Dr. Jagannath Panda is the Head of the Stockholm Center for South Asian and Indo-Pacific Affairs (SCSA-IPA) at the Institute for Security and Development Policy (ISDP) and a Senior Fellow at The Hague Center for Strategic Studies.

The Indo-Pacific has become the gravitational center of world politics—a vast maritime expanse that connects economies, civilizations, supply chains, and contesting visions of power. Yet the questions confronting policymakers today are profound and immediate: Can the Indo-Pacific sustain its momentum amid Donald Trump’s return and China’s accelerating assertiveness? Will the region’s economic and strategic coherence endure if the United States turns inward again, emphasizing transactional diplomacy over alliance stewardship?

Reunification: A matter of national destiny? | Photo: SORA

These are not abstract questions. They are yardsticks which governments, markets, and security planners are already using to recalibrate their assumptions. The Indo-Pacific remains the heart of global commerce, producing well over half of the world’s GDP and hosting the sea lanes through which a huge share of global trade flows. Its vibrancy also makes it vulnerable. Tariff-driven unilateralism from Washington and revisionist expansion from Beijing now test the foundations of what was meant to be a “Free and Open Indo-Pacific.” Despite these headwinds, the region’s structural gravity and actors such as Japan, India, Australia, and ASEAN suggest that the Indo-Pacific will not vanish. It will adapt, reorganize, and assert its own leadership.

 

Trump’s Return and the Setback to Multilateralism

Donald Trump’s approach to international politics is anchored in mercantilism and skepticism toward alliances. His earlier withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and his bilateral bargaining upended Washington’s reputation as the custodian of the multilateral order. “America First” became “America Alone” in the eyes of many allies, unsettling an Indo-Pacific that had come to rely on U.S. predictability. The prospect of revived tariffs, side deals negotiated through public pressure, and renewed demands that allies pay more for U.S. troop presence conveys the same signal: reliability is conditional.

For regional partners such as Japan and South Korea, this is not merely an inconvenience. This shift challenges the credibility of American commitments and complicates domestic politics anchored in the stability of the U.S. security umbrella. At the same time, Trump’s record is not one of simple withdrawal. Even during his first term, U.S. military activity in the region intensified. Freedom-of-navigation operations through contested waters continued; defense cooperation with India intensified; the Quad’s revival gained visibility through summits and exercises; and Washington expanded engagement with Southeast Asian states that sought hedging options. The result is a paradox: rhetorical retreat and operational persistence. America may complain about the costs of leadership, but its strategic imperatives in the Indo-Pacific are too entrenched to ignore. What Trump undermines in rhetoric, the Pentagon compensates for through presence and deterrence.

This paradox echoes through regional capitals. It forces allies and partners to invest more in self-help while keeping their options open with Washington. Tokyo has revised its defense guidelines and increased budgetary spending in part to hedge against U.S. unpredictability. Canberra’s recalibration—anchoring AUKUS while managing economic ties with China, reflects a similar calculus. New Delhi has broadened defense procurement and logistics agreements with the United States but has been careful to maintain strategic autonomy. For ASEAN, the lesson is simpler: centrality without capacity is rhetorical. Trump’s conditionality pushes Southeast Asia to consider collective risk management that does not depend on any single external power. In this sense, Trump’s return is a setback for multilateralism as a habit, yet it also unintentionally accelerates the maturation of regional agency. The Indo-Pacific absorbs shocks by distributing leadership and responsibilities across more nodes.

 

The Enduring Strategic Gravity of the Indo-Pacific

To understand why the Indo-Pacific will endure, one must look beyond any single administration and even beyond the U.S.-China binary. Geography and economics, not ideology, underpin its permanence. This comprises a confluence of the Indian and Pacific Oceans links, energy suppliers, manufacturing hubs, and digital economies across Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. It is this lattice of interdependence—tankers through Malacca, container traffic skirting the Taiwan Strait, fiber-optic cables crisscrossing littorals; that defines the twenty-first-century order. Japan’s late Prime Minister Shinzo Abe articulated this when he popularized the term “Free and Open Indo-Pacific,” grounding it in connectivity, openness, the rule of law, and freedom of navigation. India reinforced the concept with its Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative. This is rooted in inclusivity rather than containment and attentive to maritime security, disaster relief, and economic corridors. Australia and ASEAN, despite differing definitions of the region’s precise boundaries, recognize that their prosperity depends on secure and open sea lanes.

