What’s in a Name? Constructing the Indo-Pacific: Comparative Visions of Space from Australia, France, the United Kingdom and the United States

Dans le cadre du projet Amidex DAIP, Democratic Alliance in the Indo-Pacific, l’équipe d’OREMA publie une série introductive de courts textes sur les concepts fondamentaux du projet. Le premier volet porte sur la notion d’Indo-Pacifique.
Introduction
Michael Stricof, Isabelle Vagnoux, Matthew Graves
In less than 20 years, governments, think tanks and academics have constructed a new geopolitical space through foreign policy proclamations and endless analysis. Naturally, different nations have emphasized different spaces, according to their interests in the region, institutional organizations, and history of involvement in and around the space. Gurpreet S. Khurana, Indian navy captain and security studies researcher, is credited with coining the term “Indo-Pacific” in 2007. Khurana has explained that it came from a renewed focus on geoeconomic and security interconnectedness between the two oceans in the context of a more assertive China. East Asian reliance on raw materials from Africa and the Middle East drove economic movement from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific. Khurana also noted the 2004 US-led Proliferation Security Initiative sought to counter the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction along the same waterways.[i] Around the same time as the concept was being theorized, Japan led efforts to bring India into deeper partnership with itself and key allies, including the United States. Shinzo Abe’s “Confluence of Two Seas” speech in 2007 at the Indian parliament, although it did not use the term Indo-Pacific, emphasized flows between the Indian and Pacific Oceans at the heart of the current Indo-Pacific concept. One of the major new partnerships attempting to shape the Indo-Pacific is the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad). This is the product of Abe’s push for a democratic network that includes India, Japan, the United States and Australia. Although the first iteration of the Quad only survived one year, from 2007 to 2008, it was reconstituted in 2017 and is now a centerpiece of Japanese, Australian and American strategy in the region, largely as a response to Chinese commercial, cultural and military expansionism (Belt and Road Initiative, String of Pearls Strategy) Australia, in addition to participating in the Quad, and the Squad (its alternative iteration with the Philippines), as well as the trilateral security partnership AUKUS, adopted the term early on in official publications, starting with the 2012 strategic white paper, “Australia in the Asian Century.” In a 2017 keynote speech, Gareth Evans, former Labor Foreign Minister and chancellor of the Australian National University, addressed the challenges facing Australia in the wider Indo-Pacific region, in terms of five big geopolitical shifts: the rapid rise of China, America’s relative decline, India’s emergence as a leading player, North Korea’s acquisition of nuclear weapons, and ASEAN’s loss of coherence and credibility, to which would later be added a sixth – the impact of climate change. Following Australia’s lead, many nations have adopted the “code-name” [Medcalf, 50] “Indo-Pacific” in their official strategies, a concept rejected by the Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs in 2018.[ii] Different actors in the region define the space differently. Any analysis of policies in the Indo-Pacific, or the significance of there being Indo-Pacific policies in the first place, must therefore grapple with how the region is defined. France, for example, has a particularly broad view of the region, illustrated by its official Indo-Pacific Strategy. It encompasses the whole rim of the Indian Ocean, from South Africa to Malaysia, the Western Pacific from Malaysia to Korea, and the Islands from Japan to Oceania back to Madagascar. This includes the French overseas territories, Polynesia (Tahiti), Mayotte (between continental Africa and Madagascar), Réunion (East of Madagascar), New Caledonia and Wallis and Fortuna (islands in the Southwest Pacific). France’s broad definition therefore implies that France is an Indo-Pacific nation, as its lands and extensive maritime EEZs frame the region from West to East. France claims therefore not to be an external power attempting to influence some far-off space, but an endogenous participant in the vibrant region. Its ambition to be not just ‘in’ but ‘of’ the Pacific by virtue of its overseas collectivities [Fisher, 190] is henceforth extended to the wider Indo-Pacific.[iii] Including the Western Indian Ocean means the flow of resources from Africa and the Middle East are at the heart of France’s view of the region. The exclusion of Russia, the United States and other American nations bordering the Pacific Ocean suggests they are exogenous actors. This helps explain why the surprise announcement of the AUKUS security partnership was experienced as a diplomatic affront in Paris: it inverted the insider-outsider perspective to cast France (rather than the UK or US) in the role of the actor that is ‘in’ but not ‘of’ the region.
As part of the Democratic Alliance in the Indo-Pacific (DAIP) project financed by AMIDEX, the OREMA team will be posting a series of short articles sketching out how major English-speaking nations participating in the region view the Indo-Pacific. Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as France and the European Union, all define the space slightly differently. These definitions, direct or implicit in the maps and visuals each nation produces, reveal historical processes and current priorities in the region.
As part of the Democratic Alliance in the Indo-Pacific (DAIP) project financed by AMIDEX, the OREMA team will be posting a series of short articles sketching out how major English-speaking nations participating in the region view the Indo-Pacific. Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, as well as France and the European Union, all define the space slightly differently. These definitions, direct or implicit in the maps and visuals each nation produces, reveal historical processes and current priorities in the region.
[i] Mercy A. Kuo, “The Origin of ‘Indo-Pacific’ as Geopolitical Construct: Insights from Gupreet Khurana,” The Diplomat, 25 January 2018, https://thediplomat.com/2018/01/the-origin-of-indo-pacific-as-geopolitical-construct/
[ii] Rory Medcalf, “L’Indo-Pacifique aux couleurs de la Chine”, Politique étrangère, 3:2019, 49
[iii] Denise Fisher, “France: ‘in’, ‘of’ or ‘from’ the South Pacific region?” Journal de la Société des Océanistes, n°135 2012/2, pp.185-200.
OpenEdition vous propose de citer ce billet de la manière suivante :
OREMA (21 janvier 2025). What’s in a Name? Constructing the Indo-Pacific: Comparative Visions of Space from Australia, France, the United Kingdom and the United States. OREMA. Consulté le 8 février 2026 à l’adresse https://doi.org/10.58079/1340k
