The Indo-Pacific has overtaken the Atlantic to be the most important of the two. Meanwhile, Asia has overtaken Europe where Gross Domestic Product is concerned. Of course, some European leaders such as President Macron of France still have their minds tethered to the past rather than the present and foreseeable future. Geopolitically, BRICS Plus has far more GDP than the EU and the UK combined. As far as the US is concerned, the volume of trade with Asia is now greater than the volume of trade with Europe.
The ascent of Asia has not gone unnoticed by the exceptionally capable (barring a few) Cabinet appointees of President Donald Trump. They have understood that the real challenge to US primacy in the world is China, which has been controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since 1949. The good news from the point of view of the future of the Indo-Pacific is that Vice-President J.D. Vance understands this as well. Treasury Secretary Bessent may not, but several other Trump appointees understand and appreciate the importance of India in the securing from domination by the PRC the waters of the Indo-Pacific.
Already the South China Sea has in effect become a Chinese lake. PRC military bases are dotted across its waters, in order to prevent entry or exit of any vessel which the PLA, PLAAF and PLAN seek to impound. The US and a few European countries conduct Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs) in the South China Sea, but these have only a symbolic and not substantive value. Unless and until the PRC military bases built in violation of international law in the South China Sea are dismantled, its waters remain firmly within the control of China. However, control of these waters is only Phase I of the overall plan of the country. Phase II involves the control of the waters of the East China Sea. It would extend from the maritime boundaries of ASEAN outwards from Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam and Japan. Phase III would conclude with the control of all but the western third of the Indo-Pacific, and would include the waters of the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal. Privileged sources within China conveyed details of the overall plan in strict confidence nearly two decades ago. It sounds a bit far-fetched, but so would have a plan to control the South China Sea just three decades ago. Yet this has happened.
The reality is that China under the CCP has become used to conquest sans opposition. Its seizure of China from the KMT, which was ruling until then, happened without any but a token opposition. Indeed, its seizure of Manchuria, large parts of Mongolia, Tibet and Xinjiang was accepted as a fait accompli by the rest of the world, while its seizure of the slice of Indian territory known as Aksai Chin went unnoticed by the Intelligence Bureau of India until it was completed. The then Prime Minister of India sought to downplay the loss of territory on the grounds that “not even a blade of grass” grew there. While grass may have been less than abundant, what was not scarce was the number of PLA soldiers stationed there. China still claims the entirety of Arunachal state in India, arguing that its boundaries were set during British rule. If the boundaries set during the British period were deemed to be illegal, then a similar argument could be made about all the external boundaries of pre-1947 India. After all, the Republic of India was explicitly the successor state of the Indian Empire.
Before leaving, the colonial authorities partitioned the land in the name of religion, a medieval concept in 1947. Pakistan found itself under direct or indirect military rule from the 1950s onwards, which has become the single largest contributing factor in the effort by different ethnicities to carve out independent states of Sindh, Balochistan and Kyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Domination of the resources of the entire country by the Punjabis running the military has bred anger and resistance to military rule in these provinces. While India has kept out of intervening in such fissiparous tendencies in Pakistan, that has not prevented the Pakistan military and its puppet civilian government from blaming India for even the overturning of an army truck in a mountainous region of Pakistan.
The era of unchallenged expansionism by China is drawing to a close. President Trump is unlikely to blink first in the contest of will imposed by CCP General Secretary Xi. In Sanae Takaichi, Japan has a Prime Minister who is unafraid of China, and who is committed to the security of the democracies in the Indo-Pacific, including Taiwan. Prime Minister Albanese of Australia has signed an agreement on rare earths with the US, so that the latter gets enabled to resist blackmail by Xi through freezing of rare earth sales. India under PM Modi is firmly committed to a “free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific”. Should Xi choose a kinetic option, he would have a losing battle on his hands.
