The international system will be neither unipolar nor bipolar in the foreseeable future. Nowhere is this fact truer than in the Asia-Pacific. While the United States would, of course, remain central to world affairs given its military, economic, and technological preponderance, it is unlikely to have the same desire or the capacity to be the singular pole with the strongest footprint in every regional theatre. The vacuum created by a relatively reduced American role is likely to be filled by China to some extent. It certainly has the ambition and the financial capability to step up its game. Through mostly economic bilateral and multilateral arrangements, China is increasing its presence across the world, and the subregions of the Asia-Pacific in particular.
Meanwhile, several other regional countries are also rising to prominence, making the contemporary international order multipolar. Every pole or contender to that position, however, visualises different benefits of multipolarity. This report is an attempt at understanding the multiple views of multipolarity in three important players in the Asia-Pacific – China, India, and Indonesia. These three countries have been chosen for their demographic, geographical, economic, military, and political clout, as well as their potential to exert major influence on the region and the global order.
While the United States sees it as a way of unburdening itself of its financial commitments to the security of European and Asian allies, China sees it as an opportunity to position itself (together with Russia) as “stabilizing forces in a complex and turbulent world,” stabilizing forces in a complex and turbulent world,” to enhance its global standing and counterbalance US containment. In fact, by framing multipolarity in language of interdependence, autonomy and mutual respect, China seeks to create solidarity with the countries of the Global South, who support multipolarity because they want to ensure that no single superpower dominates the international discourse and their interests are not marginalised by the more powerful.
It offers them freedom of choice and a flexibility in the pursuit of their multi-faceted interests which was not available in the binary world of the Cold War era. Such a conceptualisation of multipolarity emanates from India’s own experience and search for strategic autonomy in a polarised world. As an individual player in Southeast Asia, and as a major member of ASEAN, Indonesia perceives itself as a country that can play a significant role in a multipolar world, even if it is not in itself a pole. Since its independence the country has shown a sharp streak to steer clear of falling into the lure of joining any bloc.
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