Journal of Contemporary Politics

Abstract

With the increasing economic and strategic importance of the Indo-Pacific region coupled with maritime disputes, piracy and Chinese assertions in the region, the European Union (EU) is concerned about its impact on secure, open and free passage and rule based global order. Distinguished from the hard foreign policy measures of the US, the EU strategy is to engage China through discussions and negotiations and at the same time to increase its depth of relations on wide ranging issues with the countries of the region to deny unilateral advantage to China. Pursuance of this parallel course of action is a challenging task as not all EU member states share common perception about China and very the design of the EU preventing its ‘actorness’ in external relations. With apparent exclusive and inward looking policies of the US under Trump 2.0, War in Ukraine and impact of refugee crisis affecting the EU attention towards Indo-Pacific, the EU role as a credible actor is likely to be further affected unless the EU addresses the host of internal and external issues and challenges while performing the balancing act between its preferred “strategic autonomy” and alignment and active engagement with others with cautious approach towards China. The EU need to work closely with like-minded countries like India which broadly share EU’s views on rule based global order and stable, inclusive, free and secure Indo-pacific region.

Keywords: Indo­pacific, European Union, EU strategy, EU-China