The Diplomat author Mercy Kuo regularly engages subject-matter experts, policy practitioners, and strategic thinkers across the globe for their diverse insights into U.S. Asia policy. This conversation with Richard Ghiasy – director of GeoStrat, a boutique geopolitics consultancy in the Netherlands, lecturer at Leiden University, and co-author of “Fostering Order in the Indo-Pacific: What the EU Can Learn From and Do With Australia, India, Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam” (2025) – is the 456th in “The Trans-Pacific View Insight Series.”
Examine the strategic orientation of Australia, India, Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam toward fostering order in the Indo-Pacific.
These five powers are all deeply invested in fostering order in the Indo-Pacific, but they approach it in distinct ways. Close U.S. allies Australia and Japan, and to a lesser degree South Korea, perceive China’s reemergence and its aspirations to erode the U.S.-led “hub and spokes” alliance system as the primary destabilizing factor. From a Chinese perspective, understandably, the presence of a U.S.-led naval force just off its coast and urban centers is unacceptable. For Japan and Australia, however, the Indo-Pacific previously maintained a stable and economically facilitating order – one that China is disrupting due to its maritime and territorial claims in the South and East China Seas.
This strategic push-and-pull creates tensions and unpredictability that Japan and Australia seek to curb, primarily through a military balance of power vis-à-vis China. In their view, a balance of power is the best mechanism for fostering order.
India, Vietnam, and to a lesser extent South Korea, hold a different perspective. They view collective, exclusive security arrangements, such as the hub and spokes system, as counterproductive to order. As an extension of this stance, India and Vietnam, while still pursuing hard security cooperation and advocating for a regional balance that includes the U.S., favor a more inclusive approach to order-building. This approach emphasizes multilateral dialogue, multialigned networks, and cooperative rather than collective security solutions. India, South Korea, and Vietnam also strongly prioritize economic development as a key factor in maintaining order.
Analyze the perceptions and preferences of these five countries toward the EU’s role in the Indo-Pacific order.
The five powers’ views on the EU’s engagement in the Indo-Pacific, and how the EU could help foster regional order, vary. These perspectives reflect a mix of realism, disillusionment, and optimism.
Australia, Japan, and South Korea aspire to greater coordination with the EU, hoping that it might move closer to the U.S.-led Indo-Pacific security architecture – whether informally or formally, directly or indirectly. However, considering the unfolding security dynamics in Europe, this expectation may be increasingly unrealistic.
Meanwhile, India and Vietnam place a stronger emphasis on diversifying external relations and promoting a plural or multipolar Indo-Pacific, where firm security reliance on any single power, including the U.S., is discouraged. Their position aligns more closely with the general Indo-Pacific sentiment regarding order, stability, and cooperation, than the more security-focused approaches of Australia, Japan, and South Korea.
In what ways should the EU align with these five countries to advance shared interests in the region vis-à-vis China-U.S. strategic competition?
Which of these five powers’ individual or shared preferences for fostering order and managing China-U.S. strategic competition is the most effective? Each interpretation has its rationale and merits. What is clear is that if stability and cooperation are the highest goals of order – and they should be – then order in the Indo-Pacific must be based on genuine multilateralism and international law. This automatically aligns Indo-Pacific order with the broader international order. While the Indo-Pacific has distinct regional characteristics and institutions, it ultimately falls within the framework of international law.
Thus, the most effective way for the EU to contribute to managing China-U.S. strategic competition and fostering Indo-Pacific order may be a two-pronged approach:
First, diplomatic engagement and multilateralism. This would mean facilitating (or joining) Track I and Track II diplomatic dialogues centered on international law and the core concerns of all stakeholders, and supporting regional organizations like ASEAN, AU, BRICS+, and the SCO that advocate for an inclusive security framework. Power balancing is no guarantee for peace or order.
Second, nontraditional security cooperation. The EU should strengthen bilateral and multilateral security partnerships with the five powers in maritime security, economic resilience, climate adaptation, and cybersecurity.
Indeed, the realities of China’s territorial and maritime claims, as well as the power balancing strategies of key regional actors (Australia, Japan, and South Korea), cannot simply be disregarded. The EU, while navigating its own strategic autonomy challenges, must remain realistic. With the international order under exceptional strain, the EU’s best opportunity lies in fostering stability through pragmatic, inclusive, diplomatic engagement.
As transatlantic relations falter, explain the hedging strategies of these five powers in managing EU-U.S. tensions.
These five powers do not need to hedge much between the EU and the U.S. While EU-U.S. relations may experience occasional strains, they remain strategic partners on multiple fronts. In the Indo-Pacific, there is no pressing need to balance between them, as neither poses a security threat.
However, hedging does exist in a broader sense, particularly for India and Vietnam, who, in line with their non-alignment doctrines, actively engage both the EU and U.S. to avoid over-reliance on a single major power – especially in relation to arms. While the U.S. remains their primary hard security partner, the EU’s growing role in economic statecraft, technology partnerships, and even security dialogues makes it an important secondary player.
Australia, Japan, and South Korea maintain strong U.S. security ties, but they also seek greater EU involvement in regional stability, trade security, and non-traditional security areas such as maritime security, cyber governance, and economic diversification. The EU is therefore a valuable partner, even if its role remains primarily economic and diplomatic rather than military.
Assess the effectiveness of bilateral and multilateral cooperation platforms for the EU and the five countries to navigate the increasingly multipolar global order.
To effectively navigate the increasingly multipolar global order, the EU and the five powers must adopt a hybrid approach. Strengthening economic partnerships through bilateral agreements while leveraging multilateral forums for diplomacy, governance, and nontraditional security cooperation, such as maritime security and cyber resilience, may ensure greater strategic influence and stability in the region.
Granted, multilateral platforms like ASEAN-EU dialogues, IPEF [Indo-Pacific Economic Framework], and Quad-adjacent discussions provide legitimacy and regional engagement, yet often struggle with slow decision-making and internal fragmentation. For example, ASEAN remains cautious about deeper EU involvement in regional security, while India and Vietnam prefer a multipolar framework rather than exclusive alliances. Still, a multipolar global order and global challenges such as climate change require multilateral cooperation – genuine multilateralism should be considered the northern star in all navigation.