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한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском ABSTRACT This essay brings space into the international relations of Asia. It orients readers to three unfolding trends that are shaping the evolution of the new space race at present – democratization, commercialization, and militarization (DCM). It surveys how these trends reflect, illuminate, or are connected to the theory and practice of international relations (IR) both in global and regional settings in Asia. Where possible, it brings in the space activities of the main independent and autonomous space powers in Asia – China, Japan, India, South Korea, North Korea – and probes what their activities signify for international and regional politics. It ends with some thematic takeaways for space policy, strategy, and diplomacy. Space is a strategic domain, meaning that its uses cut across civilian and military realities and will therefore long remain of vital interest to all states. Since its inception, space has drawn significant and long-standing attention in the fields of law and policy. Lawyers, legal scholars, diplomats, and policy analysts have covered the rise and interpretation of the space law regime in place today, which is centered on a set of space treaties, resolutions, and organized multilateral activities.Footnote1 Thanks to these efforts we have a good understanding of governance frameworks, the challenges they face, and how they may play out in constructing the peaceful uses of outer space. But studies that bring international relations (IR) theory and practice to bear on outer space affairs are far fewer in comparison to the voluminous law and policy literature. While IR scholars have generated works related to other emerging technologies, such as drones, cyberweapons, and artificial intelligence, space generally still remains understudied.Footnote2 This is surprising as the critical infrastructure of space anchors modern economies, militaries, and societies in a way no other technology does. It lies at the intersection of virtually all political, economic, and social forces that have been and will remain of concern to states. The space domain is not aloof from the “harsher realities of politics;”Footnote3 and, in fact, continues to reflect almost every feature of global politics in play – ideology, nationalism, aid, integration, division, and security, for example.Footnote4 Using the lens of states and their national interests, this symposium is among the first comprehensive efforts to combine IR perspectives, space studies, and the history, politics, and economics of Asia – a region with the most dynamic, ambitious, and competent sovereign space powers today. Alongside China, Japan, India, and North Korea, South Korea has risen rapidly as another determined player that is leveraging its industrial capabilities, alliances, and networks to position itself in the unfolding competition of the new space race. Australia and New Zealand, and other countries in South and Southeast Asia have also long been marked with emerging space activities and ambitions.Footnote5 These developments come at a time when both the United States and China are leading two different space regimes that extend beyond territorial matters to Low Earth Orbit (LEO) and celestial bodies.Footnote6 What states are doing in the IR of space, who with, why, and how affects prospects for war and peace. One indication of the importance of space nested in the contemporary geopolitical flux is reflected in The Camp David Joint Statement from August 2023, in which the U.S., South Korea, and Japan seek to enhance trilateral dialogues on space security.Footnote7 This essay guides readers to developments in the space domain, and the ways they connect to the theory and practice of IR. The first part interrogates the idea of the IR of space at the broadest level, and sets out the three principal trends that are shaping its evolution today – democratization, commercialization, and militarization (DCM). The second part then turns to asking where Asia fits in this tapestry, drawing on the intellectual lineage of key debates in the field as well as the findings from this symposium. The third part extracts some thematic takeaways that are likely to be of interest to makers of space policy, strategy, and diplomacy. What is the International Relations of Space? Space has always been – and will long remain – couched in IR theory that is centrally concerned with alternative explanations about competition and cooperation.Footnote8 The paradigmatic or theoretical approach analysts bring to space – such as realism, liberalism, constructivism, and so on – has consequences for relations among and within states.Footnote9 Political scientists are increasingly interested in the theory and practice of the IR of space, and in understanding the implications for real-world collaboration, competition, leadership, and diplomacy.Footnote10 This section provides a guide to the principal actors and the trends of the new space race in which they seek to position. The State in the International Relations of Space For the foreseeable future, outer space affairs will remain rooted in the geopolitics on Earth, and this will necessitate a focus on the makers of policy, strategy, and diplomacy. Nothing about this is new. Space could not escape the “political rivalries of this world” in the old space race; and the idea that U.S. leaders may well have had no option from the late 1950s onwards but to “allow for all possibilities by speaking of idealism and acting with realism” speaks with equal force to the complexities of decision-making in the present space race.Footnote11 The IR of space is about actors, their motivations, and the consequences of their actions for stability in, through, and at the nexus of space. This general framing of the IR of space draws attention away from unproductive and narrow theoretical debates, encourages analytical eclecticism, and privileges a pragmatic, policy-relevant, and problem-focused approach.Footnote12 Further, the approach locates actions and agency in known circumstances, remains deeply attentive to both material and ideational processes over time, is mindful of situational idiosyncrasies, and in sync with the inevitable ups and downs of geopolitics. Frankly, this kind of eclectic pragmatism is necessary in a dynamic domain in which scholars and practitioners want to grapple with visible challenges that need real-world solutions. As in other areas, a focus on states allows us to capture the “deeper political foundations, trajectory, centrality, and implications”Footnote13 of newer developments that can be consequential for the theory and practice of IR. Even when theoreticians are supportive of, opposed to, or merely agnostic about states as a unit of analysis, almost all of them have to grapple with interactive state actions at both the domestic and international levels.Footnote14 The idea of space policy analysis, which draws attention to sub-state actors and drivers of decision-making while crisscrossing levels of analysis, certainly enriches our understanding of major players beyond the West.Footnote15 But in many emerging space countries, and especially in the IR of Asia, the state remains the gatekeeper to the domestic-international nexus. Focusing on states also induces an equality in the IR of space, as many developing and emerging countries do not have the numerous legal, commercial, and nonprofit actors from the advanced industrial world who seek to influence outcomes across international forums and processes. This state-centricism is especially relevant in the strategic space domain − 95% of which comprises dual-use space technologies.Footnote16 In it, states are proactively seeking to position their countries vis-à-vis others because its very duality promises both civilian and military benefits. This reality is reinforced by the present legal space regime, which privileges the role of states as a matter of public international law. As on Earth so also for space, it is ultimately states that back and consume innovative space technologies, design strategies and policies, and construct or scuttle governance in line with their political and economic interests.Footnote17 None of this is to suggest that states are the only actors in the space domain, or that their preferences magically prevail in all matters of policy, strategy, or diplomacy. Rather, at the end of the day, it is states that possess both the ultimate and final authority over their citizens, thus regulating how this collective interacts with its counterparts.Footnote18 The Key Trends Shaping the IR of Space The new space race demands as well a new way of seeing the whole picture, which balances its principal trends without privileging any one of them. All states are presently navigating the intersections of three deeply intertwined trends in the new space race that pose novel questions and challenges for their own security – democratization, commercialization, and the slide from militarization to outright weaponization (DCM).Footnote19 While these trends may be analytically distinct, they are in reality fluid, nonlinear, and synergistic. They are interwoven into the fabric of the IR of space today, and if a problem-focused approach is to lend itself to real-world solutions it is meaningless to talk about strategy or policy concerning one or another in isolation. This has implications for IR theory more generally. A plethora of well-debated approaches, concepts, and constructs mark its two main subfields of international security and international political economy across all regions of the world – war, peace, balance of power, industrial policy, interdependence, governance, norms, diplomacy, for example. These theoretical constructs have to reconcile with the complexities of DCM. Doing so prevents hyperbole about a “knowable and certain future” for organizations, societies, and soldiers with stakes in space.Footnote20 It encourages vigilance about the commercialization-militarization axis fueling gray-zone ventures in space, where a commercial space actor operating for a rival could do what previously was the realm of only government military operations.Footnote21 It prevents naïve thinking that space commerce is unrelated to defense, or that private assets cannot become legitimate military targets in the fog of war.Footnote22 When it comes time to pass United Nations resolutions backed by a leading space power that can govern prospects for space safety how old and new actors in space align diplomatically on a normative basis is affected by their industrial and political interests in the context of DCM.Footnote23 The high-profile return of industrial policy in the U.S. stretches to the space industrial base, and includes efforts to strengthen the resilience of its supply chains with commercial space players and nongovernmental actors.Footnote24 As an analytical rubric, the trends in the DCM triumvirate, fleshed out below, help states see the many moving and equally important parts of the new space race, connect actions and technologies involving their counterparts spread around the world, and build a far more balanced awareness of the policies and strategies necessary to advance their own interests amid all the dynamism. The triumvirate, in short, is a powerful conceptual reminder for all states that “the church of strategy must be a broad one” in the space domain.Footnote25 One trend of the triumvirate stems from changes in manufacturing and accessibility, which have opened up — or “democratized” — the space domain to newcomers. Many of the newer state entrants have created space agencies, written national space legislation, targeted specific manufacturing or regulatory niches, and signed agreements with international partners and private companies. Alongside the rising number of nation-states, this democratization draw in nongovernmental entrants such as commercial startups, activist billionaires, criminal syndicates, and so on who could aid or thwart government objectives.Footnote26 New actors continue to proliferate across all regions and continents, with activities that crisscross the public and private spheres and that affect prospects for transnational collaboration in myriad ways. The year 2023 is illustrative of democratization in practice. In mid August, the SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft reached the International Space Station (ISS).Footnote27 This was the seventh crew rotation mission by SpaceX, a private U.S. company, and it carried four civilian agency astronauts from America, Europe, Russia, and Japan. In its previous mission to the ISS, SpaceX flew NASA astronauts, along with those from Russia and the United Arab Emirates. Earlier in May, SpaceX used its Dragon spacecraft and Falcon 9 rocket to launch an all-private astronaut mission to the ISS for a company called Axiom Space, which aims to build the world’s first commercial space station; it then carried passengers from the United States as well as both a male and female astronaut from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.Footnote28 Democratization extends to the moon. With India’s successful soft-landing on the moon in August, yet another Asian country after China now holds the distinction of being on the lunar surface.Footnote29 Private actors in Asia are also part of the tapestry. While a lunar lander attempt by a private Japanese company, ispace, was not successful in April, the company is persevering with bringing both governments and private payloads to the moon.Footnote30 More foundational for the purposes of enabling certainty for commercial transactions are some of the steps ispace took prior to the launch. It was granted a license by the Japanese government to engage in an “in-place” property transfer of ownership of lunar regolith to NASA. All these developments represent a dramatically varied landscape, which also raises challenges for building meaningful consensus in the years ahead.Footnote31 A second trend in the triumvirate is commercialization, driven by a whole new generation of space entrepreneurs. Chief among their unprecedented innovations are reusable rocketry and mega-constellations of satellites, driven by so-called newspace corporations such as SpaceX, Blue Origin, Rocket Lab, Amazon, Planet, ICEYE, Blacksky, Axelspace, and Synspective. Together these companies have not only changed prospects for frequent and cheaper access to space, but they have also changed the geospatial view of virtually all human activities on the planet, whether on land or the oceans.Footnote32 These newer entrants present competition for more established players like Boeing, Arianespace, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Mitsui, and Thales Alenia, for example. All these corporations seek profitable niches in the global space economy, which one estimate puts at a minimum of $384 billion in 2022 and others put higher.Footnote33 Notably, the present satellite industry accounts for over 70% of the space economy. This indicates a “space-for-earth” economy, meaning space goods and services with direct use on Earth such as telecommunications and internet infrastructure, Earth observation satellites, military satellites, and so on.Footnote34 This reality accounted for 95% of the revenues earned in the space sector in 2019. Given the dependence of the global economy on space-based assets, some argue the commercial peace thesis may stay the hand of space-related conflict.Footnote35 This is good news also if the space market grows, as projected, to between $1.1 trillion and $2.7 trillion by the 2040s.Footnote36 But there is a healthy debate about what else may be scalable beyond just the satellite-enabled communications infrastructure that sustains the space economy at present. Further, despite all the rosy projections about the space economy, there is little information about which of the venture-backed private newspace entrants is or likely to be profitable anytime soon. After over two decades of operation, it is only recently that SpaceX, which leads with its rocket launches and internet-satellite business, has reported it generated $55 million in profits on $1.5 billion in revenue in the first quarter of 2023.Footnote37 In the non-satellite segment of the space economy, the search for new markets and customers certainty continues worldwide. But government budgets will matter to the survivability of many innovative technologies, products, and services where market prospects are nascent, emerging, or just plain uncertain. These include, for example, commercial human spaceflight, space stations, lunar landers and habitats, and space resources mining. The total governmental budgets for space programs worldwide is estimated to be between $92.4 billion to $107 billion.Footnote38 The U.S. government leads the world with the largest institutional budget at around $55 billion; setting aside the collective European budget at $14 billion, the single-country budgets that successively follow the U.S. are China (speculatively, $10 billion), Japan (over $4 billion), Russia ($3.5 billion), and India ($1.96 billion). More generally, the presence of government actors alerts us to a range of theoretical political economy considerations that cut across geopolitics and geoeconomics in the space domainFootnote39: the logic of state-centricism in and out of Asia in fostering innovation, the multifaceted drivers of space commercialization and privatization around the world, and the newspace business hype that needs to be reconciled with the dynamics of state interests in economic-security linkages. A final trend in the DCM triumvirate is militarization sliding into weaponization of a dual-use technology. But we may be returning to the historical roots of space technology because what we now think of as dual-use originated as military first.Footnote40 From rockets to satellites to missile defense, civilian and commercial space technologies can be morphed to serve military or national security ends. A state’s military space power can be measured not just by total space expenditures but also latent capabilities in existing commercial architecture.Footnote41 Many actors can access, or collaboratively develop, a wide spectrum of military capabilities while professing to pursue worthy civilian and commercial goals, such as launching rockets, enabling satellite communication, expanding Earth observation, developing GPS capabilities, or servicing malfunctioning satellites. These activities can be legitimized as peaceful and defensive, but their uses can also be converted to offensive purposes. As more actors join space activities and as commercial players spread space products and technologies around the world, the ambiguities of dual-use space technologies make it more and more difficult to distinguish a space asset from a weapon, or space control operations as defensive or offensive. This melding of the commercialization-militarization axis means that many advanced, emerging, and disruptive technologies that are significant for defense applications and for potentially gaining an edge over rivals are couched in commercial rather than military-industrial complexes; these technologies and capabilities are also spread unevenly across geopolitical lines.Footnote42 Depending on their financial and organizational capacities to adopt innovations, states may well face risky scenarios in an international system out of tune with power realities in which the actual balance of power diverges sharply from the distribution of benefits.Footnote43 Further, the problem is that all space assets are equally vulnerable to a range of both kinetic and non-kinetic threats, which can go from an irreversible missile hit to temporarily disabling electronic and cyber attacks on a space asset.Footnote44 Since it is hard to separate military and civilian space services, accidental or purposeful actions against those used by the military would inevitably also affect those used by civilian and commercial stakeholders. Protecting access to space and safeguarding operations within space are, therefore, a vital interest for all states interested in space for national advancement. Unfortunately, no orbit is safe or secure. This is especially concerning for the United States, which is the world’s most space-dependent power, and whose nuclear command-and-control operations worldwide rely on space assets. As of January 2023, roughly 67% of all operating satellites belonged to the U.S., with a significant part of them commercial.Footnote45 This dependence will only grow as U.S.-led mega constellations, as well as other in-space activities, proliferate. Accidents can happen, and this specter is rising as orbits become more and more crowded with civil, commercial, and military activities.Footnote46 Orbital debris, big and tiny leftovers from decades of space activities that whiz around at lethal speeds, already represent known hazards. The ISS often has to maneuver to get out of the way, and functioning satellites are also vulnerable. Satellites can collide accidentally, degrading or ending their operations; human beings can die. But it is the menace of purposeful and deliberate targeting of the space-enabled infrastructure that cannot be ruled out in the geopolitical turmoil today. There is an intensifying strategic competition between the U.S. and its allies, China, and Russia over the making of a new world order.Footnote47 This means also that there are ample incentives for U.S. adversaries to deny the heavily space-dependent United States use of its space assets in peacetime or wartime under cover of dual-use ambiguities; there are also incentives for the U.S. and its allies to do the reverse to adversaries.Footnote48 In all likelihood, every country would suffer under such scenarios, but the heavily space-dependent U.S. would suffer most. Kinetic anti-satellite (ASAT) tests have already been carried out by some of the top spacefaring powers – China (2007), the U.S. (2008), India (2019), and Russia (2021) – and have led to a U.S. declaration to ban them.Footnote49 In the non-kinetic realm, cyber attacks are a looming realistic threat for satellites and other space assets just as they for any another digitized critical infrastructure.Footnote50 Many key U.S. allies, such as Japan and Korea as well as members of NATO, see the same threats and, with extended deterrence in mind, have begun working closely with the U.S. to reshape security architectures and postures in the space domain. The war in Ukraine has also changed perceptions worldwide about the safety of the critical infrastructure of space, with Russia’s electronic and cyberattacks targeting satellite systems.Footnote51 Both the U.S. and its allies also understand that targeting U.S. space assets affects the great power status of the U.S. – the basis for its hard and soft power – which is why space will long remain a national and international imperative. Space is also pivotal because it is at the intersection of virtually all emerging and disruptive technology frontiers, such as AI, quantum computing, and cyber weapons, which can potentially affect a country’s military edge over others.Footnote52 One indication of the importance of U.S. space systems to the government for critical national and homeland security functions is reflected in institutional budgets. Worldwide, in 2021, an estimate is that civilian budgets were around $54 billion and military budgets at about $38 billion.Footnote53 The United States stands out relative to the rest of the world, irrespective of the actual size of these budgets, accounting for just under 60% of all government expenditures on space program on a global basis. The U.S. military space budget is estimated to be between roughly $30–34 billion dollars, significantly higher than its civilian budget at around $25–26 billion. With the formation of the U.S. Space Force, and the perceived growing threat to space, these patterns are unlikely to shift and will affect the evolution of U.S.-led space security architectures worldwide. Beyond orbital regimes, there are also concerns about celestial bodies, which include the moon, Mars, comets, and asteroids. The moon has become a prestigious prize. There is a race to put the next humans and outposts on it. While every state wants to be a space nation and to benefit from space-enabled prosperity and security all the way to the moon the simple point is that not all of them can be in the elite club of states who have the will and capabilities to do just that.Footnote54 Collaboration too is likely to remain divisive in the new lunar space race, whether intentional or not.Footnote55 54 countries have already signed the Artemis Accords led by the U.S. since 2020, which contain principles outlining civil exploration in space that are heralded for their openness, transparency, and predictability for all stakeholders.Footnote56 Meanwhile, China has entered into an MOU with Russia to establish an international lunar research station, with multiple scientific and exploration objectives, that is likely to be constructed on the south pole of the moon.Footnote57 The south pole on the moon is where both China and the U.S. have marked out potential landing sites as their new competing lunar programs get underway.Footnote58 It is also the region in which India, a signatory of the Artemis Accords, was instrumental in confirming the presence of water and where it has also soft-landed before anyone else.Footnote59 While no IR analyst can easily predict how the strategic culture of any state will affect its behavior in the context of space resources or space habitats it is foreseeable that such developments are significant for advancing national and relative power.Footnote60 The defense-industrial complex in the United States is paying attention to what all this will mean for the balance of power in space. The LunA-10 framework represents the next-generation quest for an integrated 10-year lunar architecture that could catalyze a commercial space economy with the U.S. in the lead.Footnote61 How competition and collaboration play out depends on how states choose to reconcile the trends of the DCM triumvirate with their own interests as they, and their counterparts, all set their sights on the moon. As technologies are always uncertain and the landscape of allies and rivals can shift, diplomacy for space security may be more necessary than ever as these lunar armadas set off.Footnote62 How Does Space Fit in the International Relations of Asia? The new space race is not going into some vacuum in the study and practice of the IR of Asia. Nor are the regional space politics divorced from the DCM trends that are reshaping prospects for all actors across all continents. There is history and intellectual precedent in how we can expect Asian states to engage with DCM trends, signifying also prospects for conflict and collaboration both in and out of the region. It is especially important to get this narrative right at a time when Asia can boast the greatest concentration of independent and autonomous space powers relative to every other region on the planet, making it pivotal for the future of space security. These are, to date, also the principal powers who have been central to shaping the dynamics of the IR of Asia in the world – China, Japan, India, North Korea, and South Korea. Caveats and Preexisting Works A few things first. This is not the place to get into polemics about what Asia is, a contested term that is perhaps most useful for differentiating it from the equally murky idea of the “West.”Footnote63 For the purposes of this essay the most useful broad category is the one from the United Nations which categorizes Member States into the regional group of the “Asia-Pacific.”Footnote64 This includes countries from Northeast, Southeast, South, Central, and Southwest Asia as well as those from the Pacific islands. This keeps us attuned to not just to the activities of the independent and autonomous space powers, but also others in the broader Asia-Pacific, such as Australia, New Zealand, and others in Southeast, Central, South, and West Asia, who are also making strides and positioning in the DCM triumvirate. This broad sweep is likely to be most useful for understanding the entanglements of the space domain in the years ahead. There is of course a substantial body of knowledge on the IR of Asia. This is also not the place to do justice to the painstaking works that have, over decades, improved our solid understanding of key aspects of the IR of Asia and allowed us to portray region-wide, sub-regional, and extra-regional interactions. A few broad works can only help us extract and reflect on the broad nature of the subject-matter involved in the making of IR of Asia to date, which continues to resonate in debates about whether or not Asia’s geography is “ripe for rivalry.”Footnote65 In very broad brushstrokes the subject-matter includesFootnote66: historical, political, and social forces that have shaped the region over time; the relevance or irrelevance of mainstream Western IR theories; the making and makeup of foreign economic or security policies; the drivers of integration or rivalries amid structural global shifts, the organizational and institutional patterns of governance, for example. More closely mirroring the IR concepts and constructs noted earlier, there are also in the IR of Asia prominent cross-cutting ideas, such as the role of states and industrial policy, economic-security linkages, technonationalism, economic regionalism and interdependence, regional organizations and institutions, balancing, bandwagoning, hedging, alliances and security architectures, and so on. But as in IR more generally, so also regionally there appears to be less of a focus on integrating space technologies into the broader fabric of changed global and regional politics. In terms of work on specific technologies in Asia, there has certainly been longstanding attention on conventional military capabilities, nuclear acquisitions, and ballistic missile defense, all of which can exacerbate security dilemmas. But there is less so on space in particular, though a number of works have contributed to our general understanding of individual space powers in Asia.Footnote67 The findings from this symposium, interwoven with IR themes below, also contributes to advancing these knowledge frontiers with implications for national interests, regional risks, and interstate stability. A cogent case for a space race in Asia back in 2012 did not prejudge any particular outcome for space security. Footnote68 In the broad sweep of space activities across Northeast, Southeast, and South Asian countries, one conclusion at the time was that Asia’s emerging space powers were keenly attuned to keeping score, following relative gains, and marking nationalist advantages vis-à-vis regional rivals. Footnote69 From the benchmark of that study, the question is what has changed in terms of Asian states and their motivations in a world returned to great power competition. Su-Mi Lee raises these questions at the start of this symposium focusing on the case of South Korea: Will South Korea and other Asian states take sides between great powers building competing blocs in the region? Or as a middle power, will South Korea recast itself as an agenda setter, rather than a passive follower, and expand its own network in space development, independently of great powers, and contribute to the peaceful uses of outer space? Jongseok Woo offers up a view on the impact of the ongoing Sino-U.S. rivalry in the Asia-Pacific region specifically on South Korea’s strategic choices in security and military affairs, as well as its space policies. There is a close connection between South Korea’s space policies and its broader economic, security, and military interests. He asserts that South Korea’s choice to align with the United States and China on trilateral cooperation in space development has arisen directly as a response to China’s assertive and aggressive policies in the Asia-Pacific region, which have also fostered negative perceptions about China among South Koreans. Material and Ideational Building Blocks There are also material and ideational building blocks that clue us into the ways space can be brought into the IR of Asia. They can guide work at a theoretical level, illuminate intersections with the politics and trends of the DCM worldwide, lead to distinctive expectations about collaboration and stability, and help us reflect on likely pathways for policy, strategy, and diplomacy in the new space race. There are three thematic clusters fleshed out below that might prove to be fruitful for these aims: (1) the state and industrial policy, intertwined with thinking on technology, economic-security linkages, and geoeconomics, (2) complex regional interdependence including economic integration, supply chains, and institutional governance, and (3) security architectures and alliances amid the changed geopolitical dynamics of the U.S.