Even if Washington were to downgrade its diplomatic bandwidth, the Indo-Pacific’s architecture has become self-sustaining. Middle powers now shape norms, finance infrastructure, and convene minilateral meetings without waiting for American approval. Consider how Tokyo led the transformation of the TPP into the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP) after the U.S. exit, or how ASEAN shepherded the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) to completion. India’s expanding logistics agreements and defense exercises in both the Indian and Pacific theaters manifest a similar trend: a polycentric order whose rationale is structural, not sentimental. The result is an Indo-Pacific in which the United States is welcome and influential, but not singular or indispensable in every domain. This diffusion of responsibility makes the order messier, but also more resilient to any one leader’s whims. The Indo-Pacific cannot be switched off by tweet or tariff; it is anchored by geography, market logic, and the converging interests of states that would suffer most from its erosion.

 

China’s Expanding Shadow and the Return of the Taiwan Question

At the heart of the Indo-Pacific drama lies the rise of China. It is a power whose ambition no longer hides behind the rhetoric of peaceful development. Beijing’s naval modernization, the militarization of artificial islands in the South China Sea, coercive economic practices against neighbors, and increasingly ideological diplomacy reflect a calculated pursuit of regional primacy. China’s political economy fuses industrial policy and geostrategy: rare-earth dominance, electric-vehicle scale, solar-panel leadership, and a sprawling Belt and Road network of ports, rails, and energy pipelines from the Bay of Bengal to the Mediterranean. These capabilities, coupled with military modernization and cyber-power, build up leverage that Beijing applies selectively but relentlessly.

The Taiwan issue epitomizes this ambition. For Beijing, reunification is a matter of national destiny and regime legitimacy; for Washington and its partners, Taiwan’s autonomy is a test of credibility and the hinge of high-technology supply chains. Chinese military incursions across the median line are now routine, maritime militia activity challenges coast guards, and economic sanctions are wielded as political punishment. Intelligence assessments in multiple capitals suggest that the People’s Liberation Army has been instructed to prepare for compelling action options, including blockade, seizure of offshore islands, or a campaign of coercive pressure by the late 2020s. A crisis in the Taiwan Strait would not remain localized. Nearly half of global container traffic passes through these waters, and Taiwan’s semiconductor ecosystem anchors the world’s technology production. Any blockade or invasion would trigger supply-chain paralysis, spikes in inflation, financial shockwaves, and political fragmentation far beyond Asia.

Such a contingency would also test the resilience and credibility of security frameworks such as the Quad and AUKUS. If the United States hesitated, partners would confront difficult choices. Japan would face the most immediate risk calculus; Australia would weigh AUKUS capabilities against economic exposure to China; India would need to reconcile continental commitments with maritime solidarities; and Europe would confront the limits of its nascent Indo-Pacific outreach. Trump’s transactional instincts add another layer of uncertainty. Would he defend Taiwan as a matter of principle or as a bargaining strategy? Would he demand concessions before committing military assets? The answers are unclear, but the stakes are absolute. How capitals prepare for these questions now will define the Indo-Pacific’s strategic cohesiveness later.

 

Economic Integration and the Architecture of Competition

While geopolitics often dominates headlines, economics remains the Indo-Pacific’s deepest connective tissue. The overlapping frameworks of the CPTPP, RCEP, and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework for Prosperity (IPEF) embody the region’s ongoing struggle to balance inclusivity with high standard multilateralism. After the United States abandoned the TPP, Japan assumed leadership, transforming it into the CPTPP and demonstrating that high-standard multilateralism can survive American ambivalence. Meanwhile, ASEAN steered the RCEP to completion, integrating China, South Korea, and Japan into the world’s largest free-trade bloc. This agreement may be less ambitious on labor and the environment, but is expansive when it comes to market access. The United States tried to reassert its presence through the IPEF, focusing on supply chain resilience, digital trade norms, clean-economy transitions, and anti-corruption frameworks. 

Trump’s economic nationalism casts uncertainty over the continuity of any U.S.-led framework, yet regional integration has acquired a self-propelling momentum. The pandemic exposed the vulnerabilities of over-centralized production in China, generating diversification across Asia. India’s production-linked incentives seek to re-anchor electronics, pharmaceuticals, and renewable supply chains. Japan’s reshoring strategies and Southeast Asia’s manufacturing rise—from Vietnam’s exports to Indonesia’s nickel ecosystem—are re-wiring the global economy. Europe’s interest, expressed through the Global Gateway initiative and digital partnerships, adds another source of capital and regulatory gravity. The Indo-Pacific is therefore not only a theater of military contestation but a market which consists of competing and complementary economic infrastructure. Tariffs may disrupt profit margins, but they cannot negate the gravitational pull of interdependence. Indeed, protectionism in Washington often accelerates intra-Asian trade, compelling regional players to deepen ties among themselves and, in the process, reduce the very dependence that makes them vulnerable to external shocks.

