Australia’s Cognition of the “India-Pacific Strategy”, Reasons and Countermeasures

Abstract

Australia is a traditional ally of the US, and a key participator of the “Indo-Pacific Strategy”, so, it is of practical significance to study Australia’s cognition of the “Indo-Pacific Strategy”, and the reasons behind such cognition. This paper first reviews the process of emerging of the “Indo-Pacific” concept, and the putting forward and evolution of the “Indo-Pacific Strategy”. On this basis, this paper conducts a systematic analysis about Australia’s cognition of the “Indo-Pacific Strategy”, and mainly analyzes Australia’s official attitude and its academic community’s attitude toward this strategy. The analysis finds that Australian authority held a positive attitude toward the US-dominated “Indo-Pacific Strategy”; while, there are mainly three types of attitudes toward the strategy, namely, approval, middle and opposition, in the academic community; and in the academic community, to some extent, those who hold an approving attitude toward the strategy are the most influential. Then, this paper analyzes the factors that influence Australia’s cognition of the “Indo-Pacific Strategy”. The factors can be classified into domestic factors and international factors. Domestic factors include Australia’s special geographic location of bordering two oceans, and the fact that Australia’s internal politics is getting increasingly conservative and populist; and external factors mainly include: regarding China, Australia follows the principle of “high level politics” overweighing “low level politics”; Australia relies on the US in security, and follows the US in strategy; and Australia gives high attention to India’s rising. Lastly, regarding China’s counter-measures, this paper attempts to put forward 3 suggestions: first, economy still can be considered an effective tool in China’s foreign policy regarding Australia; second, a tacit acceptance of the “Indo-Pacific” concept promotes the normalization of China’s presence in the Indian Ocean Region; third, China should maintain strategic composure and strategic flexibility.