–China bipolar competition. All these clusters suggest that divorcing military and economic security for states in the region would be an analytical and policy blunder in the new space race. The Evolution of the State and Industrial Policy First, whatever the debates about its nature,Footnote70 the state in the IR of Asia is alive and well. Relative to other actors, it is unlikely to be displaced as the preeminent sovereign entity, particularly in matters of industrial and technological transformations. It has a distinguished pedigree in the region, finding its conceptual role at the center of huge theoretical and policy controversies about states and economic development.Footnote71 At one point, eight economies – Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, Taiwan, and Thailand – rose prominently in the international economy, a phenomenon that became known as the “East Asian miracle.”Footnote72 At the heart of the controversy was the role played by states, and whether their interventions in the market made the difference to their economic and industrial transformations. The domestic institutional configurations of the so-called newly industrializing countries (NICs) also drew attention to the reasons why states could manage to undertake industrial policies in the ways they did.Footnote73 All this came at a time of new thinking about the merits of free trade, in which activist trade policies were shown to possibly advantage some countries relative to their competitors especially in high-technology industries.Footnote74 As today, so then, high-technology industries, such as semiconductors, were at the epicenter of controversies about the fairness of then perceived Japanese activism.Footnote75 Asia is again center stage in these policy concerns, such as those about the foundational global value chain in semiconductors that fuel high-technology production and consumption. Between 2016 and 2020, 26 economies in Asia and the Pacific accounted for about 84% of total world integrated circuit exports.Footnote76 They also accounted for about 62% of total world electrical and optical equipment exports in 2021. Long mindful of their positions in the global political economy, all this suggests that for states of all stripes across Asia “developmentalism is not dead,” picking winners is still of interest, and, as in the past for other strategic sectors so also for the foreseeable future, Asian states will remain involved in shaping the frontiers of space technologies to their home advantage.Footnote77 Industrial policy motivations have clearly been a driver of South Korea’s expanding space program, and Kristi Govella points out the South Korean government has considered potential commercial opportunities when making decisions about how to structure its engagement with regional space institutions. The maxim of “rich country, strong army” pervades the intellectual landscape of prominent works, alerting us that for many countries in Asia the synergistic pathway to security comes through technology and the economy. These symbiotic economic-security fundamentals resonate in both regional and country-specific works.Footnote78 Japanese planners, for example, have long enhanced Japan’s technological edge by stimulating the interdiffusion of civil-military applications and the nurturance of a military-commercial axis.Footnote79 While not inattentive to the policy tradeoffs that must be made in practice, the Japanese state remains consistent in the twin goals maximizing both its military and its bargaining power through economic means.Footnote80 China is held up as a techno-security state – innovation-centered, security-maximizing – at a historic moment of bipolarity in world politics in which both China and the U.S. see the economic-security nexus as a pivotal peacetime battleground.Footnote81 These themes resonate also in the idea of geoeconomics – best thought of as “the logic of war in the grammar of commerce” – that would hold in a world of territorial states seeking technological innovation not just for its own sake but to explicitly maximize benefits within their own boundaries.Footnote82 With themes that echo seminal works on economic-security linkages,Footnote83 the practice of geoeconomics means the use of economic instruments in defense of national interests and geopolitical gain while being watchful of the impact on the home country of others doing exactly the same.”Footnote84 Whether geoeconomics is criticized or refined as an idea,Footnote85 is considered relevant or irrelevant to state conduct, or even goes in and out of fashion, its core continues to resonate in lively debates about the nature of statecraft in the IR of Asia.Footnote86 The case of space in South Korea is instructive along these themes. Given that the economics of the space industry require a long-term commitment with massive investments, Wonjae Hwang’s principal argument is in line with the idea of the developmental state. The South Korean government is taking a lead role in developing the space industry, and its core geoeconomic strategy in space manifests in the promotion of public–private partnerships. By building a strong governing structure within the public sector, coordinating with selective private partners, assisting them with financial support and technology transfer, the government has built strong partnerships with private firms in the space industry. There are plans to establish also a guiding public institution, which can make far-sighted plans for space development, implement the plans, and control associated institutions. As a latecomer to the space race but as a critical player in the global supply chains in the space industry, he also discusses how South Korea has promoted international partnerships with other space powers such as the U.S., EU, India, Australia, and the UAE. Complex Regional Interdependence Second, Asian economies and their integration into the international system makes them pivotal players. But indicators suggest that regional economic integration is important too.Footnote87 A regional cooperation and integration index, which tracks and meshes key dimensions across all principal regions of the world is noteworthy.Footnote88 In 2020, the index in which higher values mean greater regional integration, the EU was recorded at 0.59, North America at 0.49, and Asia and the Pacific at 0.43. This puts the Asian region on par with its peers in the global political economy. As concerns about supply chain vulnerabilities rise worldwide, less visible forces behind Asian economic fusion will also rise to shape strategies. In 2014, production networks were acknowledged as outlets for new modes of interstate friction such as between Japan and China but were still seen as reinforcing traditional commercial liberal arguments.Footnote89 Over time, despite the dramatic expansion of global supply chains involving all actors in the region over, the phenomenon remained underappreciated. But work on point finds that they may be more distinct, complex, and unique mechanisms of interdependence, and could well affect prospects for interstate conflict and cooperation in and out of the region.Footnote90 Their very presence complicates blustering proclamations of decoupling or derisking in both regional and global politics. States across Asia remain watchful about trade and investment agreements to enhance their regional and international economic prospects.Footnote91 Whatever the criticisms about this institutional proliferation, it draws attention to Asian standing and strategies relative to other regions. Among the most high-profile developments is the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), with 15 members including 10 ASEAN countries as well as Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea.Footnote92 China and Japan, respectively, account for around 48% and 19% of the RCEP GDP.Footnote93 RCEP’s comparative indicators put it ahead of its peer agreements, with 28% of global trade, 31% of the share of global GDP, and about 30% of world populationFootnote94 The agreement’s economic significance was deemed considerable, with one estimate suggesting it could generate over $200 billion annually to world income, and $500 billion to world trade by 2030.Footnote95 The duality of space technology also creates new dynamics for the IR of space in Asia. Even agreements that are technically about trade can be seen as opportunities to enhance alliances and alter the broader security context.Footnote96 This thinking should be borne firmly in mind in analyses of regional space governance, which is nested in broader international legal and normative frameworks. The degree of institutional density in an issue area, such as preexisting rules or regimes on point, may condition the type of diplomacy countries like China pursue in projects from space stations to lunar research stations.Footnote97 It also affects how countries like Japan can use institutional constructs for political reassurance in the region.Footnote98 At present, two markedly different Asian institutions, the China-led Asia Pacific Regional Space Organization (APSCO) and the Japan-led Asia-Pacific Regional Space Agency Forum (APRSAF) mark diplomatic prospects for the regional dynamics of collaboration and competition stretched over decades.Footnote99 Asia also leads other regions with two other space-centered institutions, the India-led Centre for Space Science Technology and Education in the Asia-Pacific (CSSTEAP) and the China-led Regional Centre for Space Science Technology and Education in the Asia-Pacific. Kristi Govella argues that these institutions have been shaped by broader geopolitical dynamics in the region, and that rising space players like South Korea carefully choose how to engage with these regional institutions on the basis of economic, security, and institutional factors. She further claims that diplomatic engagement with regional space institutions can complement states’ security alliances and bolster relationships with other like-minded strategic partners. Future patterns of regional cooperation will also continue to shape and be shaped by nonhierarchical international regime complexity in the space domain.Footnote100 Current trajectories suggest scenarios in which states’ à la carte approaches affect the integrity of existing cooperative multilateral space law and processes. Security Dynamics and Alliances Third, there is evidence for longstanding expectations that Asia’s economic rise would lead to increased military capacities and modernizationFootnote101 The grouping of Asia and Oceania stands out in this respect.Footnote102 In 2022, it accounted for about $575 billion in military spending, with China, Japan, and South Korea making up 70% of that. This figure is second only to North America with over $900 billion of military spending, the bulk of which is by the United States. Estimates between 2018 and 2022 also suggest that Asia and Oceania accounted for 41% of the total global volume of major arms, the largest compared to other regions; and, with 11% of the total, India is the largest arms importer of all countries. All this should be set against the politics of a region with the busiest sea lanes, nine of the ten largest ports, seven of the world’s largest standing militaries, and five of the world’s declared nuclear nations.Footnote103 The region is also marked by an intensifying bilateral security competition between the U.S. and China that increases the risk of inadvertent escalation of hostilities, entangling conventional, nuclear, and space capabilities.Footnote104 The U.S. has stated outright that it will consider the use of nuclear weapons in the event of any kind of a “significant” nonnuclear strategic attack on its or its allies’ nuclear forces as well as “their command and control, or warning and attack assessment capabilities” whose nodes run in and through space.Footnote105 In believing that the U.S. seeks to lower the threshold for nuclear use and so degrade its conventional strength China is responding by expanding and modernizing both its conventional and nuclear capabilities.Footnote106 A new arms race may well be underway, enmeshing old and new warfighting domains like space and affecting prospects for arms control and strategic stability. Amid these shifting military postures and perceptions, security architectures matter and have received significant attention for their origins, shapes, consequences, and transformations in the IR of Asia.Footnote107 If, prior to the 1990s, Asia was “infertile ground” for security institutions today it seems the opposite is true; new security institutions such as QUAD have come to stand alongside old ones like the ASEAN Regional Forum.Footnote108 The United States is prominent in the region for its creation of a network of bilateral alliances seen not just as instruments of containment against rivals but also as instruments of control over allies.Footnote109 As the view of space as a warfighting domain embeds itself in regional security architectures formal U.S. allies such as Japan and South Korea in the region are coalescing, connecting and responding in distinct ways.Footnote110 As well, they are motivated by other security threats and dynamics – territorial disputes and politics, North Korean missile threats and its other purported scientific missions into space – that have sobered prospects for stability in regional and global politics. Asia is leading the world in how some of these space-centric alliance transformations are coming about, and how they may affect military operations such as communication and intelligence gathering. In practice, the U.S.-led military alliances also serve as contracts in which, while one component is certainly a military commitment, there is also agreement about a continuous (and changing) exchange of space goods and services.Footnote111 The U.S.- Japan Alliance, with its attendant geoeconomic and geopolitical elements in play, is the first bilateral one in Asia to extend to the space domain.Footnote112 Although its legal foundations need far greater clarity in light of existing international space law and policy, as well as shifting nuclear postures, this extension is nevertheless becoming more concrete with the formation of a new subordinate command in Japan for the U.S. Space Force.Footnote113 But these pronounced changes on the military side sit alongside others; the Japanese state is also continuing to bargain to enmesh its civilian and commercial space interests under the umbrella of the alliance, such as those related to GPS or astronauts on the moon. A similar story is unfolding under the U.S.-Korea Alliance. As Scott Snyder notes in this symposium, the combination of South Korea’s entry into the space launch and satellite sectors and the emergence of the Sino-U.S. geostrategic competition have made it possible for both countries to pursue bilateral cooperation within the alliance. Space cooperation within the alliance brings South Korea on board to support U.S.-led development of international norms for use of space and strengthens the U.S. space-based military infrastructure to protect South Korea from adversary threats while also assisting South Korea’s long-term aspirations to gain a part of the commercial space sector. There are also implications for the hub-and-spoke model of U.S. alliances in Asia. It may not have originally encouraged trust and interactions between quasi-allies such as Japan and South Korea that are not directly allied but share the United States (hub) as a common ally. But this model may be transforming in the space domain. Tongfi Kim explains that South Korea–Japan relations, traditionally the weakest link in U.S.–Japan–South Korea trilateral cooperation, have made remarkable progress since the inauguration of South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol in May 2022. Due to the three states’ increasing focus on space security and geopolitical development in East Asia, Kim argues, space cooperation is one of the most promising paths for institutionalizing the trilateral cooperation. What are the Thematic Takeaways? Asian states are not just passive recipients in the new space race but proactive and high-profile shapers of the DCM trends in it. They represent the new forces of democratization, which opens up diplomatic opportunities for new alignments in pursuit of material and normative quests. They know the unprecedented trends in space commercialization can boost their industrial base and position them for economic prosperity in the new frontier. They are attuned to how space militarization can give them a military edge and, carried to its extreme, how weaponization can dash prospects for strategic stability around and above us. A few takeaways stand out. The Gravity of the International Relations of Space Has Shifted to Asia Asia leads all other regions of the world with the highest concentration of independent and autonomous sovereign states – China, Japan, India, South Korea, North Korea – who possess some of the most advanced capabilities for civilian, commercial, and military space. They do not act in unison but are guided by their own national imperatives. Along with Australia and New Zealand, they are also joined by a wide variety of states in Southeast, South, and West Asia who aim for niche capabilities or capitalize on geographic locations. The State in Asia Will Be the Prime Decision-Maker in Shaping Space Activities Consistent with the state-centric nature of the IR of Asia, both the top and emerging spacefaring powers in Asia will seek to shape and balance the DCM trends in line with their own economic and political interests. They will not be dictated to, but can be persuaded through bargaining and communication. Many will try to take advantage of commercial trends abroad while reinforcing them at home, some will try to strike a balance in the commercialization-militarization axis, but a few will attempt to shift it toward offensive purposes. Dual-Use Space Technology is Another Means to Wealth and Security for Asian States All Asian states are interested in acquiring space technology, whether through direct or indirect means, to advance their prosperity and security. This is consistent with a historic intellectual lineage in the region about staying abreast of strategic high-technology sectors that crisscross civilian and military benefits, and that promise to pull other sectors along. The intersection of the space domain with emerging and disruptive technology frontiers – AI, quantum, cyber – is also of vital interest to all principal regional actors. New Patterns of Interconnectedness May Stay the Hand of Space Conflict Space nationalism drives the principal spacefaring states to compete with others in and out of the region. But continued economic integration – trade and investment flows, resilient supply chains, and space assets that facilitate them – also underpin prospects for continued engagement among all regional players. Its disruption is of concern to regional states, as in the U.S. bid to secure critical supply chains for semiconductors worldwide. As well, regional institutions that formally and informally govern relations, including those focused on space, routinize engagements, and information exchanges among all states. U.S.-Led Alliances in Asia are at the Forefront of Transforming into Space Alliances Security institutions in Asia are important for continued dialogue in the region, and for socializing emerging players into the realities of the new space race. But the designation of space as a warfighting domain — and of the U.S. declaration about the need to protect command-and-control structures that underpin extended deterrence — has put U.S.-led alliances with Japan and South Korea at the center of transformations into space alliances. This may affect the “hub and spoke” model, with the spokes also strengthening their relations in the distant future. Much however, depends on the continued domestic political support in the U.S., Japan, and Korea for alliances and such alliance transformations in the years ahead. Asian States Will Be Pivotal to Shaping or Scuttling Prospects for Peace - in Outer Space The capabilities of Asian states make them ideal candidates for large-scale collaboration in space, as well as on the moon and beyond. Diplomatically, they are being courted in the bipolar space competition between the U.S. and China. The rules on which they operate, and who gets to write and interpret them, will matter for patterns of polarity in the IR of space. Some Asian states have responded by signing up to U.S.-led interpretations of the Outer Space Treaty in practice, such as in the Artemis Accords. Other states from Asia may move to the China-led camp with Russia for an international lunar research station. 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한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском Introduction Arctic order historically, currently, and in the future reflects the world order. The idea of ‘Arctic exceptionalism’ is not valid and is a poor guide for policy. During Cold War bipolarity, the Arctic was divided between the Soviet Arctic and the Nordic and North American Arctic. US victory and Soviet defeat in the Cold War led to US unipolarity and hegemony which was the basis for a circumpolar (including Russia) liberal (as opposed to realist) Arctic order with organizations, such as the Arctic Council, International Arctic Science Committee, University of the Arctic, Barents and Bering regional cooperation, all on liberal topics such as science, environment, Indigenous rights, people-to-people cooperation.Footnote1 US unipolarity and hegemony are slipping away to world order characteristics of continued US unipolarity and hegemony, Sino-American bipolarity in economics and S&T and multipolarity illustrated by BRICS+. Sino-US competition and US-Russia conflict to the extent of proxy-war in Ukraine reflect these changes. The Arctic, which is de facto divided between the US-led NATO-Arctic and the Russian Arctic, where Russia reaches out to the BRICS+ in diplomacy, economics, and S&T, reflects these changes to world order. There is wishful thinking in the West of returning to post-Cold War US unipolar and hegemonic ‘liberal world order’ or ‘rules-based order’ and the circumpolar liberal Arctic order with it. This wish is probably unrealistic for global trends in demography, economics, S&T, legitimacy, etc. Significant conflict can be expected between the US/West and China and Russia on developments in world order, with the Global South standing by. The Arctic is likely to remain divided between the US-led NATO Arctic and the Russian Arctic seeking engagement with the BRICS+ world for the future with extremely limited cooperation and risk of spill-over from the Ukraine War and other US-Russia-China conflicts. The Arctic in international order There are two common, but invalid, narratives about the Arctic, which are poor guides for policy: First, ‘Arctic exceptionalism’, that the Arctic was apart from international politics and allowed for West-Russia cooperation unlike elsewhere, especially between the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 and the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Second, a presentist discourse, where international interests in the Arctic are seen as rising in the last 15 years, driven by climate change, the Russian flag planting on the seafloor of the North Pole in 2007, and the United States Geological Survey’s assessment of oil and gas resources in 2008, north of the Arctic Circle. Rather, the Arctic has for centuries closely mirrored the international system, whether multipolar with Western colonial empires before the World Wars, bipolar Cold War between the US and the USSR, post-Cold War US unipolarity and hegemony, or the current emerging Sino-American bipolarity and multipolarity. During 2014–2022, cooperation in the Arctic was not exceptional compared to US-Russia non-proliferation cooperation, most notably with the Iran nuclear deal in 2015, or removing chemical weapons from Syria. There was extensive US-Europe-Russia and wider collaboration around the International Space Station. There was extensive energy trade and investment between Russia and Europe, most notably with the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines under the Baltic Sea. The bipolar Cold War Arctic in the bipolar Cold War order Bipolarity with two superpowers standing out from all other great powers due to their demographic, economic, science and technology, military, and ideological weight and global claims, the US and the USSR, shaped the the Cold War order. Bipolar logic shaped the international order. John Mearsheimer explains well the structural logic of a nuclear-armed bipolar superpower security competition, and he points out how each superpower formed ‘bounded orders’ of allies and clients to discipline them and mobilize their resources. These bounded orders were the West for the US with its institutions, and the East Bloc for the USSR.Footnote2 This bipolar logic was also clear in the Arctic, divided between the Nordic and North American Arctic of the West and the Soviet Arctic by the Iron Curtain in Europe and the Ice Curtain in the Bering Strait. Circumpolar Arctic cooperation was limited to the Polar Bear Treaty of 1973 between the USSR, Norway, Kingdom of Denmark, Canada, and the US, Norwegian Soviet joint fisheries management in the Barents Sea, and some Bering Strait cooperation. The Arctic was exceptionally militarized during the Cold War driven by the mutual nuclear deterrence between the US and the USSR, where the Arctic