Initiative and Indo-Pacific Strategy; Hank Lim
Chapter 9. Philippine National Security Interests and Responses to China’s Belt and Road Initiative and US Indo-Pacific Strategy; Rommel Banlaoi
Part 3: Competition in the Digital Domain
Chapter 10. Great Power Politics on information and communications technology: between the United States Blue Dot Network and China’s Belt and Road Initiative; Hon-min Yau
Chapter 11. The Fight for Economic and Digital Supremacy in the New Bipolar World Order: The EU’s Response to Global Challenges; Teodora Wiesenmayer
Chapter 12. Assessing the Economic and Political Success of the Digital Silk Road throughout the Indo-Pacific Region; Tobias Burgers
