Indo-Pacific Minilateralism and Strategic Competition (I): Australia/Japan and Chinese Approaches Compared (original) (raw)

2024, East-West Center Occasional Paper

his East-West Center Occasional Paper is the first in a set of two papers examining the ways in which Australia and Japan have sought to leverage minilateral forms of cooperation as a means of strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific. The topic of minilateralism is usually treated as response to the rise of China on the part of “Western” countries, but this obscures the fact that Beijing is also a major practitioner of minilateral forms of cooperation. This paper concludes that Australia and Japan have taken a traditional “security-first” approach to minilateralism. This stands in contrast to the more expansive approach pursued by Beijing, which focuses primarily on geoeconomics along with China’s broader goal of becoming a global leader, which has potential implications for international order. This indicates a significant “mismatch” between the respective vectors along which Australia/Japan and China are pursuing competitive advantage, and underscores how Canberra and Tokyo will need to manage the “security/economic disconnect” in the region, questions to be examined further in the second Occasional Paper that follows. This East-West Center Occasional Paper is part of an Australia-Japan Foundation funded project, entitled “Enhancing Australia-Japan Cooperation: New Approaches to Minilateralism,” undertaken by Thomas Wilkins, Miwa Hirono, Kyoko Hatakeyama, and H.D.P. Envall. It is the first in a series of two papers. The second is entitled “Japan/Australia Minilateralism in the Indo-Pacific (II): Advancing Cooperation in Order-Building and Geoeconomics.” CITATION: Wilkins, Thomas S., Hirono, Miwa, Hatakeyama, Kyoko and Envall, HDP (2024) “Indo-Pacific Minilateralism and Strategic Competition (I): Australia/Japan and Chinese Approaches Compared,” East-West Center Occasional Paper 9, 9 June, Washington, DC: East-West Center.