played a central role for geostrategic and technological reasons. The Arctic was the shortest flight path for bombers and missiles, and sea ice offered cover for nuclear ballistic submarines. This exceptional militarization of the Arctic harmed the human security of Arctic local and indigenous communities through forced displacement, security service surveillance, and pollution, including notable nuclear accidents, as the 1968 B52 bomber crash off Northwest Greenland with four H-bombs causing extensive radioactive contamination of much Soviet nuclear material in and around the Kola Peninsula, including sunken submarines with nuclear fuel or weapons on board.Footnote3 Circumpolar liberal Arctic order under US unipolarity The Cold War ended with US victory and Soviet defeat and dissolution, also caused by the US pressuring the USSR into a strategic nuclear arms race, that the Soviet economy could not support. US Navy operations near the Soviet Northern Fleet nuclear bastion around the Kola Peninsula were an important part of this pressure.Footnote4 The Arctic was also part of Mikhail Gorbachev’s attempt to save the USSR by reform and lowering external tension. Gorbachev called the Arctic as a zone of peace, environmental protection and scientific collaboration in his 1987 Murmansk speech, in contrast to being at the heart of a strategic nuclear arms race with the US, which the USSR could not sustain. Gorbachev’s reforms failed to avert the dissolution of the USSR and deep socio-economic, public health, and law and order crisis in Russian society during the 1990s. The Russian State withdrew to a significant extent from its Arctic, leaving military facilities and society behind. Sino-American bipolarity comes to the Arctic The relative distribution of comprehensive material and immaterial power of the strongest States shapes international order. States stay the predominant actors since the emergence of a state system, not denying powerful non-State actors historically and today. The US unipolarity after the Cold War was an exceptional time of international history and not the ‘End of History’ as believed by some quarters in the West (Fukuyama). History is returning to normal with the return of major centres of economic output and science and technology outside the West. Ironically, US unipolarity laid the foundation for the ‘Return of history’, rather than the ‘End of History’. Since the 1990s, the world experienced globalization with economic, science and technology, and cultural integration. The US as the sole superpower provided public goods and facilitated and coordinated many of these economic, scientific, and technological, and cultural flows. Globalization undermined US unipolarity, facilitating the faster relative growth of non-Western States. China’s export-oriented growth, returning it to its historical position as one of the world’s largest economies is the most important dimension for changes to world order. In parallel, other emerging markets have grown adding multipolar dimensions to international order. International Relations theory serves to think about how to respond to the return of China. About 20–25 years ago, Professor Joseph S. Nye (Harvard University) and Professor John Mearsheimer (University of Chicago) articulated two major approaches with coherent theoretical and strategic visions for the Sino-American relationship. Nye, as a liberal institutionalist scholar and policymaker in the Bill Clinton Administration, presented a vision of ‘integrate, but hedge’. China integrated in the US-led world economy as member state of the World Trade Organization, while the US hedged against the rise of China by reinforcing its alliance with Japan.Footnote5 There were strong US and Western liberal expectations of Chinese economic growth and openness leading to political openness and reform. These expectations proved to be belied and ethnocentric. Mearsheimer, in line with his offensive realist theory, clearly outlined how the US had to keep China from becoming a regional hegemon in East Asia through a containment strategy.Footnote6 The US’ China strategy has shifted from the Nye perspective to the Mearsheimer perspective, while Mearsheimer himself is ostracized for his valid, but politically unacceptable, analysis of the Ukraine War. Mearsheimer explains how Sino-American bipolarity works with realist great power State security competition, and how competing great powers form their ‘bounded orders’ of allies and clients to discipline and mobilize these.Footnote7 The US is shaping a NATO+ order of the NATO member states and Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and South Korea. The US is increasingly engaging in trade and technology wars with China to slow down its growth rate, clearly denying its access to fundamental technologies of future knowledge-based economies. A realist focus on relative gains explains US policy to reduce China’s growth rate. China has a population more than three times that of the US with an absolute economy approaching the US economy. The US cannot allow China to catch up relatively with it, as that would imply a much larger Chinese economy than that of the US. Liberals (politically and theoretically) would ascribe the US policy to different domestic political systems, but the logic of anarchy points out how domestic political systems are of secondary concern, and empirically the US firmly bypassed and disciplined the previous Anglo-Saxon superpower, Britain. US-India relations can be expected to deteriorate with India’s socio-economic development, where India has a much younger population than China with great economic growth potential. China predicted the US abandoning its own open and globalized international economic policy out of concern for China’s relative rise to the US. China pursued a domestic and international economic policy much less dependent on US benevolence. In the domestic sphere, China pursued an economy based on domestic demand. Externally, China built up a parallel international economic and science and technology system with the Belt and Road Initiative with the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Other bodies, such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in security reflect parallel orders and institutions to the US-led Western institutions. Sino-American bipolarity also became clear in the Arctic about 10–15 years ago. China started to appear as a diplomatic, economic, science and technology actor in the Arctic. Western surprise and consternation to this development reflects the great difficulties many Westerners have in facing a world, where the Rest takes an interest in the West, and not only the West taking an interest in the Rest as during centuries of imperialism and colonialism. It should not be surprising that China as one of the world’s two largest national economies and science and technology systems (with the US) has interests in the Arctic, or anywhere else in the world. The US is globally present in politics, defence, diplomacy, economics, science and technology, culture, etc. The unfortunate Chinese term of ‘near-Arctic State’ to legitimize Chinese involvement in the Arctic drew much Western ridicule and opposition. In comparison, the US and the West seem to be ‘near-everywhere’ States. One place where the Sino-American bipolar logic appeared soon and clearly has been the Kingdom of Denmark with the North Atlantic and Arctic overseas autonomies of the Faroe Islands and Greenland. The US applies pressure on the Kingdom of Denmark to exclude Chinese investment, science and technology, in line with Mearsheimer’s argument of a superpower building bounded orders to mobilize and discipline allies and clients in security competition with a competing great or superpower. The Faroe Islands are located between Iceland, Norway, and Scotland. They are centrally placed in the Greenland-Iceland-UK Gap controlling North-South access and blocking the Soviet-Russian Northern Fleet going south for NATO or the US and NATO navies going north for USSR/Russia. The Faroe Islands are becoming increasingly independent from Denmark. Huawei has long been a partner for the Faroese telecom company, which planned to continue with Huawei for 5G. This partnership came under increasing scrutiny from Danish and US sides. The Chinese ambassador to Copenhagen during a visit to the Faroe Islands linked the Faroe Islands choosing Huawei with prospects for a Sino-Faroese free trade agreement (the Faroe Islands are outside the EU and pursue an independent trade policy).Footnote8 The US ambassador to Copenhagen publicly spoke strongly against the Faroe Islands collaborating with Huawei for 5 G.Footnote9 Greenland is geographically North American (remember the Monroe Doctrine), crucial to US (North American) homeland defence, and pursuing independence from the Kingdom of Denmark. Greenland and China have for some time eyed each other for investment and science and technology opportunities. Greenlandic independence primarily rests on economic independence from Denmark and human capital. The economic independence should be through, among other domains, mining, where China and Chinese companies were considered as very important likely investors. Copenhagen regarded Sino-Greenlandic mutual interest with great suspicion for a long time, which was evident from the report on Greenlandic mining from 2014.Footnote10 In 2014, the Royal Danish Navy abandoned Grønnedal, a small, remote old naval facility, established by the US during the Second World War, which was put up for sale. A Chinese mining company showed interest in the facility as a logistics hub for future operations in Greenland. The Danish government promptly took the facility off the market maintaining a token naval presence.Footnote11 Developing Greenlandic tourism requires upgrading the airport infrastructure, which is an enormous project for a nation of 57,000 on a 2 M km2 island. One of the finalists to an international tender was the China Construction Communication Company (4C), which might also have provided financing.Footnote12 The Danish government convinced the Greenlandic government to accept a Danish financing (with a Danish stake) of the renovated and new airports against choosing a Danish construction company.Footnote13 The Greenlandic government was reshaped over this intervention with a coalition party leaving in protest over accepting such Danish interference in Greenlandic affairs. In 2017, China publicly presented its interest in a research station in Greenland, including a satellite ground station, which the Government of Greenland might have been positive towards.Footnote14 This idea has never materialized, first probably delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, but Denmark and the US would never accept a Chinese research station and/or satellite station in Greenland. The US government has made its pressure on the Danish government public, through former Secretary of Defense, General Jim Mattis.Footnote15 China and Iceland spearheaded Sino-Nordic Arctic research cooperation from the official visit of Chinese premier Wen Jiabao to Iceland in 2012. In 2013, the China Nordic Arctic Research Center was founded, a virtual centre of Chinese and Nordic institutions hosted by the Polar Research Institute of China in Shanghai. CNARC has hosted an annual symposium between China and a Nordic country as well as researcher exchange. Today, Sweden has withdrawn from CNARC, and Denmark does not participate, as the participating Nordic Institute of Asian Studies at the University of Copenhagen has been closed. PRIC and RANNÍS (The Icelandic Center for Research, equivalent to Research Council) held the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of the China-Iceland Aurora Observatory, now China Iceland Arctic Observatory, at Kárhóll, Northeast Iceland, in June 2014, which I attended. The Observatory opened formally—although unfinished—in October 2018. This collaboration had been hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic and negligence from central authorities and research institutions in the capital, Reykjavik. Today, Iceland is under pressure from the US, including a recent visit by US Congressional staffers, to close CIAO.Footnote16 US-Russia Eastern European security competition divides the Arctic US-Russia security competition, especially in Eastern Europe, became increasingly clear from around 2007–2008. In 2007, Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a speech at the Munich Security Conference, where he unsurprisingly denounced US unipolarity. Russia had rejected US unipolarity and called for multipolarity since the Primakov Doctrine of the 1990s calling for Russia, China, and India to balance the US. In spring 2008, at the initiative of the US—and with French and German reservations—the NATO Bucharest summit invited Georgia and Ukraine to become member states. In the autumn, fighting broke out between Georgia and Russian forces in the separatist enclaves of Abkhazia and South Ossetia leading to Georgia’s defeat. In autumn 2013, the EU proposed an agreement to Ukraine, which forced Ukraine to choose between Russia and the EU. The Ukrainian President rejected the EU’s proposal, leading to popular protests met with government violence and eventually the President fleeing the country. Russia intervened annexing Crimea and supporting an insurgency in the Donbas.Footnote17 In December 2021, Russia proposed a treaty to the US blocking former Soviet Republics from joining NATO and rolling back NATO troops and equipment in Central and Eastern Europe, which was rejected by the US and allies in January 2022. On 24 February 2022, Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine, which had led to a war of attrition between Russia and Ukraine. The West extends wide-ranging political, military, economic, and further support to Ukraine and tries to isolate Russia as much as possible. The Rest of the world follows Western policy of isolating Russia to a very limited extent. The Russian annexation of Crimea affected the Arctic in limited ways. The West stopped military dialogues with Russia in the Arctic Security Forces Roundtable and Arctic Chiefs of Defense Forum. The West imposed sanctions on Russian Arctic energy projects, as the US $27 billion Yamal LNG project, which initially had Russian Novatek (60 per cent), French Total (20 per cent), and China National Petroleum Cooperation (20 per cent) ownership. Sanctions forced Novatek to sell 9.9 per cent to the Chinese government’s Silk Road Fund and rely on Chinese bank funding. Russia responded to these sanctions with counter sanctions on Western food exports to Russia, which also affected some Arctic seafood export to Russia. Russia accepted Faroese salmon exports, which led to a boom in Faroese economy. In 2014, there was some protests in the Arctic Council from the Chair, Canada. Otherwise, Arctic Council and other scientific, people-to-people, cooperation continued between Russia and the seven other Arctic States. For Northern Norway, extensive regional cooperation in the Barents region continued. The Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine led to an almost complete Western cessation of Arctic collaboration with Russia. The other seven Arctic countries refused to collaborate with Russia in the Arctic Council, chaired by Russia 2021–2023. The Seven—now all NATO member states—Arctic Council member states have since backed down significantly. The Arctic Council was always more important to them than to Russia, suggesting that this Western brinkmanship was poorly thought through. There are extensive Western sanctions against the Russian economy, including against Russian Arctic energy projects, which were a key basis for developing the Russian Arctic. Russia had sought to develop a Europe-Russia-East Asia energy system with Russian Arctic oil and gas being exported both West to Europe and East to East Asia and with balanced Western and East Asian investments.Footnote18 The West has almost completely cut science and technology relations with Russia, also in the Arctic. The rare exceptions to continued Arctic science collaboration between West and Russia are for instance, the Norway-Russia Barents Sea Fisheries Commission because Norway also depends on this collaboration. The US continues more academic collaboration with Russia than European countries allow themselves; for instance, receiving Russian Fulbright professors. Norway pursued an extensive regional cooperation policy with Russia, Finland, and Sweden in the Barents Region since 1993 with much support for cross-border people-to-people exchange for youth, in education, academia, culture, environment, business development, and further. This collaboration built extensive insight, experience, networks, and access in Russia at North Norwegian institutions, as UiT The Arctic University of Norway, UNN The University Hospital of Northern Norway, the Norwegian Polar Institute, the Arctic Frontiers Conference, businesses such as Akvaplan-Niva marine environmental consultancy, and in academia, civil society, education, and government. The border town of Kirkenes depended for about a third of its economic turnover on trade with Russia. These connections are now almost completely cut by Norwegian government policy. Russian society and politics did become much more closed and authoritarian during this period, but that was for internal political reasons and not directed against Norway. Personally, I had successful high-level academic cooperation with some of the key Russian academic institutions funded by Norwegian public funds until they were forbidden by Norwegian government policy after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. My last personal visit to Moscow was in December 2019, and I was planning to visit with a sizeable group of Norwegian faculty and PhD candidates in April 2020, postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The rapid division of world order in a NATO+ and a BRICS++ world The world is separating into a NATO+ grouping of NATO countries and Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and South Korea, under clear US leadership, and the Rest. The Rest, I call BRICS++ for the BRICS+ grouping and many other countries. This separation is clear through demography, economy, and science and technology. Humanity is about 8 billion people, compared to the West, which is about 1 billion, making it a small minority. Humanity is expected to grow to 10 billion, where the West will remain at about 1 billion, a shrinking small minority. The dominance of the West has rested on economic development and science and technology, translated into military force, with a shrinking demographic share of the world economy, scientific and technological development and relative power shifts from the West to the Rest. Legitimacy and credibility divisions are also clearly visible between the NATO+ and the BRICS++ worlds concerning the war in Ukraine, where the West is astonished by its own isolation. To great surprise, the Rest of the world have not followed the West’s attempts to isolate Russia diplomatically and economically. This rejection of the West’s position was clear from the very first UN Security Council debate on the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022. Russian veto and Chinese and Indian abstentions were not surprising, but the abstention by the United Arab Emirates was remarkable considering the close security and other partnerships between the GCC countries and the US and historically the UK. The speech during the debate on 21 February 2022, a few days prior, by the Kenyan ambassador to the Security Council, condemning Russia’s recognition of breakaway regions but reminding that other UNSC permanent members had also violated international law, showed the lack of Western credibility and legitimacy on the issue.Footnote19 Western credibility and legitimacy have eroded further by supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza since the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel. The Division of the Arctic in a NATO Arctic and Russian BRICS++ Arctic. The effects of world order on the Arctic are clear, applying the analytical lenses of unipolar, bipolar, and multipolar traits of world order to the Arctic. The world is increasingly becoming Sino-American bipolar, where the US seeks to maintain unipolarity through a global containment strategy of China. This struggle is also evident in the Arctic; for instance, US pressure on the Kingdom of Denmark to exclude Chinese investment, science and technology in the Faroe Islands and Greenland. The US keeps up an ever-stronger anti-Chinese Arctic discourse from Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s 2019 speech in Rovaniemi, Finland, to US Senator Lisa Murkowski at the Arctic Circle Assembly in Reykjavik in 2024. Russia has opposed US unipolarity since the 1990s, seeking multipolarity. The conflict between US and Russian multipolarity ultimately escalated via the 2014 annexation of Crimea, the 2022 invasion of Ukraine and the proxy war in Ukraine. This conflict has led to an almost complete division of the Arctic into NATO-Arctic (collaborating with the wider NATO+ world and further) and the Russian Arctic. Russia reaches out all it can diplomatically, economically, and in science and technology to the BRICS++ world, especially China and India. The Rest of the World seems restrained from pursuing Russian Arctic opportunities by the risk of US and Western secondary sanctions and other NATO Arctic pushbacks. Conclusion: looking forward for world and Arctic order The world is—as usual for international history—marked by the struggle over the world order among the strongest State actors. This struggle was forgotten especially by European observers during the post-Cold War era, with the illusion of End of History and confounding globalization and modernization with Westernization. Instead, we have had the Return of History and the return of historically very large non-Western economic, science and technology actors as China, followed by others. The current struggle over the world order also shapes the Arctic, as was historically clear, especially during the Second World War and the Cold War. The US is determined to prolong post-Cold War unipolar dominance expressed as ‘rules-based order’, where the US defines the rules, to whom, and when they apply. Europe has found an apparently comfortable and completely dependent position in this US-led order. The Rest of the World less so, with China and Russia explicitly rejecting this US-led order. The conflict over world order between the US and its bounded order in the NATO+ world in Europe, Oceania, and East Asia and the Rest of the World, can only be expected to escalate. The US must either stop Chinese economic, science and technology development (and later other peer competitors), or demographics, economy, science and technology will lead to a more bipolar and multipolar world. Europe by its dependence on the US is forced to follow this US strategy. The war in Ukraine can lead to a frozen conflict, where the overall Russia-West relationship remains highly conflictual, including in the Arctic. Ukrainian defeat or a negotiated settlement with a neutralized Ukraine and cessation of territory to Russia will also probably lead to a decadal severance of economic, science and technology, people-to-people ties between Russia and the West, including in the Arctic. A Russian defeat is unlikely because of difference in Russian and Ukrainian manpower and resources. China is unlikely to allow Russia to succumb to the US, which would put defeated Russia on China’s Northern frontier in China’s own conflict with the US. All in all, world order seems highly conflictual and with increased separation between the NATO+ and the BRICS++ world, which will only bring humanity more conflict and less economic development and growth, unlike the age of post-Cold War globalization. This division will be replicated in the Arctic. Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Additional informationNotes on contributorsRasmus Gjedssø Bertelsen is Professor at UiT The Arctic University of Norway. Views expressed are personal. Notes 1. Rasmus Gjedssø Bertelsen, ‘Unipolarity and Order in the Arctic’. Nina Græger, Bertel Heurlin, Ole Wæver, Anders Wivel, (Eds.), Polarity in International Relations. Governance, Security and Development, Palgrave Macmillan, Cham, 2022 at https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05505-8_16. 2. John J. Mearsheimer, ‘Bound to Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Liberal International Order’, International Security, 43 (4), 2019, pp. 7–50 at https://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00342 3. George Lindsey, ‘Strategic Stability in the Arctic’, Adelphi Papers 241, International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1989. 4. Steven E. Miller, ‘The Return of the Strategic Arctic’, in The Arctic Yearbook, 2023 at https://arcticyearbook.com/images/yearbook/2022/Commentaries/6C_AY2022_Miller.pdf. 5. Joseph S. Nye, ‘The Challenge of China’, in Stephen Van Evera (Ed.) How to Make America Safe: New Policies for National Security, The Tobin Project, Cambridge, MA 2006 at https://tobinproject.org/sites/default/files/assets/Make_America_Safe_The_Challenge_Of_China.pdf. 6. John J. Mearsheimer, ‘The Rise of China Will Not Be Peaceful at All’, The Australian, 18 November 2005 at https://www.mearsheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/The-Australian-November-18-2005.pdf. 7. John J. Mearsheimer, ‘Bound to Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Liberal International Order’, International Security, 43 (4), pp. 7–50, 2019 athttps://doi.org/10.1162/isec_a_00342. 8. Thomas Foght, ‘Hemmelig lydoptagelse: Kina pressede Færøerne til at vælge Huawei’ [Secret Sound Recording: China Pressured the Faroe Islands to Choose Huawei]. Danmarks Radio, 2019 at https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/indland/hemmelig-lydoptagelse-kina-pressede-faeroeerne-til-vaelge-huawei. 9. Adam Satariano, ‘At the Edge of the World, a New Battleground for the US and China’, New York Times, 2019 at https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/20/technology/faroe-islands-huawei-china-us.html. 10. The Committee for Greenlandic Mineral Resources to the Benefit of Society, ‘To the Benefit of Greenland’. Ilisimatusarfik-University of Greenland; University of Copenhagen, 2014 at https://vbn.aau.dk/ws/files/208241864/To_the_benefit_of_Greenland.pdf. 11. Martin Breum, ‘Analyse: Stoppede Danmarks statsminister kinesisk opkøb i Grønland?’ [Analysis: Did the Danish Prime Minister Stop Chinese Acquisition in Greenland?]. High North News, 2018 at https://www.highnorthnews.com/nb/analyse-stoppede-danmarks-statsminister-kinesisk-opkob-i-gronland. 12. Teis Jensen, ‘Greenland shortlists Chinese company for airport construction despite Denmark’s concerns’, Reuters, 2018 at https://www.reuters.com/article/world/greenland-shortlists-chinese-company-for-airport-construction-despite-denmarks-idUSKBN1H32XG/. 13. Statsministeriet, ‘Aftale mellem regeringen og Naalakkersuisut om dansk engagement i lufthavnsprojektet i Grønland og styrket erhvervssamarbejde mellem Danmark og Grønland’ [Agreement Between the [Danish] Government and Naalakkersuisut [Government of Greenland] on Danish Involvement in the Airport Project in Greenland and Enhanced Business Collaboration Between Denmark and Greenland] Statsministeriet. Formandens Departement, 2018 at https://www.stm.dk/media/8148/10-09-2018_aftale_mellem_regeringen_og_naalakkersuisut.pdf. 14. Martin Breum, ‘Kina vil bygge kontroversiel forskningsstation i Grønland’. [China Wants to Build Controversial Research Station in Greenland], 2017 at https://www.information.dk/udland/2017/10/kina-bygge-kontroversiel-forskningsstation-groenland. 15. Damian Paletta and Itkowitz Colby, ‘Trump Aides Look into US Purchasing Greenland after Directives from President’. The Washington Post, 2019 at https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/08/16/america-first-greenland-second-is-trumps-latest-white-house-directive/. 16. ‘Letter to Anthony Blinking and Lloyd Austin’, Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party, United States Congress, 2017 at https://democrats-selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/democrats-selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/10.16.24_PRC%20dual%20use%20research%20in%20the%20Arctic__.pdf. 17. John J. Mearsheimer, ‘Why the Ukraine Crisis is the West’s Fault: The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin’, Foreign Affairs, September/October, 2014 at https://www.mearsheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Why-the-Ukraine-Crisis-Is.pdf. 18. Mariia Kobzeva and Rasmus Gjedssø Bertelsen, ‘European-Russian-Chinese Arctic Energy System’,in Xing Li (Ed) China-EU Relations in a New Era of Global Transformation, London: Routledge, London, 2021, 22p. 19. Martin Kimani, ‘Statement by Amb. Martin Kimani, during the Security Council Urgent Meeting on the Situation in Ukraine’, The Permanent Mission of the Republic of Kenya, United Nations Security Council, February 2022 at https://www.un.int/kenya/sites/www.un.int/files/Kenya/kenya_statement_during_urgent_meeting_on_on_ukraine_21_february_2022_at_2100.pdf.

