Geopolitical contestation in the Indo-Pacific continues to gather steam as the region responds to existing security architecture being tested by arbitrary action by the Trump administration, and an increasingly assertive China. The second Trump administration seems to be upending decades of efforts by the United States and others to help the rise of India, which they envisaged would be an effective democratic counterbalance to the rising Asian giant, China.
Over the last two decades, India has taken major strides to expand its influence in its neighborhood and Southeast Asia, a move that will allow the South Asian tiger to counter China’s dominance in the region, with the aid of its allies – United States, Japan, Australia, and others. All that effort taken, close links and relationships forged, interoperability built, are now being tested prematurely by the US President himself, pushing regional allies to double down on bilateral defence, security, and technology cooperation.
With Trump’s unprecedented tariffs on India and demands that it reduce its sovereign autonomy by stopping the purchase of Russian crude oil, the United States has pushed India into a diplomatic wall, which India is not happy to be pushed against. The push back is quite visible. Indian Premier Narendra Modi’s close and friendly meetings with Chinese leader Xi and Russian President Vladimir Putin during the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meeting was a carefully orchestrated response from India and China, which showed that a new world order – one which is Asian-led, is possible.
The growing risks and security challenges have triggered Japan to actively rethink its long-standing pacifist constitution. According to ‘Defence of Japan 2025’ white paper published in Tokyo, the international community is currently at the highest risk of conflict since World War II. From Tokyo’s point of view, the issues are most noticeable in the Indo-Pacific region, which includes Japan, and they are probably going to get serious in the future. In addition to providing a thorough account of Japan’s military-building accomplishments, the report is full of critical evaluations of the regional security environment. The document claims that the global balance of power is drastically changing and that competition between states is getting more pronounced, citing China as “the greatest strategic challenge Japan has ever faced”. The biggest threats to Japan’s security, as in previous iterations of the document, are North Korea, China, and Russia. With the United States under Donald Trump now increasingly looking like a weak ally and strategic partner, Japan has moved to strengthen bilateral and multilateral security partnerships with other friends in the Indo-Pacific region.
Australia, which is in a similar predicament, has moved to reinforce their security partnerships with India, Indonesia, Japan and other countries. With the US looking increasingly unreliable as a partner, the region is scrambling to piece together alternative security architecture. This is not to say that the US will no longer be a key player – far from it. However, the dependence on the US as a security provider may reduce in the coming period, if Trump’s disruptions continue.
Last week, Australia and Japan said they would deepen cooperation to address increasing security challenges in the Indo-Pacific region, including assisting each other in evacuating citizens at risk overseas. “We agreed to further strengthen our collective deterrence capabilities and to activate discussions on potential contingencies that could affect the security of both countries and the region,” Japanese Foreign Minister Takeshi Iwaya said. This, following a meeting where Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Defence Minister Richard Marles met Japanese Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba in Tokyo.
Last month, Japan clinched a landmark Australian Dollars (AU$) 10 billion ($ 6.5 billion) deal to build warships for Australia, marking Tokyo’s most consequential defence sale since it ended a ban on military exports in 2014. Japan has also increased its defence and security assistance programme to include eight nations, including Sri Lanka.
As the geopolitics heat up around Sri Lanka, our leaders would be prudent to act with foresight, communicate the island’s foreign policy and security stance clearly, and better articulate our national interests to the region and partners. Sri Lanka can ill-afford to be misunderstood, misled, influenced, or to be seen as influenced by any foreign power. To ensure our sovereignty and agency, Sri Lanka must be clear and persistent in our messaging. Let us hope the polity understands the need for such.