The debate over CPTPP accession and RCEP consolidation will continue to shape the regional political economy. Economies courting CPTPP entry face rigorous measures on state-owned enterprises and digital trade, while the RCEP offers incremental gains through rules-of-origin cumulation and tariff phase-outs. The IPEF’s supply-chain pillar, even without market access, can still create a powerful coordination effect by mapping risks, stress-testing chokepoints, and aligning crisis playbooks. The contest, then, is not only between China and the United States, but between regulatory philosophies: whether data flows are open or sovereign, whether infrastructure finance is transparent or opaque, whether energy transitions are locked-in or turbulent. The region’s trajectory will be set by how these frameworks interact, overlap, and adapt to shocks such as sanctions, pandemics, climate events, or conflict in the Taiwan Strait.

 

ASEAN, the South China Sea, and the Politics of Ambiguity

Southeast Asia’s choices will ultimately define whether the Indo-Pacific narrative holds together or fragments. ASEAN has long prided itself on “centrality,” but its unity is fragile, and its instruments are limited. The South China Sea disputes expose this tension vividly. Vietnam and the Philippines confront Chinese incursions head-on through legal claims, patrols, and new security measures, while Cambodia and Laos tilt toward Beijing, softening ASEAN statements and slowing consensus. The Philippines’ recent strategic recalibration, includes opening additional facilities to U.S. forces, strengthening coastguard cooperation with Japan, and joining combined patrols. This signals a re-awakening of maritime awareness. Yet ASEAN’s principle of consensus often dilutes collective resolve precisely when clarity is most needed.

The Taiwan crisis would exacerbate these divides. Singapore would advocate stability and law; Indonesia would emphasize dialogue while protecting its Natuna interests; Malaysia would balance economic ties with sovereignty concerns; Thailand’s positioning would reflect domestic political churn; and Myanmar’s turmoil would undercut regional cohesion. If China escalates coercion, through a blockade, grey-zone tactics, or punitive trade measures, ASEAN’s response will determine not only regional stability but the credibility of the “Free and Open Indo-Pacific” vision. For now, ASEAN walks a narrow tightrope: advocating peace and dialogue while avoiding explicit alignment. But the room for neutrality is shrinking. As maritime coercion intensifies, the bloc faces a choice between asserting autonomy—or drifting into managed irrelevance. Centrality must evolve from a convening habit to a set of capabilities: maritime domain awareness, coordinated law enforcement, sanctions resilience, and crisis diplomacy.

This evolution is not beyond ASEAN’s reach. The grouping has demonstrated ingenuity when incentives align, as with the RCEP’s conclusion and pandemic coordination. External partners can empower ASEAN agencies without forcing binary choices. Japan’s infrastructure finance, India’s capacity building in disaster relief and coastal security, Australia’s maritime training, and the EU’s regulatory support can stitch together a networked resilience that complements rather than supplants ASEAN leadership. If ASEAN can operationalize an arsenal, its centrality will be earned in practice, not proclaimed by communiqué.

 

The Rise of Non-American Leadership

Trump’s unpredictability underscores an emerging trend: the regionalization of leadership. India, Japan, and Australia increasingly act as stabilizers in the absence of consistent American guidance. Their trilateral partnerships in infrastructure, technology, critical minerals, and supply chain resilience point toward a more distributed order, in which goals are shared but methods are modular. India’s Indo-Pacific Oceans Initiative promotes inclusivity and transparency; Japan’s emphasis on quality infrastructure and digital connectivity provides standards and finance; Australia’s commitment to open sea lanes and intelligence partnerships helps fuse strategy with operational capacity. Together, these middle powers form a strategic triangle capable of sustaining the region’s normative architecture even amid great-power turbulence. 

Europe’s role adds an external stabilizer that is neither hegemonic nor indifferent. The EU’s Global Gateway offers an alternative capital stream conditioned on transparency and sustainability. France maintains significant territories and naval presence across the Indian and Pacific oceans; Germany and the Netherlands have published Indo-Pacific guidelines and dispatched frigates to signal interest in maritime order. Such engagement is not a panacea, but it creates a ceiling on unilateral coercion by multiplying stakeholders and raising reputational costs for norm-breakers. Additionally, the UK’s tilt, complements this presence with capacity and political signaling.