한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском Abstract Why is it that cross-strait tension has been at its highest since the missile crisis of 1996? Why is the USA–Taiwan–China relations so contentious since 2016? This article argues that one oft-neglected factor—nationalism and identity politics—needs to be considered as a contributing factor to the heightened tension in this triangular relationship. In all three states, audience costs have significantly increased as domestic leaders and elites appeal to populist and nationalistic positions and rhetoric. Though studies of foreign policy often claim that ‘politics stop at the water’s edge,’ populist and nationalist rhetoric in the domestic politics almost always spill over to the international arena. The convergence of Trump’s America First and the US’ obsession with its global primacy underpins and drives America’s approach to its strategic competition with China. China’s continual reference to the hundred years of humiliation in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century and Xi Jinping’s ‘China Dream’ are ethnonationalist appeals that drives China’s fight for its ‘rightful place’ in the global pecking order. Taiwan’s deepening national identity and sociopolitical de-Sinicisation while contributing the development of a separate nation-state is a direct clash to the People’s Republic of China (PRC’s) claim of Taiwan as part of its one-China principle. This article will trace and examine the role of domestic nationalism and how it has contributed to make the Taiwan Straits a ‘hotspot’ in global geopolitics and geoeconomics. Introduction The introduction of the phrase ‘Taiwan Contingency’ to the global lexicon in 2020 served to highlight how the temperature of cross-strait relations between China and Taiwan had become a key barometer that the global community was paying attention to (Taylor, 2020). It is also not a coincidence that the increasing attention paid to the Taiwan Strait comes at a time when the USA–China relationship has devolved into great power strategic competition; the Pentagon had long used the term ‘Taiwan Contingency’ in its annual assessment reports on the US military’s ability to implement the Taiwan Relations Act, going as far back as the report from the year 2000, but it was only when USA–China relations worsened and cross-strait tensions created a worry about a flashpoint that the term became widely used (Department of Defense, 2000; Wuthnow, 2020). Much has been said about the increasing tension in cross-strait relations being a result of the overarching competition between the USA and China to define their positions vis-a-viz each other in the global hierarchy. These increasing tensions have often been attributed to the inherent rivalry between an ascending power and a declining one, most notably by Graham Allison in his book Destined for War (Hanania, 2021). The idea of the Thucydides Trap as floated by Allison has become the dominant narrative in the discourse surrounding the USA–China competition and has also contributed to an arguably narrow analysis of the strategic competition. Influenced by the analysis of the Thucydides Trap, China’s actions have been cast separately as being driven by security concerns and imperial aggression, feeding into the narrative of a power struggle in the international arena between the reigning superpower and a surging new power with desires to fulfil its civilisational creed (Mazza, 2024; Peters et al., 2022; Sobolik, 2024). This view seeks to portray China as a disrupting force that seeks to upend the status quo in the international system and thereby overturn the current rules-based international order, while casting the USA as a defender standing up against Chinese aggression, and has led to the USA–China strategic competition also being referred to a ‘new Cold War’ (Brands & Gaddis, 2021; Mazza, 2024). The rising tension in the Taiwan Strait has thus been seen as serving as a frontline to this ‘new Cold War’, and that the three-party relationship between the USA, China and Taiwan serves as some litmus test of American ability to contain a rising China (Lee, 2024). In fact, China hawks in the US and Taiwanese officials have often made use of this ‘new Cold War’ setting to frame the USA–China strategic competition as a competition between autocracies and democracies, and that Taiwan’s democracy makes it worth protecting (Hung, 2022; Lee, 2024). The Taiwanese government has consistently focused on a need to build an alliance of democracies that will support the island against Chinese aggression, highlighting shared values and like-minded partners in their discourse (Ripley, 2024). Yet, a broader analysis shows how framing the rising tension in the Taiwan Strait was a by-product of the greater geopolitical struggle between the USA and China in this ‘new Cold War’ ignores other possible factors. Most notably, the impact of nationalism and identity politics on the domestic sphere needs to be considered as a contributing factor to the heightened tension in this triangular relationship. While there has been increasing attention on nationalism as a characteristic of the international system since the time that scholars like Holsti (1980) brought up the need to emphasise the ‘prominence of nationalist behaviour’ in international relations (IRs) theory, the contemporary analysis of the Taiwan Strait issue shows that most still ignore the impact of domestic pressures on foreign policy choice by the three parties in this relationship; audience costs have significantly increase as domestic leaders and elites appeal to populist and nationalistic positions and rhetoric, and these populist and nationalist rhetoric in the domestic politics almost always spill over to the international arena (p. 25). In the United States, we have the convergence of Trump’s America First ideology and the US’ obsession with its global primacy that underpins and drives America’s approach to its strategic competition with China. While in China, the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) continual reference to the hundred years of humiliation in the nineteenth century and early twentieth century and Xi Jinping’s ‘China Dream’ are ethnonationalist appeals that are used to reinforce the Party’s right to guide China to fight for its ‘rightful place’ in the global pecking order. On the island, Taiwan’s deepening national identity and sociopolitical de-Sinicisation while contributing the development of a separate nation-state create a direct clash to the People’s Republic of China (PRC’s) claim of Taiwan as part of its one-China principle. This article thus seeks to trace and examine the role of domestic nationalism and how it has contributed to make the Taiwan Strait a ‘hotspot’ in global geopolitics and geoeconomics. This is done by first analysing the literature on nationalism and its role in IRs, following which, the sections examine the unique nationalisms of the United States, China and Taiwan and their role in increasing audience costs for the political elite, which will allow us to analyse how this clash of nationalism contributes to the Taiwan Strait becoming the global ‘hotspot’ that it is. Understanding Nationalism in International Relations As previously mentioned, the literature on IRs theory mainly focuses ‘on models of international interaction based on rational action and material structural factors, and exogenising the formation of preferences and the actors’ identities’ (D’Anieri, 1997, p. 2). Even theorists who have engaged with nationalism in international relations have admitted that ‘the relationship between the two has never been an especially easy one’ (Cox, 2019, p. 249). Yet nationalism is arguably central to the practice of IRs, given how nationalism is a key factor that makes it possible to conceive of states as coherent agents, as it creates the distinctiveness that allows a nation-state to define itself in its interactions with another (Kowert, 2012; Waltz, 1959). It is almost impossible to ignore the role of nationalism given the presumed equivalence of ‘nation’ and ‘state’ in IRs theories, and how nationalism is embedded in the conceptualisation of sovereignty, which serves as a fundamental factor in the interactions between states (Heiskanen, 2019, 2021). This is especially so given how the era of globalisation has come to an end, giving rise to a period of IRs that is characterised by securitisation and the preponderance of terms like ‘national security’ and ‘national interest’ (Heiskanen, 2019; Posen, 2022). In this contemporary age, there is a heightened awareness of the need to express and protect a state’s sovereignty in its international interactions, which therefore paves the way for nationalism to be the ‘centripetal force’ in driving interactions between nation-states (Kovács, 2022; Waltz, 1959, pp. 177–178). Nationalism can play such a role in defining interactions between nation-states because nationalism at its core is the conceptualisation of the identity of the polity. Modern nationalism in that sense is the expression of the principle that ‘nation = state = people’, with the purpose of binding the people to the state under one ‘imagined community’ to justify the existence of the nation-state as a construct (Anderson, 1983; Hobsbawm, 1990, p. 19). The nationalism that defines the nation-state is neither natural nor inevitable, but rather a by-product of a nation-building effort to craft an identity that will allow the state to distinguish and therefore differentiate itself in a world of nation-states (Connor, 1990; Gellner, 1983; Smith, 1986). This creates the peculiarity of nationalism in which they are essentially all the same, yet at the same time, individually unique by necessity. It is thus the interaction between the individual uniqueness while having the same broad goals that lead to nationalism influencing the interactions of nation-states in the international arena; arguably, it is not just the strength of nationalism that is important but also the content of the national identity that helps dictate the interaction between the states (D’Anieri, 1997). The creation and the make-up of nationalisms and national identities are thus of interests for this article’s analysis of the triangular relationship between United States, China and Taiwan. The literature on nationalism and national identity gives us a breakdown on the creation of nationalism. As a relatively modern phenomenon, the rise of nationalisms around the world is a direct result of the socioeconomic upheaval that marked the progress of modernity (Anderson, 1983; Gellner, 1983). The advent of industrialisation saw the collapse of the previous social structure that separated the agrarian, merchant classes and the nobility, and necessitated the development of a new identity that would bind diverse groups of people together under the banner of a nation-state. In that regard, the creation of nationalism was necessarily top-down, often driven by the needs of the new political elite who now exercised power in these emerging modern nation-states and formed through nationwide tools such as a national language and the national education system (Anderson, 1983; Gellner, 1983). The content of the national identity though could not simply be created out of thin air where the general form of nationalisms is the same and built on a structure of common identity and a sense of belonging to a community, the content of nationalisms needed to be specific to the groups of people living in the nation-state to produce the necessary uniqueness that would engender the desired outcome. As such, nationalisms and national identities were built on the pre-existing myths and histories of the people that inhabited the land or were present at the founding of the nation-state (Billig, 1995; Calhoun, 1997; Smith, 1986). This results in various contents of the nationalism that are part ethnic but also part mythological. The next section will examine the contents of the national identities of the United States, China and Taiwan in relation to this. American Exceptionalism: America the Great Like all nationalisms, American nationalism aims to ‘legitimise, mobilise and integrate the nation, thereby promoting the unity of the national people, and demanding a sovereign state for this nation’ (Trautsch, 2016, p. 291). Yet unlike European nationalism which had existing histories to build upon, American nationalism was ‘a model of nationhood that did not rest on historic claims to antiquity nor on any sense of distinctive peoplehood’, its foundations being very much rooted on mythologising the pilgrims’ journey across the Atlantic on the Mayflower and the nation’s beginnings as a settler nation (Doyle, 2009, p. 79). The pilgrims’ journey on the Mayflower marked the separation between the ‘Old World’ and the ‘New World’, providing dividing line that forms the basis for the conceptualisation of America as unique. While American nationalism does identify its roots with the colonial migration from Europe, the beginnings of this nationalism are tied specifically to the American Revolution and the Declaration of Independence (Doyle, 2009). The War of Independence marked a coalescing of consciousness in the 13 colonies that birthed a new nation, and gave even more credence to the distinction between Europe and the ‘Old World’, and the new American nation in the ‘New World’ (Commager, 1959; Doyle, 2009). This distinction was helped by the colonies’ history as an asylum for religious dissenters, impoverished servants and assorted refugees from Europe, allowing the colonies to divest itself of its British heritage (Doyle, 2009). Yet, certain aspects of British culture did influence the founding fathers of America in the conception of the American nation. While rebelling against their colonial masters, the founding fathers framed their independence as based on the British belief in the institutions of law, liberty and representative government mixed with a healthy dose of religiosity, which, given the lack of a feudal tradition and existing aristocracy, allowed for the creation of a national consciousness that celebrated equality without the necessary social revolution that marked the ‘Old World’ (Lieven, 2012). This allowed for the image of America as a newfound promise land, further playing into the distinction between the old and new, and as scholars from Tocqueville on have noted, birthed the idea of the exceptionalism of the American nation, the ‘shining city on the hill’ (Lieven, 2012). The subsequent expansion of the USA westward that saw the eventual formation of the geographical borders of modern America helped to further this sense of exceptionalism. As the expansion evolved from purchasing land to conflict with both the Native Americans and the Spanish colonial forces, American exceptionalism took on a sense of preordination (Doyle, 2009; Trautsch, 2016). Between the Revolution and the Civil War, American nationalists who recognised the need for strengthening the national consciousness began the enterprise by focusing on the fundamental idea that ‘Americans had a historic mission and that their bond of nationhood lay in their common destiny’; this required the positioning of America’s future place in the history of the world as one that was naturally glorious (Doyle, 2009, p. 86; Trautsch, 2016). To that end, the nationalists pushed the narrative of America’s ‘manifest destiny’, an unstoppable rise for the ‘freest, the happiest, and soon to be the greatest and most powerful country in the world’ (Doyle, 2009, p. 88). The successful expansion and victories in conflict that eventuated in the American nation covering the breadth of continental North America firmly entrenched this sense of preordained greatness for the nation. American nationalism had come to encompass both the civic values of liberty and respect for institutions, and the dreams of imperial grandeur that marked them for greatness; America was free and therefore exceptional, just as America was victorious and therefore exceptional. American exceptionalism, therefore, made the nation’s ascension to the top of the global hierarchy post-1945 easy. To the American nation, having believed in their destined greatness, a seat at the table presiding over global affairs was only to be expected. American nationalism had led the nation to believe in its destiny, and it saw itself as having been chosen, or even, anointed to lead (Lieven, 2012). Such exceptionalism naturally influences modern American foreign policy, as Kristol (1983) points out: Patriotism springs from love of the nation’s past; nationalism arises out of hope for the nation’s future, distinctive greatness…The goals of American foreign policy must go well beyond a narrow, too literal definition of ‘national security.’ It is the national interest of a world power, as this is defined by a sense of national destiny. (p. xiii) American nationalism shapes the way the USA views its interactions with the world, starting with its presumption of its deserved position at the top of the global hierarchy. The mythologising of its ‘historic mission’ and ‘manifest destiny’ helped to create the paradigm that the United States is the natural leader of the world, and its national interests include the protection of its position as the leader of the world. This creates a knock-on effect in its interactions with other states; if the United States is the natural leader, then others must listen and be led, and as the leader, challenges to its primacy cannot be tolerated. However, such conceptualisation brings it into a clash with the rising nationalism of China. Chinese Ethnonationalism: The China Dream Unlike American nationalism, modern Chinese nationalism is a relatively new phenomenon. In fact, the conceptualisation of a Chinese nation did not come about until the nineteenth century, as the Chinese tried to ‘create a modern identity to cope with conditions created by China’s confrontation with the Western world’, forcing the Chinese ‘to deal with foreign concepts, including that of nation, state, sovereignty, citizenship and race’ (Wu, 1991, p. 159). Furthermore, where American nationalism was centred upon its existence as a settler nation, Chinese nationalism could rest on both historic claims to antiquity and a sense of distinctive peoplehood, as Smith (1986) would have identified it, the roots of Chinese nationalism were definitely ethnosymbolic. The 1911 Revolution that saw the collapse of the Qing Dynasty and Imperial China marked the beginnings of modern Chinese nationalism (Townsend, 1992). Where previously the conceptualisation of Chinese identity was grounded in a rich cultural heritage of stories about the ‘abstract idea of the ‘Great Tradition’ of Chinese civilisation’, the encroachment of Western colonial forces in China led to rising discontentment amongst the Chinese public and the rise of intellectual writings about a modern form of Chinese identity which combined Chinese tradition and Western nationalism (Townsend, 1992; Wang, 1988, p. 2; Zheng, 2012). Dr Sun Yat-Sen, who is acknowledged as the father of the modern nation, pushed for the creation of a consciousness of nationhood in his Three Principles of the People, advocating for the creation of modern Chinese nationalism that was centred upon the Chinese people as a unified group, which he categorised as the Chinese ethnic community, ÖлªÃñ×å zhonghuaminzu (Fitzgerald, 2016; Tan & Chen, 2013; Wang, 1988; Wells, 2001). The end of the 1911 Revolution saw the establishment of the Republic of China (ROC) with Dr. Sun as the first president (Zheng, 2012). This marked the transition of China from imperial to statehood and saw the coalescing of the consciousness of Chinese nationhood. The ethnosymbolic roots of Chinese nationalism permeated this consciousness, even the name of the Republic, ÖлªÃñ¹ú zhonghuaminguo, emphasised the belonging of the state to the Chinese ethnic nation as the first three characters of the name represent the ethnic Chinese nation. So, Chinese nationalism can be said to also equate to Chinese ethnonationalism, and as a nationalism that rested on the rich history of the Chinese people and the abstract conceptualisation of the following the tradition of great Chinese civilisations, Chinese nationalism is also beholden to a lot of nostalgia. Where Dr Sun and his fellow intellectuals pushed the creation of Chinese nationalism by appealing to the cultural heritage of Chinese civilisation, they combined this with modern western nationalist ideology that focused on a struggle for sovereignty, in this case against the Western imperial powers and the Qing rulers. As such, this nostalgia is driven by the experiences of the Chinese people during the perceived ‘century of humiliation’ °ÙÄê¹ú³Ü bainianguochi starting from the Opium War till 1945, where China struggled for self-determination only to be invaded by the Japanese prior to the Second World War (Fitzgerald, 2016; Townsend, 1992; Zheng, 2012). China, as the empire-turned-nation and heir to the great tradition of Chinese imperial civilisation, was successively beaten and this was seen as a deep shame to the Chinese people who under successively foreign oppressors, including the Manchus of the Qing Dynasty, longed for freedom and a return to glory for the Chinese nation. As such, when Mao announced the founding of the PRC in 1949, the legitimacy of the CCP in ruling the nation was built on Chinese nationalism and the part that the party played in defeating the Japanese. The CCP’s victory in the civil war was arguably also because they presented themselves as even more nationalist than the nationalist Kuomintang (KMT) that they chased out of the mainland (Gries, 2020). This close connection between the party’s legitimacy and Chinese nationalism has seen the CCP often fall back on nationalistic propaganda to shore up its position of power, most notably after the events of Tiananmen Square (Gries, 2020). With his ascension to the presidency, Xi Jinping has continued the use of Chinese nationalism to firm up the party’s hold on power, having often referred to China’s rise as the country’s national destiny, referencing the country’s glorious past and harping on the ‘century of humiliation’ that denied China its place among the world’s powers (Tan, 2023). In this current form of Chinese ethnonationalism, Xi’s slogan of ‘national rejuvenation’ helps to reinforce the concept that China, once great but humiliated by the predations of Western colonisers, is now reclaiming its previous majesty to fulfil the ‘China Dream’ (Tan, 2023). This creates the sense that China must stand up to Western powers due to their rightful placed in the world while it must also continue to address the humiliations of the past, of which Taiwan serves as a reminder of, and this creates the setting for competition with the United States and rising tensions with Taiwan. Taiwanese Nationalism: De-sinicised and Independent The case of Taiwanese nationalism is an interesting one. Of the three nationalisms examined in this article, Taiwanese nationalism is the youngest one, having come into existence only in recently. Furthermore, unlike the United States and China, there is no continuity and coherence between the nation and the state in Taiwan. The state governing and exerting authority over Taiwan’s population embodies and merges two distinct political visions, each tied to a separate national identity: Chinese and Taiwanese, as the ROC is ‘a product of Chinese history and Chinese nationalism’, having been imposed onto the island when the KMT lost the civil war and fled the mainland (Clark & Tan, 2012; Lepesant, 2018, p. 65). In fact, while the KMT exercised marital rule over the island under the regimes of Chiang Kai-shek and Chiang Ching-kuo, the party tried constantly to impose an essentialist Chinese nationalism that clashed with the memories and experience of most of the island’s population, especially those who were raised under Japanese rule (Lepesant, 2018). This directly restricted the development of a national consciousness that centred on Taiwanese-ness, which explains the relatively late creation of Taiwanese nationalism. While overseas Taiwanese who were exiled by the KMT had started to display ideologies that was a semblance of Taiwanese nationalism, it was not until the 1980s and the gradual democratisation of the island that this nationalism began to take root (Chiou, 2003; Clark & Tan, 2012; Wakabayashi, 2006; Wu, 2004). With the increasing calls for political liberalisation in the 1980s, Chiang Ching-kuo began the initial process of Taiwanisation, allowing for the appointments of Taiwanese who were ±¾Ê¡ÈË benshengren (Han-Chinese who were on the island before the 1949 migration) to political positions even in his own administration (Cabestan, 2005). This kickstarted the process of nation-building, which only moved into a higher gear with the democratisation of the island in the early 1990s as there developed a political imperative to create an identity that could unify the people on the island (Wakabayashi, 2006). Lee Teng-hui, as the president of Taiwan who oversaw the democratisation process, put his support behind the Taiwanisation movement, supporting the development of a nation-building programme that would spur the adoption of Taiwanese nationalism, against the wishes of the KMT old guard. Lee’s action in building up Taiwanese nationalism is best seen in his propagation of the idea of a ‘new Taiwanese’ national identity in his speech to the National Assembly and more concretely, the change in name for the ROC to the ROC on Taiwan (Chiou, 2003; Jacobs, 2007; Wakabayashi, 2006). As such, the content of Taiwanese nationalism cannot be separated from the complex history of the island. The roots of Taiwanese nationalism are traced to the imperial expansion of Japan in the late 1800s, while previously the island had some contact with various Chinese dynasties and a brief colonial period by the Dutch, the Qing had neglected the island which meant that Japanese colonialisation marked the modernisation of the island (Cabestan, 2005; Wakabayashi, 2006). Japanese colonial rule also sparked the development of a pan-Taiwanese identity rooted in a struggle for independence, and distinctly anti-colonial and anti-Japanese (Brown, 2004). This pan-Taiwanese identity covered all the residents of the island who were not Japanese and therefore was not just restricted to the ethnic Han Chinese. With democratisation and the push for the ‘new Taiwanese’ national identity under Lee, this pan-Taiwanese identity was used as the foundation to build a new national identity. However, this also meant that the aspects of this identity that focused on independence were subsumed into the new Taiwanese nationalism, which was further enhanced by the experiences of the Taiwanese people under KMT rule (Wakabayashi, 2006). For Taiwan, both Japanese colonial rule and the experience of the civil war of post-1945 China became the existence of the ‘others’ to the development of the Taiwanese sense of self (Wakabayashi, 2006). This therefore meant that Taiwanese nationalism was first and foremost a nationalism for an independent Taiwan. In 2000, with the election of Chen Shui-bian from the then opposition Democratic Peoples’ Party (DPP) to the presidency, Taiwanese nationalism took another step in its evolution. No longer was Taiwanese nationalism simply about the independent sovereignty of the island whilst maintaining the cultural affinity for the Chinese tradition as espoused by Lee, but now there was a clear de-Sinicised aspect to Taiwanese nationalism and national identity (Hughes, 2013; Wakabayashi, 2006). This was driven by the policies of the Chen administration which included initiatives to rectify Taiwan’s name, changes to institutions designed to promote unification with mainland China, attempts to change the ROC Constitution and most importantly, the re-orientation of the education curriculum to focus more on Taiwan and less on the mainland. This resulted in the evolution of Taiwanese national identity towards one that increasingly sidelined the culturally ethnic Chinese component, instead insisting a cultural makeup that was simultaneously Han Chinese, Japanese and Aboriginal Taiwanese (Brown, 2004; Hughes, 2013; Wu, 2004). Yet such a nationalism brings along issues given the precarious relationship between the island and its cross-strait neighbour. The Clash of Nationalisms This article aimed to examine the role that nationalism played in the rising tensions in the United States, China and Taiwan triangular relationship. The idea that nationalisms can be antagonistic to each other and lead to conflict is not entirely new, despite the lack of IR theories that appropriately accommodate for the impact of nationalism. Samuel Huntington (1996) in his book, Clash of Civilizations, argues that future global conflicts will be driven not by ideological or economic differences but by cultural and civilisational divisions due to the increasing interaction between civilisations as a result of globalisation. Huntington (1996) predicted that a rising and assertive East Asia, on the back of rapid economic development, would increasingly come into conflict with Western civilisation led by the United States, in part due to a difference in cultural values and geopolitical goals. Where some would argue that Huntington’s claims were oversimplified and may broadly reinforce cleavages, especially in the aftermath of 9/11 and the War on Terror, his basic premise provides an interesting starting point to examining the impact of nationalism on the USA–China–Taiwan relationship. While Huntington viewed the incoming conflict as drawn along civilisational lines, assuming that cultural similarities and affinities would be sufficient to create groupings of nation-states around the world that would come into conflict with each other, recent events have proven otherwise. In fact, cases like Donald Trump’s threat to put a 25% tariff on Canadian imports when he assumes the presidency in January 2025 serve as a reminder that nationalism can easily overpower any sense of cultural affinity, even between nations as closely connected and allied as the United States and Canada (Hale, 2024). The advent of modernity brought about the rise of nationalism in the nation-state, and in the bid to give the nation-state’s existence legitimacy, each nationalism was propagated as individually unique. And as such, while cultural civilisations may not be a cleavage that thoroughly defines the world today, nationalism seems to be one that could fit into Huntington’s theory instead. Given the unique nationalisms of the United States, China and Taiwan covered in the sections above, it also appears that what is happening in this triangular relationship is a conflict arising from diametrically opposed nationalisms, a ‘clash of nationalisms’ if you will. Figure 1 summarises the interactions between the nationalisms of the United States, China and Taiwan.  