In the words of the Trump administration, the Indo-Pacific designates a region that extends from the Indian shores to the Pacific coast of the United States

The USA has invested great efforts to put in place the new “Indo-Pacific strategy”. But this strategy is nothing new and has been in works under previous administration in the US. The strategy of the Trump administration is mainly driven by the regional competition with China and the strategy tend to benefit from the Sino-Indian differences. 

In the words of the Trump administration, the Indo-Pacific designates a region that extends from the Indian shores to the Pacific coast of the United States. It has became a major element of American rhetoric towards Asia after a first speech by then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on the U.S.-Indian relationship in October 2017 at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies. But beyond the rhetoric of a “free and open” Indo-Pacific, US speeches and documents are aimed at countering the China’s expansion in the region through partnership with India based on differences between Delhi and Beijing on a host of issues. 

However, this strategy need not work towards India’s benefits, according to experts and may even contribute to wider Indo-China tensions. The strategy of Washington may largely benefit Americans. “The Trump administration’s National Security Strategy released in 2017 described a “geopolitical competition between free and repressive visions of world order” and denounced how “China seeks to displace the United States in the Indo-Pacific region, expand the reaches of its state-driven economic model, and reorder the region in its favor.” This was followed a few months later by the rebranding of the emblematic U.S. Pacific Command into the Indo-Pacific Command, a symbolic measure that was read in the region as an indicator that the Indo-Pacific strategy was primarily a military enterprise aiming at containing China’s expansion in both regions. This permanent reference to Chinese expansion conflicts with the simultaneous promotion of American partnerships to the region. At the Shangri-La Summit of 2018, then-Secretary of Defense James Mattis assured his Asian counterparts that America does “not ask any country to choose between the United States and China. In a speech to the APEC CEO Summit in November 2018, Vice President Mike Pence might have affirmed that the Indo-Pacific strategy was an inclusive one, but he went into details about Chinese opaque loans that “lead to staggering debt.” He clearly stated to his Asian audience “the United States offers a better option,” writes JEAN-LOUP SAMAAN in a recent article titled ‘CONFRONTING THE FLAWS IN AMERICA’S INDO-PACIFIC STRATEGY’ published in website War on the Rocks. 

“…But it is a pivot that is more openly confrontational: The bellicose tone of the administration and the explicit use of Cold War rhetoric in documents such as the National Security Strategy have framed the regional environment as a zero-sum game, according to which local states have to position themselves vis-à-vis two distinguishable blocs. This logic also leads the Trump administration to focus its efforts on strengthening America’s partnership with India to counterbalance Beijing’s expansion, a calculus that again, finds its roots in the practices of the previous administrations. The idea was already prominent during the Bush presidency: Back then, it drove the administration’s efforts to get closer to Delhi, particularly through the expansion of military relations and the signing of a nuclear cooperation agreement in 2005. The trend was prolonged under Obama’s presidency…,” points out JEAN-LOUP SAMAAN.

Indian Navy would like to counter-balance China in the Indo-Pacific region but overall Delhi has a more ambivalent approach with Beijing that combines elements of balancing and accommodation. “Moreover, aligning too closely with the objectives of U.S. regional policy would go against the enduring tradition of India’s strategic autonomy. Therefore, the American objective of countering China assigns a supporting role to India that its decision-makers are neither able nor willing to fully embrace, as reflected by public statements from India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi distancing himself from the U.S. Indo-Pacific approach,” claims JEAN-LOUP SAMAAN, Associate Professor in Strategic Studies attached to the UAE National Defence College.

The Indo-Pacific region is not only about China’s growth but also about regional countries adopting independent foreign policy approaches. Countries are diversifying options as US has not yet been able to provide alternatives to China.