What emerges is a polycentric Indo-Pacific in which partnerships overlap more than they compete. The Quad need not be a treaty alliance to be effective if its working groups and exercises create interoperability as a habit. AUKUS does not need to be universal to be catalytic, if its technology diffusion uplifts allied deterrence. The IPEF, even without tariff cuts, can still harmonize standards that nudge investment decisions. This diffusion of power might well be the best insurance against unilateral disruption; both from Beijing’s assertiveness and Washington’s vacillation. It also means that the Indo-Pacific’s future will be defined less by speeches from Washington and more by choices taken in Tokyo, New Delhi, Canberra, Jakarta, and Brussels.

 

Three Possible Paths

The Indo-Pacific’s future will depend on how key actors reconcile ambition with restraint, and how shocks intersect with pre-existing trends. One plausible pathway is managed competition. In this scenario, Washington under Trump, sustains selective engagement: deterrence by presence, economic pressure by tariff, and diplomacy by transaction. Beijing pushes eagerly, but avoids a cross-strait war, just short of open conflict. Japan, India, and Australia deepen coordination without formal alliances, and ASEAN copes through pragmatic hedging while incrementally upgrading maritime capabilities. The region remains tense but stable; the norms of openness and navigation survive, if frayed, and economic integration proceeds through CPTPP expansions, RCEP implementation, and ad hoc supply-chain clubs. This is not a tranquil equilibrium, but it is livable and predictable enough to preserve growth.

A second trajectory is crisis and realignment. In this scenario, a blockade or limited kinetic exchange in the Taiwan Strait triggers a global economic shock. The United States hesitates or makes support for their allies’ conditional, Japan and Australia intensify joint action alongside the United Kingdom, while India accelerates security cooperation on the maritime flank without abandoning strategic autonomy. ASEAN splits between states that openly resist Chinese coercion and those that counsel accommodation. The crisis accelerates a new architecture: more binding trilaterals, defense industrial cooperation among like-minded states, and a technological decoupling at the cutting edge. The Indo-Pacific remains open in parts, but hardens into blocs; supply chains reorganize, and the costs of fragmentation are absorbed as the price of security.

The third path is fragmentation and fatigue. Within this potential future, Trump’s protectionism and China’s coercion intersect with domestic economic anxieties across the region to erode trust. Grand strategies devolve into risk aversion. Regional forums proliferate but deliver diminishing returns; ASEAN centrality becomes ceremonial; the Quad loses momentum; AUKUS is slowed by bureaucratic and political friction; and investment flows chase stability rather than standards. The Indo-Pacific narrative does not collapse, but it dilutes into sub-regional blocs: continental preoccupations in South Asia, mercantilist calculations in Southeast Asia, and a tighter security perimeter in the Western Pacific. Such an outcome would not end globalization, but it would normalize a weaker version of it. One in which resilience is built domestically and ambition is rationed.

 

The Century That Will Not Fade

At the end of all this, one shouldn’t overlook that the Indo-Pacific century is not simply a slogan; it is a structural reality shaped by trade, demography, geography, and the logic of interdependence. Trump’s inward turn may bruise its institutional fabric, but the region’s strategic centrality will persist. The contest is now about leadership and coherence, not existence. China’s expanding reach ensures that balancing coalitions will endure; Trump’s conditionality ensures that regional agency will deepen. The decisive variables, therefore, lie not in the existence of the Indo-Pacific but in its quality: the credibility of deterrence, the inclusivity of growth, the resilience of supply chains, and the capacity of institutions to manage crises without collapsing into conflict.

As great-power rivalry intensifies, two enduring questions remain salient. Can the Indo-Pacific remain open and plural amid nationalist currents in Washington and authoritarian consolidation in Beijing? And if the United States falters, will Asia’s middle powers rise, in concert with Europe, to preserve the region’s fragile order or watch it disintegrate into competing spheres of influence? The answers will define not merely the next electoral cycle but the character of the global century that follows. The Indo-Pacific will endure; whether it thrives depends on choices made now. These are choices about risk-sharing, institutional patience, and the willingness to move from declaratory centrality to operational capability.

Above all, the credibility of the Indo-Pacific narrative will ultimately turn on method. Partners must move from declarations to deliverable benefits that citizens can recognize: safer sea lanes, cheaper and cleaner power, jobs in resilient supply chains, and faster disaster recovery after cyclones or earthquakes. This requires mundane but essential work—harmonizing customs, digitizing bills of landing, aligning cyber hygiene for ports, pre-positioning relief supplies, and financing last-mile connectivity that ties hinterlands to blue-water trade. When such projects succeed, they create facts that no press conference can dissolve. If they stall, narratives lose their power, and skepticism grows. Trump’s transnationalism and China’s coercion both, in different ways, make deliverables harder. The best answer is to raise the opportunity cost of disruption by multiplying concrete successes.

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