Figure 1. Interaction Between Nationalisms. The United States having built a national identity that centred on a higher calling to being a model nation and leader of the world sees its position at the top of the global hierarchy as sacrosanct. The reason why the concept of the ‘Thucydides trap’ has gained so much attention is because there is an inherent acknowledgement that no matter the ills that may plague the United States, it is unwilling to see the global primacy it has established after the end of the Cold War being challenged (Mazza, 2024). However, China’s ascendency on the back of its rapid economic growth and the fact that it managed to emerge from the 2007–8 Great Financial Crisis relatively unscathed has given life to the belief in the PRC that their anointed time has finally come. Driven by Xi’s desire to push Chinese ethnonationalism as a foundation for the PRC’s assertiveness in the international arena, the world is now witnessing a China that seeks to act like a great power, including a demand for regional hegemony (Mazza, 2024). Yet regional hegemony for the PRC set it in direct conflict with the United States as regional hegemony in East Asia would mean the United States having to pull back on its global primacy and cede control over the region where it has key allies like Japan and South Korea. And this is exacerbated by the anti-West element of Chinese ethnonationalism that holds the West, with the United States being symbolic of it, responsible for the century of humiliation and the country not being the rightful great power it should have long been. As the saying goes, one mountain cannot contain two tigers, the nationalisms of both the United States and the PRC are dependent on the countries fulfilling their self-perceived destiny of greatness which naturally puts them into conflict with each other and is reflected in Figure 1. Similarly, Figure 1 also shows how the nationalisms of China and Taiwan are in conflict. As mentioned above, Chinese ethnonationalism and the ‘China Dream’ are also about washing away the shame from the century of humiliation. Part of this humiliation stems from the losses to the Japanese in the two Sino-Japanese wars, of which the loss of the island of Taiwan serves as a reminder of and it is for this reason that Xi has made clear that reunification between Taiwan and the mainland is a core part of his ‘national rejuvenation’ (Sobolik, 2024). Yet, in Taiwan, the evolution and rise of Taiwanese nationalism have led to a strong Taiwanese national identity that rejects its relationship with the Chinese mainland; increasingly Taiwanese are rejecting the Beijing-led discourse of a common identity between them and the mainland Chinese, and polling shows an increasing majority of Taiwanese no longer identify as Chinese (Fifield, 2019; Wang, 2023). This sets up the two nations in a path for conflict, a worse-case scenario that experts are predicting gets ever closer, as Taiwanese independence is a redline for China that cannot be crossed, but any form of reunification for the island is incompatible with their unique and independent national identity (Kuo, 2022; Wu, 2004). On the flip side, the relationship between American nationalism and Taiwanese nationalism is somewhat complementary, as shown in Figure 1. In examining American nationalism above, we pointed out how much of American nationalism is driven by American primacy in the form of American exceptionalism. This exceptionalism has been shown to have a messianic fervour, with Badri (2024) arguing that this has led to America’s interventionist foreign policy since 1991. Yet this messianic fervour makes American nationalism the perfect complement for Taiwanese nationalism. As Taiwanese nationalism tends towards de-sinicisation and independence, it has also gone through pains to emphasise its democratisation as a key characteristic of its nationalism. This results in America becoming a natural support pillar for the objectives of Taiwanese nationalism, while America’s messianic tendencies lead it to want to support Taiwanese democracy. As a result, American and Taiwanese nationalism become complementary existences. However, that the nationalisms are in conflict do not necessarily explain the existence of the triangular relationship that has seen the Taiwan Strait become the geopolitical ‘hotspot’ that it is. In order to do so, it is important to remember that nationalism is a double-edged sword when used by governments (Gries, 2020; Tan, 2023). Since 2016, we have seen the respective governments in all three countries increasingly turn to nationalism to further their own agendas (Kuo, 2022; Restad, 2020). Trump won his first presidential victory on the back of his ‘Make America Great Again’ slogan, which implied that the greatness of the American nation had been allowed to wane by his political predecessor. In doing so, Trump had unleashed a torrent of populism built upon conservative American nationalism that centred upon how powerful and great the country was perceived at the end of the Cold War and the longing for a return to those days (Renshon, 2021). In China, Xi, as previously mentioned, turned to the concept of the ‘China Dream’ in his bid to secure the legitimacy of the CCP and his hold over power. In his elaboration, it was the preeminent task of the CCP to restore the past glory of the nation and thereby, turn the dream of a great power nation into a reality, which would aid in making life better for the Chinese people (Bhattacharya, 2019). The rise of Chinese ethnonationalism has been successful in legitimising the position of the CCP in the wake of the political turmoil of the early 2010s and increasingly we have seen assertive Chinese expressions of this ethnonationalism, be it in its ‘Wolf Warrior’ diplomacy or cases of Chinese international students in university campuses in places like Australia, United States and the United Kingdom who openly challenge their lecturers and peers who comment on issues like Taiwan and Hong Kong (Tan, 2023). While in Taiwan, the DPP under Tsai Ing-wen latched on to the anti-Chinese sentiment of the 2014 Sunflower Movement and harnessed Taiwanese nationalism and desire to exist as a sovereign people to win the 2016 presidential election from the KMT (Chen & Zheng, 2022; Clark et al., 2020). Since then, the DPP has increasingly relied on Taiwanese nationalism to secure itself electoral victories, as it provides a clear delineation on the Taiwanese/Chinese cleavage between itself and the opposition KMT, while also allowing the government to create a narrative that differentiates Taiwan from the mainland, and therefore rouse support for its cause for international recognition (Lee, 2024). In each of these countries, we have seen political leaders turning to nationalism for their own domestic agendas. However, using nationalism in such manner also means that there is a significant consequence when the desires and dreams of the nationalism cannot be fulfilled, especially for regimes that have built their legitimacy on said nationalisms. To that end, the escalation of tension in the Taiwan Strait becomes understandable. Taiwanese nationalism has led to Tsai and the DPP to insist on Taiwanese sovereignty, even without the need for actual independence, but this has crossed the CCP’s red line and Chinese ethnonationalism necessitates a reaction in the form of increased military activity. The United States, having been bound to support Taiwan due to the Taiwan Relations Act, and in part to reassert its global hegemon status, thus sees it as imperative that it continue to be involved in the situation in the Taiwan Strait, either through freedom of navigation movements or selling of arms. As each side escalates their foreign policy response to the Taiwan Strait issue, audience costs for the political leaders also increase. Having unleashed the forces of nationalism, any semblance that the political leader is contemplating backing down would have serious implications on the stability of the domestic regime. This is even more so given the looming economic challenges in each of the three nations. Conclusion Therefore, the triangular relationship between the United States, China and Taiwan is not merely a product of power struggles or ideological conflicts but a ‘clash of nationalisms’. The interplay of unique national identities, reinforced by domestic pressures, has intensified the geopolitical stakes in the Taiwan Strait, transforming it into a critical hotspot in global politics. In understanding this, we can therefore see how nationalism is in fact an important factor that influences the interactions of states in IRs theories. Declaration of Conflicting InterestsThe authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.FundingThe authors received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.Cite: Tan, O., & Tan, A. C. (2025). 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한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском Abstract Observers have noted that Washington’s policy of ‘strategic ambiguity’ aims not only to deter China from attacking Taiwan but also to keep Taipei from taking actions that may be deemed provocative by Beijing leaders. Remarks and actions taken by former United States President Joseph Biden seem to place America’s long-held ambiguous policy in doubt. It has been argued that a clear security commitment from Washington is likely to bolster Taiwan citizens’ unrealistic expectations of America’s defence support and their calls for independence, which will certainly invite Beijing’s violent responses. Employing the theory of deterrence and survey data collected in Taiwan during the past 20 years, this article examines this argument. The analysis shows that the policy of strategy ambiguity remains crucial for the peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. As China has increasingly turned itself to become a revisionist, Washington’s policy requires a recalibration, and the adjustment does not have to be a binary choice between ambiguity and clarity. Donald Trump’s return to the White House with his transactional approach to international affairs makes US policy towards the Taiwan issue less predictable, potentially leading to a volatile Taiwan Strait during his second term. Introduction One of the key aspects of US policy towards Taiwan since 1979 has been its ambiguous posture. With an objective of maintaining cross-strait peace and stability, Washington’s policy is based on its version of the ‘one-China’ policy, the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA), the three United States–China communiques and ‘Six Assurances’ (Congressional Research Service, 2024). Under this framework, Washington acknowledges that there is only one China and maintains an unofficial relationship with Taipei. The United States supports Taiwan with weapons of a defensive character and will ‘resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardise the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan’ (TRA, Section 2(6)) but it does not clarify what would trigger an American military response. The deliberate uncertainty about whether the United States would intervene in cross-strait conflicts distinctively characterises Washington’s policy of strategic ambiguity. Former United States President Joseph Biden’s repeated security pledges to Taiwan since taking office in 2021 seem to place this policy in doubt. Biden’s response to a reporter of CBS 60-Minutes was unequivocal. When being asked, ‘So unlike Ukraine, to be clear, sir, US forces—US men and women—would defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese invasion?’ Without hesitation, Biden replied, ‘Yes, if in fact, there was an unprecedented attack’ (Pelley, 2022). Although White House officials later repeatedly indicated that America’s policy towards Taiwan had not changed, Biden’s remarks generated a new round of discussion (e.g., Benson, 2022; Christensen et al., 2022) since this was the fourth time that the President made such a pledge.1 Critics point out that Washington’s deliberate ambiguity about America’s military intervention is not merely designed to deter China from attacking Taiwan. By intentionally being vague on its defence commitment, the policy also intends to keep Taipei from taking actions that may be deemed provocative by Beijing leaders (Bush, 2006). Survey data have consistently shown that few on the island are willing to be ruled by the Chinese Communist government and the majority would opt for independence if a war with China can be avoided (Hsieh & Niou, 2005; Wang, 2017). An unconditional security guarantee from Washington is likely to bolster Taiwan citizens’ unrealistic expectations of America’s defence support and their calls for independence. Because Taiwan is a democracy, the popularly elected Taipei government could take aggressive actions under public pressure, which will certainly invite Beijing’s military attacks and drag the United States into an unwanted war with China. Employing the theory of deterrence and survey data collected in Taiwan during the past 20 years, this article attempts to examine this logic with the following research questions: What is the logic behind Washington’s policy of strategic ambiguity? Why is there a call for clarity in the first place? And, what are the concerns about a policy of clarity? What would Donald Trump’s second term as the President of the United States mean for Washington’s policy on Taiwan? The Functioning of Strategic Ambiguity Fierce fighting broke out between troops led by the Nationalist Party (Kuomintang or KMT) and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on the Chinese mainland at the end of the Second World War. Under the weight of corruption, the KMT government suffered a disastrous military defeat and retreated to the island of Taiwan. As geopolitical tension mounted, Washington signed a mutual defence treaty with Taipei to contain the expansion of Communism. Several major battles were fought in the 1950s and 1960s across the Taiwan Strait. With America’s assistance, Taipei thwarted Communist military attacks on offshore islands held by Taiwan. The 1970s saw a shift in China’s strategy away from a reliance on the ‘military liberation’ of the island to a wave of ‘peaceful initiatives’ for China’s unification. However, Chinese leaders continue to regard Taiwan as a renegade province and have refused to recognise it as an equal and legitimate negotiating partner. Attempting to coerce Taipei into acceptance of the unification formula known as ‘one country, two systems’, Beijing has repeatedly warned that it would use ‘any means it deems necessary, including military ones’ (State Council of the PRC, 1993). Taipei’s loss of United Nations (UN) membership in 1971 and the normalisation of relations between China and the United States in 1972 signified Beijing’s decisive diplomatic victory. China’s growing importance in international affairs has led many countries, including the United States, to break diplomatic relations with Taiwan. After the United States and China established official ties in 1979, Washington has maintained an ‘unofficial’ relationship with Taipei. With an aim to maintain cross-strait peace and stability, the policy of strategic ambiguity was gradually articulated in the subsequent years and has become America’s key policy towards the Taiwan issue. In essence, strategic ambiguity is a policy of deterrence aiming to prevent a target state from taking unwanted actions. The deterrent effect is accomplished by the deterring state’s threat of taking actions that will potentially deny the target state’s expected gains or punish it to the extent that the costs of the unwanted acts exceed the gains it hopes to acquire. In order to be effective, the deterring state needs to show that it (a) possesses sufficient retaliatory capability to deny the fruits of unwanted actions; and (b) has the resolve to use the force so that the target state is persuaded that the threats are credible (Chan, 2003; Christensen, 2002; Wang, 2010). As the world’s only superpower, few countries can withstand the weight of American power if it were deployed against them. Washington has also demonstrated that it has the resolve to use force, as the 1995–1996 Taiwan Strait Crisis has shown. Triggered by Beijing’s military exercises and missile tests aiming to intimidate Taiwan voters on the eve of the island country’s first popular presidential election, the Clinton administration responded by dispatching two aircraft carrier battle groups to the vicinity of Taiwan. Although some may question Washington’s resolve due to the perceived decline of American power, wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan still serve as reminders of its resolve of deploying military might. Previous literature has demonstrated that credible threat is not sufficient to deter unwanted behaviour, as an effective deterrence also needs convincing assurance (Christensen, 2002; Christensen et al., 2022; Schelling, 1966). The target state will have little incentive to comply with the deterring state’s demand if it believes that it will ultimately lose its principal values. This is why various United States administrations have repeatedly assured Chinese leaders that Washington does not support Taiwan independence lest Beijing use force to realise its cause of unification for fear of Taiwan’s permanent separation from China. The flip side of this logic is to remind Taipei that America’s security commitment is not without conditions. The goal is to discourage Taiwan from taking aggressive actions towards independence, which will certainly provoke military attacks from China. Thus, the potential of taking actions to impose costs that outweigh the benefits of an unwanted action is a form of deterrence. The prospect of inaction can also exert a deterrent effect as it can raise the expected cost of unwanted acts of the target state. Washington’s ambiguous posture is said to have the effect of ‘dual deterrence’ (Bush, 2006). On the one hand, it deters Beijing from using military force against Taiwan since Chinese leaders are unsure if Washington would be involved militarily. On the other hand, it dissuades Taipei from pursuing de jure independence so that cross-strait military conflicts can be avoided. Through a web of incentives and disincentives, Washington’s strategic ambiguity has been praised as one of the most successful foreign policies as it has maintained cross-strait peace and stability for several decades. Why the Call for Clarity? If Washington’s policy has been effective, why are there calls for change? The answer lies in China’s revisionist behaviours, which have become increasingly assertive and aggressive. Indeed, deterrence diplomacy is effective only when targeted actors are conditional revisionists. Christensen (2002) provides a useful typology of different political actors for analysis. Countries like Japan, France and the United Kingdom (UK) are ‘unprovokable friends’ of the United States. They may be annoyed with Washington’s policies from time to time, like France’s fury over a submarine deal after Australia cancelling a multi-billion-dollar order with a French company and turning to the United States and the UK for a new contract (Sanger, 2021). The governments of these countries have no intention to challenge America’s fundamental national interests. Nor does Washington see them as potential threats. While deterrence diplomacy is not needed for unprovokable friends, there are also ‘undeterrable ideologues’ to whom the threat of deterrence is futile. Political actors like Hitler’s Germany and Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network are determined to pursue their political objectives and simply cannot be dissuaded. In addition to unprovokable friends and undeterrable ideologues, there is a third type of political actor—‘conditional revisionists’. They are willing to exploit opponents’ weaknesses in order to change the status quo but would refrain from taking action unless opportunities arise. Because the deterring state can hold the target state’s prized possessions hostage while at the same time provide convincing assurance, the latter has the incentive to comply with the former’s demands. This logic underlies the success of strategic ambiguity because, for much of the time since 1979, China did not possess the capabilities to directly or indirectly coerce Taiwan or challenge America’s deterrence policy. The world has witnessed a different China since the end of the twentieth century as the country has experienced rapid economic expansion. Figure 1 shows that China’s annual GDP growth rates between 1981 and 2023 generally ranged from 7.5% to 10%. With its enormous economic resources, Beijing has launched an effort to modernise its military. During the 20-year period between 1989 and 2010, as Figure 2 demonstrates, China’s military expenditures as a percentage of government spending were between 7% and 17%, far exceeding those of Japan, France and the UK. In addition to acquiring new weapon systems, the People’s Liberation Army has also developed anti-access area denial capabilities, raising concerns among American officials (Maizland, 2020; Olay, 2024). Such capabilities aim to neutralise the United States and its allies’ ability to project power in the Western Pacific region, including in the area close to Taiwan. Beijing, in recent years, has aggressively expanded its military presence in the South China Sea (Centre for Preventive Action, 2022), engaged in border disputes with India, and constructed military outposts in Bhutan (Barnett, 2021). China has also built numerous ‘re-education camps’ in Xinjiang, engaged in ‘serious’ human rights violations against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in the region (UN Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, 2022) and imposed repressive responses to the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong (Wang, 2023). With Beijing’s continuing alignment with Moscow after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Chinese leaders have shown to the world that they are willing to defy international opinions and forcefully assert their growing power inside and beyond China’s boundaries.  Figure 1. China’s GDP Growth Rate: 1961–2023.Source: World Bank Group (various years-a).  Figure 2. Military Expenditure by Country as a Percentage of Government Spending: 1989–2023.Source: SIPRI (various years). In this context, aggregated national power has increasingly shifted to Beijing’s favour over the past decades. Figures 3 and 4 juxtapose Taiwan’s and China’s gross domestic product and total military expenditures since the late 1980s. Prior to 2000, as Figure 3 shows, China’s annual GDPs were only two to four times larger than Taiwan’s, but the ratio has expanded to more than 10 times since 2008. By 2010, China overtook Japan to become the world’s second largest economy, far exceeding Taiwan’s economic productivity. Meanwhile, China’s military spending has been 10–20 times that of Taiwan’s since 2009, as Figure 4 demonstrates. After Chinese leaders invalidated their promises of a ‘high-degree of autonomy’ to Hong Kong under the unification plan, observers believe Taiwan is their next target (Lopez, 2022). Since Tsai Ing-wen of the pro-independence Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was elected Taiwan’s president in 2016, Beijing has furthered its effort of isolating Taipei internationally and escalated its belligerent behaviours by repeatedly dispatching naval vessels and warplanes circulating the island and violating its Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ; refer to Ministry of National Defence R.O.C., various years). In recent years, Chinese leaders further heightened their military pressure by repeatedly launched live-fire drills in water close to Taiwan, frequently with a record number of military aircraft and naval vessels (Ng & Wingfield-Hayes, 2024). China’s rapid technological advancement also allows it to infiltrate Taiwan’s IT infrastructure (Lonergan & Mueller, 2022). These developments have led to a warning from United States Navy Admiral John Aquilino in 2021 that China could be prepared to take Taiwan by force by 2027 (Lendon, 2021).  Figure 3. Ratio of China and Taiwan Gross Domestic Productivity: 1991–2023.Source: World Bank Group (various years-b) and National Statistics, R.O.C. (Taiwan) (various years).  Figure 4. Ratio of China and Taiwan Military Expenditures: 1989–2023.Source: SIPRI (various years). Observers, therefore, have noted that China is no longer a conditional revisionist but has turned into a revisionist that has the ability and intention to change the status quo. Some in the United States argue that ambiguity is unlikely to deter an increasingly assertive and threatening China towards Taiwan. Instead, they maintain, ‘[t]he time has come for the United States to introduce a policy of strategic clarity: one that makes explicit that the United States would respond to any Chinese use of force against Taiwan’ (Haass & Sacks, 2020). This is a view that the Biden administration also holds. Characterising China as a revisionist with both the intent and the ability ‘to reshape the international order’, the Biden administration acknowledged that China is the greatest challenger to the United States and its allies (White House, 2022, p. 23). Because ‘we cannot rely on Beijing to change its trajectory’, it is upon Washington to ‘shape the strategic environment around Beijing’ (Blinken, 2022). Thus, supporting Taiwan and strengthening its defence capabilities are crucial for America’s response to China’s growing coercion. Observers also point out that Washington’s ambiguous posture, while aiming to discourage unwanted actions of targeted states, may lead to miscalculation and risky behaviours. Leaders in both Beijing and Taipei have ‘obvious incentives to misrepresent their true perceptions concerning United States resolve’ (Kastner, 2006, p. 662). The tendency is particularly strong for Chinese leaders as the equation that previously made ambiguity a feasible policy has changed. Rather than maintain stability, it is argued, ambiguity may contribute to cross-strait instability and drag the United States into an unwanted conflict with China. In addition, no response to a Chinese military invasion of a democratic Taiwan would damage Washington’s reputation as the guardian of democracy and create the perception that the United States is not a reliable partner (Schmitt and Mazza, 2020). If American allies in the region conclude that Washington can no longer be counted on, they would be likely to accommodate Beijing’s demands as a result. Alternatively, some in the region may band together to balance a rising China, leading to tension and instability in one of the most dynamic areas of international commerce. Both would threaten America’s interests in the region and hurt Washington’s global leadership. Beijing’s forceful takeover of Taiwan would mean that China could then project its naval power beyond the first island chain, directly threatening the maritime security of the United States and its allies. Taiwan’s autonomy has also become a vital geopolitical interest and a national security issue for the United States due to the island’s dominant role in the semiconductor manufacturing market. It is estimated that the United States and other countries would lose access to 85% of all leading-edge microprocessors if China were to invade Taiwan tomorrow (Fadel, 2022). Beijing’s threatening military exercises, after United States House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taipei and the inauguration of pro-independence Lai Ching-te as Taiwan’s president, further underscore the need of revising the policy of strategic ambiguity. There have been a number of developments in the first Trump administration reflecting the growing sentiment that Beijing’s revisionist behaviour needs a robust and unambiguous response, including an unambiguous support for Taiwan. These included dispatching cabinet-level officials and military officers to Taipei and selling a large quantity of advanced weapons to Taiwan. The United States Congress also passed the Taiwan Travel Act of 2018 and the Taiwan Allies International Protection and Enhancement Initiative (TAIPEI) of 2020. The former permits high-level United States officials to travel to Taipei and meet their Taiwanese counterparts, while the latter aims to assist Taiwan in maintaining existing diplomatic relations. After Biden took office in 2021, his administration has further pursued a coherent and comprehensive approach for ‘broadening and deepening’ United States–Taiwan relations. It includes inviting Taiwan’s de factor ambassador to the United States as an official guest to the presidential inauguration (Blanchard, 2021), dispatching a delegation to Taipei sending a ‘personal signal’ of support from the President (Brunnstrom & Martina, 2021), providing large packages of arms sales (Chung et al., 2024), strengthening bilateral economic ties, and re-confirming Taiwan’s status as a major non-NATO ally (US Government Publishing Office, 2022). All of these efforts aim to advance the island country’s security, prosperity and respect in the international community. The Biden administration’s efforts to internationalise the Taiwan issue have been further noted. Wording like ‘the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait’ was mentioned at the United States–Japan (White House, 2021b), United States–Korea (White House, 2021a), Japan–Australia (Prime Minister of Australia, 2022) and G7 summits (European Council, 2021). For the first time, the issue of Taiwan’s security has been included in the communique of so many major powers’ summit meetings, which shows the Biden administration’s effort of building an international coalition to constrain a threatening China that will benefit Taiwan. In this context, Biden has repeatedly vowed to defend Taiwan, indicating that the United States would intervene militarily in the event of a Chinese invasion, prompting many to speculate if Washington has changed its long-standing policy of strategic ambiguity. Issues with Clarity Critics point out that a policy of strategic clarity involves risks. Chief among those is a clear security pledge like the one given by Biden, which is likely to bolster Taiwan citizens’ unrealistic expectation of America’s defence support, which will then motivate the public’s calls for independence. Under public pressure, the popularly elected Taipei government could take aggressive actions and will provoke a violent reaction from Beijing. Meanwhile, the public’s overconfidence does not match America’s military actions that would support an ally or a friend (Benson, 2022). The Biden administration’s decision to provide Ukraine with security assistance but refrain from putting American boots on the ground clearly demonstrates Washington’s reluctance to undertake direct military intervention in overseas conflicts. Taiwan citizens’ impracticable confidence in the United States’ defence commitment may destabilise the cross-strait relationship and bring harm to the island country. Thus, some pundits consider Biden’s move towards a policy of clarity ‘reckless’ (e.g., Beinart, 2021). The above concern is a valid one. Figure 5 presents the trend of public preferences on Taiwan’s international status during the past two decades. The top two dashed lines show that roughly 15%–35% of Taiwanese citizens prefer the status quo indefinitely, and about one-third of them are ‘undetermined’ regarding the island’s future status in the international community. The middle two solid lines show that there is a small but increasing proportion of respondents prefer to keep the status quo now but move towards independence in the future, and that proportion has increased quite dramatically since 2018. An even smaller and declining proportion of them favour unification as a final goal. The bottom two dashed lines indicate that less than 10% of the island’s residents want to pursue immediate unification or independence. Taken together, the figure demonstrates that very few on the island want to be ruled by the Chinese Communist government as it is now. The vast majority of them want to maintain the status quo and prefer either a ‘kinder, gentler’ version of de facto independence, that is, maintaining status quo forever, or a permanent separation from China in the future.  