Within a short span of time there have been two engagements on the Indo-Pacific strategic alliance in Meghalaya. The first was initiated by the American Consulate Kolkata in collaboration with Observer Research Foundation. This week the UK High Commissioner to India, Lindy Cameron and her colleague Andrew Fleming, British Deputy High Commissioner, Kolkata. It may be mentioned that the Indo-Pacific strategic alliance is led by the US and includes Australia, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and Thailand. While the newly elected US President Donald Trump and outgoing President Joe Biden disagree on most issues, one area of consensus is the Indo-Pacific. During Trump’s first term in office, in 2019 he and his team published the Indo-Pacific Strategy, which sought to maintain a “free and open” region primarily through strengthening alliances and partnerships to counter China. When Biden entered office in 2021, he doubled down on his predecessor’s approach. President Trump is known to be unpredictable with his international relations and is known to be transactional more than pragmatic and far-sighted. There were times he praised the Indo-Pacific allies and times when he tried strong-arm tactics with them but as far as the Indo-Pacific alliance is concerned he was consistent in his approach of treading with enhanced diplomatic sensitivities. Kamala Harris, the Democrat candidate who lost to Donald Trump in the just concluded US elections during her campaign emphasized continuity with the Biden administration’s Indo-Pacific strategy.
It was Late Abe Shinzo the former prime minister of Japan who probably convinced Trump to shift from an Asia-Pacific to Indo-Pacific focus, which would include India and the Indian Ocean Region as part of a collective strategy to counter China. Japan was also an advocate for reviving the Quad, a diplomatic partnership between Australia, India, Japan and the United States with the commitment to support an open, stable, prosperous, inclusive and resilient Indo-Pacific. Japan made these moves because, during Trump’s tenure, it worried about its years-long standoff over the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea (also claimed by China, which calls them the Diaoyu Islands). Japan was also concerned about North Korea, which in 2017 fired ballistic missiles over its territory. Since Biden came to office, Japan has shifted its attention farther south to the Taiwan Strait. Japan believes that a conflict there could impact the security of its southwestern Ryukyu Island chain. The Indo-Pacific Strategic Alliance much like the Quad is seen as a mechanism for balancing China’s influence in the region, although its members have stressed that it is not a military alliance and is open to other countries who share their values and interests. It is interesting why India’s North East has become the focal point here. True the North East shares 1395 kilometres with China in the North and the latter has had an abiding interest in Arunachal Pradesh by refusing to issue visas to residents of that state because it claims Arunachal Pradesh is part of South Tibet. In fact China’s overarching influence in the Indo-Pacific region and in recent times its attempts to woo countries inimical to India are what makes the Indo-Pacific Strategic Alliance an important diplomatic initiative.