Figure 5. Taiwan Citizens’ Position on Independence and Unification: 1994–2024.Source: Election Study Center, National Chengchi University (January 13, 2025). While Taiwan’s citizens prefer to preserve their democratic way of life, they understand the pursuit of independence will encounter violent reaction from China. Figure 6 shows that the majority of the public express a preference for de jure independence if cross-strait conflicts could be averted, but support for independence declines substantially if they believe that Beijing would launch an attack on Taiwan.2 Figure 7 also shows that 50%–60% of island citizens consistently believe that the United States will come to Taiwan’s defence if China launches an attack. The level of confidence is particularly high among supporters of the ruling DPP, which has a plank of pursuing Taiwan’s de jure independence. The above figures reveal that the public’s preferences over the island’s future relations with China are consistently conditioned by perceived risks. That is, they will refrain from declaring Taiwan’s independence if it involves such high risks as warring with China. The conditionality of Taiwanese citizens’ preferences indicates that, collectively, they are conditional revisionists; that is, they would refrain from taking actions unless opportunities arise. In addition, the public is highly confident that the United States will come to Taiwan’s aid if there is a cross-strait military conflict. Thus, strategic clarity is likely to further bolster Taiwan citizens’ unrealistic expectation of Washington’s security commitment as well as their support for policies that may be deemed provocative by Beijing leaders.  Figure 6. Support Independence With/Without War With China, 2003–2024.Source: Program in Asian Security Studies (Various years).  Figure 7. Taiwan Citizens’ Confidence in United States Security Commitment: 2003–2020.Source: Program in Asian Security Studies (Various years). The above findings appear to validate the concerns of proponents of strategic ambiguity, but a recent study with panel data collected on the island may alleviate such a concern (Wang & Cheng, 2023). Contrary to our expectations, Taiwanese citizens’ confidence in Washington’s security commitment has not increased but, in fact, decreased after Biden’s security pledges. The decline in confidence was mainly due to the pro-independence respondents’ shifting views. As noted, supporters of Taiwan independence historically have a higher level of confidence in America’s security commitment, which is cognitively consistent with their determination of pursuing the island country’s permanent separation from China. The war in Ukraine may be an awakening call for them as it demonstrates the Western hesitancy to undertake direct military intervention in overseas conflicts. The United States can have similar avoidance in a situation involving Taiwan. Despite Biden’s verbal assurance, actions speak louder than words. Pro-independence citizens’ shifting attitudes thus explain the declining confidence in Washington’s security commitment, which can also soften their calls for aggressive actions towards independence. Because panel analysis has long been considered one of the best ways of examining persistence and change of individuals’ attitudes, the results of the study are worth noting. Another identified pitfall of strategic clarity is that it signals what one ‘is prepared to take a risk for’ and ‘what one would ignore’ (Chang-Liao & Fang, 2021, p. 51). Given the heavy costs and uncertain outcomes, Chinese leaders are likely to avoid launching direct military attacks on Taiwan. Instead, they have employed and may continue to employ such ‘grey zone’ tactics as imposing economic sanctions on Taiwanese products, attacking the island’s information technology infrastructure, violating the island’s ADIZ and conducting military exercises for a de facto blockade. Without embarking on a conventional invasion of Taiwan that a policy of clarity intends to deter, these ‘low-intensity’ tactics can nonetheless have the effect of exhausting Taipei’s resources and eroding its resolve. Rather than discouraging Beijing’s aggressive and threatening behaviours, strategic clarity could undercut the effect of Washington’s deterrence policy. Such a criticism is also a legitimate concern, but it ignores the fact that Beijing embarked on grey zone approaches against Taiwan long before recent calls for clarity. This means that without setting a clear threshold for intervention has not stopped Chinese leaders from taking low-intensity provocations. China’s increasing clout and the perceived decline of America’s relative power seem to be the underlying factors to Beijing’s aggressive behaviour. Chinese leaders are apparently counting on Washington being ‘reactive and risk-averse’ (Sussex & Moloney, 2021). It will be incumbent on the United States to show its determination to confront China with coordinated responses. America’s policy of strategic ambiguity, therefore, remains crucial for cross-strait peace and stability, but it needs to be recalibrated. As China increasingly turns out to be a revisionist power, it is necessary for Washington to adjust its ambiguous posture in order to counter Beijing’s increasingly belligerent behaviour. The recalibration does not have to be a binary choice between ambiguity and clarity. Both policies can be treated as two ends of a continuum and can be adjusted accordingly. Given Beijing’s intense pressure campaign, Washington can step up its commitment to help Taiwan to defend itself for protecting democracy and America’s national interests. These measures include the development of a ‘porcupine’ defence strategy by enhancing Taipei’s asymmetric warfare capability, building military stockpile and forming an effective civil defence. Washington can also expand Taiwan’s integration with the international community lest Beijing employ its grey zone tactics to further isolate Taipei and deepen the island’s economic vulnerability. Ultimately, a successful deterrence policy will also depend on Washington’s convincing assurance that it would not support Taiwan’s pursuit of independence. Chinese leaders have a deep suspicion that the United States has a covert attempt to undermine China’s unification with Taiwan. America’s recalibration of its policy of strategic ambiguity is likely to be interpreted as a confirmation of their suspicion. If Beijing leaders believe that America’s policy will lead to Taiwan’s permanent separation from China, they are unlikely to submit to Washington’s demands. Trump 2.0 Donald Trump’s 2025 return to the White House for a second term as the president of the United States has added uncertainty to the policy of strategic ambiguity. Observers have noted that Trump is sceptical of the value of friends and allies as well as the benefits of international partnerships and alliances (Bush & Haas, 2024). Under the slogan of ‘America First’, he removed the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership (Lobosco, 2018), the Paris Climate Accord (White House, 2017, 2025a), the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty (Pompeo, 2019) and the UN Human Rights Council (White House, 2025b) and has mandated a comprehensive review of all international organisations to determine if the United States should withdraw its membership from or end its support for these organisations (White House, 2025b). He repeatedly admonished members of NATO, South Korea and Japan for not paying enough for United States protection (Reuters, 2024). His contempt for alliances and security partnerships has upended decades of American international engagement. In this context, two developments have direct implications for Taiwan. First, Trump has expressively suggested that the United States acquire Greenland (Erlanger & Smialek, 2025), take control of the Panama Canal (New York Times, 2025), and annex Canada as the 51st state of the United States (Colvin, 2025). His ambition for territory expansion has alarmed the world community3 and undermines an international principle that borders should not be changed through force or coercion. Trump’s threat regarding Greenland, the Panama Canal and Canada could potentially embolden Chinese leaders to consider taking Taiwan by force (Sacks, 2025). Second, unlike Biden’s emphasis on the defence of democratic values in his support for American allies, Trump has taken a transactional approach to international affairs. His dealing with the Russo–Ukrainian conflict is a case in point. The Trump administration has placed heavy pressure on the Ukrainian government to sign over a huge portion of its mineral wealth to the United States in exchange for helping the country to defend itself (Taub, 2025). Some speculate that Trump’s alignment with Russia represents a strategy of ‘reverse Kissinger’ aiming to counter China’s rise (Editorial Board, 2025). Though such a strategy may potentially benefit Taiwan, many on the island are nevertheless alarmed by the Trump administration’s approach to the conflict, questioning if they can continue to count on American support (Buckley & Chien, 2025). Because Trump has expressed his desire to negotiate a broad economic deal with Beijing (Swanson, 2025), the Chinese government may offer concessions on a trade deal in exchange for Washington’s positions on Taiwan without Taipei’s involvement. Indeed, Trump has expressed scepticism about Taiwan’s value compared to China (Llorente, 2024). He previously also questioned America’s ability to defend the island country (Bolton, 2020). Even though the State Department recently removed the long-standing phrase that ‘[w]e do not support Taiwan independence’ from its Taiwan factsheet (US Department of State, 2021), leading some to speculate if it represents a strategic shift (Tao, 2025), Trump’s dubious attitude about the island country was fully displayed in a previous interview. Speaking in a transactional tone, Trump argued that ‘Taiwan should pay us for defence’ because ‘we’re no different than an insurance company. Taiwan doesn’t give us anything’. He also complained that Taiwan had taken ‘almost 100%’ of the chip industry from the United States (Kharpal, 2024). In response to Trump’s inimical demands, by displaying Taiwan’s tangible value to the United States, the Taipei government has pledged to increase its defence spending to 3% of Taiwan’s gross domestic product (Office of the President, Republic of China [Taiwan], 2025). The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC)—the world’s largest chip manufacturer that produces the most advanced semiconductors—also announced plans to invest an additional $100 billion to expand its operations in the United States (Tang & Price, 2025).4 While the investment announcement was viewed favourably by Trump (Chung & Lee, 2025), it may be interpreted by Chinese leaders as a lack of resolve on the part of his administration due to Trump’s scepticism and versatile mindset. Given that credible threat is key to deterrence policy, the future and effectiveness of strategic ambiguity in Trump’s second term will be uncertain.ConclusionThe Taiwan Strait has been described as ‘the most dangerous place on Earth’ (Economist, 2021). A military conflict between China and Taiwan will have significant consequences. In addition to causing damage and human suffering on both sides, such a conflict could escalate into a direct confrontation involving two nuclear powers, threaten regional stability in East Asia, and undermine the prosperity of one of the most dynamic regions in the global economy. Washington’s policy of strategic ambiguity has been effective in maintaining cross-strait peace and stability for several decades, but a recalibration is necessary due to an increasingly powerful and assertive China. Instead of changing to a policy of strategic clarity, the United States can adjust its ambiguous posture through strengthening Taiwan’s defence capabilities and advancing its international integration. By assuring that Washington seeks regional peace and stability, not Taiwan’s independence, the effects of the deterrence policy can be maintained, and risks of cross-strait military conflicts can be minimised. Trump’s return to the White House nevertheless has disrupted America’s traditional foreign policy of promoting freedom and democracy. Although he has not clarified the administration’s position on America’s support for Taiwan, his transactional approach suggests that he might use the cross-strait relationship as leverage over Beijing. Washington’s policy towards Taiwan is expected to be less predictable, potentially leading to a volatile Taiwan Strait during Trump’s second term. Declaration of Conflicting Interests The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.FundingThe author received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.Footnotes1. Biden previously provided such an assurance in May of 2022 (Kanno-Youngs & Baker, 2022), October of 2021 (Hunnicutt, 2021) and August of 2021 (ABC News, 2021). 2. The attempts to explore the conditionality of Taiwanese residents’ policy preferences include Hsieh and Niou (2005), Niou (2004) and Wu (1993, 1996). 3. There have been strong public reactions in Canada to Trump’s threats to make Canada the 51st state of the United States. 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한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском The plan for an advanced missile defence shield over the US offers no guarantee of success and risks undermining global security. Last week, US President Donald Trump unveiled his $175 billion plan to build the ‘Golden Dome’: a coast-to-coast missile defence shield designed to protect the US against hypersonic, ballistic, and space-based weapons. But far from enhancing US national security, the initiative risks exacerbating global instability and accelerating strategic competition. The concept for the Golden Dome is ambitious. The proposal envisions a multi-layered defence architecture involving hundreds or even thousands of satellites in orbit, equipped with advanced sensors and interceptors, including space-based lasers. These would detect, track, and neutralize incoming missiles and other threats at various stages of flight. In both vision and rhetoric, the plans echo Ronald Reagan’s 1983 Strategic Defence Initiative, often referred to as ‘Star Wars.’ Like the Golden Dome, the SDI proposed a layered defence system that would rely on cutting-edge, and largely untested, technologies to intercept incoming missiles before they could reach US territory. But despite years of investment, the SDI never produced a workable system and was eventually cancelled, exposing the gap between ambition and capability that still exists today. The plan also draws inspiration from Israel’s Iron Dome system. But this comparison is misleading. Israel is much smaller than the US, and its Iron Dome protects the country from short-range, unguided rockets – threats that are limited in number, speed, and direction. Trump’s plan, by contrast, seeks to defend the entire US homeland from far more advanced and numerous threats, including long-range ballistic missiles, hypersonic glide vehicles and orbital delivery systems. The scale, complexity, and technical sophistication required are of a completely different order. Costs – and risks Despite Trump estimating that the system will cost $175 billion and could be built in just three years, the Congressional Budget Office has warned that the space-based components alone could cost as much as $542 billion to deploy and operate over the next 20 years. Fundamental questions remain unanswered: what the system will look like, who will build it, and whether it will function as intended. Investing the necessary resources to develop such an advanced system would require significant trade-offs that could come at the expense of other defence priorities.  The US does not currently have the full spectrum of technology it needs to intercept hypersonic or ballistic missiles in space, which would require interceptors or lasers capable of operating over vast distances with near-instant precision. Pursuing the Golden Dome risks prioritising an expensive and unproven system over more immediate and achievable capabilities, such as improving regional missile defences and cyber resilience to countering emerging threats like drones. The plan also has potentially dangerous strategic consequences. A system that aspires to make the US invulnerable to missile attack would almost certainly be seen by its adversaries as an attempt to undermine the logic of nuclear deterrence. If Washington is perceived to be developing a shield that could one day neutralize a retaliatory nuclear strike, it risks triggering a dangerous global arms race. Beijing and Moscow have already criticized the Golden Dome project as ‘deeply destabilizing’ and could respond with a range of countermeasures, including expanding their offensive arsenals or developing new delivery systems. This arms race could also incentivize the deployment of space-based weapons at a time when space remains dangerously under-regulated. The Golden Dome could therefore undermine global security, making the world a more dangerous place – including for the US. Leverage for diplomacy? Given these risks, the US should instead use the Golden Dome plan as leverage to launch renewed arms control diplomacy. Washington should use the proposal to reinitiate dialogue with other major powers, including Russia and China, on mutual restraint, transparency, and the governance of emerging missile and space-based technologies.  This is especially urgent given the deterioration of existing arms control frameworks. The last major arms control agreement between the US and Russia, the New START Treaty, was suspended by President Vladimir Putin in 2023. It is set to expire in 2026 with no successor in place. Despite China’s growing arsenal, arms control talks between the US and China were also suspended in July 2024 over US arms sales to Taiwan. Meanwhile, rapid advances in missile technology, space systems, and artificial intelligence are outpacing the rules and norms designed to manage them. As geopolitical tensions rise, so does the risk of miscalculation and escalation. The need to revive strategic dialogue is therefore more pressing than ever. While China and Russia may be sceptical of US intentions, the Golden Dome’s space-based elements could create a rare opportunity for renewed arms control dialogue on space security. This might not necessarily focus on warhead reductions, but on more immediate and achievable areas of shared concern.  Space security Space security is one of the most promising and necessary avenues for engagement. As nuclear-armed powers become increasingly reliant on space-based systems for both military and civilian purposes (from early warning systems and communications to navigation and surveillance), the risks of miscalculation or unintended escalation in orbit are growing. A pragmatic and urgently needed step would be to launch dialogue on the norms that should govern behaviour in space, including avoiding close approaches to satellites, limiting the deployment of certain space-based systems, or improving transparency. Even modest measures, such as agreeing to share notifications of satellite launches or discussing dual-use capabilities, could help to build trust and reduce the likelihood of conflict in orbit. By focusing on space, where interests overlap and mutual vulnerabilities are clear, the US could help to re-establish the foundations for wider future strategic dialogue.  Avoiding past mistakes In the 1980s, Reagan’s SDI consumed vast resources, heightened international tensions, and failed to deliver a functioning defence system. It also contributed to an arms race that left the world more divided, not more secure. The Golden Dome risks repeating those same mistakes, but with more players, faster technologies, and fewer guardrails in place. At a time when arms control frameworks are crumbling and global tensions are rising, the announcement of the Golden Dome should be seen as a strategic opportunity to initiate renewed discussions on space security. Framing the proposal as a starting point for dialogue, rather than a signal of unilateral ambition, could help to stabilize a dangerously volatile moment. Otherwise, the project risks pushing the world one step further towards a more contested, militarized, and insecure future.

한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском In December 2024, Cambodia reached a key point in its foreign policy. Japan delivered a group of patrol boats to Cambodia as part of the "Free and Open Indo-Pacific" (FOIP) regional initiative. This clearly showed that security cooperation between the two countries is growing stronger. In April 2025, Japan is expected to take another big step by becoming the first foreign country allowed access to Cambodia’s strategically important Ream Naval Base — a facility that has been upgraded by China since 2022.These events, happening just months apart, seem to show Cambodia’s effort to expand its foreign partnerships after relying on China for a long time. The handover of Japanese vessels, while China is leading the base's modernization, is more than just a friendly act from Tokyo. It is a smart move by Cambodia, showing how it is trying to use the rivalry between big powers to strengthen its own security and independence. But can Cambodia really protect its sovereignty by trying to balance the interests of powerful countries? Or is this idea of multiple partnerships just an illusion — hiding the fact that Chinese influence continues to grow? The answers to these questions may shape the future of regional security in Indochina. In August 2023, Hun Manet became Cambodia’s new Prime Minister, replacing his father Hun Sen, who had ruled for nearly 40 years. Unlike his father, Hun Manet has a Western education — he graduated from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and earned a PhD in economics from the University of Bristol. His background gave some hope to Western diplomats that Cambodia’s foreign policy might move in a direction closer to their values. These hopes were partially fulfilled when Hun Manet’s first major foreign policy statement reaffirmed Cambodia’s commitment to diversifying its international relationships while strictly adhering to the principle of neutrality. This stance was particularly significant, given Cambodia’s longstanding perception among Western analysts as a pro-China state. For years, the Khmer elites have consistently voiced support for the PRC on the international stage, receiving in return substantial investment and infrastructure aid. However, these actions have occasionally strained Cambodia’s ties with neighboring countries — a dynamic noted by officials within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), of which Cambodia has been a member since 1999. A striking example is the discord surrounding the South China Sea territorial disputes. When affected countries sought to use ASEAN as a platform to pressure Beijing, Cambodia opposed the effort, effectively blocking the adoption of a joint statement in autumn 2024 — something unprecedented in ASEAN’s 45-year history. With a few exceptions, the Khmer elites traditionally supported a policy of non-alignment during the Cold War and, afterward, a neutral stance on foreign affairs. Former Prime Minister Hun Sen himself emphasized that Cambodia seeks ties not only with China, but with all countries, considering this the most beneficial foreign policy path for a developing nation. Among Phnom Penh’s close partners is Japan, which conducts an active foreign policy in the region and stands as one of the Kingdom’s largest economic donors. At the same time, it is important to note that Hun Sen described relations with China as "unbreakable" and consistently rejected external criticism, highlighting only the positive aspects of Cambodia’s deepening ties with Beijing. In the first half of December 2024, Cambodia and Japan signed an agreement on the transfer of military patrol boats to Phnom Penh as part of Japan’s FOIP (Free and Open Indo-Pacific) initiative. Cambodia became the first ASEAN country to receive such assistance. However, the Kingdom has no intention of turning its back on China. The principle of neutrality, which underpins the country’s foreign policy, means that partnership with Japan does not contradict friendship with the PRC. Rather, the combination of the two reflects a strategy of multi-vector diplomacy, enabling Cambodia to benefit from relationships with a variety of partners. This approach is supported by several factors. First, Prime Minister Hun Manet has repeatedly affirmed his commitment to an "independent and neutral foreign policy based on the rule of law, mutual respect, and adherence to the principles of the UN Charter." In his words, this policy aims "to promote national interests, strengthen existing friendships, and build more solid ties." Second, Phnom Penh consistently accepts aid from all willing donors, including Australia through the Cambodia-Australia Partnership for Resilient Economic Development (CAPRED), the United States, Japan, and, of course, China. In 2023, marking the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations with Japan, Cambodia elevated bilateral cooperation to the level of a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. With this move, Japan joined a narrow circle of Phnom Penh’s strategic allies — a status previously held solely by China between 2010 and 2023 — advancing from basic diplomatic engagement and standard strategic partnership. Although China surpassed Japan in aid volume back in 2007, Tokyo remains a vital partner for Phnom Penh. Between 1994 and 2021, Japan implemented 210 investment projects in Cambodia totaling $3.1 billion. In 2024, bilateral trade between Japan and Cambodia reached $40.94 billion, placing Tokyo as the Kingdom’s fifth-largest trading partner. This robust economic cooperation underscores Japan’s strategic importance to Cambodia and highlights Phnom Penh’s efforts to diversify its international relationships, avoiding overreliance on any single partner. Despite Japan’s recent delivery of patrol boats to Cambodia, Phnom Penh’s most robust military cooperation remains with China. Between 2016 and 2024, China and Cambodia conducted six joint military exercises under the name “Golden Dragon” (នាគមាស), with each iteration featuring an increase in the number of troops, weaponry, and military equipment involved. Even amid the global threat of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, Phnom Penh proceeded with the fourth iteration of these drills, involving nearly 3,000 soldiers — ten times more than in 2016. [1]. The drills also included dozens of combat helicopters, armored vehicles, and various transport assets. This continuous military support from Beijing underscores Cambodia’s growing reliance on Chinese involvement in strengthening its armed forces. Meanwhile, after seven years of joint military exercises with the United States, Cambodia suspended this cooperation in 2017, officially citing scheduling conflicts due to national elections. However, in June 2024, during a meeting between Hun Sen and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Cambodia announced the resumption of military cooperation with Washington. Furthermore, the U.S. agreed to revive joint military drills and to once again accept Cambodian cadets for training at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. For the United States, the primary point of contention has been the Chinese-built Ream Naval Base in Cambodia, despite Phnom Penh’s repeated assurances that the facility is intended solely for use by the Royal Cambodian Navy. Rumors about the base’s development first surfaced in 2018, sparking increased tensions between Phnom Penh and Washington. At the time, however, the U.S. lacked concrete evidence to formally accuse Cambodia of intending to host Chinese military forces on its territory, and American officials limited their response to diplomatic messages expressing concern. In August 2018, then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated that he trusted Cambodia’s assurances that the base would be used exclusively by its own navy, and he praised the Kingdom for its “firm defense of national sovereignty.” In early December 2024, a U.S. Navy vessel arrived in Cambodia in the first port call in eight years — a visit made possible after a prolonged period of strained relations due to sustained American criticism of Cambodia’s human rights record. Cambodia’s Ministry of National Defense stated that the visit was arranged following a request from the United States and would help to “strengthen and expand the bonds of friendship, as well as enhance bilateral cooperation” between the two countries. *** In recent years, the Asia-Pacific region has become a stage for intensifying geopolitical competition, directly impacting Cambodia’s security environment and foreign policy choices. The strategic interests of major powers such as the United States and China increasingly intersect in the region, prompting smaller states — including Cambodia — to explore new pathways for safeguarding their independence and national security. In response to these shifts, Phnom Penh has sought to strengthen its defense capabilities and diversify international partnerships, as reflected in the agreement with Japan on the transfer of military vessels. This move not only enhances bilateral relations with Tokyo but also signals Cambodia’s intent to play a more active role in regional security affairs. Such involvement could enable Cambodia to navigate between competing global powers and maintain its independence amid mounting pressure from both China and the United States.Russia, as one of Cambodia’s traditional partners, may also seek to bolster its regional presence by intensifying diplomatic engagement and offering avenues for cooperation in defense, security, and military technology. This would help Phnom Penh better balance its external relations and maneuver between great powers more effectively. For Moscow, it presents an opportunity not only to deepen ties with Cambodia, but also to expand its influence in Southeast Asia and counter the growing presence of Western actors in the region. 1. Phan Thi Hai Yen. (2024). Cambodia's Strategic Embrace of China: Military Cooperation and Its Implications. ISRG Journal of Arts Humanities & Social Sciences (ISRGJAHSS), II(V), 191–198.

한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском Security dialog among like-minded countries in the Indo-Pacific The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) was founded in 2007 by the USA, Japan, Australia, and India to promote a rules-based order in the Indo-Pacific, secure freedom of navigation and balance the growing influence of China. After a temporary dissolution, QUAD was revived in 2017. Since then, there have been regular meetings of heads of state and government and foreign ministers, which have led to concrete working groups in areas such as maritime security, modern technologies, infrastructure, climate change, health, space, and cyber security. QUAD has made considerable progress, including the provision of COVID-19 vaccines, decarbonization initiatives, the promotion of renewable energy and programs to improve maritime surveillance and digital infrastructure. QUAD is not a formal alliance, but an informal forum without a mutual defense commitment. Germany and the EU should strengthen bilateral partnerships with the QUAD states to promote common goals such as maritime security, infrastructure development and climate protection and offer a sustainable alternative to the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative. Will QUAD change the security architecture in the Indo-Pacific? Founded in 2007 as an informal alliance by the USA, Japan, Australia and India, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) has proven its worth as a platform for regional security cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, despite difficulties and interim dissolution. The original motivation for QUAD was the increasing concern about China's growing influence in the Indo-Pacific and the challenges to the rules-based order in the region. In recent years, cooperation in the QUAD has deepened and includes issues such as maritime security, maintaining free shipping lanes, the fight against terrorism and the promotion of sustainable economic development. Securing a free and open Indo-Pacific - in which all countries can act sovereignly and free from coercion - is a central concern of QUAD. The beginnings of cooperation between the four countries can be traced back to 20041. In response to the devastating Boxing Day tsunami in 2004, which killed over 230,000 people2, the USA, Australia, India, and Japan spontaneously formed an ad hoc grouping to pool and coordinate their resources and capacities for emergency relief in the disaster areas. The grouping disbanded after the end of the reconstruction aid in January 2005, but the positive outcome of the cooperation proved to be viable for the future and opened the way for further initiatives towards closer cooperation between the four Indo-Pacific states.3 First foundation and dissolution of QUAD It was the then Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe who, as part of his new foreign and defense policy, called for a value-based dialogue between Japan, India, Australia, the USA, and other like-minded countries on common interests in the Indo-Pacific at the end of 2006. On May 25, 2007, representatives of the four countries met officially for the first time at an informal Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in Manila.4 In September 2007, the maritime military exercise "Malabar" in the Indian Ocean, which had previously only been held bilaterally between the USA and India, was expanded to include participants from Japan, Australia and Singapore. This led to strong reactions from China, which sent official protest notes to the governments of the participating countries. Beijing portrayed QUAD as an anti-China initiative, while critics described the grouping as the nucleus of a future "Asian NATO "5. China's harsh criticism of the QUAD initiative and political changes in some of the four participating countries led to the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue being dissolved after a brief time. Australia, where there was a change of government in December 2007, wanted to avoid a confrontation with its most important trading partner China and therefore announced its withdrawal from QUAD in February 2008. In Japan, the most important promoter of QUAD, Shinzo Abe, was forced to resign as Prime Minister at the end of 2007 after losing the elections. There was also increasing criticism of the purpose of QUAD in India and the USA, so that in 2008 the four countries ceased their activities in the direction of quadrilateral security cooperation.6 However, taking China into consideration did not lead to the hoped-for easing of tensions. On the contrary: China's massive military build-up, its territorial claims in the South China Sea and East China Sea, its threatening gestures towards Taiwan and the use of economic pressure to achieve foreign policy goals7 have further increased geopolitical tensions in the region. In the meantime, contacts and cooperation between the four QUAD states have continued and intensified at bilateral and minilateral level. In 2011, the first meeting at the level of state secretaries took place between the governments of Japan, India, and the USA. A similar trilateral cooperation meeting was established in 2015 between Japan, India, and Australia. India and the United States signed a Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) in 2015 and a Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) in 2016.8 These agreements are a prerequisite for the interoperability of the armed forces of both countries. Since October 2015, Japan has been a regular participant in the annual naval exercise "Malabar" alongside India and the USA. And in 2017, Indian armed forces took part in the Australian naval exercise AUSINDEX for the first time, and two years later also in the air force exercise Pitch Black. Australia has been involved in the Malabar exercises again since 2020.9 Revival of the QUAD Shinzo Abe, who returned to the office of Japanese Prime Minister in 2012, put the concept of a quadrilateral security alliance (Democratic Security Diamond) in the Indo-Pacific back on the political agenda. He succeeded in convincing the new US President Donald Trump of the idea, leading to the first meeting of high-ranking representatives from the USA, Japan, India, and Australia on the sidelines of the ASEAN summit in Manila in the Philippines in November 2017. The QUAD was revived.10 In June 2018, representatives of the four countries met on the sidelines of an ASEAN meeting in Singapore and again in November of the same year at the East Asia Summit, also in Singapore. On May 31, 2018, the first official meeting of the foreign ministers of the four QUAD states finally took place on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York. Since then, the four foreign ministers have met once a year to discuss regional strategic challenges and priorities.11 The Biden administration has upgraded the Quadrilateral Dialogue to an important instrument for the implementation of its Indo-Pacific policy. On March 12, 2021, the first summit of QUAD heads of state and government took place, still in virtual form due to the Covid-19 pandemic. As a result of the summit, a joint final declaration, The Spirit of the QUAD,12 was published, which lists the key objectives and principles of the quadripartite dialog. On September 24, 2021, the QUAD heads of government met in person for the first time in Washington. Six permanent working groups were formed to deal with the policy areas of health, climate change and clean energy, critical and modern technologies, infrastructure, space, and cybersecurity.13 On March 4, 2022, the four heads of government of the QUAD states convened for a virtual summit to discuss the impact of Russia's war of aggression on Ukraine and to reaffirm the commitment of the four dialog partners to the Indo-Pacific region. The fourth QUAD Leaders’ Summit took place in Tokyo on May 24, 2022. The follow-up meeting planned for May 2023 in Sydney was canceled as US President Biden had to remain in Washington due to the domestic budget crisis. Instead, the heads of state and government met on May 20, 2023, on the sidelines of the G7 summit in Hiroshima. Prior to this, the foreign ministers of the QUAD met in India in March, where it was decided to establish a working group on combating terrorism.14 In 2024, there was one meeting at foreign minister level (July 29 in Tokyo, Japan) and one summit meeting of QUAD leaders (September 21, 2024, in Wilmington, USA). On September 20, 2024, one day before the summit in Wilmington, a bipartisan group of representatives and senators, the QUAD Caucus, was formed in the US Congress to promote cooperation between the USA and the other QUAD members (Japan, India, and Australia). In doing so, Congress is underlining the bipartisan recognition of the strategic importance of the Indo-Pacific for the USA and strengthening the institutional anchoring of the QUAD partnership in the US political system.15 What concrete results has QUAD achieved since its revival in 2017? The six QUAD working groups established in 2021 cover the most important policy areas of quadrilateral cooperation: 1. Health Security Following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, the QUAD Group committed to producing one billion vaccine doses by the end of 2022 and making them available to countries in the Indo-Pacific. The USA, Japan and Australia supported the expansion of production capacities for coronavirus vaccines in India. Together, the four QUAD members donated over 400 million vaccine doses to Indo-Pacific countries in 2021 and 2022 and almost 800 million worldwide. In addition, the group of four supported the COVAX initiative with 5.6 billion US dollars. In September 2024, the "QUAD Cancer Moonshot" initiative was announced, which aims to reduce the number of cancer deaths in the Indo-Pacific, particularly through measures to prevent and treat uterine cancer16. 2. Climate Change The countries of the Indo-Pacific are particularly affected by climate change. The QUAD agenda aims to accelerate decarbonization, promote renewable energy and protect the maritime environment in the Indo-Pacific. This includes the expansion of clean hydrogen technologies, climate information services and early warning systems as well as the diversification of supply chains. 3 Critical and Emerging Technologies The QUAD countries are committed to the responsible and safe use of technologies such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing and 5G. Specifically, for example, the establishment of an Open Radio Access Network (RAN) in Palau, Micronesia, is being promoted, which will later be extended to other Pacific island states. 4. Space All four QUAD nations have their own space programs, which are linked by a large number of bilateral and minilateral cooperation projects. The Indo-Pacific Partnership for Maritime Domain Awareness (IPMDA) initiative, launched in 2022, aims to strengthen maritime security and transparency in the Indo-Pacific. It will provide countries in the region with real-time maritime surveillance information, primarily data from satellites, sensors, and other surveillance technologies. This will enable small and medium-sized coastal states in the Indo-Pacific to gain a better overview of maritime activities in their exclusive economic zones, such as illegal fishing, smuggling and piracy. 5. Cyber Security In 2022, the QUAD Cybersecurity Partnership was established to combat threats from cybercrime and state-sponsored attacks. The partnership is divided into four sectors, with each member of QUAD taking the lead in one sector to address cyber vulnerabilities. The sectors include critical infrastructure protection, supply chain resilience, skills training, and software security standards.17 6. Infrastructure QUAD countries are promoting the development of sustainable port infrastructure and announcing major investments in submarine cable projects to improve digital connectivity in the Indo-Pacific. In 2022, the goal was set to invest up to USD 50 billion in infrastructure projects in the region within five years. Launched in 2023, the QUAD Infrastructure Fellowship will provide over 1,800 fellowships, exchanges and other program opportunities for government officials and infrastructure professionals in the region to share best practices in infrastructure management. Outside of these six main themes, the QUAD group also collaborates in other areas: The QUAD Fellowship Program provides scholarships for master's and doctoral students in the fields of mathematics, computer science, natural sciences and technology (STEM) in the US, and since 2024, applicants from the ten ASEAN countries have also been admitted18. The Counterterrorism Working Group was founded in 2023. Other areas of cooperation mentioned in the QUAD plans are sustainable, transparent, and fair lending and financing practices, nuclear stability, and critical minerals. Conclusion The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue QUAD has proven to be a stable and effective security policy dialog platform in recent years. QUAD has the potential to transform the security architecture in the Indo-Pacific by creating a strategic balance in the face of challenges such as China's rising power and territorial expansion. The QUAD promotes cooperation between the US, India, Japan, and Australia, the four most influential democracies in the region. Cooperation is based on shared values such as freedom of navigation, territorial integrity, and adherence to international rules. QUAD is not a formal security alliance, there is no mutual defense commitment. It is a flexible, informal coalition forum that focuses on a wide range of issues, including broader security, the economy, infrastructure, technology, and climate change. QUAD has no institutional structures. There are annual summits of heads of state and government and foreign ministers, and the decisions of the summits are implemented by the state apparatuses of the member countries. The naval exercise "Malabar" is not an official part of QUAD but serves as a platform to strengthen military interoperability and is seen as an operational extension of QUAD's security objectives, particularly in the maritime domain. India plays a special role in the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue. It contributes not only its geographical and geopolitical importance in the Indo-Pacific, but also a perspective characterized by strategic autonomy and multipolar diplomacy. India is regarded as an important representative of the so-called Global South and is seen as a counterweight to China in this group of states.19 On the other hand, India avoids presenting QUAD as an explicitly anti-Chinese alliance in order to avoid putting too much strain on its own sensitive relationship with China. The EU and Germany should adopt a strategically balanced position towards QUAD that considers both the geopolitical realities in the Indo-Pacific and their own economic and security interests. The EU and Germany share with the QUAD states the goal of preserving a rules-based order, particularly regarding international maritime law (UNCLOS). To exert greater influence on the region, Germany and the EU should strengthen bilateral partnerships with the QUAD states to promote common interests such as infrastructure development, new and critical technologies, climate protection and maritime security. Joint infrastructure development projects in the Indo-Pacific could offer a sustainable alternative to the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Information This publication of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung e. V. is for information purposes only. It may not be used by political parties or by campaigners or campaign helpers for the purpose of election advertising. This applies to federal, state, and local elections as well as elections to the European Parliament. The text of this work is licensed under the terms of "Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 international", CC BY-SA 4.0 (available at: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/legalcode.de) References 1 Madan, Tanvi, „The Rise, the Fall and the Rebirth of QUAD”, War on the Rocks, 16. November 2017, https://warontherocks.com/2017/11/rise-fall-rebirth-quad/2 Earthquake in the Indian Ocean 2004, https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erdbeben_im_Indischen_Ozean_2004  3 Madan, Tanvi, „The Rise, the Fall and the Rebirth of QUAD”, War on the Rocks, 16. November 2017, https://warontherocks.com/2017/11/rise-fall-rebirth-quad/ 4 Buchan, Patrick Gerard, and Rimland, Benjamin, „Defining the Diamond: The Past, Present, and Future of the Quadrilateral Dialogue”, CSIS Briefs, 16. March 2020, https://www.csis.org/analysis/defining-diamond-past-presentand-future-quadrilateral-security-dialogue5 Madan, Tanvi, „The Rise, the Fall and the Rebirth of QUAD”, War on the Rocks, 16. November 2017, https://warontherocks.com/2017/11/rise-fall-rebirth-quad/  6 Buchan, Patrick Gerard, and Rimland, Benjamin, „Defining the Diamond: The Past, Present, and Future of the Quadrilateral Dialogue”, CSIS Briefs, 16. March 2020, https://www.csis.org/analysis/defining-diamond-past-presentand-future-quadrilateral-security-dialogue 7 Feigenbaum, Eva A., „Is Coercion the New Normal in China’s Economic Statecraft?”, MarcoPolo, Paulson Institute, 25. Juli 2017, https://macropolo.org/analysis/is-coercion-the-new-normal-in-chinas-economic-statecraft/?rp=m  8 Panda, Jagannath, „India and the ‘Quad Plus’ Dialogue”, 12. June 2020, RUSI, https://www.rusi.org/explore-our-research/publications/commentary/india-and-quad-plus-dialogue 9 Parker, Jennifer, „Not just another naval exercise: Malabar’s vital messaging”, 10. August 2023, The Strategist, ASPI, https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/not-just-another-naval-exercise-malabars-vital-messaging/ 10 Buchan, Patrick Gerard, and Rimland, Benjamin, „Defining the Diamond: The Past, Present, and Future of the Quadrilateral Dialogue”, CSIS Briefs, 16. March 2020, https://www.csis.org/analysis/defining-diamond-past-presentand-future-quadrilateral-security-dialogue 11 Samir Saran, Satu Limaye, Vivek Mishra, Lilah Connell, Amy Namur, Robin McCoy, and Aryan D’Rozario, East-West Center, „Two Decades of the QUAD: Diplomacy & Cooperation in the Indopacific”, 14. June 2024,  https://www.eastwestcenter.org/publications/two-decades-quad-diplomacy-cooperation-indo-pacific/  12 The White House, 12. March 2021, Quad Leaders’ Joint Statement: „The Spirit of the QUAD”, https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/03/12/quad-leaders-joint-statement-the-spirit-of-the-quad/ 13 Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australian Government, „The QUAD”, last visit 02.12.2024, in https://www.dfat.gov.au/international-relations/regional-architecture/quad 14 Ebd. 15 U.S. Representative Ami Bera, M.D. (D-CA), Press Release, 20. September 2024, https://bera.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=400409 16 Samir Saran, Satu Limaye, Vivek Mishra, Lilah Connell, Amy Namur, Robin McCoy, and Aryan D’Rozario, East-West Center, „Two Decades of the QUAD: Diplomacy & Cooperation in the Indopacific”, 14. June 2024, https://www.eastwestcenter.org/publications/two-decades-quad-diplomacy-cooperation-indo-pacific/ 17 Ebd. 18 Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, Kooperation international, „QUAD-Fellowship-Programm auf ASEAN-Staaten ausgeweitet“, zuletzt gelesen am 02.12.2024 in https://www.kooperation-international.de/aktuelles/nachrichten/detail/info/quad-fellowship-programm-auf-asean-staaten-ausgeweitet  19 Heiduk, Felix; Wirth, Christian: „The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QUAD) between Australia, India, Japan and the USA “, SWP-Aktuell, Nr. 35, June 2023, https://www.swp-berlin.org/10.18449/2023A35/ 

한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском The social dimension of the Alliance The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the organization created by the signatory states of the Washington Treaty to achieve the goals set by the Alliance, is an institution characteristic of the democratic realm, where governments depend on their respective public opinions when trying to establish a security policy. The people matter – and this is something we must keep in mind – when reflecting on their future. The simplest and most logical answer to the question posed in the title of this conference, the one that responds to common sense, is wherever its member states want. And this is the core of the problem. Do the allies have a common vision? Do they share interests as they did in 1949? Do they still believe they are a community united by their commitment to democracy? Is it reasonable to consider that they form a “collective defense system”? Without clearly answering these questions, it becomes very difficult to move forward with this analysis. We would be venturing into speculative territory. On the other hand, we cannot ignore reality, and this leads us to acknowledge that it is unlikely we will receive clear answers due to a set of considerations characteristic of the present time. The first refers to the lack of reliability of the State because of the high fragmentation of public opinion. Globalization and the Digital Revolution are causing social and economic changes that have led the population to distrust their political elites. Traditional parties are disappearing or losing seats, while new political forces emerge, questioning many of the paradigms we have been working with for years. The societies of the member states no longer have as clear a sense of the purpose of the Alliance as they did a decade ago, because there is confusion about what the actual risks, challenges, and threats they face are. The second is the absence of prominent figures with the authority to exercise leadership at the heads of the allied governments. We cannot ignore that in times of uncertainty, leadership is more necessary than ever, because in its absence, it becomes extremely difficult to shape a sufficiently common position among the citizens. The third is the empirical realization that the Alliance has not been able to manage the crises in Afghanistan and Ukraine in a competent and professional manner. In the first case, the European allies decided to activate Article 5 of the Washington Treaty even though it wasn’t necessary, but wanting to show their solidarity with the state that had guaranteed their security for decades. However, on the battlefield, the vast majority shield themselves behind their ‘rules of engagement’ to avoid complicated situations. The goal was to comply with the United States more than to commit to victory. For its part, the United States was unable to maintain consistent objectives and strategy over time, which led to a humiliating defeat. What was the point of the waste of lives and money if, in the end, the same people returned to power? What was the point of the Alliance's technological superiority if it was defeated by poorly armed militias? In the second case, we have observed that despite the obvious incompetence of its armed forces, its limited capabilities, and its dire economic situation, Russia has managed to consolidate its control over a significant portion of Ukrainian territory and continues to advance. For the average citizen, it is incomprehensible that, having committed ourselves to reclaim all Ukrainian sovereign territory and being much wealthier, our strategy has led Ukraine to the unfortunate situation it finds itself in. Why didn’t we offer them the weapons they needed from the very beginning? Why have we deprived them of the victory we formally committed to? The fourth is a derivative of the previous one. In this context, does it make sense for the citizen to trust the Alliance? Isn’t it understandable that they try to seek refuge within the national framework and fear that the Alliance, in the hands of unqualified people, will drag them into scenarios that are not critical to their lives? Whether we like it or not, the citizen's distrust in NATO is as justified as their intuition that only NATO can guarantee their security, which includes both their freedom and their well-being. What is the Alliance today? In circumstances as complex as those we are currently experiencing, it is virtually impossible for an organization composed of thirty-two member states to be a community committed to the defense and promotion of democracy. The mere reference to Turkey, Hungary, or Spain is proof of how far there are nations within it that are heading in a different direction. The evolution of European political systems points to a worsening of the situation rather than the exceptional nature of the mentioned cases. The community, as well as the idea that it constitutes a "collective defense system," falls within the realm of aspirations. The Alliance has been a “collective defense system,” and I have no doubt that there are allies who continue to act consistently with this idea. However, putting aside formalities, I believe that when assessing the transatlantic relationship, we must focus on its strict condition as an alliance. NATO is an asset that no one wants to lose, even though in its current state, it leaves much to be desired. Its strength does not lie in the common perception of the threat, the solidarity of its members, the available capabilities, or in sharing a strategy, which is clearly nonexistent. What makes its members want to keep it alive is the accumulated legacy after 75 years of shared experiences and the deep sense of insecurity in the face of the dual realization of a world undergoing profound change and poorly prepared national defenses from any point of view. Outside the Alliance, it’s even colder. NATO provides us with a starting point to try to react collectively, knowing that, in reality, except for the United States, no member state has the critical size to act as a "strategic actor." We have a history, an institutional framework, civilian and military bodies, doctrines, resources... that allow us to try to adapt without having to start from scratch. The European Perspective In recent years, the European states that are members of the Alliance have experienced the contrast between the claim that the European Union should assume the role of a "strategic actor" and the harsh, relentless reality of its impotence to effectively and competently address the crises in the Middle East and Ukraine. In parallel, they have shifted from contempt for the United States, due to its erratic foreign policy and its inability to successfully complete its foreign initiatives, to seeking shelter once again under its military strength, considering the evidence of their own inability to understand international politics and act accordingly. It seems beyond doubt that the dynamics of the European integration process are heading towards the establishment of a federation. The transfer of sovereignty represented by the single currency was a milestone, marking the creation of "political Europe" through the Maastricht Treaty. Gradually, we are moving toward a single fiscal policy, with banking union, European monetary fund... ultimately towards the consolidation of an economic and monetary policy. Such significant common economic interests demand both a shared legal framework and a unified foreign policy. However, the factor of time plays a fundamental role. The passing of generations has allowed us to make progress, overcoming nationalist prejudices. Despite the formidable progress made, which is easily reflected in the recognition by young people that we live in a common cultural environment, the reality is that we are still far from forming what Miguel Herrero y Rodríguez de Miñón referred to decades ago as a "European people." One thing is to delegate certain public policies to European institutions, and another, undoubtedly very different, is the exercise of actions that are characteristically sovereign. History and geography matter, and we must acknowledge that we have not yet formed that continental identity that would allow us to credibly face the formidable challenge of establishing a common foreign policy. The advantages of planning together and having the same capabilities are obvious, but above all, what matters is its viability. The Union is still not in a position to replace American leadership. This humbling realization transforms into a flow of energy in favor of the Alliance, assuming as inevitable the implementation of changes that allow it to adapt to a new international environment. For years, we have been aware that the Washington Treaty, and especially its Article 5, are anachronistic. The emergence of new domains – space, cyber, and cognitive – and the development of hybrid strategies challenge some of its foundations. Even so, we try to adapt without facing a reform of the treaty, in an exercise of understandable but risky caution. We are aware that the European theater is no longer the same as it was in 1949, that globalization and the "competition among great powers" in the race to win the "Digital Revolution" have shaped a considerably different scenario that we must integrate into, but we feel dizzy at the thought of leaving our own geographic zone, when we are not even in a position to effectively address our own problems. The American Perspective Since the creation of the United States, American society has lived with the contradiction between its isolationist vocation and its dependence on foreign trade. It fears becoming involved in the affairs of others at a high cost. However, the commercial dimension of its economy demands freedom of navigation, legal security, access to raw materials, and the ability to penetrate other markets, conditions that lead to an international role. From the First and Second World Wars, they learned that it was impossible to turn their back on what was happening in other countries, that they had to commit to international security, trying to establish an order that would guarantee their national interests. After years of involvement in international conflicts that seemed to have no end, isolationist and nationalist sentiment has grown, as a classic pendulum effect. In this context, it is understandable that the public debate openly questions its presence in the Atlantic Alliance. Is NATO a guarantee of the security of the United States? In the years immediately preceding the Madrid Summit, it was evident that the Alliance lacked a threat to unite it, a strategy to guide its steps, and capabilities that would allow it to carry out combined activities. It should therefore come as no surprise that since the second term of the Bush Administration, statements from senior officials have been warning of the dangerous drift of the Organization or threatening its withdrawal. There has been much talk about the low defense spending by many of the European allies. It is evident that without investment, there is no modernization, and without it, there is a technological disconnect that prevents the joint action of the armed forces of the different member states. However, what is truly concerning is what this implies in terms of abuse and disregard towards the United States. Hence, the heated reactions we receive from the other side. It is indecent that we spend on welfare, reaching levels that are unattainable for the average American, while we let them bear the cost of our security, both in economic terms and in human lives. As grave as, or even more than, the lack of investment is the absence of a shared vision and strategy, but it is understandable that the debate has focused on investment, an instrumental element. For European allies, increasing defense spending under the current economic circumstances will be as difficult as it is painful, but it will not be any less difficult or painful to reach an agreement that gives meaning to NATO's existence in the coming years. One of the few consensuses in the Capitol is to consider China as its main rival, around which all its economic, foreign, and defense policies revolve. In the Strategic Concept approved in Madrid, we can read that China is a “systemic challenge” for all of us. What policy have we derived from this categorical statement? Is there an Atlantic vision on this? It is hard to imagine that the Alliance can have a future if the states on both sides of the Atlantic do not reach a common position on how to engage with the great Asian power. In the same document, we find the statement that Russia is a “threat,” which does not align with statements from American leaders of both parties, though more from the Republican side than the Democratic one. It is neither acceptable nor responsible that, after the approval of such an important document, just two and a half years later, the United States acts as if the problem is not theirs. Putting formal aspects aside, is Russia a threat to the United States? To what extent does the behavior of the Moscow government in Eastern Europe affect U.S. national interests? Does it make sense for the United States to get involved in the war in Ukraine? Was Biden's behavior a reflection of a Cold War veteran, detached from the international circumstances of today? The establishment of the Atlantic Alliance was not the result of U.S. leaders in the early postwar years being convinced that the Soviet Union posed a threat to their national interests. On the contrary, they were fully aware that it did not. What concerned them was the extreme weakness of the European states, ravaged by a brutal war, the absence of a democratic culture, the high risk of totalitarian currents feeding off misery and uncertainty, and leading the Old Continent to a Third World War. European governments felt Soviet pressure. The area occupied by the Red Army was experiencing the extermination of representative institutions, Germany was torn between neutrality and partition, communist parties were gaining parliamentary positions in significant countries like France and Italy, supported by the prestige earned in the Resistance. For U.S. analysts, the European perception of the Soviet threat was exaggerated, but its effects could be concerning. The United States chose to engage in European reconstruction to prevent its drift towards fragmentation and totalitarianism, as the consequences of this drift could directly affect their national interests. They established a comprehensive strategy based on two pillars, the Marshall Plan and the Atlantic Alliance. NATO has been and continues to be an instrument to guarantee cohesion and democracy on the Old Continent. The second Trump administration must resolve the tension between the isolationist demand of the citizenry, the need to create jobs on domestic soil through the erection of tariff barriers, the necessity of securing supply and distribution chains, and the consolidation of alliances or understandings between different regional blocs in response to Chinese initiatives. It is a set of contradictory actions wrapped in the populist demagoguery characteristic of our time, but which will require decisions in times marked by a succession of crises. Time for decisions An organization inhabited by officials does not need meaning to continue functioning. From 9 AM to 5 PM, qualified staff will move papers from one office to another, showcasing their professionalism and operational efficiency. However, it is important not to confuse NATO with the Alliance. The latter does need meaning, which is now in question. Whether we like it or not, the coming years will be crucial for its future. We will witness how the decisions made regarding a set of circumstances and debates will ultimately determine it, as well as the link between the two shores of the Atlantic. As happened at its origin, that link will go far beyond security, which is instrumental in consolidating that community which was the original aspiration and is now marked by its absence. The war in Ukraine is undoubtedly the central issue in the transatlantic relationship, as it brings to the negotiation table many of the fundamental issues that question its very existence. We are facing a continental conflict that arises after a Russian diplomatic attempt to reach an agreement on a new balance of power. Moscow's proposal demanded the withdrawal of U.S. units from areas bordering its territory and the removal of its nuclear weapons stationed in the Old Continent. Putin’s government felt threatened by NATO and the European Union's eastward expansion and demanded compensation. When it was not granted, it launched its third campaign on Ukraine and its fifth on territories that were once part of the Soviet Union. This is not a campaign that can be understood in a bilateral Russia-Ukraine logic, but rather as part of an effort by a revived Russian imperialism to reconstitute its historical sphere of influence. This invasion is not the first, and unless the Alliance acts wisely, it will not be the last. The role played by the Europeans has been disappointing. Their response to previous aggressions – Moldova, Georgia, Crimea, and Donbas – was the perfect example of how supposedly educated elites learn nothing from history. The French, Germans, and Italians collectively made the same mistakes as Chamberlain in Munich, thinking that the aggressor would be satisfied by acknowledging their right to aggression, when, in reality, they were encouraging them to proceed and prepare for new expansionist ventures. This attitude provoked the logical irritation and distrust in the Slavic-Scandinavian space, which was never deceived by the ongoing process under the Russian government. These powers refused to believe U.S. intelligence warnings about Russia's willingness to invade and reacted too late and poorly. All this, combined with the old problem of lack of investment in defense, made European armed forces ineffective and their industry powerless in responding to a demand for military capabilities in a short period of time. If the Europeans do not take their defense seriously, if they have become accustomed to parasitizing U.S. leadership, the frustration of their elites with their European allies is understandable. The Biden administration tried to use the Ukraine War to reconstitute the Alliance, but the strategy of attrition applied, renouncing victory out of fear of its political and military consequences, has led to a very high number of Ukrainian casualties and to public fatigue, which, following the Russian plan, is pushing through new political formations from both the right and the left to reach an unfeasible understanding with Russia at Ukraine’s expense. In the new international scenario, characterized by competition among great powers to achieve technological hegemony within the framework of the Digital Revolution, the United States needs Europe as much as Europe needs the United States. Russia does not pose a direct threat to U.S. interests, but it has become a vassal of China and an instrument of Beijing to weaken the cohesion of the Western bloc. The Trump administration must not fall into the temptation of turning its back on its allies, no matter how irresponsible and incompetent they may be, as this would cede ground to the rival. An even more protectionist policy could push European states, if not the Union itself, to seek alternative markets in China. A policy of greater withdrawal would encourage both division among continental powers and the pursuit of a middle ground between the two superpowers. What is at stake is much more than tariffs or investment in defense. What we will decide soon is whether we are a community or not, whether we face the challenges of a new era together, or if we choose separation. Within the framework of the Atlantic Alliance, the United States has valuable allies, particularly the United Kingdom and the Slavic and Scandinavian blocs. Attempting to find a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine War could mean a victory for Russia by recognizing its right to alter Europe's borders by force, and the loss of trust from these allies, who are aware that even Trump would have fallen into the Munich trap, and despite his brash rhetoric, he would have ended up playing Chamberlain’s role. This would be a grave mistake for the United States, which, on the contrary, should rely on these countries to contain Russian expansionism and send a very clear message to Beijing about its commitment to updating and maintaining the cohesion of the Western community. Such an update would require allies, this time for real, to commit to defense investment and be prepared to use their capabilities when necessary. The Alliance needs a strategy. The concept approved in Madrid was merely the political framework to develop it. It is up to the Trump administration to lead its development in order to ultimately agree on what to do about the "Russian threat" and the "systemic challenge" posed by China. The Middle East crisis is unfolding in a scenario defined by two fronts established after years of diplomatic work: the "Abraham Accords" and the Axis of Resistance. Hamas’ aggression towards Israel has materialized in a harsh military campaign in the Gaza Strip, which has severely damaged the political and military capabilities of the Islamist group, and has extended to Lebanon, where Hezbollah is also suffering a heavy blow. In addition, Iran has seen its defense industry, anti-aircraft artillery systems, and, more limitedly, its nuclear network has suffered significant damage, while its intelligence system has been humiliated and degraded. In this context, despite the damage suffered by the Gazan population, the block formed by the Abraham Accords has remained cohesive, aware of Hamas' blackmail and the cost of yielding to it. On the other hand, Europe has presented itself as divided, lacking a strategic vision, not understanding that this was not a problem between Israelis and Palestinians, but an instrumental conflict aimed at undermining the regimes of Arab countries not aligned with the Axis of Resistance. Its criticism of Israel for the effects of its military campaign on the Gazan population consciously ignored both Hamas’ responsibility in turning them into human shields and the cost that accepting Hamas' blackmail would have had for all of us — Arabs, Israelis, and Europeans — if the campaign had not continued. How is it possible that we have so easily forgotten how the Axis powers were defeated? What would have happened in Europe during WWII if we had followed the European Union's demands during the Gaza War? The Middle East is a critical space for the Atlantic Alliance. It is understandable that the United States is frustrated with many of its European allies who, once again, have acted in a frivolous and irresponsible manner, unable to think in strategic terms. Israel has long chosen to turn its back on Europe, in response to a behavior it associates with a new form of anti-Semitism. The Arab bloc appreciates the European sensitivity to the suffering of the Gazan or Lebanese people, but it seeks security under the umbrella of the United States and Israel in the face of the Axis of Resistance, which poses a challenge of internal subversion, asymmetric warfare, and nuclear threat. A renewed Alliance needs to establish a strategy for the MENA region focused on containing Islamism and consolidating moderate regimes. China and Russia are taking advantage of the instability to infiltrate and hinder our missions. For them, instability on our southern front is a strategic objective, one that would fuel migration and insecurity, and with them, division within the Alliance and the Union. The Arab-Israeli bloc distrusts the United States due to its inability to maintain a strategy over time and does not rely on the Europeans. Only a firm stance from the Alliance in favor of this group of countries and against the Axis of Resistance could overcome this situation and guarantee both the cohesion of the Alliance and its authority in the region. The circumstances that led to the creation of the Alliance are behind us. They are history. However, today the Alliance is more necessary than ever. The circumstances have changed, but the community of values and interests remains the same, even though not everyone may understand this. Dissolving this community would be a grave mistake that would only benefit those powers whose goal is nothing more than to "revise" our legacy. Reviving it will not be easy. It will require political awareness and high-level diplomacy. Challenges that are impossible to achieve without leadership that matches the times. 

한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском President-elect Donald Trump has sparked diplomatic controversy by suggesting the U.S. needs to acquire Greenland for reasons of “national security” and refusing to definitively rule out using military force to do so. Greenland, a self-governing Danish territory, “is not for sale,” said Denmark’s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen. Trump’s interest in Greenland is not new. He first expressed interest in the territory in 2019, but it never developed into any action. Whether or not Trump has actual plans this time around to advance any attempt in Washington to own Greenland is far from clear. But given the incoming president’s repeated statements and invocation of national security, it’s worth considering what strategic value Greenland might actually have from the perspective of the U.S.’s geopolitical priorities. As a scholar of geopolitical conflicts involving natural resources and the Arctic, I believe Greenland’s value from an international political perspective can be viewed in terms of four fundamental areas: minerals, military presence, Arctic geopolitics and the territory’s potential independence. A matter of minerals Greenland’s most valuable natural resources lie with its vast mineral wealth, which holds real potential to advance its economy. Identified deposits include precious metals such as gold and platinum, a number of base metals – zinc, iron, copper, nickel, cobalt and uranium – and rare earth elements, including neodymium, dysprosium and praseodymium. A detailed 2023 summary published by the Geologic Survey of Denmark and Greenland suggests new deposits will be found with the continued retreat of the Greenland Ice Sheet. Greenland’s rare earth resources are particularly significant. These elements are essential not only to battery, solar and wind technology but also to military applications. If fully developed, the Kvanefjeld – or Kuannersuit in Greenlandic – uranium and rare earth deposit would place Greenland among the top producers worldwide. During the 2010s, Greenland’s leaders encouraged interest from outside mining firms, including leading Chinese companies, before finally granting a lease to the Australian company Energy Transition Minerals (formerly Greenland Minerals Ltd). When China’s Shenghe Resources took a major share in Energy Transition Minerals, it raised red flags for Denmark, the European Union and the U.S., which felt China was seeking to expand its global dominance of the rare earth market while reducing Europe’s own potential supply. The issue was put to rest in 2021 when Greenland’s parliament banned all uranium mining, killing further development of Kvanefjeld for the time being. That same year saw the government also prohibit any further oil and gas activity. Predictably, a majority of mining companies have subsequently steered clear of Greenland due to perceived concern of any investment being jeopardized by future political decisions. Fears of China abroad China’s interest in Greenland stretches back at least a decade. In 2015, Greenland Minister of Finance and Interior Vittus Qujaukitsoq visited China to discuss possible investment in mining, hydropower, port and other infrastructure projects. One firm, China Communications Construction Company, bid to build two airports, one in the capital, Nuuk, the other in Ilulissat. Another Chinese firm, General Nice Group, offered to purchase an abandoned Danish naval base in northeastern Greenland, while the Chinese Academy of Sciences asked to build a permanent research center and a satellite ground station near Nuuk. None of this sat well with the first Trump administration, which put pressure on Denmark to convince Greenland’s government that a significant, official Chinese presence on the island was unwanted. The Danes and Greenlanders complied, rebuffing Chinese attempts to invest in Greenland-based projects. The Trump administration, in particular, viewed China’s interest in Greenland as having hidden commercial and military motives, concerns that continued under the Biden administration in its recent lobbying of another Australian mining firm not to sell any of its Greenland assets to Chinese companies. Long-standing US interest The U.S. has had a long-standing security interest in Greenland dating from 1946, when it offered Denmark US$100 million in gold bullion for it. The Danes politely but firmly declined, with their foreign minister saying he didn’t feel “we owe them the whole island.” In the early 1950s, the U.S built Thule Air Force Base 750 miles (about 1,200 kilometers) north of the Arctic Circle. Originally a missile early warning and radio communications site, it was transferred to the newly formed U.S. Space Force in 2020 and renamed Pituffik Space Base in 2023.   The northernmost military facility of the U.S., Pituffik has updated radar and tracking capabilities to provide missile warning, defense and space surveillance, and satellite command missions. While it also supports scientific research focused on the Arctic, the base is intended to increase military capabilities in the Arctic region for both the U.S. and its allies. The base has the ability to track shipping as well as air and satellite positions, giving it both real and symbolic importance to American strategic interests in the Arctic. As a result, much of the U.S. foreign policy establishment, not just those in Trump’s orbit, view any notable Chinese presence in Greenland, whether temporary or permanent, with concern. Geopolitics of the Arctic Greenland is geographically situated between the Northern Sea Route and the Northwest Passage, two Arctic shipping routes whose importance is growing as sea ice shrinks. By around 2050, a Transpolar Sea Route is likely to open through the central Arctic Ocean, passing Greenland’s eastern shores. Furthermore, the island is the basis of Denmark’s sovereignty claim to the North Pole – rivaled by claims by Russia and Canada. While international law recognizes no national sovereignty in international waters, that has done little to end the diplomatic tug-of-war over the pole. The matter is far from trivial: Sovereignty would give a country access to potentially significant oil, gas and rare earth resources, as well as superior scientific and military access to the future Transpolar Sea Route. Yet, this dispute over ownership of the North Pole is only one part of the geopolitical struggle for offshore territory in the region. Russia’s growing militarization of its enormous coastal area has been countered by NATO military exercises in northern Scandinavia, while China’s own moves into the Arctic, aided by Moscow, has seen the launch of several research stations supported by icebreakers and agreements for research and commercial projects. China’s government has also asserted it has rights in the region, for navigation, fishing, overflight, investment in oil and gas projects, and more. Greenland for Greenlanders? All of these factors help decipher the realities involved in the U.S.-Denmark-Greenland relationship. Despite Trump’s words, I believe it is extremely unlikely he would actually use U.S. military force to take Greenland, and it’s an open question whether he would use coercive economic policies in the form of tariffs against Denmark to give him leverage in negotiating a purchase of Greenland. Yet while Trump and other foreign policy outsiders view Greenland through an external strategic and economic lens, the island is home to nearly 60,000 people – 90% of them indigenous Inuit – many of whom treat the designs of foreign nations on their territory with skepticism. Indeed, in 2008, Greenland voted to pursue nationhood. The island receives an annual subsidy of 500 million euros ($513 million) from Denmark, and to further economic independence, it has sought foreign investment. Interest from China has accompanied Greenland’s moves toward independence, backed by Beijing’s strategy to be an Arctic player. The thinking in Beijing may be that an independent Greenland will be less shackled to NATO and the European Union, and as such, more open to investment from further afield. Ironically, Trump’s recent comments have the potential of achieving something very different than their aim by encouraging Greenland’s prime minister, Mute Egede, to propose a referendum in 2025 on full independence. “It is now time for our country to take the next step,” he said. “We must work to remove … the shackles of colonialism.”

한국어로 읽기 Leer en español In Deutsch lesen Gap اقرأ بالعربية Lire en français Читать на русском Sea of Cooperation: New Opportunities for the Development of China — ASEAN RelationsSoutheast Asia (SEA) is gaining increasing importance with the changing global order. The region is once again experiencing a period of competition between the “great powers”. During the Cold War some countries managed to stay out of the Soviet-American confrontation, but today, integration into economic, technological, and humanitarian exchanges forces members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to reshape their foreign policy in line with the prioritization of partnerships with various centers of power. SEA has significant economic growth potential, making cooperation beneficial and conflicts costly. Despite the tempting logic of harsh realism in contemporary geopolitical conditions, there remains space in this region for the traditions of idealism and complex interdependence as prerequisites for peaceful coexistence.When Profit Matters More than ClaimsThe ASEAN Summit-2024, held in October in Vientiane, clearly became a platform for a multidimensional dialogue between the “Great East Asian” countries, including India. Almost all participants tried to avoid raising contentious issues; in particular, the new Prime Minister of Japan, Shigeru Ishiba, emphasized Japan’s investments in Southeast Asian countries and avoided discussions about the possibility of forming an “Asian NATO”. Similar ideas about freedom from confrontations and unilateral attempts to change the balance of power were expressed by the President of South Korea, Yoon Suk Yeol. Narendra Modi focused on enhancing multilateral cooperation between Asian states in the fields of information technology, pharmaceuticals, and infrastructure modernization, which would help accelerate the recovery of production and distribution chains after the COVID-19 pandemic. Chairman of the State Council of China, Li Keqiang, firmly pointed to “external forces” as the main culprits of disrupting regional order.According to him, China is ready to work with each ASEAN country in the interest of establishing a common market and achieving sustainable development. The Prime Minister stated that China and Southeast Asian countries are opening up to each other, and this process inevitably contributes to mutual prosperity, which will have a positive impact on the entire world. Notably, in 2023, the trade turnover between China and ASEAN countries exceeded 900 billion USD for the second consecutive year, and has nearly doubled over the past 10 years. The greatest activity is observed in developing relations with Vietnam and Malaysia, which together account for 230 and 191 billion USD, respectively. This means that today, Southeast Asian countries are collectively a more important partner for Beijing (in terms of volume) than the United States or the European Union.It is not surprising that at the events within the framework of the ASEAN Summit, including numerous bilateral meetings, the focus was on mutually beneficial cooperation, including issues related to further removing barriers and optimizing transport routes. Li Keqiang's statement at the 27th China-ASEAN Summit regarding the update of the Free Trade Agreement with the Association highlights the clear dominance of the economic component of cooperation over security issues, ideological differences, and other disagreements. Of course, there are opinions that Laos, in its capacity as chair, deliberately separated political issues from economic ones, but what is wrong with that?Only Philippine President F. Marcos Jr. was left alone, accusing the Chinese Coast Guard of reckless and unjustified pressure in the «exclusive economic zone». This is despite the fact that in July, an agreement was reached allowing the Philippines to deliver supplies to the “Sierra Madre” ship, which had been intentionally grounded 10 years ago at the Ayungin Shoal as a forward post for a Marine Corps unit.Professionally and SafelyToday, the South China Sea (SCS) is home to some of the busiest maritime communication routes. At least 500,000 vessels pass through the region each year, accounting for approximately 40% of global cargo traffic, and more than a million civilian flights cross the airspace above the sea annually. This high intensity of exchanges increases the importance of ensuring the safety of transport amidst unresolved disputes over the delimitation of the exclusive economic zone, the ownership of parts of the Spratly and Paracel Islands, and the escalation of US-China geopolitical tensions in the Asia-Pacific region. Formally, the multilateral dispute over the islands and maritime areas between ASEAN member states and China remains unresolved.In September, the Beijing-based South China Sea Strategic Situation Probing Initiative published a report on the situation in the region. The authors of the document note that in recent years, the United States has pursued an offensive strategy to contain China, primarily using the “instability factor” in the South China Sea to escalate the multilateral dispute and fuel anti-China sentiments. Washington has also encouraged territorial claims by ASEAN countries against China, based on its own interpretation of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the concept of a “rules-based order”. So far, these flare-ups of claims against Beijing, which are sometimes accompanied by incidents between coast guard vessels, have not resulted in significant disruptions to freedom of navigation and air traffic. Moreover, China notes that the majority of the contacts have been “professional and safe”. Undoubtedly, in the event of increased tensions—such as more active actions by the air force, navy, and coast guards of various countries toward Chinese aircraft and vessels—logistical routes would need to be reorganized, which could lead to significant losses not only for China but for the entire regional economy. However, despite attempts by the US and its allies to assign special geopolitical significance to the situation in Southeast Asia, the situation remains manageable. As a result, Beijing still believes that peaceful resolution is possible.China Daily cites the opinion of specialists from the China Institute of International Studies (CIIS), who believe that, in terms of ensuring the stability of international trade flows, freedom of navigation in the South China Sea is not under threat. However, in the military dimension, instability is growing, primarily due to excessive US interference.[1] The Institute argues that American activities, which involve sending military ships and aircraft to demonstrate power, only provoke disputes over sovereignty and borders. Such actions create a dangerous misconception among the leadership of several countries that Washington will intervene if necessary to contain China's expansion, thus assisting in resolving the dispute through pressure. The demonization and constant condemnation of China have already negatively affected bilateral relations with the Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore, which requires significant diplomatic efforts from the Chinese leadership to normalize relations.Military activity is noticeably increasing in Southeast Asia, involving both regional and non-regional states. In addition to the United States, countries such as Japan, Australia, and European NATO members — Germany, France, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands — are also becoming involved. In total, the US Navy conducts over 1,600 ship hours annually in the region, with at least 3,000 additional ship hours contributed by auxiliary forces. In the airspace above the South China Sea, approximately 30,000 sorties by combat aircraft and helicopters were recorded in 2023, a third of which involved non-regional states, with no fewer than 7,800 sorties conducted by the US Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps.At CIIS, it is believed that through military actions, Washington is “inflating” its own importance in ensuring freedom of navigation, despite the fact that the US has no merit in this — China itself does not hinder shipping and views patrol and training missions from other countries with understanding. However, joint coast guard exercises between the two most outspoken opponents of China's activities in the South China Sea (the Philippines and Vietnam), as well as “ASEAN-wide” naval maneuvers, initiated by Indonesia, have attracted the attention of the PLA command. The main troublemaker in the region, according to Beijing, is the United States, which effectively ignores the “rules” it established for the safe passage of ships, vessels, and aircraft, constantly maintaining a military presence in the region where the greatest threat actually comes from US military forces. These actions are seen as an attempt to maintain hegemony in the face of “strategic retreat” and to push regional countries away from expanding cooperation with China by artificially creating an unsettled atmosphere and undermining multilateral confidence-building measures.The Chinese leadership's course of separating trade, economic, and investment cooperation from territorial disputes is generally understood by Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, and Singapore, which claim parts of the Spratly Islands. However, it has also become a target for criticism from radical circles in these countries, clearly incited by Washington. As negotiations have shown, China and Southeast Asian countries are capable of independently developing mutually acceptable rules of action in the South China Sea, based on international law principles and taking into account each other's interests and concerns. The main idea is to establish direct dialogue in any disputed situation, maintain a constant consultation mechanism, preserve constructive negotiations, and adhere to the principle of peaceful resolution.ASEAN countries clearly do not want confrontation with Beijing, but they are in urgent need of a reliable system for peacefully managing any activities in the waters and on the continental shelf, which still needs to be developed together, ensuring guarantees of unhindered access for exploitation. Peace and cooperation in the South China Sea are inseparable, and collective responsibility for security will invariably contribute to the development of multidimensional ties, further increase trade volume, and lead to the emergence of the Sea of Cooperation on the world map.Reference1. Jiang, Chenglong. South China Sea disputes still ‘manageable’. China Daily. September 28-29, 2024. P. 2.